The deserted highway stretched long into the chilly night. Total silence hovered in the air, with the exception of a famous tour bus. The vehicle rumbled down the road at 60 miles per hour. Its 5 occupants were, to say the least, calm and cool.
"I can�t see the map!"
"We�re lost! Just admit it already!"
"Are we following the red lines or the dotted lines?"
"The dotted lines you moron!"
"Uh�um�oops."
"Great! We�re really lost!"
"SHUT UP JOE!"
"How could you give us wrong directions? Gosh knows where we are now!"
"Sor-ree!"
The original destination aimed for Portland, Maine. At that point, Nsync wasn�t even sure what state they were in. Lance sat behind the wheel quietly. He wasn�t in the mood to get involved in the argument between his four squabbling brothers. Justin gulped the last of his Pepsi. "We should�ve arrived in Portland four hours ago, no thanks to our genius navigator." Chris smacked him with the rolled up map. "Joey told me to follow the red lines!" Joey grinned sheepishly. Lance sighed as he continued driving. Gigantic trees surrounded each side of the lonely highway. Slivers of moonlight glimmered through the arm-like branches. Lance caught a fleeting shadow in the corner of his eye. He glanced out the window. "What are you looking at?" JC asked. The shadowy figure darted around the trees. It was the size of a man, yet it moved with the instincts of a nocturnal predator. Another one appeared, this time of the right side of the bus. Lance frowned, curious and slightly afraid. "JC, any idea what kind of animals they are?" JC shook his head. "No. Never seen anything like them before. Maybe bears?" Joey wrung his hands. "Bears don�t live in Maine." Chris�s nose flattened against the window. "Hey, there�s a third animal behind us!" The shadows moved closer, surrounding the bus. Lance pressed his foot on the accelerator. The beasts also moved faster. Suddenly, the 3 strange predators began howling. Mournful, hideous howls. Neither human nor animal. Nsync was fully alarmed. Two of the beasts snarled. JC�s eyes widened. "WATCH OUT!" A fourth shadow stood in the center of the road. Lance gasped and swerved to the right. Tires screeched and bodies were roughly jerked as they skidded into the woods. The bus bounced over roots and smacked into branches, quickly gaining speed. The guys were screaming. Lance�s head hit the steering wheel. Their bus shot off a hill, only to thud onto the dirt ground. For awhile, nobody spoke. "Everyone okay?" Justin asked shakily. They murmured yes. Lance coughed, groaning. "Oh, my head." JC handed him a tissue. "You sure you�re okay? You�re bleeding a little." "Yeah, I�m fine." Then Chris noticed the narrow dirt road they�d landed on. "Why would a dirt trail be paved in the middle of nowhere?" Lance shrugged. "Let�s check it out. Maybe it leads to the main highway." All agreed. Lance slowly drove down the dirt path, occasionally dodging a tree or a scurrying critter. The full moon rose eerily in the starless sky. Several owls hooted. Lance turned right until he came to a rickety wooden sign. WELCOME TO THE TOWN OF WHISPERS. He raised his eyebrows. "Somebody built a town in this neck of the woods?" Chris studied the map. "I don�t see a mark for a town called Whispers." Twigs crunched nearby. The same inhuman howls, which had scared them off the asphalt, started singing their hellish chorus. Justin swallowed his fear. "Listen, we�re tired and the tank�s almost empty. We spend the night at a motel. In the morning, we�ll think more clearly about how we�re gonna get out of this jam." "Besides," Joey chimed in, "I don�t want to suffer another attack by those weird creatures. They sound like they�re ready to shred something to pieces." JC rolled his eyes. "Real comforting." Lance drove over the dirt road and veered left until the bus reached a clearing. From there, they drove down a steep hill, exiting the forest. A small town approached. Immediately, Lance felt qualms churning inside his stomach. Turn back�Leave this place�Evil�Death awaits for all innocents�