The Last One Read online

  “Are we—” A look of horror crosses his face.

  “It’s all right. You can talk. Just not so much, okay?”

  He nods rapidly. “Are we stopping here?” he asks. “For the night?”

  “Yes.”

  It seems the silence has done him good. He pauses for several seconds and then says, “Thanks, Mae.”

  “Go change.”

  The pantry is stocked with organic vegetarian canned soups and mac and cheese with animal-shaped noodles. I heat up a can of Tuscan bean and rice soup for myself, and then make the mac and cheese for Brennan, substituting a can of condensed milk for the dairy called for by the box. He polishes off the entire pot’s worth and then collapses on a couch with a sigh. Moments later, he’s snoring. The sound isn’t as annoying as it used to be. In fact, it makes the house feel a little less big.

  I toss a quilt over him, then wrap myself in another. The couches are too soft; I sit on the rug, facing the fire and holding a cup of herbal tea. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to sleep here. Although, I checked all the rooms, so it should be okay. I hope it will be okay.

  And if it’s not, if something happens tonight, it’ll be something new. Maybe they’ll pump locusts down the chimney or toss some timber rattlesnakes through the broken window. Send in remote-controlled bats with exaggerated fangs. Or maybe my marauders will make their debut.

  I know it’s useless to try to predict their depravity, but I can’t help trying. It makes sitting here, waiting, in this massive, ghostly house a little easier. I’m confident that whatever they do, they won’t do it until later. They’ll wait until I’m asleep—or nearly asleep—to strike. That’s how they do it; they blur the line between reality and nightmare. They give me bad dreams, and then they make them come true.

  The worst was the cabin. The too-blue cabin I can’t forget, no matter how hard I try.

  I found the cabin two days after Wallaby left me. I was following the last Clue given me. Look for the sign past the next creek, it said. I’d found a dry creek bed just hours from my camp, but there was no sign, so I kept walking, searching. I was beginning to fear I was off course, lost, and then there it was: a little brook babbling, You found me, you found me. Just downstream a culvert, a road, a driveway. And my sign, obvious, if unexpected: a swath of baby-blue balloons tied to a mailbox, dancing, drifting. I followed their driveway to a small single-story cabin, blue, with a stubby chimney. There were more balloons tied by the front door and a gray welcome mat. I remember bright fish swimming the mat’s perimeter, framing the words HOME SWEET HOME and smiling frozen cartoon smiles—though I didn’t yet recognize this as my next Clue.

  The front door wasn’t locked. The cabin was blue and unlocked—they couldn’t be more obvious than that. I stepped into a room awash in sky blue. Balloons littered the floor, a tower of blue-wrapped packages stood on the dining table; there was a blue couch, a blue chair. Throw pillows. Everything that was colored was blue. Everything. No, an exception—I remember a rug, the contrast of my gray-black handprint on the soft yellow after I opened the flue and built my fire. But everything other than that was blue, I remember.

  I kept to the living area, kitchen, and bathroom at first, leaving two doors that I assumed led to bedrooms closed. The electricity didn’t work, but there was running water—and a blue baby bottle in the sink. I assumed the tap water was safe to drink and filled my bottles without boiling it first, a mistake. There were granola bars and an open bag of cheese curls in the cupboard. I ate my fill, which was also maybe a mistake, but I think it was the water that made me sick. I found some Twinings Lady Grey Tea too and made myself a cup, thinking that was a nice touch.

  After finishing my tea, or maybe while I was still drinking it, I started to open the packages on the table. I expected food and a new battery for my mic pack, a Clue telling me where to go next. But the first item I unwrapped was a stack of picture books. One had a giraffe on its cover, another a family of otters. They all had animals on the covers, though on one it was just a teddy bear crushed to a little boy’s chest. When I peeled back the paper on the second package—small, soft—I found a row of tiny white and blue socks, six pairs marked NEWBORN.

  I remember tossing the socks onto the table and walking to the couch, suppressing—barely—an urge to stomp on one or all of their omnipresent balloons. Even now, I feel the sting of their message. I know I told them my reasons for coming. I told them when I applied and I told them again each round of the selection process. I told them in my first confessional. Again and again, I told them. I shouldn’t have been so surprised that they listened.

  After that I lay on the couch and failed to sleep for a long time. I was finally dozing when I heard it: a mewling cry. The sound pulled me toward full consciousness and my waking mind struggled to determine the direction of its source. Down the hall, behind a bedroom door.

  The only light came from the stars and moon, and was filtered through windows. I remember creeping down the hall, feeling my way, stepping softly in my socks—this was the last time I took off my boots to sleep. The sound was weak and animal-like. A kitten, I thought, and meant for me. They knew I would take care of it. I’m more of a dog person, but I’d never abandon an orphaned kitten. I’d never abandon any orphaned mammal, except maybe a rat.

  When I opened the bedroom door, the mewling stopped, and I stopped with it. A wall of arched windows framed a queen-size bed. Compared to the hallway, the dusky light there was luminous; the bedding reflected the dreamy blue-gray of night. There was a teddy bear on the dresser, one of those nanny-cams. I remember identifying the camera made me feel a little better, a little braver.

  But I was still startled when the crying resumed a few seconds later. It was louder, and I was able to identify the source as the mound of blankets on the bed. A hiccupy gulp interrupted the cry. Puzzled, I stepped toward the bed. The oblong shape beneath the blankets made me uncomfortable, but I’d come too far to stop, and they were watching, everyone was watching. I picked up the fabric and pulled it back.

  Given the chance, a fraction of a second will gladly feel like forever, and that is the kind of forever I experienced as I lifted and immediately dropped the blanket. The light-haired mother prop lying there with marble eyes, black-brown dripping down her latex face to stain the sheets beneath. And in her puffy, mottled arms, a doll swaddled in pale blue. Its lips puckered and frozen, waiting for the bottle by the sink. I barely saw, but I saw. The blanket drifting so slowly from my hand to cover the prop, the doll.

  It shames me to admit that their trick worked, that for the length of that forever I thought the props were real. And then the soundtrack looped back to its beginning and the cry sounded again and this time I heard it: a faint mechanical buzzing within the sound. At the same time they sprayed the smell through the vents, I think, or that’s when I noticed it, or maybe in my memory it’s just less important than the sound. Either way, this was my first experience of their rotting stench in close quarters and it permeated my being. I stood there, transfixed, a length of time that I know couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but every time I think about it, every time I remember, it feels longer, it feels like hours.

  Even though I knew it was fake, even though the doll was ridiculous-sounding, ridiculous-looking, it hit me, hard. I don’t know why: exhaustion, the poignancy of what that scene was intended to represent. It was like they knew the secret truth behind my confessionals, that this was their way of telling me that they knew I wasn’t really here for a pre-motherhood adventure, but because I don’t think I ever will be ready to have a child. I want to be ready, I want to do it—for him—I wish I could, but I can’t. I applied, I came, in order to delay not the inevitability of motherhood, but of telling my husband the truth.

  Standing in the too-blue cabin, I couldn’t stop thinking of myself in the prop’s place beneath the covers. The doll’s face was—is—seared into my memory, but my guilt grasped the image and warped it. I saw my husband’s chi
n, miniaturized and smoothed. I saw the little pug nose that flares so dramatically in photos of me growing up. I saw the divot on its flaking head pulsing.

  The doll’s soundtrack reached the cough—a tight, choking sound. I remember my stomach clenching, a visceral reaction.

  I panicked. I turned and ran out of the bedroom. I grabbed my pack and jump-shoved my feet into my boots. I stumbled out the front door, sliding on HOME SWEET HOME as balloons entangled my feet. I broke free and took the path of least resistance: the dirt driveway, which spilled onto a crackled asphalt road where my quivering legs poured me to the ground. Just off the side of the road I lay among last year’s leaves, mired in exhaustion and hate and dispersing adrenaline. They wanted me to quit, that much was obvious, and I wanted to, I wanted it to be over, but I couldn’t give them the satisfaction. I lay there, stewing, for a long time. Eventually, I sat up and took off my glasses. I remember my stomach roiling, caustic fluids riding between my throat and bowels like tides. I pinched my glasses between my fingers and stared at where I knew they were without seeing them, reminding myself over and over that the prop and the doll weren’t real, trying to figure out what I was supposed to do next, where I was supposed to go. Then an amorphous bubble of lighter space somewhere beyond my glasses caught my unfocused eye. An iridescent, dancing space that after a breathless moment I realized was the balloons, reflecting moonlight and skipping about the mailbox in the wind.

  That’s when I understood: The Clue wasn’t the picture books or the balloons, it was the welcome mat. Home Sweet Home. That’s the direction I had to go next. East.

  I also knew the creators of the show would love my panicked retreat, and I resolved from that moment on to be as boring as I could be. That would be my revenge. I kept to back roads and avoided houses. It was slow going at first; I got sick—the water, maybe the food but probably the water—and lost a day or two, maybe three but I don’t think so, shivering by a fire I was almost too weak to build, even with my fire starter.

  I feel the pinch of loss. Just a thing, but such a useful thing. I don’t know that I would have made it through those days of illness without the fire starter; they probably would have had to disqualify me, pull me for my own safety. As it was, I came distressingly close to saying the safety phrase; I think it was only the fact that they didn’t come for me, that they were confident enough to let me wait it out, that gave me the strength not to quit, that allowed me to believe I would be okay. And I was. I got better, and I knew where I had to go; I started walking and I found peanut butter and trail mix, their next prop, telling me I was still on track.

  Beside me, Brennan releases an especially loud snort and shifts on the couch. His arm flops over the side and his fingers twitch briefly into a fist before relaxing to graze the floor. He looks comfortable, at home on the plush cushions. He hasn’t screamed tonight.

  I stare at his dangling hand. Firelight bounces off the face of his wristwatch. Sleepless curiosity prompts me to check the time. Eight-forty-seven. I’ve spent so long operating by light, not hours, that I immediately feel as though I’ve just done something wrong. My face warms, and I realize why as I watch the digital seconds snap toward sixty—I hadn’t expected it to be a working watch. Which is stupid; there’s no reason for a camera watch not to also tell time.

  I put down my cold tea and lean toward Brennan’s hand, confronting the watch face unblinkingly. I know you’re there, I tell the producers with a look. I could steal the watch and smash it, but I won’t. I’ll let them record me, I’ll let them follow and document. That’s what I signed on for, after all. What I won’t do is let them break me. I won’t let them win.

  No matter what, I will go on. I will blow through their finish line, wherever it is, and I’ll bring this living prop of theirs with me so all can see my victory.

  14.

  The host runs a hand through his hair, ignoring the horizon framing his reflection as he preens into his mirror. An intern deposits a duffel bag at his feet; the host hands off the mirror and at the producer’s go-ahead presents himself to the contestants. “Last night was the last time we’ll be supplying you with meat,” he says, “but the winners of this next Challenge will be rewarded with cooking supplies, so I suggest you all try your best. Everyone ready?”

  The contestants stare at him. Zoo gives a halfhearted thumbs-up. Engineer manages a nod. Carpenter Chick wears a deep frown, and Waitress’s shoulders slump.

  “That’s the spirit,” says the host. “There was a bear here, right here, one hour ago. It’s your job to find it. This is a Solo Challenge, but advantages will be allocated based on the order you completed the last Team Challenge.” He picks up the duffel bag. “For our first- and second-place teams, we have a profile of your target.” He hands Ziploc bags to Tracker, Zoo, Black Doctor, and Banker. Each contains a hair sample and a laminated card profiling the black bear, including to-scale depictions of paw prints and scat. “For our third-place finishers, a less complete profile.” He hands Air Force and Biology a set of cards containing bullet points about black bear behavior. “And for fourth and fifth, here.” He tosses an orange whistle to each of the remaining contestants. “Maybe you can scare it out.”

  Waitress fumbles and drops her whistle. It clatters across the rock to settle at the host’s feet. He waits for her to retrieve it, then says, “Actually, there are two bears. Half of you will be pursuing one, half of you the other. I need the older member of each team to stand north of me, the younger south.”

  Some teams are able to split without speaking—Tracker is at least five years older than Zoo, Black Doctor has a decade on Banker, and Rancher is the oldest of them all—but others have to talk it out. Air Force is older than Biology by a matter of weeks, and everyone is surprised to learn Engineer has two years on Carpenter Chick. Waitress doesn’t want to say her age, but Exorcist—nearly forty—pretends to be unsure which of them is older. Finally, she says, “Fine! I’m twenty-two.”

  “So am I!” exclaims Exorcist.

  “No, you’re not,” says Rancher. He’s had enough of Exorcist. They all have. “Go on over,” he says to Waitress.

  Exorcist turns to the host. “It appears I am superfluous.”

  The host tells him, “Choose a group.”

  Exorcist considers his options. To the host’s left is the northern group, which consists of Tracker, Black Doctor, Rancher, Air Force, and Engineer. To the host’s right, the southern group, are Zoo, Banker, Waitress, Biology, and Carpenter Chick.

  “South,” says Exorcist. He’s smirking and staring directly at Waitress.

  “Great,” says the host. “You go to the north, then.”

  Waitress smiles for the first time today, and a shocked look falls over Exorcist’s face. Then he nods—“Should have seen that coming”—and moves to stand with the northern group.

  Chatter to the south:

  “I should have saved some of that chocolate,” says Carpenter Chick.

  Banker tells her, “I guess you’ll have to make do with bear.”

  “You think it’ll be a real bear?” asks Zoo.

  Carpenter Chick looks at her. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “He said they’re not giving us any more meat. And the deer tracks yesterday were man-made.”

  “The deer you ate wasn’t,” says Banker.

  “True, but…” Zoo trails off. She can’t believe that the show would have them track a real black bear. The species usually avoids people but can be dangerous if provoked. Besides, there weren’t any bears there an hour ago.

  “Is everyone ready?” calls the host.

  Zoo pulls out the identification card from her Ziploc bag, underwhelmed. It seems to her that winning a two-day-long Challenge should garner a greater prize. She was hoping for a cooking pot, or maybe some gorp. She looks at the bear track—which she already knows how to identify—and then around at the four other people assigned to the south. “If you find a track, don’t step on it,” she says. She doesn’t underst
and how this can work—five people tracking the same animal but not working together.

  The host shouts, “Go!” and the contestants scatter.

  Zoo hesitates, watching the mad scramble of her fellows. “This is going to be a disaster,” she says, and then she too begins to search.

  While Tracker was wandering earlier, the producers told him to avoid one area, and it is to that area that he now walks, inferring. Exorcist follows him. The others go their own ways. Tracker sees the trail almost immediately: crushed foliage lined with clumps of brown-black hair. There are two perfect prints in the earth. He knows a bear would never be so obvious, but he also knows they’re not tracking a real bear. Exorcist sticks close to him. “I’m no fool,” says Exorcist. “If there’s a shortcut, I’m going to take it.”

  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.