Everybody's Back

Chapter 1

"Go fish!" AJ McLean, 18, told his band mate Howie Dorough,23, who groaned and pulled yet another un-matching card from the deck. They were sitting at the table beside the window of their tour bus. It was raining fiercely outside.

Kevin Richardson, 24, and his cousin Brian Littrell, 21, were sitting on the couch watching the only movie available to them at the time, an old western. Nick Carter, 16, the youngest of the group, was crashed in his bunk in the back.

The young pop group, The Backstreet Boys, was touring in Europe. It was the first tour for Nick without his mother accompanying him on the account of his being so young. The tour was going extremely well. The boys were well treated, and chased by girls all over the country. They even had a few female surprises hiding in their laundry! By anyone's words the tour was going well, everything was running smoothly. The only minor set back was when the Boys' old tour bus broke down and they had to get a new one, and a new driver came along with it.

"Man, I haven't seen any other cars for hours!" AJ McLean said looking out the window at the gloom outside.

"That's because it's raining like crazy out there AJ! All the sensible, sane, people are at home watching TV's that have more than one channel that works!" Brian said this as he grabbed the remote and tried to change the channel on the television and got the basic static and fuzz.

"Yeah, well maybe, but I also haven't seen any of the rest of the tour buses either!" AJ said pressing his face against the glass. Lightning struck at a close distance. The Boys travel separate from other parts of the tour like the band, opening acts, etc...

"Maybe they got lost in the storm," Howie said also looking out the window, thoughtfully, resting his chin on his hands, elbows on the table.

"Or maybe we're the ones lost in the storm, I doubt that old kook knows where he's going! "Brian's voice was muffled, he was past bored with the TV, and was under the entertainment cabinet digging out Nick's Nintendo 64.

"Would you guys just settle down? Everything is fine. Our driver knows where he's going, or else we wouldn't have hired him," Kevin said calmly, in his big brotherly tone.

"Yeah," everyone finally agreed. AJ and Howie sat back down at the table and went back to playing cards.

"Hey Kev, wanna play?" Brian had finished setting up the Nintendo.

Kevin really didn't want to play Nintendo, it wasn't his thing, but he would play. He was about to answer Brian when the bus came to an abrupt halt.

Brian flew over the chair he was standing beside and onto the floor getting tangled in the Nintendo controller wires. AJ and Howie grabbed the bolted down table with one hand and reached for their opened sodas with the other. This was a vain attempt, however, soda still flew everywhere. Kevin held onto the arms of his chair.

"What was that?" Howie demanded, he and AJ jumped up from the table avoiding soda puddles.

Kevin helped Brian up, "Is everybody ok?"

AJ and Howie nodded.

"What happened?" Howie began to storm towards the front of the bus, everyone followed. The driver met them halfway.

"What happened?" demanded Howie for the third time.

"Bus broke down, you boys are gonna have to get off," the driver spoke in a gruff voice. He was chewing on the end of a brown cigar.