Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE ENORMOUS ROOM BY H. L. GOLD & ROBERT KREPPS [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories Oct.-Nov. 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _One big name per story is usually considered to be sufficient. So when two of them appear in one by-line, it can certainly be called a scoop; so that's what we'll call it. H. L. Gold and science-fiction go together like a blonde and a henna rinse. Robert Krepps is also big time. You may know him also under his other label--Geoff St. Reynard, but a Krepps by any name can write as well._ * * * * * The roller coaster's string of cars, looking shopworn in their flaky blue and orange paint, crept toward the top of the incline, the ratcheted lift chain clanking with weary patience. In the front seat, a young couple held hands and prepared to scream. Two cars back, a heavy, round-shouldered, black-mustached man with a swarthy skin clenched his hands on the rail before him. A thin blond fellow with a briefcase on his lap glanced back and down at the receding platform, as though trying to spot a friend he had left behind. Behind him was a Negro youth, sitting relaxed with one lean foot on the seat; he looked as bored as someone who'd taken a thousand coaster rides in a summer and expected to take ten thousand more. In the last car, a tall broad man put his elbows on the backboard and stared at the sky without any particular expression on his lined face. The chain carried its load to the peak and relinquished it to the force of gravity. The riders had a glimpse of the sprawling amusement park spread out below them like a collection of gaudy toys on the floor of a playroom; then the coaster was roaring and thundering down into the hollow of the first big dip. Everyone but the Negro boy and the tall man yelled. These two looked detached--without emotion--as though they wouldn't have cared if the train of cars went off the tracks. The cars didn't go off the tracks. The people did. The orange-blue rolling stock hit the bottom, slammed around a turn and shot upward again, the wind of its passage whistling boisterously. But by then there were none to hear the wind, to feel the gust of it in watered eyes or open shouting mouths. The cars were empty. * * * * * "Is this what happens to _everybody_ who takes a ride on the coaster?" asked a bewildered voice with a slight Mexican accent. "_Santos_," it continued, "to think I have waited so many years for this!" "What is it?" said a woman. "Was there an accident? Where are we?" "I don't know, dear. Maybe we jumped the tracks. But it certainly doesn't look like a hospital."