…saw the living room was completely empty.
My thumbs clumsily fumbled across the screen, frantically switching the app to the nursery feed. The room, usually a sanctuary of peace with its delicate floral wallpaper and the soft, diamond patterned rug I had painstakingly picked out, was bathed in the harsh afternoon light.
The twins were sound asleep in their cribs. But the nanny wasn’t watching them.
She was standing dead center in the room, her back to the camera, staring out the large picture window at the sprawling blue sea surround of the bay. Her posture was completely wrong. The gentle, stooped hunch of the sweet elderly woman we had hired was gone. She stood rigid, broad-shouldered, and terrifyingly still.
Then, her hands moved up to her neck.
Through the tinny audio of the baby monitor, I heard a wet, tearing sound, like heavy adhesive being violently ripped from skin. My blood ran cold as I watched her fingers dig into the edge of her jawline. She wasn’t scratching an itch. She was pulling.
The sweet, wrinkled face of our “Mary Poppins” stretched, distorted, and then peeled away completely, revealing the hard, severely scarred features of a much younger woman underneath. She dropped the hyper-realistic silicone mask onto the floor, its hollow, empty eyes staring up at the ceiling.
She reached into the deep pockets of her handmade cardigan and pulled out two thick rolls of industrial duct tape and a heavy syringe.
“Nap time is over,” she whispered, her voice no longer a gentle croon, but a raspy, guttural sneer. She turned toward the first crib.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t call 911. I knew they wouldn’t make it in time. I kicked off my heels, burst through the front door, and grabbed the closest weapon I could find: my husband’s heavy, solid-steel golf club leaning against the entryway wall.
I took the stairs three at a time, the adrenaline completely muting the sound of my own ragged breathing. I reached the nursery door just as she was leaning over my son’s crib, uncapping the syringe with her teeth.
“Get away from them!” I roared, gripping the club like a baseball bat.
She spun around, her dark eyes completely dead, devoid of any human emotion. She didn’t look surprised. She just smiled—a cold, jagged grin that stretched across her scarred face.
“You’re home early, Mommy,” she mocked, tossing the syringe aside and pulling a long, serrated hunting knife from her waistband. “But that’s okay. I have room in the trunk for three.”
