/nosleep: My Stepfather’s Nanny Cam [Part 3.]

All I ever wanted was to feel safe in my own home.

I waited for 2 AM. I knew It would be there, right on the dot.

While my stepfather slept soundly, while the pedophile bastard slept just feet away from me, divided only by a thin wall, I waited. I sat in my bed, laptop open, playing the videos over again.

I don’t know why I was torturing myself like that. I told myself that I was doing it to learn more about my visitor, but I did not skip over the other parts.

I watched as I undressed, oblivious to the peepshow. I watched as I went through my nights like a normal kid. Wasting time, studying, not a care in the world. I watched as I fell asleep. One second I am sleeping peacefully, the next there is a child-sized hole on my dresser. I watch as I rose from my sleep, with mechanical movement and no recollection of doing so, I watched as I talked to the void child.

I tried to make out what I said, to read my lips.

I was trying to assure myself that I had made the right decision.

I watched as I left my room, with a blank face, almost as if I wasn’t in control. 4 AM and the child is gone, and I walk in with muddy clothes, and something dry and crimson.

It’s 1:15. Forty-five minutes to go. I skipped backward, I watched as I talked to It. I tried to make out what I said. I can’t.

It’s 1:20. Still time to change my mind, still time to repair the salt barrier.

I stayed in bed.

I watched the videos.

It’s 1:55. I hold my breath for longer than I should, I hear my heartbeat, manic and afraid. I keep all of my attention on my dresser. I fish for the kitchen knife under my pillow, just in case.

It’s 2 AM.

And then… nothing. It doesn’t show. A minute goes by. I have to remember to breathe. Still nothing. Maybe the hole wasn’t big enough? Maybe it couldn’t get in? Maybe that was good.

Then I heard something. Heard the weight of an adult in the next room. Heard footsteps make its way out of my parents’ room! I heard as the footsteps moved toward my door. Saw the silhouette of feet under the crack of my door. I clutched my knife… but the footsteps continued. I heard them walk to the front door.

I moved to my window. It was my mother. She walked out of the house, still in her nightgown, not wearing shoes. She walked barefoot to her car, her movements almost mechanical. Her face was blank, far away. It was the same as mine in the videos. The engine to her car turned, and she drove away.

I could feel It before I saw It. Right next to me, on the dresser was the void child. It sat perched, and what little light was in my room was obliterated by Its figure. It was still, unnaturally still. I wanted to run, should have ran, every inch of me was terrified. But I had to hear. I had to know.

But the light was being eaten. The void was taking hold. I felt like I was drowning, I felt like I was doing all I could to stay above water. The darkness was near complete. I struggled to say something, I struggled to do anything. I heard It speak, Its voice like broken glass. “No witness,” it said. There was nothing. Nothing but void, nothing but darkness.

I don’t know how long I was out. How long It was in control. But I have a pretty good guess as to what we were up to.

I came to, feeling the oppressive bite of the chilled night air. No moon. I was outside. Gooseflesh prickled across my naked arm. I was disoriented, dizzy, I had a headache. It took me a moment to realize where I was. I had traveled far. I was in the woods.

My clothes were muddy, my muscles were sore. There was a shovel in my hand…

I was standing on the edge of a deep hole.

I noticed It then. The void child. Perched in the branches of a tree, staring right at me. It did not move. “I was first,” it said, “no witness.”

I looked into the hole.

At the very bottom was a crudely built box, six feet long and two feet wide. It had been nailed together. The craftsmanship was shoddy. It was my craftsmanship. It was painted in crimson red.

The pounding began.

Muffled cries for help. The panicked knocking on wood. “Help!” someone said within the box.

It was my stepfather’s voice.

The panicked pounding quickened. The lid of the box heaved from the effort. I looked up at the void child, and I understood then why It was no longer in control, why I had come to just then.

It would never rob me of the satisfaction.

It was 4 AM. The void child was gone.

I struck dirt. I heaved my first shovelful of dirt and dropped it into the hole. I watched as the crimson box became slightly obscured by the mud. That’s when the screaming started. That’s when the pounding went from panicked to desperate. I shoveled some more.

“Don’t! Stop! Please!” he screamed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I stopped. I looked down into the deep hole that I had dug over two nights. I looked at the red coffin I had built and painted. I said nothing back.

I remembered all of the times I had caught him leering at me, the time he was just outside of the bathroom as I came out from a shower. I remembered that once I felt safe in my own home, and that all changed when this bastard moved in. The nanny camera. The videos. I wondered what he would have done next.

I dropped the next load of dirt into the hole…

…And I smiled.

[Part 1.] [Part 2.]