[LukeB]

Originally Posted by Tom!

And you're accusing me

the killer puts the blame on someone else, watching your every move tom

[T*]

Originally Posted by LukeB

the killer puts the blame on someone else, watching your every move tom

[Liam-]

[LukeB]

[Ammi]

..../perched...

[T*]

omg its 9pm

[Jack.]

Originally Posted by Tom!

omg its 9pm

[Mokka]

Ready for it

[Shaun]

A spluttering bus comes to a shaking halt at the Mount Carmel bus station in Northumberland, Pennsylvania. Save for a small contingency of the elderly at the front, its only occupants are four teenagers who're engaged in conversation to varying degrees of enthusiasm. One, sat behind the other three, chimes in only occasionally with mumbled responses.
"Yeah, I guess, but who is this guy anyway?" Joel bit his nails, throwing a slightly concealed glare towards the other boy, Logan.
"Who cares? We're here to have fun, right?" Brooklyn interrupts them, noticing some hostility between her boyfriend and best friend.
"Well - all I'm saying is this doesn't look anything like the place on that website", Joel climbed off the bus, helping the other girl, Alexa, as he went.
"That's because we've got to walk a couple of miles to get there, duh," Alexa chimed in. Logan and Brooklyn were now lagging behind and making dramatically public displays of affection, to which Alexa rolled her eyes and gestured a finger towards her throat. Joel laughed.
"OK, but define a couple," he hesitated.
"Five and a half," she shrugged, ignoring his protests, "oh, shut up, you could do with the exercise, anyway. She'll never leave him for you, looking like a twig," Alexa made a thumbs signal to the pair behind them. Joel found this girl they'd met on the bus incredibly annoying, but he couldn't help but find her attractive. She was clearly older than he was, but she still seemed to have the high school mentality with which he was all too familiar; a flashy grin, an over-tendency to play with her hair, and all of those tired-as sayings he'd overhear in the canteen. He decided not to react to her - admittedly accurate - judgment of Joel's whole situation, and instead blushed and changed the subject.

The walk into Centralia wasn't particularly bad, considering the damp and fairly misty weather, and on their way they saw other curious-looking little groups of teenagers and kids hanging around, kicking rocks and writing on the roads in spray-paint.
"Uh, this road is pretty dead, babe," Logan laughed, in a voice that was far too loud and obnoxious for it to have been meant to be intimate. Joel rolled his eyes - Alexa noticed - but agreed.
"I don't actually think I've seen a car go in either direction," he stopped to take a breather. He took a seat on some old fencing to the side of the road, only for it to sort-of crumble away and leave a dark, sooty residue on his fingers. "Oh,"
"Gross," Alexa giggled, "this Centralia center better be a little bit cuter."
Ahead, they spotted a small convenience store that seemed to be open. The two of them opted to go and buy a drink with whatever change they had in their pockets - neither wanted the other to know of their small fortunes cached away in their bags - and Logan and Brooklyn waved them ahead, telling them to catch up with them down the road.
As the only customers in the store, Alexa and Joel took their time to eye up the prices of some candy bars and gum, as well as their bottles of coke and Sprite. The clerk behind the counter seemed charming enough, and shook their hands even as they paid, introducing himself as Carl.
"So, off to see Centralia?" he grinned.
"Uh, yes," Alexa tried to make the conversation more awkward than it was.
"There's this summer center there, my friends told us about it," Joel interrupted.
"Oh? That's news to me. Well, have a nice stay," Carl excused himself to take stocks in the back room, as the two youngsters left the shack. They turned right and looked down the road for the lovebirds, and they were quite far out of sight. How long were they shopping for? Alexa mused, until her eyes fell upon some serious dents and cracks in the road.



"I, um," she pointed. "I guess that explains the traffic?"
Joel laughed uneasily as he too registered that Brooklyn was nowhere to be seen. They picked up the pace a little and took thristy slugs from their bottles as they broke into a bit of a jog.

[T*]

Omfg

[Ammi]

..I have not got an elderly front.....

[Ammi]

..but yes....

[T*]

Are you playing ammi?!
EDIT: JUst remembered you are

[Liam-]

Amazing.

[LukeB]

[Shaun]

Eli was one of the first to arrive in the town of Centralia on account of his urgent situation. His constant fidgety state had alerted the seven or eight people that still lived in the town, and with each hour passing he felt more and more duped. The town didn't bother him so much; he assumed this was just somewhere out of the way to make an incognito delivery. Still, the old couple across the road from the church where he sat, tapping his feet and humming Red Hot Chili Peppers tunes, kept peering through their net curtains at their strange new visitor. Eli got up to try and look like he wasn't up to anything shady, and checked the church notice board.



He noticed that the church itself was boarded up and clearly hadn't been delivering sermons for quite a few years now, so why were people still using the community board? What could fewer than ten people have to say that they couldn't just say to each other? Such thoughts raced around Eli's head as he waited and waited, when he saw another man walking down the road with a rucksack. He watched from a distance, or at least intended to, because the man came straight to Eli.

"Are you with the cameramen?" This man spoke with a slightly Hispanic accent, making his gorgeous olive tan all the more attractive.
"Cameramen?" Eli blinked.
"Aaah... this is a task?" Danny teased, and studied the noticeboard for clues. Out of the corner of his eye, Eli could see a young-looking girl in the distance sat on a kerb playing with a lighter.
"Look, mate, are you the underscore mask 23?" Eli snapped. Danny looked around to see whether he was talking to anyone else.
"I don't know, is that a code name? I saw lots of masks over there," he pointed, and eagerly he led Eli around the block. The girl down the road studied their movements with interest.
Danny, a fairly brisk walker and with something of a skip in his step, Eli observed, soon started pointing out all of these markings on some derelict houses that lined this particular street.



"I think they must be part of the game," Danny smiled, "let's find some more!"

[T*]

I ****ing love your writing <3

[Shaun]

Bella and Reuben arrived in Mount Carmel at around 4pm. Their bus, equally quiet, pulled out of view as they stood and took in their surroundings.
"Maybe it wasn't a great idea to meet someone from the internet-" Reuben started.
"Nonsense! Carl seems like a really great guy and he promised us that this group of friends would be a great community for us. Aren't you sick of your mum and brothers being dumbasses or what?" She scolded Reuben, a little too bossily.
"I guess," he admitted, and they set off on their walk.

They'd spent the previous five months chatting online and sharing the most personal and troubled stories of their family lives, before Bella had been contacted by this mystery Carl dude on some other forum. As the youngest teenager descending on Centralia, Reuben was surprisingly worldly and emotionally perceptive. He figured that most of his chats with Bella were him consoling her, although he'd definitely let her know about his family's downsides. Various teachers at Reuben's high school had commented on his potential, but also on his quiet, easily-frustrated nature in classes. Reuben figured his parents didn't really care, considering they'd both dropped out.

Their walk to Centralia was much quieter than Brooklyn & Lola's, and along the way they found a highway full of graffiti and vandalism.



"Ooh, spooky," Reuben laughed off the warning, "kids these days, right?" Bella laughed and went off to a bush to wipe some animal mess off her shoes. She tores off some leaves to help, only to realise a small handful of them easily fell away and were covering something. She stooped down to see what was hidden - maybe a case of money, she imagined - and recoiled in horror with a scream.
Reuben rushed to her side and noticed two slumped bodies with clearly visible gashes to their heads. The brief glimpse he allowed himself of the girl's face told him that they were teen-aged - maybe three or four grades ahead of him.

[Shaun]

Nearer to the edges of Centralia's district, the road got more and more stony and covered in moss and weeds.



Max climbed over the chained warning he'd placed there only days before, and headed into the town as per Carl's instructions. The envelope scrunched up in his duffel bag, Max had already memorised it ten times or more. The projectors were in place, and connected to a series of remote batteries; as a tech-savvy kind of guy, Max had known all of the precautions to get in touch with the other fifteen youths anonymously, although he gathered that Carl had done some of the work himself. What Carl wanted with all of them, he wasn't quite sure, but Max had been convinced that he could finally have his following and his friends that he'd spent all 22 years of his life craving. All he had to do now was wait for his guests to arrive.

[T*]

[Raph]

#TeamMax

[Shaun]

a new page please

[Ammi]

..Shaun can you just read my PM straight away, even while you're posting the story because it's important...

[Liam-]

I'm in love with this already

[Shaun]

You haven't PMed me