7 True Babysitter Horror Stories | "I Checked the Kids… But Someone Was Already There" 😱 That Make Every Quiet House Feel Unsafe

Hello everyone and welcome back to Horror Stories. I know many of you use these episodes to fall asleep so before you drift off, I'd love it if you could leave a comment letting me know where you're listening from around the world. Also, don't forget to like and subscribe if you're enjoying the episodes. Story 1 I'd been working as a babysitter for roughly two years when the Andersons contacted me that Friday in October. I was 17 and trying to put aside every dollar I possibly could for college. Honestly, whenever there was a chance to earn some extra money, I took it. Their house was enormous. It was one of those aging colonial homes filled with dark wood, with so many rooms that the place seemed to stretch on endlessly. Mr. Anderson had a job at an investment firm downtown. And Mrs. Anderson worked in real estate. They were attending a charity gala that evening and needed somebody to stay with their children, Oliver and Mia. Oliver was eight and obsessed with dinosaurs and Legos. Mia had recently turned six, and she went everywhere with a worn-out stuffed rabbit tucked close to her. I'd met them briefly the previous week, and they'd struck me as nice kids. A little reserved, but pleasant enough. Their parents headed out at around four that afternoon. They told me they expected to return by midnight, left $60 on the kitchen counter for pizza, and said I could take whatever I wanted from the refrigerator. I thought the evening would be straightforward. Give the kids dinner, put on a Disney movie or something, have them tucked into bed by 8.30, and spend the rest of the night catching up on calculus homework. For the first several hours, everything was completely ordinary. That's part of what makes the things that followed so difficult to wrap. In the living room, we put together a huge Lego castle. We ordered a pepperoni pizza from Goss, a place just down the street. The children were even getting along surprisingly well, treating each other kindly and alternating whose turn it was to choose something on television. At about seven, the three of us were clearing the dishes when Mia made a comment that caused every muscle in my body to tighten. She was wiping a plate dry with a faded dish towel, softly humming a song from a cartoon. Then as casually as if she were talking about the weather, she said the man in the attic didn't like pepperoni either. The cup Oliver had been holding slipped out of his hand. Fortunately, it was plastic. His expression, though, turned paper white. He caught his sister by the arm, not roughly, but with enough firmness to stop her, and told her to quit inventing things. It wasn't the sort of voice a brother uses when he's annoyed that his little sister is lying. There was. There was a real panic in it. He sounded frightened that she had let something slip that she was supposed to keep to herself. When I asked what she meant, the two of them looked at each other in a way that made the hairs along my arm rise. I kept my tone cheerful and asked who they were talking about. I was still trying to imagine that this was part of a game, or maybe something another child had told them at school. Oliver immediately answered, nobody, and began rushing to put the dishes away. But Mia was six. Whatever secret her brother had been trying to protect, she didn't understand why she shouldn't talk about it. So she continued. She told me the man had been up there for some time. Sometimes at night she could hear him moving around overhead. Oliver had seen him as well, she said. But he'd warned her never to mention it to their mom or dad because they wouldn't believe either of them. The entrance to the attic was in the hallway immediately outside the children's bedrooms. It was the kind of door that pulled down from the ceiling with a cord dangling beneath it. I'd noticed it earlier that day without giving it any real thought. By then Oliver was practically pulling Mia out of the kitchen, insisting that she was making up stories because she wanted attention. But he looked genuinely terrified. His face had the strained expression of a child who was only seconds away from crying. That was when I heard the sound. A sharp, unmistakable creak came from directly overhead, as though somebody had carefully placed a foot on me. It was an old wooden floorboard. For what must have been ten seconds, none of us said a word. We stood in the kitchen, perfectly still, listening to the house around us. Old houses make sounds, I reminded myself. The wood shifts as it settles. Pipes expand and shrink. Noises like that always have some reasonable explanation. Then it came again. One creak followed by another. This time there was a definite rhythm to it. The slow measured pattern of the creaking of the floorboard. A pattern of somebody crossing the floor above our heads. Oliver took his sister's hand and quietly suggested they go into the living room to watch television. I could see that he was trembling. Mia looked more puzzled than frightened. She seemed unable to understand why we were behaving so strangely over something she'd apparently known about for who knew how long. I told them to head into the living room and choose a movie. I tried to make my voice sound ordinary, even though my heart was beating so hard that I beating so hard that I could hear the thudding inside my ears. After they left, I remained in could hear the thudding. the kitchen, staring at the ceiling and arguing with myself about whether I was getting carried away. Maybe the Andersons had piled boxes in the attic and something had shifted, or maybe there were mice. Plenty of older houses have mice living inside the walls or under the roof. When I went to see how the children were doing, I found them pressed close together on the couch. Oliver had wrapped an arm around Mia as though he was trying to shield her, and she held her stuffed rabbit tightly against herself. A cartoon was playing on the television, but neither child seemed interested in it. Their eyes kept drifting toward the hallway that led to their bedrooms and the attic entrance. I joined them on the couch and did my best to behave normally. After roughly 15 minutes, though, I couldn't keep pretending. I needed to understand what was happening. As gently as I could, I asked Oliver to tell me the truth about what his sister had said. At first, he wouldn't. He repeated that she'd invented the whole thing. But I promised him I wouldn't accuse him of lying and I wouldn't think he was crazy. Eventually, he broke down and told me. According to Oliver, it had begun about three weeks earlier. He'd woken during the night because he needed the bathroom, and when he stepped into the hallway, he noticed the attic door hanging slightly open. He knew his parents never used that space. His mother's knees were bad, and his father always said the attic contained nothing except insulation and old junk the previous owners had left behind. That night, however, Oliver was certain he'd seen fingers curled around the edge of the door, keeping it open by just a small amount. Then, slowly and without making a sound, the door had been pulled closed. After that, he began paying attention to other things. Food disappeared from the pantry. It wasn't enough to empty the shelves, but it was enough for him to notice. His mother had even accused him of finishing an entire box of crackers that he hadn't touched. Late at night, he sometimes heard footsteps above his bedroom. They were faint and careful, like the person making them was doing everything possible to avoid being heard. The most frightening incident had happened about a week before I arrived. Oliver had gotten out of bed to fetch some water and spotted a shadow at the far end of the hallway. It was simply standing there beside the attic entrance. He'd hurried back into his bedroom and locked himself inside. The next morning, he tried to explain what he'd seen to his father. Mr. Anderson told him that watching frightening videos on YouTube was giving him nightmares, then confiscated his tablet for a week. Mia had heard the footsteps too, apparently. Because she was younger, though, she'd accepted them as just another normal part of the house. Oliver had told her the noises were probably the house itself, hoping she wouldn't become frightened. But she had started referring to whatever was up there as the man in the attic anyway. Throughout Oliver's explanation, I kept listening for anything moving above us. Then I noticed something that sent a cold feeling through my entire body. On the hallway floor, directly underneath the attic door, there was a narrow trail of dust. It looked as though somebody had recently shifted dirt that had been collecting for years, allowing it to sift down through the gaps. I took out my phone and nearly called the Andersons on the spot. Then I hesitated. What exactly would I tell them? That their children had mentioned a man living overhead, and I'd heard the floorboards creak. I imagined them deciding I was trying to frighten them, or that I simply wasn't mature enough to be trusted with babysitting. So I called my older brother Nathan instead. He was back from college for the weekend. He picked up after the third ring, and the sounds of a video game were playing behind him. While the children watched their movie, I explained everything in the quietest voice I could manage. Initially, he laughed. He said I was getting caught up in my own imagination. But as soon as I described the dust beneath the attic door and the food that had vanished, he stopped laughing. He told me to take both kids and get out of the house right away. He would meet us outside in 15 minutes. He said he lived only about 10 minutes away. And once we were out, we could work out what to do next. I was just about to follow his instructions when we heard something that removed every last doubt from the second floor bathroom. Beside the children's bedrooms came the clear unmistakable noise clear, unmistakable noise of a toilet flushing. All three of us were downstairs in the living room, and I knew for certain that the Andersons didn't own any pets that could somehow have set it off. Oliver's face drained of color completely. Mia began crying, pressing her face into her stuffed rabbit. I grabbed the children and my car keys. I didn't stop for their jackets. I didn't bother collecting my backpack. We hurried straight toward the front entrance, but when we passed the staircase, I made the mistake of glancing up. A man was standing at the top of the stairs. He looked as though he was somewhere in his forties. He wore what appeared to be old sweatpants and a stained t-shirt. His hair was greasy and reached his shoulders, and a thin, untidy beard covered his face. He wasn't doing anything. He just stood there, looking down at us with hollow, deeply sunken eyes. Then I noticed the smell. Even from the bottom of the staircase, it reached me. Dirty clothing, food that had gone bad, and another odor I couldn't place. For a moment, that felt endless, although it was probably no more than two seconds. We stared at one another. Then he stepped down onto the next stair. His bare foot landed on the wooden surface with a damp slapping noise. I wasn't going to stay long enough to discover what he intended to do after that. I pulled the front door open with so much force that it struck the wall, and we ran into the dark October evening. Oliver was almost carrying Mia. She was sobbing so hard she couldn't stop, and I struggled to get hold of the right key. I dropped the keys onto the driveway twice before I finally managed to unlock my battered Toyota Corolla. We scrambled into the car. I locked every door immediately and started the engine with fingers that wouldn't stop shaking. Through the front window of the house, I could see that the man had moved into the living room. He was standing behind the glass watching us. He wasn't running after us. He wasn't making any attempt to conceal himself. He simply remained there, as if he wanted to see what we would do. I shifted into reverse and shot backward out of the driveway so quickly that I nearly clipped the mailbox. As we pulled away, I saw him begin moving toward the front door, as though he might be about to step outside. I went directly to a grocery store about a mile from the house. Its parking lot was brightly lit and full of people. I wanted to be somewhere that didn't feel isolated. Nathan met us there ten minutes later. The children and I were still inside my car with every door locked. While Nathan called 911, I phoned the Andersons. Mrs. Anderson picked up on the second ring. I could hear loud music and people laughing in the background. I told her what had happened, trying to keep my voice level because Oliver and Mia were listening, and I didn't want to frighten them even more. She became so quiet that for a while, I wondered whether the connection had cut out. Then the questions came one after another. What did the man look like? Had he injured anybody? Where had I taken the children? Behind those questions, I heard her telling her husband to bring the car immediately. The police reached the house before the Andersons returned. Nathan followed the officers back there, while I remained with Oliver and Mia in the grocery store parking lot. I bought the children hot chocolate from the Starbucks inside the store and kept them in the car for a few hours. I didn't want them to get out of the car and I kept trying to soothe them. Around an hour later, I received a call from Officer Daniels, who wanted my statement. They had found the man still inside the house. Apparently, when he heard the sirens approaching, he had retreated into the attic. His name was William Torrey. He was homeless and had been reported missing from a halfway house approximately 40 miles away three months earlier. He had been staying in the Andersons' attic for at least a month, possibly longer. At night, he slipped down the stairs and slipped into the car. When he got out of the car, he went downstairs to steal food. Whenever he believed everybody was sleeping, he used the family's bathroom. Up in the attic, the officers discovered the little living area he'd put together. There was a sleeping bag that he had probably taken from the Andersons' garage. Empty food packaging and containers had been stacked in one corner. There were bottles containing urine because he couldn't always take the chance of going downstairs to the bathroom. And there were notebooks. Inside them, he had been recording the family's routines and daily schedule. He knew the times they left for work. He knew when the children returned from school. He knew when they normally went to bed. His way into the house had been a damaged ventilation grate along the side of the building, which opened directly into the attic. The Andersons hadn't even realized it was broken. An overgrown bush concealed it from view. Later, a detective told me Torrey had probably watched us throughout the evening through narrow openings in the ceiling. They found something in the attic that looked like an open door. They found something several places where he had deliberately created tiny holes so that he could look into the rooms underneath him. What unsettled me most was learning that I appeared in his notebook too. He had described me as a new girl and written down that I arrived at 4pm. All that time while we were building the Lego castle, eating pizza and talking, he had been directly above us, listening to everything. He had only ventured downstairs because he'd become too relaxed about being there, too certain that we were merely children who wouldn't take action, even if we happened to see him. Naturally, the Andersons were horrified. They apologized repeatedly to both me and my parents. They offered to cover therapy if I needed it, and they kept asking whether I was alright. Within a month, they had left the house. As far as I know, they never even returned to pack their possessions. They paid a moving company to take care of all of it. Both Oliver and Mia needed counseling. They had been in the hospital for a long time, and they had been in the hospital for a long time. They had been in the hospital for a long time, and they had been in the hospital for afterward. Oliver had an especially difficult time. He blamed himself for failing to convince his parents that he was telling the truth sooner. Tori faced charges for breaking and entering, trespassing, and a few other offenses I can't remember now. But because he had mental health problems and technically hadn't physically harmed anybody, his sentence amounted to only two years in jail, along with required psychiatric treatment. I do still accept babysitting jobs occasionally, but before the pandemic, I had to go to the hospital. I had to go to the hospital, and I had to go to the hospital. I had to go to the hospital, and I had to go to the hospital, and I had to go to the hospital, and I had to go to the hospital, and I had to go to the hospital, leave, I inspect every closet in every room. And yes, I check every attic entrance too. I realize the likelihood of anything like that happening a second time is practically zero. Still, I can't make myself stop checking. Sometimes what keeps me awake is imagining all the nights those children spent asleep only a few feet beneath a stranger, someone who was watching them, learning their habits, studying them while they had no way to protect themselves. Oliver had every reason to be afraid, and the fact that nobody believed him until things had nearly gone too far is something I don't think any of us who lived through that night will ever completely move past. Story 2. The heat that August in 2018 was almost impossible to bear. It was the sort of weather that made the air ripple over the pavement and left your car feeling like an oven, even when the air was still hot. I was in the car, and I was in the car, and I was air conditioning was running at full blast. I was 34 at the time and managed a small accounting firm downtown. My wife, Rebecca, taught fifth grade at the local elementary school. Our home was in a peaceful neighborhood roughly 20 minutes from the city center. One of those communities where children still rode their bicycles until nightfall, and the neighbors actually knew one another by name. Our twin daughters, Lily and Grace, had turned seven that summer. Finding dependable childcare had become the biggest problem for them. They had to go to school, and they had to go to school. We were the only ones who had the biggest problem in our day-to-day lives. Both our parents and Rebecca's lived several states away, and most of the teenagers nearby either had summer jobs or were spending the season at camp. Then one of Rebecca's colleagues at school recommended Melissa. She was a 19-year-old college student who had come home for summer break. She was studying early childhood education and had excellent references from three different families in the next town over. By the time this happened, Melissa had been looking after our daughters for a long time. About six weeks. Honestly, she had seemed like an answer to our prayers. She always arrived 15 minutes ahead of time and came prepared with activities for the children. The girls loved her. She had a gentle, comfortable manner that made it easy to trust her. Her auburn hair was usually pulled into a tidy ponytail. Her clothing was modest. And whenever we returned home, she was never sitting there absorbed in her phone. Lily and Grace would actually plead with us to make plans so Melissa could come home. That particular Saturday, Rebecca and I had tickets to her company's yearly fundraising gala at the Riverside Hotel downtown. It was the kind of function you couldn't easily get out of attending. Her principal would be there along with most of the school board. Rebecca had purchased a dress especially for the occasion, a deep green one that brought out the color of her eyes. For once, I had even taken my good suit to be dry cleaned. We left at around 630 after going over the usual instructions with the school board. I was told that I had to go to the school board with Melissa. The girls needed to be in bed by 830. Emergency contact numbers were posted on the refrigerator. There was leftover pasta in the microwave if she wanted something to eat. The gala was every bit as stiff and tedious as we'd expected. Everyone stood around exchanging polite conversation and acting as though the tiny servings of expensive food were enough to satisfy them. By 815, Rebecca's heels were making her miserable, and three separate board members had already survived. objected me to essentially the same story about the school district's budget. We were standing beside the silent auction table when Rebecca's principal, Mr. Hutchinson, launched into what clearly wasn't going to be a brief discussion about changes to standardized testing. He'd been talking for about 20 minutes when his wife abruptly grabbed her stomach and lost all the color in her face. Apparently, the shrimp appetizers hadn't agreed with her. The next few moments were a scramble of Mr. Hutchinson urgently asking for his car and apologizing to everyone around him. In the middle of it, Rebecca and I looked at each other. With all that going on, nobody was likely to pay attention if we left early too. We quietly said goodbye to a handful of her colleagues, explaining that I had a conference call first thing in the morning and made our way to the parking garage. The moment we escaped that airless ballroom, I felt relieved. Before we even got to the car, Rebecca had taken off her heels. She laughed about how we'd just been handed an excuse, to leave the most boring event imaginable. The trip home was calm, we lowered the windows to enjoy the cooler evening breeze, and Rebecca hummed along with an old song playing on the radio. We chose not to send Melissa a message saying we were returning ahead of schedule. Part of it was that we didn't want her to think we doubted her ability to manage the entire evening. Mostly, though, Rebecca liked the idea of surprising the girls if they hadn't fallen asleep yet. Maybe we could get some ice cream and all watch a movie. When we turned onto our street, I noticed how still the neighborhood was. Porch lights glowed outside the houses. Television screens flickered behind a few windows. The Davenport's cat was wandering across their front lawn. Our place appeared exactly the way we had left it. A welcoming light shone through the living room window, and Rebecca's garden gnome stood beside the walkway as usual. I parked in the driveway behind Melissa's battered Ford Focus, and we collected our belongings. Rebecca still had her heels in her hand. We approached the house quietly in case the children were already sleeping. The front door was locked. That was reassuring. We had made a point of telling Melissa to keep it secured once it got dark. I eased my key into the lock and turned it carefully, doing my best to avoid making a sound. As soon as we stepped inside, I heard people talking in the living room. I recognized Melissa's laugh immediately, but there was another voice with her, a much deeper one. I stopped just inside the entrance. Rebecca heard it as well. Her hand closed around my arm, and we stood together in the dim hallway, trying to understand what we were listening to. It was unquestionably a man speaking. His voice was rough and low, and at first I couldn't distinguish the words. Melissa laughed again. This time, though, something about it was wrong. It sounded strained and nervous, noticeably higher than her usual laugh. Rebecca and I exchanged a brief look. I moved ahead of her, my socks making no noise against the hardwood. The entrance to the living room was about ten feet away. As I approached it, an unfamiliar smell reached me. Cigarette smoke. We never permitted smoking inside our home. Underneath it was another odor, something resembling gasoline or motor oil. The television was running with the sound turned off, throwing changing patches of blue light onto the hallway wall. Then the man spoke again, and this time I understood him clearly. They always stashed the valuable stuff somewhere. Look in that cabinet over there. My entire body stiffened. Rebecca was directly behind me. Her breaths had become short and quick, and I could feel a slight tremor running through her. Everything in me wanted to storm into the room, but the way he spoke stopped me for a moment. He sounded so casual about searching through our belongings, as though there were nothing unusual about what he was doing. I leaned around the doorframe just far enough to see the room. Melissa was sitting on our sofa. Beside her was a man I had never laid eyes on before. He appeared to be in his mid-forties. His gray work shirt was stained, and his jeans had holes worn through both knees. Thin oily hair had been gathered into a straggling ponytail. Even from the doorway I could make out the rough tattoos running over his arm. They didn't look professionally done. They reminded me of the sort of tattoos people get in prison. He had propped his boots on our coffee table, smearing dirt across the glass. In one hand he held a beer he'd taken from our refrigerator. What made my chest constrict, though, was how comfortable he looked. He sat there as if the house belonged to him, with one arm stretched along the couch behind Melissa. She seemed tiny next to him. Her normally neat ponytail had come loose and untied. Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch. Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch. Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch. Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch, and Melissa was sitting on the couch. The man put his hand inside the backpack. That was when I finally saw what had been reflecting the light. A large hunting knife still inside a leather sheath. Before he could get hold of it, sirens sounded outside, several of them. They were approaching quickly. His gaze jumped from me to the stairs, then toward the front entrance. You phoned the police, he growled at Melissa. You stupid little. But Melissa was already retreating from him, shaking her head while tears ran down her cheeks. The sirens reached the house, Red and blue lights flashed through the windows. Lily, upstairs. Go into your room and lock the door right now, I ordered. Thankfully, she obeyed and ran back up the staircase. The man looked like an animal that had been cornered. His hand remained poised beside the backpack. A voice came from outside through a megaphone. Police, come outside with your hands in plain sight. He snatched up the bag and sprinted toward the rear entrance, but Rebecca had locked that door while we were in the kitchen. He fought with the deadbolt, swearing wildly. Then the front door flew open. Three officers entered with their weapons drawn. Put the bag down. Keep your hands where we can see them. He actually attempted to force his way past them, which was about the worst decision he could have made. Within seconds, they had him face down on a hardwood floor, his cheek pressed against it as they secured his wrists and handcuffs. Melissa had sunk back onto the couch. She was sobbing uncontrollably, saying the same thing again and again. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. One officer remained beside her while another made sure the house was secure. Rebecca rushed upstairs to our daughters. I heard Grace's bedroom door opening. Both girls were crying, but they were safe. The door was locked. I heard the door open. He also removed zip ties, a roll of duct tape, and an object that appeared to be a small crowbar. Jesus, he said under his breath. Then he raised his voice and addressed his partner. Get another unit here. We're dealing with more than an ordinary break-in. Over the next several hours, the information we received changed our relief into an entirely different kind of terror. The man was named Robert Crenshaw. His criminal history left me cold. Aggravated assault. An attempted kidnapping involving a minor in 2016. He had been out of prison for only eight months. At the police station, Melissa cried as she gave the officers the full story. She had first encountered him at a gas station three weeks before that night. In the beginning, he had seemed charming. He bought her coffee. He complimented her appearance and told her she seemed much more mature than other people her age. Little by little, he persuaded her that Rebecca and I were wealthy enough that we wouldn't miss a few pieces of jewelry. He presented it as a crime with no real victim. A simple way to get some money so the two of them could leave and begin a life together. But when the detective spoke to us later, he revealed something that I still can't forget. Inside Crenshaw's car, they had discovered a notebook. It contained detailed information about our routines and the girls' schedules. There were even sketches showing the layout of our house. Side lilies and Grace's names he had written. Blonde, approximately 50 to 60 pounds. Quiet neighborhood. Broken lock on garage side door. The plan to steal jewelry was apparently the story he had used to secure Melissa's help. The duct tape and zip ties pointed toward something far more disturbing. The detective believed his actual intention had been to abduct our daughters. Without realizing it, Melissa had provided him with exactly the opportunity he needed. She hadn't known anything about his criminal history. He had introduced himself as Alex and claimed he worked in construction. She believed she was assisting with a straightforward theft. She had no idea that the man she'd allowed into our house was a predator. The guilt devastated her. The last information I heard was that she had withdrawn from college and gone to live with her parents in another state. We left that house within six months. We had installed security cameras and replaced the locks, but none of it made us feel like we were comfortable there again. Our daughters spent months in therapy. Grace still has nightmares now and then. Even so, we were fortunate. We returned early that night. Sometimes I find myself wondering what would have happened if Mr. Hutchinson's wife hadn't reacted badly to those shrimp appetizers. And whenever that thought begins, I have to make myself stop before I follow it any further. The semester at Penn State had only just begun, and I was scrambling to find a way to earn some extra money. My roommate Jessica and I shared a tiny apartment close to campus. Between paying for textbooks and buying groceries, there was barely anything left in my savings account. I was 20, studying psychology, and I'd been babysitting since high school. It felt like the ideal way to bring in some money without falling behind in my classes. Every morning, I took my laptop and my laptop. I had to go to school. I had to go to a little cafe called The Grindhouse, roughly two blocks from campus. The Wi-Fi was reasonably good, and the owner, Mrs. Chen, always let students have free refills. That Tuesday morning in early September started out like any other. The only difference was the man who walked up to me while I was editing my profile on a babysitting site. There was nothing unusual about his appearance. He looked to be in his mid-thirties and wore a button-down shirt with khakis, as though he'd just come from an office. He was clean-shaven, had a wedding ring on his finger, and carried a leather messenger bag. Everything about him fit the image of an ordinary suburban father. He apologized for disturbing me and explained that he'd overheard my phone conversation about looking for babysitting jobs. He said he and his wife badly needed somebody they could depend on. He introduced himself as David. He had six-year-old twin daughters, Sophie and Ella. He pulled out his phone to show me pictures of them. He said, "What's the matter with you? Why are you so upset? I've been waiting for you for a long time." Two sweet-looking blonde children in identical sundresses were playing on a swing set in what appeared to be a lovely backyard. Their usual nanny had apparently left without giving any notice, and his wife was away on a business trip. He needed a sitter three evenings each week and offered $25 an hour, paid in cash. That was nearly twice my normal rate. He also needed me to begin that same evening. Looking back, I should have paid more attention to the little things that didn't quite fit. I didn't know what I was doing, and I didn't know what I was doing. Every few seconds, he glanced at his phone, as if he expected something to come through. When I requested his wife's contact details, he explained that she was on a plane to Seattle and wouldn't be available until the following day. He wrote down the address: 4782 Willow Creek Drive, and told me to be there at seven precisely. He had a business dinner downtown and couldn't afford to leave late. I asked whether I could meet his daughters beforehand. Perhaps, come over sometime that afternoon. He said that wouldn't work. They were at school until five, and afterward they had piano lessons. There was an explanation for everything. Each question I raised received an answer that sounded just plausible enough. He even supplied information about their allergies. Sophie couldn't eat peanuts, and Ella was lactose intolerant. Their bedtime routine was written out on a post-it note. Before leaving, he handed me $40 as an upfront deposit to show he was serious. Then he shook my hand with a firm, business-like grip, and walked away. For the rest of the day, concentrating on my classes was almost impossible. I kept calculating how much I could earn. With that kind of money, I could finally get my car's broken air conditioning repaired before the weather turned hot again. I messaged Jessica about the position. She told me I was lucky to have found a family willing to pay that much. At around 6:30, I set off for Willow Creek Drive, and I was able to get my car back to work. I was able to get my car back to work. My GPS led me through neighborhoods that became more expensive-looking the farther I traveled from campus. The homes were enormous, their lawns carefully maintained, with decorative lamp posts marking the ends of the driveways. When I arrived at $4,782, my first reaction was that these people could certainly afford $25 an hour. The house was a gorgeous two-story colonial with white columns and black shutters. It looked like something photographed for a real estate magazine. Still, something about it felt odd. There weren't any toys scattered across the lawn. No bicycles stood in the driveway. The windows where I would've expected the children's bedrooms didn't have bright or colorful curtains. At exactly 7, I pressed the doorbell. David opened the door immediately, almost as though he'd been waiting on the other side. He had changed since our conversation at the café. Instead of office clothes, he now wore jeans and a polo shirt. He had changed, too. There was a restless energy about him that I hadn't noticed that morning. He spoke quickly, telling me the girls were already upstairs, playing quietly. They'd eaten dinner, he said. They were shy around unfamiliar people, so I shouldn't be concerned if they didn't come downstairs straight away. Inside, the house had a peculiar smell: fresh paint mixed with some sort of chemical cleaning product. That seemed strange because the rooms otherwise appeared to be lived in. The house had a peculiar smell. Fresh paint mixed with some sort of chemical cleaning product. Fresh paint mixed with some sort of chemical kitchen, the bathroom, and the living room, which had leather furniture and an enormous television. There were photographs displayed on the mantle, but when I examined them more closely, I realized they were the generic pictures sold inside new frames. There wasn't a single genuine family photograph. The refrigerator was equally bare. No children's drawings, no magnets, nothing that suggested two little girls lived in the house. David announced that he was already behind schedule and practically shoved the emergency contact sheet into my hands. It listed his cell phone number, the restaurant where he would be having dinner, and what he claimed was his wife's number. He reminded me again that she couldn't be reached. He took a jacket from the coat rack and headed toward the entrance. The girls would probably come downstairs for a snack at around eight, he told me. Their bedtime was 9 30 and I should settle in and make myself comfortable. Then he left. A moment later I heard his car speed away. The tires actually gave a slight squeal against the pavement. I stayed where I was, listening to the house. It was far too quiet. I waited for some indication the children were playing upstairs. There were no footsteps, no laughter, no television playing in another room, no sound of toys being moved or dropped. Sophie, Ella, I called. I'm Amanda. I'll be your babysitter this evening. My words echoed up the staircase. I went to the bottom step and listened more closely. Apart from the air conditioner humming, the entire house was silent in a way that felt unnatural. Slowly I started upstairs, my heart pounding hard against my ribs. The upstairs hallway was dark. Four doors stood closed along it. I tapped on the first one. Girls. Then I pushed it open. Nobody was there. It was a guest room containing a neatly made bed and nothing else. Behind the second door was a bathroom. The third opened into an office with a desk and a computer. The fourth was supposed to be the twins' bedroom. Inside were two little beds covered with pink comforters. A handful of stuffed animals had been placed around the room, their arrangement looking almost too deliberate. A shelf held children's books that appeared untouched. They looked newly purchased with spines that hadn't even been bent. I looked around. I saw a picture of a child. In the closet, exactly six outfits hung on the rail, divided between two sizes. Some still had their store tags attached. A cold sensation spread through my whole body. This wasn't a bedroom the children actually used. It was a room somebody had assembled to look like one. I pulled out my phone to send Jessica a message. There was no reception. Not a single bar. I checked for Wi-Fi, but there wasn't a network available either. My legs felt unsteady as I made my way downstairs. In the kitchen, I picked up the landline. It was dead. There was no dial tone, only silence. My first thought was to get out through the front entrance. But when I twisted the handle, the door didn't shift. It didn't feel like an ordinary locked door. There wasn't even the slightest movement or rattle. I rushed back to the kitchen and tried the rear door. The same thing happened. Every window had a lock that required a key to open it from inside. My chest tightened until it felt as though I couldn't draw a full breath. I couldn't get out. Then, somewhere inside the house, a door opened. The sound hadn't come from upstairs. It was on the ground floor, perhaps a basement entrance or a closet I hadn't noticed during David's rushed tour. Footsteps followed. They came from the rear of the house, slow and purposeful. They sounded nothing like David's hurried, anxious movements earlier. These steps were steady, unrushed. Then another person began walking upstairs, directly above where I stood. There were at least two other people in that house, and neither one was a six-year-old girl. I snatched a knife from the block on the kitchen counter. My hand shook so violently that keeping hold of it was difficult. Both sets of footsteps stopped at precisely the same instant. It was as if the people making them had somehow signaled to each other. The silence that followed frightened me even more than the movement had. I backed into a corner where I could watch both the hallway and the entrance to the kitchen. I held the knife out in front of me, as though that one blade could really keep me safe from whatever was happening. Then a man appeared. It wasn't David. This man was older, perhaps around fifty, with grey hair. He wore work clothes that resembled a maintenance uniform. He stood in the kitchen entrance without moving. He simply watched me. There was nothing in his expression. No anger. No excitement. Nothing at all. He looked as though this were an entirely ordinary way for him to spend a Tuesday evening. She's in here, he called. He wasn't speaking to me. He was addressing whoever was upstairs. His voice was level and conversational. Above us, the footsteps resumed, moving toward the staircase. I screamed for him to keep his distance and waved the knife in his direction. He barely reacted. He just tipped his head a little, looking me over as though I were some curious specimen he wanted to examine. Then I remembered the bathroom window. It was smaller than the other windows, with frosted glass. The sort that generally has a basic latch. I figured I had perhaps ten seconds before the person upstairs reached the ground floor. I hurled the knife at the grey-haired man. It didn't hit him. It missed entirely, but it made him retreat a step. That was enough. I ran. I raced into the bathroom, slammed the door behind me, and turned the lock. The window was narrow, but getting through it didn't look completely impossible. By then, I could hear both men on the other side of the bathroom door. They weren't shouting. They weren't hammering against it. They were calmly testing the handle. One of them remarked that the new lock was working perfectly. I climbed onto the toilet, wrapped a towel around my elbow, and drove it into the frosted glass. The pain broke outward. In the stillness of that house, the crash sounded unbelievably loud. Outside the door, the men started searching through keys. I could hear several of them clinking together, as though they had an entire ring to work through. I forced myself into the window opening. The jagged glass left around the edges scraped across my stomach and legs. But at that point, the cuts didn't matter to me. I dropped eight feet to the lawn. Pain shot through my ankle when I landed, but I got straight back up and kept running. Behind me, the bathroom door finally burst open. One of the men shouted something, but I couldn't understand the words. I ran across the backyard. It extended farther than I'd expected from the front of the house, and the darkness back there was much deeper. At the rear of the property stood an old tall wooden fence. Beyond it, I could see lights glowing in a neighboring house. I launched myself at the fence and started running. I started climbing with everything I had. My life depended on getting over it. Behind me, I heard one of the men trying to squeeze through the bathroom window. He grunted as he struggled with the same opening I had barely fit through. Blood from the cuts made my hands slick. Every time I tried to get a firm hold on the wooden boards, my grip threatened to slip. At last, I reached the top and swung one leg over. As I did, I spotted the gray-haired man coming around the side of the house. He was moving much faster than I could have imagined. I was able to see what was going on. There was something in his hands. It might have been rope. It might have been zip ties. In the darkness, I couldn't tell. I dropped into the next yard and sprinted directly to the back door. I pounded against it and screamed for somebody to help me. An elderly woman opened it. She took one look at me, covered in blood, crying, completely hysterical, and immediately drew me inside. Then she locked the door behind us. Her husband called 911 while she hurried to get towels for my wounds. I was crying so hard that I could scarcely explain to the operator what had happened. The police reached us within minutes. But when they entered the house at 4782 Willow Creek Drive, there was nobody inside. And it wasn't only the people who had disappeared. Everything was gone. The furniture had been removed. The bedroom arranged to look as though it belonged to two little girls had been emptied. Even the generic photographs were missing. The neighbors explained that the house was a rental property and had stood vacant for months. Somebody must have broken into it and used it. The police located the online listing. It had been removed that very evening. Of course, David turned out to be a false name. The officers found three other reports from different states describing the same arrangement. A babysitting position. Children who didn't exist. The same setup. But I was the only one who had managed to escape. They never caught the people responsible. Story 4 I was 19 and trying to earn enough money for college. When one of my mom's coworkers mentioned that her neighbors were looking for somebody to babysit their 8-month-old daughter, I accepted without hesitation. The Thompsons lived about 20 minutes from campus in a gorgeous colonial home. It had a porch that wrapped around the house and those costly shutters that actually opened and closed instead of being decorative. Mrs. Thompson was a pediatric nurse who worked overnight shifts. Mr. Thompson traveled for an investment firm. They offered $60 for four hours, which seemed like amazing pay for what usually amounted to watching Netflix while their baby slept. That Thursday in early May, Mrs. Thompson left for work at seven. Her husband was supposedly attending a conference in Boston. Their daughter, Chloe, settled down without any trouble around 8.30. Afterward, I made myself comfortable on the leather sofa with my laptop and started working on a Victorian literature paper that was due the following Monday. At exactly 9.47, the doorbell rang. I remember the time because I had just looked at my phone to check whether my boyfriend had replied to my message. Nobody ever visited the Thompsons at that hour, particularly on a weeknight. When I looked through the peephole, I saw a man who appeared to be a man of color. I saw a man who appeared to be a man of color. He appeared to be about 45. He wore a rumpled gray suit and kept shifting from one foot to the other with this uneasy, restless energy. His hair stood up in several places as though he'd repeatedly dragged his hands through it. But his eyes were what bothered me most. They were open too wide and fixed too intensely on the door. He looked as if adrenaline was the only thing keeping him going. I opened the door a few inches, leaving the security chain fastened. He began speaking the words spilling out in a frantic rush. I need to talk to Michael Thompson. Tell him Doug Lawson is here. Tell him I know what he did to the pension fund. What he did to my mother's retirement savings. To everybody's money. His breath carried the smell of coffee and an odd metallic odor. As he talked, his hands kept drifting toward his jacket pocket, pulling away, then returning to it. I tried telling him Mr. Thompson wasn't there and that I was only watching the building. I tried telling him that I was not there. He didn't seem to hear me. He shoved against the door hard enough to make the chain tug at the frame. His voice rose, becoming more hostile. Don't you lie to me. His car's in the garage. I looked. The black Audi with the personalized plates. The problem was that he was right. Mr. Thompson's car was in the garage. He had taken an Uber to the airport. There had been some explanation about having drinks with clients before his flight. I was about to suggest that Doug contact his office the next morning. Then his hand came out of his pocket. Every part of me went cold. The gun wasn't some enormous weapon like the ones you see in movies. It was small and black, almost toy-like, except that I could see its weight in the way his trembling hand held it. Open up, he said. He wasn't shouting anymore. Somehow the quiet voice frightened me even more. I'm not here to hurt you. I only need you to help me. I need to stay until Michael comes back. He and I need to discuss the 43 families he ruined. Before I could respond, before I even had time to think about forcing the door shut, he pushed again. The chain gave way. It ripped straight out of the wood as though it had offered no protection at all. He lurched into the foyer and I retreated until my back struck the console table. A vase toppled over and shattered against the hardwood. In the otherwise silent house, the crash sounded. It sounded deafening. Upstairs, Chloe immediately began to cry. Doug whipped his head toward the staircase. His expression changed completely. Surprise crossed his face, mixed with something else that might have been panic. There's a child here. He sounded as if the possibility had never occurred to him. I nodded. I couldn't make myself speak. He shut the front door behind him and slowly turned the deadbolt. There was something about how deliberate that movement was that made my chest tighten. Go get the baby, he told me. He motioned toward the stairs with the gun, although he wasn't quite aiming it at me. Bring her downstairs. When Michael gets home, he needs to see what he has to fight for. He needs to know how it feels when somebody takes everything you have. My legs felt as though they might collapse as I started up the staircase. Every step seemed to take an eternity, and Chloe's cries grew louder the closer I got. She was standing in her crib, her face flushed and streaked with tears. Those tiny, perfect fingers were wrapped around the rails. When I lifted her, she caught hold of my shirt and pressed her face into my shoulder. She was still sobbing, but being held began to soothe her. Downstairs, I could hear Doug walking back and forth. His shoes clicked against the wood in an uneven pattern. Three steps. A pause. Five more. Another pause. Then two. I tightened my arms around Chloe and started back down. The stairs creaked beneath me one by one. Doug had moved into the living room. He stood beside the window, holding the curtain slightly aside so he could watch the street. The gun hung at his side, still in his hand. I noticed that his finger wasn't resting on the trigger, and for some reason that detail felt significant. Sit down, he said without turning toward me. With his other hand, he indicated the couch. We're staying here until he comes back. I sat with Chloe on my lap. Almost immediately, she reached toward my phone on the coffee table, making the little chirping noises she always made when she wanted something. Doug turned away from the window and seemed to really see her for the first time. Several emotions moved across his face, too tangled for me to identify. His jaw tightened, relaxed, then tightened again. He rubbed his face with his free hand. How old is she? His voice sounded different, rougher. I told him she was eight months old. He made a noise that came close to a laugh without actually becoming one. My grandson would have been around that age. He would have been if his parents hadn't lost their home. If my son hadn't. He stopped before finishing and returned his attention to the street. Michael Thompson promised them it was guaranteed. He promised all of us. Trust me, he said. This is how you protect your family's future. Then he collected his commission and walked away while we lost everything. He paused. Three months later, my son drove into a bridge abutment at 60 miles an hour. They called it an accident. The way he said that last word left no doubt that he didn't accept the explanation. Suddenly, I realized this was about far more than lost money. Chloe began getting restless again. She twisted in my arms and made those little whimpering sounds that came out of her mouth. She said, just before crying when she was hungry. I asked Doug whether I could get her bottle from the kitchen. He followed me, keeping about six feet between us, almost as though he was trying to preserve some sort of boundary. Her formula was already prepared in the refrigerator. Mrs. Thompson always made sure everything was ready ahead of time. I put the bottle in the warmer while Doug stood leaning against the kitchen doorframe. He had tucked the gun into his waistband now, but I could still see it. What's your name? He asked abruptly. I told him it was Jenny. He gave a slow nod. Jenny, you look like a decent kid. I'm sorry you've ended up caught in this, but Michael has to learn that his actions have consequences. He continued talking while I got the bottle ready. He spent months dodging me. He blocked my calls. He had security throw me out of his office building. Then his attorney sent me a cease and desist letter. Can you imagine that? A cease and desist? Like I'm the one who committed a crime. His laugh was harsh and full of bitterness. Chloe turned toward the sound. With the bottle still in her mouth, she watched him with that solemn expression babies sometimes have. We returned to the living room. Doug began speaking more freely, as though what he wanted most was for somebody to understand him. He explained the investment scheme. According to him, Michael had deliberately sought out her customers at the firm where he used to work. People nearing retirement who couldn't afford to gamble with their savings. He had shown them fabricated portfolios and manipulated returns. There had been an elaborate collection of fraudulent paperwork and even an auditor who wasn't an auditor at all, but Michael's former college roommate. Forty-three families, Doug said. Their retirement money gone. Most were too ashamed to file a report. They blamed themselves. Thought they'd been greedy. He shook his head. But I looked into it. I found every person he cheated. The FBI told me there wasn't sufficient evidence. Said the paperwork was too clean. But I know exactly what he did. He took out his phone and showed me a picture. A younger man who bore a strong resemblance to him stood beside a woman holding a newborn. That's my son, Andrew. He was a software engineer. He had his entire future brought planned. His voice broke on the final word. For a moment, the gun at his waist seemed less like a weapon than the only thing a desperate man believed he had left. At around 10.30, Chloe fell asleep against me. Her little body rested warm and trusting on my chest. Doug had taken the armchair across from the couch. I could see how hard he was struggling to stay awake. His eyelids would sink, then spring open again whenever a vehicle passed outside. Carefully, I moved my hand, toward my phone. I thought I might be able to send someone a message. He noticed at one once. Leave it in the kitchen, he said. He didn't sound angry. He sounded worn out. Please, I can't let you contact anybody before Michael gets here. When he travels, he's generally back by eleven. He avoids staying overnight whenever he can. With Chloe still sleeping against my shoulder, I carried the phone into the kitchen. On the way, I noticed the family pictures hanging along the wall. Michael Thompson smiling at a work party, his arm wrapped around his wife. Both of them looked prosperous, beyond anybody's reach. When I returned to the living room, Doug was looking at those same photographs. I couldn't decipher the expression on his face. Do you know what hurts most? He asked softly. He probably couldn't even tell you my son's name. To him, it was just one more account in his little scheme. Andrew Lawson. A person. A person reduced to a number. At eleven-fifteen, a car pulled into the driveway. Doug shot to his feet so abruptly that he knocked over a glass of water I'd placed on the side table. His hand went immediately to the gun. Through the window, I watched Mr. Thompson climb out of an Uber. He checked his phone as he approached the house. Doug moved behind the front door. He told me to remain on the couch with Chloe. Not to move. Not to speak. My heart was beating so violently that I was afraid the movement alone would wake her. A key turned in the lock. Mr. Thompson entered, already speaking. Jenny, I'm sorry I'm late. My flight was delayed. The sight of my face stopped him in the middle of what he was saying. Then Doug emerged from behind the door. Hello, Michael. Mr. Thompson let go of his briefcase. It struck the floor with a heavy thump that seemed to linger throughout the house. We're going to discuss Andrew Lawson, Doug said. You do remember him, don't you? Or did you only think of him as Victim 37? The color left Mr. Thompson's face. It wasn't simply the pallor of somebody startled by an unexpected visitor. It was recognition. Guilty recognition. In that moment, I knew Doug had been telling me the truth. Doug, we can discuss this, Mr. Thompson replied. He raised his hands a little and adopted a polished, reassuring tone. That was the sort of salesman's voice that probably served him well in boardrooms. I know you're upset. The losses in that fund were unfortunate, but they resulted from a downturn in the market. There was no fraud. What happened to your son was tragic, but. Doug drew the gun from his waistband. He didn't aim it at anybody. He simply held it, cutting Michael off. Don't. Don't stand there and lie right to my face. I've got the emails, Michael. The ones you believe you erased. Your roommate saved copies before you made him take the blame, too. His voice became sharper. $60,000. That's what my mother put aside during 40 years of teaching third grade. All gone. And the following week, you bought that Audi. Mr. Thompson glanced toward me and Chloe. Something in his expression shifted. Your little girl, Doug continued, his voice starting to falter. You still get to hold her, you get to see her grow up. My son won't ever. Andrew will never. He couldn't finish. The gun began trembling in his hand. The next part probably lasted no longer than 10 seconds. To me, it seemed to stretch over an hour. Mr. Thompson suddenly lunged forward, not toward Doug, toward us, toward his daughter. Doug reacted without thinking and swung the gun upward. Chloe woke and let out a piercing scream. A sound filled with nothing but terror. That cry seemed to snap something inside him. He stared at the weapon he was holding as though it had become unfamiliar. Then he looked at the frightened baby in my arms. His entire body gave way. The gun dropped to the floor. He sank onto his knees and began sobbing, making these awful, fractured sounds that hardly seemed human. Mr. Thompson grabbed the gun, then kicked it across the room. He pulled out his phone to call 911, but his fingers were shaking so badly that dialing was a struggle. I only wanted him to understand, Doug said over and over between sobs. I only wanted somebody to admit what he did to us. I stayed on the couch with Chloe in my arms. She was screaming as loudly as she could. In front of me, a middle-aged man was coming apart on an expensive hardwood floor. Beside him, Mr. Thompson spoke quickly to the dispatcher, reciting our address and repeating the words, armed intruder, as though they were the only ones he could remember. The police came within minutes. Three patrol cars arrived with their lights blazing. Officers hurried into the house, their hands resting on their weapons. Doug made no attempt to fight them. He stayed seated on the floor with his hands plainly visible and tears still running down his cheeks. While they put him in handcuffs and read him his rights, he turned toward Mr. Thompson one final time. The proof is in a safe deposit. He said, Number 447. The FBI is going to want what's inside. Somehow Mr. Thompson managed to become even paler. He began to respond, but an officer was already questioning him about the forced entry. They took Doug away. Later, I learned that he had been charged with breaking and entering, criminal threatening, and unlawful possession of a firearm. But the most unexpected development came two weeks afterward. I saw him in the car. I saw a news report announcing that Michael Thompson had been arrested for investment fraud. Doug's evidence had held up. Emails, recorded conversations, banking records, everything he'd claimed to have. The FBI had reopened its investigation. The next day, Mrs. Thompson called to ask whether I was all right and to let me know they wouldn't require a babysitter anymore. They were relocating, she explained. Somewhere they could begin again. She mailed me a check for $500. The note enclosed with it contained only two words. I'm sorry. I never gave anybody the complete account of what happened that night. I never explained how Mr. Thompson's expression had revealed his guilt before Doug produced any evidence. Or how Doug had made a point of keeping the gun directed away from everyone until that final panicked instant. Sometimes it still comes back to me. Especially when a picture of Chloe appears on Mrs. Thompson's Instagram. She's three now. They live in Michigan, using what I believe is her mother's maiden name. Doug Lawson received 18 months in a minimum security facility and was required to attend counseling. Michael Thompson was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison in order to make restitution. Still, I doubt those 43 families will ever recover much of what he took from them. There isn't a neat resolution to any of this. There wasn't a moment when it all suddenly became understandable. There was only a Thursday evening, when I found myself between two men whose lives had been ruined by greed and grief. A baby cried against my chest while everything fell apart around us in somebody else's living room. Story 5. Most Saturday evenings were spent meeting friends at the mall or going to see a movie. But on that particular night in early November, I was driving through a neighborhood I didn't recognize, following the directions on my phone toward Oakwood. I was 17 and had been earning extra money through babysitting since my freshman year. Mrs. Coleman had offered me $50 to look after her six-year-old son, Noah assuring me that it would be a simple, uneventful evening. She'd gotten my name from a mother's group on Facebook, where several parents had spoken highly of me. When she called two days beforehand, I could hear that strained, desperate quality in her voice that usually meant the regular babysitter had canceled. The pay would take care of half my car insurance bill for the month. Besides, a few hours of cartoons with the little kids sounded better than sitting around scrolling through social media while my friends uploaded videos from parties I couldn't afford to go to. The Coleman's house stood at the far end of the cul-de-sac. It was one of those newer, two-story homes with gray siding and enormous windows, the kind that seemed to be appearing everywhere. Behind the property, dense woods disappeared into the darkness. Story 6. I was at the end of my first day of school. I was in the middle of my first day of school, and the autumn winds had already stripped the trees of their leaves. Mr. Coleman opened the door wearing a tuxedo that looked a little too snug across his shoulders. He was struggling with his cufflinks, while his wife called down from upstairs about being unable to find the shoes she wanted. Noah stood next to him, holding a stuffed triceratops. He watched me with the solemn, careful expression some children have when they're introduced to somebody unfamiliar. About five minutes later, Mrs. Coleman hurried downstairs and sat down in a burgundy dress. Her hair was still a little damp from being curled, and she immediately began rattling off instructions. The emergency contacts were on the fridge. The pediatrician's information was in a drawer. Noah had already eaten. He needed to be in bed at nine exactly. Under no circumstances was I to let him watch anything scary, no matter how much he pleaded. Within ten minutes, both parents were out the door. Their expensive perfume lingered after they left, along with the low background hum of a house that was completely unfamiliar to me. Noah was an easy child to watch. For the most part, he could keep himself occupied without much help. We made a fort from the living room couch cushions. Then he brought out his dinosaur books and carefully explained which creatures ate plants and which would absolutely eat us if they still existed. At around 8.30, we were halfway through his favorite animated film about cars that could talk when something moved outside the large picture window overlooking the front yard. It was only a shadow slipping past. I assumed somebody was walking a dog. But when I paid closer attention, I saw a person standing near the end of the driveway, just beyond the point where the streetlight faded into darkness. They weren't walking anywhere. They were standing motionless facing the house. I kept Noah occupied because I didn't want him to become frightened. Every few minutes, though, I looked back toward the window. The person was still there. After approximately 15 minutes, I stood up as casually as I could and said I was getting a snack. In the kitchen, I looked through another window, hoping a different angle would give me a better view. The figure had come closer. Now they stood beside the Coleman's mailbox, still watching. I tried to come up with a harmless explanation. Maybe it was somebody who lived nearby. A teenager having a cigarette out of sight of their parents. Someone waiting to be picked up. But the stench. Stillness bothered me. They never looked down at a phone. Never shifted from one foot to the other. Something about it made my chest tighten. Noah asked for juice. While I poured him a glass in the kitchen, my attention went to the side door that connected the house to the garage. Mrs. Coleman had pointed it out during her hurried tour. She'd said it was temperamental and that I should be certain it was locked because sometimes it didn't latch properly. I checked. It was definitely locked. The door had a small window through which I could see the unlit garage. Beyond that was another window overlooking the side yard. My breath caught in my throat. The figure had moved again. He was now between the house and the fence, perhaps ten feet from where I stood. At that distance, I could tell it was a man. He was tall and slender, wearing what appeared to be a dark hooded jacket with the hood pulled up. But he wasn't studying the garage entrance. His head was angled upward. His head was angled downward toward the windows on the second floor. I picked up my phone and found Mrs. Coleman's number. Then I stopped. What was I supposed to tell her? There was a person standing in her yard. He hadn't threatened anybody. He hadn't attempted to enter the house. He hadn't even come up to a door. By then, the Coleman's would be at their gala, probably settling down for dinner. Instead, I decided to message my mom. I kept the text light telling her where I was and saying that everything was okay. I was sure that something was going fine. Before bedtime, Noah wanted to give me a tour of his bedroom. I carried him upstairs on my back and made dinosaur sounds, trying to keep the mood playful. His room faced the front of the house. Glow-in-the-dark stars covered the ceiling, and there were so many dinosaur posters on the walls that I couldn't have counted them all. While he went to the bathroom to brush his teeth, I approached his window. Carefully, I moved the curtain just far enough aside to look out. He had returned to the front yard. He stood in the middle of the lawn. From upstairs, I could see his work boots and dark trousers, which might have been jeans. The hood hit his face completely, but I could tell exactly where he was looking. Straight up at the window. Straight toward me. I pulled away immediately, my heart beating hard against my ribs. Noah patted back into the bedroom in his socks. I got him tucked in and tried to keep my voice even while reading him a story about her father. A friendly brontosaurus. Within ten minutes, he had fallen asleep. His breaths were slow and steady, and he still held the stuffed triceratops close to him. As Mrs. Coleman had requested, I left his bedroom door slightly ajar. Then I returned downstairs, every nerve in my body alert. With its enormous windows, the living room suddenly felt far too open. I chose the kitchen instead, where I could watch both the front entrance and the door leading into the garage. I sent my friend Jenna a text asking whether she was awake. I needed to feel connected to somebody. Anybody. While I waited for her reply, a noise came from the side of the house. A quiet scraping. It sounded as though someone was drawing an object along the siding. I edged toward the little window in the side door and looked through it. The man was there. His face was only inches from the glass. In the darkness, I still couldn't distinguish his features. There was something he held that made my whole body go cold. A small notebook. He was writing in it. And through the glass, his eyes remained fixed on mine. I jerked backward and struck the kitchen counter. When I forced myself to look again, he had disappeared. There was only darkness where he'd been standing moments earlier. My phone vibrated. Jenna had answered with gossip about a party. I stared at the message, unable to take in what she was saying. I looked through the entire ground floor, checking every window and every door. I made certain all of them were secured, pulling each handle twice to reassure myself. There was an alarm system in the house, but Mrs. Coleman hadn't provided the code. She'd only said that they hardly ever switched it on. I took a large kitchen knife out of a drawer and placed it on the counter. Then I felt foolish and put it away. A moment later, I took it back out. The quiet inside the house felt oppressive. The imaginary sound made me flinch. The refrigerator running. The heating system clicking into life. I found a spot where I could keep the front door, the staircase, and the hallway to the garage entrance in view at the same time. Twenty minutes went by. I didn't see the man again. Maybe he'd gone. Maybe he was just some neighborhood creep who enjoyed frightening people. Little by little, I began to settle down. I even managed to answer Jenna, who was still unsteady against the screen. Then Noah started crying upstairs. It was that bewildered, half-asleep whimper children make when a bad dream wakes them. I rushed up the staircase, taking two steps at once. He was sitting upright in bed, rubbing at his eyes. Someone had been tapping on his window, he told me. The tapping had woken him. It felt as though ice water had replaced the blood in my veins. But I kept my voice gentle and said it had probably been a branch brushing against the window. His window overlooked the front lawn. No tree was anywhere near close enough to touch it. I lifted him out of bed and brought him downstairs. To explain why, I invented a story about getting to have a special movie night while his parents were away. I put him on the sofa with a blanket and started another cartoon, leaving the sound low. He watched in a sleepy trance, still not fully awake. While his attention was on the television, I called 911. Speaking quietly, I explained everything to the dispatcher. She said a patrol car would come by to investigate, most likely within 15 to 20 minutes. After ending the call, I looked toward the kitchen. What I saw nearly made my legs give out. The side door to the garage was open by a few inches. The same door I had checked twice. The one Mrs. Coleman had specifically warned me about. Cold November air was drifting into the kitchen. I scooped up Noah. He gave a drowsy protest, but I carried him straight to the powder room near the front entrance. It was the only downstairs room that had both a lock on its door and no windows. I placed him on the closed toilet seat. He held his dinosaur tightly against his chest. Then I told him we were going to play a game. Whoever stayed the quietest would get a prize. His eyes had widened. Despite everything I was doing to conceal it, he could sense how frightened I was. I locked the door and lowered myself onto the floor with my back pressed against it. Noah sat in my lap. In one hand, I held my phone, ready to call 911 again. Around us, the house continued making sounds. The usual creaks and shifts that now seemed threatening. The faint hum of electrical appliances. Then another noise joined them. Footsteps above our heads. Someone was walking through the second floor slowly and deliberately. These weren't hurried steps from somebody rushing to find something. They were controlled. Patient. Almost like a person calmly making a record of what was there. The steps traveled between rooms, stopping from time to time. I could follow the route by listening. Noah's bedroom first. Then what I believed was the master bedroom. Then the upstairs bathroom. A frantic thought occurred to me. If I needed something to defend us, I could use the lid from the toilet tank. But lifting it might make a noise. I couldn't take that chance. The person stopped directly overhead. Drawer slid open and closed. Not in a hurried search. One after another, methodically. Noah buried his face against my shoulder. His little body was shaking. I held him more tightly and used my free hand to text the 911 dispatcher. Someone was definitely inside the house now. She replied that officers were three minutes away. Stay where I was. Keep the door locked. Three minutes can feel like two hours. I looked around. three hours when you're sitting on a bathroom floor holding a terrified child and listening to a stranger move through the home around you. The footsteps reached the staircase. We heard the wood creak beneath him as he came down. The fifth step, the fourth, the third. I knew because I had counted them earlier while carrying Noah upstairs. At the bottom, he stopped. Then we heard him breathing just outside the bathroom. Slow, heavy breaths. The handle turned once, a test. Then it turned again with more force. Noah let out a small whimper. I gently covered his mouth with my hand. Tears were running down both our faces. The man kicked the door. One hard blow that shook the frame. Noah's stuffed dinosaur slipped down and landed on the floor with a soft thud. Then suddenly we heard the most beautiful sound I could have imagined. Sirens. They grew louder with every second. The footsteps moved away rapidly. Now he was running. The side door slammed. I didn't move. I stayed against the bathroom door, keeping Noah pressed to me, until somebody knocked loudly and announced that they were police officers. Even then, I refused to open up until they slid a badge beneath the door. Two officers stood outside. One was a younger man with red hair. The other was a young man with red hair. The other was an older woman who immediately took control of the situation. The male officer searched the rooms and checked around the property. The woman brought us into the living room and stayed with us. Noah remained in my lap and wouldn't release his grip on me. She was calm, patient, and professional. As she took my statement, she spoke softly so she wouldn't upset him any further. When the other officer returned, he asked me to go through the house with him and point out anything that seemed out of place. Every drawer in Noah's dresser was open. His clothes had been shifted around, although I couldn't see anything that was clearly missing. The master bedroom looked much the same. Open drawers. The jewelry box on the dresser had been opened too, but the jewelry remained inside. Mr. Coleman's watch was still on the bedside table. Then we entered the little office at the end of the hallway. That was where we discovered what the man had actually been interested in. A filing cabinet stood open. Papers lay spread across the desk. The officer drew my attention to something I hadn't recognized on my own. Documents containing social security numbers, bank statements, tax returns, everything a person would need to steal somebody's identity. The Colmans returned to find their house turned into a crime scene. Mrs. Coleman was still wearing the burgundy dress, but now a police jacket rested around her shoulders. Mascara had streaked down her face as she held Noah. The officers discovered mud shoe prints throughout the house. The intruder had been inside for at least 30 minutes before I barricaded us in the bathroom. He had walked through every room. He had even stood in Noah's bedroom doorway while the little boy slept. Outside, the police found evidence of the places he'd watched from. Cigarette ends. Footprints underneath several windows. They believed he had been there for hours before we even arrived, observing the house and waiting for the parents to go out. The lock on the side door was dim. The door was locked. The door was locked. The door was damaged. Apparently, it had been that way for some time. The door had been kept shut only by the deadbolt I'd checked, and that could be worked open with a credit card. They never found him. According to the police, what happened fit a series of similar break-ins at homes where babysitters were watching children. Whoever was doing it understood that teenage sitters were less likely to challenge an intruder. They were more likely to take the children somewhere and hide. Mrs. Coleman gave me three times the amount we had originally paid for. She drove me home herself and kept apologizing the entire time. After that night, I never accepted a babysitting job from a family I didn't already know. And years later, I still test every lock twice. I still refuse to sit with a window behind me. Story 6. People usually assume babysitting is a simple way to earn money. Keep an eye on a few children. Get them to go to the hospital. Get them into bed. And spend the rest of the evening watching television until their parents return. That was how I saw it, too, when I began taking babysitting jobs during my junior year of college. The additional income helped pay for textbooks and the rent on my tiny studio apartment near campus. One Saturday in early April, I received a call from the Waynes, a family I had never babysat for before. Another family I regularly worked for, the Johnsons, had given them my number. Mrs. Wayne said, Their usual sitter had pulled out at the last minute, and they had tickets to a theater performance they'd purchased months earlier. If I could arrive by six, she said, she would give me twice my normal rate. With finals approaching and my car in need of new brakes, that was an offer I couldn't reasonably turn down. The Waynes lived in one of those immaculate suburban subdivisions where every mailbox matches, and the homeowners association sends notices if you let your lawn grow a little too high. Their home was a two-story colonial with spotless white shutters and a wraparound porch. It looked like a house you'd find pictured in a real estate brochure. Mr. Wayne greeted me in a charcoal-colored suit that probably cost more than an entire semester of my tuition. He seemed restless, repeatedly checking his watch and looking over his shoulder toward the staircase. His wife emerged behind him wearing a burgundy cocktail dress. Her smile looked strained as she invited me inside. She quickly explained that they had two children, seven-year-old Lily and Ethan, who had recently turned nine. Ethan could occasionally be difficult, she admitted, but she assured me that both children generally settled down for the night without much trouble. The way her husband's jaw tightened when she mentioned Ethan should have told me something. After a hurried departure filled with the smell of perfume and the jingle of car keys, their parents were gone. I found Lily in the living room sitting at the coffee table with a coloring project. Her brown eyes were enormous, and she had arranged her crayons in perfectly straight rows, sorted by color. When I told her who I was, she hardly raised her head. Hi, she whispered, then returned to the picture. I asked where Ethan was. An odd expression crossed her face, as though she was considering whether she should share something important. He's upstairs in his room, she eventually answered. Then, more quietly, she added. He isn't allowed out until dinner. That seemed unusual to me. What had a nine-year-old done to be confined to his bedroom before the babysitter even arrived? I said I would go upstairs and introduce myself. Her little hand immediately closed around my wrist. Don't. Something in her tone stopped me. Please, just wait until it's time to eat. For a child her size, her grip was unexpectedly firm. I also noticed scratches along her arms. Some had faded while others were still pink. I decided not to interfere with what appeared to be a rule her parents had put in place. Instead, I remained downstairs while she continued coloring. The picture was of a house. Every window had been filled in with black. There wasn't a single person anywhere in the drawing. At about 6.30, I began preparing dinner. Mrs. Wayne had left directions for macaroni and cheese with chicken nuggets. While I waited for her to come home, I saw a picture of her and her son. I saw her waiting for the water to boil. Footsteps sounded on the stairs. They were slow and deliberate. Ethan appeared in the kitchen entrance, and my first reaction was that he looked like a completely ordinary little boy. He had sandy brown hair that stuck up at the back and freckles scattered over his nose. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with a dinosaur on it. His smile was broad, but his eyes didn't share it. They were such a pale shade of blue that they almost looked gray. So you're the new babysitter? He said. There was something unsettling about such a formal introduction coming from a nine-year-old. He walked past me toward the counter and removed a knife from the wooden block. Then he turned it slowly in his hands, inspecting it. We aren't supposed to handle those, I told him, making an effort to sound cheerful rather than stern. He stared at me for a long moment without putting it down. Finally, he placed it on the floor. Ethan chose the seat directly opposite mine. Lily sat beside him, barely touching her food. Before eating each chicken nugget, he pulled it into pieces with his fingers and studied the inside. Did you know a chicken can survive for eighteen months without its head? He asked abruptly. There was one called Mike. He stayed alive after my grandpa cut his head off to make dinner. As he said it, he smiled at Lily. She moved her plate away. I attempted to shift the bowl and the children's friends, but Ethan repeatedly brought it back to subjects that made me uncomfortable. How long various animals could last without oxygen? What happened to a body as it rotted? Whether I had ever watched anything die? Eventually, Lily asked to be excused so she could use the bathroom. The moment she left, Ethan leaned across the table. Would you like to see something interesting downstairs in the basement? I told him perhaps we could look later. For just an instant, his expression darkened. Lily showed you those scratches, didn't she? She makes such a big deal out of everything. She doesn't get that sometimes you need to hurt things if you want to understand how they function. When Lily returned, she seemed to recognize the tension immediately. She asked if we could put on a movie. I agreed right away, thankful to have an excuse to end the conversation. We went into the living room. Lily sat close against me on the sofa while Ethan settled into the armchair facing us. Even with the film running, his attention stayed on me. He never seemed to look away. About halfway through the movie, a noise came from upstairs. A sharp high squeak, then a thud. That's only Mr. Whiskers, Lily said immediately, but her body had gone stiff beside mine. Our cat, she explained when she saw that I didn't understand. Ethan slowly rose from the chair. That same misplaced smile spread over his face. I'd better go see how he's doing. He hasn't been well. Lily's fingers pressed into mine. Please don't let him go upstairs by himself, she whispered. He was already making his way toward the staircase. When I got up to follow him, he turned back. I think you ought to stay here with Lily, he said in a perfectly even voice. Being alone frightens her. The way he delivered those words made them sound like an instruction. I remained beside Lily for another five minutes or so. Then the sounds overhead became worse. Several heavy thoughts. After that, something that sounded unmistakably like a cat screaming. Lily was crying without making any noise, tears slipping down her cheeks. I couldn't sit there any longer. I told her to remain on the couch and hurried upstairs, climbing two steps at a time. The upstairs hallway was dark, but light showed beneath a door at the far end. I pushed it open. Ethan was in what appeared to be his parents' bedroom. Mr. Whiskers lay on the bed. He was lying on the bed. Ethan held him in place with one hand, while the other gripped a small pointed object. It looked like a compass from a geometry kit. The cat fought to get loose. Several little patches of red already marked his white coat. Let him go, I said. I was surprised by how controlled my voice sounded. Ethan raised those pale eyes toward me and tilted his head, almost as though I was the one behaving strangely. I'm carrying out an experiment, he replied. "Aren't you curious how much pressure you need before they quit moving?" I stepped toward the bed and seized the cat. In his panic, he clawed my arms before escaping into the hallway. Ethan got to his feet slowly. The compass remained in his hand. For the first time in my life, I was truly frightened of a nine-year-old. "You shouldn't have interfered," he said. He approached me with the deliberate steps. "You've spoiled the experiment. Now we need to begin again using something different." I retreated toward the doorway without taking my eyes off him, but he suddenly moved much faster than I anticipated. He darted forward and caught my wrist. His strength startled me. He pressed the sharp end of the compass into my palm, just enough to make a dent in the skin, and studied my reaction with detached curiosity. "Is that painful?" he asked. "Give it a number from one to ten." I jerked my hand free and pushed past him. Then I hugged him. I hurried downstairs. Lily was still curled into herself on the couch. I couldn't organize my thoughts. Did I call his parents? The police? There was clearly something seriously wrong, and he needed help. But how would I explain it? That their nine-year-old frightened me? I decided to contact Mrs. Wayne. When I went to collect my phone, however, it was no longer on the kitchen counter where I'd left it. Trying to find this, Ethan spoke from behind, he stood at the foot of the stairs with my phone in his hand. "I think we ought to have a game before you use it. Lily enjoys games. Don't you, Lily?" His sister pressed herself farther into the cushions. Looking at her, I knew the situation was about to become much more dangerous. "Hand me my phone, Ethan." I tried to make my voice firm despite the pounding of my heart. He tossed the phone upward and caught it. Then, without warning, he hurled it into the wall. It broke apart on impact. Lily whimpered at the crash. "Whoops," he said without any feeling. "Looks like you won't be making any calls." He went into the kitchen. I heard drawers being pulled open and pushed closed. When he returned, he carried the same knife he had inspected before dinner. "The human body contains around 37 trillion cells. Did you know that?" He asked as casually as if we were still talking over dinner. He slid a finger along the flat side of the blade. I read that they die and replace themselves at different speeds. Your skin cells survive about two weeks. Red blood cells live for four months. Some brain cells, though, stay with you your entire life, unless something happens to them. He advanced a step. I drew Lily behind me. "We're going." I took her hand and started toward the front entrance. But Ethan moved quickly enough to get between us and the door. "We haven't finished playing," he said. "Nobody gets to leave before I tell them they can." Then Lily did something I never would have predicted. She bit his arm. Hard. He dropped the knife. "Run!" She screamed. We rushed toward the back entrance and the kitchen. Behind us, I could hear Ethan moving. He wasn't running. He was walking with those same slow, controlled steps, as though he was certain there was no real way for us to get away. "I don't know what to do." "I don't know what to do." He was walking with those same slow, controlled steps, as though he was certain there was no real way for us to get away. The rear door had a deadbolt that required a key even from inside. Mrs. Wayne had never told me where the key was kept. Ethan came into the kitchen doorway, rubbing the spot on his arm where Lily had bitten him. "That hurt, Lily," he said calmly. "You know what I do when someone hurts me." She was sobbing now, pressed against the locked door. She grabbed a chair and held it out between Ethan and us, using it as a barrier. "The Brenners," Lily whispered. "Next door. They've got a key. There's a gate between our backyards." Ethan heard her. He slowly shook his head. "You know you're meant to keep secrets, Lily. Now both of you need to be punished." He retrieved the knife from where it had fallen. I made a decision. With all the force I could manage, I threw the chair at him. He took Lily's hand and raced toward the dining room's sliding glass door. Thank God it wasn't locked. We burst outside as the chair crashed somewhere behind us. The Wayne's backyard was large and dark. A cover stretched over the swimming pool for the season, and garden beds ran along the fence. Lily pointed toward a gate in the far corner. In the moonlight, I could hardly see it. We ran in that direction, my bare feet sliding across the damp grass. Behind us, the glass door opened. The door was locked. You can't keep running forever, Ethan called. His voice carried clearly across the yard. When I get you, we'll try another game. Lily can watch what happens to people who refuse to follow instructions. The gate was secured with a simple latch. I struggled with it in the dark, my fingers so numb from fear that I couldn't make them work properly. At last it clicked free. We stumbled through into the Brenner's yard. Their home was blazing with light, every window bright enough to make it resemble a Christmas tree. Through the kitchen window I saw somebody moving. We hurried to the rear entrance. I hammered on the door with both hands. I must have looked completely wild, a college student with scratched arms and bare feet pulling along a sobbing seven-year-old. Mrs. Brenner answered. She was an older woman, her silver hair gathered into a bun. Her eyes widened when she saw us. Call 911, I managed to gasp. Please call them right now. She acted immediately. As she ushered us inside, she reached for the phone on the counter. Mr. Brenner came in from the living room. I told them Ethan had a knife and that he was dangerous. The color drained from his face. We've been concerned about that boy, he said quietly. Last month we found our dog. He stopped. Never mind. Martha, tell them to get here quickly. From their kitchen window we could see into the Wayne's backyard. Ethan stood beside the gate. The knife was still in his hand. He stared at the Brenner's house without moving. He made no effort to follow us through. He simply stood there and watched. Somehow, that frightened me more than if he had kept chasing us. The police arrived within ten minutes. They were the longest ten minutes I have ever experienced. Two officers went over to the Waynes' property, while a third remained with us to hear what had happened. At last, Lily began telling them everything. Ethan had been hurting her for months. He had been killing pets around the neighborhood. Whenever she considered telling somebody, he threatened her. She showed the officers scars I hadn't seen before, small tidy cuts along her legs. He had forced her to cover them by wearing long pants. About an hour later, their parents returned to find police vehicles and an ambulance outside their house. When the officers explained what had happened, Mrs. Wayne completely fell apart. Mr. Wayne hardly reacted. He stood with a hollow expression, as though some part of him had spent his entire life waiting for news like this. That night Ethan was taken away for a psychiatric assessment. Later Mrs. Johnson, the mother from the family who had recommended me, told me he had been diagnosed with conduct disorder and possible antisocial personality disorder. They sounded like complicated clinical names for what everybody nearby now understood. He was a profoundly troubled child, and his behavior had been growing more severe for years. Three months afterward the Waynes moved, but I stayed in contact with the officer who had taken my statement. He told me Ethan had been placed in a residential treatment center designed for cases like his. Investigators had discovered journals in his bedroom. In them he had recorded what he'd done to animals. He had also written plans for what he called "bigger experiments." While her parents dealt with the medical and legal aspects of the case, he had also written plans for what he called "bigger experiments." While her parents dealt with the medical and legal aspects of the case, he had also written plans for what he called "bigger experiments." While her parents dealt with the medical and legal aspects of the case, he had also written plans for what he called "bigger experiments." I hear that detached clinical interest in his voice as he asked me to give my pain a number. But more often my thoughts turn to Lily. I hope she's somewhere she feels protected. Somewhere she can finally be an ordinary child. Somewhere she no longer has to be frightened of her own brother. Story 7 Last winter I was out of work when my sister, Laura, asked whether I could stay with her sons for a week while she went to a conference in Phoenix. I had recently completed my teaching degree but hadn't found a position yet, so the timing couldn't have been better. Her twins, Mason and Lucas, were 12. I assumed watching them would be a straightforward way to earn some money. All I really expected to do was make dinner, check that their homework was finished, and see that they went to bed at a reasonable hour. Laura looked at me. I lived at the end of Pinewood Avenue, on one of those sleepy suburban streets where hardly anything happens. Usually the most exciting neighborhood disagreement involves somebody letting their lawn get too high. The boys had always struck me as slightly unusual. They were more reserved than most children their age, but I had put that down to them being studious kids who liked screens more than athletics. They had a habit of looking directly at you without blinking, holding the stare just a little longer than felt comfortable. They also finished one another's sentences so frequently that sometimes I wondered whether they rehearsed what they were going to say. The first few days were uneventful enough. Still, I noticed that every spare minute seemed to find them curled together on the couch, tablets in their hands and earbuds in, completely engrossed in whatever was playing. When I asked what they were watching, Mason looked up with an eager brightness in his eyes. He explained that they were studying real investigations and learning how crimes actually happened. Lucas added that their science teacher had sparked their interest in forensic science. Since then, they had been seeking out everything they could about well-known criminal cases and the psychology behind them. Their dinner conversations weren't about games or classmates. Instead, they discussed patterns of blood spatter and the amount of time bruises took to develop on different kinds of skin. They could recite information about cases I had never heard of. Little-known murders from the 70s. Serial killers had used to escape discovery. Important evidence investigators had overlooked. What disturbed me was less the subject matter than the way they spoke about it. There was no emotion in their voices. They described violence with a detached clinical interest, as though they were debating a chess strategy rather than talking about people who had suffered. On the fourth night, which was Tuesday, I discovered them in the garage after they were supposed to be asleep. They had flashlights and were going through lorries. They had tools. Mason held a piece of rope while Lucas compared its length to his own height, quietly reciting numbers. I switched on the ceiling light. Neither boy jumped. They simply turned toward me with those unsettlingly composed expressions. It's for a project, Lucas said. He began winding the rope into orderly loops with the ease of somebody who had repeated the movement a hundred times. We're studying knots and tensile strength. Mason explained that they had also been used to fighting. They had been researching ways people had used bindings throughout history. Some knots, he said, couldn't be escaped if you tied them properly. They showed me a notebook. The pages contained carefully drawn diagrams of different knot arrangements, with notes about the amount of pressure involved and how long it took to interrupt circulation. The accuracy of the sketches bothered me. So did the systematic way they had recorded the details of every variation. I felt a tightness in my chest that I couldn't quite explain. Later that evening, after I had made them return to their bedrooms, I checked the browsing history on the family computer. There were pages and pages of true crime discussion boards. Autopsy reports that should have required age verification. Long conversations about how much time a person could survive without air, without drinking or without eating. They had saved a discussion titled Mistakes That Got Them Caught. It contained more than 300 responses breaking down the history of the family. They had saved more than 300 responses breaking down the history of the family. Another tab remained open on the transcript of a video. In it, a killer described precisely how he had overpowered his victims, laying out the process step by step with the same straightforward detail you might find in a recipe. The boys had been participating under invented usernames. They asked pointed questions about ways to restrain somebody and how to keep that person from shouting. One account, TwinStudyOne, had posted, but doesn't duct tape leave traces? Would cloth work better? Another participant had answered with a detailed explanation of how to suppress sound without leaving evidence investigators could identify. Reading those exchanges made my mouth go dry. Other users complimented the boys on how carefully they researched things and how much attention they gave to the details. I should have contacted Laura immediately. I should have gathered my belongings and left. Instead, I kept finding excuses. They were curious children. They had developed a morbid interest. Plenty of adults spent their evenings watching true crime documentaries, didn't they? Wednesday morning did nothing to confirm my worries. At breakfast, the boys behaved like ordinary kids. They chatted about an upcoming math test and asked whether we could have pizza that night. When I agreed, Mason gave me a real happy child smile. For a moment, it made me question everything I'd found the night before. But as the day went on, I kept noticing small things. Lucas? Lucas measuring how long it took me to walk from the kitchen to the front entrance. Mason checking which boards in the hallway made a noise when stepped on. Both of them studying me whenever they believed my attention was elsewhere. After lunch, I came across them in the basement. They were using Laura's old camcorder to record each other practicing how to approach a person from behind. When I asked what they were doing, Lucas said it was part of a presentation for school. But their teacher had sent a newsletter home that week. There had been no mention of any presentations. By Wednesday evening, the house felt different. I still have trouble describing exactly how. It reminded me of the atmosphere just before a storm, when everything feels heavy and charged. Across the dinner table, the boys kept giving one another looks that seemed to carry some unspoken meaning. They hardly ate any of the pizza, even though ordering it had been their idea. At around 8, Mason asked whether I wanted to join them for a movie. His voice echoed. He said, "No, no, no, no, no, I don't want to join you for a movie. "I don't want to join you for a movie!" I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to join you for a movie." He said, "No, no, no, no, no, I don't want to join you for a movie." I said, "No, no, no, no, no, I don't want to join you for a movie." He said, "No, no, no, no, I don't want to join you for a movie." I said, "No, no, no, I don't want to join you for a movie." I said, "No, no, no, I don't want to join you for a movie." They repeatedly stopped it to analyze what the intruders were doing. Then they asked me questions. What would I do if I were in that situation? How would I try to get away? Roughly halfway through, Lucas announced that he felt cold and went to fetch blankets. Mason remained beside me. He was unnaturally motionless, breathing in a steady, controlled pattern, as if he were silently counting every breath he took. Lucas came back carrying an armful of sheets and blankets, far more than the three of us could possibly need. Beneath them I saw the rope from the garage. Before I had time to respond, Mason seized both of my wrists. His strength took me completely by surprise. At the same instant, Lucas pulled a sheet over my head. Their movements matched perfectly. There was no hesitation. They had obviously practiced this. I tried to get to my feet but Mason caught the backs of my knees with his leg. It had to be a technique he'd learned from one of those videos. I fell hard onto the carpet. Lucas immediately began winding the rope around my ankles, tying the same precise knots I had seen him rehearsing. As he worked, he spoke to Mason in a calm voice, almost like an instructor guiding a student. Remember, no fewer than three loops. That's what the forum recommended. My heart was pounding so violently that I thought it might give out. They pulled my arms behind me and secured my wrists with what felt like zip ties. Apparently, they had concealed them among the sofa cushions. Once I couldn't move, they removed the sheet from my head. Dozens of candles were burning around the living room. I couldn't understand when they had managed to light them. The shifting flames sharpened their features and made their faces seem older. Both boys wore latex gloves, probably taken from beneath the kitchen sink. Mason held a notebook and began reading in the tone of somebody following. A prepared script. The subject is showing signs of distress. Elevated pulses visible at the carotid artery. Restraints are performing as anticipated. Lucas positioned the camcorder on a tripod and adjusted it until the lens could record the entire scene. Whatever this had started as, they weren't treating it like a game anymore. It was organized, deliberate. They acted as if they were performing a real experiment. And I was the subject. According to what we read, the fear response reaches its highest point during the first 15 minutes, Lucas explained. He produced a kitchen timer and placed it on the mantle. We're recording physical changes. Pupil size, sweating, changes in the voice. Mason came toward me with a flashlight and directed the beam into my eyes. Lucas wrote down how I reacted. The combined smell of the candles was overpowering. Vanilla and cinnamon blended into something so heavy it made my stomach turn. I tried to scream. They didn't react like frightened children who suddenly realized they had gone too far. Neither of them rushed to shut me up. Lucas simply looked at his watch and wrote another observation. Attempted vocalization at three minutes. Estimated volume 70 decibels, using our earlier measurements. Mason brought over an iPad. On its screen was a sound meter application they had used to work out how far a scream could carry from inside the house. The Petersons next door don't hear sounds below 85 decibels, he told me with complete composure. We checked last weekend while they were home. It seemed as though they had considered every possibility, researched every detail, prepared for each thing that could go wrong, like miniature criminals planning something with appalling care. Lucas held up a small bundle of fabric. I recognized it as one of my socks. He brought it close to my face. Phase two is an assessment of gag effectiveness, he announced toward the camera. We compared materials and ways of inserting them using emergency room information about choking risks. He delivered the explanation as if he were demonstrating a project at a school science fair. The detached tone made bile climb into my throat. For the next hour, they worked through what they referred to as their protocol. They alternated between reading instructions from the computer and writing in their notebooks and changing the way I was tied. Every few minutes, they checked my pulse and compared the result with a chart printed from a medical site. Mason had retrieved a blood pressure cuff from Laura's bathroom. He struggled to use it correctly while Lucas corrected him, drawing on a tutorial they had watched on YouTube. Nothing escaped their notes. The time it took the zip ties to mark my skin, the positions that caused the greatest discomfort, the changes in my breathing when they tightened particular knots. At one point, Lucas said they had located a website explaining how investigators could reconstruct a sequence of events by looking at bruises and marks left by bindings. We're taking precautions to avoid lasting injury, he told the camera, as though saying that could make any of it acceptable. Every 15 minutes, the kitchen timer rang. They reset it and proceeded to the next stage of their horrible study. Near the window, one candle had burned almost all the way down. Wax collected on the wooden side table Laura had inherited from our grandmother. The boys were paying such close attention to their work that they didn't see the candle fall over. The pooled wax caught the lace doily beneath it, and the flame reached the edge of the curtain. Mason was occupied with changing the camera's angle. Lucas was writing about the signs of stress I was displaying. Neither noticed the fire until smoke began spreading through the room. Then they finally raised their heads. For the first time all evening, real fear crossed their faces. The smoke alarm began screaming. Lucas tried to crush the flames with a sofa cushion. It only made the fire worse. Mason rushed into the kitchen to get water, knocking down three additional candles as he went. Within moments, everything fell apart. Smoke filled the room. Several separate fires had begun. The boys coughed and tripped over the equipment they'd arranged so carefully. Through the window, a light switch on in the Petersons' house, then in the Goyens' home across the road. The twins were trying to release me when the sirens started. Their rehearsed composure had vanished. They pulled and fumbled at the very knots they had taken such pains to make secure. Lucas was crying. This part wasn't supposed to happen, he kept repeating. Mason tried to remove the zip ties with safety scissors. The blades weren't strong enough. Just as they managed to free my ankles from the rope, I was able to pull them off. I was able to pull them off. Firefighters forced their way through the front door. I will never forget the expression on the first firefighter's face. He saw me on the floor, still partly restrained, the camcorder standing on its tripod, the notebook scattered around me, filled with descriptions of what the boys had done, and two twelve-year-olds in latex gloves standing over me with a pair of scissors. Police officers arrived a few minutes afterward. While the paramedics examined me, I watched the officers read through the paper. I read through the paper. I read through the notebooks. With each page, their expressions became more troubled. The boys wouldn't stop explaining. It was research. They intended to free me once they had enough information. They had calculated the risk. Everything was supposed to remain within what they called acceptable safety limits. The woman who took my statement was Detective Ramirez. She told me they had discovered more than forty hours of true crime material on the boys' devices. They had also found messages exchanged with adult forum members who had encouraged their interest. Laura had to return by plane that same night. I spent three hours at the hospital while staff examined me and photographed my injuries. My sister sat in the waiting room sobbing. The twins were admitted to a psychiatric facility for assessment. The last update I received was that both were undergoing intensive therapy. I still have marks around my wrists from the zip ties, fine white scars. Every time I noticed them, I was in a state of shock. I was in a state of shock. I remember how narrowly I escaped becoming another statistic in somebody else's fixation on true crime.