Mickey Groff got out--soaked again!--and surveyed them. "You two ladies can fit in the cab with Mr. Zehedi here. The gentleman and I will ride in the back." "Will you take these, please?" Sharon said, opening the rear door. "Put them in the back. Careful, that's a typewriter. And _very_ careful with that one--it's manuscript. And these two are just clothes." Groff wrenched open the double rear doors of the truck and put the four pieces of luggage inside. In the darkness there were crates and cartons. At least they'd be able to sit up instead of crouching on a metal floor. As the driver of the ditched car passed before the headlights he saw he was surprisingly young and obviously shaken by the accident. "Get in," he said. "It might be worse." Mrs. Goudeket, puffing, pulled herself up the high running board of the truck and slid in beside Zehedi. Sharon followed, and slammed the door. The truck moved cautiously off. In the dark rear of the truck Groff and McCue had found milk crates to sit on. "You all right?" Groff asked the young man. "Didn't bump your head or anything?" "It wasn't that kind of stop," McCue said. He began to laugh. "I'm from Springfield, Ohio," he said between chuckles. "Damned if I see the joke, fella." "Well, mister, in Springfield, Ohio, damn near every spring, the little old Springfield river that runs through town begins to rise and rise. After a week of this it spills over the banks and the sandbags they put up every time at the last minute and downtown Springfield is a lake. Then everybody swears and gets the canoes and rowboats out of the garage and goes boating glumly around until the water subsides. Well, mister, I came east to college because I was tired of Springfield and its foolish floods, and I run into this mess!" Through the windows of the double door Groff saw they were passing a small frame building with gas pumps in front. It was dark. "Cigarette?" Groff asked steadily. He didn't want to encourage the kid's near-hysteria. "No, thanks. But the difference is, in Springfield it's slow and steady and this is happening fast. And when it happens fast, sooner or later a crest comes along and then it isn't one of those years when you just go boating around; it's one of the years when you head for the goddam hills, and fast." "Then you think we're going to have a flood crest?" "Hell, yes. Thirty, forty feet of water smashing down through the valley. And when it comes, mister, we'd better not be there. Because those things don't leave much behind." They were stopping. "Now what the hell," said Mickey Groff. There was a scratching at the double doors, and one of the women from the ditched car climbed in. "Grand Central," she called. "Change for the downtown local. Follow the green lights for the shuttle to Times Square." "You're cheerful enough, Sharon," the kid told her. "What's the matter?"