Three Daring Escapes

Two of these are pure fiction.

"Anyhow, the plane came crashing down in a roaring ball of fire. It was splattered all over the runway--bits of fuselage and bits of people everywhere. There was a wing on runway eight (which was quite something, since the landing was on runway four), and a head sticking up from the grass like a really disgusting mushroom. The pilot was jelly, and first class--well, what first class? I think that two-hundred-foot ashy smudge might once have been first class. It was like the plane just started at coach. They pulled a few recognisable bodies out of the very back, by the toilets, but none of them had any legs. I suppose my question to you would be this: everyone else died, including five parakeets in the baggage compartment. How did you get out?"

"I got out the door." (Pause.) "Yes. It was definitely the door."

"I don't understand. The rear doors were fused shut in the fire, and the front door was vaporised. Anyhow, I saw your ticket. You weren't in first class, anyway, or anywhere near it. You couldn't have come out that way."

"No, no. I meant the emergency door."

"You used the emergency door? In that case, why didn't anyone else?"

"Well, it was like this: the wing came off during landing. I'd guess we were about ten thousand feet up when that happened, but it doesn't take long for a jumbo jet to fall a few kilometres. We didn't know it was the wing, though. It all happened pretty quickly. One minute, we were listening to the stewardess going on about fastening one's seat belt and putting all feet in the upright position (or whatever it is one does during landing), and the next--CRACK! There was this crack sort of thing, and then we did a slitchy move, off to one side. The nose plunged, and the plane started twisting and whirling like a hundred-ton maple key. Folks were falling all over the place, and screaming, and a cataclysmic roaring sound started. It was like being in a train going through a tunnel, only a thousand times louder: hoooooooooosh!

"Me, I didn't know what to do. Some stewardess was hanging onto a seat and yelling for everyone to get into crash position, but I didn't bother. I didn't see much point, really. We weren't just hurtling downward in a civilised manner, see. We were spinning and yawing and flying apart. The temperature had plunged. Cold air was getting in from outside. So I took off my seat belt (it was pinching), crawled onto the back of my seat--"

"What? How did you do that?"

"Let me paint you a picture, here: the plane's bloody vertical at this point. We're heading for the ground not just at terminal velocity, but with all the power of whatever engines we've got left behind us. Hundreds of miles per hour. It's like being on the Vomit Comet.

"So, when I undid my belt, I was practically weightless. Instead of just falling down the aisle, I floated. I barely had to scrabble to get over the seat, and then I had to hang on to avoid floating up even further on my momentum. This lady was sitting there with her seat belt still on, screaming right in my face. 'What are you dooooooooing? Get out of here! You're going to crush me!'

"Well, I had to laugh at that. 'Lady,' I said, my voice tremblier than I thought it would be, 'we're all getting crushed, whether I leave or no. So I'm staying.' She kept yelling, but I didn't move. And a couple of seconds after that, I saw the ground rushing up.

"'This is it,' I yelled. 'Aaaaaaarrgh!' The nose (or something) struck and bounced. I bounced, too, clear over the seat. Well, I more flew, really, heading noseward at an alarming rate. I sailed straight over everyone's heads. I caught a series of nightmare glimpses of folks being torn apart by their seat belts, and then the plane leveled off and an empty seat rushed up to meet me. I stuck my feet out, and that's when I broke my feet and ankles. I crumpled into the seat, and that's when I broke my left wrist. I stuck out my right hand to steady myself, and that's when I felt the door handle. See, I'd flown straight into the seat by the emergency door. I yanked and shoved, and we smashed into the ground again. There was a big ol' throaty boom, and a fireball came rushing up to meet me, My eyebrows crisped right off, and--well, you see the state of my hair. No amount of Pantene'll salvage this.

"Just as I was about to be roasted like a pig on a spit, the door flew open and I squirted out of the plane like a watermelon seed. I slammed into the grassy area like a sack of potatoes...and that's when I broke my nose, my shoulder, and my ribs. A giant wheel came careening out of nowhere, and that's how I bruised my arse. Talk about a spanking! Yeow! An errant barf bag flew just overhead--a full one--and that's when I fainted dead away. I have this terrible fear of vomit."

"Well, that's quite a story."

"Isn't it!"

"Will you be flying Air Transat again?"

"Well, I got a free coupon for first class...."

I was snoozing when the shooting started, out like a light. I didn't even notice it at first. It got into my dream, making me think I was in a malfunctioning submarine. The banging noises, those were bolts flying out of the hull. Water came hissing in at a thousand miles per hour, cutting people in half like butter. I was wading in a knee-high puddle of blood-froth and salt water, looking for the steering wheel. I figured if we could just make the surface, we could get to the lifeboats. (Do submarines even have lifeboats? I don't know.)

I didn't wake up till the massacre'd been going on for a while. At a guess, everyone on the eighteenth floor was dead by the time I cracked an eyelid, and half the nineteenth floor was gone by the time I'd got my bearings.

"Whoa," I told Stella, who was, oddly enough, wide awake. That lazy rat usually sleeps till dinner's served. "That was one wacky dream." Stella whiffled nervously, twitching her ears. I twitched mine too, listening.

Bang! banged a gun.

"Shit!" I squeaked. I got down behind the couch, listening some more. I could hear running feet, several pairs, and screaming. There were shouting voices as well, angry voices--the killers. I was relieved to hear more than one murderer running about. See, that was how I got the idea that saved my life. There is one reasonably reliable way to hide in the midst of a giant massacre, after all. Padding on tiptoes, I raced round my flat. I hit the fridge, the bathroom, the closet--I was everywhere, making my preparations. Stella whimpered and eeked, hurtling round her cage like a mad thing. I ignored her and raced into the front hall. I reached the vestibule just as the crack of a boot kicking in a door rang out from across the hall. One hand on the doorknob, I counted three seconds: one you-bad-rat, two you-bad-rat, three you-bad-rat--long enough for the invader to get well into my neighbours' flat--then, I opened my own door a crack. That done, I booted arse back to the couch.

Thirty seconds later, the footsteps entered my living room. They came right up to me, and the muzzle of a gun poked my arm. I let it swing limply. The gun poked my foot, my mouth, my leg. Ew, I thought to myself. That gun touched my foot and then my mouth. A shot rang out, and I figured I was dead for real. As it turned out, though, he wasn't shooting at me at all. He was going for Stella, the sadistic wanker. Fortunately, she ducked into her nest with nothing worse than a singed tail.

Me, I waited till everything was quiet save for the pitter-patter of falling plaster. Oh, and the wail of police sirens from the driveway. (Nice timing, guys.) Then, I sat up and scraped the hamburger and acrylic ink (carmine and peat brown) off my head and chest.

Then, there was the time I escaped from my father, two dustmen, a pack of slavering police dogs, and (almost) the country itself. We'd just moved to Canada, see, and I'd had a letter from my best friend back in England. It started out ordinarily enough (the letter)--some girl we both knew was knocked up and transferring to a Catholic school, the sex-pervert English teacher was under review and possibly going to get sacked, there were new picnic tables in the quadrangle...and my best friend had run off to live with her heroin dealer. That last bit, of course, that wasn't ordinary at all. I knew she was using, but I hadn't realized it'd gone so far.

Now, one might consider me an impractical sort, even now. I put ice cream bars in my pockets and screw up my tax returns. I date folks who don't suit me at all, and get conned into buying television sets I don't need. But when I was fourteen years old, I was worse. Much worse. I mean, I didn't have a clue. Presented with a maths problem, I'd solve it, but given one of life's little obstacles, I'd flail like a flounder.

In this particular case, I decided to set off walking towards Pearson International Airport with two dollars in my pocket. Once at the airport, I figured I'd sneak onto a London-bound plane. (What I planned to do about the situation once I reached England was a mystery to all, myself included.) I'd had about five hundred dollars at the beginning of the day (money I'd raised for the Canadian Diabetes Association), but instead of stealing it, I stopped at school to turn it in before setting off on my ridiculous errand. Now, my starting point was right on the outskirts of St. Catharines. That's more than an hour outside Toronto by car, and well over a day's journey on foot. I didn't even have a map, so I was well screwed, even without the obstacles fate threw in my way.

The first obstacle was my father. Stopping at school with the money wasn't such a bright idea. I was seen wandering off down the highway, and the truant officer rang my parents. My father took off after me in his car, and caught up with me about five miles into my journey.

"Get in here!" he said.

"Help!" I shouted, noticing a dust truck approaching.

"What's going on?" said a friendly dustman.

I started yapping and protesting, claiming my father was a crazy pervert trying to get me into his car. The dustmen told him not to move a muscle, and radioed up the police. Realizing the game'd be up the minute the cops arrived, I lit out across the fields, plunging into a nearby forest. It was muddy and brambly in there--damn slow going--and by the time I got out the other side, I could hear dogs barking. I didn't know it at the time, but those were the aforementioned police dogs, summoned by the cops, the dustmen, and my father, all of whom were presumably milling about in the forest by this time.

By great good (?) fortune, I burst out of the forest just as a cab driver came passing by. I claimed to be lost, and he gave me a free ride as far as Hamilton. (That's getting warm--I'd guess it's about half an hour from Hamilton to Toronto.) I pawned an opal ring for about a tenth of its value, and used the proceeds to hop an airport bus.

The airport, as it turned out, was the end of the line for me. I got on a plane, but was kicked back off again almost immediately. See, I'd got on by claiming my folks had already boarded, taking my ticket with them. I was hoping the stewardess wouldn't insist on sticking with me till I found my alleged parents, but she did. After a ludicrous amount of peering and wandering, it became apparently there were no parents, and I was ejected from the aircraft. The airport police had figured out who I was and whistled up my parents by the time I was back in the terminal proper. I was not allowed to continue my ill-advised pilgrimage, but was not arrested or charged with any crimes. (I'm not sure I actually committed any--it would've been theft if I'd succeeded in flying without a ticket, but I didn't. The ring I pawned was my own, and I didn't steal the Canadian Diabetes Association's money. Wandering around the plane might've been trespassing, but I didn't resist when they asked me to leave. Told me to leave. Chucked me out. Well, you get the idea.)

I never got the opal ring back, and my trousers got torn in my flight through the forest. All in all, that particular escape operation was a bust. I didn't escape eastern Canada for another few years.