Babysitter

The Babysitter story is a scary story based on an urban legend about a teenage girl who is babysitting three children one night when she receives a creepy phone call from a strange man. It is also known as “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs”. A version of this tale appeared in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

There was a young girl who was in need of a job was able to find work as a babysitter for a couple who lived in a large, isolated, old house. They were going out to see a movie that night and left the teenage baby-sitter in charge of their three young children.

The babysitter put the children to bed when it got late and then went downstairs to watch some television. She was just getting comfortable when she heard the phone ringing. When she answered it, all she heard was heavy breathing followed by a man’s voice asking, “Have you checked on the children?”

Freaked out, she hung up the phone, trying to convince herself that it was just someone playing a practical joke on her. She went back to watching television but about 15 minutes later, the phone rang again. She picked up the receiver and heard hysterical laughter from the other end of the line. Then the same voice asked “Why haven’t you checked on the children?”

The babysitter slammed down the phone. The poor girl was frightened out of her wits and immediately called the police. The operator at the police station told the babysitter that if the man called again, she should try to keep him talking. That would give the police time to trace the call.

A few minutes later, the phone rang a third time and when the babysitter answered it, she heard the heavy breathing again. The voice on the line said “You should really check on the children.” The babysitter listened to him laughing hysterically for a long time. She hung up the phone again and almost immediately, it rang again.

This time it was the operator from the police station who yelled, “Get out of the house right now! The calls are coming from the upstairs phone!”

The babysitter dropped the phone in shock and suddenly she heard heavy footsteps walking down the stairs. Without pausing for a second, she ran out of the house as fast as her legs would carry her. Just as she closed the front door behind her, a man’s hand slammed against the glass. She screamed and ran out into the street just as a police car was pulling up outside.

The police searched the house and found the two children upstairs, hiding in a closet, crying uncontrollably. In the parents’ bedroom, they found a bloody axe lying on the floor next to the upstairs phone. The back window was wide open and the curtains were blowing in the breeze. There was no sign of the madman who had made the phonecalls. He had escaped into the night when the police arrived and managed to interrupt his horrible plan to kill the two children and the poor babysitter.