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could have been much more serious.
    What if the driver hadn’t regained control before he hit the van? What if I had been about ten feet closer to the curve that had so unexpectedly produced the speeding automobile?
    Paranoia again. But who could blame me? In the last six hours, I had witnessed a mass exodus from the city of Houston as her citizens, myself included, abandoned ship. I had seen that most of those refugees were armed with deadly weapons. Worst of all, I had seen my father die and had been forced to abandon my own mother, not knowing where she was, or if she was even safe. And don’t forget, I added mentally, that you just got to see your life flash before your eyes when some asshole barely missed turning you into a hood ornament. I figured I was entitled to a little paranoia.
    “Debra, I think maybe we should be a little more careful.”
    “No kidding.”
    “No, I’m serious.”
    Waiting to hear me out, she arched an eyebrow. I felt a little silly, but I was already committed. “You and the kids need to stay further behind me. That way, if another idiot comes around the corner like that last one, you’ll have plenty of space to maneuver. And I’ll slow down before I top any hills or round any corners in the road. All the trees and brush out here muffle most of the sound, so I can’t count on hearing oncoming traffic before it’s right up on me. Especially through my helmet.”
    I paused. This next one sounded crazy even to me. I could imagine how it would sound to my wife. Nevertheless, I added, “I also think we need a few hand signals. You know: stop, slow down, hurry, hide.”
    “Hide?”
    Again, I paused. “What if that guy had come flying around the corner ready to blast anything in his way?”
    “Oh, come on! Don’t you think you’re getting a little carried away?” She laughed nervously.
    “Not with everything that’s at stake here. What if he’d wrecked into the van and hurt the kids?”
    She was silent, thinking. I could see the conflict on her face. Pacifism was her chosen point of view, but threaten her children at your own risk. She would use any and all means possible to defend them. We’d had enough “what if” conversations in the past for me to know this about her, much like I had gone through with Megan. “What if someone kidnapped Zachary, raped Megan, hurt or killed any of us?” I knew from her answers that her point of view took the form of shades, not blinders.
    She finally acquiesced. “Okay, but we’ll also need a signal to ready the rifle.”
    We settled on six basic hand signals: stop, forward, slow down, hurry, hide, and danger. Megan already knew those signals. They were the same ones we used when she and I played paintball once a month.
    Upon seeing the “danger” signal, Megan would ready the rifle, and Debra would pull over, perpendicular to the road and ready to turn around if necessary. Zachary was to stay down and under no circumstances let himself be seen.
    We went over the signals a few times, making sure Debra knew them as well as Megan and I did, then continued on our way. According to the map, we had just over an hour’s drive.
    As we traveled, the van about a hundred yards behind me, I began to feel a little better about our situation. We’d had a frightening brush with disaster but, other than my scrapes and bruises, no one was hurt. And it had served to make us a little more careful. Besides, the odds of another accident occurring on roads as deserted as these had to be astronomical.
    Fifteen minutes later, I topped a hill in the road and stopped. In the little valley below, it looked like someone had beaten the odds.
    * * June 13 / 4:56 * *
    The road down the other side of the hill was long and steep, one of those lengthy slopes that thrill children. It dropped nearly two hundred feet before rising again. At the bottom, two vans, a pickup, and a station wagon were scattered all about the roadbed. They were accompanied by six bodies. The