The Last One (28 page)

The cameraman unclips his radio from his belt. He points its top toward Black Doctor. “Battery’s dead,” he says.

“Like hell it is,” says Air Force, grabbing the radio. He toggles the on-off switch, but the power indicator doesn’t light up. He takes the battery out, puts it back in, tries again. Nothing. The producers thought something like this might happen, and the cameramen were all instructed to put depleted batteries in their radios for the duration of this Challenge.

“I think from this point on we need to assume this is for real,” says Black Doctor. At Tracker’s incredulously lifted brow he adds, “Just in case.”

Less than a mile away, Zoo is on her hands and knees.

“What are you doing?” asks Waitress.

“Looking for changes in the coloring, the texture,” says Zoo. “A shiny path in a dull area, or a dull path in a shiny area. Stuff like that.”

“See anything?” asks Rancher. He crouches down next to her, keeping one hand on his hat.

“I don’t know,” says Zoo. “He obviously came through here.” She points to spot a few feet away to their right. “But after that…”

“After that
what
?” asks Waitress.

“Exactly.”

Rancher stands. “Do you hear that?” he asks.

Zoo and Waitress both cock their heads to listen. “Water?” asks Waitress.

“I think so,” says Rancher. “If I was lost and I heard water, that’s where I’d head.”

“Good idea,” says Zoo.

A few minutes later, they find a boot print. Zoo slaps Rancher on the back.

They reach the brook. Waitress points at a red handprint on a rock halfway across the water and asks, “Is that blood?”

Yes, thinks Zoo, then: No. She almost says, “
Fake
blood,” before thinking better of it. She doesn’t know if it’s possible to be disqualified for professing disbelief, but she doesn’t want to chance it. So instead she says, “He must have fallen.”

“And then he went that way, look,” says Rancher, pointing downstream, where another rock is smeared with mud and dabbed with more red.

Far behind them, Exorcist finally finds the threads that are intended to lead his team to their blood mark. But the quartet is moving slowly, bickering. Attempting to act as the voice of reason, Biology twirls to the others and claps her hands—
clap, clap, clap-clap-clap
—a trick she uses to get the attention of unruly students. “Get it together!” she demands. Her teammates are all looking at her, but one’s vision is centered noticeably below her face. She stalks up to Exorcist and he meets her eyes, surprised. “That’s better,” she says.

“She’s right,” says Banker, stepping between Biology and Exorcist before the latter can respond. “Let’s focus on finding Eli.” His foot lands on their next clue—a scuff—and obliterates it. More subtle clues abound, but no one in this group sees them. Tracker would have; even Zoo or Air Force would likely have caught the general sense of the trail. But this mishmash of a team will from this moment on fail. Engineer’s eyes fall on a disturbance: the combination of natural erosion, a deer’s passage, and imagination. He and his teammates want to see tracks, they need to see tracks, and so they do. Soon they’re following a trail that doesn’t strictly exist, and they’re following it in the wrong direction.

Tracker’s group is on course, moving swiftly after their target, who has covered more ground than they anticipated, nearly four miles already. Tracker has two thoughts: first, neither of the other groups will find their target before sundown; second, perhaps they’re not meant to.

But Tracker’s moving faster than the production team anticipated. When his team is a quarter mile away from the endpoint they have to hustle. The actor portraying Abbas Farran is hurried away from coffee and texting and into makeup, and then back to where he ended his trail.

That’s where Air Force, Tracker, and Black Doctor find him. The actor they think of as Abbas is sitting on a rock toward the top edge of an eroded cliff face. He’s moaning and holding his head in his hands. The contestants cannot see the ledge, they do not know how high it is—or even that it
is
a ledge, though the topography beyond the actor suggests at least a steep slope.

“Abbas!” calls Black Doctor. “Abbas, are you all right?”

The actor moans a little louder and lurches to his feet. “Who’s there?” he asks. He turns toward the group. Red is dripping down his forehead and has been smeared all over his face and hands.

From the cameraman’s nonreaction Tracker knows the blood is fake, that there is no true danger. He’s disgusted—he has been in real emergencies, has rescued hikers who were truly lost and hurt—and he wants no part of this mockery. But he needs the money. He notices that Black Doctor seems genuinely concerned; this is
his
moment, thinks Tracker, taking a step backward.

The actor playing Abbas stumbles toward the ledge.

“Whoa!” says Air Force. “Careful, man.”

Black Doctor is walking forward, with purpose but also caution. Air Force follows his friend. He and Black Doctor reach the actor together. Air Force snags the young man’s arm to steady him, and Black Doctor says, “Have a seat, son.” The actor allows them to lower him onto the rock where he was sitting before, and Black Doctor kneels, looking into his eyes. “Can you tell me what happened?” he asks.

The actor is moving his head about dizzily. “I…I don’t know,” he says. “I…thank you.”

And then the on-site producer strides out of the woods, shouting, “Nice work! Everyone come this way!” and suddenly the actor portraying injured Abbas is standing, steady, his eyes clear. He wipes at his forehead with his sleeve and then walks toward the producer, asking, “Can I get a wet wipe?”

Air Force stiffens; Black Doctor stands and looks his way. “Well,” says Air Force, “I guess that answers that.”

17.

Brennan and I emerge from the woods mid-morning and skirt another town whose residents have been paid to vacate. From what I can see, this area is run-down and has been for a long time; we pass a decaying barn and a years-abandoned gas station with the pumps removed. The kind of place in desperate need of television money, the kind of place easily dressed for the show’s needs. As we walk, Brennan yammers about evacuations and bioterrorism, fast-acting transmittable cancer and other inanities, until I shush him.

I’m still days from home, but there are only so many ways to cross the river and we’re nearing the bridge my husband and I most often use, a crossing surrounded by woodland and small towns. The Army’s premier training ground for kids Brennan’s age is just north of here. I wonder briefly what would happen if I continued in that direction instead of crossing the bridge. Brennan would probably find a way to stop me, or there would be another bus blocking the path, this one with no way around. Or maybe they’d finally have to break scene—a producer stepping out from behind a tree, nodding his head east.

I could test them, but I’d rather just go home. I’m beginning to believe that’s my true destination, not just a direction, that they’ve actually done it: cleared a path for me all the way home.

“Let’s start looking for a place to spend the night,” I say to Brennan. “We’ll cross the river in the morning.” My announcement energizes him, and he jogs ahead.

Alone, I think about my impending homecoming. I imagine standing in front of the two-story, three-bedroom house we bought last summer. The half-acre plot has a gentle upward slope; the house will be above me. I’ll follow the steps cut into the lawn, which will be overgrown because I was always the one who mowed it—only fair, considering the length of my husband’s daily commute, an hour each way. A sacrifice he made for me so I could be close to a much-lower-paying job, the best I could find in my field. But also so we could live somewhere more conducive to raising a family. His commute wasn’t meant to be permanent. Kids would be the dividing line, we said. He’d pull in as much money as possible until I got pregnant, then start looking for work closer to home. I agreed to this. I said
later,
because
never
was too hard.

After I cross the overgrown lawn, I will stand on the woven welcome mat—a gift from my mother-in-law.
Home Sweet Home
is the Clue leading me home, but our mat has my husband’s surname stitched on it. Not mine. My mother-in-law never accepted that I didn’t change my name. We made a joke of it and Sharpied my name on there too—under his, but bigger. She’s come to visit only once since then, and she laughed unpleasantly. “I forgot,” she told me, “you’re
modern.
”

The front door will be closed, of course. It wouldn’t be the same if I weren’t allowed to open it. I blink, imagining the feel of the cold steel knob in my palm. The knob was our very first purchase as homeowners—or one of our first purchases. We got a cartful of knickknacks and cleaning supplies at Home Depot that day, including a window screen repair kit. That was our first official home repair, covering up a hole in what the realtor referred to as a sunroom but we simply call the porch. It overlooks the backyard, and that’s where I sit with my coffee every morning, watching deer and rodents nibble at my failed vegetable garden. Next year I’ll fence in the plot.

The front door of the house opens into a small niche, almost a hallway, with the living room to the right and a stairwell to the left. There’s a collage from our wedding on the wall. A stack of mail on the table under it. I’ll enter, step past those, turn right, and that’s where he’ll be, in the living room. Waiting. Smiling. The rest of my family will probably be there too, though I’d rather they weren’t. They might even drag in my coworkers, or some of the college friends I listed as character references.

There will be a banner strewn across the far wall, my husband centered beneath it. His black hair will be shaggy, needing a cut, because he always waits too long between haircuts—or maybe he’ll have just gotten one to greet me. Either way, he’ll have run a trimmer through his scruff, so his facial hair will be short, save for the spot on the underside of his jaw that he always misses. Will his penguin coloring be more pronounced, the white thicker? Maybe. His gray always seems to appear in batches. He’ll look tired, because he’ll have barely slept the night before, knowing I was coming home.

Standing beside him, my parents. My mom looking cranky because she’s not allowed to smoke inside the house and who are we to tell her what she cannot do? But once I enter, her frown will flip because she knows she has a role to fill: the Mother, the one who birthed me, raised me, guided me, made me who I am. My father will be maintaining a few inches more distance from her than one would expect a happy husband to. He’ll be smiling, though—if not a happy husband, a happy father at least—and I’ll be able to smell his maple scent from the doorway, if only in my mind.

For a moment, I’ll just stand there, looking. Taking in the sight of so many familiar faces, the face of the man I love. The person who taught me what it was to be honestly generous, to give without expectation or resentment. Whose steady demeanor and realism helped me to learn that attempting to achieve perfection with every decision is a sure path to unhappiness; that when it comes to choosing a house or a car or a television or a loaf of bread, good enough really is good enough. Whose cereal-slurping helped me learn that being irritated at someone isn’t the same as ceasing to love him, a distinction that I know should be obvious but which has always troubled me. Who taught me that together is better than alone, even if it’s sometimes harder, even if I sometimes forget.

I don’t know if they’ll have him in a suit, or if he’ll be wearing casual clothes, maybe jeans and the navy half-zip sweater I got him last Christmas. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he’ll be there. That he’ll step forward, and then I’ll step forward. We’ll meet in the center of the room and then I won’t be able to see him anymore because my face will be pressed into its remembered niche between his collarbone and chin. Everyone around us will cheer and clap. It’ll be like our wedding kiss, ringing support all around. A celebration of a connection both actual and symbolic. I’ll whisper some joking apology about how I must smell, but he won’t understand because—who am I kidding?—I’ll be crying too hard to make sense.

And then there will be some sort of announcement—I won! Or maybe I came in second, or third, or third-to-last. I don’t even care, I just want to be home. I just want to be able to say I didn’t quit.

We’ll celebrate, all of us, whoever is in the house. And then I’ll sign any last-minute paperwork, and the cameramen will leave—Brennan will leave, if he came in at all. When evening falls, it’ll be just the two of us, alone, together.

I’ll have to shower. At some point I will check my email. Within a matter of days I’ll be watching television, driving my car, shopping for groceries. Paying bills, using money, being lost in a crowd. Relieving myself in a toilet that refills after being flushed—that one at least is easy to imagine. The thought of never again having to use leaves as toilet paper is a delight. But going back to work? Sitting at a desk, answering email, prepping for an incoming school field trip? I know I will do these things, but I can’t quite envision it.

The idea of going back to work feels particularly alien. Before I left, my coworkers and I joked about how I could write about my experiences in our quarterly newsletter, use them to solicit donations. That seems impossible now, but maybe with some distance I’ll find the angle I need to manipulate my experiences for the betterment of the center. Rabies awareness, maybe. The shots they must have of my terror in the face of that frothing mouth—that’s a brochure cover, for sure.

I wonder if that Challenge has aired yet. I know the production schedule is tight, but I don’t know how tight. The scene must look ridiculous. Some lumbering, fur-covered remote-controlled animal bumping into my shelter, sticking its nose inside, cocking a plastic head, and with a press of a button releasing a recorded growl.

I think of my helpless, beseeching pose in the face of such obvious trickery and feel sick.