He turned the phone face-down on the table. The screen went dark, but he could still hear it—the wet, grinding crunch of metal on bone, followed by a child’s distant scream that wasn’t Timmy’s.
The download was instant. No progress bar. No permission request. The icon appeared on his home screen: a spider-legged locomotive with a bloody grin, teeth like shattered glass. The name under it: Choo-Choo Charles.
Then the phone vibrated. A text from “Unknown”:
“Charles is hungry. Feed him, or Timmy rides the rails.”