Do you remember those toys, the small electronic toys that you would get in your stocking on Christmas and then you would kinda forget about it a few months later. I had one of those toys, a handheld 20 Questions that would inexplicably know exactly what prompt you were thinking of, something my dad and I had fun playing with on every road trip. Mine lay forgotten amongst a pile of other childhood toys that I found while cleaning out my parents’ house. My father had passed about a month ago, but I was just now in the process of cleaning out the house to get it ready to sell. Our house was a two-story building and had a basement. My sister and I had full reign of the top floor rooms while my parents took the master bedroom on the bottom floor. I had already helped move my mother into my sister’s house, she still lived relatively nearby while I had moved across state. He went in his sleep, heart attack the doctor’s said. I knew it was only a matter of time until his heart went out on him, but that didn’t make it any less hard. Although his mind was starting to go, he was still so full of life, always leaving me voicemails about some weird ghost video he watched or another strange light he swears he saw in the backyard. He loved all things paranormal. However, his more recent calls had gotten less upbeat and more paranoid, thinking someone was watching him at night. Maybe his shift in tone should have tipped me off that his health was taking a turn for the worse. I could have paid more attention to his calls, visited more often, spent more time with him before he was gone. Now all I had were memories, boxes full of them. I don’t know why but I decided to pocket the small device, hoping to retain some of those happy memories.
It took me all day to get everything into boxes and moved into the garage. In the morning I needed to rent the U-Haul and get everything moved into the storage unit I had rented. Eventually I would be getting rid of most of this stuff, but first I needed to sell the house. As I reached into my pockets to get my keys out before I changed into my sleep wear, I felt the spherical shape of the 20 Questions machine. I tossed it onto the sleeping bag I had laid out in my old bedroom, now completely bare of all furnishings. As I got changed and prepared to get into the sleeping bag, I noticed the machine was on. I must have activated it somehow when I grabbed it. Reading the screen, however, I noticed the text displayed at the beginning was not quite right. Normally you would have a few different categories to choose from, like mineral, animals, and places, but it seemed to be stuck on “Person.” It was probably years since anyone had played with this thing, so it wasn’t surprising that it was broken. In fact, I was surprised it even turned on. Well, whatever. I had to think of a person for the game to guess, apparently. I crawled into my sleeping bag and decided to go with George Washington, no one too obscure. I wasn’t interested in a long, drawn-out game, just something to reignite fond memories. After confirming the category, the machine immediately asked,
“Is this person still alive?”
After responding no, the screen made a high-pitched ding noise and moved onto the next question. I didn’t remember it making noises in between questions, probably another side-effect from being unused for so long. The next question asked,
“Is this person a man?”
I responded yes and got the same sound as before as the machine moved on to the next question. I could feel it already closing in on me, like it could read my mind. However, this is where the questions took a strange turn. The text now displayed on the screen said,
“Is he in your house right now?”
I thought the machine was smarter than this. I had already answered that the person was dead, so why would it be asking if they were in the house. Confused, I looked up from the machine and scanned the room, wondering if there was a reason it asked this question. I didn’t see George Washington anywhere, but I did notice my door was slightly ajar. I like to sleep with all the doors closed, so I got up from the bag to close the door while I selected no. This time I got a low-pitched buzz, almost like I chose an incorrect answer. The machine then moved onto the next question,
“Are you sure?”
I stopped a few steps away from the door. My stomach began to churn as I tried to process the question. “Are you sure,” why wouldn’t I be sure? I was the one with the answers to the questions, right? I glanced my head upward towards the opening, peering out at the darkness flooding the upstairs hallway. I creeped closer to the door, trying to stifle my unease as I moved to close the door. As I grabbed the handle, looking down at it as I did, I felt a chill run down my spine. I looked back into the hallway, only to see something looking back at me. A single bloodshot eye staring right at me from right below the top of the door frame. I fell backward as a shadowy figure darted out of sight, hurried footsteps echoing as whatever it was rushed down the stairs. I sprang up and slammed the door shut, turning the lock as I did. Only then did I realize I was still intensely grasping the 20 Questions game in my left fist. I looked back towards it, reading the question again right before it shut down.
“Are you sure?”
I didn’t sleep that night. I sat in my sleeping bag, eyes and ears peeled, waiting for even the faintest hint of that figure I saw returning. Only when the sunshine gleamed through the closed shades did I dare to leave the safety of my childhood bedroom. I crept throughout the house, checking every room and every opening. I realized I didn’t fully close the garage roll-up door when I moved my car into the driveway to make room for the pile of boxes I stacked in there throughout the day. It was just barely open, but I guess if I got on my stomach and crawled I could fit through the gap. What worried me though was the 20 Questions machine. I had tried to turn it back on, but I noticed it had never been flicked on in the first place. I checked the back later and realized it didn’t even have any batteries. I never answered its question, but I shudder to think what would have happened if it hadn’t asked me that question in the first place.
Next part here.