Tyler dropped the journal.
“What. The. Hell.” Jake said.
Tyler wiped his hands on his pants and Ava stood blinking like crazy.
“Well,” Jake snapped. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Tyler said. I observed him silently. His eyes were widened, and he was licking his lips. His hands were fidgeting.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said instinctively. All their eyes snapped to me. “Ummm-” Shit, maybe I should’ve just kept quiet.
“No, you’re right,” Tyler said in an unsure voice. He cleared his throat and stilled his hands. “Follow me.”
Stolen novel; please report.
Tyler led us back to the parking lot of the old range and then towards the spot in the woods where we’d entered. As we walked into the woods I glanced back.
That place, the range, something about made me feel… Uneasy. I scanned the sky one last time and noted that the bird from earlier was nowhere to be seen.
As we walked, I watched my shoes wearily. The toes of them were still covered in dirt.
I wasn’t looking forward to doing the poster board back at Tyler’s house. Being out with these people was so tiring. I wanted to get home and take a nice fat nap. Maybe I’d try and paint something. Or not.
I stumbled into Ava and looked up in confusion.
All the others were looking at something and standing stock still. I peeked around Ava to see what it was, and my stomach twisted in confusion.
In front of us, a perfectly uniform grass field stretched on and on with no end in sight. The sky above it was a perfect baby-blue. There was no sign of the rest of the forest or of the Clear Creek neighborhood at all.
“Where are we?”