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Nobody understood. How could they understand? The back of the freight train, always blamed for whatever went wrong on a run. C.B. had had to hear it for years. Decades. That he wasn't good enough. That he thought he was better than everyone else.
They could never make up their fucking minds.
It started with one. It was an accident. A diesel had derailed; not in any immediate danger, not at first. But it was too easy. When the other cars were too busy, worried about who to call, how to call. The guy with the radio had kicked him closer to the edge. It gave him such a rush to hear the metal crunch at the bottom of the ravine he could barely make the message back to Control.
One by one, engines had little accidents, here and there. It was so fun, and nobody suspected a thing from the guy at the back. They all assumed he was too stupid to handle that kind of planning.
But one diesel knew better.
Greaseball had always been a cocky one. Selfish. Up his own port, for lack of better terminology.
He was such an easy target.
Electra, too, was easy. A flashy new thing, the world handed to him on a platter. Five little groupies who did his bidding.
What was one more friend?
It was really just engines he was after. The most the coaches ever did was call him a little dumb, but that was true of all his friends. And the freight trucks? They were his true friends. The ones that defended him every time.
Well. Until they didn't.
That motherfucker. He thought he could trust Dustin, of all people. The dumbest of the lot, and yet he was the one that tipped Rusty about foul play. He should have known better. C.B. had spat at him, cursed at him as the marshals grabbed him by the axles.
It was unforgivable.
After a while, not even the marshals checked on him. He banged on the buffers behind him, kicking useless feet that had wheels broken off of them. He could have learned to walk back, had they not removed his quads three at a time.
The Starlight forbid a caboose do anything.