Camp Driftwood

Chapter 31 - Judas

"Move quietly, make sure everyone gets in," Evan called quietly as they approached the read end of the group, and she could see the mass of attendants move out from the far side of the vehicle shed.

He sprinted around to the back of the truck, climbing onto the back of the shipping container and pulling at the heavy latch with all his strength. The metal groaned as he pushed, and so did he, but it eventually came free and one of the doors swung open. It was loud, but over the roar of the fire, nobody should have noticed it. Kaylee hoped as much, at the very least.

"Get everyone loaded," Evan told Kaylee, "I'll get this thing running."

"Take Judie as well," Kaylee replied, pushing the smaller girl towards him. They both know that in the confined space of a moving shipping container, she'd be bound to get hurt.

Evan nodded, taking Judie by the wrist and running around to the front of the truck. Kaylee heard glass breaking as Evan rammed his elbow through the window, before she turned to her own task.

"No pushing," she said, keeping her voice firm as the stream of attendants piled into the empty space in the container, "Wait until the person in front of you is in before you go inside, then move to the front to make room for the person after you. It's going to be a little cramped, but we can do this.

Over the next minute or so, Kaylee watched every other attendant in Camp Driftwood piled into the pitch-black interior of the shipping container. Well, all except one. She cast a glance back to the opposite side of the camp, on the far side of the raging fire that was only now beginning to relent. They'd get Ryan out as well, when they found help. As the last boy slipped inside, Kaylee reached up and pulled the door shut, pulling down with her entire weight to put the latch back into place. It took her a moment, but it slid back into place with a solid click, firmly locking the doors once again.

With that done, she jogged up to the side of the truck's cabin, opening the now unlocked door and lifting herself up and into the empty seat beside Judie. Broken glass littered the seat and floor, but she didn't care. Evan was on his knees on the floor of the truck's cabin, using the improvised knife to pry open the panel underneath the truck's wheel. Once it fell to the floor, he used the blade to slice a few wires apart, and began to strip back some of the rubber coating the copper interior.

As he set to work, he passed the knife to Kaylee, who held it hesitantly and waited in the painful silence that followed. The dashboard of the truck flickered to life for a bare moment as Evan crossed some of the wires, before dying again just as quickly. He wrapped them quickly around each other, before holding a hand out to Kaylee.

"Knife," he said without looking up.

She passed it to him wordlessly. Gripping it by the handle, he drove it into the keyslot by the steering wheel, and turned. There was a slight him as the cabin's lights came on once again, staying lit this time. He pressed down onto one of the pedals, before throwing it into gear. Almost instantly, his smile vanished.

"What's wrong?"

"Engine's not running," he muttered, looking back over the console, "We've got power, but the engine's dead."

"Are you sure you did it right?" Kaylee asked nervously, looking into the mirror to check behind them. There was movement in the near-dark flickering between them and the firelight.

"I did it right!" He snapped, and Kaylee could hear him start to panic. He repeated what he had just done, turning the knife to attempt to bring the engine to life. The lights in the cabin came back on, but nothing beyond that.

"Something's wrong," he muttered to himself, nervously looking out of the window beside him.

"Try it again," Kaylee whispered, reaching down and holding Judie's hand, only partially to comfort the little girl, mostly to settle her own nerves. The little girl did not squeeze back. In fact, she was barely responding to the entire situation.