Mack nods. It’s an easy promise to make. She doesn’t anticipate having to break it.
The driver gets back in and slowly steers the bus into the park. The road is bumpy and cracked. Several times he has to carefully maneuver them around debris too hard to make out in the quickly deepening dark. It looks like this road isn’t part of the original park design—several of the pathway walls have been demolished, still sitting in rocky piles where the road was widened. The driver takes a few turns that seem random. Between his agonizingly slow speed and the winding road, it’s hard to say how far they’ve actually gone when they arrive at last.
“This is your stop,” Linda says. “I’ll stay with you until the start time in the morning. I will not be back until sunset.”
“Who gets us out?” the intern asks.
Linda laughs. “Certainly not me! Can you imagine, a woman my age clambering around in kitten heels. It’s all part of the game. You’ll find out.”
“Not me,” the guy sitting next to the prank girl blusters, standing. “I don’t intend to find out at all.”
The writer rolls his eyes. “Bully for you.”
“No way that dude makes it past the first two days,” Ava says, her observation covered by the noise of everyone gathering their things and getting off the bus.
“Which one?” Mack asks, as if she knows their names anyway.
“Both. All, actually. I don’t like the odds of any of the dudes.”
“What about LeGrand?”
Ava turns to evaluate him, still haunting the very back of the bus. “LeGrand? Really? I see him standing in the middle of a pathway, looking lost.”
Mack shoulders her bag. “He seems like he knows how to hide.”
“Takes one to know one, huh?” Ava’s smile is wry. “You’re my dark horse. Even when you’re next to me, I get the feeling you’re not really there.”
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Jaden shouts from outside the bus.
Mack flinches, pushing her shoulder against her ear. The sound of footsteps. The sound of a knife being dragged against wood. The sound of her sister’s gasps, wet and burbling. Mack shouldn’t have told Ava she’d have her back if the worst happens. Mack already knows that she won’t.
* * *
—
Even without four walls, the camp is a step up from the shelter. The cots are neat, the blankets soft, and a table filled with food and water means Mack can have whatever she wants whenever she wants—and take it with her, too. But judging by the complaints and disbelief of many of her fellow competitors, the circumstances are far from what they’d been anticipating after the spa.
“This is great.” Brandon drops his bag onto the cot next to Mack’s. “I haven’t ever been camping! Just fishing. When my dad used to visit, he’d take me to the Snake River. I’d come home with, like, whole constellations of mosquito bites, but I loved it.”
Mack doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say. So she says nothing.
Brandon doesn’t seem to mind. “Is it okay if I take this one next to you?” he asks.
Mack nods. He lies back with his hands behind his head, staring up at the metal pavilion roof overhead. Brandon is benign. She doesn’t mind his presence, and she’ll never think about him again once he’s eliminated.
Linda gestures to the pavilion around them. It’s the only interior part of the park that looks newish. A cement floor under a corrugated metal roof, and a structure with bathrooms and showers. Overhead lights create pools of orange around them that bleed the color from everyone and don’t extend past the edge of the concrete. Next to the supply tables, there’s a mini fridge and a few machines Mack can’t guess the purpose of. “This is home base for the next seven days,” Linda says. “There’s no rain in the forecast and the temperature should be quite pleasant at night.”
“Can’t we sleep off-site and be bused in?” the prank girl asks. Mack wonders if she should think of her as the prank woman, but…it hardly seems to justify the adult designation.
“No, the organizers feel that would be too disruptive. The game is intended to be fully immersive.”
“Where are we supposed to charge our phones?” The guy with the prank girl holds his out, a black brick in his hand.
“Logan,” Brandon repeats softly to himself as a reminder. Someone’s trying to learn names, at least.
Linda shakes her head. She pats the bulky red and black machine that comes up to her knees. “The generator is for the lights and the fridge. There are no adapters that will allow you to plug in a phone.”
“What about taking photos? Video?” The prank girl clutches her dead phone to her chest.
“We retain all rights to images and video content from the game. Even if you could use your phones, it would be a violation of your contract to keep or distribute anything.”
That seems to end the official inquiries. Conversations, bright or hushed depending on the speakers, rise and fall on the warm night air as cots are claimed. LeGrand drags his as far from the nearest women as he can, then curls up on it, fully clothed, his back to the group.
Ava eyes the water bottles dubiously. Mack walks over and takes one, chugging it. Then she opens another and chugs that, too. She’ll deliberately dehydrate herself during the days, so she needs to drink as much as she can tonight. She’ll have to wake up to pee, but that’s an acceptable trade-off.
Ava watches her, puzzled. Mack grabs a few protein bars, then takes an armful of whatever she can reach. She’ll eat as much as she can tonight, too, and graze lightly tomorrow. She’s used to not eating between breakfast and dinner.
“Hey!” the prank girl says when she sees how much food Mack is carrying back to her cot.
“We’ll restock you every day,” Linda says. “You don’t need to plan for anything beyond tomorrow.”
Mack puts four days’ worth of protein bars into her bag. She’ll take another four days’ worth tomorrow, and another the day after that, and another and another until she’s eliminated or she wins. She goes back to the table. There are a few random supplies. Some sunscreen—she opens it and sniffs, then rejects it for being scented. Bug repellent is bypassed for the same reason. There are several empty mason jars. She takes two, along with some wet wipes and a pack of tissues.
Ava’s eyes widen with understanding. “Right.” She begins copying Mack. Mack wishes she could have prepped in private, but there will be no privacy until the game starts.
“What if we start our periods?” Ava calls out. Linda flinches, looking at the men as though embarrassed at the very idea.
“That will be…unfortunate.” The way she says it is much too serious. Her eyes get sad. Mack wonders if Linda—surely menopausal for actual decades at this point—has forgotten what periods are like. They suck, but they happen. Linda clears her throat. “There are supplies in the bathroom.”
“I’m not due to start my period for at least two more weeks,” Jaden says in falsetto.