My Son Kept Saying Someone Was Watching Him at Night – So I Installed a Camera

I used to love that about him.

Then he started saying something that made my skin crawl.

“Mom… someone watches me at night.”

The first time he said it, I was folding laundry on the couch while he stood in the hallway in his dinosaur pajamas, rubbing one eye. He looked half asleep, his hair sticking up in the back, and I gave him the kind of smile mothers give when they think a problem can be solved with gentleness.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?”

He shifted from one foot to the other. “At night. When it’s dark.”

I thought it was just his imagination.

Night fears, shadows, the usual things kids go through. So I tucked him back into bed, kissed his forehead, and left the hall light on a little brighter than usual.

But he kept repeating it.

Every single night.

At bedtime, in the morning over cereal, while I tied his shoelaces before school. It was never dramatic. That almost made it worse. Sam did not say it like he wanted attention. He said it like he was telling me a fact.

By the fourth night, I stopped brushing it off so easily.

I sat on the edge of his bed and asked him to tell me exactly what he meant. The blue race car blanket was pulled up to his chin, and his small face looked serious in the glow of his night-light.

He swallowed hard and said, “I can feel it.”