This story takes place approximately twenty years after the end of "Beautiful Stranger". Part of Beautiful Stranger series. *DISCLAIMER*: Cars owned by Disney/Pixar. This is for reading entertainment only.

Flagstaff, Arizona, 2:53 P.M.

The navy blue Hornet pulled up at the railroad track, then scanned up and down the track in both directions. Blue birds were serenading noisily in the tree tops of the isolated area of the track. This was still an active railroad route, used now mainly by Amtrak passenger trains. Peering over the other side of the track he recognized how thick brush had now completely covered up what was once a makeshift homeless campground for cars down on their luck. They had disappeared well over a decade ago, no doubt the result of someone in the government driving them off of this land. They were viewed as squatters, living illegally on national land. It was not like they had anywhere else to go. This area had been a haven for the unfortunate for decades, as far back as the Depression. This was a miniature town of the dejected, the despaired, but they were a family. The several dozen of them who lived here looked out for one another. amid the curtain-and-cardboard box garages they had set up. They were a motley mix of everything from rusting vehicles who had never had a good wash to once-shining designs showing the beginning stages of neglect due to their new inability to support themselves. In this very spot, the Forgotten Ones sought refuge here along the train tracks away from prying eyes and scornful looks of those who were convinced that these vehicles wound up in their predicament by their own doing. Nothing could be further from the truth. While some didn't plan their futures well, others indeed might have preferred the drifter life, choosing to live "off the grid". Many were victims of bad circumstances. Things happened to them to force them to become homeless, be it the loss of a job, a home, sudden illness, whatever the case was. Doc knew; he had reached that mark. He had become officially homeless in 1958. With his fortunes bare and unable to get any income as he knew nothing but racing, he finally hit rock bottom. He was only twenty-five years old when he approached this track where he now stood about to end it all.

X

The blue race veteran turned as he heard someone approach. It was the other half that completed him. His wife. The Lamborghini quietly rolled up to him, trying to gauge his expression. "You seem so sad Hudson." she observed. Unlike 20 years ago when she first met him and he insisted she call him Hudson, she did so. Ever since they tied the knot she called him Doc only when she was upset with him. Which wasn't often. After twenty years neither of them had changed. Prince was still the streamlined dynamic beau of a car with the seductive stare and hellish-shaped lips. Doc was still Doc. Town judge and doctor, and avid hobby racer. Guest commentator for the Piston Cup at times. Her graceful elegance still held his attention, even after all this time. He had asked Prince to accompany him on this journey, some 265 miles from Radiator Springs here to this elevated place. Unlike the desert-located 'Springs in lower Arizona, Flagstaff was much cooler, was mountainous and a forested area. As any dutiful wife she obliged but knew something bothered him. "Remember when we first met, and I told you about driving up on the railroad track. These were those tracks. I was here, in this very spot on the night of 1958. This here place is where it happened." Prince could see he was debating whether or not to tell her what happened here. "It may help to talk about it my love." she finally coaxed him after an awkward silence. "Whatever happened here, I can tell it has haunted you for a very long time." Doc swallowed hard, then began. He opened his mouth and then closed it, hesitant. Then he began again. "I've never told anyone what ever happened here in this spot. Even Filmore and Sarge don't know. You are the first one, Prince, to know of this. I didn't even include this in the biography that was approved for me. That book only reveals that I had a mental breakdown but I never revealed to the publisher what happened here. Right down that embankment, there used to a homeless settlment, I found out afterwards. All of that shrubbery there hid it. I couldn't see it, wasn't really focused on what was around me. I just pulled up by these tracks. This was about midnight or so. I waited, then waited some more until finally I heard the train approaching. Back then it was an old freight train, one of the real heavy Santa Fe ones. Amtrak uses this route now they say." Doc paused, realizing he was veering slightly off topic. "I was determined to make sure I succeeded and not give that locomotive a chance to slow down once he saw me. The closer he was the less likely he could void hitting me in time. When he was a good hundred yards away that's when I jumped on the tracks. He starts blarin' his horn and all. I could hear him breaking but I knew he couldn't stop in time. To tell you the truth had it been an adult I would've ignore it but all of a sudden I heard this little "DON'T DO IT!" It was a small voice, like the voice of a child. A little kid screaming at the top of her radiator. I was so startled by that little voice that I leapt completely off the track and was on the other side. I was confused, startled, I spun around and there was this little red Volkswagen. Tiny little thing; she couldn't have been no more than about seven. She wasn't thinking she climbed..she rolled up on those tracks right when I jumped off you know?" Doc was looking at Prince with anguished eyes. He was becoming so emotional that his words were rambling together. He even found the exact location where the little car was on the track.

Prince sensed by his description it was clear what occurred next. She seemed to stop breathing, shocked with mortification for both her husband and the untimely demise of the little car.

"Maybeshe.. wasn't thinking; she COULDN'T think you know? Because of her condition. That had to be it. It all happened so fast. I couldn't help her it happened too fast. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't do anything; it was too fast. When I spun around to face her I saw that one of her little tires had gotten stuck between two of the wooden railings and she was trying to free herself. Just like that she was smashed to smithereens."

"As soon as I spun around and saw her, saw her trying to escape the train hit her. It happened in a matter of seconds. One second she was standing where I was standing', the next two seconds she was everywhere. There were pieces of her everywhere. You couldn't even tell what kind of car she was. There was nothing left of her. Train breaks screeching, that horn blowing, sparks flying, part of her tiny engine struck me. Her oil was all over me. There was nothing left of her. Most horrible sound ever. I could remember screaming. Other cars from the transient camp were rushing to me, they heard it, heard her, heard me. Heard the train. I bout went crazy Prince. I DID go crazy. All I could remember was just losing it. I wanted to end my life that night, and, inadvertently or not, I caused someone else to die because of it. That's why I spent 4 years in the psychiatric ward I told you about. It was because of this. I had a total breakdown behind that. I don't even know how I got to the mental hospital. A couple of years later I found out exactly what had happened that night. That little girl they told me was what you'd call developmentally slow. I don't like the term retarded but they say that's what was wrong with her. She had a learning disability and even though she was six years old, she had the mindset of a two-year-old. Butterflies were her favorite creatures. Monarch butterflies to be exact. She was homeless, like her family living in that embankment. They failed to watch her as they should have, is what the pschyc nurse told me. I didn't see it that way. Maybe they couldn't watch her. From what I gathered she woke up and wandered out where she saw me. And she tried to save me. There were witnesses I was told, that saw what she was trying to do and saw what I was planning to do and they were trying to get to both of us. They didn't make it." The homeless cars and that train himself saw exactly what happened. They saw Hudson completely lose it; that night he completely went insane and was forcibly held down. He was then forcibly restrained and taken away to a hospital. "That little girl's parents were no doubt devastated by what happened but they had no hatred for me. They didn't. It was all viewed as a tragic accident, that girl. As for me, I just know the minute that train hit her, I went crazy. They had to take me away and put me in a mental ward. The parents, that little camp maybe they forgave me for it but I just couldn't live with it. Somebody's KID died because of me that night. I spent 4 years in a nut unit because of it, lost touch with reality. I drifted when I got out in 1962 for a while. Turned to the 60s hippie scene and all that, popped acid and went to med school high as a kite. But every single day that little girl's face haunts me. I can't forgive myself for it. For decades I bore the weight of that child's death and that burns more than even what racing did to me."

X

Doc's eyes were wavering yet he fought so hard not to cry in front of his wife. The way he was raised, his generation simply did not show their feelings in public, especially to women. He struggled so valiantly to suppress his desire to unleash but it was torturing him to retain it. Prince shook her head as she slowly rolled towards him. She paused when she saw Doc's look turn to sudden fear. He was looking at something just past her. Slowly coming toward them was a hazy figure of a small car. It was all white but it wasn't solid. Prince and Doc could see through the figure, see the train tracks on the other side. It was the misty figure of what appeared to be a small Volkswagen beetle, obviously a child. The figure appeared non-threatening and hardly frightening, more calm and inquisitive. Prince's anti freeze froze in her body. Was she looking at a ...ghost? "Please don't be afraid." the most innocent child-like voice spoke from the apparition. But it-or she-wasn't addressing Prince. The hazy figure completely bypassed her and went up to Doc, solely focused on him, as if she didn't even notice that there was a second car there. "All these years I wandered these tracks, wondering what happened to you. All I wanted to know was you were okay after that night. You seemed so unhappy. " She spoke with the innocent mindset that only children could. Not sure if he was hallucinating, nor really caring if he was, Doc opened his mouth and only two words came fourth. "Forgive me." "You never did anything to me, Sir. It's nobody's fault I died. He was ready to take me." The ghostly little car pointed one of her tires up at the clear blue sky, obviously referring to the Almighty. "But I begged Him to stay here because I wanted to make sure you made it and He said okay, I could stay until I found out. Everyday I thought of you too, I just wanted to make sure you turned out alright, and now that I know that you have, my job here is done." A sudden realization hit Prince. She recalled seeing one of those television shows, long before she met Doc, about a stretch of railroad in Arizona supposedly haunted by the spirit of a child car killed in the 50s while trying to save an adult from committing suicide. The details were sketchy as to who the grown car was, only that the ghost here was that of a little Volkswagen that haunted the stretch of tracks where she died. And in life she was fond of butterflies. In this area it was a well-known local legend. "My God..." was all she could mutter. The misty little car smiled at Doc. "Is she your wife?" she asked looking at Prince. "..Yes, she is." was all Doc could say, still too dumbfounded by what he was seeing. "She's very pretty." The small VW pulled up to Prince. Prince etched a faint but sincere smile at her. She swallowed. She was overwhelmed by the beauty of this little being. She was so pretty. One of her pupils was larger than the other, giving her eyes a lopsided look. It was the result of her genetic anomaly that caused her disability in life. Despite this flaw, she was beautiful to look at. "You are so beautiful." Prince spoke under her breath. The ghost-car pulled back, nodding as if quite pleased with herself. She studied Doc for a moment.

X

"I can rest now." she said. "Now I'm ready to go home and be an angel."

Then she turned around. The implications of what she just said began to dawn on the couple. Had she been a restless soul waiting for Doc's return? Was this why she wandered aimlessly all these decades was because she didn't know what became of Doc after that fateful night? As she veered from the side of the tracks she shut her eyes and seemed to arch her head up into the sky, wearing the biggest smile a car her age could muster. Through a set of clouds, a ray of sunlight beamed down on her and as it did, glittering flashes of light and monarch butterflies descended down on her, swarming her in a dance of almost magic dust and wings. She never stopped cruising but as she did she began to fade into thin air, but the butterflies and the glittering dust remained behind. Gradually, the ray of light too faded from view. Just like that, she was gone. Doc stood there, with butterflies perched all over him, still struggling to hold his composure, still too stunned by what he had just witnessed. "Prince." was all he could say as she came up to him, watching her husband's battle to not lose it in front of her. And he was losing that battle. "Let it go my love. You have carried this burden for so long and it is killing you to keep it bottled up. She is in a much happier place, this I do know, you answered her question and now that you have, she is finally free now. You can cry in front of me. There is no shame in it to me, ever." Prince embraced him with her tires as far as she could stretch them. And cry he did. He was both distraught and relieved by what he had seen. Prince now understood two things: why Doc had such an aversion to the color red. One was the car that ended his racing career was red. Lightning McQueen was red even though in the end Doc loved him. Two: the little child that died because of him was also red. The same shade of red. The other thing that was clear to Prince was now she knew why Doc wanted their son to be named "Monarch", whether it was a boy or girl. The little ghost-car had died because of him but she was also at peace now-because of him. No more sightings would follow. The haunting of the Child of the Tracks as the story went abruptly ceased.

The phantom car was never seen or reported again. She had done her job. And he had turned out well.