The range looked different. Less old and run down. What could it mean?

  Tyler led the way to the spot we’d been standing in when the “tornado” had rolled through. My stomach clenched as I looked down at the small hole I’d dug into the ground earlier.

  I realized then with a sinking feeling that there should not have been a bare patch of dirt in that overgrown field.

  I took a tiny step back from the others, wanting to put some distance between myself and that hole. I hoped they weren’t thinking along the same lines I was. Since I’d been the one to unearth the journal that had (maybe) transported us to this warped world, that meant this was all my fault.

  Tyler knelt to pick the journal off the ground from where we’d discarded it in our hurry earlier.

  “Don’t touch that!” Ava shrieked. Her screams echoed and I felt every single hair on my body stand up. I whipped my head around, feeling that we were being watched from close by, but I didn’t see anyone.

  “Why?” Tyler looked genuinely confused.

  Ava pursed her lips. “It’s evil.”

  Silence.

  “A journal can’t be evil,” Tyler said. He reached out and grabbed the journal.

  For a moment I expected another wild gust of wind but everything stayed exactly the same. From the way Jake was looking around at the trees I figured he was on the lookout for the exact same thing.

  Tyler stood and brushed off some dirt from the journal before he began flipping through its pages. Ava seemed to be muttering a prayer next to me.

  “No fucking way,” Tyler said, after he’d finished flipping through the journal. He turned it towards us so we could see for ourselves. The pages were completely and utterly blank. Each and every one of them.

  “So, it is evil,” Ava said. She backed away from it slowly like it was some big predator cat waiting to pounce on her.

  “This is so messed up,” Jake said.

  Tyler began flipping through the pages again. He looked desperate. Maybe even a little crazy. I guess we all looked like that though.

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  Ava was clutching at her hair. “What does this mean? Where are we? How do we get back home?”

  For some reason, she was directing the questions towards me. I gazed at her in complete silence. I realized I couldn’t hear birds, insects, or even the wind. It was like when a hurricane knocked the power out and all the buzzing you never even noticed disappeared.

  I shrugged at her. How was I supposed to know where we were?

  Ava began to turn away, looking even more distraught than she had before and I rushed to say something.

  “Maybe we went back in time!”

  Jake turned to look at me, wearing the same scowl from earlier. Tyler stopped flipping through the journal. Ava turned back to me slowly, with her eyebrows knitted together.

  “Why do you think that?” she asked.

  No, Hannah, noooo. Why would you make that kind of statement aloud. I selently scolded myself. Now I had to defend myself. “Well, last time we were here, like when we first got here, the grass came up to my knees.”

  They all glanced down to notice how now the grass barely reached my mid-calf.

  “Also, the paint on the range isn’t as chipped anymore,” I was picking up steam. “And I saw the boards to the upper levels were less old looking.”

  “Wait, you’re right!” Ava ran back to the range and examined the paint up close.

  That left me and the guys standing in the field. I think we instinctively realized that no one should run off alone in this unknown place, so we quickly followed her.

  “So, do we need to time travel forward?” Ava asked. “Does anyone know how to build a time machine?”

  “You’re forgetting,” Jake said, in a superior sort of drawl. “There was that huge flat empty field. The terrain around here has never been that flat. Not in any time period.”

  I frowned. I’d forgotten about that somehow. But there was no denying that the range itself had changed along with the terrain.

  “Maybe we’re in an alternate universe,” Tyler speculated.

  “What kind of dumbass universe would this be?” Jake asked.

  “Okay well maybe it matters less what universe we’re in and more how we get back,” Tyler said.

  Jake frowned. “Well, if the journal got is here. Teleported us here, or whatever. Shouldn’t it be able to get us back?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Sure, but I don’t know how to operate a teleportation device.”

  Jake adjusted his baseball cap and looked like he was going to punch Tyler’s lights out... again.

  Tyler flipped through the journal again. “I don’t have the faintest clue what to do with this.” He held it to us, wanting to pass it off.

  It was the strangest thing; I was drawn to the journal. There was something other-worldly about it. I frowned at Tyler then at the journal before taking it out his hands. It was leather with an odd symbol on the cover. I shuddered as I traced my finger over the it. I wished it would’ve had some words in it. Or maybe an instruction manual. Anything would’ve helped at that point.

  I sighed and flipped it open…

  What in the???

  “Hey, I found something!”