The glare of the following headlights receded.
“Losing them now,” she cried, her eyes fixed on the pool of light that rushed before us from
the Bentley’s headlamps. “They can’t catch us now.”
“Watch the road or you’ll have us over!” Paul shouted, and sat forward to look over her
43
shoulder through the windshield. “The road curves ahead. You’ll have to slow down before
long.”
“Don’t pester me!” she snapped. “I know this road as well as you do!”
I looked behind. The pursuing car wasn’t all that far in the rear: not more than two hundred
yards, and as Della was forced to reduce speed as the road began to curve around the
palmetto thickets that lay on either side, the big Cadillac began to creep up on us.
Della held the car in the middle of the road. The speedometer showed seventy-six now: too
fast on a road like this.
“Watch out! Car ahead!” I exclaimed as I spotted the distant glare of approaching
headlights.
Della dipped her lights and her foot eased off the accelerator.
The approaching car was coming like a bat out of hell. It flashed into view. I heard a high,
squealing sound of tyres biting into tarmac behind us, and looking round saw the Cadillac
was stopping. I felt the Bentley swerve to the right. I swung round. The car coming towards
us sat right in the middle of the road, and its huge blinding lights hit us as it roared down on
us.
Della pulled more to the right. The offside wheels banged and jumped along the grass
verge. I saw her struggling frantically with the wheel, trying to keep the car straight. The
driver of the approaching car just didn’t seem to see us. I heard Paul yell. The car was on us
now. It side-swiped us as it went past. Della screamed. There came a crunching, ripping
noise. The car that had hit us slewed across the road, then crashed into the thickets. I grabbed
hold of the dashboard as I felt the Bentley lift. The windshield suddenly turned into a spider’s
web of cracks and lines. There was a grinding noise of splintering wood, then a hell of a jolt,
and a scorching white light burst before my eyes. Above the grinding, tearing sounds, I heard
Della scream again, then the white light snuffed out and darkness came down on me.
44
PART TWO
FOG PATCH
I
THE smell of iodoform and ether told me I was in hospital. I made an effort and
rolled back eyelids that weighed a ton. A tall, thin guy in a white coat was standing over me.
Behind him could see a fat nurse. There was a bored, harassed expression on her face.
“How do you feel?” the thin guy asked, leaning over me. “Do you feel better?”
He seemed so anxious I hadn’t the heart to tell him I felt like hell. I screwed up a grin and
closed my eyes.
Lights flickered behind my eyelids. I felt myself swimming off into misty darkness. I let
myself go. Why bother? I thought, you can only die once.
The darkness crept down on me. Time stood still. I slipped off the edge of the world into
mists, fog and silence.
It seemed to me I was down in the darkness for a very lone time, but after a while lights
began to flicker again and I became aware of the bed in which I was lying and the tightness of
the sheets. A little later I became aware of the screens. There were tail white screens around
the bed, and they worried me. I seemed to remember they only put screens around a bed when
the patient was going to croak.
