Mike Gnure and Lauren
Ambryln were driving home from a party around midnight on highway 2 on a muggy
August evening listening to Bruce Springsteen on the radio. I include this fact
only because it was one that Lauren reiterated to me several times when I interviewed
her a few weeks later. Whether she was attempting justify or validate her
memories I cannot be sure. Perhaps she thought that I needed more evidence.
Either way, Lauren assured me that she was listening to “Glory Days” when their
vehicle blew a tire nearly at the intersection of 2 and 163. At this juncture
both roads were largely long stretches of darkened pavement stretching off into
the countryside. Farms dotted the roadsides. Just before the intersection the
Portage River empties into Erie about a quarter of a mile to west.
Lauren managed to get the
Dodge Journey over onto the shoulder and pulled to a stop. The road was largely
deserted with only an odd set of headlights appearing every five minutes or so.
Lauren got out to change the tire. Mike got out for moral support [she says
this with a chuckle]. The air seemed thick and a strange glow was cast by the
headlights catching off the vapor rising from hot asphalt. She had gotten all
the lugnuts off save one partly rusted individual who stubbornly clung to the
bolt. Putting all of her weight behind against the wrench and fighting off
Mike’s attempts to help she had just felt the first twinge of the nut moving
when the flash of headlights behind them appeared. The semi was probably still
about a mile away but in the darkness of the countryside the headlights
carried. Mike, (who Lauren is quick to describe as “not her boyfriend”) pushes
at her should to and mumbles something about looking in front of them. She
responds. About 300 feet in front of them, illuminated by the headlights of
their car is the outline of what appears to be a man standing naked in facing
them.
At this point, Lauren
assures me that she never believed any of the “Mud-man stuff”. She is quite
adamant about it actually but the image of this man whose face was obscured by
the enveloping night and what may have been a thick beard. The whole affair
lasted only seconds but still is etched in her memory. She says that she still
can’t drive down an empty road at night without fighting off trembling. What
seemed to strike her most pointedly was how still the man stood. She described
it as being like “one of those aliens in the movies who just stand so
unnaturally still. He didn’t move. It was like he wasn’t alive.”
The moment lasted only a
few seconds. The flickering headlights marked the approach of the semi from
behind them. Transfixed as they were at the pale motionless figure they hadn’t
turned to watch the truck’s approach. With the screeching of tires their trance
was broken. They turned just in time to see an SUV attempt to make a quick
right hand turn off of Lakeshore drive. In spite of its speed, the vehicle
ended up turning just in front of the semi, the driver of which tried to swerve
to avoid it. In spite of the semi’s best efforts the two collided and the
awkward angle of the cab and the friction of the road caused the truck to flip,
mournfully slowly, onto its side.
Both Mike and Lauren
describe the scene as essentially soundless as if they were floating in a vacuum.
They could however feel the vibration as the truck tumbled onto its side. The
SUV scraped along like a child’s toy before breaking free and tumbling into a
roadside ditch. As the semi buckled in its unnatural slide it began to burn. It
was about a quarter of a mile away when an explosion ripped through the semi
sending shrapnel screaming through the air. A piece embedded itself in Lauren’s
car’s bumper. In silence of the night the air rippled with heat. And there was
calm. Lauren had never imagined a scene of such wreckage could be so serene. In
the movies there were always sirens and police cars and screaming. Here, in the
stillness of the night, in the immediacy of the moment, there was only light
and heat.
In
that moment, both Mike and Lauren felt the man’s eyes leave them. Neither could
relate how they knew, but as they
watched the wreckage of the crash and indeed the very lives of two drivers slip
away they felt a sense of relief. The just knew that he or it was gone. Lauren
looked first to confirm her suspicion. Mike ran to get his phone from the
passenger seat. As Mike called for help, Lauren stared into the starkly empty
night, the beams of her headlights illuminating a path in the darkness, empty
and foreboding. All at once their ears were opened to the sounds: the sickening
crackle of flame, the groaning creak of metal warping and bending, and the
strains of The Boss ringing out into the night.
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