The Babysitter's Last Shift

Story:

I’d been babysitting for almost four years, and nothing weird ever happened. Until the Walker family hired me.

Their house was huge—like mansion-huge. White marble floors, glass walls, and creepy silence in every room.

Mr. Walker was a tech CEO. His wife looked like she belonged in a perfume commercial. Their son, Caleb, was six.

He didn’t say much.

“Don’t go into the basement,” Mrs. Walker said just before they left. “The door stays locked.”

Noted.

The first hour was fine. Caleb was quiet but polite. We played board games, he ate mac and cheese, and I put on a movie. By 9:00 p.m., he was asleep.

That’s when the house changed.

I heard scratching noises. Not loud, just soft enough to question if I imagined them. They came from… the basement.

I went downstairs. The basement door was locked, just like they said. I leaned close.

Scratch. Scratch.

I backed away.

When I turned around, Caleb was standing behind me. Still in his pajamas. Still expressionless.

“You heard it too,” he said.I laughed nervously. “You’re not supposed to be up.”

“She wants out,” he whispered. “She doesn’t like when I’m not watching.”

I stared at him. “Who?”

He turned and walked back to his room.

I followed.

Caleb had dozens of stuffed animals in his room, all lined up perfectly across the floor.

“She watches through them,” he said, pointing at a torn gray rabbit with one button eye.

I knelt beside it. “Is this…some kind of game?”

“She says if I don’t keep them happy, she’ll come through the walls again.”

I blinked. “Come through the—”

CRASH.

A photo frame fell in the hallway.

Then the lights flickered. The basement door slammed open on its own.

I grabbed Caleb and locked us in his room. My phone had no signal.

That’s when I heard it.

Footsteps. Coming up from the basement.

Slow. Bare feet slapping the marble floor.

Caleb wasn’t scared. He was humming.

“I told you she doesn’t like being ignored.”

The door handle turned.

I grabbed the chair and wedged it under the knob. Caleb just watched, humming louder.

“She said you shouldn’t have touched her toy.”

The stuffed rabbit.

I turned around. It was gone.

The lights went out.

Then a voice—dry, broken, female—whispered from the corner of the room.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The door burst open.

I woke up in a hospital.

The Walkers told the police I had a breakdown. That I “hurt myself” and “imagined” everything. But I know what I saw.

I looked up their house a week later.

There’s no record of a child named Caleb ever living there.

Thank you for reading!

shohel rana