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As he stood up, he noticed that Jim was watching. His eyes grew wide. “Please, if you should remember, don’t mention seeing this to anyone. They’re already talking about replacing me.”

The doctor turned back to the table and brought the needle up next to Jim’s arm. Before Jim could protest, the little man jabbed the wide tip into his arm and pushed something under his skin.

“Wait a minute!” Jim grabbed at the syringe and jerked it out of his arm. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re not taking blood.”

The doctor stepped back, clasped his hands in front of him, and quietly observed his patient.

Jim tried to stand up. The room was whirling around him. He let go of the table and tried to take a step.

The floor was coming closer.

Suddenly everything went black.

Jim blinked.

He opened his eyes to a blurry world. A few things gradually started coming into focus. There were pictures of baseball stars on the wall. He was home, in his own bed.

Something was wrong. He tried desperately to remember. His head was pounding. What was it?

The door opened and his mother and father came into the room. His mother was carrying a tray with a glass of juice on it. “How are you feeling, James?” She sat on the edge of the bed and propped up his pillow.

He stared at her. It was his mother, all right, but she was different. She was dressed in a crisp tailored suit instead of jeans, and she had called him James. She had never called him James before.

Jim rubbed his head. “What happened?”

His father eyed him coldly. “You had an accident. Apparently you took a walk in the woods and had a nasty fall. We rushed you to the emergency room, but they said it was nothing serious. You’ll be fine with a little rest.”

“The woods?” Jim’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t remember falling.”

“Dr. Wiley said you might not remember a few things for a while, dear.” His mother folded back the top of his bedspread and stood up. “Don’t worry about it. Just rest.”

Jim’s father gave him a mechanical smile. “Your mother and I are on our way to attend a company meeting. We should be back in about an hour. If you need anything, tell Laura to give us a call. The number is by the downstairs telephone.”

They left the room, and Jim felt more mixed up than ever. He couldn’t remember even being in the woods. But there was something familiar about the name Wiley. The more he thought about it the more his head ached.

He tried to sit up. His head thundered with pain. “Lau-ra!”

Laura skipped into his room, carrying her new doll. “Do you need something? Mother and Father said to assist you any way I could.”

Jim studied her. Even Laura was different. She was dressed in an Alice-in-Wonderland type of dress. He shook his head. It only made the pain worse.

“I need a painkiller, Laura. Go downstairs and see if there’s some aspirin or something in the cabinet.”

“No. I was told not to give you drugs. I must obey.”

“What?”

“I must obey. However, I am allowed to read you a story and to keep you company. What would you like to hear?”

Jim grabbed his throbbing head with both hands. “The sound of you leaving my room. If you’re not going to help me, then just go away.”

Without a word Laura turned and left the room.

Jim slowly stood. He inched his way along the bed to the wall and leaned against it for a full minute. As long as he didn’t try to think, his head didn’t pound so hard.

He decided not to try the stairs. Instead he made his way into his parents’ bathroom and found a bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet. After he had swallowed a couple, he sat down to rest on the edge of their bed.

The telephone rang.

Jim scooted along the side of the bed and picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hi, Jim. It’s me, Maria.”

“Maria?”

She laughed. “How quickly they forget. You know, Maria from the pond.”

“Pond?” Jim felt like an idiot. He couldn’t remember anyone named Maria.

There was a moment of silence on the other end. “Jim, are you okay?”

“No. No, I’m not. My head feels like a freight train ran over it. I’m sorry, I don’t seem to remember you.”

A woman’s voice came on the wire. “This line is temporarily out of order.”

The phone went dead.

“Hello?” There was no answer, and Jim put the receiver down.

He fell back on the pillows. What was going on? Why couldn’t he remember things? And why was everybody in his family acting so weird?

It wasn’t just his head that hurt. There was a burning sensation rippling up and down his arm. A square white bandage was taped to the top of the arm near his shoulder. He peeled it back to get a better look.

Underneath was a small red lump.

“Insect bite.”

Jim looked up. Laura was standing in the doorway, watching him. “Mother and Father said to tell you it was an insect bite.”

“What do you mean, they said to tell me?”

Laura didn’t answer. Instead she darted off down the hall to her room.

Jim managed to get to his feet. “Laura, come back here. Laura!”

The pain increased. The room was spinning out of control.

“Oh no.” He tried to make it to the wall. “Not again …”

It was better, easier, not to think, not to question.

Jim sat on the back porch and watched the moon slowly climb over the top of the mountains. It had been three days since his accident and he still hadn’t remembered anything.

His family had done their best to assure him that everything was fine. But deep down he knew it wasn’t. How could he recall the tiniest things about his early family life, things like meals he’d eaten and birthday presents he’d received, and yet have blocked out everything else concerning his past? Every time
he asked a question or made an attempt to remember, an excruciating pain vibrated through his head.

A new car had been delivered to their house. It was almost identical to the other expensive cars up and down the block. Jim was told it was company policy. They wanted to keep their workers happy.

His mother and father seemed to love their new life here. Every night, like clockwork, they attended company meetings, and when they came home they acted even more like strangers than before.

Laura kept to herself. She never played outside or asked him to take her anywhere. She just wanted to be left alone.

“Pssst.”

Jim sat up. The noise was coming from behind the tall redwood fence surrounding their backyard.

“Pssst. Jim, over here.”

Jim moved to the fence and looked over. A pretty girl with long dark hair was standing on the other side.

“Who are you?”

She held her finger to her lips. “Quiet, you big lunkhead. Do you want them to find me?”

“That depends. Who are you hiding from?”

A small brown monkey climbed up the girl’s back and jumped over the fence.

“Sammy, get back here,” she whispered. “You’re going to ruin everything.”

Jim’s head started to pound. He was sure he knew that monkey, and he’d seen the girl somewhere before too. The name “Maria” sprang to his mind. He said it out loud. “Maria?”

She put her hands on her hips. “So you remember my name. Well that’s a start at least.” She stepped inside the gate, scooped Sammy up in her arms, and held the gate open. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

Bewilderment clouded Jim’s aching brain. “Where are we going?”

“I’m taking you to my uncle Max. He’s going to try to help you.”

Help. He definitely needed help. It hurt too much to ask any more questions. He walked out the gate and followed her up into the mountains.

The girl knew where she was going. And somehow it seemed right to follow her. She was holding his hand, leading him rapidly through a pitch-black tunnel with only a small flashlight. He tripped once and fell to his knees. She stopped and pointed the light so that he could see. He’d tripped over an old, dusty crate labeled
DYNAMITE
.

At the end of the tunnel, they climbed out of a small, cavelike entrance into the bright
moonlight. A few feet in front of them was the back of an old log cabin.

The girl called out softly, “I’m back, Uncle Max, and I brought him with me.”

The heavy wooden door squeaked open. A gravelly voice said, “Hurry, Maria. You don’t understand the chance we’re taking.”

Maria grabbed Jim’s hand tightly and pulled him along as she ran to the cabin. Once inside, she sat the monkey on a bed, bolted the door, and began covering the windows with blankets.

Jim plopped down beside the monkey. He still didn’t understand any of this. All he knew was that his head was pounding furiously and if these people could do anything to help him, he was more than ready for it.

The grizzled old man moved beside him. “How did they do it, son?”

Jim stared at him. He wasn’t in the mood for games. He probably shouldn’t even be here. His parents would be worried. On second thought, nothing much seemed to worry them lately.

The girl walked over. “He says his head hurts and he doesn’t seem to be able to remember much.”

The big man sighed. “You’re going to have to try to think, son. Did they give you something? Did you have an operation of some kind?”

Jim held his head. He felt like screaming. In as calm a voice as he could manage, he said, “That’s just it. I can’t think. Every time I try, it feels like my head will burst into a million pieces.” Frustrated, he scratched at the bandage on his arm.

“What’s that?” Maria asked.

Jim pulled up his shirtsleeve. “I guess it’s a bug bite. It itches like fire.”

The old man gently rolled back the gauze wrapping. “That’s it. Maria, we’ll need some boiling water and my sharpest hunting knife.”

“Hold on.” Jim tried to protest, to fight, but he was too weak.

The big man took a large brown bottle off a shelf and poured some of the contents on a red cloth. He helped Jim lie back on the bed.

Jim saw the cloth coming at his face. Felt it
cover his nostrils. He tried to turn his head away but it was no use.

Max held on to him and spoke in a soothing tone. “Now you just relax, son. If my guess is right, we’ll have you feeling like a brand-new lad in about ten minutes.”

Jim was dreaming. He was back at the lab clinic. Everything was black. He couldn’t see a thing, but he could hear voices.