Johnny Davis is a long haul trucker with insurance and safe driving issues.  He's had so many accidents that he's uninsurable and can't earn a living doing the only thing he knows how to do, which is over-the-road hauling.  He goes to his late father's friend, Pete Siekovich, to ask for help; Johnny's father had always said that if he was in a tough spot, that Pete was the man to talk to.  Pete tells Johnny that there is a company that will insure him, if he drives exclusively for them, as Pete does.  Happy to have a job, Johnny agrees. 

The job Pete offers him is driving the dead to Hell, in cattle-car trailers, a rather Machiavellian occupation that pays well.  Pete has made good money doing this, since he was uninsurable at one time as well.  Johnny has no choice, so he goes along with Pete on his first trip.  When they reach Hell, the guards seem to be all the same, dressed in grey uniforms with a kind of whip-like stun gun.  They handle the dead roughly, and Johnny tries to stop the guard, who turns on him.  Pete intervenes, giving the guard a cigarette, which he tells Johnny are good to use as bribes.  Pete shows Johnny that the dead, who look like living zombies, are past hurting, so what the guards do to them is of no consequence.  Johnny is not convinced. 

During dinner at a truckstop, which is on the road to hell and used only by those truck drivers, Johnny finds out that these disturbances, or "trouble among the dead," are growing.  The other drivers talk about it, and one of them even stomps out, saying he's done with taking people to Hell who don't deserve to be there because he might end up there himself because of it. 

On the next stopped there is a fight going on in Hell, between the guards and the dead.  Johnny is cornered by several of the dead, who say they weren't bad enough to be sent to Hell.  One says she was a drug addict, but didn't hurt anyone but herself.  Another blames her upbringing on her faults.  Johnny gets away and helps the guards, but another of the dead stops Johnny, a man named Gary Frick, who tells him he used to be in the management ranks of Hell and didn't do anything bad enough to be sent there.  Gary feels that people are being sent to Hell that shouldn't be; they aren't truly bad, or didn't really sin.  It's just corporate ineptitude and cost-cutting measures that are sending the wrong people to the "low road," as they call the run to Hell.  He asks Johnny to intercede, and help the dead that should go to the "high road" get there.

Johnny is rewarded for helping the guards.  One of the higher ups in Hell's management, a Dispatcher, asks to see him, to thank him.  Johnny mentions he saw one of Hell's former executives in Hell, and the Dispatcher is surprised to hear that Gary had gotten the low road.  He makes it seem like Hell would like to promote Johnny to a management position.  Johnny is non-commital

The next trip to Hell, Johnny stops the truck at the junction between the high and low road.  He questions the dead in his truck, several of whom say they killed people.  Others turn out to be gay or drug addicts, and Gary lets three of them out of the truck, pointing them towards the high road.  They thank him, and he feels he's done the right thing.