Slowly, the file name on the top of the window began to change. The numbers scrambled and reordered themselves, ticking up like a countdown. 1_5015151986333450366.avi.

When he double-clicked it, his media player didn't open. Instead, his monitor flickered, the refresh rate dropping until he could see the individual lines of light scanning across the glass.

On screen, a hand entered the frame. It was too long, with an extra joint in the middle of the palm, reaching toward the edge of the crib. As the fingers gripped the wood, the audio suddenly cut to total silence. The camera tilted up.

Elias reached for the mouse to close the window, but his cursor was gone. He tried to kill the power to the monitor, but the button felt like cold stone, unresponsive.

Elias found it in a corrupted folder on a drive he’d bought at a liquidator’s auction. Most of the files were dead—zero-byte ghosts of spreadsheets and family photos—but this one was heavy. It was nearly four gigabytes for a clip that claimed to be only three minutes long.

He felt a cold, static-charged breath against the back of his neck. The recording of the next minute had just begun.