Chew Chew

After four years, a recovering alcoholic wants to connect with his four-year-old son by reading him a story. It starts well, until a murderous rail car hunts them down and attacks.

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Sometimes a special occasion only needs the right book. I gave up on our small-town library and its single room and four shelves inside a small civic center. The yard sale across the street had a mini armada of folding chairs and picnic tables, full of items. Ragged T-shirts, long faded, one read, “Where’s the Beef?”

 I had a different question in mind. “Ma’am, where are the books?”

She looked kind of familiar. She gasped when she saw me. I don’t think it was because of my lumbering six-foot-two, moderately muscular self, with my porous gut.  She sat down at a metal desk five yards away. Wearing a pillbox hat and a hoodie too large for her frail frame. She rooted around for something, and pulled out a book. “You’re David, right?”

“Yeah.” 

She walked it over straight to me and stuck it right into my hands. Its title was “Chew Chew.” 

I knew her from church. Just not her name. “Your boy loves trains, doesn’t he? I know that, I talk to the Sunday School students sometimes. Before the mommies and daddies come to church afterwards. This one might be a little scary. You have a brave little boy; I know he can handle it. Look at the cover!” She ordered, tapping at it with her aged bony finger. “Look at it!”

She had her arm hooked around mine. Like we were going to prom. She was, at youngest, ninety years old. Her grasp felt like a twig arm wrapped around loosely tied bags of meat. She’s still talking. “So, this is a character named Chew Chew. One thing to clear up.” She pointed at the cover. “See. Despite the weird name, he’s NOT a train engine. He’s a passenger car.”

Why? Well, she didn’t elaborate. I would learn that later. 

I saw the picture on the cover. He had big cartoony eyes. At first glance, somethings didn’t seem right. I figured I’d study that later. “How much for the book?”

“Free.” She patted my arm. She walked off. “My last copy! After all these years!” Naïve me was happy for her. I didn’t know as to why exactly. 

I said to her over my shoulder, “Happy to help.” Then I walked back to my truck.

I would later learn that a previously unseen rail car rolled into view for a second. No more than two hundred yards away from the sale. Only to disappear by backing into a tunnel that ran underneath part of our town.  

I learned more about Chew Chew in my truck. There was a big passenger train on the cover. Painted blue with a red frame. Those were the good parts on this. The banner on top of the cover read, “An Ernie the Engine Book.”

The character looked right at the reader. Two large cartoony eyes. A glum-looking mouth. His metal looked a bit like human flesh. Webbed with veins. Bumpy, sometimes porous, like diseased skin. Quite the artistry.

I looked at the title again. Chew Chew. C-H-E-W C-H-E-W. I heartedly whoa-ed. “This is a horror story!” 

I discovered Stephen King at age eight. Grew up on the real Grimm Fairy Tales. 

I brought the book home. 

So why did it take me four years to want to read to my son? 

When Toby was born, I dropped him. Not right away. At home, with relatives all around. 

He slipped, hit a couch cushion, and flopped onto the floor like a loose-limbed chimp. I was drunk. I was always drunk. 

My wife Penelope swooped him up. Like a spit-fire mama hawk fending off predators. “Don’t you touch him! Don’t breathe on him.”

With that in mind, it still took me three years to get truly sober. And here we are at four years. And I kept my distance. We were jokey with each other. We were close that way. I had hoped that tonight, I would have my very own niche. 

The Storytelling King!

In my nightstand I keep a cut-out picture of a bourbon advertisement. My once preferred beverage. I had written the words, “Never again.” 

I walked through the front door of our two-floor farmhouse. The screen door smacked behind me. I kissed my wife. Told her to have fun. She said, “You’re okay with him?” She’s the one who suggested this night on the town. She’s the one who told me we’d be fine. The lord God had invented forgiveness long ago. I thank Him every night for the family I still have, and the boy who seemed just fine. 

“Hello, stranger,” he said. Three-and-half feet tall, bespectacled. Already giggling. This was a running joke between us. 

I said, “Are you the man of the house?”

My wife whispered to me, “Remember how your father was too jokey for you?” Yes, I remembered, he was a drunk too. “He’s not a drinking buddy, hon. He’s your kid.”

“He’s fine. We’ll be fine.” My smile advertised thinly veiled unease, but my wanting to wow him helped keep my fears in check. 

My wife left. Toby looked at me, and I looked at him. We both seemed just fine. 

Yes, at that moment. Fine. 

A few minutes later, he went to go play with his trains in his room. He kept a track on his bed. Set them up so the pillows were like big hills. And wrinkled blankets meant avalanches, or as he called them, “trouble ahead.” 

I Googled Chew Chew. A couple of weird cooking sites came up, and then bingo. 

There was a website. Dimly colored. On the front was a photo of a news story that looked like complete bullshit. Bathed in soft light. All it said was the character was made by the Ernie the Engine company to appear as a one-and-done character. The Halloween episode aired once, late in the show’s run. At one point, the article said he was stolen, and made real. 

The site said there were tens of thousands of people who believe that he was actually out there, scouring the countryside, killing anyone he catches reading a copy of the very book in my hands. Victims in Minnesota. North Dakota. Ohio. Iowa. Wisconsin. South Dakota.

“Last copy given!” Read a new note in freshly written red ink in the corner of the screen. “More info later, ChewHeads!” 

A photo at the bottom of the page. Yes, this was the old lady who gave me the book. With a perm that sort of looked like Captain Crunch’s helmet.

Soon came Storytime. 

I never got the hang of making a lap that my kid could sit on. My left foot touched the ground, while my right leg crossed over. He sat on me and rested against my chest. I could feel the inkling of a leg cramp coming on. 

Toby felt like a warm water bottle against me; his hair smelled of baby shampoo. I was convinced the feeling, and that scent, would never leave me.

Let’s get into the book!

I’ll spare you having to listen to me read it. It said on the front page, “Based on an episode that aired only once.” The sentence ended with three skulls, little emojis. 

The story goes that Chew Chew was a scary bully. If the drawings indicated anything, he was burped up from a pit that came from…Hell? Intense for kiddos! All he wanted to do was join Ernie’s train. He was a passenger car. He never wanted to be an engine. Despite Chew Chew’s fervor for the job, Ernie rejected him. Too scary looking, it would frighten the children! In revenge, double Chew terrorized the citizens of Tuba Town. He ate anyone who came near him. And for that, Ernie and his posse of railcars banished him forever. Ran him off the track and watched him as he plummeted down a ravine. 

Then the strangest thing. We got to the end of the book and I read five words. 

“Oh, Chew Chew, please come.”

That wasn’t there before. I read them out loud again. “Oh, Chew Chew, please come?” It didn’t make any sense. This is how the story ended?

Something crunched in the leaves outside our open window. The phone rang. I picked it up. It was her. 

“You read it!” she said. The old lady. 

“I never caught got your name.”

“I never threw it. Too many years ago, I was given a pile of the magical books that controlled Chew Chew’s murderous ways. I gave them to potential victims, and he finds them. I really believe he can smell the books.”

 “Lady, I’m calling bullshit on your story. We don’t have any tracks near us. Not for probably two and a half miles from here. So, if Chew Chew even exists, which I doubt, he’s not going to jump tracks this far out!” My son was looking at me, his soft face downturned, his eyes fixated on me. Read the room, dad.

Silence broke fast. 

Outside, something was knocking over trees in the woods around my house. My steel shed groaned as it fell over. Forest animals ran in every direction. Many passed our house. Then came that cry. 

“CHEW CHEEEWWWWWW!”

I said, “He’s here.” I clicked off my phone. 

Shit. 

My son’s eyes were as round as dollar coins. 

I just summoned him? Whatever it was, it looked most like a rail car. There’s no engine. How the hell is it moving?

“Toby, you gotta go to your room. At least until I figure out what’s out there.” Of course, I’m not buying it just yet. My dad raised himself some doubters. If you doubt an alcoholic parent’s love, you can doubt a lot of things. Good and bad.

Outside again, “Chew Cheewwwww.” The plates and pots in the kitchen rattled. My nerves too. That night was going straight to crap.

“Is that Chew Chew?” Toby asked, pointing outside. “Is this part of the book?” 

My night wasn’t lost after all. 

 “Yeah,” I replied. “Everything is fine. This is a magic book.” Lying always came easily for me. I’m not proud. “Just a story, son. Mom doesn’t read these kinds of stories, am I right? But, when you’re with Dad…” I left it at that, feeling even lower. 

Yard lights lit up the grassy hill that took up most of our back yard. Whoever is pretending it’s Chew Chew was right at the top. Chew Chew’s features matched his book cover, and more. He was larger, obviously. Blue with red flame. Side windows all cracked or shattered open. Two slits above his mouth. Nostrils? Maybe. It looked like his second eye got snagged in tree branches. Chew Chew’s mindless pulling burst it open, and caused what looked like oily blood seeping from its hole. 

How do we fight this? It had no reason to be alive. Yet there it was. A little part of me still doubted. Parade float? Practical joke? What did Sherlock Holmes say about eliminating everything impossible? What does that leave you? The answer. How ever nuts it may be.

My son stood behind me and grabbed my pants leg in a pudgy little fist. Hopefully taking some comfort in it. I wished I had some pants legs to grab too. 

“Where’s Mommy?” His trembling voice stinged me a little. I was already choice B? 

“I’m sorry, big guy, I’m all you got,” and bingo, those sulky words sounded like I agreed with him! Super parenting, Dave!

“But you and I are in this together. Mommy can’t fit!” Okay, he needs more. “I’ve seen something like this before. And I came out fine.” Liar, liar, liar.  

I should have called 9-1-1 by then. 

“He’s moving,” I said. Getting himself ready, Chew Chew poised his body to stand directly, headfirst, in our direction. All he had to do was rumble down that hill and kamikaze himself right into the house.

I’m fake smiling for Toby’s sake. Trying to sell all of this as big fun. Silently grasping for some idea that sounded like a real-life eureka breakthrough. “Run? Or stand our ground?” My eyes kept fixated through the window. “This is what all adventurers face!”

Toby knew the score. “Why is he going to hurt us, Daddy?”

I couldn’t think of an answer. I tucked him in my arms as Chew Chew rumbled down the hill. We went hurtling down the hall toward the connecting garage. I forgot to lie to Toby and tell him its part of the story. We were simply fleeing. 

            Chew Chew howled his stupid name. He rammed into our house like the fist of God. Bursting through the wall. Upheaving the floor. Glass everywhere. We were up against the far hallway wall. 

I stopped in the door between the house and garage, and listened as the monster backed up. Heard wheezing. A pained grumble. Was he hurt? I had hoped he’d leave. I heard no signs of him going anywhere. He just stopped. Maybe he died. 

We slipped into the garage. 

My F-150 pickup was the best damn sight possible. No time to adore its dark purple-colored sheen and power. I plopped Toby in his seat. Pulled his straps tight. “Shhhhh, Toby, you can’t cry right now.” I knew my mistake from the jump.

It heard me!

“CHEW CHEWWW.”

Even after ramming my damn home, he still heard me. 

“Daddy!” 

I shushed him. Maybe too harshly. 

I initially thought Chew Chew would have to go around the house to get to us. Thought that would give us time. I didn’t fully know what he could do. 

“Daddy?”

“We’re okay.”

             Mere seconds felt like a millennium as the garage door rumbled open. I didn’t wait for it to finish. I backed out, dinged the door, and squealed my tires. 

I looked behind me and heard “Chew Chew!” from above us. It jumped from over the house with no explicable reason. Illuminated from the moon above, I could see it in mid-leap, raining down on us like a cougar hankering for gazelle meat. 

“No freakin’…”

BOOM! It hit my back bumper, careening us up, my front wheels left the road. Praise God, that Chew Chew didn’t fall directly on us. My head flung back, Toby’s didn’t. We were free again. We bounced back onto all four wheels. My head hit the steering wheel. 

Chew Chew slowed a bit. I could hear metal things scraping underneath it. Wheels? Axles? I didn’t know. He was losing his guts. I was on a straight gravel road, I floored it. He followed, merely feet from my back bumper. His industrial-like nostrils steamed my back window. 

I freaked and drove us into a cornfield. The stalks thumped underneath us as my fingers squeezed the steering wheel even harder. I climbed my truck back up onto the road. We fooled Chew Chew, earning us maybe two seconds of a head start. He fishtailed and quickly raged the distance between us. He opened his massive mouth and clamped down on my bumper, nearly tearing it off. 

I knew he wasn’t going to give up. I accepted this was indeed a passenger car monster with a real mouth. We had his last copy of his stupid book. I got off the drinking, but I wasn’t any closer to my son. Forget dropping him. I could get him killed now. 

A state park up ahead.  Our last chance for survival. 

One eye remained, the other deflated and dragging. 

Toby was screaming. I couldn’t talk him down. We entered the state park. Us. Then Chew Chew. Only one narrow road led in and out. We had no way to circle around him and get out of there. 

I squeezed my son’s leg. His cheeks shimmered from tears. He seemed saggy now. Exhausted from all this emotion. “Son? The story is just about over.” 

He rose again. His eyes still bright. That gave me hope. The lake was up ahead. Not a swimmer’s paradise. I knew this one had leaches and chiggers, and no docks that I knew about. I drove toward the water, without anywhere to go but straight. We parked in the lake itself, the water covering the underbelly of my truck. 

Chew Chew hit the beach and simply stopped. It tried to lurch forward, with nothing to show for it. Stymied by sand. His remaining eye looked banged up and dazed. He was bleeding oil and grease from gashes and tears in his metallic body. Up close, the metal seemed pliable. Like living flesh. Like I saw on the cover of his book. 

He was wheezing. He tried to spin his remaining wheels again, he just couldn’t do it. I saw white faces in his windows. Sitting in his passenger car seats. It seemed packed in there, as if he were hoarding spirits. I said to myself, “It’s his stomach.”

I left the cab of my truck. I said to my son, “This is where the story’s hero saves the day! All just part of the story, son!” I swung my door open.

“Daddy, noooooo.” Toby is bawling now. It was time to prove to him my worth. To be the one who came through for him. 

“The ultimate story, son!” I hollered behind me. God, I sounded crazy. 

A living, breathing thing was dying right in front of me. I still don’t trust this. He’s a multi-ton passenger car that literally jumped over our house. My right foot stepped ahead, while my left stayed behind. In case I had to turn and run again. 

Toby would ask someday why this all even happened. I would give him that chestnut-phrase. The one about random cruelty in the world. “Just because,” I whispered as if practicing the line. No other reason that I could tell.  

Chew Chew barfed sand. 

“I know your owner said you’d kill us.” I pointed at the book. “Will this call you off? You’re dying, we both know it. The last book, right here. I’m offering you THIS much.” I held up the book.  “Not us.”

I would never know who built this monster. Not really. I figured out why he, she, it, chose a passenger car. Because unlike engines, passenger cars have proper seating…and an ample space for a stomach.

He groaned as he opened his mouth. I frisbeed the last copy right between his enormous jaws. He closed again, and I guess chewed, with a child-like “num num num.” He swallowed. The lights all over his body dimmed, then faded. His remaining eye closed, then he died.

At least I thought he did. 

Sirens off in the distance. I brought my son outside; we sat on the back of my truck. 

“Don’t joke, Daddy.”

“Trust me,” I said, “it’s not funny at all.”

“No,” he said, “not funny at all.”

It was weeks of counseling before Toby asked his mom if I could read to him too. With a smile on her face, Pen said, “He’s all yours tonight, Daddy.”

I liked the sound of that. 

We checked outside before every book I read. We found no Cat in the Hat. No Goldilocks or the Three Bears. No cows that typed. We even raced alongside passing trains, with our windows down, and nothing ever came of it. We worked our way back to normal, now knowing that this really wasn’t likely happening again. 

We didn’t let the story go. It hadn’t just been a bedtime story. It has and always will be our story, and ours alone. 

As for the old lady? Dead at home with a wide grin on her face. 

We actually went to the funeral. No one said anything about Chew Chew. We looked outside to the railyard. The sun was shining down on it, making it hard to see what was out there. 

 Two on the tracks. An engine, and a caboose. The engine tooted and started to chug away. I didn’t see who or what it was. They picked up speed and traveled on. 

So did we.  

-end- 

By Steven Roisum

From: United States