The Last One (20 page)

“Breakfast in bed?” she asks; before the question’s even out, she pales.

Tracker glances at her, then turns to a small box at his feet and takes out their next Clue. “Go up,” he reads.

Zoo releases a held breath.

Elsewhere, Carpenter Chick and Engineer read their identical Clue, eat cold leftover turkey, and plan their route up the mountain. Air Force and Biology don’t have leftovers; they skip breakfast and are the first team to start hiking. Banker and Black Doctor are not far behind.

Tracker and Zoo finish breakfast. As Zoo rinses out the skillet, she asks, “Do we keep this?”

Tracker is disassembling their shelter. “No,” he says. “It’s not worth it. Too heavy.”

“What about all the meat we can’t eat?”

Tracker tosses an armful of sticks and duff across the ground. “Production team took it. Promised it wouldn’t go to waste.”

No matter the editor’s fondness for this pair, this conversation cannot air. There can be no production crew, no cameramen, and non-entities do not eat. The editor cuts from breakfast to Zoo shouldering her pack and following Tracker out of their small clearing.

And then there’s the trio, crammed together in their shelter: Rancher closest to the boulder, Exorcist in the warm middle, and Waitress in the tight outer corner. Waitress is the first to wake. She finds Exorcist’s pale, red-haired hand resting on her waist. A camera mounted on the mouth of the shelter records her confusion, her quick disgust. She tosses the arm off. Without waking, Exorcist shuffles onto his opposite side. His hand smacks Rancher in the face. Rancher jolts awake, striking his knee against the rock. He bites back a curse. Waitress ignores him and crawls out into the dawn. After a moment, Rancher grabs his hat and follows. Exorcist sleeps through, sprawling to take up the entire shelter.

Waitress and Rancher do not find a box waiting for them. They are a Clue behind the others, and hungry.

Waitress stretches, twisting from side to side. Rancher walks off to urinate, limping slightly as his muscles wake and his knee throbs. Once he returns, Waitress asks, “Can we leave him?”

“I don’t think so.” Rancher nudges Exorcist’s shoulder with his foot. “Rise and shine.”

Exorcist’s eyes peep open, then he groans and crawls from the shelter. He walks to the side of the boulder and undoes his fly. Waitress turns quickly away, sneering as she hears urine splash against stone. Exorcist zips up and says, “We’re going to win this. I saw it in a dream.”

“At this rate, we’ll be lucky to finish the same day as everyone else,” retorts Waitress.

“Have faith,” Exorcist tells her, reaching out to touch her shoulder.

She pulls away. “Wash your hands.”

“Piss is sterile.” He waggles his fingers, creeping them toward her face, then turns abruptly toward the stream. “Come on, let’s find us some tracks.”

They find the crossing quickly; the path is well trod now, plus there’s a cameraman on the far bank, munching on a strawberry-flavored fruit-and-nut bar while he waits. Exorcist leaps ahead of his teammates, and Rancher helps Waitress step rock to rock. The two cameramen meticulously avoid each other with their lenses.

The trio continues down the path and finds the wooden box hanging from the birch. Exorcist pulls out the only remaining token. Studying the etching, he says, “Huh.” They follow the bearing and soon see a dead gray squirrel hanging from a tree branch.

“No way,” says Waitress. She thought
preparing your own meals
—one of many purposefully ambiguous statements in the contestants’ contract—meant dumping ingredients into a pot. “No way I’m eating squirrels.”

“Squirrel,”
says Exorcist. “There’s only one.” He prods the dangling rodent with a finger, sending it swinging on the thin rope. Waitress turns away, grimacing. Rancher steps forward to cut the squirrel down. Off camera he accepts advice on skinning the small animal. Viewers will see close-ups of his worn, golden-brown hands tearing the skin away, the pulse of sleek rodent muscle popping free of its covering.

“We need a fire if we want to eat this,” says Rancher.

“No way,” says Waitress. She’s clutching her arms tight to her chest, looking anywhere but at the squirrel. “No way.”

“What,” says Exorcist, “you’re not hungry?”

She shakes her head, too distraught to feel her hunger. Exorcist laughs. He unzips his pack and tosses his dowsing rod toward her. “Here, then, see if you can get this to work.” He laughs again, then begins collecting firewood. Waitress kicks the dowsing rod back toward him and leaves her teammates, making her way back to the brook. She crouches over the water and rinses out her mouth.

Her confessional, recorded moments later: “A squirrel. I’m not eating a squirrel. Who eats squirrel? That’s disgusting.”

Cut to the squirrel roasting on a stick, and a caption:
TWENTY MINUTES LATER.
Exorcist and Rancher are sitting by the fire, watching the meat cook. Waitress hovers in the background. She inches forward, drawn by the smell. Eventually she sits next to Rancher.

“What happened to its head?” she asks.

“Cut it off.”

“What, now that it looks like food you’re hungry?” asks Exorcist. “I’m not sure there’s enough to go around.”

There is not enough to go around—it’s a squirrel. But all three are salivating. Do they fight, do they share, what happens next? A commercial break will delay the question’s answer. Once viewers return, the answer comes quick and boring: They share. Rancher portions the squirrel, placing each pathetic helping on a paper plate, the last of his supply. Waitress lifts a hindquarter to her mouth and takes a dainty bite. The charred flesh tears from the bone. She chews, swallows. “Not bad.”

Rancher agrees, adding, “Too bad there ain’t more.”

“We could catch some,” says Exorcist. He picks up his dowsing rod and twirls it. “If I sharpen the ends, we’d have a killer boomerang. Literally.”

It’s unclear by his demeanor if he actually thinks he could kill a squirrel by flinging a sharpened dowsing rod at it. He picks his teeth with the squirrel’s fibula. After a moment, he tosses the bone aside and jumps to his feet, miming great surprise. “Hey, what’s that?” he asks.

A small box has appeared near the trio, placed there by an intern who implored them not to say anything with a finger to her lips. But now that she’s retreated, the box can be acknowledged. Exorcist opens it and reads,
“Go up.”

As the trio begins their hike toward the summit, viewers will see a map showing the teams’ relative positions. Black Doctor and Banker have taken the lead and are heading straight toward the mountain’s apex, bushwhacking slowly, with a mile and a half to go. Air Force and Biology are about halfway to the top, following a circuitous trail. Zoo and Tracker are also on the trail, a quarter of a mile behind Air Force and Biology. Carpenter Chick and Engineer are west of the others. They started on the trail, then after an hour decided to strike directly for the summit, through an area where contour lines show a gentle but steady incline. They don’t yet regret the decision.

“Hey, look,” says Zoo. They’ve rounded a corner before a long straight stretch of trail and can see Air Force and Biology ahead. “How did they get ahead of us?”

“We dithered,” says Tracker.

Zoo enjoys his word choice immensely. “We dithered, yes, but between us we have four good ankles. Come on!” She takes a few jogging steps, but Tracker whistles sharply and she stops.

“It’s better to just keep pace,” says Tracker. “We’ll pass them anyway.”

Zoo falls back beside him. “I guess I should have figured you for a tortoise.”

He shrugs. “Depends on the length of the race.”

A short distance ahead, Biology asks, “Did you hear a whistle?”

Air Force turns and glances down the trail. “There’s another team right behind us.”

“Shoot,” says Biology, her tone thick with expletive intent. “How far to the top?”

“Too far to make a break for it, but I’ll try.” Air Force grimaces and picks up his pace.

His effort only delays the inevitable. Minutes—seconds—later, Zoo calls, “On your left,” and waves hello as she power-walks by. Tracker moves more naturally. He nods as he passes, but this greeting will be cut in editing.

Zoo pumps her arms and moves quickly until she and Tracker are about fifty feet ahead of the other pair, and then slows to a normal pace.

“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you rushed that,” says Tracker.

Zoo laughs. “We were so close.”

Soon, the trail becomes a series of tight, steep switchbacks. The viewers’ map will show that Tracker and Zoo are nearly head-to-head with Black Doctor and Banker, whose dots—one mustard yellow, one checkered black and white—have barely advanced.

“I wonder what’s at the top,” says Zoo. Six and a half minutes later, something rumbles uphill. The editor will slice away those minutes, imply cause and effect where none exists. Zoo and Tracker pause. “What was that?” she asks, looking to their left.

Tracker hesitates before saying, “It sounded like—” The sound comes again, cutting him off. Then: scraping, tumbling, sharp rustling, some small
clack clack clack
s. Tracker puts out his arm toward his teammate and turns to scan the woods uphill. Zoo notices that their cameraman has hung back; he’s standing about fifty feet away, filming intently. The shot he gets now: her worried glance straight at the lens, Tracker’s protective stance, her light skin and hair, his darkness; the editor will love the contrast, the story being told in that moment. This shot will be heavily featured in promos.

“Go,” says Tracker. He urges Zoo ahead of him with a nudge. She turns, confused, glancing uphill, and then darts up the trail. Tracker follows.

They’ve gone only a few steps when the first small pebbles tumble down onto the trail. Most of the stones fall behind them, but not all. Zoo leaps over a fist-sized rock that rolls out in front of her—an overhead camera records her quick reflexes, and Tracker’s smaller, sleeker movements as he easily avoids tumbling debris. And then—
crash
—a huge sound behind them. Zoo slows and looks back. Tracker tells her, “Run!” but she sees it: a boulder nearly as tall as she bounding through the trees. It looks strange to her, it’s moving too lightly, ricocheting off tree trunks. Seconds later the boulder rolls across the trail behind them and the woods settle back into silence. Zoo pauses to catch her breath.

“That wasn’t a real boulder,” she says.

“No,” says Tracker.

“That’s messed up.” Viewers will not be given access to Zoo’s first comment, but they will hear this one, and then the show will cut to Biology and Air Force listening to the crashing sounds ahead of them.

“What was that?” asks Biology.

“I don’t know,” says Air Force. “Maybe a tree fell?”

At the base of the mountain, Waitress and Rancher outvote Exorcist to take the trail. Exorcist takes ownership of their decision by marching into the lead. Waitress is exhausted, her quads throbbing and weak, and she follows slowly. Rancher takes the rear. Once they find the trailhead he allows the distance between him and his teammates to grow. Looking at the ground as he hikes, he pretends to be alone and thinks about his children. After only a few minutes, the trio’s cameraman urges him forward. “Come on, man. I’ve gotta keep all three of you in frame.”

Far above and deep in brambles, Black Doctor slips. He catches himself on a rickety tree stump. A toothpick-sized sliver skims in just below the skin on his left pinky and he hisses in pain. Banker squeezes through the brush to help him up.

“It’s not deep,” says Black Doctor, inspecting his hand. He pinches the protruding end of the splinter between his fingernails and pulls it out. The wood slides free cleanly and the wound barely bleeds.
Did you see that?
the reasonable man writes on a forum within seconds of this airing.
He’s clearly more dexterous than he looks.
Within an hour, this man will be called a racist, a moron, an asswipe, and a fag, the last by a twelve-year-old girl who recently heard the derogative for the first time and likes the sense of power she gets from employing it anonymously.

Black Doctor tosses the splinter aside and takes out his first-aid kit. He dabs on some antibiotic cream, then wraps a Band-Aid around his finger. “Best I can do for now,” he says.

Banker’s hair is slicked to his forehead with sweat, and stubble bursts awkwardly from his cheeks and chin. It’s not a flattering look, but the day after tomorrow the stubble will hit its prime length and he will for a few days be striking. Hearts will throb; not as many as throb for Air Force, but enough that he will be recognized weeks from now, far out of context.

Banker’s not-yet-striking face is pursed with concern for his partner. “Did that list of plants say what they were good for? If we can find a natural antiseptic—”

“I’m fine,” Black Doctor interrupts. “It barely pierced the dermis.” He shifts his face into kindliness. “Besides, even the best plant isn’t going to be better than what’s in the kit. But thank you.” They resume their climb.

Zoo is still staring after the faux boulder. “We could have gotten hurt,” she says. “Really hurt.” She expected challenges and danger, but not like this. She didn’t think the creators of the show would roll a five-foot-diameter obstacle down a heavily wooded trail straight at her. Her dismay causes her expectations to shift: a small first step toward inconceivable eventual heights.

“We’re okay,” says Tracker. “And the top’s not far.” Zoo turns to follow him. She’s no longer smiling.

A quarter of a mile to their west, Carpenter Chick and Engineer push through the woods. Several small twigs are stuck in Carpenter Chick’s hair, and Engineer’s right sleeve is torn at the cuff and thick with brambles. They pause to consult their map and compasses.

“We’re so close,” says Carpenter Chick. “But all I see are trees.”

“It’ll open up any minute,” Engineer replies. “We have less than a hundred feet of elevation left.” He tucks the map away and leads them forward, then stops and says, “Whoa.”

“What is it?” asks Carpenter Chick. She ducks beneath a branch to stand beside him. Their cameraman hustles to their side to capture their drawn faces, then pans right to a sheer forty-foot cliff.