Everyone dreams at one point in their pathetic life to escape and become lost in another world, another society. These societies do exist, and it is possible to escape. Very few do. There are no fairies, no witches, no wizards. And no, there are no dogs that tock. They are real people, like yourself, who found the exit, and weren’t afraid to take it. Nancy is one of the few.

The leaves crunched under Nancy's feet as she left the hair parlor. It was seven, but the winter was crawling in, and darkness was hovering. The wind bit at her face as she pulled her jacket over her bruised eyes, crunching the way across a field towards her home. A place she had grown tired of fearing. She had lived with this fear since she was old enough to remember. Now getting hit was a normal part of her routine. She almost missed the pain when her father got too drunk and passed out early. His bottle of Knob Creek always toppling, creating a loud thud that meant she was safe. Once in a while the glass would even shatter. She loathed him, and loathed the house, but no longer feared. A girl who lived with fear would never be able to escape. She trudged up to the train tracks that would lead her the rest of the way home. As she came around the first bend, a train sitting perfectly still sat, waiting. She had fantasized about jumping trains virtually every day she walked them. This time in Nancy jumped from her fantasy onto the train. She found her way into an old open car and made herself comfortable. As she stretched out on the rust metal her foot kicked something soft that let out a yelp of pain.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my car?!"

"I’m sorry I just decided to jump…I don’t know what I’m doing… I didn’t know this was yours"

Well it was. Mr. Higgenbothums had been riding the tracks for decades. This car had been his home for at least the last. Normally track people cannot be seen by turfs. Turfs being anyone who lives a "normal" life. In a deep grumble this strange old man spoke, "I don’t know how you can see me, but if you want to escape you have come to the right place. All you have to do is prove you belong amonst us." When Nancy inquired how she was to do this he instructed her that at the next stop, when the police officer came to inspect the car she was to kill him.

The train lurched to a stop and just as Mr. Higgenbothums had said a police man came up to the car. He looked right through where Mr. Higgenbothums stood then looked right at Nancy.

"Young girl what are you doing in here? You have to leave." Suddenly Nancy was holding a knife, which she quickly, without the police man noticing, slipped into her back pocket. With out a moment's thought she jumped from the car and ran and hid under a thoroughly rusted train. She wasn’t a murderer and didn’t want to start. At least not yet.

As the sun set in the train yard droves of scraggly folk climbed their way out of the cars. There must have been at least a hundred of them. Nancy watched in awe as they built fires and huddled. She wandered over to the biggest fire at which she saw the familiar face of Mr. Higgenbothums who was leading the group through the tale of how he came into this life…..

His story was the same as many of the Track people. When he was a young boy he loved playing in the neighborhood with the other children, loved falling in the mud and gathering scars. When this young boy would go home, however, he walked in to an addict's world.

His mother was a coke addict and when she was coming down he would feel the brunt of it. Not only this, but there were always strange men walking in and out of the house at obscure hours. It was one of these men that pushed Mr. Higgenbothums into his current life. The man was about thirty, twice is age at the time. Mr. Higgenbothums laid awake on his stiff mattress listening to his mothers profession. Things started getting rough, as they sometimes would. It always meant that they would eat a large meal the next day, so he wasn’t worried. This time it was different, his mother let out a scream of horror. Without a thought he rushed down the creaking stares grabbed the lamp from the table in the kitchen and burst into his mothers room. He heard the sound of flesh on flesh, bone on bone, a crack that once you hear you can never forget. In this red lit room sat his mother holding her right eye. A man with wide shoulders towered above her. For a second. This young boy took the lamp and beat the 30 something with wide shoulders into what can only be described as a soup of pulp. His mother than shoved his out of the house with only forty dollars that she threw at his as a final good-bye.

Lost and homeless Mr. Higgenbothums wandered the streets until it started to rain, that hard cold sleet rain. Like a thousand frozen needles the rain persed his skin until he came upon a train yard. He climbed into an empty car where he met Malentruss the Lord of the track folk. At the mention of this name mumbles of awe and worship flickered around the fire. Mr. Higgenbothums looked over the flame right at Nancy and said. "It is how we all are here. We kill in order to survive. Society has rejected us, so we reject the confines of society." He then took a large puff of a blunt that had been circulated, as he held the smoke deep he spoke, "do what you want, when you want. No questioning, and even Lucifer himself cannot imagine the pain you will endure if you should harm a fellow Track." He exhaled and his smoke joined the fires and waltzed to the heavens.