The Last One(10)

After I’ve filled my Nalgenes, I kick apart my shelter and quench the fire. Then I return to the same weather-cracked backcountry thoroughfare I’ve been following roughly east for days. I hang my compass from my neck and check my direction from time to time.

I’ve been walking an hour or more when a pain in my shoulder reminds me that I didn’t stretch. A few hours of maybe-sleep is all it took for me to forget my promise. Sorry, I mouth, looking up. I pull my shoulders down and back, straighten my posture as I walk. Tonight, I think. Tonight I will stretch my every aching muscle.

I round a curve in the road and see a silver sedan ahead, parked askew with all its tires save the left rear beyond the shoulder, resting in dirt. I follow its skid marks uneasily, water bottle thumping against my hip. It’s clear that the car has been placed here. There must be supplies inside, or a Clue.

My stomach tightens. I’m trying to keep my face empty of nerves—I can’t see the cameras, but I know they’re tucked into the branches overhead, and probably in the vehicle itself. They probably have one of those surveillance drones up high, hovering.

You are strong, I tell myself. You are brave. You are not afraid of what might be inside this car.

I look through the driver’s-side window. The driver’s seat is empty, and the front passenger seat cradles only fast-food detritus: wrappers stained with grease, a bucket-sized foam cup sprouting a gnawed-on straw from a brown-stained lid.

There is a rumpled blanket spread over the backseat, and a small red cooler wedged behind the passenger seat. I try the back door, and the sound of it opening is something I haven’t heard in weeks: the click of the handle, the release of the seal, so distinctive and yet so ordinary. I’ve heard this sound thousands of times, tens of thousands. It’s a sound I’ve come to associate with departure—an association that was unconscious until now, for the moment I open that door, hear that release, I feel my fear fade into relief.

You’re leaving. You’re getting out of here. You’re going home. Not thoughts, but wordless assurances from myself to me. You’re done, my body tells me. It’s time to go home.

Then the smell hits, and a heartbeat later: realization.

I recoil, stumbling away from their decaying prop. I can see it now, the vaguely human shape beneath the blanket. It’s small. Tiny. That’s why I didn’t see it from the window. The orb of its head was resting directly against the door, and now hangs slightly over the edge of the seat, a slick of dark brown hair slipping from beneath the covering. The nubs meant to approximate feet bulge only halfway across the seat.

This is not the first time they’ve pretended a child, but this is the first time they’ve pretended an abandoned child.

“All right,” I whisper. “This shit is getting old.”

But it’s not; each prop is as horrible and startling as the last. That’s four now—five, if I count the doll—and I don’t know why, how they fit, what they mean. I slam the door shut, and this, the sound I associate with triumphant arrival, stirs my anger further. I’ve hit the child-sized prop’s head, caught the brown hair in the door.

Is it real hair? Did a woman somewhere shear her head thinking her keratin threads would bolster the confidence of a child fighting cancer, only to have them end up a part of this sick game? Is the donor watching, and will she recognize the hair as hers? Will she feel the impact of the car door against her own head?

Stop.

I make my way to the other side of the car, take a deep breath, hold it, and open the door on that side. I yank the cooler from the car and slam the door shut. The sound echoes in my skull.

Cooler in hand, I ease myself to the ground in front of the car and lean against the bumper. My teeth feel as though they have fused together, top to bottom, and they tremble with the strength of their connection. I sit with my eyes closed, working to relax my jaw.

The first fake corpse I saw was at the end of a Team Challenge. The third, I think. Maybe the fourth—it’s hard to remember. It was me, Julio, and Heather, following the signs: red drips on rocks, a handprint in the mud, a thread caught in some thorns. We got turned around, lost the trail when it crossed a brook. Heather tripped and got wet, then bumbled into a stump or something and started whining about a stubbed toe as though she’d broken her leg. We lost a lot of time and, ultimately, the Challenge. Cooper and Ethan’s group got there first, of course. That night, Cooper told me that they found their target with a fake head wound sitting near the top edge of the rock face. I remember the anger in his voice, how surprised I was to hear it. But I understood.

We watched our target tumble over the cliff.

I saw the harness under his jacket; I saw the rope. But still.

At the bottom we found a twisted mess coated in cornstarch blood. It didn’t look very real, not that first time, but it was still a shock. The latex-and-plastic construct wore jeans, from which we needed to retrieve a wallet. Heather cried. Julio placed his hat over his heart and murmured a prayer. They left it to me. After I got the wallet my nerves were raw and Heather’s hysterics sliced through them. I don’t remember exactly what I yelled, but I know I used the word “bimbo,” because afterward I thought, What an odd word choice, even for me. I remember everyone staring at me, the shock in their eyes. I’d worked so hard to be nice, to be someone to root for—to vote for. But enough was enough.

Walking away from that Challenge, I thought I finally understood what they were capable of. I thought I understood just how far they were willing to go. And I knew I had to do better. I apologized to Heather—as sincerely as I could, considering that I’d meant everything I said and only regretted saying it—and I hardened myself until I was ready for anything.