Chapter 1

Death came barreling at me in the form of an overloaded vegetable truck. My brain was even more overloaded as the reality of it hit me.

I'd lived this exact scene before and FAILED to survive. In a moment I would be dead ... again.

In fact my deadness would lead to all sorts of aliveness, which, if history really is repeating itself, would lead to a lot more deadness.

So ... though I was alive, right now, I would be very dead in just a few moments.

Really. Truly. Dead.

R.T.D.

The impact was even worse than I remembered. Of course I was remembering things that were happening and just about to happen.

Quite the conundrum.

The time it took Mr. Hillman's produce truck to kill me stretched out like an eternity. My mind flashed on Beth Ann, Millicent Jane, James Brian, David Gregory, Colleen, Rebecca, Millie, Mr. Bell, Jennifer, and Tabitha, among a battalion of others. I saw video of myself pitching in the World Series and accepting the Series MVP Award. Pictures flitted across my mind of our houseboats, both of them, and our jets.

My heart loved every one of those people. Loved them enough to risk dying for them, but I knew, as Mr. Hillman's produce truck closed in on bringing me my own unique brand of eternity, that they were all gone from me.

Did I ever hold Beth Ann in my arms and make beautiful love to her in a log cabin outside Branson, Missouri?

Did my three children never command my lap, my heart, and my love?

Did I live in two other people's bodies and experience an entire world of wonderful memories, or was I having some out-of-body experience that super-activated my thoughts?

Unconsciously I clamped my hands on the wheel, bracing myself for the fatal impact about to befall me. Even as my body reacted to try and protect itself, I knew it was futile. I'd LIVED it all before ... and died.

My current state of aliveness was about to surrender to a definite condition of deadness. Mr. Hillman's produce truck continued to stalk me.

I knew that there was no way out, right up until I saw it.

Snatching the wheel hard to the right, I almost missed the truck completely. My back bumper was smacked, hard, by the front end of the truck, and the car was thrown through the air toward the bank beside the road.

My seatbelt held me firm, giving no slack to duck as the windshield caved in towards me. I could feel the shock in my hands as the steering wheel bent under my ferocious grip. My pitiful Toyota's frame collapsed inward, bowing up and slamming me against the roof. The stabbing pain was secondary to the terrifying scream of tortured metal, violently burning automobile fluids, and scorched rubber.

Impact turned me until I was back facing the highway, and I could see the truck plowing through the median, seeking out Beth Ann and Brian. Like a crazed boyfriend, the truck stalked them, but my quick turn caused a slight change in direction from the last time we did this, and Mr. Hillman's produce truck, dangerously overloaded, crashed much further toward the back of Beth Ann's Mercury.

That slight alteration changed the impact point enough so that Brian's head was not crushed against the passenger door. The Mercury was thrown wildly across two lanes and turned over on the far bank. The truck continued forward, jackknifed, and twisted to a stop one hundred feet further on.

My injuries were bad, but I knew I had to help Beth Ann and Brian. My feverish brain was solely focused on saving them from that car. I already knew it would burn, and I ripped out of my seatbelt, dragged my injured legs across the highway, and reached their car before anyone else even comprehended what happened.

My body screamed with pain, but I managed to tear open the passenger door and help Beth Ann undo Brian's belt. The engine compartment started to smoke, and fire quickly followed. I asked Beth Ann, "Are you Ok to get out? Can you undo your belt and go out your door? The car is going to burn, we need to get you both out."

She was stunned from the impact, but my direction helped focus her enough to undo her belt, open her door, and jump free. By the time I got Brian out of his harness and away from the now burning car, the fire was beginning to encroach into the passenger compartment.

None of this happened the first time, so I knew I was on my own as to how to help Brian with his injuries. Beth Ann was an emotional wreck, useless for all practical purposes, and I carried Brian clear of the smoke and stench and carefully laid him flat in a patch of grass.

The pain in my back and both legs climbed the scale from bad to excruciating, but I concentrated on the teenage boy before me.

He must have been eating something when they were hit, because I realized Brian was choking to death. Quickly I turned him on his side and firmly struck his back correctly to dislodge the food.

It worked.

He drew a tortured breath and then began to hyperventilate. Beth Ann was still flipping out, but could see that Brain was breathing again. That helped.

I gently tried to check for broken bones, and found nothing resembling dislocations or fractures, to my amateur examination. Satisfied that he was going to be Ok, I let him relax and continue to fill his lungs.