It’s the next morning, and Spencer, Dad, Mom, and I, are all gathered around the dining room table, surrounded by knocked over furniture and destroyed items from the strange event that took place the day before. I showed everyone the destroyed remains of the phone, including the ruined black device inside of it.
“So, mom,” I began, “where in the world did you get this thing?”
Mom inspected the phone from her seat.
“If I can remember correctly, a couple of kids gave me the phone, and then I just kind of blanked out.”
We all discussed what was going on for a little bit. One thing of interest as well, was the fact that the internet didn’t seem to work anymore, and none of the channels on TV seem to exist. One thing seemed obvious to Spencer and I. We seem to be immune to the weird “controlling” effects of this device, the same effects that caused our parents to become violent. If we want to get to the bottom of this, there’s no better people than us two in case we might run into another one of these weird devices.
It was settled. After an hour or two of discussing and preparing, Spencer and I are to set out to find out exactly where mom got this phone. Apparently, those kids that handed it to her were also acting a little strange themselves, and that they were no more than a 15 minute walk down the street from us.
Spencer and I had on some hiking boots and some relatively defensive clothing. We carried backpacks with us filled with various supplies, including some first-aid kits just in case, and in the event we need to defend ourselves or destroy another weird device, we carried large hunting knives on our side.
We opened the front door, waving goodbye to our worried, but unfortunately helpless parents, and stepped out.
We already knew things were different. We live on some suburban street, the kind of place you’d always see a neighbor grilling food or someone else mowing the lawn. Maybe you’d see a dog being walked or kids playing outside as well, but what we saw was... Nothing. No one was outside. No lights were on in any houses either--although it’s the middle of the afternoon, so that part’s not a huge surprise. We carried on walking to our destination.
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After about 18 minutes or so of mostly silent walking, Spencer and I approach a street we know well. It’s a corner we always drive through whenever we go out grocery shopping, so we’ve seen the houses here a million times. We saw that out of all the empty streets around us, there was one house in particular that had some activity about it.
A man dressed in some kind of checkered shirt and having a pipe hang out of his mouth, is cooking something at a grill. His wife was dressed in a long dress and some kind of large round sunglasses, sunbathing near their family pool using one of those handheld mirror things. Two children were playing some weird form of hop-scotch on the sidewalk near their house.
The man saw us two traveling in the street and waved us over. They wouldn’t seem dangerous in any other setting, but considering how things are now, they’re acting extremely suspicious.
With caution, Spencer and I approach the man, as he starts to greet us.
“Howdy! What’s a couple o’ hipsters like yourself doing out here alone? We’re having something of a bash here, why dontcha come on and join?”
We silently approach their house. Before we could really get a good look at anything in particular, we felt something very familiar. My brain started to get just a little fuzzier with each step I took towards their house. Looking over to my side, I could see Spencer visibly reacting to this as well. These people are just like our parents; they must be being controlled by some kind of weird device.
I smiled and approached the man.
“Hi! Thanks for inviting us over, we’d love to hang out!”
I knew our mission was to find whatever weird black device exists in this household. I figured I’d ask the obvious thing.
“Say, do you have a phone at all, we should check in on our parents real quick.”
The man raised his eyebrow for a moment, before digging into his side pocket and pulling out a flip-phone of some sort, pulling out it’s antenna and handing it to us.
We smiled and took it. Well, considering how easily we were just given this phone, that black device is probably not here. When our parents were being controlled, they did try to defend their phone after all.
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I sneakily checked the phone battery real quick just in case, and sure enough, it was nothing more than a regular phone. Kind of an old one, at that.
Spencer looked at me and shook his head.
“I don’t feel anything coming from that, I think it’s inside the house,” he whispered.
I handed the phone back to the man.
“Where can I find the restroom?”
“Oh just head inside the house, it’s through a door to the left inside of the living room.”
We quickly headed inside to look, before the family would catch onto what we’re actually doing here. I looked at Spencer and nodded, for him to try and see if he can pick up exactly where he feels that the black device might be.
He closed his eyes and held out his hand, as if to physically feel for any kind of invisible energy that would be emitted from this strange otherworldly device, before ultimately pointing towards a wall on the East side of the house.
We walked further in, and after passing through a relatively short hall, we found the living room. Inside was a strange sight to see, with 8 children all seated silently in some kind of organized fashion, watching nothing but blank static on the TV. We followed the direction Spencer pointed out, which would take us across the living room to a door at the end. Sneaking behind the children as to not disturb them, we tiptoed across the large, clean room.
As we started to get closer to the door however, having gotten past the assembly of hypnotized children, we heard a noise from behind us. Looking back, all 8 of the kids were staring at us with completely flat, expressionless faces. We took a single step closer to that door, and suddenly, entirely in organized unison, all of the children stood up the same exact way and faced us, before slowly marching towards our location.
I grabbed Spencer’s arm, “We have to move, now.”
We quickly dashed the rest of the few feet to the door and swung it open, revealing a garage from the other side. Just then, the children started running at us as well, so we got inside and slammed the door shut quickly.
I felt as the door started getting mauled by the children on the other side screaming and kicking at the door. Spencer found some kind of heavy cabinet of some sort and shoved it over so we could block the door so we can quickly scan the area for the black device. I could really feel the brain fuzz now.
Spencer and I quickly looked around for anything electronic in the garage that the device might attach itself to, all while Spencer tried to use his sensitivity to the energy to help pinpoint it. We found various power tools and other such things, but none of them had the device, so we searched harder, hearing the banging on the door get louder.
Suddenly, we hear a loud machine sound, and look over to see the garage door open right up, with the grilling man standing behind it, holding a large steak knife.
I pulled out my hunting knife just as the man sprinted towards me, attempting to slash at me. I managed to duck out of the way quickly. I figured I would see if I can hold him off and buy time for Spencer to find the device and smash it himself.
The man clenched his other fist and punched me in the gut, knocking the wind out of me, but I still tried to keep my composure. As he tried to strike at me with the knife, I batted his arm out of the way, only leaving me with a relatively small cut on my arm.
Meanwhile, Spencer looks frantically, until ultimately realizing the elephant in the room. He looks at the center of the garage and sees an entire car. How could we not have known?
He went and pried the hood open, and sure enough. Right on top of the car’s battery, rested a familiar, small black device, with it’s black vein wires wrapped and entangled all over the battery.
Spencer took out his own hunting knife and plunged it right into the device, causing it to pop with a bright flash, and explode into glittery sand like the one before.
I watched as the attacking man instantly lose consciousness, and the banging and howling behind the garage door come to a silent stop.
Spencer and I stood there for a moment in silence. All of this is a big problem. How many of these devices exist in the world? How many do we have to hunt down and smash, lest these people be changed into weird mind-controlled beings?
Our thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a phone ringing. I looked at the unconscious man, and reached down into his pocket, pulling out the same flip phone he had previously lent me.
I opened it up and answered the call, and put it on speaker so Spencer can hear whatever is on the other side too. The other side of the line was the voice of my... Uncle?
“You there?” He called, with an uneasy and worried tone to his voice.
“Yeah.”
“Listen, my family’s acting really strange all of a sudden. I keep feeling this kind of static in my head, I don’t know what’s going on. Could you please come on down here?”
“Of course.”
I closed the phone, and looked at Spencer. We looked at the car we had just opened to destroy the device with. Looks like we should pay our uncle a nice visit.