Alexandria, Louisiana. March 28 2004

My name is Travis Wilkes. I was on the Rapides Parish school bus like I am every morning. The bus picked me up at 8:05 on Bolton Avenue in Alexandria, Louisiana, a route I’ve taken for as long as I can remember. The bus was a familiar world of rattling windows, vinyl seats, and the low hum of the engine. There were six other kids on the bus as well. I know all their faces from the neighborhood, but I don’t remember all their names.

Our bus driver, Johnny, was driving the bus as usual. He was a kind, quiet man with a weathered face and a laugh that rumbled from deep in his chest. He stopped at Mason Street at around 8:10 to pick up a few more kids. The bus doors hissed open, and that's when he got on.

An old white guy stepped onto the bus. He was wearing camouflage clothes from head to toe, and I could see the outlines of several handguns strapped to his body. He had messy, thinning grey hair and dark, sunken eyes that seemed to hold a desperate sadness. His hands shook, and he had a deep, hacking cough that rattled in his chest. He must have been my grandpa’s age, around 5'8" and 175 lbs. He didn't look like he belonged.

When I saw him get on the bus, the air went out of the room. I felt a cold dread settle in my stomach, and my hand, without even thinking, went to my pocket and found my cell phone. I quickly and silently dialed 911, but I didn’t talk. I didn’t want to make trouble, not yet. I was sitting three seats back, on the right side of the bus, so I could hear every word.

He spoke to Johnny, his voice raspy and low. He told Johnny that he wanted to take two boys off the bus. He pointed a trembling finger at the Rush brothers, Sam and Brandon. They were sitting across the aisle from me, their heads bent over a book. They were twins, with identical shaggy brown hair and freckled faces. They could hear the old guy and Johnny arguing, just like all of us could. The silence of the bus was a blanket of terror.

Johnny, ever calm, just told him no. "Sir, you can't be on this bus with those things. You need to get off." But the old man's face twisted into a mask of pure rage. He started to get really angry and pointed a gun at Johnny’s face. I heard him say that if Johnny didn’t let him take Sam and Brandon, he was going to have to kill Johnny. He took a single, deliberate step down the aisle, his eyes fixed on the Rush brothers.

The old man started to walk towards our seats, a slow, menacing march. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting it to be a dream. But when I opened them, Johnny was standing. He had stood up from his seat, his broad back a shield between the gunman and us. He told the old man, "You're not taking any of these kids."

That's when the guy shot Johnny. He didn't even flinch. He just shot him. Five times in the chest. The sound was deafening, a series of quick, brutal cracks that seemed to tear the very air. It was like slow motion; I saw Johnny take each bullet. His body jerked with each impact, a puppet with severed strings. From where we were sitting, we could only see the back of his head, so we didn’t see any blood or anything until he fell. The thud of his body hitting the floor was a sickening sound.

Kids were screaming all throughout the bus. The little girl, Molly, sitting in the first seat behind Johnny, was crying, her face a crumpled mess of tears. The old guy, his hands still trembling, walked over to her. He grabbed her by the arm and picked her up. Molly was about 6, I guess, with brown pigtails and wide, terrified eyes. She was a little white girl in long pants and a pink kitty t-shirt. The old guy was yelling something about killing all of us as he took Molly off the bus.

I watched him out the window of the bus. He was still yelling, his voice a frantic shriek. He got into a green van with Molly and drove away towards Highway 49. The van’s tires crunched on the gravel as it sped away, its taillights a fading red dot in the distance.

The bus was silent for a moment, and then the screaming started again, louder this time. All the kids on the bus were scared and crying. I wanted off that bus so bad. It was awful; I think most of the kids were afraid they were going to die. A few of us had to step over Johnny’s body, his face down in a growing puddle of his own blood. Some of us accidentally stepped in it. I looked down at my shoes and saw a dark, red stain.

My hand was still clenched around my cell phone. I had forgotten I had called 911. The phone was a quiet, buzzing comfort in my palm. I could hear the 911 dispatcher, a woman with a calm, professional voice, trying to talk to me. “Hello? Can you hear me? What’s your emergency?” That’s when I told her what had happened. I just stood there on the corner of Mason Street and Bolton Avenue, in the middle of all these screaming, crying kids, and I told her. The words came out in a rush, a jumbled mess of what I had seen. The bus stood silent behind me, a tomb in the morning light.

Sincerely,

Travis Wilkes