ABANDONED. YA - Boy wakes up in field with no memory, wearing bloodstained clothes but no injury, taken to work camp

[Tanner]

I read this book maybe 7 years ago, I estimate it was written 80s or 90s. These are the details I remember:

- It starts with a boy waking up in the middle of a field with no memory, wearing blood-stained clothes but not injured

- A man appears and leads him to a work camp

- The work camp is populated solely by children who are treated reasonably well but mostly left alone. Every morning a bus takes them to the work site where they break rocks

- One day the boy decides not to go to work. No-one stops him, he's left alone in the camp, he starts to hear voices and comes to the conclusion that ghosts are present

- Some of the children attempt to communicate with the 'ghosts' by sitting in a circle, holding hands, etc

- The boy and a couple of his friends run away from the camp to find the person in charge of everything, again no one stops them

- (view spoiler)[Turns out all the children were dead, the voices they heard were the living trying to reach them. After adventures through a desert, the boy finds the palace of the person in charge and requests to be returned to life. He is returned to the moment of his death but without any memory of the afterlife. He makes a different decision, possibly going home instead of playing on train tracks, and doesn't die this time (hide spoiler)]

Quite a few details but I have no idea what the characters names are. Also don't remember any part of the title or author's name or cover art. It wasn't a horror story at all, just very surreal and abstract.

Thanks for reading!

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Tanner, are you still looking for this book?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

No response in 2+ years. Moving to Abandoned.