The Last Step

He loved the sound of trains.

Tyrus loved trains.

Not in the casual way most kids say they do—he lived for them. He could name every model from memory. He copied the sounds so precisely that even my father, a retired conductor, once stopped mid-coffee and said, “That boy has an engine in his chest.”

He was only six years old.

We lived three blocks from Elm Street Station. Every Saturday, we would walk down the gravel path, cross the narrow field behind the bakery, and sit by the fence that overlooked the old freight yard. Trains no longer stopped on Elm Street—it was more a station structure than a useful object. But Tyrus didn’t care. To him, it was a sacred place.

He said the tracks still “talked,” even though no one else could hear them.

The day that shouldn’t have happened.

It was February. Cold, gray, one of those days when even the air seems uncertain.

My mom was working overtime. I promised her I’d check on Tyrese, and I did—mostly. But I was 15, glued to my phone, half listening, half watching as he played with his toy train on the carpet.

Then he stood up.

“I’m going to show the grown-ups my new train,” he said, already zipping up his jacket.

I looked up. “What?”

“The people from Elm Street,” he added, smiling as if he’d been invited.

I told him to wait. I told him I’d be with him in five minutes.

He nodded.

And then he was gone.

Tracks Don’t Forgive

When I came to, I ran after him. Maybe ten minutes had passed. Maybe fifteen. I don’t remember. All I know is that the way I ran, only guilt could make someone run.

When I got to Elm Street Station, I couldn’t breathe.

His train—the little blue one—sat on the tracks.

And the tires were nowhere to be seen.

They said it was impossible.

The authorities said no train had passed that line in months.

They said the signal logs were clear. No movement.

They said it was impossible for anything to happen.

But the toy train was crushed. Cleanly. The kind of flat damage only weight can do.

The snow around it wasn’t even disturbed.

They searched. Of course, they searched. Dogs, drones, volunteers. They combed every bush, ditch, tunnel, and corner from Elm Street to the next station, two miles away.

No footprints. No signs. No children.

Just silence and steel.

The station was never the same.

They closed it the next week. Condemned it. Said it was unsafe. Too many gaps in the wood, too much rust in the beams.

But we all know it wasn’t about safety.

It was about feeling.

Because after the tires disappeared, something changed in this place.

The trains still don’t stop there.

But sometimes… they do.

People say they hear the engine long before the tracks move. No set route. No headlights in sight.

Just a whistle in the cold and then… nothing.

I Go Back

Every year, on February 12, I return to Elm Street Station.

I bring a toy train—blue, like his favorite—and place it carefully on the edge of the platform.

And I wait.

Sometimes, I think I hear footsteps behind me.

Sometimes, I swear I see a shadowy duck under the old stairs.

One year, I found a fresh handprint in the frost.

Small. Too small to be me.

Chose tracks for the soul.

The tires didn’t fall off.

He didn’t get lost.

He didn’t stray too far.

Something chose him.

The way old places do when they’ve forgotten too much.

The way silence sometimes needs a voice.

Maybe Elm Street Station was never empty.

Maybe he needed someone to hear the final whistle.

He listened.

And he moved on.