corridor. Behind were all the terrors spawned since the beginning of
time. Ahead were a thousand openings of light and safety. He raced for
the nearest and brightest and most familiar.

"No," said Sam Atkins. "You cannot go that way again. It is the way you
went before--and it led to this--to a search for death. For you, it will
lead only to the same goal again."

"I can't go on!" Baker cried. The terrors seemed to be swiftly closing
in.

"Take my hand a moment longer," said Sam. "Inspect these more distant
paths. There are many of them that will be agreeable to you."

Baker felt calmer now in the renewed presence of Sam Atkins. He passed
the branching pathway that Sam had forbidden, that had seemed so bright.
He sensed now why Sam had cautioned him against it. Far down, in the
depths of it, he glimpsed faintly a dark ugliness that he had not seen
before. He shuddered.

Directly ahead there seemed to be the opening of a corridor of blazing
brightness. Baker's calmness increased as he approached. "This one," he
said.

He heard nothing, but he sensed Sam Atkins' smile, and nod of approval.

He remembered now for the first time why he had wanted to die. It was to
avoid the very terrors by which he had been pursued through the dark
corridor. All this had happened before, and he had gone down the pathway
Sam had forbidden. Somehow, like a circle, it had come back to this very
point, to this forgotten experience for which he had been willing to die
rather than endure again.

It was very bewildering. He did not understand the meaning of it. But he
knew he had corrected a former error. He was back in the world. He was
alive again.

Sam Atkins looked up at his companions through eyes that seemed all but
dead. "He's going to make it," he said. "We can get the car out and pick
up Baker now."

* * * * *

They used Sam's panel truck, which had a four-wheel drive and mud tires.
Nothing else could possibly get through. Fenwick left his own car at
Ellerbee's.

It was still raining lightly as the truck sloshed and slewed through the
muck that was hardly recognizable now as a road. For an hour Sam fought
the wheel to hold the car approximately in the middle of the brownish
ooze that led them through the night. The three men sat in the cab.
Behind them, a litter and first-aid equipment had been rigged for Baker.
Sam told them nothing would be needed except soap and water, but Fenwick
and Elle