[IC] The Town At the End - Kirah & Apollo

[Apollo]

Dylan

Dylan bit his lip as he filled in the last question on the scantron with his pencil. He was so exhausted from exams that he didn't really care to check whether he had marked the right one. Usually, due to his OCD, he would check it a way too many times, but being tired was a sure way to overcome his OCD.

He put his pencil down and leaned back. Most of the other students were done and either mouthing words to eachother when the teacher wasn't looking, or reading a book. Dylan noted only ten more minutes left on the clock.

He stretched out in his chair and yawned quietly. It was nice to be in the last week of school. He was definitely going to make the most of this summer by reading the books he wanted to read and not the ones that were assigned. He also was already planning his college applications and wanted to research the best colleges to apply to for Philosophy of Science. He still wasn't even sure if there were any schools that actually offered that major. He looked outside the window and noticed the super long line of yellow busses waiting for the students to get out of class. They were going to a theme park and Dylan actually planned to have fun there. Usually he'd mope around and just go somewhere quiet to read or listen to music, but he was kind of tired of academic and his loner stuff - at least for now.

The only thing he was definitely not looking forward too was three hours on a school bus packed with rowdy high schoolers.

"Ok, everyone. Pencils down, start handing in your exam and then you can go," Ms. Moore said, looking at her watch.

"In orderly fashion," she chided when students began rushing her desk. They slowed down. Students wanted to get to the busses before everyone else to make sure they could sit next to their friends.

Ms. Moore smiled at Dylan as he handed his in, "Look into Stanford. You won't regret it."

Dylan smiled, "I will."

"Have a nice summer."

Dylan smiled and nodded as he left the room. The bell hadn't gone off yet so the other classes were still in session, except for a couple other classes that were also let out slightly early. Dylan went to his locker and got his backpack. He wasn't sure if he was going to need it since they were going to a theme park, but he didn't want to leave it behind. It had his computer, iPhone, and his books...just in case he got over his academic slump sooner than planned.

He looked around to see if his brother had been let out early. Students were rushing past, giggling and laughing as they made their way to the busses.

Suddenly, Dylan started to notice blood on the faces of some students. It was so odd that he didn't even realize it was odd when he first started seeing it. It was like his mind was taking a long time to process it. Behind one of the classroom doors with a frosted window, he thought he could make out a figure with an axe. He could feel himself start to panic, but it was just so weird that he wasn't sure what to panic about. He looked at the students faces. The blood...

A locker door slammed right next to him and he jumped.

"Thanks for the tip, Dylan." Dylan recognized Topher's voice.

"What?"

"I beat the boss easy after you told me about that glitch." He punched Dylan on the shoulder lightly and smiled as he walked away.

"No worries," Dylan said, still in shock. When he looked back at the hallway and students, everything seemed normal again.

"Really need to lay off the zombie stuff," Dylan muttered.

He closed his locker and made his way to the busses as the bell rang.

[Kirah]

Josh

Rubbing at his eyes, trying to stay awake, Josh stared at his own test. He was almost done. The letters had started to blur together and he was getting anxious, glancing up at the clock. With a couple ticks on his fingers he figured out the last maths question and stood up turning in his test without even a second glance at it.

Outside the class he whooped for joy, ran into a team mate and high fived him. "Have you seen Dylan?" The friend shook his head, and held up the library book he needed to return. Josh nodded and walked with Vince to the library. "I should actually go to my locker and then the buses mate I'll see ya." With the goodbye out of the way Josh turned to run to his locker, there was only a couple minutes till classes let out and then there would be a mad rush to the buses.

Josh rubbed his eyes again stumbling as the world seemed out of focus. Maddy, a girl the same year as him, was covered in blood. For a few seconds Josh thought maybe she had started... and well hadn't noticed, but she was talking with Sarah and Sarah didn't say anything. Josh looked at Sarah, it looked like her head was caved in. He almost screamed when Vince bumped into him.

"I thought you were going to the bus." Vince looked at him frowning. Vince looked normal, as did everyone else now.

"Yeah, I just realized I got that last problem wrong."

"Is that why you look like you saw a ghost?" Josh just nodded. He exchanged a few things and then made his way to the buses, just as the bell rang to let out the rest of the school.

Josh spotted Dylan, and ran up to him. "Hey, how'd you do?" He asked once he caught up near the bus line. Josh had shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them from shaking, and despite the warm summer weather was shivering a bit.

[Apollo]

Dylan

Dylan was still thinking about the weird stuff he had seen in the hallways when he heard Josh.

"Good," Dylan said, distracted and looking back at the hallway they had come out of. There were plenty of kids coming out of it now and the front lawn was quickly filling with students getting in line to get on the bus.

"How about you?" Dylan asked, looking at his brother. Dylan noticed that Josh looked a bit spooked and was about to ask what was wrong when the supervising teacher spoke.

"Ok everyone, have your permission slips out and ready to turn in as you enter the bus." She spoke loud and, since they were close to her, Dylan's ears rang from how loud it was. "Whoever doesn't have their permission slips cannot go on the trip. No exceptions."

Dylan took out his permission slip from his backpack to get it ready. Dylan took one last look at the hallway and then decided to shake it off.

"Did you hear that they opened that new super fast ride at the theme park?" Dylan asked, smiling at his brother. "Hope you're not going to chicken out."

"Alright, start moving forward," the teacher said - making Dylan jump.

He showed her his permission slip and she smiled, "The twins."

"Yup," Dylan said, rolling his eyes at Josh. The teachers seemed to like to call them "the twins," as if they only existed as a pair.

"Okay, get on. It's open seating so sit wherever you'd like."

Dylan smiled and boarded the bus. He made his way to the middle of the bus and got in one of the seats, waiting for Josh. He had a bad feeling. He couldn't identify it and didn't even know what it was that he was feeling exactly. He felt uneasy. Next to him, he noticed a crack in the window, small and seemingly inconsequential.

"Cracks in the windows. Cracks in the world," Dylan said, absentmindedly - not knowing where the words were coming from.

[Kirah]

"I'm so not going to chicken out. You're the one who always does." Josh rolled his eyes at Dylan.

Josh handed over his own slip and joined his brother.

"Eh I could have done better." He shrugged a bit. "Probably a B." As much as he disliked math, he was relatively good at it, just not any good at taking tests. "You know how I am with tests. I freeze up." Josh scooted down in the seat and braced his knees against the seat in front of them. "Today just feels weird. Surreal." He picked at a hole in the seat in front of him stretching the worn fabric.

The bus filled up shortly and took off. The classmates chattered about nonsensical things. A group got a game of cards going, that got messed up every time the bus stopped too fast. Josh opened a book to read, but stared at the same page for several minutes, not actually reading the story.

[Apollo]

Dylan wondered whether he should join the game of cards some of the kids were playing, but it did seem annoying having to fix the cards each time they got messed up.

He brought out a WIRED magazine and started reading an article about a smart watch, but he kept having a weird feeling. Josh had mentioned that he was feeling odd too. He wasn't sure if Josh was picking up on his feelings through the "twin thing" that twins tend to do, or if he was getting a weird vibe about this trip all on his own.

They finally left the city limits. Once they left the last stretch of shops, there was nothing but desert at either side of them. Mountains loomed in the distance in either direction.

Dylan moved around in his seat, trying to get more comfortable. He was trying to keep from being fidgety and he noticed that he had been tapping his foot habitually for a while now and the muscles in his leg felt kind of tense.

The bus went over a bump in the road and the game of cards had to start over since everything spilled onto the floor and there was no way of knowing who had what without anyone cheating.

"Hey Dylan," a girl's voice said from behind them. Dylan turned and smiled at Felicity. "Do you have a sharpener? I broke my pencil when the bus went all crazy."

"Sure," Dylan said, smiling. He went into his backpack and brought out a pencil sharpener with it's own container for catching pencil shavings. "Here you go," he said, handing it to her. She smiled at him, flipping her blond hair behind her shoulders. Dylan was stunned for a few seconds when her hand touched his as she took the sharpener. It seemed like it was in slow motion.

She was about to hand it back to him. "Keep it," Dylan said, smiling, "I have like fifty of them."

"Ok, thanks," she said. When Dylan turned back he tried to avoid looking at Josh and he could feel his face going red.

"So, umm, how's your book?" Dylan asked.

[Kirah]

"Hm?" Josh asked looking up, "Oh yeah I guess. Though I swear I've read the same paragraph three times now." Josh shook his head and tucked the book away. "What about you? Anything interesting in the magazine?" The bus bumped over another pot hole and the card game went sprawling again. The whole group groaned, and finally gave up.

"How much longer Mrs. Staffer?" One of the boys asked.

"Not much." The bus driver yelled to be heard over the chatter. There was a dense fog up ahead. The bus driver leaned over to the GPS she was using to navigate and tapped at the screen. "Hmm, seems the GPS went out. Someone mind setting up their smart phone for the directions? Guess I should've printed out a copy."

"I got it." Josh said and pulled out his phone, there was no signal though. "Sorry Mrs. Staffer, I don't have signal. Anyone else?"

[Apollo]

Dylan frowned as he watched the "No Signal" text on his phone blink.

"Sorry, I don't either," Dylan said.

A cacophony of "Me neither," "not me," "I don't either," rang out.

Mrs. Staffer said, "Alright then. Don't worry guys, I used to drive when all we had were plain old maps." She laughed and Dylan knew that it was likely every student on the bus was rolling his or her eyes. Probably even some of the chaperones.

"I bet she was driving when the dinosaurs were still around," Dylan heard a kid say.

Dylan snorted and whispered to Josh, "Yeah, because I'm sure there were busses around at the same time as the dinosaurs millions of years ago." Dylan realized he was probably taking the statement a bit too seriously but things like that irked him. If someone was going to make a stupid joke, it should at least make sense.

"There should be a map under the seat, Kally," Ms. Mindy said from the back.

"Wow," a girl said from one of the seats in front of them, "look at the fog."

Dylan looked out. The fog had been light, but now he couldn't see anything at all. At least before he had been able to discern trees passing them by, but now all he saw was a wall of fog. He placed his hand against the window. He thought he could feel the spot that he touched grow colder. The fog seemed to grow thicker near his hand. He heard something that sounded like a whisper and he shuddered.

"Did you hear that?" Dylan asked his brother, looking back at him with his hand still up against the window.

[Kirah]

Mrs. Staffer reached under her seat for the map, keeping her eyes on the road, or rather on the fog since seeing through it was nearly impossible. She clicked on the flashing light, a beep going off with each flash.

Josh stared out the window, his heart racing, surely he hadn't heard anything. Then Dylan asked him if he had. He gave his brother the tiniest of nods, looking past him at the fog as it thickened.

"Unbelievable." Mrs. Staffer said, slowing down. "If it get's any thicker I'm going to have to stop. Sorry kids."

Josh reached out, was pulled to touch the window. His hand placed on it next to his twin's. The glass felt icy cold against his sweating hands. He met Dylan's look, and mouthed, "What is going on?" The bus slowed even further, now going no faster than five miles per hour. Most of the students had their faces pressed to the glass, their breath fogging it up. No one spoke and the only noise the broke the silence was the click of the light flashing and the spinning of the engine.

[Apollo]

There was a loud sound as the bus ran over something the the wheels popped. Kids screamed as glass shattered as the loose seat-belts smashed into them. Glass went everywhere and Dylan felt a sharp sting on his cheek - later followed by a feeling of wetness running down his face.

Dylan reached his hand up to touch the wetness and his hand came away bloody. It wasn't very much blood, but his cheek stung a lot. It felt kind of like getting a paper cut.

The two chaperones and the driver were screaming at the kids to remain calm, which wasn't very encouraging as the adults didn't seem very calm.

"Please remain calm," Mr. Cole said, "is anyone hurt?"

"Just a scratch on my cheek," Dylan said quietly. He was in shock, he thought. Had they run over spikes? Why would there be spikes? It couldn't have been spikes.

Dylan asked Josh to move so he could get into the isle. He felt too clausterphobic in the corner.

"I need to get off this thing," Dylan told his brother as he passed him. A girl knocked into him as she ran past, screaming and knocked Dylan onto his brother. Dylan apologized absently and stood again. Many of the kids had scared faces. Someone was screaming very loudly in the very back. Dylan looked and wished he hadn't. He wondered what Josh would think.

In the back, where the girl was screaming, a boy - maybe it was Stan - was facing the wrong direction in relation to his body. Dylan felt his stomach churn. He needed to get off this bus.

He made his way past the hysterical kids and somehow made it out. The doors were open and Mrs. Staffer was already outside, bent over the grass on the side of the road.

Once he was outside, he could breathe again. He reigned in the feeling in his stomach and went to stand on a stop in the grass with enough distance away from the driver.

The fog was thick and he could barely see his hands in front of him. The bus behind him was merely a shadow and the only sounds he could hear were those of the panicked bus riders and the bus driver. The small relief he had felt from being outside started to waiver as the fog started to feel as though it was smothering him.

Then he heard something. There was a sound in the distant. Coming closer very quickly. He tried to listen to it to discern what was making the sound. He thought it sounded like - an engine. But the bus' engine was off.

[Kirah]

Josh was stunned. Unthinking at first until Dylan poked him asking to get off the bus. Josh had numbly nodded and allowed his brother past him. Now that he was thinking though the terrifying horror of what lay around him hit, just as Mr. Cole ordered everyone else off the bus. A girl was crying, sobbing more like.

Josh offered to help her, she ignored him and continued her sobbing. He climbed out the bus alone and stood by Dylan. The other students had blood on them from the cuts the glass had made. Glass that shouldn't have cut anything. Josh checked Dylan looking him over for a moment to verify that his twin had no markings but the blood from the scratch on his cheek. The students and chaperones started doing the same thing.

Mrs. Shaffer grabbed the buses first aid kit. There was not enough bandages to cover half the cuts.

"What is that noise?" Josh asked Dylan, he was frowning staring intensely into the fog as if staring hard enough would make the fog clear up.