Wow, you're good.

&remove;
my $x = "perl $death $FAILS"; print $x;
my $rc = system("perl $death $FAILS");
file_present('death is a failure');
[download]

The print in second line -- don't know how that crept in there, egads -- was causing exactly the problem you described.

 '++' x 1000 to you, adrianh, thanks!