Matt Shaw: A Sting in the Tale: A Collection of Short Stories

“That’s one plane,” Dylan said. Immediately he regretted opening his mouth. Dylan sighed. He knew what was coming. Coming next was a barrage of recent events from the News; stories about plane crashes and planes disappearing never to be seen again — like something you’d see in an episode of ‘Fringe’ or ‘The X-Files’. He’d heard this repertoire so much now he could have mouthed along, had he had the inclination to do so.

“So okay that was one plane. Blown apart with innocent people onboard because the Russians decided to take them out. Fine. One plane,” Kirsty said. “What about the plane that disappeared overseas? One minute it was there and the next — vanished straight from the radars.”

“Maybe it was a broken radar as opposed to a faulty plane?” It was a glib comment intended to throw Kirsty off her ‘broken record’ of facts and figures.

“It never landed. They never found the passengers.” Kirsty continued, “And then of course there’s that plane that landed with everyone dead. Some deadly virus onboard which was changing the people from the inside out, making them come back as…”

Dylan shut her down, “That was a television programme and a book before that. You don’t get to do that one. To my knowledge there have been no real cases of a virus wiping out everyone on a plane before now.”

“Okay then — that pilot.”

Dylan sighed. He had seen this on the News too. It had been impossible not to see it. Every damned channel screamed about the tragedy and it was on the front page of practically every newspaper. There was a mentally unstable pilot who decided to kill himself by nosediving the plane straight down into the mountains. It would have been okay had it not been for the fact he was supposed to be working at the time. It wasn’t a private plane. It was a commercial jet and full of passengers. His self-destructive nature cost the lives of countless others. One day the selfish asshole woke up and something inside snapped and that was it. He had to kill himself but wasn’t content with just doing that — he wanted to take everyone else with him too, even though they were complete strangers to him. Dylan had just known that Kirsty wouldn’t be able to let that one go.

“He just woke up one day and decided — actually, you know what… I’m done with life. He killed everyone on that plane. Everyone! As did the people who crashed the planes into the Two Towers…”

“Also known as the Twin Towers unless there’s an extra scene that I missed in ‘Lord of the Rings’ and — honey — that was four years ago now. Heard about it happening since then? Come on. You’re panicking over nothing. Statistically speaking — you’re more likely to die on the way to the airport than on the actual plane…”

“Yeah — okay then — you know what?”

“What’s that?”

“Someone — somewhere — probably said that very same fact to one of the passengers on the crashed planes. Did you know it is extremely rare to get hit by lightning?”

“Yes.”

“Well people still get struck. Just because it is rare, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen to you.”

Dylan sighed, “Your cup of tea is getting cold.”

Before she had the chance to say anything, he walked from the room and closed the door behind him. There were only so many times he could say the same thing, “It’s okay — you’ll be fine… You’re worrying for nothing.” You see, that was the problem, Kirsty was a natural born worrier. If something bad could happen to someone, she would often stress that she’d be the one for it to happen to. In any given situation she would be the sort of person who’d fret about the worst possible outcome and it didn’t matter what you said to her. All you could do — to prevent getting into an argument about it — was walk away. He had no idea why she was like that and — truth be told — she had no idea why either. She was thirty-three years young and, in her life, she hadn’t even seen that much tragedy. Not first hand anyway. She just seemed to have a brain that acted as a sponge for all the bad things she saw, or read, in the media.

“Why can’t we go on holiday to London?” she called out. “We could visit the Tower of London again! And — you know what? — it’s only a couple of hours drive from Corby! No need to get on a plane!”

Dylan didn’t answer. He was already downstairs playing his guitar in order to help him de-stress.

Passengers were screaming as they fumbled over securing the masks over their head. Even the air stewards looked uneasy as the plane momentarily dropped from the sky again — hit by another heavy bout of turbulence.

Some of the overhead lockers had opened and spilled their contents on the people below; one man was hit with a case heavy enough to cut his head open and spark him out cold, much to the horror of those around — including Kirsty. She was screaming louder than the others despite everyone being just as scared as she was.

She had been asleep when the turbulence had first started; a slight shudder which had caused a ripple of nervous laughter throughout the economy cabin, followed by a stomach-turning drop as the plane seemingly bounced in the air. As the turbulence had continued and progressively got worse, she had woken with a start. The seatbelt signs had already been illuminated and even the cabin crew had taken their seats.

Outside the windows were black clouds. The plane flying through the middle of them. An electrical storm raging beyond, lighting the whole cabin up with occasional flickers akin to strobe lighting. No thunder though, as the plane danced in the sky — up and then down, down again and up and down and up and down and down and down and up. One passenger — seated on the other side of an equally panicky Dylan — threw up into his mask; dribbles of sick spewing from the corners and snaking their way down his chin as he choked again, repulsed by the stench and fact the sick was captured in his mask and spilling back into his mouth. The lady next to him couldn’t help but to vomit too as the plane dropped from the sky once more before finding its power again and increasing altitude.

The plane tilted to the side; right wing down and left wing up. A god-awful crack filled the cabin as the door flew off, spat into the dark skies beyond. A howling screaming of wind roared through the cabin as bags, trays and rubbish were all sucked out, soon followed by the sight of people — still secured to their seats — also being yanked out to their impending death. More screams, not that you’d hear them over the noise, as the plane started to go down — its nose pointing to the floor 10,000 feet below.

Kirsty screamed again. All sounds — other than a buzzing — stopped and the scene played on in near silence. Slowly, she opened her eyes. The master bedroom of their two bed house; a corner semi-detached in Northamptonshire. The alarm, by the side of her bed, was beeping — telling both her and Dylan that it was time to get up. Still with a raised heartbeat, she killed the alarm and turned to Dylan. He was already up and nearly fully dressed — a look of excitement on his face that their holiday, booked many months ago, was finally here. His face dropped the moment he noticed Kirsty’s expression.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I don’t want to go…”

I I

Dylan was driving the car. He had managed to convince Kirsty that her dream was not a premonition and so she was riding shotgun in the passenger seat. Their son was in the rear, asleep.

The problem with a flight being at 6am in the morning was that they had had to be at the airport a good few hours before they were due to take off. A situation made worse when you lived a number of miles away from where you were flying from — in this case London.