The Last One(78)

She stands. The final shot of the show’s third episode will be of her walking away, returning to a fire viewers will not have seen her build. This is Zoo’s final confessional.





19.


Brennan whispers, “Who is it?”

“How should I know?” I say. My fear has thickened to anger. I should have known better than to relax—I did know better—and now they have another clip, another moment I will never be able to live down. What’s worse, I don’t know what to do next.

What do they want me to do? Answer the knock. It was a knock, after all.

“Should we leave?” asks Brennan.

“I don’t think so,” I say. “It’s dark out. And I don’t think they’ve found the window, otherwise they wouldn’t be knocking on the shutter.” I curse myself even as I say this; what better sound bite could I have given them? They’ll play it, then immediately cut to someone standing under that window, looking up.

“How do they know we’re here, Mae?”

“I don’t know, we weren’t being quiet. And maybe some smoke got out.” No, they were told. They were in a van playing pinochle as the sun went down, waiting for their moment.

“What do we do?” Brennan asks. All he has are questions.

“Let’s pack up,” I tell him, because I’m supposed to play along, aren’t I? “Quietly. Let’s wait this out and be ready to move.”

He nods and we both turn back to the fire and our packs. I’m shoving potatoes and onions into mine when the crashing knock sounds again. This time, I think I also hear a voice. I look toward the front of the store, again. I don’t see anything, again. Next thing I know, I’m walking toward the registers.

An urgent whisper from behind, “Mae!”

“Shh,” I tell him. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”

Funny, I keep saying—and thinking—they. It seems indisputable that there’s more than one person outside. Maybe because the sound is so large, so intrusive.

I creep to the front of the store and through a shadowy checkout aisle. As I reach the bagging area, there’s another bang. I sense the metal shutters shimmying with contact. A voice, masculine and muddled. The only word I’m certain I hear is “open.” Whoever they are, they want in.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s not they, but he. Someone I know. Cooper in another moment of enough. Julio, seeking company after an age alone. The Asian kid, hardened by experience.

Bang.

“Open up!” The words come through clearly this time, and I recognize the voice. It’s a showman’s tenor, ringing with bravado. Randy. I’m amazed. Aggravating others is his oxygen; how did he make it through Solo?

“I know you’re inside!” Bang. “Let us in!” Bang. Bang.

“Sorry, Randy,” I whisper. I wish there were a peephole, so I could see what he looks like after the last few weeks. I envision him holding a torch, flames lighting his wild hair and glittering off his tacky necklace. He’s probably dressed entirely in squirrel tails by now.

Wait.

He said us. I was right; it is a they. Randy isn’t alone.

A second voice outside, quieter and deeper: “That’s not going to work.”

I know this voice too. Emery said we would know when the Solo Challenge was over and I do; it is. You can do this, Cooper’s last words to me, unspoken, but I heard, and I thought I could do it. But I can’t, and now I can tell him thank you and I’m married. Because I don’t know what he felt—if he felt—but I know what ran through me. I should have told him. The instant it happened I should have told him; instead I—but I didn’t mean to think it and I was confused, I thought I saw the person I could have been, but no, it’s different—we’re different—because I never chose alone, not until I came here, and this is the biggest mistake of my life. I don’t want to be Cooper, I want to be me, to be the us I left behind—the us I chose. And I can, I will—because Solo is over.

I throw myself at the motion-activated doors. I push and tug, then pound on the glass.

Brennan is at my side. “Mae, what are you doing?”

“We’ve got to let them in.” But the doors won’t open. I can’t figure out how to get them open. “Help me,” I say.

“Mae, no, it’s—”

Then from outside, “Hello? Who’s in there?”

Brennan’s head whips toward the doors, and I call, “Cooper, it’s me! I can’t get the doors to open.”

A beat of silence, then, “There’s an emergency exit at the other end.”

“Okay!” I rush along the window displays, searching. I fumble for my lens, but my hand is shaking and I’m running and can’t quite grasp it.

Brennan catches me by the arm. “Mae! Stop!”

“It’s my friends,” I tell him, pulling away.

“What are you talking about?”

His disbelief makes me pause. “Well, Cooper’s my friend. Randy…he…but if he’s made it this long and Cooper’s working with him, he’s got to—”

“Wait,” whispers Brennan. He leads me to the emergency exit door, which I suppose he’s been able to see the whole time. I’m so amped I’m fluttering, my breath, my eyelids, I feel like I could take flight. “Hello?” he calls.