Page:Weird Tales volume 33 number 04.djvu/122

 freezing her hands to the steering-wheel. A few more yards, and disaster would strike them head-on with a grinding crash. It seemed to the woman that she could hear that sickening sound already and there was not an alley, not a convenient driveway for them to dart into. Only a low rock wall on one side, a sloping terrace on the other. And, as though realizing the futility of further motion, the car stalled dead in the path of the runaway truck.

—jump!" Mrs. Ellison screamed. Jump out and run! I I can't " But the child at her side had not even heard her. For one who faced death, she seemed strangely calm. Her sallow face had gone so pale that the freckles stood out darkly, and her grip on the new puppy tightened. But her lips moved softly in a half-prayer that was almost inaudible to the woman beside her.

"Mommy! Mom-my!" the whisper fairly screamed. "Make it stop, Mommy! Please make it stop!"

Mrs, Ellison tugged at the child, intent on pulling her out of the doomed car in a last wild chance at safety. But before she could wrench open the car door there was a metallic squeal of stripped gears.

Looking up, wild-eyed, she saw the onrushing truck hop sidewise awkwardly and come to a scraping halt against the curb—a scant five feet above them.

People came running then—frightened residents, and a policeman, and the white-faced truck-driver. They crowded about the truck, then rushed to the stalled car where Mrs. Ellison was slumped weakly at the wheel. Beside her sat a homely little girl whose strange quiet smile caused them to look at her and look again intently.

"Jeez, lady!" the truck-driver babbled an incoherent apology. "I sure thought I had her braked steady! Jeepers, if that packing-case on the seat hadn't a-fell against the gear-shift and knocked her into reverse, you you might a-been"

Mrs. Ellison merely nodded in answer. She could not trust her voice. She could only stare in a dazed way at the truck, then shift her gaze queerly to the little girl seated beside her.

"Are you quite all right, Martha dear?" she whispered after a moment. "Then, let's you and I and and Mommy go along home."