The Last One Read online

  “We could share,” he says.

  Rancher shakes his head. “Nah, we won, fair and square.”

  “It’s not like they’re starving,” says Biology. “It’s just a game.”

  Her last comment will be struck. The on-site producer will approach her later, remind her not to call their situation a game. “We’re trying to maintain a particular feel,” he’ll say, and his eyes will drift toward her chest.

  “Sure, sorry,” she’ll reply, too tired to call out his wandering gaze.

  As Tracker’s team digs in, Zoo and Engineer head to the river, fishing kit in tow. Carpenter Chick and Waitress sit by the ashy remains of their fire, poking still-hot coals with sticks.

  “Having a good time?” asks Carpenter Chick.

  The day is warm, but Waitress remembers the cold of last night. Smudged mascara accentuates the exhaustion under her eyes. “The best,” she replies, deadpan.

  Carpenter Chick’s lipstick has faded, but some of the eyeliner remains, giving her lids a smoky sheen. Her first impression of Waitress was rather contemptuous, but she’s beginning to pity the sad, beautiful girl. That’s how she thinks of her now—a girl, no matter that only two years separate them and Waitress is nearly a foot taller than she. “What do you think the next Challenge will be?” she asks.

  “I don’t know, but I hope it involves caffeine.” Waitress grinds her stick into an orange coal. “I’d kill for a skim cappuccino.”

  Carpenter Chick gave up caffeine a month earlier; it surprises her that another contestant didn’t think to do the same. She wonders if Waitress did anything to prepare.

  Zoo sits on a rock by the river, above a pool about a dozen yards from where Tracker crossed yesterday. Engineer crouches beside her. Behind his glasses, his eyes shine—he’s confusing respect for attraction. Zoo doesn’t acknowledge the look, but the editor dwells on it, a swell of music exaggerates it: infatuation. Viewers will notice, and Zoo’s husband will too, watching. He won’t blame the geeky young man—he understands his wife’s appeal—but he will be jealous of him. The simple envy of a man who misses his wife. Of course, by the time this first episode airs, almost a week will have passed since his wife jabbed a hook through a cricket and tossed it into the river. By the time Zoo’s husband sees this, the world will be on the cusp of great change.

  But for now—Zoo catches a fish! She tugs it from the water, winding the line around the handle. The eight-inch trout flops on land, gasping, while Zoo and Engineer cheer. Engineer moves to hug her. She gives him a high five instead, and then smacks the trout’s head against a rock. It takes her three strikes to kill it. For all her love of animals, for all her work with animals, she feels little remorse. She is comfortable in her knowledge that humans are omnivores and that securing reliable sources of protein is what allowed the species to evolve its current intelligence. She will not kill to kill, but she will kill to eat, and she sees little difference between the eyes of a dead fish and a live one.

  “Crickets,” she says to Engineer. “Good call.”

  Exorcist and Black Doctor are walking to check Air Force’s snares. If any animals are near, Exorcist scares them away with his prattling.

  “Last true demon I saw was about a year ago,” he says. “It was inhabiting this sweet little girl, eight, nine years old. The day I arrived, I waited for her on the front stoop of her house. The girl was at school, where the demon mostly left her alone. Anyway, I was waiting out front of her house with her mom when the girl got off the school bus. She took a few steps and then—BAM!” He smacks his hand against a tree trunk. Black Doctor jumps. “I saw it enter her,” says Exorcist, “right there in the driveway. Her whole body shuddered, and then she—she grew. Not so you’d notice if you weren’t looking, but I was looking. I took a step toward her”—he crouches slightly and edges forward as he speaks—“and the demon roars. It takes this girl’s body and commands her to exhibit its rage. She stomps”—he stomps—“to her mom’s car, a giant SUV—an Escape, I think, something like that, anyway, a big car—and with her tiny little hands she grabs the underside of the vehicle, right under the driver’s door, and wham, flips it upward.” He throws his hands into the air. “The SUV somersaults through the air, then lands with a crunch on its roof, right in the same exact spot where it’d been parked.” He holds his index finger and thumb about an inch apart. “Not this far from where the girl stood. And she didn’t move. The demon didn’t let her move. I’ll tell you, that was a humdinger of a job there. Four days to get the demon gone, and more vomit than I care to recall.” Exorcist pauses. “A scorpion crawled out of her throat, I shit you not. That was the demon, making its escape.” He smashes his boot against the earth, grinding a leaf with his heel. “I crushed it dead.”

  “You killed a demon,” says Black Doctor, flatly. He’s having a hard time deciding just how much of his own story Exorcist believes. The fact that he might believe any of it makes Black Doctor uneasy.

  “Well, no.” Exorcist laughs. “I don’t have nearly that kind of power. I simply interrupted its manifestation. Demon’s back in Hell, probably planning its next trip Earthside.”

  Black Doctor doesn’t know what to say. Exorcist is used to this reaction and takes comfort in the silence.

  They reach the first of Air Force’s deadfall traps. It’s triggered but empty.

  “Maybe the wind set it off,” says Exorcist.

  Black Doctor glances at him and replies, “Or a demon.”

  As Tracker’s team finishes their lunch, the host approaches. “In addition to this grand meal,” he says, standing at the head of the picnic table, “you get an advantage going into the next Challenge.” He pulls four maps from a pack. As soon as he sees the maps, Tracker fills his Nalgene from a water pitcher. The host continues, “I said it takes place tomorrow, and technically it does. The start time is twelve-oh-one a.m. Your advantage is a head start in daylight, and these—just in case.” He hands each of them a flashlight. Tracker looks at his. It’s more cumbersome than the flashlight he won in the first Challenge, and he won’t use either—in his experience, with his skills, artificial light only disrupts night vision. He hands it back. The host stares at the flashlight for a second, then jokes, “Aren’t we the confident one,” before returning to his script. “Remember, this is a Solo Challenge. That doesn’t mean you can’t cooperate, but there will be rewards corresponding to the order in which you finish.” With that, he distributes the maps and says, “Good luck.”

  Rancher unfolds his map and addresses Tracker, “What do you think—”

  But Tracker is already moving, wrapping three leftover chicken breasts in a wad of paper napkins.

  “We should stick together, at least at first,” says Banker.

  Tracker stuffs the chicken and his Nalgene into his backpack, then pulls on the pack and wraps the lanyard of his compass around his left wrist. He opens his map and considers it briefly. He looks at his team and without a word leaves them.

  “Wait!” calls Banker. But Tracker’s gone. The fittest cameraman scuttles to follow.

  What will the rest of the team do? They’ve gotten on well until now. Banker wants to cooperate. Rancher’s torn; he’d assumed they would move on together, but with their leader gone his assumptions are shattered. Biology tops off her water bottle, then declares her independence: “Good luck, boys.” By the time she disappears into the trees Rancher and Banker are filling their packs, splitting the leftover food between them. They further weigh themselves down with plastic flatware and paper plates. Soon little more than the potato salad remains on the table, and the mayo-based dish is already looking a little off.

  Partners for now, Rancher and Banker follow their maps and former teammates toward the waypoint. They’re moving east. No one from the other two teams realizes they’re on the move. They’re busy roasting a fish and some Queen Anne’s lace root, dropping iodine into bottles filled with river water. Many viewers will laugh: The chumps don’t know what’s waiting for the
m.

  Carpenter Chick walks into camp, tightening the knot of her yellow bandana around her hair, no mention made of where she’s been, no footage taken: female maintenance. Zoo takes a careful bite of roasted root. She chews, considering, then says, “Could use a little seasoning, but other than that, not bad.” She offers the root to Engineer to taste.

  Exorcist tells his teammates ridiculous tale after ridiculous tale with the air of total belief. He waves his green bandana for effect as he begins the umpteenth, “I don’t specialize in ghosts, but I’ve met a few. I was in Texas a few years ago—”

  “Shut up!” bursts Cheerleader Boy. “My God, I can’t take it. Just shut up.”

  “He’s my God too,” Exorcist replies, straight-faced. “More mine than yours, I suspect.”

  Is this a gay slur? No one’s sure—not Cheerleader Boy, not the producers, not the editor. Cheerleader Boy errs on the side of offense. “I don’t want anything to do with you or your God,” he says. “Get away from me.”

  Exorcist doesn’t move; he watches Cheerleader Boy intensely. Without his smile, he’s a little frightening. Black Doctor and Air Force both stand. Air Force’s ankle gives as Black Doctor moves to intervene, but intervention isn’t necessary. Cheerleader Boy sighs, says, “Whatever,” and moves to the far side of their camp.

  The editor will twist the moment. For all viewers will know, Exorcist hasn’t spoken since his walk with Black Doctor much earlier in the day. Why did Cheerleader Boy explode like that, out of nowhere? What a huffy, irrational, hateful atheist. The spin declares that this—not his sexuality—is his fatal flaw. A politician can’t win the American presidency without declaring himself a God-fearing man, and a vocal nonbeliever can’t be put forth as a viable contender on a program striving for widespread popularity among the citizens of one nation under God. It’s just good marketing sense.

  Tracker consults his compass, then eyes a pair of boulders indicated by solid triangles on his map. He’s on course and making remarkable time. His once-teammates are far behind. Biology stands below the more southerly of a pair of small cliff faces, thinking she’s at the northern one. Banker and Rancher have drifted apart; Rancher is ahead. In fact, he’s ahead of Biology too, though neither knows it. Viewers will know. They’ll be shown a map with funky little symbols: four-legged rakes that have lost their handles stand in for cliffs, and Rancher’s bumblebee dot chugs along, passing the northern cliff as Biology’s orange dot meanders to the south. Banker’s back a ways, about to cross a stream marked by a squiggling line.

  Back at the camps, Black Doctor asks, “How’s your ankle?”

  “Better,” says Air Force. He doesn’t think he’ll need the walking stick for much longer. He plans to be back in the game, soon. Cheerleader Boy sulks on the opposite side of the fire.

  Zoo has enlisted her teammates in attempting to filter water. She’s read about it, watched online how-tos, but never tried it. Carpenter Chick helps her set up a tripod of sticks, from which three bandanas hang like stacked hammocks: maroon with brown stripes, neon yellow, and light blue. Nearby, Engineer is grinding charcoal to ash. This could have been Waitress’s role, but she objected to getting her hands all black, so Zoo asked her to fill their bottles with water from the river instead. That’s where she is now. Kneeling, Waitress swears softly; the rocks hurt her knees. “Let’s see Miss I’ve-Got-an-Idea carry her own stupid water for her own stupid filter,” she mutters. Her violet bandana holds back her hair.

  Zoo drops handfuls of dirt into the yellow bandana, then she and Carpenter Chick join Engineer in grinding charcoal—they need a lot. When Waitress reappears with their bottles hanging heavily from her fingers, the others take handfuls of fine black ash and pile it into Zoo’s blue bandana.

  “So, how’s this work?” asks Waitress, putting down the Nalgenes. Her face glistens with sweat and her bra has darkened between her breasts.

  “You pour the water into the top bandana, and it filters down through the layers. Each one gets out more junk,” says Zoo. “At least, that’s the theory.”

  “Most of the water filters you can buy are charcoal-based,” Engineer adds.

  Zoo pours about a third of a Nalgene into Engineer’s empty striped bandana. The water immediately starts dripping through to the middle tier, where it dampens the dirt.

  “It’s just making it wet,” says Waitress.

  “Give it time,” says Engineer, as Zoo pours in more water.

  Soon liquid drips through the lowest point of the yellow bandana, plopping into the charcoal below. Carpenter Chick pours a second Nalgene’s contents into the top bandana. The drips coalesce into a thin, steady stream.

  “What happens once it goes through the charcoal?” asks Waitress.

  “We drink it,” says Zoo.

  “From what?”

  Zoo laughs, a loud, surprised laugh—there’s no container under her bandana. “I forgot,” she says, and she tucks an empty bottle under the bottom tier; there’s not enough room for it to fit without impacting the bandana, so she digs a hole. The first few drips of clear water strike dirt, but the editor cuts them away. As far as viewers will know she finishes just in time to catch the first drop.

  Three miles away, Tracker reaches a brown log cabin, where the host—having been treated to a journey via four-wheeler on an old logging road—waits.

  “That was fast,” says the host, awe unfeigned. Tracker traversed the heavily wooded miles in only sixty-four minutes. Rancher, the nearest contestant, is more than a mile distant. The host sweeps his arm toward the log cabin. “As the winner, the master bedroom is yours,” he says to Tracker. “Last door on the left.”

  Tracker enters to find a small but lavish bedroom: a queen-size bed thick with quilts and pillows, an en suite bathroom with a standing shower, a bowl of fruit on the nightstand. Two windows, both of which he opens.

  Back in the field, eight contestants are preparing for nightfall: busy work and atmosphere.

  Rancher breaks the tree line, sees the cabin and the host waiting. He’s welcomed and directed to a room across the hall from Tracker’s. A pair of twin beds with thin blankets and pillows, more fruit. A shared bathroom in the hall. Banker arrives a few seconds—twenty-two minutes, really—later. He gets the bed across from Rancher’s.

  “She left before us,” Rancher tells Tracker. “I don’t know where she is.”

  Biology knows that she’s off track and is trying to determine how far off. She sees a stream and beelines for it. She studies the features nearby: a cluster of boulders, the crumbled remains of a man-made wall. With her finger she searches the map, consulting the key at intervals. She finds the dotted line of the run-down wall, one of only two marked. The symbols match her surroundings. “Here I am,” she says, exhaling with relief as she glances at the camera. She consults her compass to determine her next move. Northeast, to a marshy area—thin, tightly etched lines—that she should be able to follow to a thicket and boulder cluster. From there, a wooded but relatively flat half mile due east to the finish. She might make it before nightfall.

  Carpenter Chick crawls into her corner of her team’s lean-to. “Good night,” she says. It’s more crowded tonight; Waitress has joined them. One by one, Air Force’s team also trickles into their shelter. The cameramen chatter over their radios about needing better overnight footage and settle in.

  The shadows around Biology are morphing into night. She has the flashlight in her hand. “It can’t be far,” she says. She wants to run, but knows that between the encroaching dark and her weary legs she’d probably hurt herself.

  Exorcist snores. Cheerleader Boy lies awake in the dark, his face tight with loathing. In the other camp, Engineer is the one who is still awake. The warmth around him, the softness at his back—he decides his luck is definitely good.

  Biology sees light through the trees. Like a moth, she hurries toward it. The host is there to greet her, as though he’s been standing at attention for hours instead of reading comment thr
eads on his smartphone.

  “You made it,” he says. “Welcome. You’re our fourth-place finisher, which gives you your choice of beds here.” He opens the front door to reveal the log cabin’s main room, which the editor will have hidden from viewers until now. The room is crammed tight with bunk beds—no pillows, a sheet each. Six beds total, leaving room for five more finishers, leading to the question: Where are the last three to sleep?

  The men emerge to congratulate Biology on her arrival. All three are freshly showered. Banker’s chest is bare, his shirt laid out by the fireplace, drying from a recent hand-washing. He clearly makes time for the gym, but Biology is far less impressed by his physique than the average female viewer will be. She collapses onto the bottom bunk nearest the fire. Tracker frowns. Judgmental jerk, bigoted viewers will think, assuming that he is scornful of Biology’s relative weakness. Another misinterpretation. Tracker feels bad about Biology’s exhaustion, her clear struggle. He is forcefully reminding himself that he’s here for the money and that helping these people will only slow him down.

  The window behind Tracker shows a setting sun. At the camps the sky is dark and the moon is high. Our narratives are out of sync.

  A roaring blare rips through the camps—a sound like fear itself, loud and hard and everywhere. Contestants become a tangle of confused, waking limbs. Waitress yelps; Air Force is on his feet, injury forgotten; Exorcist freezes, tense and waiting.

  “Good evening!” comes the host’s voice, amplified. “I need everyone in the center of the field, double time! Bring your gear. You have three minutes.”