The Last One Read online

  I know this story. Everyone knows this story. There are no Clues here. “Was there a food shortage?” I ask. “Did some guy with a scar on his face hoard the water?”

  He shakes his head, for all appearances taking me seriously. “No, there was always plenty of food—the sick people wouldn’t eat. And the faucets ran. Some people didn’t want to drink the city water regular like that, but I just kept filling up our bottles at the faucets. I mean, the bathroom sink water’s the same as the kitchen sink, right?”

  “Right,” I say, emphasizing the word with a swing of my fist.

  I remember watching a show with a similar premise on the Discovery Channel, years ago. It was billed as an experiment; people who “survived” a simulated flu outbreak had to build a little community before finding a way to safety. They got to do cool stuff like wire up solar panels and build cars. All I get to do is walk endlessly and listen to a rambling kid tell a bullshit story. Plus, they knew what they were getting into. They didn’t know how hard it would be, maybe, but they knew the premise. But this, this was supposed to be about wilderness survival.

  I glance at Brennan, who’s still blathering about his little made-up church.

  The contestants on the Discovery Channel show were contained: X number of city blocks in season one and a section of bayou in season two, if I remember right. I’ve already covered the equivalent of hundreds of city blocks. Thousands, maybe. And I’m not the only contestant. How do they do it? How do they clear the way?

  The answer is as obvious as the question: money. Reality shows are famously cheap to make, but this one has a blockbuster’s budget. They made that clear in the application process, called this an opportunity to participate in a “groundbreaking entertainment experience.” An opportunity. They could empty hundreds of homes, repair and reimburse dozens of outdoor gear stores, and it’d be a drop in the bucket for them. It’s exorbitant, but it makes sense. The how of it all makes sense.

  “When there was no one left but me,” says Brennan, “I started walking.” This isn’t his best performance; there’s a matter-of-factness to his tone that is out of sync with the story he’s telling. I’m not sure why I find this incongruity irritating, but I do.

  There was supposed to be a third season of the pandemic show, but it was canceled before any episodes aired. All that cool stuff the cast got to build? They also had to protect it. One of the season three contestants—experimentees?—was hit in the head by a fake marauder during a fake attack and died, which I suppose means the attack wasn’t so fake after all. At least that’s the explanation a particular cluster of websites provided for the cancelation. Grain of salt. And yet our contract was very clear about not hitting anyone in the head.

  Is that why they’re airing our episodes so quickly? In case someone dies?

  I doubt that’s their primary concern, but it makes sense that they would anticipate the possibility of a production-halting accident. I think of how sick I got. That was close, not to stopping the show, but my role in it. And they’ve already populated this pretend world with a handful of dead-body props, a screeching baby doll, an interactive cameraman. A marauder isn’t such a far next step. In fact, I’m surprised all I’ve had to fend off so far is a bout of beaver fever and an animatronic coyote.

  And this prattling boy, no matter his pretending, is on their side. Their side, not mine. I can’t forget that.

  “I wanted to get away,” he says, swinging his plastic bags at his side. “Go somewhere I’ve never been before. And then I found you.”

  Like our meeting was fate. But it wasn’t fate, it was casting.

  “So,” I say, “I take it your mother’s dead?”

  He breathes in sharply and nearly trips.

  “I mean, she must be,” I reason. “The two of you jammed into a church with hundreds of others, everyone coughing and puking and shitting their pants. You’re clearly a mama’s boy, and you’re here and she’s not. So that means she’s dead, right?”

  He doesn’t answer. I’d thought to prod him into putting some emotion into his performance, but this is even better. Silence.

  As we walk, thoughts of my family slide forward in my consciousness. The family I chose and the family I was born to. My indifference toward the latter. My fear that if I have a child she will someday feel that same indifference toward me.

  Odd how my dreams are always about a baby boy, but the possibility of having a girl is what scares me most. A daughter: It seems impossible to raise one well.

  “Everyone you know is dead too,” says Brennan.

  I turn to him, surprised. His face is so close to mine, his eyes are red, and tears are trickling down his scrunched-up cheeks. Snot runs from his nostrils over his lips. He must be able to taste it.

  “Your family,” he says. “Your rafting friends. They’re floating down the river. Fish are probably eating their faces right now.”

  “That’s…excessive,” I say. There’s something in his voice I can’t quite define. It’s not malice. I don’t think he’s trying to hurt me. I don’t know what he’s trying to accomplish.

  “Facts are facts,” he mumbles. He shifts his plastic bags to the crooks of his elbows and crosses his arms. The watch face winks at me.

  He’s sulking, I realize. The thought is laced with amazement. Then again—why not? He’s probably homesick. He probably didn’t know what he was signing up for either. I feel a little sorry for him, but mostly I’m thankful that he’s being quiet again.

  What if my mother were dead? It’s a question I’ve pondered before; she’s only fifty-six but looks much older, mostly because of her skin. Forty miles each way twice a week to maintain her out-of-season hue, puffing on carcinogens all the way. Winter, summer, that deep tan is always out of season in Vermont when it lacks the sharp line of a farmer’s sleeve. Factor in her diet—a typical meal being frozen waffles topped with sausage patties doused in syrup and followed by a maple creamie—and she’s pretty much guaranteed an early grave.

  She is dead.

  I think the words, to see how they make me feel. They don’t have any effect I can discern. They should make me feel bad, I want them to, but they don’t. I remember when I got into Columbia and she lumbered all over town, bragging: It was her accomplishment, not mine. But anytime I fail—losing that derby when I was eight, not getting the Wildlife Conservation Society job two years ago—she gets this air about her like she knew I wouldn’t make it, like it was reckless of me even to try. And still I tried, for years I tried so hard. I remember my wedding day, how joyful I felt. How lucky. I remember my mother leaning in to kiss my cheek at the reception. “You look beautiful,” she said. “Just like me when I was young.” Her past: my present. Her present: my future. Like a curse. The worst part is I’ve seen the photos; I know she was happy once too.

  My dad, though. That’s harder. We’re not close—somewhere in my adolescence we lost our ability to communicate, and I don’t think he understands why I worked so hard to get away from a place he loves so dearly. But I can’t think of him without a buzz of warm nostalgia, without imagining the sweet aroma of baking cinnamon and maple. Always maple.

  “Is it possible to have a bad childhood memory about baking?” I wonder.

  “What?” says Brennan.

  “Never mind,” I say, and I think, These thoughts aren’t for you.

  My dad and I shared eighteen years, but baking is pretty much all I remember. When I was little, I would help him in his shop before school. My specialty was mushing bananas for the maple banana bread. That, and sprinkling the maple sugar on top of the batter once it’d been poured into the loaf pans. I want to remember something else, something not about food, but all that comes to me is my fourth-grade birthday—whatever age that was. It was a dolphin-themed party, my favorite animal at the time, though I wouldn’t see one in person for years yet. My dad baked the cake, of course—dolphin-shaped, slathered in maple buttercream—and there was a piñata. Again, dolphin-shaped. Most of my clas
s was there. David Moreau gave me a kite. We flew it together that weekend. Or was that fifth grade? I’m not sure. I remember my dad presenting the dolphin cake, and my mom gnawing on a thumbnail as she poured orange soda from a can into a clear plastic cup.

  And then I have it—my dad cheering in the bleachers. It’s high school, a track meet my freshman year, long before I made captain. Was it my first meet? In my memory it has all the intensity of a first. I remember the gurgling nerves in my stomach, the slight pain as I stretched my hamstring. I remember my father yelling my name, waving. The meet wasn’t at our home track; it was in another town a half hour’s drive from my high school. Dad closed the shop early to come, to see me.

  “Mae, I’m sorry.”

  I blink. The race is gone; I don’t remember how I ran, if I placed.

  “It’s hard to think about her,” says Brennan. “I miss her. And…and I just miss her.”

  It takes me a moment to realize who he’s talking about.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m sure she’s watching.”

  “I know,” he says. He crosses himself; the bag hanging from his arm thwaps his chest.

  My cheeks immediately begin to sizzle. That’s not what I meant. Even if I believed his mother was dead I never would have meant it that way. What’s worse—now that he’s distorted my words they’ll probably air them. The thought of contributing, even mistakenly, to the meaningless spirituality that so pervades American media sickens me.

  After a few more steps, Brennan starts rambling about his stupid fish, how he brought it to the church in its bowl, but then a neighbor’s cat ate it. He was in the bathroom filling water bottles when it happened.

  “It was just a fish,” I blurt. “They’re meant to be eaten.”

  “But—”

  “Please, just—please stop talking for five minutes.”

  He looks at me, bug-eyed, but doesn’t even last a minute before he starts telling me about his brother and the first time they rode the subway alone together. He yammers about all the rats they saw and how that must be what the entire subway system is now: rats. “I hate rats,” he says, and with this at least I can’t disagree. It’s part of my job to hold up rats, talk about how the stigma’s wrong—they’re actually very clean animals—and I do it. I smile to allay the class’s squirmy fears, but inside I’m cringing too; I’ve never been able to stand how their naked tails feel resting on the inside of my arm. So I just stand there, smiling, and pretend an open-mindedness I’ve never felt, hoping it will become true.

  That night, after Brennan’s crawled into his rickety wind tunnel, I don’t even try to sleep. I keep the fire bright and sit in its quietly crackling company. My thoughts wind back to the first day of filming, after all the contracts were signed and our final phone calls home made—a slew of I-love-yous and good-lucks, all real but nothing new. I remember walking to the field where the first Challenge started and not being scared, not anymore. I was happy, excited; I know that’s how I felt, but the memory is like faded sweetness in the back of my throat—a reminder, not a taste. I want to feel that way again. I want to know I can feel that way again.

  A great horned owl calls somewhere off in the dark. I close my eyes to listen. To me, the great horned owl has always sounded mildly aggressive, its call an almost guttural hur hur-hur hurrrrr hur-hur as opposed to the inquisitive hoo commonly attributed to its kin. I don’t think they look wise either. Vexed is more like it, what with their sharply turned-down brows and extended ear tufts.

  Cooper was kind of like that at first. Standoffish. I don’t know what drew me to him so strongly from the start. No—I do. His air of almost freakish competence. The way he scanned each of us, assessing without looking for allies, because from the moment he leapt into that tree it was clear he didn’t need anyone but himself. I bet his entire adult life has been like that: needing no one, being needed by no one—existing without apology and accomplishing wonders. I’d never been around someone so supremely independent before and was fascinated. At first I thought it was odd that they’d cast someone who barely spoke, but his actions were enough, louder than words, as it were. And those of us who lacked his skills filled the silence.

  If I could pick any of them to work with again, it’d be Cooper, no question. Heather would be my last choice; I’d even take Randy over her.

  Would Cooper pick me?

  The owl calls again. Another answers, farther away. A conversation: calls back and forth. It’s not mating season, so I don’t know what they’re communicating, if their calls are cooperative or competitive. I close my eyes. Listening to these familiar sounds, I can almost pretend I’m camping, for just one night. That tomorrow morning I’ll toss my supplies into the back of my Outback and drive home, where my husband will be waiting, his signature bacon-and-chive scramble sizzling on the stove while the scent of freshly brewed coffee wafts down the hall to greet me. I can almost smell it.

  Almost.

  12.

  Zoo opens her eyes to find a dark, blurred figure blocking dawn’s light at the mouth of her and Tracker’s shelter. For a second she forgets where she is, who she slept next to. She reaches for her glasses. Memory and vision resolve. She sees her teammate crouching, facing away from her, the skillet at his side.

  “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.�
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  “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.