Follow The Voice

"Here's your ticket, Sir." The girl behind the counter is trying to get my attention.

My mind slowly reels back into reality.

"Thank you, Miss." I reply, taking it from her.

She hands my buddy his as well, and we head out to the runway.

"You all good, Mike?" My friend, Will, asks me as we approach the plane. It's not ready to board yet.

"Yeah, I'm fine. It's just this case..."

We'd come to the Aleutians for a lawsuit. When we'd signed on for the task, we were enthusiastic enough. We hadn't been told everything.

Upon arrival, we were given the full scoop.

A woman had sued a man for frowning at her. She'd claimed emotional distress. After a grueling hearing, the judge actually took the case to trial.

We were her lawyers. Apparently she had some connection with our firm back in Washington, and we were the lucky winners to get her case.

I'm exhausted. So is Will.

The case had been the very definition of draining.

"When are they going to load up this plane? I'm ready to go home." Will grumbles.

"And this is only the first leg of the journey. Once we get to Anchorage, we still have a good three hours of flying ahead of us."

We settle into a depressed silence.

I hear footsteps behind us. I turn, and Will does the same.

"Hello there. I'm Pastor Ken." The man says. He seems about our age, mid-forties maybe. His short black hair is messy, but neat, a combination I had never thought possible until now. His smile is genuine.

"Hello," I respond. "I'm Mike Daley, and this is my colleague, William Johnson. Pleasure." I shake his hand.

"Likewise." He says.

He continues.

"Listen, I can save you some money."

I'm curious. I look to Will, and he gives me a look that says, "Why not?"

I say, "How's that?"

"See, I fly a small airplane, and I can take you up in my little plane, and you can save your ticket."

Red flags immediately start going up. My spidey sense kicks in.

Will looks as if he's thinking the same thing.

"Gee, thank you so very, very much, but we've got this ticket, and we'll just make our way on home." I reply.

"No, no, you gotta do it. Come on, It'll be fun. I don't like to let people fly that airline," He gestured to the plane we were about to board, "if I can help it. Terrible service, and the windows are so small you can't see a thing. Trust me, you haven't lived until you've flown in a bush plane."

I could feel my sense of adventure kicking in. I may not be so young anymore, but I still feel like I am.

Will asks him some questions, and I listen to his answers. We soon become excited.

But there's still a little voice in the back of my head, saying, "Don't do it." But when have I ever listened to the voice in the back of my head?

"Alright. We'll do it. Thank you for the offer." I say with a grin.

He grins even wider, and leads us off the tarmac to the little airport where his plane's parked.

We look at it.

The first thing I notice is that it's shiny. That's a good sign, right?

He walks around it, doing his pre-flight checks, I believe they're called.

"Hop in!" He eventually calls from the front.

I follow Will, who gets in the back with our suitcases, and I settle in the front, to Ken's right.

Ken starts the engine. Everything starts up just fine. I'm beginning to rethink this decision a little bit.

"How often do you fly this thing?" Will calls from behind me.

"Oh, all the time. I love being in the air." He calls back. This settles me somewhat.

We taxi out. We speed up.

"Well, should we pray?" I ask, before we take off.

"Yeah, that's a good idea. I mean, we normally don't, but..."

"Well, this time, we're gonna!" I know I sound scared, but right now I don't really care. My suspicions are confirmed when Will starts laughing at me. I shake my head.

I start praying, and I just keep going. After probably about five or eight minutes, I finally shut up, and I can tell Will is grateful. He never went in much for the whole "God" thing.

Takeoff is nothing like I expected. The little plane lifts off the runway more gently and smoothly than anything I've ever experienced.

"Now you understand what I meant about the tiny windows, huh?" Ken calls to us.

My only response is a dumb nod. I'm speechless. As we climb higher and higher, the beauty I see below is overwhelming.

I never knew flying could be such an enjoyable experience.

But after a few minutes, Ken turns to me and says, "We're going in the clouds. See, I can't fly in clouds, they make me pass out."

Time stops. I finally find my tongue again.

"Clouds make you do what?" It's been cloudy all day. I'm paralyzed. What on earth have I done?

We enter the clouds. We can't see anything.

Ken looks at me and his eyes roll back in his head, he mumbles something incoherent, and he passes out cold.

I slap him. Nothing happens. I grab him, and I shake him, and I say, "Come on, you gotta wake up, so I can kill you!" Still nothing.

I look into Will's crazed eyes, as he says, "We're dead, aren't we, Mike?"

"There's a very good chance of that, yes."

"What are we gonna do?"

"I don't know."

I look around frantically, until I find the radio. I hand him the microphone.

"Start asking for help."

He starts screaming, "Hello? Hello? HELLO?!" And that's when it hits me. We don't know any proper radio talk.

After what seems like forever, somebody finally answers back.

"Hello? Hello? Don't you guys know proper radio etiquette?"

I yank the microphone from Will's hand and say into it, "We don't know nothing! We're in an airplane with a passed out pilot, and we don't know how to fly this plane."

"I'm a freighter flying out of Anchorage on the way to Tokyo. You're telling me you have nobody who can fly that plane with you?"

"That's correct."

I feel bullets of sweat going down my back.

He says, "The first thing I'm going to do is start circling, so I don't lose you, because I'll fly out of range of your radio, and you won't have me anymore. I'm going to get Anchorage Emergency for you, and Anchorage Emergency will be the people that can maybe help you, try to save your life."

The radio goes quiet. We don't know what to think.

After what must have been five-ish minutes, another man comes on the radio.

"We understand you have a passed out pilot, and those of you do not know how to fly that plane."

"That's right." I say, glad that we're no longer alone.

"Alright, now the first thing we gotta do is find you. My job is to get you home safe. That's my job. But here's the deal. If you want me to get you home safe, you gotta promise me you'll obey my voice. You can't see me, but I can see you. If you're not gonna obey my voice, you're gonna die."

I can't see anything. I feel myself becoming more disoriented by the minute.

Finally, he comes back on.

"I found you, now hear me clear. You're four minutes away from a mountain. You're gonna crash into that mountain and die. Follow my voice."

I don't question it. Without this voice, I have nothing. Without this voice, I die.

"Okay." I say, my voice much firmer than I believe it should be.

He guides me through the controls and what buttons to hit, and when to hit them. He gets us turned around in the nick of time.

"I'm freezing all the traffic in the area. It's gonna take me an hour and a half to get you to Anchorage, and there's a lot of weather between you and Anchorage. You're in for a rough ride.

"I want you to hear me. I don't want you to look at what's going on outside, I don't want you to pay attention to the storm. Just. My. Voice. If you start watching the storm, you will die. But I'll take you through it."

I nod, even though I know he can't see it.

Then the radio comes to life. The traffic that Control froze up begins to talk to us.

"We're praying for you, man!"

"You're gonna make it!"

"But listen to the voice, that's the key!"

"Trust the voice."

We get through the worst of the weather, but I know there's still more to come.

The voice comes back.

"Now, I'm gonna line you up. I'm gonna bring you in, right down the runway. At the foot of the runway, there are some lights. They're in the form of a cross. Don't you forget this, the cross is the way home."

We still can't see anything. But we trust the voice.

He guides us down.

"Stay with me, just stay with me." He keeps saying.

Finally, a couple hundred feet off the ground, we see the cross.

He helps me land the plane.

We finally come to a stop.

The minute we cease moving, the pilot wakes up. We ignore him because the voice comes back on.

"Thanks for listening." He says, "I watch them crash and burn all the time because they won't follow my voice. They don't understand I'm the one that can see them, even when they can't see me. They listen to the voices in their own head, and they kill themselves. They self-destruct. Thanks for listening to the voice."

On the tarmac, we're greeted by paramedics, and we're put up in a motel room.

After hours of lying awake, we finally fall asleep.

I'm awakened by a knock at the door. It's four in the morning.

I answer it.

A man stands in front of me. He speaks.

"Hello, Mike."

I want to cry.

"You're the voice," I say, "you're the one who got me home."

He says, "I am."

Based on true events:

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