YOU'RE STILL THERE WHEN THE RAIN CLEARS

New story time. x)

TITLE: You're Still There When the Rain Clears

GENERE: Horror/Romance

RATING: PG-13 for language, violence, death of major characters and romance scenes.

COUPLE PAIRINGS: Clay/Quinn, Nathan/Haley, Brooke/Julian, and minor others.

SUMMARY: Axeland Ranch is a small ranch or farm in Charlotte, North Carolina, not far from where six young teenagers go to school. Clay, Quinn, Nathan, Haley, Brooke, Julian, Alex and their teacher Mr. Durham are all taking the next week on their senior trip to Axeland Ranch. Axeland Ranch has a few tourist attractions in a few miles distance, and they thought it would be a great idea…that was till strange things started occurring, and the trip goes awfully wrong. Who will survive and what will be left of them?

Chaptire Un:

Axeland, Ranch; a ranch that was one of the most famous places back in the early 1900s, but now is abandoned and claimed to be haunted. The Axeland Ranch is located in Charlotte, North Carolina. There were many stories of things that happened there. But the one story that was ever confirmed was the event that took place there on November 19th, 1964. Eight high school seniors and two teachers as their chaperones decided to spend their senior trip week at the Axeland Ranch. These students were from Arlington Academy located right outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. But unfortunately, the students never returned. Why? No one knows. There was rumored to be one survivor, and she still haunts the ranch. But no one has been there since the story leaked out except for exceptionally weird people who believed in ghosts. There were many newspaper articles from that day but no one ever found out what happened. No one cared to know what happened really.

On November 19th, 1964, it was a warm and smug night. The air was heavy and thick and the students from Arlington Academy had just arrived on the land of the ranch. They were all excited to wonder what they were going to experience at the ranch and hope to have many stories to go back to school with to tell their peers before they graduated. They had heard about the Axeland Ranch when someone had done a report about it, and they figured that was going to be where they were going to spend their week on their senior trip. Arriving at the ranch, the oldest female of the five girls and the youngest out of three other boys, Mae Scott, was the only one to first start experiencing strange noises. The bus had been stopped, when all of a sudden it jerked forward, and Mae heard a shrill scream. It was said to be that it was just an accident when one of the teachers didn't put the bus in park and a girl was standing up when the bus jerked.

Mae thought it was anything other then just some coincidence. Mae was a strong believer in ghosts and things of that sort. She described to her friends that it wasn't just a coincidence and her friends told her to lighten up a bit because it was their week off from school, but she didn't let go of her theory that it wasn't just a thing that happened. Even their teacher claimed that he clearly put the bus in park. But no one was there, no one still alive was there on that night, so there was no way to possibly really tell. Mae Scott wasn't insane, paranoid, or crazy. She just had this weird feeling that something was going to happen and she was trying to get her words out into a form of a warning, but it didn't seem to come out.

Mae's friends and two teachers weren't there to see and admit that she was right that there was something strange going on there. One by one, Mae's friends were killed, all in such a unique way that it was odd. She was getting more afraid each time that one of her friends was taken from her. Then at the end of the week whatever it was came after Mae. Trying to escape, Mae got trapped in side the house. She felt a presence, and she knew that there was something there and they were trying to get revenge and trying to get Mae and her friends out and when they refused to leave they were killed. Mae was reported to be killed that night, but there were other articles and some even wrote books on the tragedy and say that Mae Scott is truly still alive.

Present.

Quinn James stood at her locker with her younger sister (only by a few minutes), Haley, and her two best friends Brooke and Alex. Her perfectly straight dark brown hair and her bright baby blue eyes pierced in to her friend's as she laughed at something her sister had said. Quinn was the one to disable the popularity status at Tree Hill High. She hated labels and statuses, so she kept the calm down on most of it but the fact that they were pretty much most popular girls in school didn't help. Some called her a hypocrite, but she wasn't. All in all she was a pretty good person. She knew the point of view of that not so skinny freshman or sophomore, or just a transferring student. She knew how those people felt and she constantly tried to tell people that. But she was judged on how she looked now, and how many friends she had. It was wrong.

When she entered her junior year of high school she instantly fit in. Though it wasn't something she wanted to do. But she did. She fit right in and her sister just kind of mingled with her and eventually became one of them. She had almost everything she wanted in life. She had a great sister, she had two best friends, and she had a pretty amazing boyfriend, David. David and Quinn met in her junior year when she transferred into Tree Hill High School, and there was an instant attraction there. They started dating a few weeks after they met, and have been ever since. He was kind of a rebel, and he was captain of the football team and co-captain of the basketball team at Tree Hill High.

David's best friend, Nathan Scott, was Haley's husband. They had gotten married just before Quinn had transferred in, and all in all he heard many stories about Nathan Scott but you really couldn't judge a person on who you heard about right? But, when she met him he was a completely different person then the one that she heard about. That was because he was in love, and he was in love with her sister. They made a very beautiful couple. She always rooted for her sister to have someone really great, but she didn't expect it to be the captain of the basketball team.

Tree Hill High wasn't a small school. But things seem to get around quick. That was probably because it was such a small own. Senior year had finally come for Quinn and the others and she was genuinely excited. Hearing the bell ring she shut her locker door and she turned around only to be face to face with her charming boyfriend. Quinn jumped back her back slamming into the lockers and she held a hand over her chest, over her heart, as it was beating rapidly. He chuckled at his girlfriend's actions and he wrapped his arms around her and he kissed her cheek softly. But she soon wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a real kiss.

"Get a room would you?"

Quinn pulled away at the female voice of her twin sister. They may have been twins, but they were nothing alike by their looks or their personalities. She apologized and she blushed, a light red on her porcelain cheeks. She slapped her boyfriend on the shoulder and she pushed herself off the lockers and started walking to class with her sister and her two best friends. David was walking behind them. They entered their computer class, and Quinn took a seat in the middle row with her sister on one side of her and Brooke on the other. David went to the back with Nathan and Clay. Brooke eyed one of the boys in the opposite end of their row and she smirked. He was probably going to be one of her new potentials. Brooke Davis never really settled down. She liked to be different, and she had a few trust issues. Quinn understood that.

As the guys messed around on their computers in the back Quinn stayed faced to the front while the teacher called the roll. There were so many seniors but there were only ten that were taking the visual arts class. Their teacher Mr. Durham stood up from his desk and he grabbed the stack of blue folders handing one out to each of the ten students. The boys in the corner stopped playing around and they were intrigued as to what was in the folder.

"What is this?" Quinn asked.

"It's the pamphlet for your end of the year trip!" Mr. Durham said just a little too over excited for it.

"Where are we going?" David asked.

"Axeland Ranch."

Quinn snapped her head up from looking down at her folder to Mr. Durham. She wondered if he meant the same Axeland Ranch that she did her report on. She had done for visual arts a PowerPoint Presentation about Axeland Ranch and all the myths and legends that were there. He must have been very intrigued to have to plan their end of the year trip there. She shifted her eyes and she shook her head. She looked back down at her pamphlet and she flipped open the book again and she looked through it and sure enough by the picture it was the same Axeland Ranch that they took their trip on. Part of Quinn didn't want to attend this trip, but the other part of her kind of wanted to, to find out what really goes on at the ranch. She was that kind of gal.

Later that night, Quinn sat at her laptop typing up her English paper, when her eyes shifted over to the pamphlet on her desk of the Axeland Ranch. Just its name gave her goose bumps all over her skin. She wondered about a lot of the accusations of the Axeland Ranch, and suddenly she got excited. She saved her paper and closed it down. She opened up an internet browser and she typed the name of the ranch in the search engine. 3,200 results listed. She clicked on the first few links till she came up to a page with a black background and it looked eerie. She tried closing it out, but it seemed to be frozen on that page. She moved her cursor over to the tabs, and she clicked on the article tab.

Her eyes quickly scanned the article. This was nothing like she read. She moved her cursor over the red 'x' again at the top of her browser and it closed out. She shut her laptop and Quinn got up from her chair. Did she even want to go anymore? Hell, who was she kidding, she wanted to go, and wanted to confirm the rumors. She took her pamphlet and her form and trotted downstairs.

"Haley-bob…have you seen Mom and Dad?"

"Yep, they're signing my form in the living room."

Quinn thanked her twin and she smiled. She turned and walked down the hallway and through the foyer. She entered the living room and she handed her form over to her parents.

"Here is mine."

Quinn left them to sign the papers and she walked into the kitchen again joining her sister. Quinn stole a coffee cake from the counter and she wrapped her arm around her twin sister. She looked down at the book that her sister was writing in, and seemed to be deeply into. She flipped up the cover and looked at the title. It was a fictional story that was written on the supposed story that happened that fateful night at Axeland Ranch. She shook her head and walked to the refrigerator where she grabbed a bottle of Gatorade out and took a sip.

"Can you believe that we're actually going to this place? There is so much history behind this place."

"Hales, seriously, how can you believe a fictional story?"

"You did that report, what about all those accusations and the stories of what happened?"

"Who knows…I guess we'll find out."

Quinn shrugged her shoulders and she headed up to her room not wanting to think about their trip anymore. The next morning came in a blur. She felt like she had just gone to sleep, when she had gotten up. She jolted her head up from the laptop and she pushed her hand through her hair. She furrowed her eyebrows as to what she was doing sleeping near her laptop. She opened the top of the laptop and saw the many opened web pages about Axeland Ranch. Quinn exited out of all them and shut down her laptop. She didn't remember being on the computer all night, but she definitely felt it.

After getting ready, she headed downstairs to grab her breakfast and her form and headed to school. She did just so grabbing a pack of strawberry pop tarts and her form and she walked out with her sister to her car. The trip was starting Sunday night and that was only two days away. They arrived at school on time and they mingled like usual in the morning with their group as they called it. By the time they got to Mr. Durham's class Quinn had over worried herself, and the whole period David tried to calm her down. She loved that boy; he was always by her side.