The Baby Monitor

The Baby Monitor


The baby monitor gave an electric hiss. The soft waves of static were low enough though that Sarah could here Baby John’s soft snore while he napped. She picked up her pen once more and stared blankly at the job listing. Outside the rain continued to patter on the wooden deck, and the evergreens beyond her yard seemed hunched and broody. Amanda hummed to herself from the family room where she was dressing and undressing her dolls. Velcro was a new skill and Sarah’s three year old daughter was ecstatic to have finally mastered it.

Sarah forced her attention back to the classified. She had been a receptionist once, ten years ago, when Paul entered her life. Were her skills still up to date? And what skills were those, she asked herself sarcastically. Old Man Miller had only hired her because of her legs. Out here in boondocks, forty five minutes from the closest real city, there just weren’t that many options. Maybe she should sell the house first? Move? She looked around the old place, the house her grandparents had purchased on their retirement and thought about how it was fully paid, and the taxes low, and the yard wide and open. Closer to civilization she would have to live in a condo, a small one, and the children would lose their yard.

But what of it, she thought as she tried to summon up some plucky nerve, plenty of children grow up in the city. The real problem was that a condo would end up costing her a thousand or more a month and she wasn’t sure she could earn enough to cover that and Baby John’s formula and diapers…the monitor hissed again. Amanda stopped humming, and blinked her wide blue eyes. Paul’s eyes, thought Sarah, losing her chain of thought. Then she realized she could hear voices on the monitor.

She frowned. She could still here John’s soft snore, but another sound was under that, softer, more distant. Her chair squealed on the old linoleum as she stood up. She went to the monitor and put it to her ear. The initial jump of her heart settled down. It was a woman talking to a child on the bandwidth. Obviously they weren’t in John’s room. She frowned thoughtfully at the blue and white speaker; the one Paul had bought after Amanda was born. The only thing was she didn’t have any close neighbors. This house sat on a five acre parcel and her nearest neighbors were both seventy.

The monitor gave a squeal and then she heard the child speaking more clearly. The child sounded Amanda’s age. “Momma, don’t open the door. It’s the Stranger.”

Sarah felt a chill up her spine.

The woman spoke now, softer, her words harder to understand under the hum of the static. “Now…. Don’t…. I’ll just see who it….”

“Momma, don’t open the door.” The child said again. Then the woman seemed to be greeting someone. A man spoke low, sounding friendly.

“Hey, you got a really big package here. Expecting something special?” The man grunted as if he had lifted something heavy. “Oh, let me move it. Should I just put it here?”

The woman said something, polite, murmuring... and then she screamed. Sarah stared at the monitor in shock. Amanda put her hands over her ears and became red in the face. A struggle, the woman fighting, a little girl weeping…the man was laughing hideously. A terrible, terrible laugh echoed over and over…

Sarah couldn’t breath. Oh, God. Oh, God. Her shaking hands dropped the monitor and lifted the phone. She dialed 911.

***
The Deputy Sheriff nodded with understanding, his deep brown eyes watching her as she tried to take a sip from her coffee. Her hands were still shaking. Though she had lived out here for six years she had never had any reason to speak to law enforcement. The closest she had come was to vote for Sheriff in the last election. She had not even voted for the eventual winner, she had chosen the woman out some random gender solidarity. She blinked and looked away from the Deputy’s too considerate eyes.

“We’ve talked to all the neighbors in the five mile radius. I’ve been told that that’s the absolute limit for pick up on those little transceivers and even that’s pushing it.” He drank his own coffee, pure black and thank you ma’am, with solid steady fingers of the more blunt and stubborn kind. Good hands for a man, she thought and then bit her lip. It was terrible to be attracted to him. Her divorce was only two months old. And here she was a hysterical mother of two who he probably thought was losing her mind.

His raised a thick brow. “Maybe it was some fluke, somebody sending out a TV show or something on their CB. I’ll check on the wavelengths, see if that’s possible.”

She nodded, still feeling sick at what she had heard, and still feeling foolish too. Could she have mistaken? It hadn’t sounded like TV. The woman’s scream still came back to Sarah with a chill. Still, she had to be polite, he was trying to help. “Thank you, Deputy…”

“Call me John.” He smiled, and such a smile. The kind of smile that stopped women in the street, she noted.

“That’s my son’s name.” She said, hesitant. She looked away and just as she felt her cheeks growing warm she heard her little John upstairs. “I better go.”

“I’ll let myself out, ma’am.”
***

“Mom, I’m looking for a job. We can’t come visit you right now.” Sarah sighed into the phone as she stood at her kitchen counter. John was cooing on his blanket while Amanda colored at the table. Her domestic paradise was in order but she had a stack of bills and worries a mile high. None of those things she could share with her mother down in Scottsdale.

“But Sarah, you need a mother’s care, and the kids? I want to see the kids.” Her mother’s voice traveled all the way from Arizona and even over the breadth of America she could hear the guilt trip.

“Mom, we’d love to come…” But I can’t afford it, she thought, but wouldn’t say. She turned to the monitor. She hadn’t told her mother the odd story, mostly out of embarrassment. Her mother would sound so sympathetic, and so understanding, and then ask if Sarah had had any other hallucinations. She sighed and turned the switch on, then off, then on while her mother tried to convince her that her health was being adversely affected because she hadn’t seen her grandchildren in four months.

The monitor’s hiss gave her a shiver. Amanda hummed while she colored, and there was a strange echo of that coming from the monitor. Could it be picking up the sound all the way from upstairs?

“Mom, I got to go. I’ll call you.” She hung up the receiver gently even though her mother was still talking. Sarah didn’t notice. She stared at the monitor.

Amanda had stopped humming at the table, but the humming was still on the monitor. There was a row of red dots that lit up with sound, and they were moving up three, then two, and up three as the child sang. It sounded so much like Amanda. Sarah lifted the monitor and put it to her ear. She could hear someone moving pots in the kitchen.

Then a knock on the door, pound, pound, pound, and the bars on the monitor moved with each echo. Sarah found herself holding her breath. Don’t answer, don’t answer, don’t answer, she breathed out.

“Momma, don’t open the door.” The child on the monitor said.

“No please, don’t answer the door.” Sarah whispered out, feeling dizzy. Oh, Lord, was she loosing her mind?

From inside the monitor came the sound of the woman greeting someone. Then his voice came.

“Hi. You got a really big package here. Expecting something special? Oh, let me move it. Should I just put it here?” The struggle followed and Sarah dropped the monitor to the counter. She watched the red lights go all the way across as the woman screamed. Then the child cried. Oh, and here came that laugh. That terrible laugh! Sarah found herself crying as the monitor went to static.

***
“Ma’am.” The Deputy Sheriff met her out front of her house. She kept the door open because the children were asleep upstairs. She glanced guiltily at the monitor, but she had to use it. It was the only way to hear if John cried. She stood with her arms crossed on her porch and watched the bats fly across the deep twilight sky.

“Call me Sarah. You might as well. Just don’t call me crazy.” She gave him a sad smile and he smiled back, a bit shyly, which made him all the more endearing. She wanted to give herself a firm shake. She was in the middle of a nightmare and this attraction was silly. A crush, she thought, just a crush brought about by stress and loneliness. She wanted to curl up under that brown leather coat of his and feel his arms around her. It had been so long since a man had held her.

“Sarah.” He said softly. “I believe you. And we’re going to figure this out.”

She looked into his dark eyes and wanted to weep with relief. “You believe me?”

“Of course. Look, this is somebody’s idea of a sadistic joke. Or maybe it’s some amateur radio program. I’m looking into it. You can’t let this get to you.”

“Easy for you to say. I think I’ll buy a new monitor tomorrow. Maybe a cheaper one with less range.” She shivered and reached out to put one hand on the railing of her porch. “I just didn’t need this now.”

“What can I do to help, Sarah?” His hand reached up and covered hers. Goosebumps rose up on her arms but she suddenly felt warm. “Maybe I can swing by tomorrow? Is it happening about the same time each day?” He asked softly.

“Around one.” She said. I’ll fix lunch?”
***

The next day she was digging through her cupboards, searching for the lid to her soup pot. Well maybe it was too much, but she had always been told that her homemade chicken noodle soup was to die for. She cooked all morning humming nervously. Was this a first date? Not really, but a preliminary? Her first…interest… anyway since the divorce. She was both terrified and eager. The eagerness added to her terror. She shouldn’t want this. She had enough to deal with in life with two kids, and an uncertain job hunt.

She put John down for his nap around twelve-thirty and with trepidation turned on the monitor. She watched the low one bar of static and could hear John’s soft snores. She went back to stir the soup.

It was one o’clock when she heard a knock on the door. Amanda looked up from her coloring book her bright eyes seeming more blue than usual. “Momma, don’t open the door. It’s the Stranger.”

Sarah couldn’t breath. Wasn’t that the exact words she had heard the first time on the monitor?

Amanda looked scared and Sarah shook herself. How silly I’m getting. “Now, sweetling. Don’t be silly. I’ll just see who it is. It’s probably Deputy John. You remember him.”

Sarah walked to the entry, her heart in her throat.
“Momma, don’t open the door.” Amanda said again from doorway to the kitchen. The poor child looked lost and scared. “Please, momma.”

Sarah peaked out the side window and nearly fainted with relief when she saw John’s slow smile. He raised a hand in greeting and she unlocked the door. Oh, thank goodness, how silly of me, she thought. “Hi, you’re just in time for soup.”

He sniffed the air. “Smells like heaven. Hey, you got a really big package here. Expecting something special?” He gestured to a large box next to the door. She couldn’t breathe again. She couldn’t think. She stared at the box.

“Oh, let me move it. Should I just put it here?” He said, gripping the sides and starting to nudge past her.

In a burst of raw fear she shoved him backwards and slammed the door. She threw the deadbolts into place. “I got a gun. I know how to use it. You better clear off.” She shouted, half sobbing through the door.

She could see him standing there, staring back at her in shock. Then he frowned, shook his head and started toward his green and white jeep, lugging along the box. She nearly opened the door to apologize. What kind of fool was she? He would think she was insane. She wanted so badly to open the door and face the man she had hoped he would be, but instead she slid down to sit with her back to the door. She only breathed when she heard his jeep pulling out of her driveway.

Amanda had gone back to her coloring. She was humming in the kitchen. The monitor was quiet. Sarah wondered if she had made a big mistake. She also wondered why had had taken the box with him. Wouldn’t he have left it on the porch?

Had she done the right thing? The crazy thing? She wasn't sure she wanted to find out. She picked herself up off the floor and went to the phone. Time to buy tickets to Scottsdale, and damn her savings account.
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