Everything about That Hell-bound Train totally explained
"That Hell-Bound Train" is a
fantasy short story by
Robert Bloch from 1958 that won the
Hugo Award in 1959.
Plot summary
In the beginning of the story the main character, Martin, becomes an orphan. His father dies when he drunkenly gets himself smashed by a train-car where he works, and his mother runs away with a traveling salesman. Martin roams around drifting from job to job, once even stealing hub-caps for a living. He is oddly attracted to trains, and he rides them everywhere he goes, and continually hums a tune his father use to sing,
That Hell-Bound Train.
One day a train he doesn't recognize (he knows the trains well) stops near him. A man gets off, the conductor of the train, and offers Martin anything he wants. In return he'll eventually have to ride the Hell-Bound Train, and give his soul to the devil. Martin outsmarts the devil by asking for the ability to stop time once (by means of a magic
pocket watch that the Conductor gives him) in his life so he can live in that moment of his choosing forever. In this way he'll never have to ride the Hell-Bound Train. And, if he picks his moment right, he'll literally live happily, forever.
He fixes up his life, getting a job and working hard to get a raise. He meets a woman he'd like to marry, and can't decide whether he wants to stop time then and live in that moment forever. He decides against it. He has children, but then decides to wait until they're grown to stop time. But when they're grown he's an affair with a younger women and his wife leaves him.
He is old, but decides he can have his moment as he's traveling around the world. It turns out that traveling doesn't have moment he wanted to live in forever. He tries to make some friends, so he can spend eternity with them, but he's getting old. He has a stroke, and goes to the hospital. He sneaks out of the hospital to look for his moment, only to have a second stroke. He lays dying decide whether or not to stop time then so as to save his soul, even if he's to live his dying agony forever. He decides against it and dies.
That old conductor returns on his train to take Martin's soul to Hell. The Conductor tells Martin that others have tried this wish, but they never found the perfect moment, always waiting for something better, until they died just like him. Martin laments on this for a while but then realizes there are others on the Hell-Bound Train, and they're all having their last and greatest time of their lives because soon that'll be damned in Hell. He chooses that moment to stop time, at which point the conductor (who is probably the devil) realizes that they're all stuck in that moment forever. The ending leaves Martin in a positive moment, and possibly renders the conductor (whether he be the devil or one of his servants) powerless to do the same to others.
Awards
Further Information
Get more info on 'That Hell-bound Train'.
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