The man drove in silence. Every so often he pointed the gun in her direction, but he still had to shift. Deborah needed both hands to drive. At lights and on straight roads she could reach for the radio or even take a cell phone call, but she generally kept one hand on the steering wheel and another on the shifter just in case. The highjacker had to shift and hold her at gun point as well as steer. She cringed with each metal on metal crunch as the rig clipped other cars.

“Slow down,” she yelled. “You’ll get us both killed.” Sirens sounded in the distance and she knew it wouldn’t be too long until the police caught them and she would be safe, unless…

The man pointed the gun at her again. “Shut up or you’ll get it,” he yelled.

…unless he planned to hold her as a hostage. She shivered. She just wanted to get home to her apartment and forget about today.

The gunman turned a right and Deborah saw the trailer take out a fire hydrant as the rear of the trailer hopped the curb. Deborah felt the whole rig shake and she worried that her cargo might ignite. A full load would sure be hazardous.

He turned left again, but it was less violent.

“Why’d you turn here?” she asked. “This road only goes to the school.”

The gunman turned off into the grass and drove toward the Arthur Miller Elementary School building.

She realized what he was doing and knew she had to do something. She waited until he had to shift gears and then dove for the steering wheel. Riding her momentum, she turned the wheel to the left, hoping to turn the truck away from the school.

The truck careened and jackknifed around and she was thrown free out the window of the semi. She lay on the ground stunned, the wind knocked out of her. If she could have taken a breath, she would have breathed a sigh of relief as she watched as the tanker missed the elementary school.

Her relief was short lived as the tanker plowed into the building next to it: the middle school. She watched in horror as the gasoline exploded on impact. The screams of the students mixed with her own as she woke up in her sweaty jumpsuit.

“Will you knock it off?” yelled the inmate in the cell next to hers. She looked at her surroundings. Bars, a steel toilet, the narrow cot in which she slept, and more bars. She had awakened to the same nightmare every day since the terrorist attack.

“Today is the last day I wake up screaming,” she promised. The next time she went to sleep, she would never wake again. The terrorist who had tried to ram her truck into the elementary school was consumed in the explosion. The terrorist group had also claimed responsibility for the attack. No one had believed her that the gunman existed and today she would die because she couldn’t prove that he was the real killer.

“If only I would have turned the wheel to the right,” she whispered. She knew if she did that, the elementary school would have been hit. She had twelve years to relive the attack over and over again. Every day she had second guessed herself as she sat in a prison cell.

At least today she would be able to eat what she wanted. She knew a New York strip steak, a slice of apple pie with ice cream would be on its way to her today. She debated with herself on the ice cream. She didn’t dare eat dairy products because lactose intolerance would give her digestion problems, but she figured she may as well enjoy the ice cream because she wouldn’t be around long enough to need to worry about the after effects.

She went to the sink in her cell and splash water on her face and returned to her cot to wait for her fate.

The priest hadn’t been helpful. The food, on the other hand, was divine. She walked slowly down the hallway toward the waiting gurney.

“Will you want the needle in your right arm or left,” an orderly dressed in white asked her.

“Does it matter?” she asked. She hopped up on the gurney. Is this really how things are going to end, she thought.

The orderlies strapped her down to the gurney. A strap across her knees and chest and wrist and leg cuffs made any desire to fight impossible.

She could have fought. She almost wished she did as they rolled her into the execution chamber, past the witnesses. The witnesses were some of the parents of the middle school children. Most had to watch the execution on a video monitor outside the prison since the number of witnesses were limited to twelve.