The Last One (14 page)

The next morning I break into a gas station. It’s well stocked and prop-free. I help myself to water, jerky, and trail mix. A few pop-top cans of soup. I take a pack of sanitary napkins; it feels like I should be due soon. Just before exiting, I also grab a box of Junior Mints. As I walk away from the gas station, I shake the box like a maraca. The road bends. I play “La Cucaracha.”

I’m trying to raise my spirits, but it’s not working. My improvised music only reminds me of all I’ve left behind. Feeling lighthearted, taking a moment to relax—I miss that. And I miss real food, modifying recipes to suit my tastes. Dicing five cloves of garlic instead of three, pouring in an extra swig of wine, substituting fresh herbs for dried. I miss the smell of sautéing onions and roasting chicken. The delicious wafting steam from a pot of lentil soup. I miss homemade bruschetta on toasted baguette. Ripe tomatoes from the farmers’ market, a handful each of purple and Thai basil from my herb garden.

“Miss.”

I miss lattes. Driving into town to the good café once a week, the perfect froth a whole-fat treat. Toddlers with iPhones at the next table, Mom and Dad guzzling espresso and pretending muffins are nutritious. Displaced hipsters pushing strollers outside; pocket-sized dogs tied to chairs, yapping and wagging their tails.

“Miss.”

I miss yoga classes. Kickboxing and spinning. Movement that led to strength, not this tightness I feel from brow to toes. I miss the chatty elementary school teacher who always put his mat to my left and the middle-aged lawyer who jabbed and crossed behind me. The lawyer used to tell me how skinny I was getting, nearly every week; now I’m the smallest I’ve ever been. I wonder if they’re watching, if they miss me.

“Miss.”

I miss my husband’s dark eyes and light laugh. His black stubble, flecked with white at the chin. Penguin coloring, we call it; inaccurate, but fun. I miss our jokes. I miss him. I miss
us.

“Hey, Miss!”

The words crash through my thoughts. Actual spoken words and I’m not the one who said them. I stop and hear only my thrashing heart and the gentle slosh of water. Then footsteps from behind. I turn.

A young black man wearing a red sweatshirt and jeans stands only a few feet away. He’s shorter than I am, lean, with buzzed hair. The whites of his eyes are huge. Beyond that, I can’t discern much other than that his hair is hair, his skin is skin, and the lettering of his sweatshirt pulses lightly with his breath. In living, he is beautiful, as is all he represents: an end to
alone.
For three beats my heart says
yes yes yes.
I want to take this stranger in my arms and say: I’ve missed you.

My lips crack open. I almost whisper, then I can’t. The words are not meant for this man. I blink once, heavily, and remind my heart of the game. I take a step away. He is here for a reason, I tell myself. He might be here to help.

“What do you want?” I ask. My voice crackles with disuse.

“I…” He fidgets. His voice is soft, and not very deep. Not deep at all. He can’t be more than eighteen, and a late bloomer at that. White letters across his chest read:
AUGERS
? I squint. No,
RUTGERS
. He’s a college kid—like Josh, who also seemed very young.

“I just haven’t seen anyone else in so long,” he says. He’s staring at me as though to prove his point.

I cannot trust him.

“Look for someone else,” I say, and I resume walking.

“Where are you going?”

He is walking beside me. When I don’t answer him, he asks, “Can I have something to drink?”

I gather all the generosity I can muster. “There’s a gas station around the bend. Get your own.”

“Will you wait for me?”

I stop and squint at him again. He must have been difficult to cast.

“Sure,” I say. “I’ll wait.”

His eyes widen with exaggerated emotion—I think it’s supposed to look like joy. “Around the bend?” he asks.

“Around the bend.”

“You’ll be here?”

I nod.

He begins to jog, shooting glances back at me every few steps. He morphs into a red blur and disappears around the bend. I imagine him sprinting toward sustenance, taking his role seriously.

I wait a few more seconds then slip into the woods. I do my best not to leave a trail, though anyone with a tracker’s eye could see where I passed through the tall grass. This kid doesn’t seem like he has a tracker’s eye, but he might have access to the cameras. A radio and GPS. I move slowly, but it doesn’t matter. I’m carrying too much to be quiet and I keep stepping on crisp sticks and crunching leaves that are impossible for me to avoid. A blind man could find me. Maybe I should stop moving at all, but then I wouldn’t be getting closer, I’d be stuck here and—

An anguished, wordless howl echoes through the woods.

I pause, momentum banging my water bottle against my hip. I hear another howl and can tell from the intonation that this one contains words, though I can’t interpret them. I tell myself not to go back, and then I do. I leave the woods. As soon as I emerge, I see him. The road here is straight and I have not gone far. He runs toward me, sharpening as he nears.

“You said you’d wait,” he cries. His eyes are red and his dirty cheeks are river deltas drawn to scale.

He’s a better actor than I figured.

“I’m here,” I say. “Where’s your stuff?”

“I dropped it,” he says. “When I saw you weren’t there.”

I walk with him to collect his provisions. They’ve spilled from plastic bags he must have found behind the counter. Bottles and cans and oblong packages lie all over the road, some still rolling.

“You don’t have a backpack?”

“I used to, but I lost it.”

I don’t like him; his character clearly isn’t very bright. While we’re packing his supplies—as much soda as water, and mostly candy—he asks my name. For a second I can’t remember, and then I lie.

“Mae,” I say. The month of my birth, but I imagine it spelled with an
E.
I’ve always liked how wise the letters
A
and
E
look, side by side.

He stares at me. Perhaps he knows I’m lying. Perhaps they told him my name. Finally he says, “I’m Brennan.”

I’ve never met a Brennan before. I doubt it’s his real name. Then again, I don’t care. My eyes flick to his sweatshirt.

I begin to walk. The college kid follows, plastic bags in his hands, asking questions. He wants to know about me, where I’m from, how I got here, where I’m going, where I was “when it happened.”
Why, why, why.
I almost expect him to hand me a second flyer. I play a game and tell him two lies for every truth. I’m from Raleigh, I got separated from a group of friends while white-water rafting and have been alone ever since, I’m going home. Soon I switch to all lies. I’m from a large family, I’m an environmental lawyer, my favorite food is peanut butter. My answers are inconsistent, but he doesn’t seem to notice. I think he asks to hear my voice, and to give the editors something to edit other than my walking. I wonder how my lies will be portrayed; if I’ll be taken aside to explain myself via confessional. I haven’t done that since my fight with Heather.

The kid doesn’t comment on my pace and I don’t mention my broken glasses or the fog he becomes when more than a dozen feet distant. Around midday he stops asking questions long enough to complain, “I’m tired, Mae.” He’s hungry too; he wants to rest. I realize I haven’t eaten since yesterday, and with the realization am light-headed. I sit on an embankment; he sits next to me, too close. I scoot a few inches to the side, drink some water, and pull the beef jerky from my bag. He pulls a Snickers bar and a pack of Skittles from his. He’ll crash after the sugar rush, I think. I almost offer him a piece of jerky, then I remember that if he has to stop I can leave him behind. He dumps a handful of Skittles into his hand and pops them into his mouth.

I remember the Junior Mints. What happened to them? I check my pockets, my pack. I can’t find them. I don’t remember dropping them, or eating them, or anything other than shaking the box. For all I remember, they should still be in my hand. Perhaps I mindlessly tucked them into one of the plastic bags? It bothers me that I don’t know, but not enough to ask. I gnaw my jerky, silent.

Despite his questionable diet, the kid keeps pace throughout the afternoon. It seems his youth and my poor vision have negated the difference in our meals. When the sun is a few fists above the horizon, I turn off the road.

“Where are you going, Mae?” he asks.

“I’m calling it a night.”

“There are empty houses all over,” he says. “Let’s find beds.”

I keep walking. I wish I could walk faster without risking a fall.

“Mae, come on. You’re not serious?”

“You go find a bed, I’m sleeping here.”

He doesn’t let the gap between us grow more than a few feet before following.

I build my shelter, using a low branch as its spine. The kid watches me and after a few minutes begins constructing his own. The branch he uses is too high, nearly shoulder-height. He leaves both ends open and barely layers any leaf litter on top, resulting in a structure that is more wind tunnel than shelter. I don’t say anything; I don’t care if he’s cold.

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that quartz serves well as flint, so as I collect firewood I also collect rocks that glitter. After my tinder is ready, I take the largest stone and rub the dirt from its sharp edge with my shirt.

“What are you doing, Mae? Making a fire?”

I flick out a few of the tools on the Leatherman. I don’t know which is best for making a spark, but the fire starter had one sharp edge and one curved, so I decide to try the shaft of the screwdriver. I hold the tool in my left hand and the rock in my right. I’m probably going to hurt myself. I wonder if a warm meal on a warm night is worth the trouble.

“You can really start a fire without matches?”

My stomach drops. Gas stations always have lighters on the counter, or matches behind the counter. I didn’t even look. How could I be so stupid—again? Annoyed, I smash the flint and steel together in a downward motion. No spark, but I still have all my fingers. I try again, then again. The dirty bandage on the back of my right hand begins to peel. The rock splinters. I select a new one and switch from the screwdriver to the shortest blade. I should have taken the stupid bow drill they gave us for Solo. I never got a coal, never even got smoke, but I’d have a better chance with that kit than I do with this caveman banging.

“You haven’t done this before, have you?”

I can barely see his face in the growing dark. My hands ache.

“Can I try?”

I hand him the Leatherman and a rock. He fails to create a spark for about thirty seconds, then jolts away. “Ow!” He’s dropped the tools and holds his left hand to his mouth, sucking on his pointer finger’s knuckle.

On my next strike a lone spark leaps from the blade and floats toward the tinder—I hold my breath, watching. The spark lands, and then flickers out. Too late, I dip my face to the ground and blow.

“Do that again.” This time I can’t resist glaring. “Sorry,” he says.

Four strikes later, another spark lands. This time I’m ready. I breathe; tiny flames appear. The kid cheers and I find I’m smiling too. Within minutes, a full fire crackles before us. This feels like my greatest accomplishment in weeks, perhaps ever. I glance at the kid, who’s warming his hands over the flames. I see drying blood on his knuckle. My mood sours instantly. He’s not the person with whom I want to be sharing this moment.

I boil some water to rehydrate a packet of beef stew and take out the spork that I kept after all. The kid eyes my meal as he gnaws on a crumbling Butterfinger.

“Did you take anything other than candy?” I ask.

“Chips.” He pulls out a bag of kettle-cooked and his eyes slip again to the stew.

I chose my supplies with care. I cannot give him any.

A few minutes later, he coughs, hand to chest. He takes a sip of water and coughs again. When he sees me watching, he croaks an explanation, “The peanut butter stuff got caught in my throat.”

Despite everything, I feel sorry for him. “How about a trade?” I ask. “I’ll give you a beef and broccoli for the chips.” He hurriedly agrees. I don’t want the chips and they take up too much space. I open the bag, squeeze out the excess air, and roll it closed. I jam it into my pack.

The kid pours hot water into the beef-and-broccoli pouch and pinches it shut. “How long?” he asks.

I take another sporkful of my meal. He stares at me as I chew. After a moment I answer, “Ten minutes.”

He’s eyeing my stew again, but I’ve already given him enough. When he plows into his meal only a few minutes later, I can hear unabsorbed water sloshing in the bag and each bite crunching between his teeth. He pauses to wipe his face with his sleeve. A glitter of firelight reflects off his wrist. A bracelet, I think, and then I narrow my eyes, focusing long enough to make out an oval patch of contrasting color and texture.

It’s not a bracelet—it’s a watch.

The rules said no electronics allowed. We couldn’t bring cellphones, or GPS devices, or wristwatches, or pocket watches, or any other sort of timepiece. My husband and I laughed over the list, and he asked, “Who owns a pocket watch?”

Not this kid. He has a wristwatch. I stare at the device, stomach churning, and then it hits me—that’s why he’s here.

He’s the cameraman.

There’s a camera in his watch, and who knows where else—his belt buckle, hidden in the stitching of his sweatshirt. Mics too. He’s the opposite of Wallaby—chatty and obtrusive—which means that he’s not only here to record, he’s also a Challenge. They’ve made him seem young and helpless, but he’s not. Every action, every word, is part of the world they’re creating. Because he’s not
just
a cameraman; they’ve allowed him a name.

After I finish eating I go off to pee. When I return, Brennan’s sneakered feet are poking from his worthless shelter. He’s snoring and I hate him for it. I step on a twig. It snaps and he doesn’t wake. I think about the flashlight in my bag. I could leave him. I wouldn’t even have to go far, an hour or two of walking and he would never find me again. But no—this isn’t like what Randy did; they would help him. He’s a piece, not a player, and it seems they want him with me. Even so, I’m tempted, just to make their jobs harder, to make this kid feel a fraction of what I have felt. In the end, however, I decide sleep is more important than petty vengeance. I slip into my shelter and pull my pack in after me. I’m tired enough to fall asleep despite Brennan’s snorts and wheezes.