The Silver Bridge by Gray Barker

think of was getting away from it.”
    “Really though,” Roger chimed in, “I don’t think any of us really felt we had seen it until we got down the road and got to talking about it and knew all of us had seen the same thing.”
    “It was kind of like a dream—a bad dream,” Mary added.
    The gathering clouds had blocked out the moon, and no longer could they see Mothman’s shadow, though they could still feel the presence, hovering above them.
    On December 15, 1967, exactly one year and one month from the advent of Mothman, another kind of darkness would descend upon Point Pleasant. People would gather in little groups and murmur about what had occurred:
    “We drive up there and it’s barricaded. I wish we could get rid of it. If we didn’t have the barricade, people would drive up there and go into the river. We’ve got to build a new street or a memorial of some kind up there.”
    And meanwhile there would be boats, dozens of them, plying the muddy waters, searching, dragging for bodies.
    “One woman’s husband ran off, and he’s no doubt over in Cleveland, Ohio. But she stands down there on the river bank, hoping they’ll drag him up. People are strange. She’d rather have a dead husband in her arms, all still and cold from the bottom of that river—rather than know that he was alive, and embracing that bitch from Cleveland!”

CHAPTER 4
    LIKE A BIG FAT BIRD
     
    F or John Peters the proud bravado of the Fifth Symphony, the sobbing of Tchaikovsky, the “Te DUM DUM DUM!” of Aida’s Grand March, and the subtle nuances of Debussy, had been stilled. WPDX, Clarksburg’s powerful daytime radio station, had abandoned its more dignified programming, and had gone “all country”, as the trade papers described the burgeoning of total country and western music programming among many stations. South of the Mason-Dixon line many small broadcasters, unable to show a profit in competition with the established “hard rock” stations, had taken advantage of the resurgence of the often-nasal, more often dulcet and sad, airs of the Nashville establishment. And some of these stations were making money for the first time since Uncle Milton Berle had peered out at America through the ghostly phosphors of the TV screen.
    John pushed the button that would put the corn remedy tape cartridge on the air. In the old days he had read “live” all the public service announcements, and the too few sponsored commercials. His artistic senses smarting, he unfolded the pay check he had just received and rationalized the situation. Recent broadcast technology had made his job easier, and he was receiving greater talent fees.
    He put on the next commercial, back to back with the preceding. With some relief he noted the management had asked Kim Smith, another staff announcer, to do that one.
    It described, in the most shocking script possible for airing, the movie that “Skyline Sam”, a local motion picture exhibitor who booked exploitation movies, was promoting. It explained that “This is an adult movie, for adult minds, and nobody under sixteen will be admitted.”
    Sam would probably have a policeman at the ticket window, early in the evening, who would identify and turn away a few teenagers, who would immediately drive back to town and spread the news. Later in the evening the “policeman” would shed his rented uniform, don his white jacket and take up his regular duties at the snack bar. The drive-in theatre would be jam-packed and Sam would buy more and more commercials.
    John’s station had retained a little of the earlier programming, including three preachers from the midwest who bought time on the station to solicit letters for free literature from local folk. One of them, though occasionally deprecating the money system, still begged “free will” donations from listeners. And the schedule was still fouled up between 9:05 and 9:10, a short segment between the news and the first preacher, which the management