Welcome to Wednesday One Chots, the series where we share a bonus story with you to help

you get through the week.

And let's just pretend that I didn't forget to release this on Wednesday, and it's definitely

not Friday.

In any case, this week we have a story from a listener named Danny called He Followed

Me.

I've listened to this podcast a lot, and it made me think of my own story.

This was almost seven years ago.

I live somewhere where I never thought something like this could happen.

I live in a small town called Paradise, in California.

We have our occasional addicts and drunks, but for the most part, I would say that our

town is pretty calm and quiet.

I'm sixteen now, but this happened when I was about nine years old.

For context, I'm a female, and I was very small at the time, so I couldn't really

fend for myself if something were to go down.

School was almost out for the summer, so it was pretty hot outside.

It was the end of the school day, and I was getting on the bus.

On the bus, I walked to the second-to-last row of seats and sat down with my friend

who will call Megan.

Megan and I were goofing around, just being kids who were bored on a school bus.

Her bus stopped before a mine, so eventually she got off the bus.

My stop was about ten minutes after hers.

...