The gang searched a large portion of the woods behind Phoebe's house. They made sure to stay close to each other, as they didn't need anyone else going missing. After a while, it got dark, and some people wanted to just call it a day.
"It's getting late. Let's just go home now." Wanda said.
"We can't go now!" Keesha exclaimed. "Phoebe is still out there!"
"We've been out here for so long and haven't found her." Wanda pointed out. "It's getting dark. We won't be able to find her now."
"We still have to try. She's important to our mission." Ralphie said.
"Need I remind you that we have to get enough rest for our flight tomorrow."
"Oh, right. Well, maybe we should call it a day for now."
"Guys, we can't just leave Phoebe! Who knows what is happening to her right now!" Keesha yelled.
"We don't have a choice. It's getting too dark to see anything." DA pointed out.
"Besides, like we said, we can look for her tomorrow." Carlos added.
"Oh, all right. But the thought of Phoebe being out there alone still scares me."
"Don't worry. Phoebe's going to be fine." Ralphie said.
"Yeah. We all know how she is." DA said. "She may seem like just the little sister of the group, but she is one tough woman."
"Yeah, like the time when she was able to move around more easily than the rest of us and move the lever in really heavy gravity on the Magic School Bus planet." Tim pointed out.
"Or the time when she somehow beat up Janet and her friends after they pushed her to the ground for the thousandth time." Carlos commented.
"Oh, yeah. Let's not forget the time when she was able to beat up Ralphie after he kissed her." Wanda added.
Everyone shot a look at Wanda, even Carlos. Oh, come on, Carlos. You were just as much a part of it as I was. Wanda thought.
"Don't remind us of what you did." Ralphie said.
"Regardless, all of that shows that Phoebe can hold her own." DA said.
"Huh, I guess you're right. Phoebe is going to be fine." Keesha reasoned.
"Of course she will." Tim said. "Now, come on. Let's get back."
The gang started to head back. Luckily, they had a relative idea of the direction back to Phoebe's house, so they weren't too worried about getting lost. However, once they were about halfway to the house, there was a noise. The noise of a foot stepping on and breaking a twig.
"What was that?!" Wanda shouted.
"It's nothing. Probably just a stick that one of us stepped on." DA said.
"No. That didn't sound close by."
Everyone looked around, but didn't see anything.
"Don't worry, Wanda. Everything's fine." Ralphie said.
"I don't know. Something just doesn't feel right."
Just then, the sound of some rustling through the trees was heard.
"There! Don't tell me that's nothing."
"That definitely wasn't one of us." Keesha said.
"What's going on?" DA asked.
Ralphie pointed his phone flashlight around to see what was making that noise. Suddenly, the flashlight lit up something moving towards them. It wasn't very clear what it was, but it looked really tall. The one thing that was very clear, though, was a pair of red, glowing eyes. When everyone saw them, they immediately knew what it was.
The demon suddenly let out a demonic roar and began running towards them. The gang began running towards the house. They made sure to stay as close to each other as they could so no one else got lost, but it was hard to do as their main priority was getting back to safety. No one knew how, but they somehow managed to stay relatively close to each other as they final emerged from the woods and ran back into Phoebe's house. Once the last one was inside, the door was quickly shut. The roar could still be heard outside for a few seconds before it disappeared.
Now that everyone knew that they were safe, they took a few seconds to catch their breaths and calm down.
"What the hell was that?!" Wanda cried.
"I think it was another of those demons after us." Ralphie said.
"But why?! Those things already gave us warnings to stay away from Ms. Frizzle."
"They also said that if we continued trying to save her, there would be consequences." DA reminded.
"Exactly. Those things might continue to terrorize us if we keep looking for Phoebe." Ralphie stated.
"So, you're saying that on top of trying to recruit Arnold and looking for Phoebe, we have to be on the lookout for these demons too?" Wanda asked.
"Did you really think that this would be easy?" Tim asked.
"Um... no. I guess not."
"We need to be prepared for anything. If those things can surprise us wherever we are, we need to always be on our guard." Ralphie stated.
"Definitely. We should probably also be in groups all the time. Safety in numbers and all that." Tim added.
"Good. Now that it's settled, we should probably all head home."
"Phoebe!" Just then, they heard the front door open, and Mr. Terese was heard.
"Oh, no! Phoebe's dad is home! What do we do?!" Keesha exclaimed.
"Well, we can't have him worrying about his daughter. We'll just have to keep him from finding out until we find her." Ralphie suggested.
"You mean we should lie to him?"
"Do we have a choice?"
"It's not right. That man has always been really nice to us, and he was kind enough to let me stay here for a few days. He deserves to know the truth."
"Ok. You want to break his heart and have him become a target for those demons if he helps us look for Phoebe, be my guest."
Keesha looked down, not knowing what to say.
"Just say something that will buy us time to find Phoebe without him finding out."
"Fine."
Keesha went to the front of the house, where Mr. Terese was still calling for his daughter. She quickly came up with something that would probably be vaguely believable to him.
"Hey, Mr. Terese!"
"Oh, hey Keesha. Have you seen Phoebe?"
"Um... yes. She's in her old bedroom, sleeping."
"But it's only a few minutes before 8."
"Yeah... We, uh, had a very long day today." She was glad that he was blind, as she was sure that she looked very nervous at the moment. She just hoped that her voice wouldn't give her away.
"What kind of long day?"
"Um... we were just out all day just hanging out and walking around a lot."
After a few seconds, Mr. Terese gave a grin. "Oh, well, I hope you had fun. I'm sure she's very tired, so I'll let her be. You should probably get some rest, too."
Keesha sighed, happy that he bought it. But then she remembered that she needed to buy more time tomorrow.
"Oh, and sir, we will probably be out all day tomorrow. Just letting you know."
"Alright. Be safe and have fun." Mr. Terese then went up to his room to rest after a long day of work.
Keesha felt relieved that there was more time to find Phoebe. She turned to see that everyone else had joined her in the living room.
"Good, we got some more time. Now we should plan out the mission more." Ralphie said.
"Alright, Ralphie, Wanda, and I will be up early and catch the flight to San Jose and try to recruit Arnold." Tim said.
"Carlos, DA, and I will look for Phoebe. Hopefully we'll find her."
"Good, now all of us should be ready to save Ms. Frizzle two days from now. We can't waste any more time, so we have to go as soon as possible." Ralphie stated.
"Alright, now let's go home." Carlos said.
Everyone except Keesha left to go home. Keesha decided to try calling Phoebe again. After 3 or 4 times, the call was suddenly picked up.
"H-hello?"
"Phoebe! Oh my God, are you alright?"
"Keesha? I-I'm fine. What's going on? That thing that was inside my house chased me for a long time. I ran out of the woods and made it to the lake. I hid in a bathroom and that thing stayed outside. It started talking about Ms. Frizzle, but I have no idea what that was about."
"Well, Phoebe, you'll be surprised as to what's going on..." Keesha explained everything that Phoebe had to know.
"Wait, so Ms. Frizzle is in Hell and those demons or whatever are trying to stop us from helping her?"
"Yes. You need to come back so we can get the gang back together and help Ms. Frizzle."
"Alright, I'll try to get back. I don't know how long I'll be though. I tried to get back home, but that thing came back and I ran and hid somewhere else."
"Where are you now?"
"I'm..." Suddenly, Phoebe gasped. "Oh my God, that thing! It's back! Oh, God! Oh-!" Suddenly, the call dropped.
"Phoebe? Phoebe!" Keesha screamed, although careful as to not alert Mr. Terese.
She tried calling again, but there was no answer. Keesha sighed. At least she knew Phoebe was safe, for now. She just hoped that the demon would still fail to catch her, and that she would be found tomorrow.
Ralphie made it home and went up to his bedroom. He was ready to get some rest when he heard the front door open and his mother call him. He went downstairs to the living room, where his mother was.
"Oh, thank God you're all right. Did you see what happened earlier today?"
There was no clarification needed. "Yeah, I saw it. What happened?"
"I'm not sure. I'm just glad you're okay. But whatever that was, it was terrible. We lost power at the hospital. Luckily, the power came back on before anyone died."
"That's great, mom. Well, I should probably go to bed now."
"Right. Sleep well."
Ralphie went back up to his old room and went to bed, mentally preparing himself for the day tomorrow. He hoped that it wouldn't be too challenging to get Arnold to come back and help Ms. Frizzle. Only time would tell.
The next morning, all the way in San Jose, Arnold was getting ready to head to work with Jyoti. While she was upstairs getting ready, Arnold cooked breakfast and got ready to call the regular babysitter for Ben. The TV in the living room next door was on, the news playing. Suddenly, a breaking news alert was heard.
The news was filled with a story about an incident that happened in a small town in Virginia yesterday. Apparently, the sky above entire town was blocked out by a very strange shadow, and everyone lost power. No one could figure out what happened as there had never been anything like it before. Even more strange was the fact that only the one town was affected by the incident. None of the other surrounding towns had experienced it. Nobody could figure out what was so special about Walkerville that would cause the shadow to appear.
As the news continued reporting, Arnold started paying more and more attention to the news. He was shocked to hear that something very strange had gone on in his hometown. This all reminded him of the phone call he got from Wanda the previous day. She said that something really strange had happened to the gang involving demons and Ms. Frizzle, and he dismissed everything that she had said. Did this story confirm what she told him. No, it couldn't possibly confirm anything that she had said. Or could it?...
Whatever the case, Arnold was so deep in thought at what it could mean that he almost didn't hear his wife calling him. "Arnold?"
Arnold quickly decided that whatever happened did not confirm Wanda's words and shook the thoughts of the incident from his mind. He turned to see Jyoti at the foot of the stairs, ready for work. "Yes?"
"What's going on?"
"Oh, nothing."
"Are you sure. Because it looked like you were deep in thought about something."
"No, I was just watching the news. Nothing interesting." Arnold shrugged.
"Well, it looked like you were really paying attention to the news."
"Not really. Like I said, nothing interesting."
"Well... okay."
Arnold was thankful that the conversation was over at that point. He did not want to think about Walkerville any longer. He finished making breakfast for the family, called the babysitter, and left for work once she was there. The day went on as normal, and he was glad that he got that Walkerville incident out of his mind.
If only he knew what would be in store for him later on in the day...