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 them.
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.”