Last Bastion

By KC Burn

When Dale Shaw gets offered a job at the Last Bastion Ranch, a discreet treatment facility out in the country, he jumps at it.

Sure, the ranch isn't a ranch, the name sounds fatalistic, and it's too remote for cell service. But after spending years as an army medic and ER nurse, he needs something low key. Low stress. More money. The biggest bonus is its proximity to Owen, the man he'd loved and lost in college. His work should allow him plenty of time for second chances.

Surprisingly, the security is excessive, the facility doesn't cater to the wealthy, the patients are far too easygoing, and the director is leaving on vacation, after issuing a cryptic warning. 

Nothing will stop him from rekindling his romance with Owen, right?

(This is a longer version of a story that appeared in Bookish Bits and Bites: A Coastal Magic Convention Charity Anthology)

• Language: English
• Publisher: KC Burn
• Release date: Aug 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9781950068005

Book preview

Chapter One

Dale Shaw tapped his steering wheel as he guided his beat-up Honda along bumpy dirt roads the car was never meant to traverse. He'd lost both radio and GPS signal shortly after leaving Willow Ridge. The small town was only two hours out of the city but locating his temporary job site in the maze of rural backroads had added another thirty minutes to his drive.

Good thing he’d had the foresight to leave much earlier than his GPS had suggested. Nevertheless, if he didn't find his way soon, he was going to be late.

He'd thought his buddy, Will, had been insane to include turn by turn instructions in the email, so Dale had only glanced at them before punching the address into his phone. His faulty recollection was the only thing guiding him now.

Broad trees lined the road, obscuring the sky overhead, although occasional flashes of blue peeked through the heavy canopy. The leaves were beginning to turn colors in preparation for the coming winter, but still more green than yellow or red. It was beautiful, but strangely eerie at the same time, like he was the only one left in the world.

Before he lost all hope, the trees thinned out, and in front of him loomed a gate flanked by high stone walls. Was this his goal? If not, he'd have to turn around and drive all the way back to the last intersection, because he’d reached the end of this sorry excuse for a road.

He slowed his speed as he pulled onto a gravel drive and approached the heavy iron gate. The only thing visible through the bars was another stone wall, greened with moss. The setup looked more like a portcullis in a medieval castle than the entrance to a modern building.

The razor wire coiled atop the walls was a cold, hard reminder of the modern world. He had to be in the wrong spot, with security of this magnitude.

He stopped before he reached the gate and got out of his car. Was this a prison all the way out here? Or the estate of a wealthy, paranoid person? With this amount of protection, he almost expected a guard tower or sentry. And he wouldn't be surprised if there was another gate beyond the one he could see. Why have a portcullis if there weren't two gates to function as intended?

His phone, with 5G service reduced to a measly 1X, still didn't know where he was. Which made two of them. Will obviously had good reason for giving directions, but he should have been more explicit about why. And he should have told Dale to buy a fucking map.

Can I help you? This is private property. A tinny voice emanated from the speaker above a keypad mounted driver-height to the left of the gate.

Dale rolled his eyes. The sign on the gate made that very clear. But he did need help. He walked closer to the speaker.

Sorry about that. Got turned around somewhere. I'm looking for Last Bastion Ranch.

And you are?

Did it matter? All he needed were directions. Dale Shaw.

Please drive through the gate and park your car. There is a vestibule where you will lock up your cell phone and tablet if you have one. Then proceed through the door and make your way to the main house.

This was Last Bastion Ranch? Dale scrambled back into his car as the gate slowly parted.

He'd initially thought the name to be a little fatalistic for a medical facility—barely better than Shady Acres or something else that sounded like a cemetery—but apparently it referred to the location in the ass-end of nowhere.

A patient or visitor would need to be really determined to find this place, which spoke volumes about its exclusivity. And probable celebrity clientele. Dale barely refrained from rolling his eyes again. That would be a major pain in his ass, but he had a job to do and he intended to do it. The money they were offering was too good to pass up.

He drove in, parked, and secured his lifelines to modern civilization in a little locker like they had at the gym, although there were far fewer here. He slung his duffle bag over his shoulder—it was too large to fit in a locker, and he might as well drop it in the room he was staying rather than coming back to the car.

With a tiny key attached around his wrist via a springy plastic cord, he walked through the door, passing through a scanner like the TSA used at the airport.

Once through the vestibule’s door, there was no mistaking how to get to the main house, which loomed on the horizon unreasonably far from where he stood. The building was large and old, probably a mansion or family estate that had been sold off during hard financial times and repurposed for a medical facility. If it weren't for the clear blue sky and sunshine of the crisp autumn day—and modern security features—he could almost believe he'd stepped into an old Gothic novel.

---

Once Dale reached the front door, an orderly let him inside and led him to the director's office.

Behind the desk, a gaunt man wearing thick framed glasses typed on a keyboard while Dale waited. Dale sat on a visitor’s chair and observed the man who would be his boss, for at least the next few weeks.

Dr. Kevin Phillips was a study in gray, from the thinning hair on his scalp, to skin that had not seen sunshine in weeks, to drab, colorless, featureless clothing. Dale also got the impression of exhaustion, something with which Dale was intimately familiar. Yet another inexplicable incongruity, because he’d heard these private rehab places were cushy places to land, whether as employees or patients.

Dr. Phillips finished his document with a heavy clack of the enter key and lifted his gaze.

I'm sorry, it's been years since I've taken a vacation, and it seems like I'm trying to do the next month's worth of work in two days.

That explained the exhaustion, but much of the gray lifted when Dr. Phillips spoke.

I'm Dr. Kevin Phillips, but the patients know me as Dr. Kevin and since consistency is vital to their peace of mind, the staff all call me Dr. Kevin as well. He reached across his desk and Dale shook his hand.

Dale Shaw.

Dr. Kevin nodded. "Will recommended you highly, and I'm very pleased you were able to accept the position on short notice. Everything happened so