He looks at me, bug-eyed, but doesn’t even last a minute before he starts telling me about his brother and the first time they rode the subway alone together. He yammers about all the rats they saw and how that must be what the entire subway system is now: rats. “I hate rats,” he says, and with this at least I can’t disagree. It’s part of my job to hold up rats, talk about how the stigma’s wrong—they’re actually very clean animals—and I do it. I smile to allay the class’s squirmy fears, but inside I’m cringing too; I’ve never been able to stand how their naked tails feel resting on the inside of my arm. So I just stand there, smiling, and pretend an open-mindedness I’ve never felt, hoping it will become true.
That night, after Brennan’s crawled into his rickety wind tunnel, I don’t even try to sleep. I keep the fire bright and sit in its quietly crackling company. My thoughts wind back to the first day of filming, after all the contracts were signed and our final phone calls home made—a slew of I-love-yous and good-lucks, all real but nothing new. I remember walking to the field where the first Challenge started and not being scared, not anymore. I was happy, excited; I know that’s how I felt, but the memory is like faded sweetness in the back of my throat—a reminder, not a taste. I want to feel that way again. I want to know I can feel that way again.
A great horned owl calls somewhere off in the dark. I close my eyes to listen. To me, the great horned owl has always sounded mildly aggressive, its call an almost guttural hur hur-hur hurrrrr hur-hur as opposed to the inquisitive hoo commonly attributed to its kin. I don’t think they look wise either. Vexed is more like it, what with their sharply turned-down brows and extended ear tufts.
Cooper was kind of like that at first. Standoffish. I don’t know what drew me to him so strongly from the start. No—I do. His air of almost freakish competence. The way he scanned each of us, assessing without looking for allies, because from the moment he leapt into that tree it was clear he didn’t need anyone but himself. I bet his entire adult life has been like that: needing no one, being needed by no one—existing without apology and accomplishing wonders. I’d never been around someone so supremely independent before and was fascinated. At first I thought it was odd that they’d cast someone who barely spoke, but his actions were enough, louder than words, as it were. And those of us who lacked his skills filled the silence.
If I could pick any of them to work with again, it’d be Cooper, no question. Heather would be my last choice; I’d even take Randy over her.
Would Cooper pick me?
The owl calls again. Another answers, farther away. A conversation: calls back and forth. It’s not mating season, so I don’t know what they’re communicating, if their calls are cooperative or competitive. I close my eyes. Listening to these familiar sounds, I can almost pretend I’m camping, for just one night. That tomorrow morning I’ll toss my supplies into the back of my Outback and drive home, where my husband will be waiting, his signature bacon-and-chive scramble sizzling on the stove while the scent of freshly brewed coffee wafts down the hall to greet me. I can almost smell it.
Almost.
12.
Zoo opens her eyes to find a dark, blurred figure blocking dawn’s light at the mouth of her and Tracker’s shelter. For a second she forgets where she is, who she slept next to. She reaches for her glasses. Memory and vision resolve. She sees her teammate crouching, facing away from her, the skillet at his side.
“Breakfast in bed?” she asks; before the question’s even out, she pales.
Tracker glances at her, then turns to a small box at his feet and takes out their next Clue. “Go up,” he reads.
Zoo releases a held breath.
Elsewhere, Carpenter Chick and Engineer read their identical Clue, eat cold leftover turkey, and plan their route up the mountain. Air Force and Biology don’t have leftovers; they skip breakfast and are the first team to start hiking. Banker and Black Doctor are not far behind.
Tracker and Zoo finish breakfast. As Zoo rinses out the skillet, she asks, “Do we keep this?”
Tracker is disassembling their shelter. “No,” he says. “It’s not worth it. Too heavy.”
“What about all the meat we can’t eat?”
Tracker tosses an armful of sticks and duff across the ground. “Production team took it. Promised it wouldn’t go to waste.”
No matter the editor’s fondness for this pair, this conversation cannot air. There can be no production crew, no cameramen, and non-entities do not eat. The editor cuts from breakfast to Zoo shouldering her pack and following Tracker out of their small clearing.
And then there’s the trio, crammed together in their shelter: Rancher closest to the boulder, Exorcist in the warm middle, and Waitress in the tight outer corner. Waitress is the first to wake. She finds Exorcist’s pale, red-haired hand resting on her waist. A camera mounted on the mouth of the shelter records her confusion, her quick disgust. She tosses the arm off. Without waking, Exorcist shuffles onto his opposite side. His hand smacks Rancher in the face. Rancher jolts awake, striking his knee against the rock. He bites back a curse. Waitress ignores him and crawls out into the dawn. After a moment, Rancher grabs his hat and follows. Exorcist sleeps through, sprawling to take up the entire shelter.
Waitress and Rancher do not find a box waiting for them. They are a Clue behind the others, and hungry.
Waitress stretches, twisting from side to side. Rancher walks off to urinate, limping slightly as his muscles wake and his knee throbs. Once he returns, Waitress asks, “Can we leave him?”
“I don’t think so.” Rancher nudges Exorcist’s shoulder with his foot. “Rise and shine.”
Exorcist’s eyes peep open, then he groans and crawls from the shelter. He walks to the side of the boulder and undoes his fly. Waitress turns quickly away, sneering as she hears urine splash against stone. Exorcist zips up and says, “We’re going to win this. I saw it in a dream.”
“At this rate, we’ll be lucky to finish the same day as everyone else,” retorts Waitress.
“Have faith,” Exorcist tells her, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
She pulls away. “Wash your hands.”
“Piss is sterile.” He waggles his fingers, creeping them toward her face, then turns abruptly toward the stream. “Come on, let’s find us some tracks.”
They find the crossing quickly; the path is well trod now, plus there’s a cameraman on the far bank, munching on a strawberry-flavored fruit-and-nut bar while he waits. Exorcist leaps ahead of his teammates, and Rancher helps Waitress step rock to rock. The two cameramen meticulously avoid each other with their lenses.
The trio continues down the path and finds the wooden box hanging from the birch. Exorcist pulls out the only remaining token. Studying the etching, he says, “Huh.” They follow the bearing and soon see a dead gray squirrel hanging from a tree branch.
“No way,” says Waitress. She thought preparing your own meals—one of many purposefully ambiguous statements in the contestants’ contract—meant dumping ingredients into a pot. “No way I’m eating squirrels.”
“Squirrel,” says Exorcist. “There’s only one.” He prods the dangling rodent with a finger, sending it swinging on the thin rope. Waitress turns away, grimacing. Rancher steps forward to cut the squirrel down. Off camera he accepts advice on skinning the small animal. Viewers will see close-ups of his worn, golden-brown hands tearing the skin away, the pulse of sleek rodent muscle popping free of its covering.
“We need a fire if we want to eat this,” says Rancher.
“No way,” says Waitress. She’s clutching her arms tight to her chest, looking anywhere but at the squirrel. “No way.”
“What,” says Exorcist, “you’re not hungry?”
She shakes her head, too distraught to feel her hunger. Exorcist laughs. He unzips his pack and tosses his dowsing rod toward her. “Here, then, see if you can get this to work.” He laughs again, then begins collecting firewood. Waitress kicks the dowsing rod back toward him and leaves her teammates, making her way back to the brook. She crouches over the water and rinses out her mouth.
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.