I own ABSOLUTLEY NOTHING regarding this story. This is made by NCO Pictures on Twitter. I am only posting this on here for those who do not have a Twitter account or are having difficulty finding it. Though, I have edited it slightly to avoid a copyright strike on my a$$, I think. PLEASE DON'T HATE ME!
It was a cool autumn evening on the island of Sodor. The sun was just beginning to set, the engines were finishing their work and returning to their sheds, and a thick fog began to roll in. James had just finished his last train, and was heading down the mainline for home. He and his driver could hardly see a thing through the fog. As such, they didn't immediately notice the points were directed to an old, unused track.
"Oh bother!" said James, frustrated once he realized where he was. "What silly things points are, I don't even recognize this line!"
"Calm down James." said his driver. "We'll go back and set it right."
"Well good. Honestly why doesn't The Fat Controller just get rid of these disused… disused…"
"Everything okay James?" Asked the fireman, but as James came to a stop, his crew saw what made him pause.
On the side of the line, sat an old scrap engine, rusted and forgotten. Now the scrapped remains of engines from long ago was a common site on the railway, but this one was different, and it nearly made James sick. It was cut midsagittal, clean straight through the middle without fault, and all of its parts still there within the dead engine. It's other half was nowhere to be seen.
"What sick weirdo would scrap an engine like that?" Asked the fireman.
"No idea." Replied the driver.
"I-I-I don't want to find out!" Shouted James as he jolted backwards. "Get me out of here!"
At Tidmouth Sheds, the engines all stared at James. He was unusually quiet and looked very pale. Gordon soon broke the silence.
"If I didn't know any better, which hmhm, is quite rare, I'd say poor little James has seen a "ghost"!" He began to laugh, as did the others, save for Edward.
"Well I did see something…" James said mournfully.
"What was it? Haha, has Gator come back to scare you again?" laughed Henry.
"I uh… saw a scrap engine." The engines stopped laughing then.
"That's it? I understand it is rather distressing to see those poor souls, but you've seen them plenty of times James and have never looked this shocked about it." Put in Gordon.
James finally looked up from his buffers. "This one was different." And he told the others all about what he saw. Everyone went silent now, Gordon having regretted teasing James. Finally, Thomas broke the silence.
"You must've seen a victim of The Half Engine."
James went red in the face. "I do not need your teasing tonight Thomas!"
Thomas just frowned. "I'm not teasing, I know why that engine is like that!"
Edward, who had known Thomas for far longer, recognized he was being serious. "Go on then Thomas. Tell us." Thomas sighed, and began his grim tale.
"A long time ago, before the North Western Railway was an established company, there was an engine who was brought in to help build the railway, along with myself and others. This engine was… different. Something went horribly wrong with her construction… she had only half of a face, the other half being her smokebox door. We could barely understand what she was trying to say, maintenance on her was a nightmare to watch and listen to, and through all of this, she was in immense, excruciating pain. Her cries and wales for the pain to go away were so horrid, that me and the other engines could hardly stomach it. But the nastiest of us, and even some of the crews, thought it a great joke.
This would all boil up inside of her, and one day, she changed for the worst. Her behavior became more violent. She would berate even the ones who felt pity for her, snarling and growling in anger. To make things worse, she would always venture out of the sheds and down a heavily forested line, coming back and talking of nothing but how we will all perish in her garbled, barely identifiable speech. Some of us, myself included, began to believe she had become possessed in all her suffering, seeking any way to be rid of her deformity.
Eventually The Fat Controller at the time had enough, and ordered an engine to take her away to be scrapped. At that same time, me and another engine were heading home from work. As we made our way down the line, we could see smoke coming from the same direction as the scrapyard, and the sounds of the fire engines. We rushed to see what had happened, and it's a site that I'll never truly forget.
The tank engine paused, collecting his thoughts on a memory he'd rather forget, before continuing. "The scrapyard shed the engine was supposed to be in had burned down. But the worst part was… the engine's body was nowhere to be found, except the one that took her away… which was cut in half… and now it appears her spirit is still around…"
Everyone at the sheds was deeply disturbed by Thomas's story. Everyone that is, except Gordon.
"Pah! You all truly believe in cheeky little Thomas's story? James, what you saw was likely not as strange as you think, the fog could have made you think it was cut so strangely."
"Gordon, I'm serious, The Half Engine is all too real!" Thomas protested.
Gordon just chuckled. "Of course she is, just like every other tall tale you've told!" And with that, Gordon went into his shed to sleep, and one by one, all the other engines followed suit. But they found it very hard to sleep that night, in fear that The Half Engine was around.
The next night, Gordon was making his way home with some empty coaches after his last train of the day. Once again, the fog rolled in, and it was thicker than the night before. But Gordon continued on, and although he didn't believe in The Half Engine, Thomas's story still ran through his mind.
"Thomas has always been a cheeky little trickster," he muttered. Just then, they saw a red signal. Gordon slowly came to a stop. He was very confused
"That's strange. No other train should be passing by at this time." said his driver. He, the guard, and the fireman decided to walk to the next signal box to see if everything was alright.
As time passed, Gordon felt more and more uneasy. The fog, the tall leafless trees, and Thomas's story all clashed together in his mind. Suddenly, he could hear a noise. An odd, shrieking noise.
"W-w-who's there?" demanded Gordon, but there was no reply. The shrieking continued to get louder and louder yet nobody was there.
Then, right out of the corner of Gordon's eye, came the source of the shrieking. It was a deranged tank engine that thundered around the bend, and straight towards Gordon, wailing and screaming as if she had experienced the most awful pain imaginable, and then, as the engine pierced through the fog, Gordon could see that engine's face only covered half of her smokebox!
"AAAAHHHH!" Gordon cried, but his wails of fear were drowned by the screeching engine as she flew towards Gordon with a maddeningly angry look, and just as quick as she arrived, she disappeared right before touching Gordon's buffers.
His driver, fireman, and the guard raced back to him upon hearing his cries. "Gordon? Are you okay?! What happened?!" asked his driver.
"H-H-Half Engine! T-Thomas was right!" He stammered as he shivered in fear, his eyes closed shut and refusing to move.
The guard went to inspect the rest of the train, and nearly dropped his lantern in fight. The front express coach was torn in half, cut clean through without a fault. One half remained on the bogies, while the other half laid on the other track. Gordon finally opened his eyes, and when he looked back, he was beyond surprised.
"Now how did this happen?" questioned the fireman. The driver and guard were both confused as well. "Gordon? Can you tell us? What's that about a ''Half Engine''?"
"... n-nothing…" Gordon replied softly, his crew respectfully leaving it at that.
All of the crew simply put it off as faulty construction, but Gordon knew exactly what happened. He remained silent as he was uncoupled from the coaches and brought home, unsure how to tell anyone what he had witnessed. He felt sorry for teasing James, he felt sorry for not believing Thomas, and more importantly, he felt sorry for ever denying the existence of The Half Engine...
Thanks for reading!