12/11/08 12:10 pm

In the car park outside the front entrance of Electro House Museum, a long school coach full of 15 and 16 year old children started its engine. The coach belonged to Blue Headland Coaches, of Glen Harbour, NSW. It was exactly three hours before the school day at St. Helier Anglican College officially ended, and about three hours travel time between the central business district of Sydney and St. Helier Anglican College (commonly abbreviated as SHAC, pronounced 'shack'), so the schoolchildren of the Year 10 class of 2008 would arrive back at their school, as it were an ordinary school day, where and they would either walk, bike, catch a bus or get picked up by their parents. Anyway, they would all end up home.

Today was no ordinary day.

The children had spent the day at the Electro House Museum as part of their History curriculum. Year 10 had traveled especially to Sydney to the power station-turned-museum to visit an exhibit on technological change in Australia in the 1950s. They were required to answer questions which would be used to write an in-class essay. Most of the class didn't want to, however, as the end of the school year was about a month away, and they had more important things to think about, such as the upcoming formal that was in two days time. Also, because education was only compulsory up until Year 10, some of the students were going to SHAC to do other things, such as pursue their careers or simply go to another high school.

The class consisted of 44 students: 22 males and 22 females. The attending teachers were Mr. John Lucas and Ms. Melinda Kane. They sat up the front of the bus.

John Lucas was the jolly Scottish humanities teacher, known around the school for his robotic phrase of "Tuck your shirt in". Despite his obsession with keeping SHAC's uniform spic-and-span, the students liked him for his anecdotes and teaching style. Melinda Kane was a History teacher, easily recognizable for her high-pitched, kind-of-screechy voice and her incredibly bubbly demeanor. She always seemed to be bouncing around, in and out of school.

The forty-four students weren't making much noise, as a pirated version of Wall-E was playing, and it was nearing its climax. It had resumed for the students after hours of information-finding within the museum. The people that weren't watching were involved in other activities. Hunter Hills and his girlfriend Phoebe Corland were too involved in staring at each other passionately, while giggling as if they had taken a sedative. A sedative and an aphrodisiac.

Behind them, Robert Danovaro, Gregg Weaver, Jeffrey Simpson , Rebecca Hewitt, Wyatt Barron and Paige Gilmore sat in a rectangle snickering at the sight of Phoebe and Hunter looking like they were stoned. They were the athletic group. They all excelled in their particular sport. Robert and Wyatt played tennis, Gregg and Rebecca played basketball, Phoebe played softball, Hunter and Jeffrey played rugby league and Paige was the star of the swimming team.

Behind the sporty group sat the Greene twins, Stephanie and Alyssa. The two identical twins were chatty and chirpy, and goal attack and goal defence respectively on their local netball team.

A large group of friends that were the "weird" group, sat in the middle of the bus. This group included Ben Lewton, Cole Holland, Rick Elliot, Max Roth, Sarah Stevenson and Hannah Parkes. They sat in a rectangle along the left side of the bus talking loudly about random topics.

Three girls: Wendy Olsen, Hayley Hernandez and Heidi Chester were chatting with Mr. Lucas. They were the cool and in-control students, well liked by nearly everyone. They were all straight-A students, Wendy frequently receiving the valedictorian award at the end-of-year assembly.

The group that many would classify as bogans, which included Connor Felton, Joshua Quintrell, Matthew Berwick, Zach Enright and Henry St. Claire, were making a lot of noise and directly annoying a lot of people. They sat up at the back of the bus. Zach was an intelligent person, and many people saw him as too smart and too nice to associate with the delinquent group known as the Bogans. And Connor was a fairly friendly person, and his personality didn't match the rest of the group. Not the most intelligent guy, but amiable enough to get by. In fact, Connor, though he didn't realise it, was always subtly bullied by his so-called friends and while Zach usually stopped the laughing and pointing, it wouldn't be possible when he wasn't there.

Just in front of this group sat Holly Turnbull and Kate Ravenshaw. They were gossiping. If any rumour were to start, it would most likely have originated from this small duo. Holly was being hit on by Henry, and it would most likely be unsuccessful.

These were just some of the characters of the 44 students of St. Helier Anglican College.

As the coach cruised along the F3 Freeway, which would be the main route between Sydney and Glen Harbour, Erika Willai noticed three black sports utility vehicles lined up in a straight formation. Erika peered out the window and stared for a few seconds.

She then turned to her friends who were discussing what they were going to do on the weekend. Erika joined in on the conversation. As she did, she heard a thundercloud clap. It had started to rain heavily.

She chuckled. "Hope it's not like this when we get home, huh?"

12/11/08 2:10 pm

The coach was two thirds of the way home and the pirated DVD of Wall-E had ended a long time ago. The coach was still on the F3, which didn't have much traffic for this time of day. Normally, this route would have some traffic, but today, the neither the students nor teachers had seen any traffic for the past 5 minutes. Most of them didn't notice, and those who did took no care of this potentially eerie situation.

At a normal pace and with normal composition, the driver steered off onto the side of the highway.

The driver spoke to the two supervising teachers. "I really need a cigarette."

The driver picked up a sports bag and hopped off the coach. The door closed. A popular radio station was playing, and on came a popular song. Some people sang along. The rest were either talking or reading. Some were doing both. Suddenly, the students heard a noise that sounded like gas seeping. This is exactly what it was. The students and the teachers looked confusedly around the inside of coach, not knowing what was going on.

Kate Ravenshaw let out a high-pitched scream. She thought the gas was flammable and the bus was going to explode. Max Roth pried a glass hammer off the side of the coach, but suddenly felt drowsy. Everyone on the coach had this sensation, students and teachers alike. Within 20 seconds, everyone on the coach was asleep.

Outside the coach with the black-tinted windows, the driver, who was a man in his 50's, was actually having a cigarette. He could hear the frantic yelling and screaming from inside the coach. His black umbrella shielded him from the drizzly rain. He took one final puff of his cigarette and threw it on the ground. He then unzipped his sports bag. Inside was an oxygen mask, which he immediately fitted on.

He waited a minute and observed the scenery. Over the side of the highway, there was a 20 metre drop. A barricade separated the road from this drop. Just in the distance the bus driver could see a river and small suburban area. He then opened the coach door and stepped inside. He sat in his seat, started up the coach, and started driving, while checking every now and then to see if the children were asleep. The rain continued to pour down, making the driving conditions not ideal for him.

12/11/08, times ranging from 6:20 - 7:30 am

At the 43 homes that housed the 44 students (one house was home to the Greene twins), the families of each teenager were visited by men who drove black vehicles. They wore black clothes and black sunglasses. They were the men in black.

The parents of the children who had just arrived home from dropping their children off at the school's bus stop at the unusual time of 6:15.

The men in black either intercepted the parents as they were walking in, but they wouldn't do this if there were other people, such as younger siblings, with them. Instead, they would wait one minute and knock on the door and show their identification. Then they would tell the parents to send their child to their room.

The men would take the parents to a lounge room or a sitting room. They would tell them what was going to happen to their Year 10 children. There were five typical reactions to the statements spoken by the men in black.

1) The parents would start bawling extremely loudly, and the men would leave.

2) The parents would be in denial, and the men would leave.

3) The parents would silently nod, and the men would leave.

4) The parents would protest what was happening, and the men would usually leave straightaway.

5) The parents would act violent towards the men, in which case the men would pull out silenced pistols on kill them both. They wouldn't want to wake the neighbourhood with loud gunfire!

Quite a few parents would perform number 5, and would most likely be one step ahead of their teenage children. Sometimes, performing option 4 would end as if they performed action 5. If they tried to stop what was going to happen by calling, in this case, the Electric House Museum, it wouldn't matter, as the person on the other end would work for the same people as the men in black. Depending on the situation, the men in black would return to the house where the call was made and kill the parents in cold blood. There would be no silencer. The men in black wanted the whole area to know what would happen if you messed with their "organization".