Julia stamped the accelerator viciously. Her car plunged forward.
Lonely trees and brush stood like decaying phantoms in the splatter of her headlights. Far ahead, winking down the mountain, she saw the headlights of another car—crawling toward her slowly, like twin fire flies, indolent after a night of pleasure. The road was pitted, and the car beneath her jolted.
It was then in the loneliness of the seldom traveled farm road that she noticed the gasoline gauge.
The gas remaining in the tank could not be sufficient to take her another ten miles. The peg rested solidly on the empty mark to the left.
She began to cry.
The tears almost blinded her; she jerked the car back, just in time, from a ditch. She held it toward the fearful darkness ahead. Dawn that purpled the east seemed lost forever from this road and this life.
The road climbed slowly; then steeply.
Behind her now the bright lights like great flames crept closer, burning everything. The lights had pursued her for only half an hour; it seemed an eternity. The road began a great bend around the first sharp thrust of mountain. She slowed.
The headlights were gaining.