“I dunno about you, but I don’t really fancy being shot down by a fighter jet. I think we’d be better off sticking to Canada,” Mike had said. Tom agreed, although he didn’t really think they’d get shot down, but Mike said it should only add a few hours to their trip to go the “long way”. They’d have to stop at least three times to refuel before they reached the Toronto area, Mike had estimated. They should be home this time tomorrow give or take a few hours, depending on how much sleep they wanted to get when they landed for the night. That sounded a lot better than the four or five days it would take them to drive, but not as good as the 3 or 4 hours it would take on a commercial flight. The old man had said they could take any plane they wanted. Mike had picked out one of the Cessna 152s.
“Why don’t we take one of those bigger ones? Won’t they go further?” Tom had asked, looking over the field of planes.
Mike shook his head. “Nah. This one’s got long range fuel tanks. It’ll go further than those Cherokees. Trust me, buddy.”
Tom didn’t have the faintest idea about flying or airplanes, so he stood back and let Mike do the negotiating, talking and planning.
“Have you ever flown this far before?” Tom had asked, dubiously looking over the map.
Mike shook his head and added a little sheepishly, “I’ve never left Ontario.”
Tom had closed his eyes and rubbed his face. What other choice did they have?
Now that they were airborne he was second-guessing whether they really needed to get home that quickly. Surely a car would be safer. Tom hadn’t realised he’d spoken out loud until Mike replied.
“Actually, the chances of you dying in an air crash are minuscule compared to dying in a car crash.”
“Yeah, but isn’t that for commercial airlines? They’re not counting yahoos who only just got their pilot’s licence a few months ago,” Tom grumbled.
Mike shrugged. “You wanna get home or not? There’s a nice field down there I could drop you off in, buddy.”
Tom wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. “It’s okay. I just didn’t realise how… small… this thing would be.”
“It’s great, isn’t it?”
Tom didn’t reply, just sent a text message to Claire telling her he loved her and then held on tighter.
The mild fear eventually turned to exhilaration and then to boredom. The scenery rushing past below them was stunning, but apparently Tom’s brain could only take so much breathtaking West Coast scenery before he started to crave something else. The temperate rainforest around the Lower Mainland had soon turned into high mountains covered in snow (and thankfully no blizzards or storms) that dazzled Tom and made him wish for sunglasses. Soon enough though, they’d left the Coastal Mountains behind them and the sparser grass plains opened up into the Okanagan desert. He looked down on Lake Okanagan as they flew over and remembered a family holiday they’d taken there when he was a kid, before his dad had died. He must have been only seven or eight. After some late night tales from his Uncle Sam, Tom had been convinced he’d be eaten by Ogopogo if he so much as stepped foot in the lake. Lisa had laughed at him and kept trying to pull him into the water. He’d screamed and screamed until their father had come running, and then made Uncle Sam explain (rather grudgingly) that the Ogopogo was just a story and not real, sort of like the Loch Ness Monster.
Going over the Rockies was amazing. They were much closer than they would have been on a commercial flight.
“What a view!” Mike exclaimed. “You don’t get this every day!”
Their first landing was straight forward and uneventful. Tom remembered reading somewhere that landing and take-off were the most dangerous times in a flight and he’d had to remind himself to breath as the ground came closer and closer. Mike had told him to relax, but that didn’t stop Tom from noticing the relieved exhale and a slump into his seat from Mike when they’d successfully landed. It was a small airfield somewhere in rural Alberta. Unlike the airfield in Vancouver, this one wasn’t deserted. Mike had radioed for permission to land. Tom had half expected to hear only static in answer, but lo and behold, someone had actually answered. They’d been given the green light to land, and a young man with black curls peaking out from under his bright red toque had even come out to meet them once the plane had come to a neat stop.
“Hi there, I’m Russell.” Tom glanced him over. He guessed he was in his early twenties.
“Hey. I’m Mike, and this is Tom.” Mike helped Tom climb down from the plane. It felt good to stretch his legs.
“What can I do you for today, gentlemen?”
“Well, we just need to refuel. We’re heading back to Toronto.”
Russell whistled. “In this? Where have you come from?”
“Vancouver,” Tom said.
Russell whistled again. “That’s quite the journey! Well, at least you’re not heading to Newfoundland or England or something crazy like that.”
Tom wasn’t quite sure he’d classify Newfoundland and England in the same category; at least Newfoundland was in the same country as they were. The Atlantic stood in the way of them and merry old England.
Russell continued to chatter at them good-naturedly. He wasn’t overly concerned about the asteroid.
“I’m sure they’ll figure something out, they always do at the last minute, don’t they?”
Tom bit his tongue. Was it cruel or kind to point out that ‘they’ were actors following a script?
“I wish I was that cheery and optimistic,” Mike said once they were airborne again. “What’s he think, Bruce Willis is going to come and save the day?”
After a few more hours in the sky, Tom was starting to wish for an in-flight entertainment system. He must have dozed off at some point; he jerked awake when the plane suddenly jolted.
“Ah, shit.”
Tom glanced wide eyed over at Mike. He was concentrating fiercely, his tongue sticking out of his mouth in the same way he did when confronted with a particularly difficult piece of coding.
Tom held on tighter as the plane shuddered. It was a lot darker than before Tom had fallen asleep; the steel grey clouds almost completely blocked out the sunlight.
“Can we get above it?” Tom shouted.
Mike shook his head, distracted.
“Too high. This little thing won’t take it. We’ll have to land. Or fly it out… no, I think we’ll have to land, this is too violent. Keep your eyes peeled for a good landing spot.”
Tom looked frantically out the windows, but was hampered by the snow and ice now splattering against the glass. He felt like his teeth were about to rattle right out of his head. He glanced down at his hands; his knuckles were the whitest he’d ever seen them. Images of Claire, Noah and Tristan started flashing before his eyes.
“There, I think I see something. Hold on, we’ll be fine in a jiffy.”
Tom was not reassured. He started praying in his head.
Dear God, Lord, whoever, please, please, please let us survive this. I can’t go like this, I need to get home to my family, please, please. If we get out of this alive, I promise I’ll be grateful for every second of my remaining existence.
It felt like they were in a giant washing machine. Eyes now firmly closed, images of his parents, his sister and his niece soon joined his wife and sons in flashing through his mind’s eye. I just want to see them again, he thought fervently. Please just let me see them again.