Leah Frost was 17 years old, breezing through her junior year of Killeen High School in central Texas. She was excited for the field trip to the planetarium for her astronomy class, and she hoped to leave a good impression on the curators for the future. She stared at her digital clock, shining a bright green 9:30, wishing she could fall asleep. She stared for another half hour, and just before she drifted into unconsciousness, she thought she heard something hit her window. Her room was on the ground floor of her two story house, and her curtains were always open because she loved to look out and see the neighbor boy Jared do the yard work in his yard on the other side of the fence. She usually closed her curtains for the night because she was afraid of what she couldn’t see outside, but tonight she had forgotten. She passed the sound off as some random bat, or maybe a stick that had gotten blown up in the wind. She didn’t even lift her head, and she tried to focus on sleeping again.
The noise came again, but this time it sounded like someone was knocking on her window. She sat up in bed and peered towards her window. She tried to scream at the top of her lungs, but no sound came out. She felt like she was having a panic attack, and she began to breathe way too fast. Just outside of her window was a man that looked about forty and was wearing glasses. He was smiling right at her, and he knocked on her window some more. He even smiled at her and waved. She was frozen with fear, and about ten minutes later, the strange man outside seemed to get bored and he left. But Leah didn’t believe he had truly gone. She sat up all night, petrified with fear, but the man never came back.

She drove to school that day so tired she could have fallen asleep at the wheel. She had big dark circles under her eyes that no amount of makeup could cover. Her silvery blonde hair was in a sloppy bun on the top of her head, and she wore a t-shirt and some ratty old sweatpants. She boarded the bus to the planetarium at seven o’clock sharp and sat with her best friends Katie Smith, Janie Roberts, and Jennifer Potter. They all looked just as terrible as she did, with the same dark circles and vacant expressions. They didn’t greet each other, and didn’t even talk about the latest hot gossip on the whole bus ride there. They were all sound asleep for the first half of the two hour ride to Dallas, where the new planetarium was. Leah was the first one to awaken, and she stirred Janie awake. Jennifer and Katie were still sleeping on the opposite side of the aisle, curled up around each other for comfort on the rock hard bus seats. Leah was about to ask Janie to scoot over a bit because she was cramped against the window, but before she could, the guy sitting behind her popped out of his seat and started yelling in her face. She immediately recognized him as Jack Holt, the bane of her existence.

“Hellooooo? Anybody in there? C’mon Leah, you’ve been sleeping too long! I’m getting lonely over here without your company!”
“Could you maybe shut up? In case you haven’t noticed, I wasn’t the only one sleeping, but now due to your screaming, everyone on the whole bus seems to be awake,” she groaned. But it was true, Katie and Jennifer now were sitting up in their seats, with murderous glares in the eyes and a few kids closer to the front were starting to get up and stretch too.
“Sorry baby, but I was alone and you needed to get up. You excited?”
“I was… until you showed your face,” she mumbled.
“Come on, don’t be like that! I just wanted to say good morning,” he blustered.
“Oh I’m so sure. Can you please leave me alone? Like forever? I’m really not in the mood right now.”
“Well I can’t promise forever, but I suppose I can give my sweetheart the rest of the ride to finish her beauty nap. Sweet dreams, muffin. I’ll see you when we get there,” he winked at her, and went back to his seat to terrorize someone more interesting. She rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t go back to sleep. The deafening roar of the bus was too much now anyway, so she pulled out her IPod and turned it up as high as it would go. Janie took her left earphone and put it in her own ear, so they could both take refuge in the music. Jennifer and Katie were trying to drift back to sleep without much luck, so they finally got up and started playing tic-tac-toe on Katie’s notebook. Leah let the music take her to another place, anywhere but here, and she didn’t reopen her eyes until the bus came to a screeching halt in Dallas Texas.



She walked off the bus and nearly collapsed right there in the line to get in the planetarium. Standing at the entrance, right by the ticket stand, was the same middle aged, balding man. She was breaking into cold chills and her friends were just as pale faced as she was. Had they seen him before too? Katie looked like she wanted to cry and Jennifer looked like she was about to fall over. She herself couldn’t have looked much better. Jack tromped off the bus after them and nearly ran her over with his giant feet. He saw how scared she looked, and he actually had a look of genuine concern on his face. This almost scared her just as much as the man at the door.
“You okay Frosty? You’re not looking so good,” he said. His tan forehead was crumpled with his eyebrows scrunched together, and his green eyes were full of confusion.
“Yeah… I’m fine. I just…feel sick all of a sudden. Do you think maybe they’d let me stay on the bus? It’s an emergency,” she whispered. She knew one thing for sure: she was not going into that building as long as that man was there. Her friends looked as though they felt the same way, and she thought maybe they could stay out here together. “Hey guys, do you think maybe you could stay out here with me if they let us? I mean, I feel kind of sick…and um, so do you. No offense if you aren’t,” she asked.
“Oh thank god, I am definitely staying out of that place. I totally saw that guy over there outside my window last night. I am seriously freaking out right now,” said Janie.
“Seriously? You too?” Jennifer asked incredulously. Had they all seen him? Was it true? Jack was staring at all of them like they were insane, but Leah could hardly care at the moment. She was making her way towards her teacher chaperone for the trip to ask if she could stay.
“Mr. Johnson? My friends and I feel really sick. Can we pretty please stay on the bus? I promise we’ll be good. We’ll probably just sleep the whole time, anyway,” she begged. “Pretty pretty pretty pretty please?”
“Well, I can’t just leave four girls on a bus alone, especially without adult supervision, and we really don’t have any adults to spare. We barely had enough chaperones to come on this trip. I’m afraid you’ll just have to tough it out sweetie. Surely you understand why I can’t? But if you start feeling real bad, I’ll let you and a friend sit out in the main lobby, okay?” he said.
“Please Mr. Johnson, it’s really important! I can’t go in that place, especially when it gets dark in there! How will I see?” she cried.
“The only things you’ll need to see are the stars on the ceiling. I really can’t let you stay, Leah,” and with that, he walked away from her. Now she could barely contain her fear. She slowly walked back to her friends and told the news.
“Well now what?” asked Katie. “I guess we’ll have to go in, whether we like it or not. We can’t just stay out here alone, which would be even worse.” Everyone nodded in agreement except for Leah.
“No matter what anyone says, I’m not going near that place. Don’t worry, I’ll just hang out across the street. There’s a McDonalds or something over there,” she breathed.
“Leah, you can’t. You would get caught, and then get sent to a fate worse than death- Dr. Flynn’s office. You’ll be suspended for half the year! Your parents would kill you!” she exclaimed. “We’ll have to hope for the best in that stupid planetarium.”
“I’m sorry guys, but I just can’t. My mind has already been made, and if any of you want to come with me, you’re welcome to. But I just can’t take that chance.” She was close to tears now, and they were the only ones left outside, except for a few stragglers making their way towards the door. “I’d just feel better away from this horrible building.” None of her friends came to stand by her. She nodded her head, and began to walk in the opposite direction of the planetarium.

It turns out it was not a McDonalds, but an old, rundown Taco Bell. She sat on the cold, plastic chair the farthest away from the door, and she got herself a soda. She sipped it nervously while she stared out the windows, searching for any sign that that man had followed her. There was no one but the delinquent teenager working as the cashier listening to his IPod, not even looking her way. She laid her head back on the window next to her, and closed her eyes and just breathed for a moment. She could hardly stay awake, and she half-wished she had just gone to the planetarium and slept through the presentation. No one would have been able to see her, and if something was wrong, her friends would wake her up. But now she was alone and getting closer and closer to sleep. She reopened her eyes for another look around, and she almost fainted. She got down as fast as she could without making any noise, and she crawled behind the ordering counter. The cashier gave her a funny look, but didn’t tell her to move because the very same creepy guy from before was walking right towards them. She could feel her heart in her throat, and she tried not to breathe.
“What do you want?” droned the boy, headphones still in. It looked like this was the last place on Earth he wanted to be. Then again, she didn’t want to be here either.
“I’m looking for someone. My…daughter. Seventeen, long silver hair, blue eyes…?” he waited for the reply. His voice was like nails on a chalkboard, and she could hardly contain her fear. The cashier looked down at her, and put two and two together, realizing it was probably her. Her heart sank back down and she knew it was over. Silent tears started trickling down her face.
“Nope, never seen her. Might look across the street though, a bunch of high school kids just got off a bus over there,” he said casually. What did he say? It was obviously her, and she couldn’t figure out why he didn’t rat her out.
“Why are you lying to me? Do you think I’m a fool?” he said sternly. And just as high as her hopes had become, they came crashing back down.
“Um, sir? I think you should leave,” he said calmly. She suddenly became scared for him, and she felt like something bad was about to happen. She thought maybe she could sneak behind him into the kitchen without being seen, and she thought she saw a door in the back.
“No,” he said quietly. “I think you should leave.” And then she heard a click and a loud boom, and suddenly the boy’s blood was raining onto her. She screamed and made a run for it, knowing she probably wouldn’t make it. She heard another boom, and her leg was on fire. She fell in front of the door, her freedom, and tears poured down her face. She knew it was over, and she closed her eyes. Her leg was red with blood and the pain was like a million fire ants biting her. She was sobbing now, and the man came to sit next to her.
“Why’d you have to go and make a mess of things sweetie? Why couldn’t you have followed my nice little plan for you?” He questioned sincerely. “Oh well. I guess you pretty friends can pay the price.”
She found horrifying images of her friends being tortured and kidnapped in her mind, and she began to sob harder. She heard the click of him lifting the gun, and felt the freezing cold metal of the barrel pressed against her temple. She said a silent prayer, and told her family that she loved them, and with a loud boom, there was darkness, and she saw the stars high above her.