Long Drive Home
Donna Platt patiently stood outside the Buy Rite grocery store, waiting for her husband to pick her up. Since the couple had to make do with only one car, Clark had dropped his wife off at the supermarket and driven to the hardware store to do some shopping of his own.
"I won't be long," he had promised her. "I just need a box of drywall screws and a roll of electrical tape."
"While you're there, see if they have any sixteen-ounce jelly jars."
That was nearly forty minutes ago. Just as Donna was wondering how long it would be before the maple walnut ice cream melted, oozed out of its cardboard container and coated her produce with a sticky, sweet goo, she saw Clark's blue Chevy Bel Air turn into the parking lot.
"I hope you weren't waiting long," her husband said as he began putting grocery bags into the trunk of his car.
"Not too long," Donna admitted, "but we better go straight home. I bought ice cream."
The Platts' house was seven miles from the center of town where the grocery and hardware stores were located. Since few cars traveled the winding mountain road through the Berkshires, Clark normally made the trip in well under fifteen minutes. On that warm August evening in 1961, however, the couple would encounter an unforeseen detour.
Clark kept his radio tuned to the only station the remote Massachusetts area could receive. The deejay played Del Shannon's "Runaway" and Neil Sedaka's "Calendar Girl" before his show was interrupted by the station's hourly five-minute newsbreak. The top story was the construction of a wall by the German Democratic Republic that was meant to separate East Berlin from West Berlin and prevent refugees from fleeing the Eastern Bloc.
"Oh, God!" Donna exclaimed when she heard the news. "Don't tell me we're going to get into another war with Germany!"
"In fifty years, there have been two world wars. It looks like number three is ...."
Clark stopped speaking midsentence when he spied an immense metal object blocking the road ahead. Instinctively, his left foot hit the clutch as his right went for the brake pedal. The tires squealed as the Bel Air swerved, and the vehicle then jumped the curb; but thanks to his quick reflexes, he avoided a collision with one of the many trees that lined the mountain road.
"Are you all right?" he asked his wife when the car finally came to a stop.
"I think so," Donna replied, rubbing her forehead after banging it on the dashboard. "But I'll probably have a bump on my head."
"Maybe I should drive you over to the hospital and have a doctor take a look at it. You might have a concussion."
"No. I want to get home and put the ice cream in the freezer."
Once he was assured his wife was not seriously injured, Clark turned his attention to the road.
"You can forget about your ice cream," he said, staring at the object that was still blocking the thoroughfare. "There's no way I can get around that."
"What is it?" Donna asked.
"Damned if I know. It looks to me like some kind of aircraft."
"It doesn't resemble any airplane or helicopter I've ever seen."
"It's gotta be an experimental craft belonging to either the military or NASA."
"What's it doing in the middle of the road? It doesn't look like it crashed."
Clark shrugged his shoulders. He could not even hazard a guess.
* * *
Massachusetts state trooper Virgil Caffee was heading home at the end of his shift when he spotted a blue 1957 Chevy Bel Air on the side of the road. He turned on his flashing dome light and pulled behind the stopped vehicle. After radioing in the license plate number, he took his flashlight out of the glove box, got out of his police cruiser and walked over to the Bel Air.
No flat tire, he observed after walking around the Chevy. The driver probably had car trouble or ran out of gas and hitched a ride into town.
Since no one in or near the vehicle needed assistance, Virgil got back into his cruiser and headed home. On his way to work the following morning, he traveled the same route and passed the same automobile on the side of the road. He looked at his watch, wondering if he should take the time to stop and write a ticket, but decided against it.
Let the local police worry about it, he thought as he continued to the state police barracks.
For three days the blue Bel Air stood by the side of the road. Finally, on the fourth day, a tow truck was called to haul it back to town. Shortly thereafter, the postman noticed that the mail was piling up in the Platts' mailbox, and Clark's employer, unable to reach the Platts by telephone, called the police. When an officer was sent to the house, no one was at home, and unopened newspapers were lying on the stoop.
Missing person reports were filed, and the police began an official investigation into the young couple's disappearance. Neighbors were questioned. Relatives were located. Flyers featuring the Platts' photographs were placed in prominent spots around town. When no one came forward with information as to Clark and Donna's whereabouts, the police organized a search party. Nearly everyone in town volunteered to comb the woods for a sign of the missing husband and wife. After more than a week of searching, though, nothing was found.
"Where could they have gone without their car?" the town clerk asked.
"Do you think a bear got them?" the librarian inquired.
"I doubt it," Trooper Caffee replied. "We've never had a problem with bears in this area. Besides, we would have found evidence of an attack when we searched the woods."
"It's like they vanished from the face of the earth," Donna's high school friend and owner of the town beauty parlor observed.
"Maybe they were abducted," the high school principal suggested.
Everyone turned and faced him.
"Who would have abducted them and why?" Virgil countered.
"The night the Platts went missing, I noticed a strange light moving across the sky. At the time, I assumed it was a meteor."
"My boyfriend and I saw it, too!" exclaimed one of the teenage cashiers from the grocery store. "We thought it was a shooting star."
"Someone called the paper and reported having seen a UFO," the Telegraph's editor added. "I thought it was some kid making a crank call."
"Just what are you suggesting?" Virgil asked.
Embarrassed, the principal turned his head away and replied in a sheepish voice, "I'm saying maybe they were taken away in a ... a spaceship."
The state trooper laughed at the idea that anyone would believe such nonsense.
"You're talking about War of the Worlds and little green men from Mars? Are you serious?"
No one else in the search party thought the alien abduction theory was amusing.
* * *
After six months the faded posters of the Platts came down from tree trunks, store windows, telephone poles and public bulletin boards. The couple's house was boarded up by the local police to prevent vandalism, and their Chevy Bel Air was given to the missing man's brother who drove it back home to Marlborough.
"I'll keep it at my house," he announced and then added optimistically before he left the police station, "until Donna and Clark come home."
Although there was no longer an active search for the young couple, there was still a deep-rooted hope in the small town that they would be found alive.
Then on a warm April day, exactly eight months from the date the Platts went missing, Clark turned up in the town hardware store.
"Excuse me," he called to the clerk, who stared, dumfounded, at the young man as though he were Lazarus rising from the grave. "I need a box of drywall screws and a roll of electrical tape. Oh, and my wife wants to know if you have any sixteen-ounce jelly jars. I think she's going to try her hand at canning peach preserves."
"I ... uh ... uh ... wait here just a minute," the clerk stammered and ran to the back room to telephone the police.
Meanwhile, in the Buy Rite food store, Donna complained to the assistant manager that there was hardly any ice cream in the freezer.
"I can't believe what a lousy selection you have, Pete! All that's in the case is chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. People like to eat ice cream in the summer. Where's the black raspberry, rum raisin, rocky road and maple walnut?"
Word spread like wildfire throughout the small western Massachusetts town: the Platts were back, and oddly enough neither one was aware that they had ever left.
* * *
"You're saying it's April, not August?" Clark asked the state trooper, unable to comprehend the situation he and his wife were in. "But what happened to September through March?"
"That's the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn't it?" Virgil Caffee replied. "Your car was found by the side of the road back in August. A thorough search was conducted that failed to turn up any clues to your whereabouts. And now, eight months later here you are. Where were you and your wife all this time, Mr. Platt?"
"This is insane!" Donna exclaimed. "My husband dropped me off at the supermarket this evening and then drove down to the hardware store. There I was doing my grocery shopping when the police came into the store and took me away like I was a common criminal. And now you tell me a ridiculous story about it being April and that Clark and I have been gone for eight months."
Trooper Caffee took the morning newspaper out of his desk and handed it to Donna.
"Notice the date?"
"That doesn't mean anything," she stubbornly argued. "It could be a fake newspaper."
"Didn't you notice the trees when you were brought over here? The leaves are just starting to come out. If it were August, the trees would be full. There's no way we could fake that."
Donna finally conceded the argument.
"So neither of you know where you were or what you did these past eight months?" Virgil continued.
The Platts both shook their heads.
"I suppose we ought to have a doctor look at the two of you."
"Is that really necessary?" Clark asked. "We're both in excellent health."
"Don't you want to know what happened to you? If I lost eight months of my life, I'd damn sure want to know why!"
"I just want to go home," Donna said.
"Home?" Virgil echoed. "Your house has been boarded up, and you'll have to straighten things out with the bank before you can move back."
"What do you mean?" Clark asked.
"Your mortgage is eight months in arrears. I'm sure the bank's going to want to get at least partial payment."
"I suppose I can get an advance from my boss."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Platt. Ed hired someone to take your place six months ago."
"That's not fair!" Donna protested.
"You and your husband disappeared, and no one knew when or even if you'd be coming back."
"Don't worry," Clark assured his wife, "I'll get another job."
"You'll also need to see about getting your car back," the trooper said.
"Why? Where's my Chevy?"
"Your brother took the vehicle to Marlborough. So you might as well let the doctor take a look at you; you've got nowhere else to go."
* * *
During their four-day stay in a private medical facility run by a scientific research group, the Platts were subjected to what seemed like every conceivable test known to modern medicine. Thankfully, they were not expected to pay for the services since Clark's health insurance was terminated when he lost his job.
On the morning of the fifth day, Dr. Julius Ogden, the senior physician on staff, entered the small dining room where the Platts were eating breakfast. The couple's spirits rose, thinking he was there to discharge them, but he wasn't.
"I'd like to keep you both here a few more days," the doctor informed them. "There are some additional tests I'd like to run."
"Why?" Clark asked, clearly worried. "Have you found something wrong?"
"No, no, not at all," Ogden quickly assured his patients. "That's just it. The two of you are in perfect health."
"And there's a problem with that?" Donna laughed.
"I'm not sure. In all my years practicing medicine, I've never seen a single patient in such perfect health, let alone two. As people age, their organs normally begin to show a little wear and tear, but not either of you."
"Well, neither one of us has ever smoked, and we rarely drink," Clark explained. "We eat well and get plenty of fresh air and exercise."
"I've looked at the medical records your family doctor sent to us. You, Clark, had your tonsils out when you were a child, yet there are fully formed, healthy tonsils in your mouth. True, tonsils sometimes grow back after a tonsillectomy, but I've only seen it happen once before. Then there is your eyesight. You were nearsighted, yet now you have 20/20 vision. And, Donna, you were diagnosed with a slight heart murmur, yet there's now no sign of it. I think the explanation for your textbook-perfect health lies in something that happened to you while you were missing. I want to know where you were, what you did, what you may have eaten or drank. Since you don't recall anything, I want to try to stimulate your memories."
"How?" Donna asked.
"We'll start with hypnosis first, and then we'll administer psychoactive medications such as sodium thiopental, more commonly known as truth serum."
"Does that stuff actually work?" Clark inquired skeptically.
"In some cases, we've had remarkable results."
It was Donna who made the decision to agree to the additional tests.
"We want to know what happened to us as much as you do," she explained, "so we'll both cooperate to the fullest."
* * *
Donna watched her husband on a closed-circuit television screen as technicians attached electrodes to his head and chest. He was sitting comfortably in a reclining chair, similar to those usually found in a dentist's office. Since hypnosis on the couple had yielded no satisfactory results, Dr. Ogden decided to go ahead and administer sodium thiopental.
"Now just relax," the doctor told Clark.
Donna waited nervously in the observation room until her husband was asleep.
"Let us begin," Julius announced, eager to question the sleeping man. "Do you remember going to the hardware store on the evening of August 20, 1961?"
"Yes."
Clark's response was unemotional, to the point of sounding mechanical.
"And later picking your wife up at the grocery store?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember driving home afterward?"
When there was no response, Dr. Ogden repeated the question.
"I remember Donna and me being in the car and driving down the mountain road, but I don't remember going home."
"Tell me what you do remember then."
"I see flashes of memories, just random images really, nothing of consequence."
"Tell me about those images. It doesn't matter how trivial they seem."
It appeared as though Clark's mind had traveled back in time as he described, in the present tense, the events of the evening of August 20, 1961.
"I'm putting bags full of groceries into the trunk. My wife and I are sitting in the front seat of the Chevy, heading home. Donna is worried the ice cream will melt if we don't get there soon. She's singing along with the radio: 'Runaway' and then 'Calendar Girl.' The news comes on, and we learn about a wall being built between East and West Berlin. Suddenly, I see something bright, a blinding white light. The road ahead is blocked. I hit the clutch, slam my other foot down on the brake and turn the wheel to avoid hitting it."
"Hitting what?" the doctor asked.
"I don't know what it is. The light is too bright. I can't look at it. I turn my head and see that the car has gone over the curb. Is this the end? Are we going to crash into a tree? Are we going to die?"
"Did you hit the tree?"
"No. The car comes to a stop. Donna hits her head on the dashboard, but she says she's all right. She's more worried about her ice cream than she is about the likelihood of having a concussion. I look over at the object in the road. It's huge! I know I'll never be able to drive around it."
"Can you tell what it is yet?"
"It looks like some kind of experimental aircraft. I get out of the car. Donna is right behind me. We walk over to it. A panel on the ship slides open and ... and something comes out."
The doctor turned to his assistant. There was a look of enthusiastic anticipation on both their faces.
"What came out of the ship?"
"Something that isn't an animal, but it isn't human either. It's like a creature out of a Roger Corman movie."
"Did it try to communicate with you?"
"Not with words, no. I'm worried about Donna, but I can't move or talk. I'm completely helpless. Then, against my will, I follow it up a ramp into the spacecraft. Finally, I'm able to move. I turn my head and see that I'm back in the hardware store. I tell the clerk what I want, but he stares at me as though I'm going to rob him. He runs into the back room, and before I know it, the police arrive and take me to the station."
"Don't you remember anything about being inside the spaceship? Anything at all?" the doctor asked, almost pleading with the sleeping man.
"No. Nothing."
Dr. Ogden closed his eyes and ran his hands through his thinning gray hair.
"Maybe we'll have better luck with Mrs. Platt," he said despondently.
* * *
There was little Donna could tell the doctor that her husband had not already revealed under his questioning. During her interrogation, as on the night in question, her main concern seemed to be the maple walnut ice cream that was in danger of melting in the trunk of the Bel Air.
"Were you afraid? Did the aliens hurt you in any way?" the doctor asked, pushing for more information.
"Aliens?" she repeated, as though unfamiliar with the word. "What aliens?"
"The beings that took you aboard their ship."
"I've never been on a ship," she answered in a monotone voice, "not even a rowboat or a canoe. I'm deathly afraid of water."
"I'm talking about a spaceship, one that flies through the air. From what your husband says, there was a spaceship blocking the road on the night of August 20."
"I need to get home. I don't want my maple walnut ice cream to melt."
"Yes, yes, I know all about your ice cream," the doctor said impatiently. "I want to know about the aliens. What did they look like? What did they do to you? More importantly, why are they here on Earth? What do they want?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything about aliens. Clark and I are going home after I went grocery shopping, and my husband suddenly drives off the road."
"The car left the road because there was an alien spacecraft blocking the way. He said the two of you got out of the car and went up to the ship. A door slid open, and an alien appeared. What did it want?"
"Maybe it wanted ice cream."
Frustrated, Dr. Ogden slammed his hand down on the metal tray beside him, sending medicine bottles and syringes clattering to the floor.
"Damn it!" he exclaimed. "We're not getting anywhere with her!"
* * *
After a week of unsuccessfully trying to unlock the Platts' memories through the use of hypnotism and chemicals, the research team finally admitted defeat. Not even taking the couple back to the location where they had encountered the UFO jogged the slightest recollection.
"There's only one possible explanation," Dr. Ogden hypothesized.
"What's that?" his assistant asked.
"Mr. and Mrs. Platt were taken aboard the spaceship where the aliens examined them and afterward wiped their memories clean before returning them."
"But they were gone for eight months. Where was the ship all that time? If it was in the vicinity, surely someone would have spotted it."
"I don't know. Maybe it was carefully hidden in the woods somewhere, or it could have been flying in space the whole time."
"Are we going to run any more tests on the Platts?"
"I don't see the point. Let them get on with their lives. I'll instruct the head nurse to send them home today."
Upstairs in her hospital room, Donna, who had been sleeping peacefully throughout the night, suddenly woke with a start and let out a bloodcurdling scream. Within minutes, the entire research staff raced into her room. The out-of-shape Dr. Ogden, who had taken the stairs two at a time, was breathing heavily from his exertions.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Thank God! You're not one of them," Donna cried, overcome with relief. "At first, I thought I was back there. I must have been dreaming."
"Where did you think you were, Mrs. Platt?" the scientist inquired, feeling an inkling of hope that the young woman might finally have remembered something about her mysterious disappearance.
"On the ship," she replied. "With them."
"Them?"
"The aliens that abducted us."
A temporary silence descended upon the room as the researchers tried to control the exhilaration they felt at hearing Donna's matter-of-fact admission. With great difficulty, Dr. Ogden composed himself enough to take charge of the situation.
"Nurse," he instructed, "bring in the recording equipment. I want to question Mrs. Platt before she has the chance to forget about her nightmare."
* * *
When Dr. Ogden held a press conference in hopes of acquiring additional funding for his studies as well as for the benefit of the scientific community, he told the reporters about Donna's bizarre tale of being taken into an alien spaceship where she and her husband were examined, as she put it, "inside and out by those creatures from another planet."
"For eight months," the doctor declared, "the couple was held against their will and subjected to inhuman treatment—which is to be expected considering their captors were not human. Finally, when the aliens were through with them, they were returned to their hometown, only to find they were homeless, in debt and without any means of income. If not for my foundation, the Platts would be forced to live on the street!"
Despite the phenomenal nature of the doctor's revelations, the reporters had few questions for him. Rather than deal with a scientist, they preferred to interview Donna and Clark themselves. Once the harried couple was brought into the conference room and formally introduced, there was an explosion of light as camera flashbulbs went off in unison. Reporters shouted over one another to be heard. With so many questions put to them at once, the Platts were given no time to reply.
"How many aliens were there?"
"How large was the ship?"
"What was it made of?"
"Did they take you back to their planet?"
"Did they return or are they still hovering above Earth?"
Dr. Ogden tried to bring some order to the room, but the reporters ignored him.
"Please! One at a time," Clark shouted above the din.
Suddenly, the front doors burst open and armed soldiers barged into the room. Within moments, they surrounded the members of the press and herded them out into the lobby. The conference room doors were then shut and locked. Only five people remained inside: Donna, Clark, Dr. Ogden, a top-ranking general from the U.S. Army and the deputy administrator of NASA.
Dr. Ogden was not happy to see the uninvited guests.
"Gentlemen," he said stiffly, "This is purely a matter of scientific research. There's no need for the military to become involved."
The general, a man accustomed to being in charge of all situations, insisted gruffly, "An alien spacecraft evades our RADAR, lands on American soil and abducts two of its citizens, and you don't think that the military ought to be involved? That smacks of Communism to me, Doctor! Perhaps I ought to have you and your foundation investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee."
Even though the scientist was a loyal American who had served his country bravely during World War II, he wisely backed down. He remembered all too well the anti-communism zeitgeist of the McCarthy era and the careers and lives it had destroyed. He had no desire to make an enemy of the HUAC.
With Julius Ogden appropriately cowed, the deputy administrator of NASA invited the Platts to accompany him and the general to NASA headquarters in Washington.
"And if we refuse?" Donna asked.
"That wasn't a request," the general answered, clarifying his and the deputy's position.
* * *
"Sometimes I think Clark and I will never lead a normal life again," Donna complained to the nurse who brought in her breakfast. "After eight months on a spaceship and weeks of being kept at Dr. Ogden's facility, we've spent seven months being a guest of Uncle Sam."
The Army nurse smiled sympathetically but offered no comment. She was under strict orders from her superior officer not to speak to either of the Platts.
"I don't suppose it will do me any good to ask you when we're going to be released."
The nurse shook her head and continued to smile.
"Maybe I should talk to a lawyer. As a United States citizen, I must have some constitutional rights. What about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? No, that was the Declaration of Independence, wasn't it?"
As usual, the nurse left the room without saying a word. When she returned to her desk, she made a note on Donna's chart: patient eager to leave; spoke of contacting a lawyer.
That afternoon the general met with high-ranking officials of NASA, the Navy and the Air Force in addition to members of President Kennedy's staff for a progress meeting on the investigation into the Platts' abduction.
"It's been seven months," the general announced, "and, quite frankly, we haven't been able to verify a single claim that couple has made. We had people search the alleged landing area and elsewhere within a ten-mile radius. They found nothing, not so much as a scorch mark on the grass or a broken tree branch. It's a heavily wooded area. Had a ship that large landed, it would have left its mark."
"Then how do you account for their eight-month-long disappearance?" one of the president's men asked.
"I've come to the conclusion that the Platts made up the whole story. I think they deliberately left their car on the side of the road that August night—possibly had another vehicle nearby—and went into hiding. They returned home the following April and pretended to have no recollection of the previous eight months. Nothing Dr. Ogden tried restored their memories. Then, when they are about to be discharged, Mrs. Platt miraculously wakes up in the middle of the night, claiming to have been abducted by aliens."
"Even if they were capable of keeping up the pretense while under hypnosis and sodium thiopental, what motive could they possibly have for perpetrating such a wild hoax?"
"Attention, for one. And money. I don't doubt that once we release them, every magazine and book publisher in the country will be after them."
"Are you saying there's no more we can learn from them?"
"I'm saying even what little they have already told us is completely useless. I don't believe an alien spacecraft came to Earth last August. I think the Platts have been trying to put something over on us, and so far they've succeeded."
"And you would suggest, general, we discharge them both and forget all about their claims of being abducted?"
"Discharge them? Yes. But we can't simply forget about their bizarre tale. I say we denounce them to the press and make sure the world sees them for what they are: liars who hoped to profit from their ridiculous science fiction story."
After a brief discussion, everyone in the room concurred. They were all important men whose time had been wasted by what amounted to a wild goose chase. Angry, they were determined the Platts would not walk away from the fiasco unscathed.
* * *
What the general had predicted came true. No sooner were Donna and Clark released from NASA's care than the couple was deluged by offers from newspaper, magazine and book publishers as well as television producers. The government's subsequent insistence that the event was nothing more than an elaborate deception did not dampen the public's interest in the Platts one bit. After making appearances on the talk show circuit, they were able to purchase a new house, without the headache of a mortgage, in the same town where they had lived previously. Clark found a new job, and life—for the most part—went back to normal.
"Look what they have!" Donna exclaimed when she and her husband were in the Buy Rite supermarket shopping for their weekly grocery order. "Maple walnut ice cream!"
"Maybe we'll manage to get it home this time," Clark laughed and nodded his head toward a small group of customers who were watching the couple's every move.
The assistant manager, who had also been staring at the Platts, shook his head in disgust, turned away and walked toward the stockroom.
"He thinks we're nuttier than a fruitcake," Donna observed. "They all do. I can see it in their faces."
Clark put his arm around his wife's back, leaned toward her and whispered, "Isn't that what we wanted?"
Donna smiled and nodded.
"It certainly is. As long as they believe we're two crazy human beings, we'll be able to complete our mission without interference."
The Platts finished their shopping, and Clark loaded the bags of groceries into the back of his brand-new Ford Country Squire station wagon. Then the two aliens made the long drive home, passing by the unmarked graves of the real Donna and Clark Platt without feeling the slightest remorse. But then why should they? If their mission proceeded as planned—and there seemed to be no reason why it shouldn't—the entire human race would be destroyed within two years' time anyway.
This story is inspired by the account of Betty and Barney Hill, who claim they were abducted by aliens along a rural road in New Hampshire in September 1961.
Should I let them know what they're in for if they abduct Salem? (Hope they've got plenty of chocolate aboard that ship!)
