Sodor: Left for Dead

The Tidmouth Massacre

It took around an hour to refill Thomas' bunker as we had to do it by hand, but once we were done we made a plan to head up towards Tidmouth since it was a common gathering place among the engines.

As we traveled down the mainline we couldn't shake the eire feeling of silence that surrounded us. Normally we'd be able to hear the sound of happy people chatting or engines chuffing cheerfully along, but now it was silent. We were the only ones roaming the rails. As we pulled into Tidmouth Tom went into the station to search for any people or food. As we waited we saw tons of luggage that had been left behind. To my knowledge Emily was scheduled to be here so I can only assume the people ran for the coaches at the first sign of trouble. As Tom exited the station with some stale buns we noticed the sound of talking coming from the yard. We backed Thomas from the platform and a workman swapped the points. We pulled into the yard and saw several trucks in our way so we pushed them to reveal an exhausted James and a petrified Duck.

Both of the engines were shocked to see us, but were happy nonetheless. We quickly questioned them and James revealed that he was sitting at Knapford with a passenger train. As he was waiting he saw a rather sick looking man. He didn't question it as he knew there was some sort of illness going around. Just as he looked away the sick man jumped onto a nearby civilian and began attacking him. The people on the platform panicked and got into the coaches. The guard blew his whistle and James set off. He looked back to see he hadn't been coupled to the coaches, however it was too late as more people, who were in the same condition as the sick man, had entered the coaches and began attacking those within. James tore down the mainline faster than he ever had before. He saw people being attacked down in the Old Harbor and Lower Tidmouth. As he rounded the bend into Tidmouth he saw Emily at the platform on his line. He blew his whistle and shut his eyes preparing for the crash but felt a sudden swerve as he was sent into the yard. He opened his eyes to see Emily speed off down the line. A few minutes later Duck rolled in and hadn't said a word. We looked at the pannier, but kept silent mumbling to himself. Tom checked their cabs but found no sight of their crews. James said that his crew had gone off to search the building for supplies and had no idea where Duck's could be. Just then the sounds of gunshots echoed from the nearby building and there we saw Jason and Phil leap from the building with a massive crowd of zombies on their tails. They jumped into James' cab and quickly began to fire him up. Phil took aim and shot into the crowd taking down as many of those creatures as possible. James' face began to grow red and a loud hissing sound was heard. It was the sound of a dry boiler being steamed. James soon began leaking steam and screamed in pain. He looked towards Duck and yelled for him to help, but he just sat there still filled with fear. I knew too well what was going to happen and quickly set Thomas into reverse; however, Tom ran towards the red engine in an attempt to help, but it was too late. I thought for a second the plugs in the crown sheet would prevent anything major from happening, but just as I said this James' boiler dented in on itself one final time before it exploded.

Boiler tubes and boiling hot steam was sent everywhere killing the nearby zombies along with Tom. Once the dust settled we saw Duck racing away back down the line covered in James' blood. His crew had been hiding amongst the trucks and took the explosion as a distraction to make their escape.

We stayed at Tidmouth for several hours to mourn the losses. We laid the bodies of Jason, Phil and Tom out and covered them with tarps. We also tried to gather the remains of James however we couldn't grab many pieces due to their heat. It was nighttime by the time we finally left and Thomas remained quiet. He hadn't said a word since James blew up. To this day I still miss James. Even though he got on everyone's nerves he didn't deserve that sort of fate. He truly deserved better. We all do.

We pulled into Tidmouth Sheds to spend the night and there we found Henry along with a bunch of workmen as safe as could be. We were ecstatic to see he was okay. Henry had been pulling a goods train from Brendam and as he was passing Wellsworth he saw the people on the platform being attacked. He made his way to Crosby where he picked up several workmen and civilians and made a beeline to the sheds. He claimed to have passed Emily and as he pulled into the goods shed he saw James rush by. He hoped they were alright. He then looked at Thomas and asked if he was alright, referring to the blood covering the side of his face and side tanks. We were forced to break the news of James' death to Henry and he didn't take it too well. He lashed out at us saying we could have saved him. We tried to explain that if we did we would have been killed like Tom, but he didn't want to hear it and stayed quiet the rest of the night. I just backed Thomas into the sheds with Annie and Clarabel so they could get some rest. As I did I could hear Henry quietly crying to himself.