I used to hack baby monitors. One night, I learned my lesson.
When I was in high school, my friends and I had a peculiar pastime. Like any teenage delinquent, we liked to cause trouble. We weren't vandals, we didn't deal drugs, and we certainly didn't bully kids in school. No, we liked to scare the living shit out of new parents by "hacking" their baby monitors. We were insufferable little punks who thought we were too good to get caught, and that our little acts of mischief would go unpunished. One night; however, I learned my lesson, and realized that I wasn't quite as bulletproof as my tremendous adolescent ego made me out to be.
Dimitri, Kurt, and I went to the same school, shared many of the same classes, and hung out almost every evening after chow time. We watched prank shows, played video games, talked about who had the nicest rack in school. One evening, we were trading scary stories at the park. Kurt shared the classic story about the single mother who heard a haunting voice on her baby monitor. Like most horror stories, it sounded like total bullshit, but Dimitri told us it had happened to his mom once. On her own monitor, she'd heard a neighbour singing to her baby. Apparently, it was possible to accidentally tap into someone else's frequency. In an instant, a lightbulb turned on in each of our heads. When you're close enough to someone, you don't need words to know what that person is thinking, and we could all tell we were thinking the exact same thing: we were going to buy a baby monitor and screw with people.
Pardon the pun, but hacking a baby monitor is child's play. All you need to do is find a device on the same frequency as yours. Never one to do things half-assed, I purchased a high-end monitor with a frequency dial so we could prank as many targets as possible. The following night, we took to our bikes, roamed the neighbourhood, and found our first victim. We could see the nursery from the suburban home's second floor window. Dimitri grabbed the baby monitor and began tuning it to different frequencies, until we heard breathing. I remember feeling excited as our plan finally came to fruition. Dimitri pressed the button, and began exhaling heavily into the receiver.
"…your…little girl…was…delicious…", he murmured, using a demonic voice.
The light in the master bedroom turned on almost immediately, and we heard a shrill scream. Laughing our asses off, we quickly rode off down the street so we wouldn't get caught.
We repeated the prank several times over the course of the following weeks, each taking turns talking through the monitor. Not wanting anyone to get wise to our little game, we chose different houses every time. People's reactions were priceless: some mothers would reply in a panic, others seemed to know it was a hoax and told us to shut up, and one poor woman even started sobbing uncontrollably, begging us not to hurt her baby. I feel bad about that last one now that I'm older, but it was hilarious to me back then. My friends and I mimicked her high-pitch bawling and desperate cries for mercy for weeks afterwards. Yeah, we were royal dicks.
Karma's a bitch, and I got what was coming to me one night. Kurt and Dimitri were busy studying for their midterms, so I went out on my own. By then, we'd gotten pretty much everyone in the surrounding area, so I decided to venture off across town and into unfamiliar territory. Finding a target wasn't difficult: you just had to look for cars with baby seats, houses with overly-colorful cartoon-themed curtains, or toys left in the yard. I came across a house that fit all three criteria, and parked my bike out of view. Playing with the tuner, I eventually found the right frequency. I could hear the sound of a baby snoring very lightly. A devious little smirk pushed its way onto my lips, and my heart began pounding with excitement. It was my time to shine.
"I…am…watching…", I whispered into the monitor, using the creepiest voice I could muster.
The house remained dark and lifeless. I figured the home owners hadn't heard me.
