The Last One Page 16

  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 clacks. 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.

  Lesson of the day: Contour lines can be deceptive when elevation gain occurs in the form of a cliff at the end of a wooded plateau.

  “How do we get up that?” asks Carpenter Chick.

  “An elaborate system of pulleys?” replies Engineer.

  Carpenter Chick is silent for a second, then adds, “And maybe a lever.”

  Suddenly they’re both doubled over laughing. Carpenter Chick hiccups and says, “Next time let’s take the trail.”

  On the trail, Air Force is grimacing. The incline is agony on his ankle. He is moving by force of will and a drummed-in sense of teamwork—he cannot let his partner down.

  “The trail looks different up here,” says Biology.

  “You’re right,” Air Force replies. They pause, standing together nine feet before the trigger point. What Biology and Air Force are noticing is subtle: disturbed earth and upturned stones still shaded with the ground’s moisture. In their place, many others would have kept walking, oblivious.

  “Look at that,” says Biology. She walks a few steps forward, pointing at the Styrofoam boulder that menaced Zoo and Tracker. It’s lodged between two pine trees just below the trail.

  “You think that’s what fell?” asks Air Force. “A rock that size should have made a lot more noise. And caused more damage.”

  Biology glances uphill, then approaches the boulder. “I guess,” she says. She’s uneasy, but experience has taught her to breathe through unease and channel fear into motivation. By any measure she’s a remarkable woman, yet other than this moment and a plethora of dehumanizing shots featuring her physique, she won’t get much airtime. Too quiet, the editor will say. She was more outgoing in her interviews, where she didn’t need to breathe through unease or channel fear. But even she knows she wasn’t cast for her personality.

  Biology’s foot breaks the plane between a stump and a tree with a fake beehive dangling from an upper branch, and their cameraman sends his signal. Biology peers at the boulder. The painted Styrofoam has been chipped and dented in places, revealing white, pebbly patches. “I don’t think it’s real,” she says, just as the warning rustle comes. When Biology hears this she has no trouble imagining what’s coming. “Hurry!” she says, taking Air Force’s arm. He dashes along as best he can.

  The producers don’t intend to actually hit anyone with the fake boulders, no matter the waivers signed. There’s plenty of warning, warning enough for even slow-moving Air Force and Biology to clear the perilous area. They are almost fifty feet ahead when the boulder careens across the trail; they don’t see it, though they hear it. Their cameraman records the boulder’s passing. It makes it farther than the first, past the previous curve of the switchback, before getting stuck against the upended roots of a long-fallen tree.

  Well out of earshot, their laughing fit concluded, Carpenter Chick and Engineer work together to solve their forty-foot problem. The answer is simple if arduous: They pull themselves up a steep slope littered with leaves, fallen branches, and downed trees. Engineer slips and slides downslope, kicking up a dark trail in the leaf litter. Carpenter Chick helps him and they clamber slowly uphill. They are nearly to the summit.

  But they are not the first to finish the final leg of this Challenge. Tracker and Zoo crest a slope and see the host ahead, waiting on an exposed rock slick, green mountains spread behind him. There are signs of civilization in the background: roads, cars turned by perspective into toys zipping soundlessly along, clusters of buildings. The contestants will see these, but the viewer will not—each shot will be either cut to exclude them or blurred to obscure them.

  The host welcomes Tracker and Zoo imperiously. “You are the first to arrive,” he says. “Congratulations.”

  “What now?” asks Zoo. She’s looking past the host, admiring the view.

  The host’s voice turns conversational. “We wait for the others. You can relax.”

  Zoo sits by the host. Tracker gives her a little wave, then disappears into the woods.

  “He’s not tired?” asks the host.

  “I don’t think he gets tired,” says Zoo.

  Twelve minutes later, Black Doctor and Banker emerge from the trees to the west of the trail. They have leaves and prickers stuck in their hair. They accept their overbearing greeting, then sit beside Zoo, who is lying in the sun with her eyes closed. Out of sight, Tracker is being shooed away from the production camp. Air Force and Biology appear moments later to accept third place. It’s another forty-five minutes before Engineer and Carpenter Chick slink into the mountaintop clearing from the east—they’ve been wandering the wooded mountaintop for the last half hour, but they ran into Tracker moments earlier and he pointed them in the right direction.

  Below, the trio lurches disconnectedly up the trail.

  “How much farther is it?” whines Waitress. She feels sick. Despite the dryness of her mouth, she hasn’t taken a sip of water in more than an hour. Her calorie-deprived body is too tired for her to want to lift the bottle, and she’s shuffling her steps. Instead of leaving footprints on the trail, she leaves scuffs.

  Rancher is right behind her, stealing quasi-accidental glances at her rear end. “Can’t be far now. You can do it.”

  “I need a break,” she replies, bending over and placing her hands on her knees. Her jacket hem slips up past her waist. Rancher catches himself staring and jerks his gaze out to the trees. Exorcist is ahead, tromping noisily, but staying within sight of his teammates. He notices that they’ve stopped and doubles back.

  “You hurt?” he barks.

  “I just need a second,” Waitress replies.

  “Drink some water,” suggests Rancher, before taking a sip of his own. Waitress nods and takes one of her bottles from her pack. She holds the water in her mouth for a moment before swallowing, enjoying the sensation of the liquid against her dry tongue and the inside of her mouth. This is a nothing moment, but it will be manipulated into great sensuality as the camera pans up from her slick, pulsing chest to pursed lips and eyes narrowed in pleasure. And then she swallows and the narrative segues clumsily to the future—they’re a mile farther up the trail and the sun has passed its peak. They pass the second faux boulder, the one that rolled farther. None of the three notice it, or the first. Their cameraman hangs back. Exorcist is in the midst of a ranting, circuitous monologue that will be played only in snippets: �
�His blood was blue—blue!—and tasted kind of metallic,” “My mother had warned me against girls like her, but I liked the way she smelled, so I married her anyway,” “And that was the first time I ate lizard meat!”

  The cameraman thumbs the trigger.

  Neither Exorcist nor his teammates hear the warning rumbles over his chatter, and they’re moving slowly. A pebble rolls into Waitress’s foot. She glances to the side, but is too worn out to actually process what’s happening.

  It’s Rancher who figures it out first, but he does so far later than the previous teams. There is barely time for him to shout, “Watch out!” before the Styrofoam boulder bounces down onto the trail between him and Waitress. He jumps backward, out of the boulder’s path, and Waitress turns, confused. Exorcist turns too, a safe distance ahead; he is a background figure as the cameraman films the boulder striking a thick trunk and ricocheting up, back onto the trail, where it catches the upper bank and then begins to bounce and roll downward. Rancher turns to run away, and then rational thought strikes and instead of running down the trail, he leaps off it, pulling himself by slender trunks up and out of the boulder’s path. The boulder smacks his foot as it passes. Rancher’s expectant brain screams that his foot is broken before sensation settles in: the blow barely hurt. He clings to the slope, befuddled.

  This leaves the cameraman filming the boulder as it rolls straight at him. This man is so accustomed to being invisible that he spends several seconds just watching the gray-brown sphere grow larger in his view screen. And then Rancher shouts, “Move!” and the cameraman finally recognizes the danger. He panics, dropping his camera. Fight and flight fall to a third option: freeze. Scared and dumb, he watches the boulder, and only when it’s about to strike does he react, scrambling away. But it’s too late. The boulder smashes into him, full on, knocking him to the ground then teetering to the side of the trail to roll to a rest. Rancher pushes past the boulder, coming to help. Waitress is right behind him, her mouth gaping. Exorcist is motionless in the background.

  The cameraman is swearing and biting his bottom lip. “I think I broke my tailbone,” he says. He pinches his eyelids shut as Rancher helps him to his feet. When he reaches for his radio, he notices pain in his wrist too.