Project X

One Of Us

When I was a child, I came very close to being abducted.

We had a small backyard, in the house where I lived with my mom and Gammy, and I often went out there to play. It had been a very sunny, lazy afternoon, the kind where the air shimmered with lazy brightness that seemed to inject a sluggish, happy stupor into your muscles. One thing I had liked to do back then was to squint up into the deep blue brightness of the summer sky and throw my tennis ball, in a vertical path above my head, as high up towards it as I could, before catching it and trying again. This could keep me entertained for hours, which should tell you something about the quality of available entertainment for children back in the thirties. I will say this, though - that game, and others like it that we used to invent, make up some of the fondest memories I have of my life. When you're a child, a worn tennis ball and a wondrous imagination are all you need. So engrossed I was in my game that I almost didn't hear the man calling me from behind our wooden, slightly crooked fence.

But I heard him, and looked over, clutching my tennis ball in one hand. He had white-blond hair and was wearing a T-shirt; that was all I could make out, my vision slightly hazy after so many hours in the sun. I blinked, went closer, and he'd offered me a pack of what looked like candy.

"Rocky Road," he said, his voice perky and friendly. "You want some, kid? I got them for my daughter, but she doesn't like them, and I thought it'd be a waste to throw 'em away."

A perfectly believable and innocuous story. I approached the fence, slowly at first, and held my hand out for the candy. He handed it over, and then stood back, digging his hands into his pockets and scuffing his feet.

"I've got some more, in my car," he offered, smiling ruefully. "It's just down the road. You don't have to come get it, but I'd just throw it away otherwise, you know?"

I regarded him, with the small amount of careful scepticism that eight years of living will give you. I didn't connect this fellow with the shady, menacing image of kidnappers and bogeymen in my head. Kidnappers and bogeymen just grabbed and took, cackled and destroyed, they would tear you screaming away from safety and drag you down to hell. They didn't stand patiently outside your backyard in broad daylight, on a sunny Wednesday, and ask politely if you wanted to come with them.

With that impeccable logic, I climbed over the fence and as soon as my feet hit the concrete, a sudden wave of unease crept up my chest. I was leaving the house without Mommy's permission and I was following a stranger: two things that were wrong, very wrong, and I knew it, but I followed him anyway, for some reason simply unable to stop and run back into the yard. I was halfway down the street when I heard my mother's screams, and I barely registered the slap of her bare feet against the pavement before she'd grabbed me, one hand shoving me behind her leg and the other wielding the still-bloodied steak knife she'd been using to make dinner.

"What were you thinking, Saul?" she'd shrieked at me later, once I was safely back in the house. She was clutching my arms, shaking me slightly, the wild-eyed look of panicked terror still twitching on her usually calm face, before clamping me to her chest. "What were you thinking?"

I wasn't thinking. I was just doing. I couldn't explain it then, and looking back now, I still can't. I've met many patients who've experienced something similar, and they all have different theories as to how things like that can happen. Stupidity, carelessness, a one-off brain-glitch - one man was even convinced that Satan had been clouding his judgement. In my opinion, there is no reason. Sometimes, sometimes people just do things.

The ink refused to flow from the pen as I tried to sign the forms. I scribbled on one corner of the paper, trying to get it running again, licked the tip, and tried again. It worked the second time. I'd read carefully through the document, and I couldn't find something that would implicate me or put me in harm's way; all they stated was that I was to not reveal any personal details of any participants, I wasn't allowed to discuss the details of the project with anyone not immediately involved, tedious but standard matters like that. Once I was done, Hannity didn't shake my hand. He just whisked the documents away, pulled out another folder, and informed me curtly that I could leave.