The Off-Site

Chapter 1: The Arrival

The Pinecrest Lodge sat at the end of a winding gravel road, surrounded by enough trees to make even the most optimistic GPS signal give up and go home. Patricia Huang pressed her face against the bus window and watched their last bar of cell service disappear into the mountain air like a departing soul.

"This is going to be wonderful," announced Gerald from Human Resources, clutching his clipboard with the fervor of a man who had never experienced anything wonderful in his life. "Three days of bonding, growth, and synergy."

Behind Patricia, someone made a noise that sounded like a dying animal. That was probably Dennis from Accounts Receivable, who had been quietly weeping since they passed the last Starbucks forty-five minutes ago.

The bus lurched to a stop, and twelve accountants from Meridian Financial Services filed out into the crisp mountain air. Patricia took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. The air smelled aggressively natural, like pine needles and disappointment.

"Where's the motivational speaker?" asked Brenda, the department manager, consulting her itinerary. "It says here we're supposed to meet him at arrival for the 'Welcome to Your New Self' ceremony."

As if summoned by the question, a figure emerged from the tree line. He was wearing what appeared to be clothing made entirely of animal pelts, his face streaked with mud in patterns that suggested either camouflage or a very aggressive spa treatment. A hunting knife hung from his belt, and his eyes had the intense, slightly unhinged quality of someone who had seen things—or perhaps someone who had been in too many community theater productions.

"Welcome, soft ones," the man growled, spreading his arms wide. "I am Hawk. The wilderness has sent me to strip away your weakness."

Gerald's clipboard clattered to the ground.

"Oh, wonderful!" Brenda said, clapping her hands together. "An immersive experience! The booking agency said you were cutting-edge, Mr..." She consulted her papers. "Mr. Timothy Brackman?"

The man's eye twitched almost imperceptibly. "There is no Timothy. There is only Hawk. Timothy died in the corporate wasteland, crushed beneath fluorescent lights and quarterly reports."

"That's very committed," Patricia murmured to her colleague Howard, who had gone a concerning shade of gray.

"For the next three days," Hawk continued, pacing before them like a general addressing troops who had shown up to the wrong war, "you will learn to survive. To thrive. To become one with the primal forces that your spreadsheets have made you forget."

"There's a spreadsheet for primal forces?" whispered Dennis hopefully.

"Your first lesson begins now." Hawk pointed toward the lodge. "Inside, you will find no modern comforts. No prepared meals. No soft beds. Only the raw materials of survival."

Brenda's smile had begun to falter. "The booking confirmation mentioned a continental breakfast."

"The continent provides," Hawk said gravely. "If you know where to look."

He turned and strode toward the lodge, his pelts swishing dramatically. The accountants exchanged glances that ranged from confused to horrified to the particular expression of someone calculating how far they could walk in loafers before developing blisters.

"Well," Gerald said, retrieving his clipboard with shaking hands, "this should certainly be... memorable."

They followed Hawk inside, where Patricia's last hopes died a quiet death. The lodge's main room had been stripped of furniture. Sleeping bags lay in a circle around a fire pit that had been constructed directly on what had probably once been a very nice hardwood floor. The walls were decorated with what appeared to be hand-drawn diagrams of edible plants and animal tracks.

"Your belongings will be secured," Hawk announced. "You will not need them. The wilderness provides all."

"My insulin," Howard said weakly. "I need my insulin."

Hawk paused, and for just a moment, something that looked like Timothy Brackman flickered behind his eyes. "Medical necessities will be... the wilderness makes exceptions for medical necessities. But everything else—your phones, your computers, your... comfort items—will be locked away."

A basket appeared, thrust toward them by Hawk's mud-streaked hands. One by one, the accountants surrendered their devices. Patricia watched her phone disappear into the basket like a loved one being lowered into a grave.

"Now," Hawk said, setting the basket aside, "we hunt."

"Hunt?" Brenda's voice had climbed several octaves. "Hunt what, exactly?"

"Dinner."

The silence that followed was broken only by Dennis, who had begun weeping again, this time with renewed vigor.