Several weeks had passed since Valentine's Day. It was almost the end of March, and all the snow had melted, bringing the warmth of Spring back. That past February, Percy and Gina had exchanged long-distance Valentines to each other which included a mystery card to Percy concerning his secret admirer, which led to him asking the other engines about it until he sent a card back to Gina. It was indeed an uplifting time for these two engines...but now, against all expectations and assumptions that surrounded Percy the Small Green Engine, something absolutely terrible would happen involving him. Something that had never happened before involving him, and this would lead to crushed spirits that only a select few friends could help Percy with.
Across the Island of Sodor, there is a need for all sorts of goods. From food and cattle, which Toby is mostly kept busy with, to timber and coal, which many engines would manage most of the time, the Island cannot operate without goods trains running both night and day. Alongside passengers, goods trains are a hallmark of Sudrian economy and livelihood. They carry cargo that is either coming to the island or is being taken to the docks to be loaded onto ships for export to other areas of the world, most particularly, London and Scotland, which are right next door to Sodor. Many different types of trucks make up goods trains. There are wooden plank wagons which can hold coal, stone, scrap, and many other things. Box vans can hold larger goods items and can even be refrigerated. Bolster wagons carry long, awkward items such as logs and heavy boxes. Even automobiles.
As all the engines know, trucks can be prone to mischief, but at their core, all trucks understand that they are an asset to the railway. While it is rare, some of the trucks like to talk to the engines outside of work. Indeed, trucks can be fairly friendly once an engine gets to know them or they get used to an engine, such as Duck and especially Rebecca, who could even sing and chant along with most of her trucks.
However, there was one particular truck who is not friendly at all. In fact, he is a very, very, awful truck, considered by everyone to be the worst truck to have ever been on Sodor. It has been said that something went wrong when his builder constructed him way back when. Either a rivet was out of line or his wood was rotten. No one quite knows for sure. But what was certain was that he had been had placed many engines in a great deal of danger over his lifetime. Mostly, his taste of danger resulted in hefty derailments of several engines, rather like the leading Mainland truck that caused Emily's big tumble...but one day, this evil truck would at long last, go too far...and for Percy, it would bring a sheer shadow of darkness into his life...rather like Thomas went through after Emily's big tumble, when his demon had awoken.
One brisk morning, a thick fog had descended on the island, and Percy had arrived late at Knapford with the mail train after a big delay during the night with a faulty signal and a jammed switch that took quite a while for workmen to repair. Through the thick, eerie fog, Percy could see Emily at the platform while he filled on more water at the tower.
"Morning, Percy," said Emily. "We thought you'd be back sooner than this."
Percy yawned loudly. "Ohh, Emily. Faulty signals and a jammed switch held me up. I'm afraid I have no time to rest. I have to head to the quarry and arrange my trucks for his first trip down Thomas' Branch Line."
"I don't know, Percy," said Emily. "You seem very tired at the moment. What if something happens? Sleep is important to being really useful after all."
"I can't let that make me even later, Emily," Percy yawned. "I'd like to get my job done and make up for lost time. I can rest afterward."
And with that, Percy set off again. Emily watched as he disappeared through the fog, hoping things wouldn't go too wrong for Percy. Then she set off with her own train for the day. But Emily and several others on Sodor had no idea of the events about to befall Percy...or their consequences.
Percy wearily made his way along the foggy line, his headlamp showing a yellow beam wherever he went. His head felt fuzzy and he felt as though he couldn't fully concentrate as he kept uttering drowsy yawns along the way. Even his driver wondered what would happen today, hoping very wrongfully that things would turn out alright.
By the time he arrived at Ffarquhar Quarry, Percy was even more tired, almost falling asleep. As such, he wasn't attending to what he is doing. Unaware to the little green engine, the evil truck, due to his dangerous nature, had been placed on a remote siding at the quarry several years ago to prevent engines from using him. But Percy's grogginess and the thick fog caused him to misjudge which siding he took trucks from. He collected a few trucks from one siding, and more trucks from another siding. And then, as cruel fate would have it, without knowing it, Percy placed the evil truck at the head of his train. The evil truck saw Percy doing this and remained perfectly quiet, smelling a very ghastly opportunity to unleash as soon as he saw fit.
Percy was still oblivious to this hatching disaster as all he could think about was some decent sleep. The foreman didn't recognize Percy's mistake either, and loaded the wagons without objection.
Eventually, the time came for Percy to leave, and he pulled out of the quarry, none the wiser that disaster lay ahead. For several minutes, Percy huffed along the line through the fog, on toward the village of Ffarquhar.
The evil truck, in his narrow mind, began hatching an awful scheme. "If I and the trucks hold back at just the right time, we can pull Percy off the rails!"
From the quarry to the village of Ffarquhar, the branch line ran around sharp curves on a very steep hill. If an engine were to fall off the rails, they could slide down the hill and crash into one of the many neighboring cottages. The Fat Controller had arranged for fences to be placed along the track to prevent this. But the evil truck has other plans.
After Percy had cleared the waterfall, he started down the first bend. Then suddenly, Percy got a sense that something was wrong, making him feel more awake...for the evil truck screeched on his brakes. That was his signal to the other trucks to hold back. The sudden force pulled down on Percy's rear coupling...and picked his front wheels up, off the rails!
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Percy cried.
"Ready...NOW!" the evil truck commanded.
With that, the trucks surged ahead, and with a crack of the coupling, Percy came off the rails, onto the crest of the hill and crashed through the fence! His wheels, still moving and slipping wildly, begin to grip the sod and he surged forward down the hill, ripping up grass and soil in his wake. The fog was so thick that he couldn't see where he was going, but the evil truck knew exactly where Percy's going, as he croaked a cold and sinister goodbye.
"Goodbye, Percy!" he gloated with baring teeth.
Percy rumbled and tumbled until, to his absolute horror, he saw the outline of a cottage ahead, and thought he caught glimpse of a mother, father and child through one of the windows.
"Oh horrors!" Percy yelled.
Sensing the impending crash, Percy's driver and fireman jumped clear from the footplate. Back up the hill, the evil truck had forced the train's brakes on so he could stop the other trucks and listen. A few seconds later, Percy shut his eyes tight and careened violently into the cottage. The house rocked, broken glass tinkled, plaster burst everywhere, furniture snapped and cracked, and sudden cries of shock, then screams of agony ensued from inside the house, followed by a following snap and splinter of bones as Percy smashed out the other side of the cottage.
From the top of the hill, the evil truck heard the sounds of wood splintering and the muffled cries of those inside, and began to cackle madly.
"Stupid engine needs to look where he's going next time!" he performed. "He-he-he-he-HE-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"
The other trucks, having heard the screams of terror and agony from the people in the cottage, were horrified. In all their decades of trouble and mischief on Sodor, they had never seen anything like this, or even dreamed of being involved in such scathing, inhumane nature.
"What the...WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?! YOU TRAITOR! YOU LIED TO US!" shouted the first truck behind him.
"YOU'RE PSYCHOTIC! YOU MURDERER! We were only going to scare Percy!" shouted another one.
"Yes! You're insane! We didn't expect THIS to ever happen! It's NOT what we do!" shouted one more truck. "RUIN! HORROR! MURDER!"
But the evil truck didn't care one bit. His laughter echoed over the hills and below to where Percy lay, battered and bruised, shocked and bewildered beyond comprehension, deeply regretting ever placing the evil truck in his train that morning.
In the dusty, ghastly wreck, Percy felt badly injured himself as he cried out and groaned with sheer pain. He wasn't sure yet, but he felt as though several things had broken on him. At that moment, his driver and fireman arrived to survey the damage. But almost immediately, they could see that everyone inside the house had been killed upon Percy crashing through.
"Huh! Oh!" Percy gasped. "Is everyone alright?"
His driver came up alongside him. "Oh, Percy. This is very, very bad!"
Percy looked to the side...and there, buried under the crushed wall and several wooden beams were the bloody, scraggly remains of the mother, father and child Percy had caught glimpse of. All dead. All gone from this world.
In that moment, everything around Percy froze to an absolute standstill. He felt as though his vision was blurry, and his hearing echoing. A most horrifying realization began to sink deep into his soul as he saw that he had caused the death of an entire innocent family. In all the decades he had spent on Sodor, ever since the Fat Controller came and bought him from that workshop on the Mainland, through his cheeky phases with the other engines and brave times alike, never had this little green engine been involved in something as emotionally racking as this.
Percy's heart began pounding so fast and so hard, he felt as though his boiler would burst as the comprehension began to overwhelm the pain of his injuries...and just a moment later, without any warning at all, Percy let out an agonizing howl of anguish and dread. His driver and fireman cringed and held their ears as tightly as they could.
"AAAAAGGGHHH!" Percy shrieked in deep-cutting anguish as it echoed across the hills and through the Branch Line...
Far across the ocean, all the way in Italy, Gina was once again working away in the yards, having shunted several trains since that morning. By this time, she was approaching Lakeside Station, where she saw Stella and Giovanni. Suddenly, without warning for the Italian Queen, Gina's eyes popped and she came to an immediate, sharp halt at the station. She had suddenly felt a brief, but sharp cry of agony and despair echoing and piercing her heart unlike she had ever felt before. She didn't know why this suddenly happened, but then it clicked in her funnel that it sounded as if Percy were crying.
Stella could see Gina's eyes flinch and twitch for a few seconds before she shut them tight. Even Giovanni, who was usually an overly proud, sometimes impolite engine toward Gina, felt as though something was very wrong, and for once showed a sense of care and concern for the Italian Queen.
"What is it?" he asked, holding his gaze to Gina.
Gina looked back with shimmering eyes and a pounding heart.
"Pain...suffering...death I feel," she uttered steadily as Giovanni kept his gaze on her. "Something terrible has happened...my Percy is in pain...terrible pain..."
Back at the scene of tragedy on Sodor, Percy's heart was crippling at an alarming rate as reality kept sinking into his boiler. His guard had run to the next neighbouring cottage the nearest telephone and called for the Fat Controller.
When the Fat Controller answered, almost right away, his heart began racing.
"Oh...Good Heavens to her Majesty!" he exclaimed. "Yes...Now, where exactly has this happened...?"
No thanks to the evil truck's antic, Percy had gone too far from the railway to be taken to the Steamworks by rail. As such, Butch was soon on his way to take him there by road. As Percy continued to perch and break down in tears over everything, Thomas and Toby immediately rushed up the quarry line to the hill where the trucks still were, while Mavis rushed down from the quarry and saw the whole scene.
Having heard from his driver what had happened, Thomas was almost as shocked and staggered as Percy. He gazed down the scene of destruction, struggling to collect the fact that his best friend had been used as a tool to kill an entire innocent family. Then he shot a look to the truck at the front of Percy's train.
"There you are, you son of a BITCH!" Thomas yelled as he recognized the evil truck in the instant. "You used Percy! You MURDERED that entire family! YOU OUGHT TO BE SCRAPPED!"
But that truck was still cackling away in his deeply psychotic mind, bathing in the delight and victory he could taste. But the rest of the trucks were deeply shaken, and some were even crying.
Just then, Harold came hovering overhead with the Fat Controller onboard. He landed near the cottage wreckage to see what happened to Percy and the severe damage he had been dealt, just as an ambulance arrived, followed closely by Butch. Percy saw the Fat Controller step out of Harold and start walking toward Percy before his eyes locked on the three bodies.
"That...e-evil t-truck..." Percy whimpered, shaking all over before he fell back to his tears again.
That was all the Fat Controller needed to hear. He looked up the hill and walked back to Harold, turning rather red in the face. Harold flew to the top of the Hill, where the Fat Controller burst out again and pounded the truck on the side.
"I should have remembered YOU were still here with us!" he boomed furiously. "I've heard of many incidents sparked by your cause...but NEVER have I heard of any troublesome truck to cause the death of an ENTIRE innocent family! I'll have you scrapped IMMEDIATELY for this crime! Mavis, take the rest of those trucks back to the quarry immediately!"
"Yes, sir," Mavis said quickly as she coupled to those trucks and hurried away.
"And Toby," said the Fat Controller. "Shunt this abominable truck to the scrapyard. I'll see to it he's put out of business for GOOD!"
"Your word is law, sir," said Toby as he took the evil truck away.
For a while longer, all Thomas and the Fat Controller could do was stare down at the scene of tragedy while Butch carefully pulled Percy clear of the wreck. Then the medics and coroners dealt with the bodies, covering them in clean sheets and loading them into the ambulance to keep safe and have buried later. Thomas gave one look to the Fat Controller, who gave Thomas a deep look before removing his hat and bowing his head. Thomas sighed through his closed mouth and shut his eyes.
By the time Butch hauled Percy out of the cottage, the damage was now clear to see. A smashed window frame, lots of splintered wood and piles of plaster festooned Percy's front, which was very badly twisted. One of his wheels had been disjointed out of place, one of his side rods was completely broken off, his funnel was cracked, and his boiler dented. It would be a fairly long repair for Percy. Even with an extra night crew, it would likely take a week at most. But that wouldn't be nearly enough for Percy to recover from what had just happened.
The accident had left a deep, scathing scar. While Percy would be mended soon enough, the lives of those in the cottage had been lost forever. The Fat Controller was indeed rather shaken by the matter too, and he vowed to be very, very careful about the character of the trucks he'd bring to the Island of Sodor to prevent such an awful affair from ever happening again. But this was only the beginning of a complicated, unfamiliar, heartbreaking process for Percy to cope with. While Thomas had only killed a truck following Emily's big tumble, Percy had killed an entire innocent family. Although he didn't do it himself, he was still the engine who had run through that cottage. He would need a lot of help and support from Emily of course, and even David and Beatrice. They would do whatever they could for Percy, but ultimately, his spirits had been crushed, and there would only be one certain someone who would heal those spirits all the way. It had begun.
Pretty dark, huh? This chapter is an adaptation of the free to adapt story "Down the Hill" by Richard Jordan. We've done our best to stick as close to the original story as possible while still adding our own original content to it, as the remaining chapters are all focusing on Percy recovering from this accident. So thanks to Richard Jordan for inspiring me to make this story using his free to adapt story as the framework, and you can check out several adaptations of his stories, including "Down the Hill", on YouTube, they're fantastic. So, the rest of the story is set to be very depressing, but there will of course be a light at the end of the tunnel. Until next chapter, tell us what you thought of this beginning and we'll see you with the second chapter. Stay safe.