car vanished for a moment on the curve. Then it was rushing toward him on the short stretch of straightaway between the two curved sections of the S.

Lin relaxed. There wasn't a thing to worry about. He'd taken the first curve easily. The oncoming car was thirty yards away, then ten. Then—

It was one of those absolutely incredible instants of time. Something had happened to his Hudson. A blowout? A wheel off? Whatever it was, he had veered straight toward the oncoming car.

Instinctively he turned his wheel to get back into his own lane. The car responded by lifting into the air and turning over.

There was a brief, photographic still picture of the other car poised at a crazy angle scant inches in front of him. He could see the girl's features clearly, etched in lines of horror. She was nice looking. Her eyes were wide blue pools, and there were two sharp vertical lines between them.

She looked at him then, accusingly, reproachfully. He shook his head in mute apology and wished he could do it over and go slower.

Quite calmly, though, he knew they would probably both be killed. And it was strange that time could speed up so quickly in the moment before death. Even now, in this instant that hung poised in eternity he could find time left to wonder what had happened. It couldn't have been a tire. All four tires were less than five thousand miles old. It couldn't have been a wheel either.

It could have been something in the road. He had been looking at the female hat behind the windshield of that car and could have missed seeing something on the road.

Forgetting what was in front of him, he started to turn his head to look back.

He blinked his eyes. There was something wrong. It came to him. He had been about to have a head-on collision with another car. He looked down at the ground where he stood. His feet were resting on a well packed dirt path that went forward across the grass and curved behind a clump of large leaved shade trees.

He looked around him. No one was in sight. The place was strange to him. He'd never been here before.

He closed his eyes and thought back. He was quite certain he had been about to be killed in an accident. It couldn't have been a dream. He opened his eyes again and looked about him curiously. 

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