"We're late on the run! We'll never make it!"
He turned back to the wheel. Martha felt deadly fear coil up within her. The man was either drunk or mad and she sensed at once that any further attempt to reason with him would be futile.
Clutching the seat handles, she began stumbling toward the front of the bus. At least she would be near the door, she decided, when—if—something happened.
Once a sudden lurch of the bus almost threw her off her feet. Clutching the back of a seat, she regained her balance and staggered ahead.
She could no longer force back the panic which was welling within her. She felt—she knew—that her life was in imminent and deadly danger.
And when she finally reached the front of the bus and stared ahead into the fog, it was impossible to retain any lingering doubts about the lethal jeopardy of her position.
The vehicle's single headlight had gone out. The bus was racing through the midnight fog in total darkness!
With a scream, Martha turned toward the driver. He sat with a fixed stare, grimly intent, entirely oblivious to everything except the white wall of fog looming up immediately ahead.
With the scream still on her lips, Martha whirled toward the door. It opened. Or perhaps it had been open. She was too terrified to know. But in any case there was the cold white fog streaming past outside.
She hesitated momentarily. It took courage to hurl yourself into that rushing white wall, never knowing exactly what lay beyond it, beneath it—within it.