Chapter 1: The Beginning

“Becky, I can’t believe that my mom and dad allowed me to be one of the junior counselors for the Spring break 8th graders. They never allowed me to be gone for so long before,” Mandy said to her best friend.

“Mandy, I am very excited. I think we are going to have a lot of fun over the next week. I remember going on this trip when I was in 8th grade, and I loved it. A week away from school, and my parents, and we had a lot of fun. Hiking, swimming, the games, I even liked doing some of the cleaning and other chores we had to do.” Becky said as she remembered her time at the camp just 3 years earlier.

About two and a half hours into the 4 hour drive, the bus driver slowed down, because of a car blocking the road. This part of the trip was pretty remote and did not have cell service. It was a narrow road and the way the car was stopped the bus could not go around. A woman approached the stopped school bus, and the driver opened the door.

“Hi, there miss, what seems to be the problem?” DJ the bus driver asked.

“I am not sure, one minute I am driving and the next my car just stops. I tried to call but I have no cell service out here,” the stranded lady says.

DJ and the lady talked for a few more seconds then DJ got up and walked over to the car. He was gone for a few minutes. During that time Mr. Matthews and Ms. Garner were talking to us, telling us to remain quiet and stay seated.

Three men got out of the pickup that was behind the bus and one of them walked up to the car in front of us and the other two poked their heads into the bus to ask if we were OK.

Then all hell broke loose!

I remember one second everything looked like it was going to be ok, because the car in front of us started to move forward and DJ was heading back to the bus. Then the three men followed DJ into the bus and told us all to say quietly.

“What the hell do you think you are doing? Get off the bus right now! Mr. Matthews screamed at the men.

The second and third guys that got on the bus pulled guns and the first guy punched Mr. Matthews in the stomach.

“Shut up! If you all do exactly what we say, then you will all be allowed to live, and go home to your families.” Said the biggest of the men as he waved his gun around.

“Hey, bus driver, follow that car and if you try anything at all, I will kill one of the kids!” another one of the bad guys said.

Clark yelled, “Everyone listen up, I need your cell phones, tablets, watches, computers and I want them now! If anyone does not do as they are told you will be punished and so will everyone else.

“Clark, get a count of how many are on the bus.” the leader said.

“Ok Bruce, you got it!” Clark said as he walked the length of the bus counting each person.

“Clark, I count 12 kids and 2 adults,” Bruce said with an evil smile.

“Peter, now you count.” Clark barked an order.

Peter got the same number of people on the bus as Bruce.

“How many boys and girls”, Clark asked each of the other men.

“7 girls and 5 boys, plus each of the adults”, Peter said.

It was weird because the next thing they did was ask us each our name and age. Then they wrote it on a 3x5 card that had two holes and a piece of string. They put them on each of us. They even put one on each of the teachers. The other thing that I noticed was that each of us had a number on our card. (1-14) #1 Mr. Matthews age 32 #2 Ms. Garner age 27 #3 Jack age 15 #4 Becky age 18 #5 Justin age 14 #6 Mandy age 17 #7 David age 14 #8 Julia age 15 #9 Mark age 15 #10 Kim age 15 #11 Issac age 14 #12 Paige age 14 #13 Anthony age 14 #14 Nicole age 15 The rest of the drive was pretty quiet beside all of us crying a little. We were all very scared. It was just a couple of minutes, and we pulled off the road. The dirt road was pretty bumpy, and it felt like we drove for an hour or so.