Larue Lakerunner

Larue Lakerunner Bus Depot is a Bus Station in Povey which operates stops around town and outside of it.

## History

After the closure of the interurban line two years prior, a more inexpensive and efficient way to ferry passengers to and from town was proposed, and the County Bus service was soon established in 1948. The site chosen for Povey's Bus Station was a two-story brick building on S. Indiana Ave. with a sizeable parking lot. The snappy name was chosen to reflect the service's terminus in Cedarside.

## Services

Beginning at 5:30 AM, multiple busses depart, bound for different nearby towns around western Larue County. These stops include Palaski, Fort Wagner, Defense, and Cedarside. Larue Lakerunner doesn't make a stop in Vonneville due to the toll bridges.

## Location

The Larue Lakerunner Bus Depot is located at 214 S. Indiana Ave., next to The Washboard Laundromat and the parking lot for the Spit-Shine Car Wash.

## Bus No. 0

The legend of Bus No. 0 is an urban legend told by Gabe around the campfire one night. The legend is as follows: “Back in the 1940s when the county bus service had first opened, they would trial their busses before putting them in service to check their quality. This particular bus, the first that they bought, was brought out for trials one misty summer morning. It had no passengers, only a driver, named Karl Grady. It was bound to make three stops before turning around and terminating back at the station. The bus rolled out away from the platform, and disappeared into the morning dew. For a time, the crew at the station kept in contact with the driver via radio to make sure it was up to standard. But eventually, the radio cut out, and they couldn’t get back in contact with the driver. Confused, the crew called the next stop the bus was scheduled to arrive at, and asked whether it had made an appearance. The manager at the stop answered with a no, when suddenly the radio cut back in. Only, it was just garbled static. Quickly though, warped cries and speech bled through. Fearing the worst, the crew called the police to help locate the missing bus. However, it was never found again. The local police searched every nearby town, but there was no sign of the bus, or it’s driver. In fact, no civilians had even recalled seeing or hearing the bus, nor did any of the scheduled stops, despite the bus driver having reported making the first stop before the radio first cut out. As the bus was never located, and it was never officially put into service, it never received an official number, hence why it’s called Bus No. 0. The reason it’s called the Phantom Bus isn’t as mysterious. People say that every night, between the hours of 8PM and 3AM, they can hear and even see the bus driving about, making unscheduled stops, driverless. So, if you ever hear the screech of bus tires far past the times that the service is operational, don’t ever look behind you. Because then, it’s got you. Whether you have business or no, you’ll be compelled to approach and board Bus No. 0, and there your soul will be trapped for all eternity, stuck in a limbo and forced to be a passenger on a bus ride that never ends.”

While the phantom bus’s existence is just a tale, it traces its origins to true events. In reality, the bus service truly did test its buses, and the first bus it trialed disappeared without reaching even its first destination. In real life, it’s driver was named Clark Grady. Grady reported over the radio that he reached the first stop, though the station insisted that he never did, and no civilians reported seeing it at all. The bus and it’s driver were never ever found, and the case was never solved.

 First Creek **•** Third Creek **•** Red Medicine **•** Larue Forest **•** Cooper-Lane Quarry **•** Povey Cemetery