I work a nannying job. It’s always been a good side gig, but a few months ago I began looking for a full time job. I found a family pretty quickly, a younger wealthy couple with two children, one infant and one elementary age. I care for them all day while their parents work, feeding them, bathing them, etc. It’s always been great. That was, until about two weeks ago when things began feeling off.
It began with my boss texting me letting me know there was a pretty significant police presence in the neighborhood, and to lock the doors until they got home. They live in a nicer neighborhood than I do, so I felt safe and just complied and watched TV until they got home. On my drive home, I noticed about a half dozen cops sitting, almost staked out, behind the house. They have a large property connected to a nearby church, and they share the field. The officers were sat motionless on various lawn chairs and cement blocks, facing away from the house. Kind of odd to stare into an empty field, but who am I to judge? Part of me thought about rolling down my window and asking what was wrong, but another part of me is a couple months behind on her inspection, so I decided to forego questioning it. I texted my boss a picture and she sent her husband home to let me off early for the day. I had off the next two days, so I returned the following week. By noon the cops were there once more, but the numbers and squad cars had nearly tripled. I’ll admit, at this point I was a little unnerved, but my boss let me know they would be asking the officers what they were sitting there for by the next day, and all would be resolved. I watched the kids, we briefly played in the driveway but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched so I decided we’d be playing inside.
As I carried the baby in, I looked back over my shoulder just trying to catch a glimpse of anything they had that would clue me in to why they were here. Just as I was turning my head I saw one of the officers move his hand slowly to his hip. I darted my eyes down to see him resting his hand on his holster. My eyes widened and I slammed the door shut, locking it behind me. What the hell?! First of all, how could he have known I was looking? It must’ve just been a coincidence for him to reach for his gun at the same time as I glanced at him. I shook the sick feeling off and locked the door. We played for a little but I was too worried to get into whatever games the kid wanted to play.
The next two days were pretty mundane. The amount of cops grew, but not as largely as before. My boss let me know the cops had told them she had nothing to worry about, and they were just “doing their job”. Yeah, ok, whatever. I’ll just do my job, and y’all just stay in the field doing whatever the hell you’re supposed to be doing, and we’re good. I tried my best to work like I normally would, but it was proving to be more difficult than I would’ve hoped. The children are starting to behave a little odd. The baby no longer cries for what he wants, he’s just content to be fed/changed/put to sleep on whatever schedule I stick to. For those not familiar with babies, this isn’t typical. The older child takes no notice of the police. He sits across from me while I feed the baby and just stares, almost like he’s keeping tabs on me. It makes my skin crawl, but he’s just a kid, so I push the thought from my mind that he’d have any part in this.
Today I got to work a little earlier, and the cops had not arrived yet. Nothing unusual, I start my days just around when the sun comes up so I didn’t expect them to be out there that early. Sure enough though, the squad cars began showing up pretty quickly. I was suprised to notice the cops were much more heavily armed this time, some of them wearing more intense gear, some with much bigger guns than I’d seen before. Most of them had their weapons in their hands, and I don’t know too much about this stuff, but I’ve seen a fair share of cops NOT readily armed, and assume that this is reason for worry. Reasonably alarmed, I phoned my boss, but the call wouldn’t go through. Tried phoning my boyfriend, but recieved the same result. I’m starting to get a little more nervous than I’ve been the past few days, but I need to keep my cool in front of these kids. I drew all the blinds, figuring it’d keep the kids calm. I noticed a few thumps coming from outside the house and around the yard. I hoped it was just the cops getting settled into their positions they’d been in for days. I am absolutely not the type to fuck with that, so we are staying inside until someone can come confirm with me that we are fine and this has nothing to do with some violent killer or escaped convict. Around noon things had gotten quiet, the baby had gone down for a nap and the kid was sitting quietly so I decided to take a peek.
God, I wish I hadn’t looked.
I closed the gap I’d created in the blinds and slowly stepped back.
This time, they were facing the house.