CHAPTER 1: The Road That Should Have Been Empty
The old yellow school bus rolled quietly along Highway 47 just after sunrise.
Inside, twenty-three children laughed, traded snacks, and argued over whose turn it was to sit by the window. It was supposed to be another ordinary Thursday.
Behind the wheel sat Walter Hayes, a 58-year-old driver who had spent nearly three decades transporting children safely through the lonely plains of Montana.
He had driven this road thousands of times.
He knew every bend.
Every fence.
Every telephone pole.
But this morning...
Something felt wrong.
The birds had disappeared.
The usual herd of deer grazing near the fields was nowhere to be seen.
Even the wind seemed strangely silent.
Walter tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
"Everyone stay seated," he said calmly over his shoulder.
The children barely noticed.
Then...
BOOM!
The entire bus shook so violently that backpacks flew into the aisle.
Screams erupted.
A massive cloud of dust exploded beside the highway.
"What was THAT?" one little girl cried.
Walter glanced into the side mirror—
—and his blood instantly ran cold.
A gigantic wild bison...
Easily weighing over 2,000 pounds...
Was charging directly beside the bus.
Its enormous horns sliced through the roadside fence as if it were paper.
Its eyes weren't just angry.
They looked...
Terrified.
The animal slammed its shoulder into the side of the moving bus.
Metal groaned.
Windows rattled.
Several children burst into tears.
Another impact like that...
...and the bus could roll into the ditch.
Walter reached for his radio.
Nothing.
Dead.
No signal.
No nearby houses.
No passing cars.
Just endless open prairie.
The bison charged again.
Closer this time.
Its horn scraped across the side of the bus with a horrifying metallic scream.
The children began shouting all at once.
"Drive faster!"
"It's trying to kill us!"
"Please don't let us die!"
Walter's foot hovered over the accelerator...
But something stopped him.
For just a split second...
He looked into the animal's eyes.
This wasn't the look of a predator hunting.
It was the look of something...
Running from something far worse.
Walter whispered to himself,
"Why are you so scared?"
Then he noticed something in his rearview mirror.
Far behind the dust cloud...
A black pickup truck appeared.
It wasn't slowing down.
It wasn't trying to help.
It was accelerating.
Straight toward the school bus.
And suddenly...
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Walter realized the charging bison might not have been the greatest danger on that empty highway after all.
To Be Continued...
