The Silver Bridge (9 page)

Derenberger had swung off the local streets of Marietta, onto a short, newly completed section of Interstate 77, which would end at Mineral Wells, south of Parkersburg, where he rented a large, somewhat isolated, two-story farmhouse.

He took the Ford van up to sixty, and noted the 70-miles-per-hour speed limit sign. Making the limit in the van was uncomfortable, for at that speed the imbalanced wheels set up an unpleasant vibration. Besides, it was raining, and visibility was not good. But tonight he felt daring and confident—like a little boy, taking home a good report card. He revved it up to seventy, then to seventy-five, where the vibration stopped.

“They can’t get you for five miles over the limit,” he told himself. “Anyhow, there’s not a car of any kind, let along a cop car, in sight.”

Near the exit for Route 47, the road to Glenville, he took some solace in the fact that another driver was more reckless than he. A Ford with the trim removed, about a ’52, he would guess, buzzed past him, doing 80 or 90. “Some crazy teenagers,” he thought; “next thing they would be trying to scrape them off the road.”

Woody let up on his heavy foot. That could have been a cop car instead of a teenager. He had a perfect driving record, and should slow down. Besides, there was another car approaching him from behind, this one strangely without lights, appearing as a dark hulk in the rear view mirror. The police had been cracking down on speeders on the novel, new road, and there had been some talk of “unfair trickery” they had been employing.

Instead of passing, the dark hulk suddenly rose and passed over his van. It descended directly in front of him, its narrow outline turning into a wide, elongated object, blocking both lanes of the Interstate. Woody braked automatically. The thing, whatever it could be, was slowing down!

His first pump at the brake had been instinctive and violent. The tires screeched, and the brakes “led” toward the left lane. As he got the van under control he realized that the object was forcing him to stop, but it Was matching his speed and bringing him to a gradual, safe halt.

The object was now closer and catching the light from his dimmed headlights more fully, and Woody began to take cognizance of its incongruity. It looked like an old-fashioned globe from an oil lamp, yet with that general shape the resemblance ended. It appeared to be metallic, but in color it was between a dark gray and a black. It was dark and eerie, without the trace of a light. Whatever the thing could be, it was quite enormous, probably 25–30 feet long, occupying completely the two lanes of the road.

By this time the thing had come to a complete halt, though still hovering a few inches above the pavement.

A cold chill gripped at Woody’s entire body, as he waited to see what would happen. But as his body adjusted to the heavy secretion of adrenalin, and he began to evaluate his predicament, he suddenly took comfort in the lights of a car approaching from around the bend. Maybe the driver would see what was happening and go for help. But the oncoming driver apparently didn’t see or take note of what was taking place in the opposite two lanes. As he rounded the curve, his lights veered and did not catch the huge object in their glare. The driver, doing the limit, displayed no reaction, passed in a rush and sped on down the highway toward Parkersburg and Marietta.

Then a new development took place which would completely change Woody’s life. A door, where no opening or markings previously appeared, suddenly opened in the left end of the machine, and a man gingerly stepped out. He walked directly across Woody’s headlights, where he had pulled off the road onto the shoulder.

The man was wearing a top coat and appeared to be tall, about 6 feet, Woody estimated. He quickly walked toward the window at Woody’s right.

Was it a voice, audibly speaking inside his head? No, it was not like that. Was it some sort of “mental” suggestion to roll down the window? No, not exactly. Woody later would be unable to explain it; he would say he just
knew
what the man was asking him to do.

But the impression, or “voice”, or whatever type of communication reached him was a calming one. Woody remembered, as a child in Sunday school, hearing how God spoke in a “still soft voice”. He didn’t believe this was God speaking to him, but the idea was reassuring.

He reached shakingly for the crank and rolled down the window. At one position it stuck slightly; Woody remembered this point in the rolling process, and later this would provide him with a point of reference as to his sanity and the reality of the experience.

It was still difficult for him to realize the utter oddness of his situation. Not until later would he connect the visitation with the stories he had heard and read about flying saucers, to which he had not given much thought, beyond remembering his enjoying reading some of the accounts, though he couldn’t believe them. To Woody, it was something like a policeman’s stopping him, to check his license, his headlights, or to warn him of danger ahead. Not until later would the full import strike him of the fact that a flying craft, possibly from another world, had passed over his car; and that an otherworldly being had addressed him.

He regarded the strange visitor. Except for the very deep tan, he appeared like most anybody else Woody would see in the course of a day’s work. True, this man was incredibly handsome, in a masculine, almost magazine-advertisement way. His dark brown hair was combed straight back in a fashion no local people employed. He was 35–40 years old, and weighed about 160 lbs.

The top coat was unzipped a few inches to disclose a shirt of shiny material, with the top button open and no tie. The shirt was not particularly unusual; the material was similar to that which his wife described as a “hard fabric”, though probably somewhat more shiny and glossy.

“Why are you frightened?” the man asked him. “Please do not be frightened. We mean you no harm. We wish you only happiness. I come from a country much less powerful than yours.”

At this point Woody fully realized the strangeness of the man’s communication. He was talking to him without moving his lips; instead only a friendly, reassuring smile remained on his face.

“You can talk to me two ways,” the man continued; “you can say the words you wish to speak to me, or you can merely think of them. I will understand you.”

Again the man reassured him that he meant him no harm, only happiness, which in Woody’s mind seemed to also mean ecstasy and peace. In fact Woody thought he had substituted the work “happiness” for “peace”—a pattern of term substitution the man would employ throughout the short interview.

Woody noted that several cars were approaching and passing him and his eyes moved toward the vehicle that blocked him. It was no longer there! Leaning forward, however, and looking up through the windshield, he could see that it was hovering above, having lifted off the ground to an altitude of about 75 feet, where, evidently, the dark object would not be readily discovered.

“What is your name?” the man, in the same incomprehensible, still somewhat disquieting manner, asked him, and Woody told him.

“My name is Cold,” the man reciprocated.

As Derenberger would later reflect, he would know that the visitor did not imply that his name suggested something cold, but that it was his real name—like “Smith”, “Jones” or “Derenberger”.

Cold turned his head toward the lights of the city.

“What is that?” he asked.

He did not point, for his hands were still folded, and at no time did he uncover them during the interview.

“That is the city of Parkersburg,” Woody told him.

Cold wanted to know more about it, and Woody described and defined the city the best he could.

“Where I live,” Cold replied, “such a place is called a ‘gathering’.”

Again Cold calmed and reassured the witness:

“Why are you frightened of us? We are the same as you. We eat, we breathe, we sleep, we bleed even as you do. We are like you. Please do not be frightened.”

Later Woody would remember that Cold told him twice to look at him closely. He thought that looking at the man may have aided the voiceless exchange, whatever it had been.

The visitor asked him how he occupied himself during the day, not seeming to understand immediately a system of working for a living. Woody tried to explain, told him how he drove the van out each day, demonstrated merchandise, and tried to influence customers to buy it.

“I am a salesman,” he tried to communicate.

“Where I live, I am known as a
searcher
,” the man replied soberly, offering no further explanation.

Then Cold abruptly terminated the interview. He stepped back from the car, paused, then added another remark.

“I’ll see you again,” was his reassuring, but almost disconcerting goodbye.

As he stepped back, Derenberger noted that the craft was rapidly descending, once again to the same spot it had previously occupied on the road. But this time it did not cover the two lanes, having turned endwise. Cold hurried to the vehicle, and as he approached it, the door, now seen in outline, again opened. He stepped quickly inside, and another occupant, darkly outlined, reached out, grasped the door and pulled it shut, with a noise like the sound of a heavy automobile door closing. While the craft hovered it made a low fluttering noise, something like that of an idling helicopter on the ground.

The craft lifted swiftly into the air and that was the last he saw of it. Derenberger shifted the van into gear and began driving the short distance home to Mineral Wells.

The experience had still not taken the fullest impact upon him. To Woody it still held the suggestion of an ordinary, everyday experience, and he was trying to deal with it in that fashion. But as the signs warning of the end of the completed stretch of interstate appeared, he began to realize that the happening had indeed been most unique, far from the realm of conventional events. As he slowed and prepared to take the exit to Route 21, he remembered a television program he had seen a few weeks earlier.

It was the Joe Pyne show, an interview program featuring guests with odd beliefs and experiences. Woody didn’t particularly care for the show’s host, for he always seemed to be putting his guests down and browbeating them. His wife loved the program, however, though she constantly criticized Pyne, and said she’d “like to get him by the neck”. Still she religiously watched the program and, Woody suspected, secretly found Pyne quite fascinating. It probably was just an act, he reflected, and the host likely was a nice guy when he was off the air. He reflected that his wife also took TV wrestling matches seriously, and couldn’t be convinced they were staged.

He thought of Pyne because he had interviewed a man who talked about flying saucers. The puzzling thing to Woody had been the guest’s apparent sincerity as he told the wild stories, making them almost believable. The man appeared to be normal, obviously was well educated, but he insisted he had seen people from outer space, and that they had talked to him and had even taken him for a ride in their craft, from California to Venus.

“My God!” he said aloud to himself. “Maybe that man was telling the truth.” Maybe Mr. Cold was from space, though he hadn’t said as much. During the strange meeting Woody routinely thought that he came from some other country on Earth.

He had laughed heartily at the man on the Pyne show, but his wife tended to take it seriously.

“You can’t tell,” she told him. “After all, we’re shooting rockets into space, and soon we’ll go to the moon. We’ll go to Mars and Venus eventually. If we can go
there,
why can’t
they
come
here?
I’d like to tell that Joe Pyne a thing or two. Oh, how I’d like to wring his neck!”

As he reflected about the show he decided that he would tell her what had happened. In some ways his experience had been similar to those of the man on TV, and she would probably believe him. He would swear her, however, not to tell the neighbors, or anybody else.

He turned off the highway and up the gravel road to the two-story farmhouse which he rented. As usual, alerted by the sound of the van, the door opened, and there she stood, outlined in the door, making certain it was he. There would be a kiss, and then a good supper.

“I’m lucky,” he said to himself, “to have such a good woman.” She was much younger than he; Woody had married in his 40’s. She could have had any man she wanted in the small suburb where they met, but she had been drawn to him.

“I have a real happy marriage,” he thought, and then the two children joined his wife at the door. They would run out to the truck, grabbing and hugging him as he got out.

Yes, he would tell her of his experience, though probably not just then. He suddenly remembered, for the first time since his encounter with Cold, his successful sales of the day. He would begin by relating this to her. His feeling of masculinity, with his young woman, grew, as he grabbed his sales book, tossed his raincoat jauntily across his shoulder, and all smiles, with the children hanging onto him, walked swiftly to her waiting embrace.

Late at night, in bed, he would reflect on his experience. Should he tell other people about it? What would the people of Parkersburg think of him if they knew about it? Could he face them? Would they laugh at him? Did he have the courage like the man on TV, to stand up and tell the truth about what he had experienced?

His wife was also awake. He more sensed than knew this, for she was pretending a deep breathing.