Chapter 1: Good to Go...?...
September, 1983.
Somewhere in the forest just outside of Hartford, Connecticut.
We had spent months preparing for this. They had brought in engineers, architects, builders, construction workers, etc. from all over the country just for the sake of this project. I couldn't believe how well it was all coming together. ...There had even been talk of the possibility of getting architect Frank Gehry involved in it at one point ...until they decided against it... saying that this was probably for the best... [Either way, it's simply amazing what the government can achieve … when it actually wants to. ...Even in such a short amount of time... isn't it?... ]
It wasn't until I was here, … standing in front of the icy cold, nearly complete, towering steel structure, which had been my dream for so long, … that I realized the predicament that the boys and I were in. I mean sure, we had a state of the art, up-to-date, high tech testing facility now. … But where were we supposed to find human test subjects, while situated in a forest, in the middle of nowhere... Never mind how we were going to get ethical clearance from the government for the highly experimental, unprecedented tests our employer expected us to run here... but this had been my dream for as long as I could remember... so I gathered all the courage I could, and I marched to my supervisor's room to ask him about the issue of where our test subjects were.
A man of few words, he simply laughed at my question, took out his gun, and disappeared. Frozen out of fear for my life, I did not fully recover until a few minutes after he had returned with his gun, a large blood stain on his vest, and what looked to be a confused/scared, pale~ish brown partially, aboriginal Indian boy of about two years of age, attached to each of his tree trunk-like legs, and a third, angrier, one trying desperately to climb up his muscular, well-built, torso, and reach for the thick bulging veins of his neck. Still laughing the burly hunter pried the kids from each of his legs, calling the care taking staff to take them, which they did right away. Then, turning his attention back to his stomach, he handed the angry toddler to me, telling me to "do with him what I will," just barely managing to contain the anger in his voice until after the door had been slammed in both of our faces, and we wouldn't be able to hear him anymore. The facility had been thoroughly sound proofed doors, walls, and all. My supervisor, Mr. Smith, had been adamant on this matter. … I was starting to see why this had been the case now...
To be honest, this man terrifies me to a point beyond what I am willing to admit...therefore, I found myself walking down the hall, towards my lab, before I had a chance to even register what was happening, ... let alone get clarity on the ethical clearance of child testing, on a minor who was too young to even understand what consent was, let alone provide it. ...
I had a lot of questions:
Who was this boy?
What was he, (and the other two, most likely his brothers), … What were they doing here, ...in a forest, in the middle of a forest out in the middle of nowhere? ...
Where were their parents?
Why was there such a large blood stain on Mr. Smith's, vest?
And so on. ...
...but from what I had seen so far from Mr. Smith, it seemed that I was unlikely to get any real (or definite) answers. ...
Sighing, I turned my attention back to the toddler that had apparently been placed in my care, who, tired from his earlier rampage, was fast asleep. He looked almost cute this way...that I began to forget his earlier tirade/attempted assault on Mr. Smith.
Over the next few weeks, the boy and I got to know each other better, as the crew put the finishing touches on our testing facility. I observed that he seemed to like playing hide-and-go seek with his brothers. Therefore, I would try to play it with him, anytime when we weren't running our tests. His brothers (a.k.a. the two other boys who had apparently followed him out of a mix of fear and confusion), weren't responding at all. But he seemed to be responding just as the boys and I had predicted...better in fact than what we had predicted. ...
… And that's exactly when and how everything started falling apart... for us, for the boys, for Hartford, … for everyone...
Author's notes:
The contents of the above chapter were inspired by a mix of the following:
Bauer's characterization of the relationships between Vida, Burney, and his brother, in the pulp version of her text, entitled "The Spook Hills Mystery."
The scene in the 2019 movie Pokemon: Detective Pikachu where Mew Two breaks free from the facility in which he is being kept.
And the plot of the 2016 Netflix series Stranger Things.
All of the properties mentioned above belong to their respective owners. I am simply using them for a creative writing project I am doing for university.