Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
I got you something. John reached into the bye By
baby bag and pulled out a sleek white box, a
baby monitor, one of the fancy video ones. My three
a m visits to the nursery are starting to bother you, Huh,
I asked with a smirk, maybe a little. I think
(00:25):
this will help us both sleep better. I glanced down
at the mug in my hands, my fourth cup of
coffee for the day. Let's do it. We set it
up in the nursery That night, I pointed the camera
right at the crib and placed the monitor on the
(00:45):
night stand. I fell asleep watching the black and white
video feed of our sun gracefully sleeping with his face
in a puddle of drooel and his butt in the air. Thump.
I jolted awake. I grabbed the monitor, which showed that
(01:07):
James was sleeping peacefully but still in the air, now
in an even bigger puddle of drool. I smiled, rolled
over and fell back into a deep sleep. The next night,
as John and I were getting ready for bed, I
asked him about it. Last night I heard a weird
(01:29):
sound from the baby's room. Oh do you think we
have mice again? He asked? I didn't even think about that.
I turned to him. Maybe I should sleep in there
to night, just in case you have the monitor, he said,
But maybe if I was right there, He frowned. Come on, Carrie,
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he's over a year old. He needs to be comfortable
in his own room. Is here to help you work
through this? I glared at him. Work through what the anxiety?
He said? Anxiety? Is that what you call concern for
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our child's well being? I said good night sharply, and
pulled the covers over me. I woke up again at
three twenty one a m. Instinctively, I reached for the
baby monitor. The blue light blinded me in the darkness,
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and I waited for my eyes to adjust. There was
my little man, facing away from the camera, little tufts
of hair sticking out every which way, sleeping peacefully. I
set the monitor back down on the nightstand and closed
my eyes. Click. My eyes flew back open. James was
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facing towards me, now, his eyes closed peacefully, puffy little
cheeks smushed against the mattress. I forced my eyes closed.
He's fine, Just go to sleep. Stop checking on him.
Maybe John has a point. The fog of sleep filled
(03:25):
my mind, melting my thoughts into dreamy nonsense. He's fine, fine, fine, thump,
he's fine, don't check on him, just go to sleep,
(03:47):
Go to A loud cry came through the wall, then
through the monitor. A second later, my eyes flew open.
James lay in the same position, but despite the cries
coming from the nursery, his mouth was closed. What the hell.
(04:08):
I leapt out of the bed, stumbled across the hall.
I grabbed the doorknob and yanked it open, running blindly
into the room. There was James lying in the crib,
crying his lungs out, and a dark figure was leaning
over him. Get the hell away from him, I screamed.
(04:31):
As I ran to the crib. The figure darted across
the room and slipped out the window. I grabbed the
baby from the crib and held him tight against my chest. James, James,
are you okay? Carry John came stumbling in. Call the police.
I shouted, someone was here. As I held James tightly
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against me, something caught my eye. The baby monitored it's
red light blinking in the darkness. There was something propped
up in front of it, a piece of paper. I
reached out and turned it over. It was a photo
(05:16):
of James sleeping peacefully in his crib. I used to
hack baby monitors. One night I learned my lesson. When
(05:36):
I was in high school, my friends and I had
a peculiar pastime. Like any teenage delinquent, we used to
like to cause trouble. We weren't vandals, we didn't deal drugs,
and we certainly didn't bully other kids at school. No,
we just liked to scare the crap out of new
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parents by hacking their baby monitors. We were insufferable little
punks who thought we were too good to get caught
and that our little acts of mischief would go unpunished.
One night, however, I learned that I wasn't quite as
bullet proof as my tremendous adolescent ego made me out
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to be. Dmitri Kurt and I went to the same school,
shared many of the same classes, and hung out almost
every evening after dinner time. We watched prank shows, played
video games, and talked about the hottest girls in school.
One evening, we were trading scary stories at the park.
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Kurt shared the classic story of the single mother who
heard a haunting voice on her baby monitor. Like most
horror stories. It sounded like total b s, but Dmitri
told us it had happened to his mom once on
her own baby monitor, she heard a neighbor singing to
her child. Apparently it was possible to accidentally tap into
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someone else's frequency. In an instant, a light bulb turned
on in each of our heads. When you're close enough
to someone, you don't need words to know what they're thinking,
and we could all tell that we were thinking the
exact same thing. We were going to buy a baby
monitor and screw with people. Pardon the pun, but having
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a baby monitor is child's play. All you need is
another device on the same frequency as yours. Never one
to do things half asked, I purchased a high end
monitor with a frequency dial so that we could prank
as many targets as possible. The following night, we took
our bikes, roamed the neighborhood and found our first victim.
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We could see the nursery from the suburban homes set
and floor window. Dmitri grabbed the baby monitor and began
turning it to different frequencies until we heard breathing. I
remember feeling excited as our plan finally came to fruition.
Dmitri pressed the button and began exhaling heavily into the receiver.
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Your little girl was delicious, he murmured in a cheesy,
demonic voice. The light inside the larger bedroom turned down
almost immediately, and we heard a shrill scream, laughing our
asses off, We quickly rode off down the street so
that we didn't get caught. We repeated the prank several
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times over the course of the following weeks, each taking
turns talking through the monitors. Not wanting anyone to get
wise to our little game, we chose different houses every time.
People's reactions were priceless. Some mothers would reply in a panic,
others seemed to know it was a hoax and just
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told us to shut up. One poor woman even started
sobbing uncontrollably, begging us not to hurt her baby. I
feel bad about that last one now that I'm older,
but back then it was only hilarious. My friends and
I mimicked her high pitch bawling and desperate cries for
mercy for weeks afterwards. Yeah, we were royal dicks, but
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Karma's a bitch, and I got what was coming to me.
One night, Kurt and Dimitri were busy studying for their midterms,
so I went out on my own. By then, we'd
gotten pretty much everyone in the surrounding area, so I
decided to cross town and into an unfamiliar territory. Finding
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another target wasn't difficult. You just had to look into
cars for ones with baby seats, or houses with overly
colorful cartoon themed curtains, or toys in the yard. I
came across a house that fit all three criteria and
parked my bike out of view. Playing with the tuner,
I eventually found the right frequency. I could hear the
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sound of a baby snoring, very likely A devious little
smirk pushed its way on to my lips, and my
heart began pounding with excitement. It was my time to shine.
I am watching, I whispered into the monitor, using the
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creepiest voice I could muster. The house remained dark and lifeless.
I figured the owners must not have heard me. I
stand over your bed, watching, waiting. I will get you.
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I said nothing, just the sounds of crickets chirping, and
the occasional roar of a car driving down the street.
It was a little odd. Parents usually reacted much quicker
than that. I began feeling a little nervous and exposed.
It was getting late and I had a long bike
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ride home. But just when I was about to give
up and leave, I heard a weird gurgling sound coming
from the monitor. The quiet rhythmic snores had stopped, and
I assumed the baby had woken up and was about
to start crying. Instead, I heard a man's voice. You're
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the one being watched now long. My stomach pirouetted. How
did he know my name? I felt sick. Something was wrong,
and I could feel it in my bones. I glanced
up at the nursery window and I saw a silhouette
standing there watching me. Had he been there the whole time?
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The air was thick and difficult to inhale, though perhaps
fear was making it harder to breathe. My body quivered
uncontrollably as a sense of dread poured into every inch
of me. I climbed on my bike, pedaling desperately to
get away. Part of me thought I was overreacting, but
the overwhelming need to flee overpowered my rational mind. You
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can't run, wan, I know where you live, continued the man,
even as I rounded the corner. I flew down the street,
not stopping until I reached a busy intersection surrounded by
cars and a few late night joggers. I felt safe.
Your hoodie will run red with your blood, boy, whispered
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the man through the baby monitor in my pocket. A
passerby gave me a nasty look as I yelped loudly
in fear, practically ripping my hoodie in my frantic attempt
to remove it. To the stranger, I must have looked
like some snotty kid tripping balls or something. He didn't
know I was in genuine distress, so I don't blame
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him for walking off in a huff, though I wish
he had offered me help instead. After stuffing my hoodie
into my backpack, I realized that it had my name
on the back of it. It was my stupid school jacket.
Then it occurred to me that baby monitors had a
fairly short range, so if the man could still reach me,
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I was obviously being followed. I nervously glanced around to
try and identify my stalker, and I turned off the
device and pedaled towards my home. My fear had heightened
my senses and I now noticed every motion of the
trees and the breeze, every crackle of twigs under my wheels,
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and every car that zipped by me. I flinched whenever
anyone came near, paranoid that whoever had spoken to me
through the baby monitor was going to catch up. But
fortunately I made it home without incident. I parked my
bike in my garage and crawled up the stairs to
my bedroom. In one careless motion, I tossed my backpack
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and the baby monitor in the corner of my room
and dove into my sheets like an Olympic swimmer. It
doesn't matter how old you get, nothing feels safer than
being under your blanket in bed. I closed my eyes,
hoping i'd be able to calm down enough to catch
a few hours of rest before class. But then I
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heard static coming from the monitor across the room, the
monitor that I had turned off. Sweet dreams Wan, said
the voice that still haunts my nightmares. Needless to say,
I didn't sleep a wink that night. I was too
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frightened to get out of bed until sunrise. When I
got up, my first order of business was to remove
the battery from the monitor and throw it into the trash.
I didn't want anything to do with it any more.
With massive bags under my eyes, I got dressed, had breakfast,
and went to school. A few days later, I saw
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the house on the news. In an interview, a police
officer explained that the small family who had been living
in the house had been found in their beds, their
throats cut. I had been outside when it happened. The
killer had heard me on the baby monitor and decided
to play with me. It was definitely a wake up call,
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and I thanked my lucky stars that I hadn't gotten
hurt or worse. I was too busy feeling thankful that
I survived to feel bad about the family that didn't. Empathy,
like wisdom, sometimes comes with age. Now that I'm an
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adult with a wife and daughter, I truly understand the
consequences of my actions and the severity of the situation
I put myself in as a tremendously stupid teenage boy
that dreadful night, I thought I reached the epitome of fear.
But as a father, I now know that fear thrives
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and multiplies when there's something more precious than your own
life at stake. I can't say for sure, whether the
killer found me again after all these years, or whether
a new breed of idiots had the same idea as
my friends and I. But I can tell you that
I now know what true terror is. Last night, I
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heard something on our baby monitor that shackled me with
a paralyzing fear that I doubt will ever leave me.
I'm still watching