The Light.

Leaning towards the glow, he could no longer see it as brilliantly as before. He lingered on the thought for a moment before passing a look of confusion onto his partner.
“Jacob? Didn’t you see that? Didn’t you see that beautiful light?”
The senior patrolman nodded to the affirmative.
“Yeah, I saw it Trevor.” he tells his rookie partner. “Well maybe not that one in particular, but others like it. See pard.. You’re patrolling the most haunted stretch of highway in America. There are ghost lights here.. Ghost horses.. Dogs.. Birds.. Cats.. And yeah.. Even people. I see shit here every day.. Every night.. And I would love to just sit and watch to see what happens. But understand, its our job to patrol this highway. We can’t stop and stare every time you see a light in the dark.”
He pulls the gear lever into the drive position and slowly begins to accelerate towards junction 40 on Crows Crossing Road. Patrolman Trevor Collins stares out of his window into the dark rainy night and ponders what he has seen.


A light he spied, never so brilliant a light before, had he ever seen. But what was it out there in the waiting woods? A Ghost? Never before. A illuminated soul wandering the night woods along Crows Crossing? Strange lights indeed. The cruiser pulls into Adele’s roadside diner at twenty minutes before midnight.
Officer Jacob Cower hadn’t slept well in the hours before he came on shift, and he still had another seven hours to pull. In dire need of stimulant he orders up two cups of coffee from Adele’s, one, a double black for himself and one for his new partner, which he happily accepts.
“Its your turn to drive Trevor.: he instructs the rookie as they return to the cruiser. And Trevor Collins settles into the drivers side of the vehicle. He pulls back onto the road of Crows just five minutes before midnight and begins to drive east. The double black coffee has little effect on Jacob Cowers weary mind and he slowly drifts off to sleep leaving Trevor Collins to the inner workings of his own imagination.


The road rolls by in front of him, and officer Trevor Collins thinks that the cold wet asphalt very much resembles a sheet of never ending black glass. He tries to train his thoughts to the task of driving but they soon return to the beautiful bright lights that he’d seen earlier in the western woods before they’d arrived at Adele’s.
“Why do I really need to understand every little thing that I see?” He asks himself.
From the corner of his eye, he can make out the faint image of light slowly rolling through the trees to his left, and he begins to slow down the vehicles speed, slower yet. Now the light has become stationary and he finds himself transfixed upon the sight. Slowly the cruiser drifts to the left lane, slower yet. His partner continues his nap. A nap from which he will never awaken. The cruiser rolls to a slow stop into the oncoming lane, just below Tag’s hill near the bottom. The light in the woods begin to grow dim as officer Trevor Collins continues to watch in absolute amazement.


But he is in the wrong lane at the wrong time. And when the logging truck bounds from over the top of Tags hill the driver sees the cruiser in his lane far too late. The truck strikes it at full force sending the smaller vehicle flying into the night sky, killing both occupants almost instantly. And when the truck manages to finally stop he bolts from out of the drivers side door, his feet hitting the pavement on a dead run.
“Oh My Lord.”
He runs to the mangled cruiser but there are no signs of life.
He calls 911 from his cell phone and sits down on the shoulder of the road. Shaken he puts his head in his palms and run his fingers through his hair. Wondering.. Wondering.. Why? What? Why was he stopped on my side of the road? What was he doing? The light slowly rolls back into the woods taking two more with it. And seeing it the driver of the truck now understands. You never stop at night to watch the lights, and you can never catch a ghost. Especially here. On Crows Crossing Road.

~Scratch.. A.B.T. Copyright © 2008.~