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her!" Roger shouted. " Oh, God !"
    I glanced out the window, catching a glimpse of motion in the woods and a blur of red. Then I looked at the truck in front of us and put the camper back into drive.
    Goblin had his shotgun pointed at me.
    I ducked down as he fired, shattering the front windshield. Safety glass sprayed all over me.
    "Andrew, reverse!" Roger shouted.
    Staying down, I put the camper into reverse once more. Another shot fired from behind us, not quite as loud as the shotgun blasts. It was followed by two more before I could send the camper rocketing backward again. As we collided with the truck, I kept the gas pedal floored, trying to push that maniac right off the road.
    More bullets fired, slamming into the seat above my head.
    The camper suddenly felt like it was going to topple. I let up on the gas and applied the brake.
    "Is everybody okay?" I asked. I heard Theresa and Kyle sobbing, but it didn't sound like either of them had been hurt. "Helen?"
    "I'm fine," she said. "We're all fine in here."
    "Roger?"
    "I think she made it," he announced, sounding out of breath. "They shot her in the arm, I don't know how bad , but she got away!"
    I put the camper into park. Joe pressed his flat face against my leg, whimpering.
    Now what?
    "That was really stupid," Goblin called out. "There's nobody out here who'll help her, and she'd bleed to death before she found them anyway!"
    I hoped he wasn't just cleverly trying to psyche us out. The store owner could certainly be part of the gang ... but for now I'd remain optimistic.
    If Samantha did get in touch with the police, how long would we have to defend ourselves against these psychos before help arrived? We'd never even found the fishing poles.
    I waited silently for a few moments. I couldn't hear any activity outside. Maybe they were conserving ammunition. Maybe their guns were empty. I wasn't about to pop my head into view to check it out.
    Then I heard another vehicle approach from the rear.
    "Is this bad?" I asked Roger.
    "Real bad," he informed me. "Three more trucks."
    Maybe they were coming in peace. Maybe they'd talk some sense into the other two, we'd all have a nice chuckle over this silly misunderstanding, and we'd get together for a late lunch and a friendly pillow fight.
    Or maybe not.
    "Forget this," I said. "We're getting out of here. I'll plow right over one of these trucks if I have to. Everybody hold on."
    I floored the gas pedal.
    And then I very quickly realized that this had been an extraordinarily bad idea, right in line with many of my other extraordinarily bad ideas of the past.
    The camper began to topple to the right.
    As everybody else screamed, and I held onto the steering wheel as tightly as I could, the camper fell onto its side with an almost deafening crash.

Chapter Six
    I TUMBLED OUT OF the driver's seat and smashed against the other side of the camper as glass rained down upon me. Joe landed on my side with a yelp.
    How could I have been so stupid?
    The answer was simple: It was me.
    I heard sobbing and screaming in the back of the camper, which was a hell of a lot better than corpse silence. "Everybody talk to me!" I called out.
    "We're all alive," Helen said.
    "You suck, Andrew!" Roger informed me.
    I twisted myself around and got to my feet. On the other end of the overturned camper, the bathroom door was hanging open and swinging next to Roger as he tried to move past it.
    I was sore and a little dizzy, but I crouched down and made my way back to the main part of the camper, walking on top of the refrigerator door. Helen was crawling out of what had been the upper bunk. She had a nasty gash on the side of her head but looked otherwise unharmed.
    Helen grabbed Theresa's arms, and I grabbed Kyle's, and we helped our children out of the bunk. I hugged Kyle, trying to forget for a moment that we were still very deeply screwed.
    "What was that all about?" Goblin shouted. I heard a door slam, as if he'd gotten out of his truck. "Do you