Forgotten Rails: The Story of 382

Summary: It happens every year. The nightmare of her accident many years ago. When an engine on Sodor has an accident very similar to hers, she tells her friends what her life was like back in the early days. This is Cayce. And this is her story.

Author's Note: If you think you cried hard enough last chapter, you better break out the tissue boxes because this chapter is a real-tearjerker.

Chapter 4: The Curse

In the main sheds of the Sodor Search and Rescue Center, everyone was quiet. They didn't know how much pain and suffering Cayce went through and they couldn't find words to comfort her.

Cayce let off steam feebly.

"Mr. Durango let me stay in my shed for a couple of days after I was fixed while they arranged for a new driver for me. As soon as they did, I was put right back on the Cannonball run. Ben was being overworked. Sim came with me. After that run, he left. Moved up to Chicago, I think. I never saw him again."

She took a deep breath.

"It was only three years later, in January of 1903, when I had my next big wreck. I had been working with my driver, Harry Norton, since my first wreck…"

It was winter time on the Illinois Central. Snow had been falling down lightly for the past few weeks. New Years had come and gone, and Cayce was out plowing snow in the yard, trying to keep it cleared for freight trains and passenger trains coming and going out of Memphis.

Cayce sighed as she took on water and coal. Just then a foreman came over.

"Harry, you and 382 have to take a freight train down to Canton."

Harry nodded.

"Right. We're on it."

Cayce backed into the siding where her freight train was, waiting as she was coupled up. Harry turned to the fireman.

"We'll have to be careful. I've heard that rail bandits have been getting bolder lately."

Cayce grew worried at hearing this.

"Rail bandits?"

Harry sighed.

"Yes, 382. Rail bandits and criminal train wreckers."

Cayce shivered. She didn't want to pull this train, not with people like that around. She would have rather stayed in the yards. But, orders were orders and she had to follow them. Cayce soon collected her train and set off.

Meanwhile, a few miles south of Memphis, three men were wiring a signal to remain green, while two others were changing the points of a switch not too far after the signal.

"Hurry up on that signal," shouted one of them. "The 4 O'clock freight will be here any minute!"

Suddenly, the signal sparked, and flashed red once before staying green.

"I got it."

Their leader nodded.

"Good. Let's clear out."

The five bandits quickly fled the scene.

In the meantime, Cayce was coming down from Memphis. Harry and her fireman were talking in whispers again. They did that every so often after he had been assigned to her. In all honesty, she didn't like going down to Canton anymore. Going down to Canton meant going past the siding where she had crashed. There was still an imprint in the bank from where she had crashed even though it had been three years, and corn still grew in the surrounding fields from the car of it she had gone through.

Before that thought went any further, Cayce felt her wheels come off the rails. She suddenly rolled over and hit the ground hard, sliding to a stop against a tree. There she laid dizzy and weak. Her vision faded in and out before everything went black.

A couple weeks later, Cayce awoke with a wracking pain in her funnel. She slowly opened her eyes.

"Where...where..am I?"

"Water Valley Works," said a voice.

It was Mr. Durango!

Cayce looked over.

"Hello, sir… How long was I out?"

"A couple weeks," he replied. "Your driver is in the hospital."

Cayce gasped.

"Is he okay?"

"He was badly scalded and his legs were broken in the crash, but he's gonna be fine. Your fireman on the other hand…"

Cayce looked down sadly.

"The signal was green, sir."

"It wasn't your fault. It was a group of train wreckers. They rewired the signal to stay green, and switched the points into a siding."

Cayce suddenly felt something feathery touch her tender.

"Who's touching me?!"

A workman quickly pulled his brush away from Cayce's tender.

"Don't worry. We're just giving you a new number."

"A number?"

Mr. Durango looked a little concerned.

"Yes. There's been rumors going around that you're cursed. That something is making you crash. This new number should be a curse-breaker."

Cayce scoffed.

"I am not cursed, sir!"

But she was slowly starting to doubt her statement. Mr. Durango held his hands up, trying to calm Cayce down.

"I didn't say that you definitely were. I'm just saying that people are thinking you might be."

Cayce huffed.

"Just finish fixing me."

A few days later, Cayce was fixed and was put on yard duty. Her new number, 212, reflected brightly against the sun, but Cayce didn't notice. She was too upset to care, and she was bumping the cars a bit too hard.

"Ow, ow, ow! Watch what you're doing!"

Just then a whistle echoed throughout the yard as a 4-6-0, freshly built, rolled into the yard. His paint was a bright green, and his tender had Southern painted on in beautiful bright gold leafwork. His number painted in white, 1102, shone in the sun as he rolled to a stop. Cayce became curious and and rolled over to this new engine.

"Hello."

The new engine smiled, his bucktooth grin showing.

"Howdy, I'm Drew. I'm lookin' for Water Valley, Mississippi."

Cayce glanced around her for a moment before looking back towards Drew.

"Well, you've come to the right place. This is Water Valley."

Drew smiled again.

"Well, thank ye kindly. And you are, Miss?"

Cayce smiled shyly.

"I'm Cayce. It's nice to meet you, Drew."

Mr. Durango then came over.

"Welcome to Water Valley, Mississippi. You must be Drew. Glad you could come over here from the Southern Railway to help us out. We've had a power shortage lately and could use all the help we can get."

Drew smiled.

"Happy to help, Sir. Where do ye need me?"

Mr. Durango nodded.

"Well, we need a passenger engine to help run the Cannonball Express down to Canton. 212 here is stuck on Yard Duty for the time being."

Cayce glanced back over to Drew.

"It's a very fast run. And the schedules are extremely tight."

Drew nodded.

"Right. I'll head up to Memphis and get started right away."

Drew whistled and puffed out of the yard. Cayce watched as Drew left. Her boiler felt funny, like there were lots of butterflies trapped inside. She knew that wasn't true, since she never saw any during winter. But, she figured she needed to get back to work before her thoughts ran away with her. She puffed away and quickly shunted the cars in place, being more gently with them.

Belle gasped sweetly.

"Aw..you loved him, didn't you?"

Cayce glanced over to Belle before looking back down again.

Butch looked over.

"Uh..Belle...I think you upset her."

Cayce looked over to Butch.

"Not really. Yes, I did love him and he loved me. He stayed for a few months before he left for the Southern Railway, with a promise to come back and an offer to visit him."

Cayce looked down once more.

"But fate decided to hurt me once again..."

It had been a few months since Drew left for the Southern Railway as Cayce worked in South Memphis Yards. It was now late September and the leaves were changing colors, falling down to the ground. A tractor in a nearby field was currently plowing to get the crops ready for harvesting and distributing around the country. As Cayce worked, she could hear the telegraph in the station, clicking and buzzing as the telegrapher continued to send out messages. Suddenly, a message came in.

"Train 97 for the Southern Railway out of Washington D.C. has crashed off of trestle in Danville, VA. STOP."

The telegrapher gasped and quickly looked out the window at Cayce, who was continuing her work as if nothing was wrong. He quickly sent a reply.

"Which engine was leading Train 97? STOP."

The answer he had dreaded came through.

"1102. STOP."

The telegrapher took off his headset and slid down into his chair. He had to tell Cayce. Everyone knew the two engines were in love.

Meanwhile, Cayce had made up a couple of smaller trains. She was just about to start on another train when she noticed that the telegraph was silent. She puffed over to the telegraph office.

"Mr Telegrapher? Is everything alright?"

The telegrapher opened a window facing the tracks and leaned out. His face was almost as white as the paint on Cayce's tender. Cayce knew that he hadn't received good news.

"212… Drew… His train crashed. He was the lead engine. It sounded like he fell off a trestle, at high speed."

Cayce gasped.

"No..no..there must be something else. He..can't..have..there must have been something lost in the morse code. Something!"

Her voice began to break and she began to cry. The telegrapher glanced back at his set.

"They didn't say what condition he was in, but I can ask them to confirm it."

He went back to the telegraph key and typed out the question. He returned with the bad news.

"He's...he's dead, 212."

Cayce was still for a moment, trying to think straight. She could feel more tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. Before anyone could do or say anything, she was racing backwards towards the sheds, crying as she had after she learned Casey had died.

A couple days later, Mr. Durango came to the sheds and knocked on the door of Cayce's berth.

"Go away," came Cayce's voice, muffled a little bit by the shed doors.

"I have news, 212. The Southern Railway is letting you come to their railway so you can say goodbye to Drew. They're going to repair him...but...he won't be alive again. He'll just be a simple machine."

There was silence for a minute.

"Can I go?" Cayce finally asked.

Mr. Durango nodded.

"You may."

There was silence for a moment more before the shed doors opened and Cayce moved forward so Mr. Durango could see her. She looked like she hadn't slept since before she heard of Drew's death. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were shiny where her tears had left tracks. Mr. Durango could see water covering and pouring down Cayce's front.

Mr. Durango stepped aside, and bowed his head.

"You're cleared to go, 212. Go to him."

Cayce let out a weak blast from her whistle that sounded like a dying bird as she slowly puffed out of the sheds. Her rods creaked and groaned as she sluggishly moved onto the main line.

A day and a half passed before she reached Southern Railway's line. She quietly rolled into the main hub of the Southern Railway. There was a roundhouse, a small station, a water tower, and coaling tower. Across from the roundhouse was the repair shed. Cayce could see a broken frame sitting inside. The wheels had been torn off, the cab was completely destroyed and the smokebox door, which was once where the smile of buck-toothed engine resided, was now a silver piece of broken metal.

Cayce hesitated for a minute, tears coming back. She hesitantly puffed forward, stopping in front of what she couldn't even call an engine anymore. She stood there for a moment, trying to picture Drew's face there. Finally, she quickly puffed away, crying again.

The other engines on the railway kindly let her stay in the roundhouse while she was there. The only space left open was Drew's, but she stayed anyways. The night before she was due to leave, as the other engines' crews finished settling their engines for the night, Cayce could hear them whispering amongst themselves. After they all had left, the engines turned to Cayce curiously.

"212, are you cursed?"

Cayce jumped at this question.

"I...I'm not sure. Why are you asking?"

Another engine answered.

"My driver said something about you being cursed. He said they changed your number as a curse breaker, but your curse could have traveled to Drew."

A third engine spoke up.

"My driver says that too. He also thought that now Drew's gone, the curse might go back to it's source. Which would be you."

Cayce couldn't believe the engines were saying such mean things to her and about Drew. She steamed out of the roundhouse and went to the only place she could feel safe. In the repair shed where Drew's frame was.

As she settled down to sleep, she found she couldn't. She knew nightmares would plague her, just as they had ever since she heard the news. Time passed as Cayce tried to fall asleep and failed. At just about 3 o'clock in the morning, everything felt still. A warm breeze that seemed to be coming from the frame beside her surrounded her. Cayce smiled a little bit, leaning in the direction the breeze was coming from. For a moment, she felt like Drew was still alive and right beside her. A few minutes later, she fell asleep with the smallest of smiles on her face.

What she didn't see was a thick mist appear over the smokebox door on Drew's frame. For a few moments, Drew's face appeared again. He watched Cayce for a minute before disappearing. As if he was never there.

Belle, Flynn, and Butch were shocked. Belle had tears creeping around the bottom of her eyes.

"Cayce...that..that.." Belle began to cry.

Butch and Flynn watched with worry. They had never seen Belle break down like this before. Cayce was crying again, more than she had after she told them about Casey.

Once the two female steam engines calmed down and stopped crying, Cayce continued.

"I actually got a good night's rest that night. It was a good thing, too. Because things got very...interesting the next morning…"

And that's a wrap for chapter four. In case you're wondering why Cayce is being referred to as 212, is because during the course of the real 382's life it was renumbered to 212, 2012, and 5012. This was done because of superstition surrounding the engines as many believed it's string of wrecks made it cursed, and changing the number was supposed to "break" the curse. So anytime you see a number change, it's because of this reason. Also stayed tuned for a new story next week. "The Ice Awakens" is on hold for two weeks from this weekend, so stay tuned for that.