Every night at around 9:00, either me or my husband Lance puts our baby to bed. Sometimes I’ll wait until he falls asleep on his own and carefully set him down in his crib; other times I’ll drive him around a bit to speed up the process.
One day, it was almost 10 and little Petey wasn’t showing any signs of fatigue, so I strapped him into his carseat, which he surprisingly didn’t complain about. He’s less than a year old, and relatively stubborn, so he sometimes cries a bit when I try to take him on a drive. This time, he didn’t make a noise. I sighed in contentment and started up the car.
I kept glancing at him as I was driving, and his eyes were still wide open. I sighed again, this time because I was running out of time to get more work done that night. Lance had errands of his own, and he’d already babysitted Petey once during the day, so I figured I’d take one for the team.
When the clock struck 10:26 and Petey was still awake, I decided to stop disappointing myself by checking on him and just continue driving until I figured it had been long enough.
I kept glancing at the clock. 10:32. 10:39. 10:51. I reached the end of the road and turned around to go back home. Surely he would be asleep by the time I reached the house.
I pulled into the driveway, exhaling, turning to face the backseat. Petey was still awake, eyes unmoving, staring at the seat in front of him. He glanced at me, silently. I scoffed, tapping the steering wheel in frustration.
I unbuckled him, picked him up, and walked inside. Lance was sitting on the couch, looking at his phone. He noticed me and furrowed his brow.
“Wow, he’s still awake?”
“Yeah. Did you accidentally give him coffee instead of water? It’s almost midnight,” I chuckled dryly.
“Nope.” He looked back at his phone. “You tried driving him around?”
“Yes, for quite a while. He’s still wide awake.” I couldn’t see Petey’s face, but his head was facing straight forward.
“Try setting him in his crib. I’m sure he’s exhausted.”
I nodded, taking Petey into his room and carefully putting him inside his crib. I expected him to start bawling as soon as I set him down, but he stayed quiet. “Huh,” I said to myself. It was odd how calm he was, but I wasn’t complaining. I decided to leave him in his crib to fall asleep so I could take some time to myself.
I slumped on to the sofa next to Lance. He turned off his phone and looked at me, brushing my hair out of my face.
“Figured it out?” He asked with a smile.
“I think so. He didn’t put up a fight when I set him in the crib. I’m going to try and get some more work done.”
“Okay, honey.”
I walked upstairs and sat at my desk, powering up my computer. Another late night, I supposed.
At around 9:10 the next night, a few hours after I’d come home from work, I noticed Lance rocking Petey back and forth on the couch. The little guy wasn’t crying. He only stared forward with a smile. I chuckled, wondering if my husband had gotten himself into the situation I had the day before.
“Want me to take him?” I asked.
“No, it’s okay, it’s my turn tonight.”
I hesitated for a moment, then nodded and sat down beside him. He stood up shortly after, taking Petey into his bedroom. He came back out without him. I was surprised he wasn’t crying after being set in his crib again. Usually he complained more than this.
“I’ll go check on him,” I said, after we’d been sitting around for a few minutes. I wanted to make sure he was asleep. My husband gently grabbed my arm and pulled me back onto the couch.
“No, stay. He’s fine. He fell asleep shortly after I set him down.”
“Oh, okay.”
I went to bed early. I’d had a productive day at work, and I was exhausted.
The next day was a Saturday. Lance was stopping by the grocery store and he’d asked me to watch Petey while he was gone. He was mostly sitting on the ground, playing with toys.
My phone rang a couple of times, but I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. I stumbled around the room looking for it. I found it under one of the pillows on the couch, and picked up.
“Hello?” I asked, looking out the window.
“Hi,” a robotic voice responded. “This is Fred’s roofing insurance. Would you be interested in purchasing—“ I hung up, turning back to face Petey. I realized he had crawled off somewhere, and panicked.
I heard something clatter to the floor, and came running to the source of the noise. Petey was sitting on the kitchen floor, reaching for a sharp metal skewer. One of the drawers was open.
“How did you-“ I quickly picked it up and put it back where it belonged. I wasn’t sure how Petey, barely able to stumble around, somehow managed to open a drawer and take out an object so quickly, but I was glad I had hung up the phone when I did.
“Honey?” I hollered, peeking around the corner of the fridge. No response. I stared at Petey. He stared back.
Lance put Petey to sleep again. It was kind of odd that he wanted to switch up the schedule. Usually we would take turns doing the deed, but he continued to insist that he had it covered.
At some point I started to feel uneasy, although I wasn’t sure why. I waited until Lance went into the bathroom and I shuffled into Petey’s room to check on him, carefully leaning over his crib.
His eyes were wide open.
“What are you doing?”
I whipped around. Lance was standing inches away from me. I jumped backward in surprise, nearly running into the crib.
“Why’d you wake him up?” He said, sounding annoyed.
“I didn’t wake—“
“I told you not to come in here.”
He lead me out of the room and shut the door behind us. I could make out a flash of something shiny in the dark, but I couldn’t tell what it was, and I wasn’t about to go back inside Petey’s room again.
The one thing that rubbed me the wrong way the most is how quiet Petey had been. Surely, if I’d really woken him up, he’d be crying, but he was dead silent. I realized he hadn’t cried much at all in the past few days. Not when I was around, at least.
Lance was running another errand the next day, and I was left to watch Petey again. I had a lingering suspicion that Lance was hiding something from me, so I decided to take my time alone as an opportunity to return to Petey’s room while he was playing with a light up toy in the hallway.
“Sparkle power,” it trilled.
Something shiny flashed in my vision again, next to the crib. I glanced around, trying to find where it was. It was such a small flash that it was hard to decipher where it was coming from.
“I like kittens. Meow!” Petey’s toy went off again.
My eyes locked on a faint shape sitting on the ground. A triangular, shiny piece of glass. Small, but noticeable. I picked it up, turning it over in my hands, placing it in my pocket temporarily while I continued to search around.
“Rainbows are the best!”
I noticed a small rug underneath the crib that I hadn’t remembered placing there. I pulled it out and lifted it up.
Several razor blades, glass shards, and crushed cans were underneath. I could partially make out a Monster label on one of them. Energy drinks. What was all this stuff? Why was it under Petey’s crib?
It was oddly quiet all of a sudden, and I realized the toy hadn’t gone off in a while. I turned around.
Petey was standing up, inches away from me, holding a metal skewer high in the air.
It was only for a few seconds, but he was standing. My tiny, eight and a half month old baby had been standing, holding the same skewer I’d seen next to the silverware drawer.
The sharp object clattered to the floor, and Petey fell down after it. It all happened so fast, I could barely process what I had just seen. I yanked the skewer away, took the glass shard out of my pocket, and shoved both objects under the rug, pushing it under the crib and as far towards the wall as I could.
“I love swimming at the beach!”
Petey was playing with his light up toy again, as if I had simply imagined everything that just happened.
I positioned my GoPro deep inside Petey’s closet, far enough to be hidden but close enough to have a view of the crib. I was panicking at this point. I had no idea what was happening, but I needed to know the truth.
As soon as my husband came home, I helped him put away groceries and placed Petey in his arms, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Katie needs help making cupcakes. I’ll be back in a little while.” I smiled. Katie was our next door neighbor. I wasn’t really going to her house, but it was a decent excuse.
“This late at night?” Lance looked at me quizzically.
“Yeah. She’s going to a bake sale tomorrow. It’s kind of urgent. Bye.” I blew him another kiss and went out the door.
I waited in the alleyway next to our house for a while. It was nearly Petey’s bedtime. 8:56. Four more minutes. I tapped my fingers against my knees impatiently, trying to make myself as small and hidden as possible.
I needed to be in range to view live footage on my GoPro, so I couldn’t travel very far, but I didn’t want to be in my house and I needed to be hidden outside. I stared at a dirty trash can impatiently, waiting for something to happen on screen.
Finally, I saw movement on the camera. Lance was holding Petey, rocking him back and forth. He walked forward, setting him inside his crib, then turned around and left the frame. Petey still wasn’t crying.
After a couple minutes, he came back with a can and a small cylinder in his hand. He opened the can, which I realized was another Monster drink. I wondered why he would be drinking one so late.
I realized in horror that he wasn’t going to be the one drinking it as he reached into the crib and tipped the drink into Petey’s mouth. He held it there for a long time. I was sure that some would spill down his chin, but none did. He just kept drinking, and drinking, and drinking. I clasped my hand over my mouth.
Lance threw the can on the ground and stepped on it with his foot. It was empty. Petey had drank the entire thing. He moved on to the cylinder in his hand.
It was a syringe.
He reached into the crib again and pressed the needle into Petey’s arm, pushing down on the back of the syringe. It was horrifying to watch, but I couldn’t look away.
“How are you feeling, buddy?” Lance asked. Petey shook his head back and forth a few times, then his arms. He stood up in his crib, without holding onto the bars.
“Pretty strong,” Petey replied. I did a double take. Had my baby just spoken? And stood up? Again?
“Do you think you’re ready this time?”
“Yes. I’m ready.”
“Okay. Make sure to use a glass shard this time. Don’t miss. Be sneaky.”
“Okay, daddy.”
“You’re my smart little boy. You’ll do so well. You can take her down on your own.”
Petey turned a different direction, then stared directly into the camera. I’d forgotten that GoPros have a small flashing light that turns on when you record. Lance furrowed his brow, then looked into the camera as well. My eyes widened.
“That son of a bitch,” Lance hissed, grabbing the GoPro and shoving it in his pocket. “Change of plans, Petey.” The footage was disconnected. My heart dropped into my stomach. I ran.
I practically sprinted down the road, and I didn’t stop until I reached the public park. I bursted into one of the bathrooms and locked the door. It was a terrible long term solution, but at least I’d be safe temporarily. I called the police.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“Please just hurry.” I told them the relative details of my location.
“Are you in danger?”
“I think my husband wants to kill me.” My voice was shaking.
“Can you elaborate? Are you safe right now?”
Suddenly I heard a knock at the door. I froze, unable to move or speak. All at once I realized a mistake I’d made. I’d forgotten to turn off location sharing.
“Hello? Are you there?” The operator asked.
I frantically opened iMessages, hoping it wasn’t my husband at the door, hoping I was only being paranoid, hoping that I was safe. In relief I noticed that my husband’s location was at the house.
“One second,” I called to the person at the door.
“What’s going on right now?” The operator asked.
“I’m okay, I just—“
“Hi, mommy.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. It wasn’t my husband at the door. It was Petey.
Or whoever—whatever he was now. After the injections. After whatever Lance had done to him. I heard something click. It wasn’t the doorknob.
A loud bang encompassed my ears. I clasped my hands on the sides of my head. There had been some sort of explosion, directly outside of the door. I heard faint giggling, then another click, and another bang. I screamed.
“Hello? What was that? Talk to me. Are you okay?”
“I-I’m okay. I just, uh—“
“They can’t arrest a baby, mommy.” There was more faint giggling. What had Lance done to our son?
Another click. Another bang. Grenades. Petey must’ve been throwing grenades. He was giggling hysterically.
“Are you still there?” The operator asked.
“Yeah, I’m h-here,” I replied shakily. I could barely speak or breathe. “Please get here soon.”
“I’m going to blow them up,” said Petey.
“Help is on its way,” the dispatcher told me, even though it barely meant anything.
“It’s no use,” Petey said, giggling all the while.
I heard police sirens. Then chatter. Radios. Another round of explosions. Screams. Giggling. There were no gunshots, or anything hopeful, and I could only imagine how many people had just been killed.
“You’re stuck,” Petey said.
He was right. I’m still sitting inside this public bathroom, listening to the tormenting, and the laughter, and the explosions outside. The only thing seperating me and the chaos is a few brick walls and a metal door, which both might eventually be destroyed by grenades if this kid has enough of them. There is no happy ending to my situation. Right now, I’m fucking screwed.