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By Curtis Kingsmith
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Curtis Kingsmith
Copyright Curtis Kingsmith 2012/Open Setting Licensed
Published at Smashwords
Chapter One
Brutewood Correctional Facility was a large campus, a couple hundred acres spread across forests, hills and a small swamp. There was a mess of buildings: long gray dormitories, squat administration centers, tall guard towers protruding like church steeples above it all, a work farm teaming with life off to one side. It was larger than he thought it was going to be - the dorms looked like they could hold thousands of people. The streets were dusty and unpaved; they were empty now, like a ghost town from an old Western novel.
Hank Altman sighed as the bus rolled in. He was trying not to worry too much about his predicament - with good behavior, he could be out in six months, his public defender had told him, and all he had to do was agree to work at a prison job to be kept in a safe and protected ward. He didn't feel secure though, surrounded by the hard-faced men who filled the seats around him.
The bus rattled and jostled along the hard, packed-dirt road that ran through the center of the prison. One of the armed guards stood up and barked out instructions so fast Hank couldn't hear them, but everyone else stood when the bus came to a stop, and he did likewise.