“When was the last time you biked?” Dad asked as I strapped on my helmet.

  He and Mom had come out into the garage, pajama clad, to see me off.

  “Like a month ago,” I lied.

  “We could always drive you up there. I think Cara could handle being a little late to her game,” Dad said.

  Actually, Cara could not handle being late to her game. According to her lock-screen, volleyball was life.

  “I’m okay you guys. And I’m totally safe,” I knocked on my helmet for emphasis and swallowed a yawn.

  My mom sighed. “Okay, but text us when you get there.”

  “You got it.” I was already riding down the driveway, trying to disguise how wobbly I was.

  I was deep in thought as I rode over to Tyler’s neighborhood. I hoped my groupmates wouldn’t think I was weird. I’d specifically designed my outfit to be totally normal and un-eye catching. A plain white tee shirt with plain blue jeans and some white tennis shoes. Nothing special at all.

  Personally, I thought it needed more color, maybe a dash of red here or there. But I didn’t want to stand out even in the slightest.

  Just so you know, Clear Creek is where the rich people live. Every house I passed had at least two stories, columns on the porch, and perfect lawns that would put Dad to shame.

  Tyler’s house was no different. I felt terribly out of place standing in his driveway. But I feel out of place most of the time, so it wasn’t too different.

  It didn’t seem right to lay my bike down on his lawn, so I gently placed it on the edge of his driveway.

  A woman, who I assumed was Tyler’s mom, answered the door when I knocked.

  I’m always watching people, so I’ve gotten good at reading faces. I can read them easier than books most of the time. I could see that Mrs. Liu had lines under her eyes, but she didn’t look very old. Her eyes themselves were swallowed up in grief. They looked sort of murky, like smeared oil paint. I immediately felt awkward standing in front of her.

  I swear she raised her chin just so she could look even further down on me. I shifted from foot to foot.

  “Hello, I’m here for the group project with Tyler,” I said.

  “Hm.” She frowned at me and the lines on her face deepened. “Yes, yes come in.”

  She ushered me in and closed the door behind me. I took the time to unlace my shoes and push them against the wall, all the while very much aware of her silently judging gaze. As I worked at my shoelaces, I noticed the pictures decorating the walls. Some showed Tyler in various stages of life, and some showed another child, a girl. Probably Tyler’s older sister. The one that’d died back in middle school.

  The Liu household had a sort of peaceful silence to it that my family could never attempt to duplicate. I wondered briefly how it might feel to live in a house where everyone was as silent and thoughtful as I was. But then again, the quiet of the house wasn’t exactly comforting. It was more of a subdued silence.

  Mrs. Liu cleared her throat impatiently and I realized I’d been gazing at the picture of Tyler’s older sister, which was probably rude. I turned away embarrassed and let her lead me down the hall to the living room, where Jake was sprawled out over the whole couch and Tyler was on the floor organizing the poster materials. He didn’t look up at his mom.

  When I said “hey”, Jake grunted, and Tyler said “hello” in an overly polite way that made me want to disappear. I collapsed into a squishy armchair and sat perfectly still.

  By the time Ava got there (20 minutes after our decided meet time), Jake had put on some horror movie and he and Tyler were watching with rapt interest as one of the characters got axe murdered. I turned my head away from the television screen and rubbed my scar against my pants. I could hear Ava loudly talking to Tyler’s mom in the entryway. Or rather, talking at Tyler’s mom because I didn’t hear her responding. When Ava finally got to the living room she sat on the floor and immediately began messing up Tyler’s materials.

  “Okay you guys,” Tyler stood up. “Let’s go to the range.”

  “We’re actually going there?” Ava looked disgusted.

  “Yeah, we need to get pictures of it,” Tyler said. “And you’ve got to be there in real life to see it’s ‘under-appreciated beauty’.”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  Jake groaned but stood up as well. “Alright, let’s go.”

  And thus, we made the worst decision of our lives: we were going to the range.

  After getting our shoes from the front entrance, we ventured out past Tyler’s backyard and into the woods just beyond.

  At that point, I was totally ready to go home. Going into the woods with people I didn’t know? It was insane. What if Earnest was right and Tyler was a dark wizard waiting to hex me? It was a stupid thought, but it lurked in the back of my mind. And what about that horror movie the boys had been watching? Everyone knows the black person dies first! I peeked behind my shoulder as we walked just to make sure there was no axe murderer stalking us.

  A jumpy feeling settled deep inside me, and I tried to focus on the colors of the woods around me, but it felt as if the woods were gradually getting darker. And like the darkness was trying to grab at me.

  “What the freak!” Ava’s shriek tore through the air. I whipped around to face her.

  She was holding her phone up the sky and squinting at it. “No service.”

  I sighed in relief. I’d been expecting something more sinister like: “THERE’S AN AXE MURDERER HIDING IN THAT BUSH!” I mentally shook myself.

  “I don’t have any either,” Jake declared after pulling his phone out his back pocket.

  I didn’t either.

  Tyler shrugged. “Maybe this is a dead zone.”

  I tried to shrug it off like the others did, and we continued our walk.

  All in all, it was about a half a mile walk which doesn’t seem like much but by the time we got there I felt like we were stranded in the wilderness.

  The woods stopped at a clearing and in the center of it was the range.

  The range itself was three story concrete structure. Each level had multiple bays and rotted rope nets stretched from each bay. I’d never seen a driving range in person, but I’d seen videos of TopGolf, so I knew what I was looking at.

  It was a huge downgrade from the fancy driving ranges though. But in my opinion the dilapidation made it more appealing.

  Stretching in front of the range there was a huge overgrown field. And behind the range, there was a cracked parking lot, slowly being taken over by weeds. A little off to the side of that there was a squat little building where I guessed golfers would go to check in or maybe get some souvenirs. I don’t know. What do golfers do with their lives anyway? And curving away from the parking lot, a worn-down road stretched away into more wooded area beyond.

  I’d had my doubts about our project at first, but it was seeming better and better by the second. The range really was beautiful. In a way only abandoned things can be.

  Ava shuddered next to me. “This place is-”

  “Creepy,” Jake finished her thought.

  I was sure there was nothing to be afraid of. At least we were in open air now.

  Tyler didn’t seem scared either. “It’s totally fine. Let’s just take some pictures.” He took out his phone camera and I followed suit. Jake and Ava kept theirs’ safely in their pockets.

  We walked over to the driving range itself. The stairs to the higher levels were all boarded up. Jake tried to kick them down and ate shit. Ava laughed at him super loudly and it made my neck crawl. Maybe the place was a little creepy.

  Tyler walked out into the grass a bit and took some pictures of the range from the front. I didn’t want to go out there, but Ava and Jake followed Tyler, and I hated the thought of being separate from the group.

  We huddled around Tyler’s phone as he showed us the pictures.

  “These should be good,” he said, nodding to himself.

  I took a step back from the rest and scuffed my shoes in a bare patch of dirt. It didn’t cross my mind how odd it was for a bare patch to even exist in a field like that.

  “Yo, are we ready to go back now?” Jake asked.

  Tyler nodded again but didn’t put his phone away.

  I was busy scuffing the dirt. At that point I was sort of digging a hole with the tips of my shoes.

  “Okay good,” Ava said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “What’s that?” Jake was looking at some dirt I’d just kicked.

  But no, it wasn’t dirt. There was a little piece of something peering out of the hole I’d been making.

  Jake dug the mystery object out of the ground.

  For reasons I couldn’t explain, my stomach dropped as if I were on a roller coaster. That feeling was back again, and stronger than ever. To the point where I felt like throwing up from the nerves stirring inside me. Someone was watching me. I was sure of it this time. I wanted to spin around and catch whoever it was. Make them stop. Something. But I didn’t want to look crazy, so I just tensed all my muscles up and tried to focus on what was going on in front of me.

  “Ugh, it’s a book,” Jake said with disgust, after brushing away some dirt to reveal a small leather-bound notebook.

  Tyler took it odd his hands eagerly.

  “It looks like an old journal!”

  I pulled my arms in tight around me. The temperature seemed to be dropping.

  Ava peered over Tyler’s shoulder to get a look as he flipped the journal open.

  A bird circled slowly over us. I watched it warily. It felt a bit movie-ish for it to be up there. Like those scenes when someone’s stranded in the dessert and birds start stalking them.

  “Yo, are you going to take a picture of it or what?” Jake was asking.

  I turned my attention back to Tyler and Ava. It was the strangest thing. Both were fixated on the journal like their lives depended on it. Well, maybe that wasn’t so out of place for an honors student like Tyler. But Ava?

  Neither or them responded to Jake. What could possibly be so interesting about a gold journal? I could only imagine the mundane entries: “Shanked a driver shot today”, “I hate my wife”, “Jim hit me with the golf cart just now. Oh no he’s coming back- FUCK!”

  “What are you smiling about?” Jake snapped me back to reality.

  “Oh nothing. My bad.” Shit, he probably thought I was weird now. I needed to get a grip.

  “Right,” Jake said sheepishly. “Come on you two, drop the journal. Let’s get out of here.”

  But they didn’t drop it. They didn’t move at all. The wind picked up more. What was going on?

  Jake stood next to Tyler and snapped in his ear. “Hello? Hellooooo?”

  The wind was really going now. The trees were bending like crazy. A tornado?

  Jake was snapping furiously in Tyler’s face, but he might as well not have been doing anything for all the reaction Tyler was giving.

  I was rooted to the spot. Should I run?

  “This isn’t funny,” Jake hollered at them over the sounds of the wind.

  I was bouncing on my toes preparing to run away when…

  It

  all

  stopped.