The Last One(29)

“So, how’s this work?” asks Waitress, putting down the Nalgenes. Her face glistens with sweat and her bra has darkened between her breasts.

“You pour the water into the top bandana, and it filters down through the layers. Each one gets out more junk,” says Zoo. “At least, that’s the theory.”

“Most of the water filters you can buy are charcoal-based,” Engineer adds.

Zoo pours about a third of a Nalgene into Engineer’s empty striped bandana. The water immediately starts dripping through to the middle tier, where it dampens the dirt.

“It’s just making it wet,” says Waitress.

“Give it time,” says Engineer, as Zoo pours in more water.

Soon liquid drips through the lowest point of the yellow bandana, plopping into the charcoal below. Carpenter Chick pours a second Nalgene’s contents into the top bandana. The drips coalesce into a thin, steady stream.

“What happens once it goes through the charcoal?” asks Waitress.

“We drink it,” says Zoo.

“From what?”

Zoo laughs, a loud, surprised laugh—there’s no container under her bandana. “I forgot,” she says, and she tucks an empty bottle under the bottom tier; there’s not enough room for it to fit without impacting the bandana, so she digs a hole. The first few drips of clear water strike dirt, but the editor cuts them away. As far as viewers will know she finishes just in time to catch the first drop.

Three miles away, Tracker reaches a brown log cabin, where the host—having been treated to a journey via four-wheeler on an old logging road—waits.

“That was fast,” says the host, awe unfeigned. Tracker traversed the heavily wooded miles in only sixty-four minutes. Rancher, the nearest contestant, is more than a mile distant. The host sweeps his arm toward the log cabin. “As the winner, the master bedroom is yours,” he says to Tracker. “Last door on the left.”

Tracker enters to find a small but lavish bedroom: a queen-size bed thick with quilts and pillows, an en suite bathroom with a standing shower, a bowl of fruit on the nightstand. Two windows, both of which he opens.

Back in the field, eight contestants are preparing for nightfall: busy work and atmosphere.

Rancher breaks the tree line, sees the cabin and the host waiting. He’s welcomed and directed to a room across the hall from Tracker’s. A pair of twin beds with thin blankets and pillows, more fruit. A shared bathroom in the hall. Banker arrives a few seconds—twenty-two minutes, really—later. He gets the bed across from Rancher’s.

“She left before us,” Rancher tells Tracker. “I don’t know where she is.”

Biology knows that she’s off track and is trying to determine how far off. She sees a stream and beelines for it. She studies the features nearby: a cluster of boulders, the crumbled remains of a man-made wall. With her finger she searches the map, consulting the key at intervals. She finds the dotted line of the run-down wall, one of only two marked. The symbols match her surroundings. “Here I am,” she says, exhaling with relief as she glances at the camera. She consults her compass to determine her next move. Northeast, to a marshy area—thin, tightly etched lines—that she should be able to follow to a thicket and boulder cluster. From there, a wooded but relatively flat half mile due east to the finish. She might make it before nightfall.

Carpenter Chick crawls into her corner of her team’s lean-to. “Good night,” she says. It’s more crowded tonight; Waitress has joined them. One by one, Air Force’s team also trickles into their shelter. The cameramen chatter over their radios about needing better overnight footage and settle in.

The shadows around Biology are morphing into night. She has the flashlight in her hand. “It can’t be far,” she says. She wants to run, but knows that between the encroaching dark and her weary legs she’d probably hurt herself.

Exorcist snores. Cheerleader Boy lies awake in the dark, his face tight with loathing. In the other camp, Engineer is the one who is still awake. The warmth around him, the softness at his back—he decides his luck is definitely good.

Biology sees light through the trees. Like a moth, she hurries toward it. The host is there to greet her, as though he’s been standing at attention for hours instead of reading comment threads on his smartphone.

“You made it,” he says. “Welcome. You’re our fourth-place finisher, which gives you your choice of beds here.” He opens the front door to reveal the log cabin’s main room, which the editor will have hidden from viewers until now. The room is crammed tight with bunk beds—no pillows, a sheet each. Six beds total, leaving room for five more finishers, leading to the question: Where are the last three to sleep?

The men emerge to congratulate Biology on her arrival. All three are freshly showered. Banker’s chest is bare, his shirt laid out by the fireplace, drying from a recent hand-washing. He clearly makes time for the gym, but Biology is far less impressed by his physique than the average female viewer will be. She collapses onto the bottom bunk nearest the fire. Tracker frowns. Judgmental jerk, bigoted viewers will think, assuming that he is scornful of Biology’s relative weakness. Another misinterpretation. Tracker feels bad about Biology’s exhaustion, her clear struggle. He is forcefully reminding himself that he’s here for the money and that helping these people will only slow him down.