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A small bus of students rolled along the barren roads of Sierra, Nevada. The brightness of the moon and stars shined down against the earth, illuminating the tufts of weeds and cacti that sprung from the dry desert ground. Everyone in the bus was both exhausted from the long day of travel, and ecstatic about tomorrow's trip to the active gold mine, everyone except Jacob. Although he too was excited for the gold mine trip, he couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen.

He peeled his eyes from the window and pulled an ear bud out of his right ear, paused his IPod and glanced around at everyone on the bus. A few girls sleepily jabbered to each other in the first few seats, while one or two groups of guys talked, and the rest stared aimlessly out the windows.

Jacob's eyes rested on Larry last, the schizophrenic boy that he'd known for years. Larry sat next to him in the seat, his eyes darting around nervously and his body ever so slightly shaking. Jacob smiled, despite the nervous knot in his stomach, "Hey Larry, how are you holdin' in over there?"

Larry laughed, but it seemed forced and humorless, "P, pretty good," he stuttered out. Jacob nodded, "That's good." He paused for a few moments, gathered up his thoughts. "Larry?" The boy whipped his wide blue eyes around to Jacob, and forced them to stay still. Jacob, knowing he had little time before Larry's mind carried him elsewhere far away, blurted out his question, "Do you ever get the feeling something bad is going to happen?" "All the time." "Like right now?" "Especially right now." "Same," Jacob looked down at his hands, "So what do you think will happen?" Larry shrugged, "Maybe the mole people are coming for us!" He pulled his shaking legs to his body and curled into a ball on the seat. "But they won't get me!" he mutter to himself.

Jacob wiped the smile from his face, knowing that Larry was utterly serious. "I don't think that's it, but good guess." He turned his head back to the window and for a while everything went back to normal.

That is, until a loud bang erupted from the front of the bus, and the engine began to admit a ton of smoke from under the hood. The bus slowed to a crawl in the midst of passing through an old ghost town. Everyone fell silent and all heads turned towards the front of the bus. The heavy set driver cussed under his breath and pulled the door open. He stumbled down the steps and disappeared in front of the bus.

Quiet mumbling buzzed as he opened the hood and more smoke poured out. Jacob pulled both headphones out of his ears and wrapped them around the IPod, shoving it down into his pocket. Larry was still curled into a ball next to him, which started to make Jacob a little weary himself.

Moments later, the driver came back up the steps with a loud sigh, "The bus is broken down, and so one of you has to go get help." The bus was quiet. The only sound we could hear was Larry sobbing and muttering, "Were all going to die." All of a sudden, chaos broke out. People were screaming and yelling; particularly at the bus driver.

"Why don't you go get help!?" someone yelled out. "Yeah, Why are you trying to send us out alone in the desert?" someone else yelled. The whole bus was in chaos and Jacob didn't feel any better that Larry was having a major panic attack, clawing at the window like a caged animal.

"Shut up", the bus driver yelled. This proceeded in doing nothing but making the kids yell louder, and with more fury. "Okay! Everyone out of the bus! Now!" the angry, mumbling students filed down the three steps and out.

"Now we need a way to choose who will look for help." he said as everyone gathered around. "Got any ideas? Anyone?"

"We could vote on it." one girl said.

"That's a horrible idea!" someone yelled from the back.

"What about drawing straws?” Jacob rolled his eyes, but started to worry when people agreed.

The students drew straws. Jacob and Larry drew the shortest straws and were told to see if there were any parts in the town. They start to walk into town. "I knew that I would get the shortest straw, I just knew it." said Jacob. All was quiet for a while and Jacob noticed that Larry was a little behind. "Come on Larry, if we don't hurry we might have to sleep in that creepy town." Jacob said. Larry being as schizophrenic as he is quickly ran up to Jacob’s side and started to whimper and frantically looked around, "I hope that we don't have to stay in that creepy town. That way the mole people can't get us."Larry whispered in a genuinely frightened voice.

They reached the town and decide to check the train depot first. To their disappointment they didn’t find anything. “Nothing!” shouts Jacob, "Come on Larry, let’s check the rest of this town."

All of the sudden Larry screams. Jacob asks, "What’s wrong Larry? What happened?" "I just saw something moving in the shadows with a pair of hedge clippers.” said Larry. "This town was creepy enough, now I am seeing a psycho killer with hedge clippers." "Ok Larry, it looks like it is getting too dark to look for anything in this town, and too dark to leave so we need to look for a place to stay the night." said Jacob. "No, NOOOOO!!!!” shouted Larry, "This town it so creepy and, that psycho killer is out there too." They walked around town until they found a hotel that was called "The Red Heart Hotel". "We can stay here" says Jacob. "Ok,” says Larry shakily, "but I still don't like it here."

"I know, I don't like it here either, but we have to stay here for now." says Jacob in an attempt to calm Larry down.

They fell asleep in minutes. Larry wakes up in the middle of the night and hears footsteps. He wakes Jacob up and says, "I think that I hear the psycho killer."

Jacob, half delirious says, "Larry there is no psycho killer, ok."

"Jacob, He is really here, I can hear the hedge clippers clacking together." whispers Larry.

Jacob, who by this point is more alert, listens into the darkness. Finally he says, "I hear it too Larry. We have to get out of here." They climb out of the window on to the balcony of the hotel. The psycho killer just entered the room and saw Larry's foot going thought the window. Larry went and hid while Jacob made a mad dash for the bus. Unfortunately the killer was faster than Jacob and overtook him quickly. Jacob shouts, "Help, Help, some psychopath is going to kill me! Help, Help!" but the bus is too far off in the distance for Jacob to be heard. Just as the killer was about to kill Jacob, out of nowhere, Larry jumps on the killer and shouted, "You won't kill my friend." Larry picks up a broken bottle and stabs the killer in the stomach.

Jacob, shocked by what just happened, says in a quiet voice, "Let's get out of here Larry, who knows what other crazy psychopath will try to kill us next."

"I agree let’s leave this creepy town and get back to the bus." Larry says in return.

So the pair starts to walk back to the bus, just as the sun began to rise. It seemed as Jacob and Larry were walking out of the sunrise like heroes in a movie. Larry's blood covered, broken glass bottle glistened in the early morning sun.

"Thank goodness that is over.” says Jacob

"Me too.” says Larry.

As they got back to the bus they found the bus driver bound and gagged, and the seniors working on the engine. A senior looks over at Larry and says, "I don't want to know." Another said, “He wouldn't let us take a look at the engine." Around ten minutes later, the engine roared to life and the bus driver still sat in the back of the bus bound and gagged, watching the bloody glass bottle as Larry talked to him about mole people. The bus shuddered, a hole opened up beneath it, dropping the bus into the cavern of the mole people. "I told you this was going to happen. No one ever listens to the crazy guy.", Shouted Larry as the bus plunged into the dark abyss.