"Make sure you pack some underwear, Devvy!" yelled Devin's mom (Mrs. Erickson) from across the hallway. "Mr. and Mrs. Jamison will be here soon!"

"Mom!" yelled Devin in a very annoyed tone. Half because her mom kept calling her Devvy, she was 15and she wanted to be more mature. And half because her brother, Erick, was standing right in the hallway with his best friend, Wess! "Could you not call me Devvy? It's too... cutsie.

"Oh, nonsense!" Devin's mom yelled back. While all of this was happening Erick and Wess were teasing her and laughing saying, "Yeah, you might wanna pack the Barbie undies, Devvy!"

"Leave me alone jerks!" Devin yelled and slammed the door shut.

"It's okay boys" her mom chuckled, "I just think she's PMSing, she'll be fine once Asheley gets here." The boys looked at each other and stuck up their noses, but then of course, they started laughing.

The doorbell rang as Devin's mom went to go pack some more. "Will you get that, boys!?" she called from her bedroom. Wess and Erick went to the door and there was Asheley. "Hey baby sister!" said Wess flinging his black emo hair out of his face.

"Hey crap head." Asheley dully said in response as she rolled her green eyes.

Wess whispered, "She must be PMSing too." The boys laughed all the way down the hall, staggering like drunks until Asheley couldn't hear them anymore. She went inside Devin's room to see if she was almost done packing.

"Hey! Ready for the trip?" Asheley asked as she bounced onto Devin's plushy pink bed.

"I don't even want to go on the stupid trip… I was thinkin' Hawaii, the Bahamas, or maybe even California! But no, we have to go to this lame ghost town in the Wild West… yee- haw."

"Yeah, but at least we're going on vacation together! At least neither of us has to go alone." Asheley said, really thinking that this was going to be the worst vacation in the history of worst vacations. Somehow Devin could read the expression on her face and she knew that her best friend Asheley, the biggest optimist she's ever known is thinking that this is going to be the worst trip ever! How will she ever survive?

"We'll hang through it." Asheley said knowing that Devin could read her like a book.

"I hope so." Devin said wearily lying down on her bed. "Is your mom and dad out front?" Devin asked.

"Yup, we're all packed and ready to go! What about you?"

"Yeah, my dad is loadin' up the car. How about, you ride with us, and the boys ride with your parents."

"Sounds good to me!" Asheley replied. And soon they were on their way to the Wild West Ghost Town.

"I can't believe we are actually going to stay there, like actually sleep there!" wined Devin.

"Oh stop complaining, Devvy! This will be fun! What about a little road trip song to calm you down?!" her mom said as she applied bright red lipstick to her puckered lips.

"No…don't." Devin warned, her eyes growing wider.

Her mom began to sing. "There was a farmer who had a dog…" she began slowly looking back at the girls.

"Mom…no!" Devin said clenching her eyes and teeth.

"And Bingo was his name-o"

"Mom…no…."

"B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O, B-I-N-G-O. AND BINGO WAS HIS NAME-O!

"Maybe we should have ridden in your parent's car." said Devin as her mom was still obnoxiously singing as her fluffy brown hair bobbed along with the beat.

"Nope, they're just as ridiculous." said Asheley with an encouraging grin.

After 100 bottles of beer coke on the wall (her mother didn't want to encourage teen drinking) they were just pulling into the drive way of the Wild West Ghost Town parking lot. The ghost town was really dusty with a lot of old shops around that seemed to be falling apart, not a place to be called paradise.

"I can't believe this." Groaned Devin as she slammed the green minivan door shut.

Wess, Erick, and the rest of the Jamisons were already there.

"This is awesomeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!" grunted Wess and Erick sarcastically as they did a body slam. "I am glad you think so, boys!" Mrs. Erickson said with a little grin on her face. The boys looked at each other as if they were saying why doesn't she get it?

Then out of nowhere, a lame-o old fashioned "cowboy" with a hat almost taller than Abe Lincoln's came to take their luggage.

"Howdy! We hope ya'll have a great time at "Wild West Ghost Town…"

While he was talking Devin wasn't really paying attention to him, she was paying attention to how much he spit when he talked!

'Gosh, if I put a cup up to his mouth,' she thought, 'I would have a full glass of spit!' 'Why does he keep talking when he sees we aren't interested?'

So she decided to look around to see if anyone was paying attention to him, but she didn't see anyone! Talking to the guy with a puddle of spit was coming out of his mouth was bad enough, but this… this was the last straw! The last thing she wanted to do was get stuck in a stupid ghost town following the most fake cowboy you could ever imagine! She just stood there as the hot sun beamed down on her. But then something interrupted her thoughts. She heard a horse carriage in the back of her going clip-clop, clip-clop. And suddenly, she could hear the whole town come back to life. She turned around her, but nothing was there.

"That's strange," she thought.

"Devin! Over here!" Asheley called which made Devin jump.

Asheley was on the dusty, cob-web invested rocking chair on the front porch of the hotel.

"The "cowboy" said he's gonna show us how to ride some horses later. Do you wanna go or do you wanna hit the pool?"

"They have a…pool?!" Devin asked in relief.

"Yeah, I saw a sign that said 'pool this way'!" Asheley said with a smile pointing an old rusted sign.

Suddenly Devin felt comfort "maybe if I spend all my time at the pool, I won't have such a lousy vacation after all." she thought. She went to go find the "cowboy" to see where the pool was.

"'scuse me, where is the pool?" asked Devin.

"Sorry, it dried up a long time ago!" he replied with a toothless black and gold grin.

Now that she was standing face to face with the cowboy, first of all, it was like swimming in a pool because she was drenched with spit, and second of all she could tell that there was something different about this man. His face was really, really pale which was strange since he is probably in the sun every day, and his eyes were a reddish color. Devin and Asheley decided to wait outside until their families were done being stupid. Then in the saloon, they heard a cash register go off so they went in there to see if they could get a cold drink or something .When they got in there they saw nothing but a dusty saloon, with cob webs and spiders all around. It looked as if even when it wasn't a ghost town people still didn't go there. But what was strange was, when they got in there, no one was there and yet there was a glass of water on the counter that looked like it was just put there seconds ago. They decided to ask the "cowboy" about it.

"Um, sorry, but is there someone working at the saloon?" Asheley asked in a mocking southern twang.

"Oh, no one works at the saloon; all the bars and restaurants are in the hotel." He said with a sinister grin as he nodded his disproportionate head.

Asheley and Devin looked at each other and they each knew what the other was thinking. How could their families not see that there was something strange about this place, about the people, and why were they the only ones visiting this ghost town?