Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #22 January 2016 | Page 24

Picture originally posted by “Deserted Places” on Facebook.

One last ride

in as he could. Children were placed in adults’ laps
and adults were willing to stand and be crowded in
because they knew he was there to help them. With the
rain pouring down around them and slowly flooding
the streets, he turned the trolley around at the station
and began the arduous journey back home. A huge
torrent of water fell from the sky and the way the city
was designed caused it to sluice toward the slowly
moving trolley. The trolley was swept away, never to
be seen again, and its passengers were victims of the
storm.

By Thea Gilchrist

Long ago the house beside this trolley was
occupied by a rich and powerful family. They were
eccentrics for their time; they allowed the poor to
use it as a means of getting to and from town. This
enabled their servants to get a proper education
while making them look generous and giving. (Some
saw that as a bad thing.) There were times when
the family had to say no in order to keep the other
powerful households from causing trouble. They
didn’t want to be mean, but sometimes they didn’t
have much of a choice. They themselves used the
trolley to get into town for business and back again,
and that was all right.
Then one day a storm came. The city’s most outlying
areas were evacuated but there was a problem. They
had nowhere to go and there was no way to get them
out. So the family’s oldest son took the trolley into
town despite the warnings, despite the pleas for him to
remain and be safe, because he had to get those people
out. The trolley went right to the makeshift muster
point for the evacuees and he loaded as many of them

The family was horrified when they found the trolley
three days after the storm with all its passengers still
on board. Their oldest son had died trying to save
those people and he was still in the driver’s seat of the
trolley with one hand on the brake and the other on the
wheel. He’d just loosened the brake when the water
swept them away...
Now the trolley sits beside the house, unused and
abandoned, waiting for the day when its family will
return and it can take them on one final journey;
a journey to Heaven to be with their dead but not
forgotten son.

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