A New Arrival

Chloe rests her elbows on the kitchen island in her family’s new home in Fairfield, Connecticut, already exhausted by 11 a.m. She calls the only person who might listen.

“Mom, I’m struggling here.”

“I know a new baby is exhausting. Did you tell Jake you could use more help?”

“I tried.” She tells her mom all the things she couldn’t tell her husband. About how hard it is in a new city where she doesn’t know anyone. About how gloomy Connecticut is. About the creepy neighbor who lives across the street and stares at her. About how exhausting it is to feed Leo every three hours. About how unfair it is that she is home alone with a baby who won’t stop crying.

“It’s called being a parent, Chloe,” her mom says, audibly taking a deep breath on the other side of the line. “Hang in there. Sorry, honey, but I need to go.”

“Okay, Mom.” Chloe hangs up, almost happy Mom didn’t go on about how much harder things were in her day.

She is immediately alone again. Maybe loneliness is the natural state for an adult. She is pondering why she agreed to live in this unfamiliar house away from sunny Atlanta when a distant squeal comes from upstairs. She leaps out of her chair, runs up the stairs to the second floor, then rushes to the baby’s room.

Leo’s arm is tangled in a blanket. She untangles it, picks Leo up, and rocks him, singing a lullaby. His face returns to the serene face of an angel; his tiny fingers grasp her blouse. It reminds her how wonderful it is to be a parent. She delicately places Leo back into his crib, where he falls asleep.

As soon as her own head hits the pillow in her room, she sinks into a dreamless sleep. When she awakes, it’s already 1 p.m. and Leo is crying again. It’s a relief when, at 6 p.m., her husband returns from work. She’s almost too exhausted to talk.

The next morning, Chloe pushes herself to get out of bed to give Jake a farewell and remind him he has a wife. “Have a good day at work.”

“Thanks, Chloe. I’ll miss you.” Jake looks like he wants to get into his car.

“I’ll miss you too.” Why can’t she think of something better to say? The second he leaves, the dreaded loneliness will return. She blurts out, “I’m worried about Leo’s safety.”

Jake’s eyes light up. “Is Leo in some sort of danger?”

“What if something happens to him when I’m cooking or vacuuming? It’s a big house. Yesterday morning he was trapped in a blanket.”

She hopes Jake will call in sick like when they first moved here.

“Try not to worry too much.” He looks like he wants to leave again, and she immediately feels heartbroken. Her longing for him to stay immediately transforms into anger.

“Easy for you to say when you’re at work for eight hours and I’m alone at home.”

“If it makes you feel safer, maybe we should get a baby cam?”

“A baby cam…” Chloe immediately understands. “Then you can help watch him from the office!”

“That’s not what I meant…” he mutters.

Chloe glares.

Jake says, “Okay, babe. I’ll look into it.” He kisses her cheek, then rushes to his car and off to work.

Days go by without Jake mentioning the camera.

If you want anything done right… Mom says. Chloe types “baby cam fairfield” into Google. Dozens of entries pop up; the prices are surprisingly low. She clicks on one for $45. The ad says free delivery to Fairfield, CT. Her laptop autofills her name, address, and credit card number. Why not? She clicks Purchase. A second later, her cell pings with a $45 Visa charge notification.

Two days later, the baby cam arrives, and Chloe feels a sense of victory. Like at her job in Atlanta, when people respected her ability to get things done.

Chloe follows the instruction pamphlet, checks that the memory card is inserted, mounts the camera above Leo’s crib, and plugs it in. Opening the app on her cellphone, she sees her baby on the screen looking the same as he does right in front of her. Leo’s head rolls to the right, and the baby’s head on the screen does the same thing.

Sun peeks in through the curtains. As Chloe moves to close them, she notices the strange man across the way, staring up at her window. She pushes the curtains closed tight.

That night, when Jake comes home from work, he doesn’t even notice the new baby cam bolted to the headboard of Leo’s crib. She decides not to mention it until he notices it himself.

At dinner, after Jake swallows a forkful of her chicken parm, she asks, “Jake, can you find out who that weird old man across the street is?”

“I’ll try!”

Try, that word again. Maybe she’ll get another camera to watch the old man as well.

As days go by, she spends more time in bed, knowing all she needs to do is glance at her cell phone to know Leo is fine. The one-week intermission in the marathon of worries Leo has brought to her life ends one day when Leo refuses to eat. His eyes dart strangely from left to right. Maybe the mobile above his crib is making him cross-eyed. She Googles “strange baby eye movements,” and the results only deepen her panic.

She remembers the camera. It has a memory card. It will show what Leo is doing when she’s sleeping. She pulls the memory card out of the camera. Her hands shake as she carefully slots the tiny SD card into her laptop. A single directory pops up. She clicks on it. Dozens of files appear. The earliest are dated March—six months ago. Strange, since she bought the camera two weeks ago.

She hits play on the first file.

The video shows someone else’s nicely decorated nursery. A baby sleeps peacefully in a white crib. Chloe hovers her mouse over the stop button, a wave of guilt washing over her for spying on someone else’s private life. But curiosity wins.

Did she buy someone else’s returned camera? Or was hers hacked?

She clicks through the videos, watching a few seconds of each. Nothing changes. Just a sleeping baby.

Until the fifth video.

At the bottom of the screen, a shadow moves. A tall figure begins to pour itself upward. It moves with an eerie, unnatural fluidity, bending at impossible angles.

The figure looms over the sleeping infant, leaning down so close its breath must be on the baby’s face. Spider-like arms extend and weave an invisible web over the sleeping baby. The baby doesn’t stir. Then the creature reaches into its robe, pulling out something she can’t make out, and slips it smoothly under the baby’s mattress.

Suddenly, the nursery door in the video bursts open, flooding the room with light. In a blur, the tall figure snaps backward, pulling itself under the bed with impossible speed. A woman rushes in, frantic. The woman sweeps her baby into her arms, staring around the room in absolute terror.

She hits pause. Should she contact this mother? If so, how?

Chloe clicks the next file. She sees her own nursery, and Leo sleeping peacefully.

Leo. Nausea hits her. She abandons the laptop, sprinting up the stairs and down the hardwood hallway into Leo’s room. He is there, sleeping peacefully. She stoops to her knees and looks underneath the crib. Nothing.

She wants to sob with relief. She stands up, looking down at Leo, so happy in this moment to be his mother. Maybe someone is playing a joke on her. It’s just a creepy video, she tells herself. Not her problem.

Her hand moves on its own. Carefully, she slides her palm beneath Leo’s mattress. The fabric is slightly warm from his body’s heat. She slides it in deeper.

The tips of her fingers feel something. Chloe wraps her fingers around the object and pulls it out into the light.

It is a crude, tiny doll, entirely woven out of dusty spiderwebs. The matted silk forms a small torso, stubby arms, and a round head. Worse than the whole composition are the eyes. Two tiny beads; they look like Leo’s.

She picks Leo up in her arms, rips the camera off his crib, puts back the memory card, and rushes to the UPS office to return it.

On the drive home, Leo is quiet in his car seat. Too quiet. When she glances in the rearview mirror, his eyes are open and fixed on her. Not the soft, unfocused gaze of a baby, but something steadier, watchful.

She decides she won’t tell Jake about this. She definitely won’t tell Jake.