The Last One (7 page)

“Another bonus for our winner is this,” says the host, as he lifts a folded silver-and-red thermal blanket from a table—how did that get there? the unsung intern hustles away—and hands it to Tracker. “Yours to keep, no stealing allowed. Let’s begin.”

Tracker opens the following items: Zoo’s iodine pills; Black Doctor’s Nalgene-brand water bottles (two, filled); Engineer’s emergency fishing kit. He takes the Nalgenes, relinquishing his shelter-stamped package to Black Doctor, who accepts the swap good-naturedly. Black Doctor fears pathogens; he wants the iodine, which would net him far more than two quarts of drinking water.

Zoo is next. She chooses Exorcist’s small shelter-marked package. Her flippant tone as she does so makes the choice seem arbitrary, but it’s not. She guesses—correctly—that most of the others will focus on food and water. She knows how to purify water and also guesses—again, correctly—that there will be more opportunities to secure sustenance in the future. No one will steal the stolen, still-wrapped fire starter she now holds.

Air Force is confident he can survive with what each contestant already has: a compass, a knife, a one-quart Nalgene, a personal first-aid kit, a bandana in their assigned color, and a jacket of their own choosing. He keeps his fork-marked dark blue box. Rancher steals Waitress’s item, marked as water. Asian Chick takes Air Force’s food, though her package is about the same size and also marked with a fork—flirtation, plain and simple. Engineer quietly keeps his fishing kit, thinking of what he might build. Black Doctor claims the iodine pills with covetous excitement; no one cares. Exorcist takes Tracker’s two bottles, returning Tracker’s original, unopened package to him. Tracker now has a blanket and a mystery. Biology keeps her food. Banker trades his triangular water item for the filled bottles. Waitress’s turn, and she’s thirsty. She too steals the Nalgenes, handing her pocket-sized shelter package to Banker. Cheerleader Boy is left with the item with which he entered the field. It’s flat and rectangular, and crinkles when he presses it. He wonders if it’s another blanket. If so, it’s thinner than the other.

All this compressed into thirty seconds.
Not fair,
think the viewers who bother to think. The contestants who finished earlier actually had a disadvantage, and the second-to-last-place finisher was assured her pick of items.

Don’t worry, the twist is coming.

The contestants are ordered to unwrap their items. Zoo releases an excited “yes!” upon revealing her fire starter. Asian Chick smiles over a twelve-pack of chocolate bars. Rancher nods noncommittally at a metal cup with foldable handles; it’s large enough to double as a small cooking pot. Cheerleader Boy blurts an exhausted expletive at his short stack of black trash bags. Air Force shrugs at a package of freeze-dried cabbage. Biology flips her box of cookie-dough-flavored protein bars and frowns at the long ingredient list. Waitress leans over her shoulder and asks, “Do those have gluten in them?” Biology’s eyebrows lift, but Exorcist forestalls her reply with a cackle like snapping flame. In his hands is a three-pronged dowsing rod. He holds out the rod, steering through the air. He looks directly into the viewers’ eyes and says, “How fitting.” The other eleven contestants recoil, visibly and as one.

The dowsing rod was Banker’s initially. He thought it might be a slingshot, but now he understands, though this slight is more subtle than most. He nods toward the dowsing rod, then shakes the box of waterproof matches he just unwrapped. “These are looking pretty good,” he says.

The host steps up, front and center. “While you all will ultimately have to build your own camps and survive as individuals,” he says, “tonight is group camps and tomorrow will be a Team Challenge. To pick our teams—our first three finishers. Captains, your team members each come with whatever supplies they now hold, and while they will retain ownership of their supplies come tomorrow, for tonight they’re yours.” He pauses to let meaning settle, then elaborates with a creeping smile, “Contestants, if your captain wants to use, eat, or
drink
your item, you cannot say no.”

“No way,” says Waitress. The shot zooms in on her shocked face—her water, she doesn’t want to share.

Tracker, Zoo, and Air Force step forward and pick their groups, one by one. Tracker holds an unwrapped and unwanted flashlight. His first choice confounds: Rancher and his metal cup. A metal cup, when he could have extra water, or matches, or the iodine pills? This needs to be explained. Later, Tracker will be told to sit. He will face a single question, the answer to which will be spliced into the viewers’ now: “I don’t like the taste of iodine. I’d rather boil water for drinking.”

Zoo chooses Engineer and his fishing kit. No explanation needed; the river’s insides glisten with trout. Air Force chooses Black Doctor because he looks competent, and while he’d love Waitress’s clean, clear water, her incompetence seems too steep a price to pay. The selections continue and in the end the teams are presented to viewers with their supplies as subtitles.

Team One: Tracker (thermal blanket, flashlight), Rancher (metal cup), Biology (protein bars), and Banker (matches).

Team Two: Zoo (fire starter), Engineer (fishing kit), Waitress (filled water bottles), and Asian Chick (box of chocolate bars).

Team Three: Air Force (dried cabbage), Black Doctor (iodine pills), Cheerleader Boy (heavy-duty trash bags), and Exorcist (dowsing rod).

It’s too much information; few watching will be able to remember who has what. The host doesn’t even try. He’s tired, anxious for a break. “Great,” he says. “Your home base for tonight is this field. You can build your camps here, or in the woods nearby—your choice. I will see you all at first light for your first Team Challenge.” He nods gravely, then intones, “Make camp.”

As the three groups disperse, the drone buzzes the field. Everyone but Tracker looks up. Exorcist winks and swings his dowsing rod over his shoulder. Tracker leads his team to the north end of the field. Zoo takes the west and Air Force the east. Black Doctor notices his leader’s limp and asks to see his ankle. “A sprain,” he announces, and he sets off to scavenge a crutch. Of the actual process of building camp, little is shown. Tracker and Air Force know what they’re doing, and their teams’ camps come together quickly as they assign roles.

Zoo is less accustomed to being a leader. Her first command is a question: “What do you guys think—” but no one is listening. Waitress is complaining about being cold; Asian Chick berates her, “You should have worn a shirt.” Engineer is investigating his fishing kit: a kite handle wrapped with line instead of string. Its contours don’t fit his hand; it’s sized for a child. Three hooks, two weights, two little clips called swivels that Engineer doesn’t yet understand. Zoo watches as he unspools a stretch of line and tests its strength. Her question hangs, unfinished and unanswered.

Tracker’s team has a fire within TV seconds, which is about twenty real-time minutes. Air Force’s team has a shelter moments later, after a commercial break, and Cheerleader Boy is flabbergasted to learn that his garbage bags are key to waterproofing the shallow lean-to.

Zoo tries a new approach. She crouches next to Engineer. “Why don’t you test that out at the river?” she asks. “See if you can get it to work?” Engineer looks at his leader’s entreating smile and sees his own excitement reflected in it. Zoo turns to the others. “I’ve got the fire starter,” she says, “so I’ll take care of that. Why don’t you two work on a shelter?” Asian Chick waves away Waitress, saying, “I got this.” Prodded to action, she reveals an expanded identity: Asian Carpenter Chick. Skilled at woodworking, she assembles their shelter with confidence. Though the structure lacks nails and none of its components were measured, it projects sturdiness. More than that, it projects beauty, for the human brain is adapted to see beauty in symmetry. Even the off-site producer, who is so sour his sense of beauty has shriveled like a dehydrated lemon, will recognize that the slender, symmetrical lean-to has a certain bucolic appeal. Identity contracts, sloughing off one defining feature for another, and Carpenter Chick joins the cast.

For dinner, Tracker distributes one of Biology’s protein bars to each of his team members. Biology doesn’t appear to mind, and in this case appearance reflects reality. The bars are indeed gluten-free, but they contain sucralose, which turns her stomach. She eats one only because a turned stomach is marginally better than an empty one. Tracker leaves Rancher in charge of finishing their shelter and then jogs off, fading into the woods like a specter. A very fast specter; the cameraman cannot keep up. Recording devices mounted on trees every hundred feet catch snippets of his carving and setting a series of small deadfall traps. Tracker hopes to catch breakfast overnight. He too dislikes the protein bars; he thinks they taste of industrialization.

At the river Engineer ties a hook to the line, and baits it with a worm he finds under a rock. The worm is quickly tossed and lost. Engineer takes a sinker and one of the clips out of his pocket, cuts off the hook, ties in the swivel. Attaches both hook and sinker. It doesn’t look right to him, the weight and hook together like that, but he tries it.

Well after their shelter is built and the sun beginning to set, Zoo finds him at the riverside, still trying, adjusting. There’s several feet of line between the swivel and hook now. “Wow,” she says. “You actually turned that into something you can fish with.”

Engineer feels a swell of pride. His knuckles are scraped raw from the too-tight handle. “I think the next variable to adjust is the bait.”

“Good idea. Tomorrow, though, or we’ll never find our way back to camp.”

Their team settles for a child’s dream dinner: all the chocolate they can stomach, and then some.

To the east, Air Force rehydrates and shares his cabbage, and then limps into the woods with the help of a walking stick to set some deadfalls, something he hasn’t done since basic. Black Doctor follows to learn how it’s done. “If we had the fishing line we could set snares,” Air Force tells him. “Next time,” Black Doctor answers. Air Force’s traps won’t work, but their construction is not fruitless; our first alliance is forming.

Night drifts over the campsites. All are exhausted to varying degrees, but Waitress is the most exhausted. She’s been shivering for hours, even with her thin Lycra jacket zipped over her sports bra. She curls by the fire, not comfortable enough with her teammates to share body heat. “It’s warmer in here,” says Zoo, wrapped in her fleece jacket. Waitress shakes her head. A cameraman watches her, recording her discomfort and wishing he could lend her his much-warmer coat. When Waitress shifts her back to the fire, he nearly calls out a warning about her hair, but she tugs it over her shoulder without prompting. Waitress is unsettled. She wishes the cameraman would either say something or leave. She knows she should talk, not to him, but to her teammates or at least to herself, but she’s too cold, too tired. The night deepens. The cameraman’s shift ends. He retreats to the production team’s much more elaborate camp at a second field a quarter mile south. There they have tents and grills. Coolers stuffed with meat and milk and beer. Mosquito netting. The cameramen assigned to the other two teams also retire. Mounted cameras are left to watch the contestants.

These cameras don’t care that Waitress is cold, or that Air Force’s ankle is throbbing. They record Rancher crawling from his shelter to take a piss, and Waitress’s endless shivering, but they miss more than they record. They miss Banker offering Biology his puffy jacket as a pillow, and his face relaxing into relief at her polite refusal. They miss Zoo, Engineer, and Carpenter Chick exchanging their backgrounds in bedtime-story whispers. They miss Exorcist’s lips framing an honest prayer as he lies tucked into the corner of his team’s lean-to.

Mostly, they record dying flames.

5.

The sky trembles. My first thought is that it’s a camera drone, crashing, and this is something I want to see. I look up, raising an arm to block out the sun. Instead of a drone come undone, I see an airplane plowing through the high blue to leave a wispy white trail. It takes me a moment to process the sight, the sound, the sensation of having my small human presence overwhelmed so completely. This is the first time I’ve noticed a plane since taping began. I don’t know if this is because I wasn’t paying attention or because they weren’t around to notice.

Either way, this is important—it means they can’t control every aspect of my surroundings. A small assurance, but it inhabits me like a revelation. I feel my insularity retreating. For the first time in too long, I am not
the
but
a.
Just one person among many. I think of the men and women above me. The plane is huge; there must be hundreds of passengers seated up there beneath nubby air vents, napping, reading, watching movies on their iPads. One or two crying, perhaps, frightened by the enormity of the journey they’re embarking on.

I stand still, neck craned, until the airplane is out of sight, its contrail dispersing. I hope someone up there is going home. That there is at least one person in that plane who knows unselfish love and is returning to it.

The next few hours are easier than what came before, except that I’m wretched with hunger. I reach a brook a few hours before sunset and decide to make camp early to try to catch some protein. The pieces of the figure-four deadfall I carved during group camp are in my pack, and now that I have something other than pinecones to use as bait it might actually work.

I take the trio of sticks and set them under a tall tree. It takes me a minute to figure out which stick goes where, then I align the notches, balancing and steadying. Once I can keep the trap in its distinctive angular pattern by pinching the top nexus, I smear the end of the bait stick with peanut butter and lean a heavy log over the top to take the place of my hand. It’s a precarious piece of work, but it’s meant to be, and it holds.

I boil water in batches and build my shelter, glancing regularly toward the trap. The bait lies in the log’s shadow, untouched. The woods grow dim and I’m sitting at the fire, waiting, trying not to think the thoughts that come most readily. I hate it. I need to keep busy, so I decide to carve a second trap. I salvage appropriate-sized sticks—each about a half inch thick and a foot long—and start carving. It’s only four notches and two sharpened points, but they have to be aligned perfectly. Carving takes me longer than I’d like—the knife I was issued is so dull at this point I wouldn’t trust it to slice cold butter. By the time I’m done, my hands are aching, my fingers blistered. I drop the sticks at the base of a tree and head to the brook to collect a long flat stone to use as the trap’s weight.