Even now, all these years later as a grown man and a successful entrepreneur with a wife and daughter of his own, it’s a subject that Jude still isn’t super comfortable discussing. In fact, it wasn’t until I was conducting research for this very story that I was finally given a detailed account of what happened that night from Jude, himself.
What I hadn’t been expecting was the addition of a new detail that no one had ever shared with me as a kid, leading me to assume that Jude had originally excluded this part when he was younger because it was something he was afraid to admit at the time.
Apparently, when the figure gestured for Jude to follow, he had felt a sudden overwhelming urge to do just that.
Jude paused while telling me this to briefly look away, appearing to consider something and for a moment, I thought he was going to cut the whole interview short. But then Jude held up his hands, pointing at either side of his head as he continued…
“It was like the thoughts going through my brain weren’t my own. I was telling myself to follow him but it wasn’t really ME that was telling me to do it, if that makes sense.”