The Last One (24 page)

The trail leads to a small cave in which Tracker and Exorcist find…nothing. Just spiders and lichen. The trail was a red herring, specifically placed to draw and delay Tracker. Air Force has found the correct trail, a less obvious one that began very close to the Challenge’s point of origin and was created only after Tracker was herded back to the group.

The contestants are too worn out to bicker. “We should have made this another Team Challenge,” the host whispers to the on-site producer, who replies, “It’s fine, this is just to make sure they’re exhausted.” The silent, slogging Challenge is heavily compressed. Viewers will see various contestants pushing through brush, a close-up here and there of bloodshot eyes, slack jaws. In the southern group, the first bear track is quickly destroyed by Banker, who obliviously replaces the print with his own. A cameraman catches this, and the shot will be followed by more bumbling and stumbling. Everyone in that group except for one will be shown falling, slipping, or smacking their head on a branch. The editor likes Zoo the best; he will show her helping Carpenter Chick up from the ground, but will cut when she walks into a neck-height pine branch immediately afterward.

Waitress approaches a patch of blueberries. At the edge of the patch she picks a berry and rolls it around in her open palm. “I want to eat this,” she says. “But I don’t know if it’s poisonous. I mean, it
looks
like a blueberry, but…I better not. I better just look for that bear.” She drops the berry and pushes through the dense, waist-high plants. After a few minutes—seconds—she hears a groan and freezes. It’s just her and her cameraman here; the nearest other contestant is Biology, about fifty feet away. “Was that it?” Waitress whispers, and then she sees it: less than ten feet away, on the far side of a log, a rotund mass of black hair three feet tall and six feet long.

Waitress starts shaking, and she mutters quickly and softly, “No way, no way, no way…”

She doesn’t notice that the bear isn’t moving, not to look at her, not to eat the berries inches from its mouth, not even to breathe. A very long ten seconds pass, then the crunch of Biology coming her way shocks Waitress out of her stupor. She pushes through the blueberry bushes and walks up to the mount—it
is
a real bear, just long dead and expertly preserved—and looks closely at its face, the brownish muzzle, the unblinking glass eyes, the sharp teeth exposed in a mouth that looks ready to roar. And then she notices something around its neck: a single bear claw, dangling on a hide thong. A tiny tab of paper is taped to the thong. It reads:
BRING PROOF
.

To the north, Air Force finds the second bear and takes its bear claw necklace for himself. But Waitress beats him back to the host, whose face falls into abject shock upon seeing her with the bear claw. He recovers quickly, at least enough to say, “Well…Congratulations.”

“It was the berries,” Waitress says later via confessional. “I wasn’t following any trail. I was just wandering around, then I saw the berries and I thought,
Don’t bears eat berries?
And there it was!”

Once Air Force returns, the other contestants are recalled with a series of shouts.

“
She
found it?” Exorcist exclaims. “No way.”

Waitress flips him off, a gesture that will be featured but blurred, and Exorcist is soothed because he knows that even though she won a Challenge, he can still get under her skin.

“Our winners now get these,” says the host, who is holding two identical duffel bags. He hands one each to Waitress and Air Force. The sun is low on the horizon. The contestants all look exhausted, because they are. It has been a long day. The host looks them over gravely, then says, “Good night” and walks away.

Murmurs of disbelief run through the contestants. “What do we do now?” asks Biology. Banker’s face is blank. “I guess we should build a shelter?” says Zoo. She looks at Tracker and is relieved when he meets her eye.

Air Force unzips his duffel bag; Waitress notices and does the same. A cameraman moves in close to her, to record the contents. He coughs as he crouches next to her on the rock slick. The cough sounds like there’s sandpaper in his throat. “Hold on,” he chokes out to Waitress. He hawks and spits and then eases into a seated position, breathing heavily. “Just a bit of a cold. Sorry, go on.” His hands are shaking, enough that this footage will be useless; the editor will have to use that of the cameraman leaning over Air Force’s shoulder instead. The items will pop up as bullet points for viewers as they are revealed: two small metal cook pots with foldable handles—identical to the one Rancher obtained in the first Challenge—a bag of powdered vegetable bouillon, a five-pound sack of brown rice, a plastic salt and pepper shaker set, and a spool of fishing line.

“It’ll get cold up here,” says Tracker. He speaks quietly; only Zoo, Carpenter Chick, and Black Doctor hear him. “We should move off the peak.”

“One shelter to share?” asks Carpenter Chick.

Tracker nods, then turns and starts walking away from the rock slick toward a gently sloping wooded area. Zoo and Carpenter Chick follow him.

Black Doctor turns to the others and hollers, “One shelter tonight, this way!” He waits for Air Force to zip up his bag and stand, then the two walk together into the trees.

Though it takes the contestants some time to get organized, viewers will next see their shelter halfway built. Carpenter Chick has taken the lead in construction, and this shelter is shaping up to be a beautiful lean-to. It’s positioned seventy-five feet below the crest of the mountain, in a flat area where the rocks have very little moss. “Less moss means less water,” explains Tracker. “So if it rains, we won’t be mired in runoff.” Viewers will next see Tracker approaching Air Force. “I don’t know how long we’ll be here,” he says. “I can’t catch enough to feed everyone with just deadfalls.”

“You’re planning on feeding everyone?” asks Air Force.

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“I’ll help.”

By nightfall the group shelter is twelve feet long, with a low sloping roof of cut pine branches. Its frame consists of three Y-shaped branches jammed deep into the earth, each with a hefty support log resting in its nook to form consecutive
V
’s. A foot of fallen leaves and needles carpet the inside of the shelter, and a roof of similar material covered with the cut pine completes it. Built in two hours with only wild resources, the lean-to looks remarkably professional and appealing.

Twenty feet from the lean-to there’s a second shelter, little more than a pile of leaves against a rock. Exorcist remembers feeling warm last night, but also cramped. He wants to see the stars tonight. He’s lying atop the shallow duff, ignoring the others and waiting for the sun to go down.

Waitress sits between the two shelters with her sack of rice, which is lighter now. Two cups of her rice is cooking, along with the same amount from Air Force, split among the five small pots. She was hesitant to share at first, but Air Force’s instantaneous generosity squashed her reluctance; tonight the contestants feast on a thick rice porridge flavored with salt, pepper, bouillon, and several cups of stewed dandelion greens that Biology, Black Doctor, and Engineer gathered while Zoo started the fire and the others collected firewood. Everyone has pitched in tonight, and all will share in the bounty.

Everyone except Exorcist, who’s been relaxing off on his own for hours. As the others sit around the fire and begin passing around the camping cups, he stands up from his mattress of leaves, stretches, and then comes over and settles between Waitress and Engineer.

“What do you think you’re doing?” asks Waitress, who is holding one of her cups and a plastic fork given to her by Rancher.

“I’m starved,” he replies, patting his stomach. “Pass some of that over here.”

“No way,” says Waitress. Then what viewers will not hear: “You left us, then went to
sleep.
”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” says Exorcist.

“She ain’t being ridiculous,” Rancher says from across the fire. He’s holding his own cup. “If you want to eat as a team, you gotta be part of the team.”

Waitress’s animosity doesn’t surprise Exorcist, but Rancher’s agreement does, as do the many nodding heads around the campfire. Briefly, he looks into a camera lens, as though accusing the device of having put the others up to this. Indeed, that’s exactly what he’s doing; he thinks they’re performing—like he is. But the truth is most of the contestants have in this moment forgotten that they’re being recorded. An ancient instinct is kicking in, not so much a survival-of-the-fittest mentality as an unwillingness to carry an able but lazy individual. No one else would have actively stopped Exorcist from eating, but now that Waitress has, the others are all solidly on her side. Guilt flashes through almost everyone, but this doesn’t convince them they are doing anything wrong.

“I’ll starve,” says Exorcist.

“The human body can go a month without eating,” says Tracker. He is the one among them who feels no guilt.

“Go find some grubs,” says Waitress. She takes a bite of rice, then closes her eyes and releases a hum of pleasure.

Exorcist lunges forward and rips the metal cup out of her hands. Waitress’s eyes pop open and she launches herself at Exorcist, sending him tumbling and the rice flying through the air. She slaps at him with all her skinny might. Exorcist covers his face and curls into a ball, weathering the blows. Engineer scurries toward the fray: ineffectual intervention. A second later, Banker yanks Waitress up and away as she screeches, “Let me go!”

And then Biology is with her, rubbing her arms, soothing. Of the many things she says then, the only phrase that will be played for viewers is “He’s not worth it.” Carpenter Chick stands with Waitress too, glaring at Exorcist. Zoo watches this and thinks, That’s what I’m expected to do—provide comfort. But she won’t allow her gender to define her role. Instead of rushing to soothe Waitress, she pokes a stick into the fire, breaking a glowing mass of wood at the bottom into several distinct orange-and-red-rimmed embers.

Exorcist is fuming and embarrassed, still on the ground. “She hit me!” he shouts. “Our contracts said you couldn’t hit anyone!”

One of the cameramen is on his radio. The producer at the other end says, “Jesus, what a day. It’s fine as long as it’s over. And—tell me you got it?” Later, to his off-site counterpart, he’ll add, “At least we can
use
this. Fucking waivers.”

Back at the fire, Black Doctor points out, “The contracts only prohibited hitting someone’s head, face, or genitals.”

Exorcist climbs to his feet and gestures at his own face. “And what do you call this?”

“Looked to me like she only hit your knees and your arms.”

“It’s true,” says Air Force. “You had a pretty good defensive fetal going on there.”

Zoo laughs; Exorcist glares at her.

“Whatever,” she says. “You brought it on yourself.” Her dismissive tone surprises Engineer, who had expected her to act as a peacemaker. None of the cameramen catch the slightly disappointed look on his face as he glances her way.

Exorcist throws up his hands and retreats to his meager bedding. The others eat their meal in silence. The segment will end with a series of short confessionals.

Carpenter Chick, heavily edited: “He deserved it.”

Banker: “He just took a nap while the rest of us set up camp. I feel a little bad about it, but why should we carry his weight? Besides, it wasn’t my call. I didn’t win the rice. I was thankful to be getting any myself.”

Waitress: “He’s been needling me for two straight days, and then he steals my food? No f-ing way. I hope he starves.”

Exorcist: “Every society needs its pariahs; the fact that this is a small society doesn’t change that.” He runs a hand through his greasy red hair, stoking the flames. The second episode of
In the Dark
will end here, with his promise: “They want me to be their villain? Fine. I’ll be their villain.”

15.

Birch Street was a respite—from external nightmares, if not from those spun by my own subconscious. This means only that my next Challenge is pending. As Brennan and I leave the house, leave the neighborhood lined with streets named after trees, I wonder if they’re waiting for some signal from Brennan. Maybe there’s a landmark we’re supposed to reach.

Mid-morning, we reach it: a neighborhood manipulated in a manner I haven’t seen before. It’s not abandoned—it’s destroyed. Windows are broken, signs bowled over. What I initially think is a very out-of-place boulder resolves into a car smashed against a brick wall. I feel my spine curl and I keep my eyes wide as we pass. What I do see of the car makes me think of high school, when the antidrug club got the local fire department to stage a drunk-driving accident using a wrecked van. Volunteers covered themselves with cornstarch blood and screamed from inside the van as the Jaws of Life gnashed toward them. I remember my friend David crawling from the van’s front door, stumbling to his feet, and then weaving toward the firemen. The front-seat passenger, Laura Rankle, “died.” She was nicer than the average popular girl, and David’s screams as she was pulled, limp, from the vehicle were deeply unsettling. Repeatedly I told myself it wasn’t real. It didn’t help. I did my best to hide my tears from my classmates, only later noticing that most were hiding tears of their own. My dad knew about the stunt; I remember him asking about it at dinner that night. Before I could answer, my mom chimed in with something about how she believed—how she
knew
—that it would save someone’s life, and that the van had crashed precisely for this purpose. I had been about to say how powerful the experience was, but after her comment I just shrugged and dubbed it overdramatic.

A few blocks after the smashed car there’s a pileup. The color at the center is distinctive; I don’t need to know the shape to see it’s a school bus. A school bus and a handful of smaller vehicles. As we get close I see a charred prop hanging out the front door of a blackened sedan. For a moment I imagine it has Laura Rankle’s face—not the gaunt, defeated face she grew into after she got pregnant and the baby’s father abandoned her, but the face she had as a girl.