Devil-Powered Death Train of Doom
By
Jeff Strand
Twelve-year-old Davy had been working on his train set all summer, and the day before school started he finally let his mom and dad come down into the basement to see it.
"Wow!" said Harold, his father. "This is incredible!"
"Is this a scale model of the entire town?" asked Patricia.
Davy nodded with pride. The setup was at least twenty feet long by ten feet wide, and the attention to detail was remarkable.
Every single building on Main Street was there.
The movie theater had actual tiny letters on the marquee, and the sandwich shop had a sign out front with its current lunch specials.
"And the train works?" Harold asked.
"Of course!" said Davy. "It goes around the whole town!"
Harold was flabbergasted by the accuracy of this replica. There were even miniature people all over. Harold recognized Bob and his hot dog cart, and the homeless guy who slept by a tree in the park.
"I had no idea you were so talented!" said Patricia.
"Good work, son," Harold said, patting him on the shoulder. "This is a very marketable skill. Your mother and I are proud of you."
Davy beamed.
Harold and Patricia went back upstairs and into the living room.
"That really is amazing," said Patricia. "We may have a little genius on our hands."
"Are you going to say it first, or should I?" asked Harold.
"Say what first?"
"You understand what's going on down there, right?"
"I guess not."
"That train set will totally impact the real world. If his toy train hits one of the tiny people, they'll die for real."
"What?"
"You didn't get that vibe?"
"No!" said Patricia. "How could you even think something like that?"
"Did you see the detail? Did you see the accuracy? Why would he put so much effort into a project like that if the train couldn't impact the real world?"
"Stop that. I won't have you accusing our son of working with Satan."
"Who said anything about working with Satan? Why would your mind go straight there? We didn't raise him to be in league with the devil, but I'm telling you, if that toy train hits the tiny figure of Hot Dog Bob, somebody will find the real Hot Dog Bob splattered all over his cart."
"You're being ridiculous," said Patricia. "Is this because of your failed dream to become an architect?"
"No. If anything, this would allow me to vicariously live my dream through our son. But that's not what's happening here. Don't believe me? Ask him. See what he says."
"Well, if he's planning to murder people with his Satan-train, he won't admit to it."
"But you'll be able to tell that he's lying. Davy is the worst liar ever. I'm always embarrassed for him."
"Then let's settle this right now," said Patricia. They walked back down into the basement.
"Be honest with us," Harold told Davy. "If that toy train hits one of the miniature replicas of the people in town, will that person die in real life?"
Davy looked at the floor. "No."
"Tell us the truth!"
"No, okay? I don't even like black magic!"
Harold sighed. "Son, we know that you're lying. Tell us why you want to murder the residents of our town."
"I don't!" Davy insisted.
"Why can't you look me in the eyes when you say that?"
"Because you have creepy looking eyes!"
"I do not!"
"Davy, don't say things like that to your father," said Patricia. "His eyes are a little odd but they're not creepy."
"They make me nervous," said Davy. "Whenever I read 'The Tell-Tale Heart' it reminds me of them."
"How often do you read 'The Tell-Tale Heart'?" asked Harold.
"A lot."
"Well, my eyes aren't going to cause Hot Dog Bob to explode into a bloody mess of bones and internal organs, so let's focus on what's important."
"Let me ask him," said Patricia. She put her hands gently on Davy's shoulders. "Davy, sweetheart, we need to know if this train set is something where if you put one of those replicas of people we know on the track and run the train into it, it's like a real train hit them in real life. Be honest."
Davy looked at the floor. "It's just a regular train set."
"See?" said Harold. "He won't meet your gaze! He's evil!"
"Don't call our son evil when he's standing right there!"
"He's about to commit a supernatural murder. How is that not evil?"
"I didn't say it's not evil! I said not to call Davy evil when he's standing right there! That will make him more evil! This is why I have to do most of the parenting!"
"Yeah, you've done a swell job with that, considering that we have an evil kid."
"I'm not evil," said Davy.
"I know you're not, sweetheart," said Patricia. "You're only using this train set to kill bad people, right?"
Davy looked at the floor. "Yes."
"See?" Patricia asked Harold. "He's going to use it for something like getting revenge on the bullies who've tormented him for years. It's wrong and we'll stop him from doing it, of course, but it doesn't cross the line into evil."
"It would depend on the severity of the bullying," said Harold. "If it's just kids calling him 'dork-face' or something like that, and he causes their gruesome deaths, yeah, that's pretty damn evil."
"We don't even know if the train set works."
"Right. We don't. Which takes us into philosophical territory.
If he tries to use his supernatural train set to murder bullies who weren't really all that mean to him, but the train set doesn't actually work, is he still evil?
Does his intention define his evil nature, even if his actions harm nobody? I just don't know."
"And maybe he wasn't planning to use it," said Patricia. "Maybe just knowing that he could slaughter those who did him wrong was satisfying enough."
"Were you planning to use it?" Harold asked Davy. "If you look at the floor I'll know you're lying."
"I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know? You wouldn't put that much work into this project without knowing if you planned to use it or not.
You don't spend weeks designing the ultimate fishing lure and then not go fishing with it.
Since we're not getting any answers out of you, I think we need a demonstration to resolve this question once and for all. "
Patricia frowned. "Are you saying that Davy should kill somebody with his train set?"
"No. I'm hoping he won't kill somebody with his train set, and that we'll find out it was all part of his overactive, delusional imagination.
But since we can't drag an honest answer out of him, we need him to show us the train in action.
Otherwise we'll spend the rest of our lives not knowing if he's in league with forces beyond our understanding. "
"Why are you saying it's my imagination?" asked Davy. "I told you it was a normal train set! You and Mom are the ones who said it might be magical! That's all on you! I just wanted to make a fun model!"
"He's right," said Patricia.
"Fine," said Harold. "I erred. But we still need to sort this out, and I'm afraid I see no other way to do it than to test out the train's powers."
"And you're willing to kill an innocent person just to acquire the information?" Patricia asked.
Harold nodded. "Not one of our more important citizens, obviously.
" He pointed to one of the miniature figures.
"What about the homeless man? He's not contributing to the local economy.
I'm not saying he deserves to die. It's not his fault he got laid off from his job and had pre-existing medical conditions that kept him from getting quality health insurance and had no family that could take him in and mental issues that led to him being expelled from the homeless shelter.
But compared to, say, a waiter, he's not really doing much for anybody. "
"I don't like the idea of playing God," said Patricia.
"That's silly. If anything, we're playing Satan."
"How does it work?" Patricia asked Davy.
"You flip this switch, and the train goes around the track."
"But how do you use it to commit murder?"
Davy shrugged.
"I'd guess that we just put the figure on the track," said Harold, picking up the replica of the homeless man.
"Careful," said Patricia. "Don't crush his head."
"I'm not going to crush his head." Harold set the figure on the track. "All right, Davy, flip the switch."
Davy turned on the train. It began to move around the track with a soft whirr. It had lights on the front and let out a "choo-choo" sound as it approached the figure.
It struck the figure, knocking it off the track, and kept going. Davy turned it off.
"All right, the dark deed is complete," said Harold. "Let's go see if there's a splattered vagrant near the park."
"Oh, I don't want to look at any carnage," said Patricia. "That would be upsetting."
"Then how did you think we were going to verify this?"
"I figured we'd see it on the news, with the gory parts blurred out. Maybe you could go check and report back."
"If I have to look at scattered body parts, so do you," said Harold.
"We should have worked this out before we murdered him. I would've never have agreed to a deal where I had to gape at a dead body. I've gone my entire adult life without seeing a horribly mangled corpse up close and I don't plan to start now."
"Fine. Davy and I will be right back."
They got into the car and drove to the park.
There were no train tracks to be seen, but Harold had to admit that it would be kind of ridiculous for his son's project to cause an actual railroad line to materialize around the town.
If he had that level of power, by God, they could revolutionize the entire construction industry!
"Okay, the model train hit the figure right by that tree over there," said Harold. "Or was it a different tree? It was a tree in this general area. Maybe it's near all of that red grass."
Harold realized to his horror that the grass was not naturally red. It was soaked with a red-colored substance. He parked the car and he and Davy hurried over to it.
"Blood," said Harold. "Appears to be about ten pints of it. And that's how much blood is in an average human being."
"Look at all of those bones," said Davy.