Surviving sixty minutes Part 3 The Officer

Officer Lou Simmons started his morning like he did every morning. He threw up. He threw up every morning because of the nightmares he had since the accident. It happened over almost three months ago right on the day when his transfer to Florida became a reality. He was a nineteen years veteran in the NYPD and asked for his transfer to Florida four months ago, based on family issues. That of course was a lie. Simply, he had enough of the big city with its dirty laundry, massive crime rate and the corruption surrounded him every day. He prided himself to stay clean over all those long years, even though it wasn’t easy. After nineteen years however he couldn’t take any more of it. He needed to move to a smaller, safer and most importantly, warmer place. When he heard there is an empty position in the St. Augustine police department, he filed his transfer request immediately. They accepted it, and after a month of waiting for the necessary paperwork he was free to move and be a member of the Saint Augustine Beach Police Department.

In his nightmares he went through the accident over and over again, with the same result. He always woke up in a pool of sweat, scared and feeling sick.

Ironically, the day of the accident started as one of the best days in his life. It was moving day. He packed all his stuff already, nice and tidy and loaded his rental U-Haul truck. Everything was ready to go by the morning. He looked at his house one last time and said a quite goodbye to the building, his home in Ozone Park in Queens New York over a decade. He had mixed feelings, partly sad to leave it behind forever, but also happy about what was waiting for him in the future. He loved being a cop and couldn’t wait to cruise the beaches. He started up the engine and slowly pulled into the slow traffic, heading to Belt Parkway that led him to Verrazano Bridge and following Route 278 it took him to Route 95 within an hour.

He was looking forward to this trip even though he knew it will take over eighteen hours of driving to reach St. Augustine. He planned to stop about halfway in North Carolina to spend the night and after that he was going straight to Florida without any further stops, apart from the occasional bathroom breaks. The drive was uneventful and the traffic never bothered him. The only thing he noticed was a grey Toyota that seemed to head to the same destination he was. It was sometimes ahead of him, other times behind and occasionally in the next lane going with the same speed Lou did. He looked over several times and saw the driver of the Toyota, an old man maybe in his late seventies Hispanic looking but he couldn’t say that for sure.

It was early afternoon on the next day when he finally crossed the Georgia border into Florida. Heading to Jacksonville on I95, he saw the same grey Toyota again, besides him on the fast lane trying to pass him. He looked over and saw the old man on his mobile phone, which Lou being an officer made him quite angry. His first thought was to pull him over but he quickly realized he is off duty.

From the next moment things were speeding up and what once was a perfect driving day, escalated into horror quickly. The driver of the Toyota suddenly cut ahead of him as if he missed an exit. Lou stepped on the break and swerved to the left to avoid the collision. This might have worked with a police cruiser, but not with a truck loaded from floor to the ceiling. He completely lost control and crushed through the barrier into incoming traffic on the opposite lane. He saw a black car coming and he knew he will hit it frontally, nothing he could do about it. After that he didn’t remember anything apart from a loud crash until he came to his senses again, his truck is on its side, with Lou still in the cabin, scared but unhurt.

The other driver wasn’t so lucky. Lou learned later that it was a woman in that car, her name was Anna and she died instantly in the crash. The following investigation cleared Lou completely and was closed without ever finding the grey Toyota. Officer Simmons was cleared by law indeed but not by his conscience, and from that day the nightmares had begin.

That’s how he lived for almost three months now, being sick every morning, wondering if he could have avoid this accident in any way. The thought ate him alive and by now he was a changed man. This morning wasn’t any different from the rest. He got up showered, had a quick breakfast and headed to the Police station for the morning briefing. As usual there were no serious cases apart from some drunks and some rowdy teenagers. After the briefing he sat in his police cruiser and started to patrol his area on the beach. He was driving on the road A1A when all sudden out of nowhere two teenagers who looked like surfers ran out of a parking lot and frantically flagged him down. They said they found a body just lying there injured. Lou didn’t hesitate for a moment and pulled into the lot. It was completely empty only one car parked and the body was not far from it. As he got closer he saw it was a man covered in dried blood, terrible burns on his hands and by looks, he had a broken shoulder. He was breathing but unconscious, so after Lou made sure he is stable, he called in for help. In the next days he went to the hospital couple of times and tried to talk to the man but by then he went into a coma.

Officer Simmons was the kind of cop who checked every little detail. The report of the car came back from the forensics team clean, no blood and no signs of struggle, so Lou decided to revisit the parking lot one more time, to take a good look, and to check if they missed anything that would help to solve the case. Arriving to the parking lot the first thing he saw was a small building and he was sure that building was not there before…

That was the last time anyone ever saw or heard from Police Officer Lou Simmons.

a reply to: szino9

Great timing!
Another story (FL), I'll be back in a bit for a read.

Great to see part 3 . Well done as always .

a reply to: VengefulGhost

Thanks Ghost, look out for part 4 soon

a reply to: szino9

More to come? Or just a story about a good man who suffered?

originally posted by: szino9
a reply to: VengefulGhost

Thanks Ghost, look out for part 4 soon

Looking forward to it .
Far better than the stack of directors reports Ive got to read over yet tonight .

a reply to: Antipathy17

did you read the first two part?

a reply to: szino9

Nope. I read the title as 3 parts but thought it was going to be all in 1 tread on different replies

a reply to: Antipathy17

ok

Part 3 will make sense once you read them all I promise!

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