Trooper Bill Devlin stood solemnly at the edge of the desolate highway. His eyes scanned the heap of mangled metal blocking most of the southbound lane. At one time the metal had been a pickup truck. Off the roadway, just south of the Highway 18 intersection, with steam pouring from its engine, sat a car that had been nearly shorn in half. The car was about 40 yards into a field and was so mutilated that he couldn’t even tell its make or color. One thing for sure, he thought soberly, a coroner wasn’t needed for him to know nobody survived this accident. He was having difficultly focusing entirely on the accident. Something deep within his mind was nagging at him.

He glanced around and noted that there was no traffic on Highway 253 tonight. He glanced at his watch, it was 2:46 in the morning. Under ordinary circumstances he’d be home in 14 minutes. Just two miles south on the highway and a short jaunt down a county road was his own home where he’d been living with his family for the past 14 years. Bill sighed and realized that he wouldn’t be getting home anytime soon. Fatality accidents take two to three hours at the scene just to determine factors, draw diagrams and attempt to identify bodies and vehicles.

Another thought struck him as he took an uneasy step toward the mangled pickup. In his 18 years on the job as a Mississippi state trooper, he’d had the misfortune of having to notify at least two dozen families about the death of their loved ones. It was never an easy task. He’d been met with anger, denial, shock, catatonia and absolute terror. There was no such thing as a "routine" reaction from mournful relatives.

A glint off the pickup immediately told Bill that a vehicle was approaching from behind. He turned around and saw headlights approaching. He reached for the flashlight he kept on his belt and realized that it wasn’t there. He must’ve left it in the car. He waved his arms as the bright lights neared his location. The car slowed down, creeping by, ignoring him; the passenger and driver were both jabbering away and pointing at the pickup in their lane. The car pulled into the northbound lane and Bill could see the passenger dialing on a cell phone.

The car continued away from the accident scene, slowly, as the passenger remained on the cell phone. Bill spat onto pavement and he rubbed the back of his head. He had a headache and it was originating at the nape of his neck. His shift had been pretty busy: he worked a minor accident west of Greenville on Highway 45 at about 6:30 and then he assisted the Sheriff’s Department with a domestic disturbance on Quail Covey Road shortly afterward. He hadn’t been able to grab a bite to eat because he made a traffic stop near Danforth Mills and found some small plastic bags filled with methamphetamine in the glove compartment.

Bill felt a chill pass through him. It would be Christmas in a couple of weeks and the weather was really starting to feel like it. The weatherman on Channel 8 mentioned something about the possibility of snow on the 17^th or 18^th. Snow for a cop always meant more accidents to work. Kids love to play in it, adults sometimes enjoy being snowed in so they don’t have to go to work, but for law enforcement, it was an additional burden.

The sound of a radiator hose hissing was now audible. Bill approached the pickup and realized that a bloody body was hanging out of the windshield. The lifeless body was steaming, result of the warm blood being cooled by the freezing temperatures currently in the northwest Mississippi area.

Turning toward the car, Bill noticed only an arm dangling from the crumpled driver’s side. It was broken and hanged grotesquely from about half way along the forearm. Some accidents are far worse than any horror movie. The smells, distorted facial expressions and severed body parts could never be replicated authentically on the silver screen. It is one of those ‘you got to be there to understand’ things.

Bill walked to the shoulder of the highway and saw several pieces of twisted metal from one or both fo the vehicles strewn about. He shook his head and wondered what in the name of all that’s holy was nagging at him. After nearly a full career of accidents, he’d moved beyond the initial shock of seeing his first car crash, but still some persistent throbbing was telling him that something wasn’t right.

He walked along the shoulder, carefully scrutinizing the skid marks on the road. He glanced around to surmise the location of the pickup and whatever marks he could see at or around it. He couldn’t see any. Bill stopped at a spot where the skid marks widened. He knew this was the point of impact. There were no skid marks from the other direction. Clearly, one driver reacted, the other didn’t. At this point, it looked like the pickup had crossed the center line and slammed head-on into the car. Had the pickup driver fell asleep or maybe was looking away from the road at the time? There would be time for speculation later on when he did the reconstruction—a tedious analytical process that involved algebraic formulas, detailed diagrams and intense investigation by skilled mechanical forensic specialists.

Squatting down, Bill rubbed the skid mark at the point of impact. The rubber was thick. The driver of the car had laid on the brakes with fury. "Poor son-of-a-gun," Bill said under his breath, "he never had a chance."

A sound caught Bill’s attention. He spotted someone walking slowly toward him frm the direction of the pickup. He raised up and eyed the man carefully. "Can I help you?" Bill asked loudly.

"I—I—I don’t know," the man stuttered. He glanced around nervously.

"Were you involved in the accident?" Bill queried, walking toward the man.

The man nodded. His shirt was soaked with something wet and his jeans were dirty with several bleach stains. He wore only one sneaker, it was on his left foot.

"Were you in the pickup or the car?"

The man rubbed his face, as if trying to figure out what had happened for himself. "The truck," the man finally said. "I was in the truck." The man rubbed his face and turned toward the mangled car. His mouth opened and closed but no words came out.

Bill squinted at the truck. He hadn’t noticed a passenger in the vehicle before. "Do you need medical attention?"

"I feel okay, I think. I’m not sure." The man stared at the car laying in two pieces in the field to his left. "Was anybody hurt in the car?"

Bill glanced at the car and took a deep breath of cold air. "I don’t think they made it."

"Oh, my. . . Please, no!" The man took a step back, then fell onto his bottom. He sat upright, rocking back and forth with his face buried in his hands. "I killed them!"

Approaching cautiously, Bill shook his head. "No you didn’t. The driver of the truck didn’t make it either." He glanced at the darkened figure hanging out of the truck’s windshield. "Don’t blame yourself."

The man mumbled incoherently and began sobbing softly. Bill stepped next to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "It’s all my fault, officer. I shouldn’t ‘a stopped by the bar."

"You’ll be fine. Just try to relax, okay?" The occupants of the pickup had been drinking. Another case of drinking and driving leading to death.

The man continued crying without acknowledging Bill’s comment.

Bill could hear the distant wail of a siren. It was coming from the north, probably an ambulance out of Jamison or maybe deputies arriving to render assistance.

"What do you remember about the accident?" Bill inquired.

The man stopped sobbing and glanced up at Bill. "I—I drank too much, officer!"

"It’s okay." Bill glanced back to see if he could see the lights from the emergency vehicle’s yet. "Who was driving the truck?"

The man stared at Bill with a confused look on his face. His eyes were darting quickly from Bill’s face to the roadway. "Driving? What do you mean?"

Bill pointed toward the pickup. "The guy hanging out of the windshield, who is he?"

The man turned his head and stared at the truck. He slowly stood up and walked toward the vehicle. His mouth opened and closed without any words coming from his throat. His arms reached out, as if he were feeling for something along the way. "No!"

The flash of red and blue lights could be seen in the distance now. Bill was glad to have some help with this one. He turned toward the truck and watched as the man reached out toward the body laying halfway out of the vehicle’s windshield. The man was obviously in shock and could lose what little control he had of his faculties at any moment. He walked toward the man.

"Who is that?" Bill asked.

The man muttered something and he reached out to touch the bloody hair of the dead driver. "I saw headlights for only a second. I must’ve. . .I think I passed out. I’m so sorry."

Bill shook his head and felt that pain shooting up the back of his neck again. This was definitely going to be a long night. He wondered how his wife, Judy, and his daughter, Alexandria, were doing. Undoubtedly they were snoozing away in their warm beds. He longed to be in bed with his wife. As soon as he would hop into bed, she would put her cold feet on his legs, he liked it when she did that.

The emergency vehicles, two of them, were almost to their location. Bill took the man by the arm and escorted him to the shoulder. "You’ll be out of the way here, sir. Try to relax, help his here."

The first emergency vehicle, a Colton County deputy’s patrol car, pulled up, near the mangled pickup. The siren was turned off, the red and blue lights flashed brightly. An ambulance was pulling up behind the patrol car.

"I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to hurt nobody," the man pleaded, staring into Bill’s eyes.

"It’s okay." Bill turned and approached the deputy who had just stepped out of his car. The deputy glanced at the car in the field and immediately began talking to the dispatcher on his portable radio.

The deputy walked right past Bill and headed into the field to look at the car.

Bill shook his head. "Hey, Lonnie!" Lonnie Brown had been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Department for nearly as long as Bill had been with the Highway Patrol.

The deputy shined his flashlight on both pieces of the car. Bill rubbed his eyes as he caught the glimpse of reflective tape on the back quarter panel of the mangled vehicle. The type of reflective tape seen on patrol cars.

"What the blue blazes?" Bill said as he walked toward the deputy.

Lonnie was checking the pulse of the dangling arm. He sighed loudly and activated the shoulder mike of his portable radio. "156 Colton, notify the coroner." The dispatcher acknowledged with a "10-4."

"Who is it, Lonnie?" Bill asked, suddenly realizing that the car was a Mississippi State Highway Patrol car. His mind raced to think of who it could be. The only other patrolman on at the moment was Corporal Tanner, but he was busy with a minor accident near the county line.

The deputy turned toward Bill and he walked toward the roadway. "I don’t believe this!"

"Lonnie?" Bill took a step closer to the deputy. Why wasn’t he acknowledging him? They had been good friends for several years. It wasn’t like him to be like that.

Lonnie didn’t answer. The look on his face told a story that Bill wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Bill glanced over at the man still standing at the shoulder. He was muttering to himself and looking at two ambulance attendants heading toward the pickup. Bill walked slowly to the mutilated patrol car and looked into the driver’s seat. It was definitely a trooper. His face was bloodied but the uniform left no doubt. Bill looked at the officer’s broken left arm dangling from the shattered window and realized the officer wore the same watch as himself.

"It’s you," the man said as he pointed toward the patrol car. "That’s me." The man pointed toward the pickup. "We’re dead."

Bill shook his head. It wasn’t possible. He reached into the patrol car and touched the face of the dead patrolman. It was then that he made out the features of the officer’s face. They were his features. He was in the patrol car.

Bill glanced back toward Lonnie, who was speaking with the ambulance crew in front of the pickup. He approached and listened as Lonnie explained that Trooper Devlin was in the patrol car. He mentioned something about getting the Highway Patrol out there to work the accident.

Bill walked over the body hanging out of the truck and realized with fright that the man standing on the shoulder was wearing the same clothes as the guy hanging out of the truck. Suddenly, as if something were stimulated in his brain, he remembered it vividly. He saw the truck coming, it was speeding. His radar indicated the truck was traveling at 20 miles over the speed limit. Just as Bill had locked the speed onto the radar unit, the truck veered into his lane and he laid on the brakes. He remembered hearing tires squealing, metal colliding and crunching, feeling a sharp pain, blinding light and suddenly nothing.

Was this it? Bill had a million questions and answers to none of them. His mind raced for reasons, but none came. Why? How? But it became all too clear to him after a moment of reflection. Alcohol, inattention, speeding, recklessness—the contributing factors to most deadly accidents.

Somehow, Bill knew that in the darkness of the field, beyond the patrol car, was his destination. He headed that way slowly. The man on the shoulder must’ve been thinking the same thing, as he was already past the patrol car and nearly disappeared into the field.

Death had always been a mystery to Bill Devlin. Like most others, he had many questions about the way things work in the Afterlife. With a slight fear of the unknown ahead of him, Bill knew he was about to get the answers to his many questions.