"The Runaway Train"

Synopsis: Late in the summer of 1986, record temperatures hit Hill Valley just as summer vacation hits a lull for Jules and Verne, both restless and yerning for some excitement. Meanwhile, Clara is sick of housework, and Marty is depressed over Jennifer's long absensce from a summer job, craving a distraction of any kind. So when Doc's latest experiment blows out the power -- and the air conditioning -- in his house, he decides it's the perfect excuse to get away for a week, while the repairs are being made. With Marty in tow, the Browns -- and Einstein -- take the train back to the small town of Stange, Ohio in January 1855 and locate a rustic inn, deciding it to be the perfect location for their week-long stay in the past. The second day of their stay, however, a wealthy plantation owner from Mississippi shows up at the inn and takes an interest in Clara. His name? Leslie Tannen. Tannen doesn't mind that Clara is married with children and seizes every opportunity he can to be alone with her. But when he takes the game too far and Clara lashes back, he decides it's time to do things his way -- by force. Later that night, when Tannen shows up with a false document ordering the arrest of Clara, the time travelers slip away in a secret passageway adjacent to their room, joining up with a group of slaves who are running away to freedom in Canada. By an amazing coincidence, they were once Tannen's property and want to lose him just as much as the Browns and Marty do. Over the next few days the group is pursued relentlessly by a desperate Leslie Tannen who will stop at nothing to get his slaves -- and the woman he wants -- back in his hands....

Length: Approximately 72,000 words

Written: March 1997 - July 1997

Revised: July 1997; February 2002 - April 2002

What's New in '02: "More than should've been," is my response.... The tale gained about 14,000 words, due to some warps and shifts in plot. One of which -- the changes with the climax -- I had not anticipated. This is a perfect example of how much things can change when one decides to make one "small" change (so they think). Yet I like this better, now, since the climax seems tighter. But, this is my opinion, and for all I know I botched it worse than ever, so.... The climax and plan of rescue are the most notably different. I changed Marty's accident on the sled a smidge, for some reason. One of those things that I don't know why I changed, entirely. This happens sometimes where I'll start manipulating the old details for the same sort of result for no clear reason in my mind. I also tweeked interactions between Clara and Tannen a bit. Beyond this, I can't really rattle off things that are tremendously different. Once more, it seems like I essentially rewrote scenes to the letter and cleaned up my own prose style and the like. One thing that is rather interesting to me is that I came up with the idea for this story right around the time I first read Mary Jean Holmes' BTTF works, or what existed of them by February 1997. I swear that my subconscious duped some things from her "Past Imperfect" and I'll flat out admit that seeing she added daughter Emily to Doc and Clara's family stirred the idea up in my own head once more about adding another kid to them, prompting the discussion between the couple on the train, and the character of Phoebe. (I had considered a third kid from the time of my very first BTTF story, when I was 13, after a dream where the Browns had another baby... a girl named Emily. But I'd been too scared then to change things that majory in the BTTF universe.) I also feel that this story was the beginning of a shift in my writing so the plots weren't as cringe-worthy as some of the older ones, and my skills started to become tighter. Maybe writing this (originally) during the completion of my senior year of high school helped with that impression, too.

Author's Notes: I hit upon the idea for this story while doodling out various time period ideas for a new BTTF story in mid-February 1997 during a high school class. We were supposed to be taking notes in class for a test we never did take, so I decided to take some notes of my own. I literally have the moment this idea hit written down on paper in my notebook. The Underground Railroad is a bit of history that has intrigued me since I was a child. Perhaps because of the secrecy and daring of the whole thing, and the fact I used to be ga-ga over the idea of secret passages. The open scene in this story, with Jules and Verne goofing on the stairs, is something my own brother and I used to do as kids. We used to take the laundry baskets and go sledding with them on the stairs, which my mom always yelled at us about, saying we would break the baskets, our necks, or rip the banister off the wall. None of her predictions came true. I had completely forgotten about that game until I was kicking the laundry basket down the stairs one day and then I remembered. I was half tempted to try that game again, but decided that I would break something this time around! The town Stange, Ohio is completely ficticious. The couple that own the inn, Louisa and Jon Wallace, are loosely based on my aunt and uncle -- my mom's sister, Louise, and her husband John. Marty's little spill on the sled is based on another experiance of mine. In January 1997 I joined a friend at this snow camp in Washington state. The second day there we were inner tubing down this slick, icy hill. I took one run down and decided I needed more speed next time. So the second time I went down I ran, threw myself on the tube on my stomach, and away I went. Right away I knew I was in trouble -- I was too far forward. I managed to hold on the first two snow jumps that were constructed, but on the third I went flying. I landed on my chin, snapped my head back, then slid a few feet. I was a little shaken up and had a nasty scrape on my chin that annoyed me for two weeks as it healed -- every time I did any facial expression the scabs pulled -- but I was okay. I got off pretty lucky, I think, since I happened to stop just shy of taking a header into a tree. Finally, a word of caution. I hemmed and hawed about doing this time period weeks, since it's such an explosive time in American history. And the last thing I wanted to do was inadvertantly offend people. I tried my best not to, but if I did offend anyone, I apologise. Writing historical fiction stuff is tough enough trying to make as accurate as possible, but when you take into account a delicate and sensitive subject such as slavery, it can get downright messy. So if you think there is even a possibility you might be offended by this story, don't read it.

CHAPTERS 1 - 6 CHAPTERS 7 - 12 CHAPTERS 13 - 18