Train should be here any minute now.

I love these old tracks. They've given me so much, thought me so much. Me and Jimmy used to set up our army men on the tracks and wait for the train to squish em. Whoever squished more army guys won. Man those were some fun times. Course we moved on to squashing pennies, then we'd light fires on the track, and as we older and bolder we threw stones at the drivers cabin as it went by.

The rail road was our spot, our hangout. Everything went down at the rail road. Jimmy and me got our first kiss there, Melinda Greystone kissed us both. Seems weird now, but at the time it was the perfect arrangement. Course these things never work out so well do they.

Melinda eventually grew older, and she took to kissing Jimmy and to not to kissing me. And just like that her and Jimmy were gone. Disappeared. Poof. They were off doing whatever couples do, and I was left to squish things down at the rail road all by my lonesome. Thinking about it now it's no surprise I turned out mean. Army men turned to bugs, bugs turned to birds, birds to cats, cats to dogs, and well. I think you can see where this is going.

"Don't struggle so much, Jimmy, the ropes only get tighter, tell him, Melinda, tell Jimmy not to struggle so much."

Melinda said nothing, her eyes had gone blank and a queer kind of madness had settled on her. It was strange to see, but then the railroad had shown him many strange things over the years.

Jimmy could hear the faint, chugging of of the number nine. He looked at his watch. "Ha! Look at that Jimmy, the trains actually early!" The veins on Jimmie's neck stood out as he struggled against his restraints, he eyes wild and red as he felt the track vibrate underneath him.

"Any minute now, Jimmy. Any minute."