Left alone at Wildwood Park, middle school me fell prey to my worst fears of being kidnapped

Photo by Kavya Patel

Front entrance of Wildwood Park

As I walked to downtown Saratoga with my friends on an idyllic late-October Wednesday in middle school, I never expected to feel so afraid by the end of the day.

My sister, a high school senior at the time, offered to give me a ride home from the park, so I had no worries at how the day would turn out. But as the day passed, the group of middle schoolers I was with started to leave Wildwood. Eventually, I was left alone, waiting for my sister on the steps outside the park. 

My worst fears began to collide in my brain, and I realized how vulnerable I was. Keep in mind, I’d probably have fallen with a single tap back then. Despite my many years of learning Tae Kwon Do, I truthfully had no real self-defense skills whatsoever. I wasn’t worried at first, but after constantly spamming my sister to come pick me up and getting no reply, I became convinced that I would be kidnapped and disappear without a trace.

In full panic, I texted my mom, asking her to pick me up, but she had just left work, which was 30 minutes away. 

As the minutes passed, I felt myself living my worst nightmare: being alone in a secluded park just before Halloween. 

The scene felt as if it was straight out of a horror movie. Fall leaves were scattered around the parking lot and the wind taunted me with its whistling noise while suspicious-looking cars zoomed by. 

I stared down at my feet, clenching my fists with sweat starting to precipitate my face. I tried to focus on the homework I had left to do for the day, but that only stressed me out even more.

“I’m going to be fine,” I kept repeating in my head. “I can fight. I can fight. I can fight.”

When I heard the crinkling of leaves coming from my left, I immediately shot up into a sparring stance, awaiting my chance to defend myself against a possible abductor.

I then raised my fists to protect my face and belted “AHHHHH” at the top of my lungs. 

However, what emerged was not some Freddy Krueger-like abductor, but instead a middle aged man who seemed as terrified of me as I was of him. He clutched his heart in response to my scream. 

“JESUS CHRIST!” the frightened man yelled.

He paused while my face became plastered in red and my hand went to slap my mouth in an attempt to hold back tears of embarrassment.

“I’m not going to kidnap you,” he said, seeming to read my mind.

I simply nodded, my mouth glued shut with humiliation. Seconds later, my mom finally pulled into the parking lot, a perfectly timed escape from the embarrassment of falsely believing a harmless man was about to abduct me. 

 As I hopped into the car, I began to explain the whole situation to my mom, watching as the man disappeared down the park steps. Ever since my traumatic experience, I have never dared to even think about being at Wildwood Park alone, not wanting to experience terrors like this again.