FICTION:- Camping on high

Camping in the hills above town had become a rite of passage for the young people from Dovet. They went up and lived off the land for a couple of days, maybe kill a Roo to eat, but probably just lived off the food they sneaked out of their parents kitchens. James, Paul, Jason, Mark and Andrew had grown up together, they made this trip two years ago when they turned 14, they enjoyed it so much they did again, and this was their third trip. They hiked up past the old road, around the swamp, followed the dry creek bed up to the waterfall, then climbed the rocks up to the cave and platform that looked out over the bay into the inland sea. From there they could see or miles, further than anyone down in the village.

James sat out on the edge of the rock platform overlooking the land stretching out into sea. Down there he could just make out the houses in the village, the open fields with crops growing, and the dock where the trading ships, and sometimes the navy came to dock.

“Damn, this wood just won’t burn” Paul said “Andy why did you get wet wood again?”
“Wet wood my bum” a voice called out from the cave, “that wood has been sitting here in the cave drying out all year. You just don’t know how to start a decent fire, what sort of man are you?” he laughed as the tall broad form came out of the cave. Looking down he frowned, “I’m sure that’s not the wood I got last year, hang on.” He went back into the cave, and looked closer at the pile, “shit this is all wattle, I got gum, I know ‘cause we spent that afternoon chopping up that big gum just over the other side of the ledge then lugging it all up here cause you said it would make it easier this year. Remember?

“Bloody good plan, I thought” Paul said crouching down to look closer at the wood, but someone has swapped our wood over, hell this stuff is still a bit green. No wonder it won’t burn”

James stood up and walked back toward the cave, “ Maybe we should scout around a little and see if we can make out any tracks, this all seems a little odd, we can all bring back some dry wood, to get the fire going, the wattle will burn once it has some heat under it.”

The boys moved out, James took what looked like an animal path between some trees, he didn’t see any tracks, and there was something else wrong too, he walked for half an hour, but he still couldn’t place what was wrong.

Coming back to the camp, the others were there, they too hadn’t found what was wrong, and no one had brought back any wood.
“That’s it,” James exclaimed” there isn’t any dry wood up here, it’s all gone, and there were tracks but no animals. I normally scare a rabbit or too, when I move around up here.”

“I wonder if someone is living up here, maybe permanently?”

“who’d live up here?” Andy asked, “It is in the middle of nowhere. Hell, our town isn’t even near one of the big settlements, it would be awfully lonely up here” suddenly the boys looked at each other with a little fear, realisation coming on them.