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room, she'd be there waiting for me.
     
      I pushed my face into the pillow and lay there shuddering, fighting it. I wasn't going in there. I simply wasn't going in there!
      Suddenly I froze, listening. There was something in the hall; I heard the sound of it. A swishing crackle of a sound- like the skirt of a moving woman.
      Abruptly, there was a cry.
    Richard! A blade of terror plunged into my heart. Gasping, I threw back the covers and jumped up, rushed across the floor, lunging into the hall, into Richard's room. He was standing in his crib, crying and shivering in the darkness. Quickly, I pulled him up and pressed my cheek to his.
      "Shhh, baby, it's all right," I whispered. "It's all right, daddy's here." I felt a shudder ripple down my back and I held him tightly, patting his back with shaking fingers. "It's all right baby; daddy's here. Go to sleep, sweetheart. It's all right."
      I felt his fear; felt it as distinctly as if it were a current of icy water trickling from his brain to mine. "It's all right," I said. "Go to sleep now. Daddy's here." I kept on talking to him until he fell asleep again. "It's just a dream, baby. Just a dream."
    It had to be.
      Sunlight. And, with it, what passes for reason-a desperate groping for solace.
      I'd only dreamed about the woman, imagined the rustling skirt; and Richard had only had a nightmare. The rest was fancy, a disorder of the nerves. That was my conclusion as I shaved. It is amazing how much one is willing to distort belief in the name of reason; how little one is willing to trust the intuitions of the flesh.
      A combination of things served to bolster my conclusion. The aforementioned sunlight-always a strong factor in enabling one to deny the fears of the night. Add to that a tasty breakfast, a sunny-countenanced wife, a happy, laughing baby son, the first day of a week's work, and you have arrayed a potent force against belief in all things that have no form or logic.
      By the time I left the house I was convinced. I walked across the street and up the alley beside Frank and Elizabeth's house; it was Frank's turn to drive. I knocked on the back door and went into their kitchen. Frank was still at the table, drinking coffee.
      "Up, man," I said, "we'll be late."
      "That's what you always say," he said. "Are we ever late?"
      "Often," I answered, winking at Elizabeth who was standing at the stove.
      "False," said Frank, "false as hell." He got up and stretched, groaning. "Oh, God," he said, "I wish it was Saturday." He walked out of the kitchen to get his suit coat. I asked Elizabeth how she was.
      "Fine, thank you," she said. "Oh, we'd like you and Anne to come to dinner Wednesday night if you're free."
      I nodded. "Fine. We'd love to." Elizabeth smiled and we stood there a moment in silence.
      "That was certainly interesting the other night," she said then.
      "Yes," I said. "Too bad I didn't get to see it."
      She laughed faintly. "It was certainly interesting," she said.
      Frank came back in.
      "Well, off to goddamn Siberia," he said disgustedly.
      "Darling, don't forget to bring home some coffee when you-" Elizabeth started to say.
      "Hell, you get it," Frank interrupted angrily. "You've got all day to horse around. I'm not going shopping after working all day in that lousy, goddamn plant."
     
      Elizabeth smiled feebly and turned back to the stove, a flush rising in her cheeks. I saw her throat move convulsively.
      "Women," Frank said, jerking open the door. "Jesus!"
      I didn't say anything. We left the house and drove to work. We were seven minutes late.
      It happened that afternoon.
      I'd just come out of the washroom. I stopped at the cooler and drew myself a cup of water. I drank it and, crumpling the cup, threw it into the disposal can. I turned and started back for my desk.
    And staggered violently as something heavy hit me on the head.
      At my cry, several of the men and women in