Work Text:
September 8th, 2017
One cool September Night, the Small Engines of the Arlesdale Railway were founding it hard to go to sleep.
“What we need, is a story,” said Jock.
“Oooo, I like stories,” said Rex, who started listing off stories to tell. Mike, grumbled.
“Humph!” he grunted, Bert looked over to his friend.
“Now, Mike. Maybe Rex might have some good stories to tell,” he explained, but Mike just rolled his eyes.
“Pah! He never does.” He stated. “Either the same stories repeated, or stories that don’t really make a hold lot of sense,”. While Mike did have a point there, it still hurt Rex’s feeling.
“Then why don’t you tell us a story then, Mike,” said Frank. Mike was surprised.
“Me!? Ha! Frank, you know I don’t-,”
“Don’t have any good ones to tell us?” Frank asked, rudely cutting him off. Mike was now very cross with Frank.
“Why you little-,” just as Mike was about to throw insults at Frank, an idea flew into his funnel.
“Oh, but Frank, I do have some good ones,” said Mike, acting confident. “Now do you all know where the Old Station is near Ffarquhar Road?” asked Mike, the other agreed. They have gone past that Old Station many times before, but never thought must of it, till now.
“Well, do you all know the stories about the passenger who missed her last train?” asked Mike to the others. The sheds were silent.
“Not that we are aware of,” said Bert. “Why is that?” and Mike began his story.
“During the Mid Sodor days, there was a little girl waiting on the platform at the Old Station for the train to take her to Arlesburgh Wharf, but she didn’t realise she had missed the last train, and the station had closed for the night. What happened next, no one knows. The next day, the girl’s aunt, who she visited the day before, asked the station master if they had seen her niece get on the last train to the Wharf, but he didn't, and no one else saw her. A search party was sent out to look for her, but they never found her nor her body ever. They only found the girl’s belongings, a baby blue suitcase and her straw hat,” Mike concluded. The little engines were very shaken up by the stories.
“W-w-w-what h-h-happened t-t-to, her?” asked Rex, very scared.
“No one knows, even to this very day, but engines who worked the old railway and staff will tell you, that if you are still working after the last train to the Wharf has gone, you can still see the little girl waiting on the platform, waiting for her train, to take her home, but it will never come,” Mike paused dramatically, as he looked at his friends. They looked frightened, but Bert put in a brave face.
“Thank you for that story there, Mike, it was very…. Interesting,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” replied Mike, as he looked at Rex, who was the scariest of all.
“Don’t get your tender in a twist, Rex. It’s just a story I made up,” said Mike, as he felt asleep. Rex wasn’t too sure, the story sounded, a little too real to him.
The next day went by perfectly fine. Work went smoothly for the small engines, and no ghost in sight. But all the same, the others had completely forgotten about Mike’s story, until the day became afternoon, and slowly getting darker.
That late afternoon, The Small Controller, Mr Gregory Thompson came to Rex whilst he was filling up on water at East Arlesdale.
“I need someone to collect some passengers from Marthwaite Station. They need to catch Douglas’ connecting to Tidmouth Station to go home. Can you do that for me?” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” Rex replied, but he really didn’t want to. He knew he had to go past the Old Station near Ffarquhar Road. It gave him the creeps at nighttime, but he knew that he had to be a very brave and useful engine, so him and his driver agree to it.
When night came, Rex waited with his train at Marthwaite Station for the passengers to board the train. They look had come back from camping at the campsite just on top of the hill, nearby to station. They climbed into the open roof top coaches, the guard blew his whistle, and Rex whistle in response, and they puffed away to the Arlesburgh West Station. As the puffed down the line, Rex couldn’t help but feel uneased, he started thinking about the Mike’s story from last night and he started getting scared the closer they got to the Old Station. Rex couldn’t help but feel a pit of anxiousness form in his boiler, and the water in him ran cold as ice as he saw the station.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Rex muttered to himself, even his driver and the passengers agreed how unsettling the area felt and looked. The station had overgrown vines on the platform and up the walls of the station. Some slate tiles from the roof were missing or had fallen onto the ground. The door to the station master’s office was missing, and when you looked in there, you swore you saw something moving around inside, and that what Rex’s swear. He thought he saw a shadowy figure walking within the station building, when there were no lights in there. Suddenly, Rex nearly fell off the rails in surprised but soon went to being frightened. There on the platform, waiting with a baby blue coloured suitcase was a young girl. She looked to just be around 11 or 12, but she was wearing mid-to-late 19th century clothes, with matching gloves to her dress, and a straw hat. Rex nearly felt the rails in fear from the girl’s present, because her matched the description of Mike’s ghost girl.
“Fred? Are you-,” he asked his driver, but he didn’t have to finish his sentence, before notices something about the girl. She had a massive cut a lining where her stomach would have been. Rex nearly fainted at the sight of it, and he wasn’t the only one seeing this. The passengers saw and were frightened too. Some were pulling out their phones to record this strange happening, and others were dialling 999 for an ambulance. Then, she approached Rex’s driver, Fred who was very uncomfortable but stayed calm throughout it.
“Excuse me, darling, but do you in a ride to the nearly hospital?” he asked looking at the cut, very scared and wondering how she wasn’t bleeding out a lot of blood, nor crying in pain. She also seems very calm about it.
“There is a hospital at Tidmouth Station. We have a connecting train for there,” Fred added. However, girl didn’t reply and instead walked over to the open roof-top coaches and sat in the first coach in the first row, closet to Rex’s tender. But just as she sat down, Rex suddenly started to move.
“HUH? Wha- Fred! Why am I moving?!” Rex asked screaming in fear. But Fred wasn’t touching anything.
“What? I’m not touching anything,” he replied. The passengers were getting scared and were starting to think that Rex and his driver were playing some stupid prank on them.
“This isn’t funny now,” shouted out of the passengers.
“We wanna get off!” another yelled out.
“Mummy! I’m scared!” screamed a little girl to her mother, who hugged her tightly, as the others were getting louder and screaming in fear. Rex was freaking out, and tried to stop himself, but something was stopping him from doing it. The guard’s van tried to stop the train from his end, but the breaks were jammed. But just as the guard’s van left the platform, Rex suddenly to stop.
“I.. I stopped,” he said, sighing with relief, but the passenger had gone quiet. Fred looked back, and to his surprise, the girl was gone, leaving a paddle of thick, dark red blood in the area she was seated in. The passengers started to get worried, and realised this wasn’t a joke.
“Where did she go?” they asked. But Fred didn’t have an answer. He was just as confused as them and mostly scared too.
“I’ll report this behaviour at the connecting station to the station master,” he said, and didn’t waste anytime for them to set off.
Douglas was waiting impatiently at Arlesburgh West Station for Rex’s train to take the passengers to Tidmouth Station for Molly. His impatience’s soon died off when he heard Rex rushing into the station, with a very frighten expression on his face. Douglas was about to ask why he was so late with his train, when all the passengers from Rex’s train all started asking his driver and the guard what that girl was all about at the station, and soon enough, climbed into Isabel and Dulcie.
“What happened?” asked Douglas. “You’re passengers sound spooked,” Rex looked down at his buffers. He didn’t know if Douglas would believe him, but he very open-minded to these things. Rex explained everything to him, and Douglas was surprised.
“A ghost girl?” asked Douglas, shaking in his frame.
“Y-yes. Mike told me about its last night. He said it wasn’t real, but it is. I… I saw her,” he replied. The small engine’s shed was not far from where the two engines were, and the others heard what their conversation, Bert was the first to speak up.
“Is that true, Rex?” he asked. “Mike’s ghost story is real?” Rex replied with a yes, and Bert looked at Mike, to his surprise, he was very confused.
“What?! Rex, you must have seen things,” said Mike.
“I’m not stupid, like you think I am Mike. I saw her,” retorted Rex angrily, which was very unlike him to get angry so quickly, but Bert was more sensible.
“Mike. Do you know where you herd that story from?” asked Bert calmly.
“From the workers at the mines. She said it was from the one of the Mid Sodor Engines,” replied Mike.
Douglas had left and Rex had put his coaches away and was in the safest of his shed with his friends, as he explained to them what he saw. The others felt a sick and twisted feeling in their fireboxes.
“Oh my word,” said Jock, in horror.
“What happened to her?” asked Frank.
“I… I don’t know, but she must have tried to move me and my train, but when the guard’s van was over heading the platform, I stopped, and she was gone,” replied Rex. The sheds had a blanket of silence fall over it, as everyone began to think of theories about tonight’s event Rex witnessed.
“Should be tell the Small Controller?” asked Jock.
“Oh, don’t be silly, Jock. Mr Thompson won’t believe us. You’ll think we are crazy,” replied Mike.
“Now now, Mike. We don’t know that for sure,” said Bert. “Mr Thompson might be very understanding of it,”
“So? What will he do about it?”
“Maybe knock down the Old Station?” suggested Frank.
“Or make a profit off it. People like ghost hunting this day. My driver likes watching it with her son on the television some nights,” said Jock. Mike rolled his eyes, but Bert sighed.
“Well, whatever happened tonight, I think it is best if we get to the bottom of it first before jumping to conclusion,” he explained. The others agree.
“But who could have told the worker the story?” asked Frank.
“Possibly Duke. He is the oldest, and he might have seen this ghost before. He might know what happened to her too,” said Bert.
“Well, let’s sleep on it and maybe think about it tomorrow,” yawned Bert, as he went to bed, and one by one, the others did too, expect for Rex, who was still shaken and very frightened by what he saw tonight, but he too was wondering what happened to the little girl who missed her train.