Page:Weird Tales Volume 27 Number 02 (1936-02).djvu/107

of taking the train, Ella." His voice hardened. "I'm going to drive to Philadelphia—and I'm not going to take Philip. I want to know who's behind the wheel of my car."

He kissed his wife stolidly. When his jaw was set in that fashion she knew better than to talk further.

"I'll remind him casually about my poor health when he returns," she thought. "I'll suggest to him that we're both tired and need a short sea cruise."

Winslow drove with a steady hand. He felt newly released, at peace, grimly exhilarated by the cool rush of the wind. He was at the wheel of his own car—not a helpless atom on a speeding train. He was stronger than the puppet in the dream. A man, with the guiding power to make his own choice. . . . He watched the white concrete ribbon of the Jersey road unrolling endlessly beside him. His car rounded a curve and he straightened it with an easy flick of his wrist.

Suddenly his smiling mouth gaped in frozen horror. Straight ahead of him was the face he had seen in the dream.

He screamed hoarsely, threw a terrified arm upward. The car swerved, crashed through a whitewashed fence, rolled over and over through a screen of bushes and smashed upside down on a railroad track.

The shining rails were humming faintly. A train had just roared past. The vanishing rear platform was barely fifty yards away. In the clear sunlight a semaphore signal dropped creakingly from vertical to horizontal. . . .

After a while footsteps came stumbling toward the wrecked automobile. Faces peered underneath at the dead man. A voice said thickly: "One minute sooner, and he'd have run smack into the train. He must have been cock-eyed drunk. I saw the whole thing; the kid on the bicycle was on the right side of the road."

The boy's eyes were round, staring. There was blood on his face. His blue messenger's uniform was soiled and torn. "He didn't hurt me much, but—but he broke my bicycle."

The boy began to whimper.

"He broke my bicycle and it's—it's brand-new. I—I bought it only six weeks ago."