The Silver Bridge (5 page)
Authors: Gray Barker
“What do you mean by ‘animal feeling’?”
“You can tell if there’s an animal prowling. That night the dog commotion was different. The way that dog was acting, there was nothing connected with anything animal. Bandit never howls at animals. You hear one growl, he tears the animal’s throat out, and that’s all there is to it.
“One night, for example, when we were just going to bed, we heard the awfulest commotion out there in the yard, and Bandit sounded just like he was tearing the side of the house out. I grabbed the gun and ran out there barefooted, and he had already taken off up the hill, after whatever it was. But he chased it to the edge of the woods and came back. Of course that was an animal; you could tell that it was. It likely was a big ‘coon or ‘possum or something like that. But the other night it was entirely
different.
It wasn’t any animal. He didn’t act like it was an animal; he acted more like it was
somebody
prowling around, except for the howl. I have never heard him howl like that.
“I don’t think that anybody could explain the feeling we had, other than to experience it for himself. I don’t scare easily; I’ve stayed out in the woods all night by myself, and I wouldn’t be afraid to go up there in the woods and sleep all night. But that night it was different: the queer patterns on the TV that reminded you of something unmentionable, though you couldn’t quite identify it; that unearthly noise of the interference, Bandit’s howling; and most of all,
those red eyes.”
I had a final cup of coffee, and against the protestations of the Partridges, told them I must go. Among the country folk of central West Virginia it is a custom to protest a guest’s leaving, even thought the departure may represent some relief. It is reciprocally polite to offer many excuses for departing.
“Come back and see us,” Mrs. Partridge said, and I could tell this was a genuine invitation, beyond the protocol of civility.
“I hope I can,” I promised.
Partridge accompanied me to the car.
“Mr. Partridge,” I asked, “what do you really think it was? What do you really think you saw. What do you
really
think happened?”
He thought silently for a few seconds.
“I don’t know. I only know that my dog’s gone.”
He grew even more silent.
“I think I’m becoming convinced, from talking with you,” I told him, “that there’s something real behind this Mothman talk.”
“I don’t care,” he replied. “All this speculation is confusing to a man like me.”
He then spoke slowly and softly:
“But,” he said, “you really ought to be around here on a morning, when that six-year-old who sat in your lap gets up, ‘way ahead of the rest of us, and goes out that front door—his voice sort of trilling, musical like. It would just break your heart if you could hear him—a callin’ that dog.”
W
hen the news about Mothman and the other outre happenings in the Ohio valley reached the outside world the Recorder was sent in to sift the Truth from the Lie and to write all these things down on high quality paper.
The Recorder arrived shortly after the first sightings. Sitting at the wheel of a large van which swayed and bumped and thumped over the crooked roads, he fancied himself to arrive in the city of Point Pleasant with great ceremony.
In reality, nobody took notice of his coming, though in his mind’s eye he pictured huge crowds greeting him, reporters and red carpets.
“When they really hear of me, they’ll be impressed. When they see my multifarious electronic gear and my sophisticated cameras, and my reels of tapes and films, they’ll kneel at my feet,” he mused.
Perched ungainly in the driver’s seat, he kept his head up high, in his usual pose of importance, even though often he could not see out, his vision obstructed by the rear view mirror, which he constantly observed to detect those who surely followed him and checked up on him. One time they had stopped him, and he drew out huge folders of cards, showing each one, explaining each document, until those Mysterious Ones fled from his oral aggression.
He got out of the van and stretched his tall body, then assumed a facial expression of ennui. As he surveyed the Ohio valley scene, he smiled, and wondered to himself if he had caught just the right facial expression, the correct nuance, to express himself to the world perchance he were photographed or asked to go on TV.
He then performed one of his rituals. He unbuttoned his jacket carefully, and from the inside pocket took a pair of impressive horn rimmed spectacles and put them on. He swayed slightly sidewise, because of the glasses’ distortion, and once again surveyed his surroundings, turning and looking in all directions. He was alone. He clicked his ears. Though he felt there might be those who could perform this clicking, he doubted it, and he permitted himself once more to smile.
The spectacle case was still in his hand. He inserted his fingernails into the opening of the spring-shut case and pried it apart, allowing it to shut with a loud snap.
“AUTOMATIC!” he said to himself in a suddenly-assumed high-pitched voice, “AUTOMATIC!”
The Recorder again found himself experiencing that strange feeling of impotence, disorientation and fright. He must go up to the mountain, where, at that altitude, he could function with the power that only he possessed.
So, laboriously, and panting, he climbed to the highest hill he could find, dragging the heavy gear with him, with many a stop for catching a breath and surveying the dizzying heights.
Once at the top he set all of it up. The people down there, below, didn’t have fine instruments like his, nor their capabilities; for, operating at this height, he had a power over them, and a cognizance of their activities of which they could never guess or dream.
Now he could find out everything and properly Record it. Hooking up his sensitive instruments, powered by the movements of the Earth, the progression of the sun and the planets, and the Energy he sucked up from those Inferiors in the valley, he soon began to take down what had happened, what was happening, and what probably would happen.
The instruments recorded the Mothman, the Three Men In Black, and the fantastic Flying Saucers. It would all be taken down, all right.
After a day and a night and one half of Recording, he decided it was due time for his favorite recreation. He had no tape of it, for this music was of such transcendental nature that it could never possibly be Recorded. But it was firmly implanted in his mind, and he could now hear it and feel it, as once again it was his calling to be exalted high above all mortal occupations and things.
“It’s childish, I know,” but he once again indulged himself. He turned his back to the valley and faced the vast unseen orchestra, pulled a limb from a tree which he employed as a baton. Grotesquely waving, this, he could hear the “Huff! Huff! Huff!” of the great Steam Horns well up, the Academic Horns chime in, the Seagulls adding their peculiar squawking. The German Horns added their subtle, deliquescent airs to the otherwise somewhat cacaphonous though awe-inspiring performance. Suddenly he dropped the baton and quietness descended. Taking his pen from his pocket, he knew he
had it
at last! With one neat incision he deleted the Far-Away Horns for a full measure.
Then, for the first time, he performed the first highly satisfactory rendition of
The Symphony of the Horns.
As he led the great orchestra he knew that, as in the past, this music had provided the inspiration, almost the stage itself, for setting the drama that was transpiring in the valley below. He increased the tempo, and finally fell into fast gyrations, turning and turning, until he caught onto a great tree for support; then he embraced it and identified with it.
He turned on all of his equipment. From his Television Kit he withdrew great Idiot Cards, and hung them on over-size easels. Throwing away all pens and selecting a huge black marker from his chest, he filled the Cards with large characters, telling the story that was occurring below.
Now he could see all things in the valley. He could penetrate the walls, see through the curtains, and behind the masks. Suddenly he
knew
what was happening. He knew the secrets of everything and everybody.
And he knew all the things the people of the valley were thinking, and they were good. At last he knew that they loved him, and that he loved them, and that he loved all mankind.
And so it was that the greatest power of his experience came upon the Recorder, and he became capable of Recording all things.
And he became capable of the gift of Reorientation; so he took liberties with time and space, and he reassigned names, and he lifted people from one place and put them down into another, and the people below loved him more, and they applauded, and they gathered in a great moving human throng, advancing upon the Recorder.
They carried him off the mountain, into the valley, across the great bridge into Ohio, shouting.
L
inda Scarberry looked across the seat of the ’57 Chevy and admired her husband, Roger. Big framed, blonde, and laconic, he usually masked his more subtle feelings in a kind of Puckish silence. However, she could see the muscles ripple under the frayed leather jacket, and she could tell that his powerful physical form was tense.
She knew he was hurt. He had answered an ad placed by a new factory, but Roger’s name had been passed by. Roger had a good work record, and a letter of recommendation from two previous employers whose businesses were seasonal. The new jobs had been offered on the Ohio side, however, where preference was given to local Gallipolis and Middletown boys.
Steve Mallette, in the back seat, and Roger’s almost inseparable buddy, was in the same predicament. Steve and he had put their names in together, and both had been turned down.
Mary Mallette saw Linda’s furtive glance at the driver and regarded her own husband through the corner of her eye. Different from Roger as “night and day”, Steve was always play acting, hiding a deeply sensitive nature.
“Let’er go, Rog, don’t be so light on the foot! Just because we’re old married men is no reason to let those young snotnosed kids drag us!”
“Steve,
don’t
!” Mary protested. “We don’t want to get ourselves killed!”
Roger had shown up about nine that evening, just like he used to do in their carefree courting days.
“Let’s get out and drag. I got a full tank of gas and a girl ready for speed!”
Steve laughed, walked out and kicked at the bumper.
“You can’t drag in that can. Why, I’d be afraid to ride around the block in that pile of bolts. I’d expect the transmission to drop out before you got to the Lewis gate!”
And so Roger and Steve bantered, while Mary and Linda held their own conversation. When she could get Linda alone, she would tell her how Steve had held her for an hour the past night, sobbing and telling her over and over how he had so greatly wanted the job.
“We
won’t
go to the welfare department. We’re too proud. I’ll get work somewhere,” he repeated, over and over.
As they talked, Mary became imbued with the same excitement that evidently was affecting the men. After their weddings, which took place only two months apart, they had suddenly effected a more “adult” outlook on life. They stopped turning up twice each week at the drive-in hamburger stand, and were no longer known in the teenage community as the draggers who would never be called “chicken”
For Roger and Steve, their self-imposed “grown-upness” had climaxed in their seeking employment at the new plant and being turned down. Roger had collected a $4.00 debt, bought that amount in gas, and was determined to “celebrate” their misfortune and disappointment.
Excitement welled up in Mary. It was during such an adventure when she had first looked at Steve with a strange new feeling, one that she did not understand. Impulsively she had grasped his hand, something she seldom did, and held onto it tightly. He had suddenly returned the grip. He grew silent. Then he said, “I want to marry you, as soon as possible.”
Although her marriage to Steve had lost little of that excitement discovered in that dark, parked car—just as tonight, with Roger and Linda in the front, she had the feeling that tonight she might recapture that haunting, indescribable emotion she had experienced the night Steve proposed.
So she applied makeup; Steve tossed on a sweater and grabbed his jacket from the closet, and they got into the back seat. Then the ritual began: the ride up Route 62, and the peregrinations in and out of the non-patrolled roads in the lonely T.N.T. area.
They drove around and around, “burning rubber” on the graveled roads between the main drags. But that night the area was deserted. They encountered no other cars, except old Mrs. Henry, sitting stiffly in her anachronistic, yet gleaming Model A Ford and gazing with disapproval at all drivers whom she met or who passed her.
“Gee, I wonder where all the kids are?” Roger remarked as he made a skidding left into the T.N.T. plant grounds. Completely abandoned since World War II, the old munitions complex loomed huge and ghost-like. No longer did the owners, whoever and wherever they were, bother to lock the gates to the property, and it had become a favorite parking ground for young lovers, and stag groups who threw stones at the remaining glassed windows.
