Camp Driftwood

Chapter 4 - New Blood

Chapter 4 - New Blood

A sharp jolt in the road woke Kaylee suddenly. The old Jeep barrelled along the barely-existent path, carved through an impenetrable sea of trees on either side of them.

"Ah, good," Deacon Hale said without taking his eyes off the road, "I was wondering when you'd wake up. We've almost arrived."

Kaylee looked out of the window, unable to make out anything more than five feet away. The twisted mass of trunks and foliage swallowed anything beyond that. The faint trail that Hale was driving on was the only thing that gave any sense of direction.

"Why host a camp all the way out here?" she asked, half thinking out loud, "It looks like it'd be pretty inconvenient."

"Serenity," Hale replied simply, "Distractions are counterproductive to what we aim to achieve at Camp Driftwood. We need to take people away from people and places they're familiar with, to help break old habits, and build new ones."

"Wait, am I really getting the 'Take my love, take my lands' shtick?"

Hale didn't answer. Kaylee looked down the trail again, focusing on the bright spot of light that marked a clearing in the trees, only a few hundred metres ahead.

"Is that it?" she asked, leaning forward to try and get a better view.

"Yes," he nodded as the forest thinned around them.

The Jeep drove on, revealing more of their destination as it drew nearer. The sun filtered through the thinning canopy, casting dappled shadows that fell away them as they left the woodland behind. A large clearing stretched out before her, at least two hundred metres across. The most notable feature was the large wooden wall. Ten feet tall, solidly built, as far as Kaylee could tell the impressive structure stretched around the entirety of the compound.

"A wall?" she said uneasily, "You didn't tell me I'd be going to Alcatraz..."

He gave a short laugh. "Hardly. There are all sorts of animals in the woods, and this far away from a hospital we're not taking any chances with bears and wolves."

"So it's to keep things out?"

"Mostly. But if an attendant decided to take a stroll in the woods, it'd be next to impossible to track them down. It's a real danger that we're not willing to risk."

"People would really do that?"

He shrugged again. "To err is human."

The thin dirt road continued over a clear space between the woods and the wall, twenty metres of open ground where the trees had been cut back. The wide gates, crisscrossed with thick wire, were pulled open as the old Jeep drew closer.

The two men pulling it open, both in their early thirties, shared a brisk nod with Hale as he drove the Jeep into the main compound. The two young men both had close-cropped hair, one black and one blond, and tightly trimmed beards. They both shared the same lean physique, accentuated by the grim demeanour they both held themselves with. They wouldn't have looked out of place in the army. More importantly, and alarmingly, were the hunting rifles slung over their shoulders. The guns, momentarily forgotten, swung on their tethers as the men held the gate wide open for Hale.

"Bears," he reminded her. The crooked smile on his face did nothing to ease her discomfort.

"Uh huh," she replied absently as the Jeep passed through the gates, which were closed immediately behind them. The Jeep ground to a halt under a rickety shed that looked like it had been built by hand, open at the sides so that she could see more of the camp. The two men walked casually up to the Jeep, flanking the sides. Their hands rested openly on the butt of their hunting rifles.