A flock of happy little deer joyfully frolicked across butter blossom meadow in the soft, Oregon sunshine - happily enjoying the fresh scent of wildflowers and warm, sun-baked grasses, a trail of happy, light dust following from below their little hooves.
It was the sort of day when you should be glad to be alive; a day when the humans seemed a distant enemy, one that never tried to enter their private realm, their home, their comforts. No, this was privacy incarnate for the little beasts. The dainty creatures were overjoyed to have this refuge.
No hunters, no lumberjacks, no thieves, criminals, and no loud motor vehicles. Just simple solitude. That was the dream, and they were glad to say they had it. Yes, being an animal in Gravity Falls could be a truly wonderful thing.
Then, the mother of the flock raised her head and twitched her ear. Something was coming. Something was coming towards them, and fast.
She wasn't sure what, but…
Oh no. Oh no. Her babies!
They bleated in horror and scattered as a brown, dented, roaring pickup truck thundered up the hill, laden with the Grunkles, Soos and Wendy, spitting clouds of deep grey exhaust behind it as the rusting chassis worked as hard as it could to crest the Oregon countryside.
"I can't believe this has happened!" Stan growled, throwing a can out of the window with little care for the nature surrounding them. "Damned railroad ain't even open and we've already got a runaway train? It's like some kinda dumb cartoon!"
"Hey, I didn't expect talking coal today, alright?" Wendy snapped. "I get it's a bit of a hassle, but that engine is as safe as houses!"
"Wendy, this is something I was arguing against since day one!" Ford retorted. "You can't run a railroad with something so antiquated!"
"Look, look, I'm not here to argue semantics, alright? We just gotta stop the train and save the kids." The Corduroy daughter replied, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Let's not get crazy."
"Dude. It's a pretty crazy situation. I mean, I've been on a train, and driven a little train, and pretended to drive plenty of littler trains, but a runaway train? I've heard these things are pretty crazy."
"Soos."
"I'm jus' sayin', the craziness is kinda on point." He shrugged. "We should be catchin' up soon, ri-
Their jaws dropped as a giant hulk of iron hammered backwards towards them at a dizzying pace, rapidly oscillating from side to side, spitting vast, belching clouds of filthy smoke and fluffy, cotton-white steam, roaring like a herd of mechanical bison.
"REVERSE, REVERSE!" Wendy yelled. "They're going backwards!"
"Holy hell, look at it go!" Stan yelled. "Soos, can you keep pace?!"
"Yessir, Mr. Pines!" Soos said, excitedly turning the car into an emergency 180. The tyres shredded against the dirt as the cluttered old lemon sped up after the careening engine.
Wendy got into action, climbing out of the pickup truck and onto the cluttered flatbed behind it, as Soos's car sped up to keep pace. Soon enough, the giant, lumbering, hissing locomotive was bunker-to-fender with the clapped-out motor vehicle.
Soos jabbed his hand on his newly fitted novelty horn, which sounded more like an articulated truck than it did a busted thirty-year-old pickup with a wild stoat infestation.
"Did you guys hear s- holy crap!" Mabel chirped, running to the engine's side and beaming as she saw the family alongside. "They've come to help us!"
"Finally, someone who knows how to drive a train!" Pacifica beamed, leaning over the side and waving excitedly. "Hey guys!"
"Kids, y'alright?!" Stan asked, leaning out of the window. He looked up at them, battered, bruised, white as sheets yet stained with filthy black patches of soot, soaked in sweat and hopelessly out of breath. "...Yeesh. Don't answer that."
"Wendy!" Dipper beamed, catching sight of the redhead as she balanced precariously on the truck's rear. "Are you okay? That looked like a nasty fall!"
"Why are you worried about me, Dip?" She laughed, tying together a lasso. "I'm doing better than you guys. Just had to pop my shoulder back in."
She tossed the rope aboard with her typical nonchalant expression, as if she had climbed aboard a moving train from a pick-up truck every day of her life. The kids scrambled frantically to tie the rope against Number 4.5's handrails and stayed back as she swung over almost effortlessly.
Her boots hit the footplate with a thud. She tossed back her hair, spun the Pine tree cap backwards and looked over controls. "Oh man, you broke the brake?"
"IT WASN'T OUR FAULT!" Grenda shouted. "THOSE COAL LUMPS ARE CRAZY!"
The Corduroy daughter - who Dipper swore was getting taller every damned day, now that he thought about it - wordlessly tapped the remaining gauge glasses, the water level, and the controls. "Well, it ain't gonna be easy. But I reckon we can stop it. You guys ready for a bumpy ride?"
Dipper and Pacifica - both beaten black and blue and smothered in soot - glared at her incredulously.
She snickered and adjusted her collar. "Alright. It's a cardinal sin, but we gotta drop the fire."
Mabel winced. "Isn't that Soos's mix tape?"
"That's barely even smouldering. No, I mean this." The redhead rolled her shoulders and stomped on a fairly innocent-looking little lever alongside the firebox door.
The resulting noise was deafening, as, underneath the engine, the entire fire grate dropped away and allowed the white-hot mass of molten fuel - of Boggle detritus and flame - to plunge onto the railroad.
It erupted into a mushroom cloud of smoke underneath the engine, was dragged out and disseminated through its cowcatcher, left behind as the engine continued from sheer inertia.
"So, no fire, no smoke, no steam, right? Then it stops running away."
Dipper leant over the side of the engine and stared, mouth agape. "Y…You could do that? You could just… just dump it out all this time?!"
"It's an emergency thing." Wendy said. "You don't do it unless things are real bad."
"Isn't a track fire real bad?" Candy asked with an eyebrow raised. Her concerns were apparently ignored by the rest of the group.
"No brakes, Wendy." Pacifica added, flatly. "How are we supposed to-"
WHAM!
The locomotive smashed against something and seemed to slow somewhat, the impact being so hefty that it broke every remaining bit of glass in the cab, caused another rivet to burst from the controls and, for what felt like the umpteenth time, Pacifica to fall against Dipper. She gripped him tightly. At this point he was fairly sure she was doing it on purpose. Not that he was complaining.
"Wh-what was that?!" She yelled.
"You guys ever seen those time travel movies from the eighties? Think like that, but about 80% less cool." She replied. "Bit of insurance for the braking thing."
There, leading the bizarre, reversing cavalcade, a rusted brown pickup truck now sat, rattling over the railroad sleepers and pressing its brakes as the train made its way onwards. Soos beamed and held up a thumb from the window.
The line ahead of them was a very gentle, graduating set of straight rails. That, perhaps, was what gave Wendy so much confidence in their hastily cobbled together plan. The locomotive rumbled, quieter, but still far too fast, far too loud - far too rattled and shaken - still banging the kids against the machine like golf balls.
The Boggles, by now, were down to rather pitiful lone shovelfuls. They were unceremoniously dumped by Grenda with only a few moves of her powerful arms. With nothing much else holding a threat, it was now a case of stopping the giant cast iron beast and hoping things didn't go terribly, terribly wrong.
Dipper twisted his lip. Such a large machine, its boiler only cooling slowly - there was no doubt that the locomotive's inertia was enough to continue for quite some way. The truck was nothing more than a way to provide a bit of resistance - that tiny scrap of braking power, against the completely out of control lurching forces of Number four-point-five. He was pretty sure even a tank would have a bit of a job stopping a runaway train.
The wind made their eyes sting and water. The rattling shook their bones and gave them headaches. Their bruises and bumps were making their limbs feel heavy and weak. The kids were beyond tired, and their thunderous, uncomfortable journey did little to lull them. It felt almost as if the engine was hobbling with every wheel turn. Dipper was starting to feel sea sick.
Ahead of them, in the crumpled pick-up, things were no more comfortable.
Stan gripped onto the little handle over the window - that Soos normally used to hang a little pouring tub of nacho cheese - as the bumpy ride continued. "That looks like pretty bad damage back there, Soos!" He shouted over the constant thump-a-thump of the car on the railbed.
"Hey, no problem, Mr. Pines. The most valuable thing in here is the record player."
"Ya mean the CD doohickey?"
"Na, dude. I've got a full 12" turntable in here."
"Damn."
"I like classical and jazz." Soos nodded, sagely, as he straightened his steering wheel and started gently applying the brakes here and there. Ford just gave his brother an utterly perturbed glance as they continued on the chaotic journey.
The forest seemed to be closing once again around the railroad as they lumbered along, slowing little by little - perhaps little by little too late. This was no gentle frolic through the woods - no simple, lighthearted chuff along the railroad cutting. They were dashing, swaying, lurching and roaring through the one-silent countryside with all of the pace of an express train - in reverse.
It bumped, it banged, it damned well hurt to be on board - and when you were the height of the Grunkles, resulted in your head making close contact with the truck's roof several times over. Stan briefly considered jumping out and hiding in the forest until the heat died down, though he had to admit that was his natural instinct at any sign of trouble.
"Y'know, Mr. Pineseseses, this pick-up truck wasn't really meant for offroad, and-"
"Just keep driving, Soos." The Grunkles said in unison.
"No, I mean, there could be a bit of a problem. I dunno how much space there is on that railroad bridge but there aren't no sides on it an' my steerin's kinda jacked and-"
"...Crap."
Onboard the locomotive, Dipper was having much the same thought process. "Look at how the truck is barely on the rails. What about the bridge? There's barely even a deck, no barriers-"
Mabel's face dropped. "What do you think they'll do?"
Wendy pulled a face. "I mean, it- it might not manage to get up there without the fire?"
"I think we're still going pretty fast, Wendy…" Pacifica said, sounding increasingly uneasy.
"THIS REMINDS ME OF HOW FAST MY DAD DRIVES WHEN HE HAS AN APPOINTMENT!"
"This thing doesn't have a speedometer, guys. You gotta count the railroad ties or something." Wendy said, leaning over the side of the bunker and narrowing her eyes as she tried to do exactly that. It took her exactly three seconds to get sick of the idea. "...Na, to hell with this."
She climbed over the side of the locomotive's bunker, onto the truck's flatbed and shimmied along the side to the driver's window to check with Soos personally, all while the careening, over-speeding lump of iron and shrapnel continued its disorientating journey.
"...Wendy is the coolest damned person I know." Pacifica said.
"Tell me about it." Dipper agreed.
However, Wendy didn't stay very cool for long. While the kids couldn't quite hear her over the rumbling of the engine, they saw her face go while, and heard her voice raising before she frantically ran over to the locomotive and vaulted back on board.
"What do we have to do?" Candy asked.
"Hold onto your hats and hope to literally anything that Soos can drive straight," Wendy said, simply. "If we stop in time, it'll be a miracle."
Everyone fell quiet. Even Mabel decided it best not to interrupt the silence. Candy - vainly - tried to pull the brake lever again, just in case. They tried to put on faces of determination, grabbing handrails and breathing through their teeth. But as they sped towards the railroad tunnel that led to the bridge, hope seemed to be left behind.
And it wasn't being left behind quietly, either.