And from there, it was as if the floodgates had opened. One after another, each of the women threw in their two cents about why they thought the group was spending the night in such miserable conditions.
Lindsay was convinced it was all a big mistake. That tomorrow the producers would show up in their big white van and apologize to them and take them to a gorgeous resort next to the ocean.
Kendra was convinced that this was just a part of the challenge to weed out a few more girls before the finals. Morgan tended to agree with her on that one. But she didn’t have time to voice her opinion because Harper’s whining had started again.
“No way! There is no way that I’m going to let them treat me like this! If I had my iPhone, I’d be on the phone with my manager right now telling him exactly what was going on. And you’d better believe he’d leak the story to Us Weekly faster than you could say ‘breach of contract.’”
She seriously doubted Harper actually had a manager. She figured it was just another thing that she said to feed into her act of being a budding Hollywood starlet. Maybe if she said it enough, she’d convince herself it was true.
Cori piped up in-between bites of her lukewarm fish stew. “I don’t think it’s going to be that bad.”
Morgan gaped at her in horror. Had the heinous conditions already gotten to Cori? Had she accidentally eaten a poisonous mushroom behind the barn that was making her hallucinate?
Cori continued. “I mean, I don’t know about you ladies, but I’ve been a camp counselor for the past ten summers in a row for an inner-city program in Chicago. So what I’m trying to say is that if we only have to be here for a few days, it’ll go by pretty fast. You’d be surprised how easy it is to go without running water and AC when you get used to it. And you can actually use sap from some of the trees as a natural mosquito repellent.”
She scratched absentmindedly at a large mosquito bite that was forming into a goose-egg-sized welt on the back of her neck. At the very least, she was going to have to pull Cori aside before one of them got voted off. She had to figure out which trees would protect her from the apocalyptic swarms of mosquitoes that had made their way into her cabin through the torn screen.
Sarah M. looked up at the group with tears in her eyes. “I-I’m really freaking out, you guys,” she stammered. “I’ve seriously never been this far outside the city limits before without any type of human contact. Think about it. If this is all some ploy to get us out here and attack us, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
She leaned in closer. “And how do we know that the people running this campsite are really working here? Maybe this campsite has been set up as some kind of decoy by people on the island so that they can capture tourists. Kind of like what happened to that girl on spring break in Jamaica.”
Oh. My. God. Sarah M. had completely lost her mind. Not only were their circumstances nothing like a spring breaker getting abducted in Jamaica, but why on earth would native islanders go to all of the trouble to create a fake camp near the ocean just to capture a handful of girls and take what little money they had with them?
She tried to be the voice of reason. Someone had to be. “Sarah, honey, that really doesn’t make any sense. If they were trying to capture us, they probably wouldn’t go to all the trouble of setting up camp for us and cooking us dinner. And besides, you have to think about the fact that every single thing we do is on camera. So if something bad were to happen, they’d have all the evidence they needed to convict the criminals.”
Sarah shook her head, a crazy look in her eyes. “But how do you know that there’s even film in the cameras? Have you checked?”
Holy shit. So it was going to be every woman for herself, huh? She had had it with all of the crazy ideas and whining and complaining in the group. Sure, it really chapped her ass that there was no AC, no running water, and no Great Pool to lie next to and drink mimosas at every morning. But it wasn’t really the end of the world, was it?
The real kicker was that the women couldn’t ask any questions to the five cameramen that continued to surround them and film every second of their massive meltdown. It was written explicitly in their contracts: No. Contact. With. The. Crew. Under. Any. Circumstance.
She had been forced to repeat that clause as a member of the group in orientation. She’d also had to sign and initial next to the “no contact clause” just to double and triple check that she really understood what she was getting into. Which, of course, she hadn’t.
How could she have known that she was going to be abandoned in the jungle with six other women at some godforsaken campsite where they weren’t even allowed to ask the production crew for help? That certainly wasn’t covered under any clause in the contract she had signed.
Harper started in on another whiny monologue about their living conditions. “Honestly, I have literally never stayed anywhere in my life that didn’t have AC. How are we supposed to sleep tonight? And where are we supposed to sleep tonight? Because you better believe that there’s no way I’m laying my head on that slimy mattress or flat pillow. You couldn’t pay me to do that. And besides, all of this wasn’t in our contract-”
“You already said that,” Morgan cut in. Was anyone else really buying the diva act?
“What?” Harper’s eyes narrowed.
Morgan could have sworn that pure hate flashed in Harper’s eyes. She replied calmly, “I’m just saying that we’ve already heard you talk about how this is probably a breach of contract. All you’re doing is whining and complaining, and it’s really not helping anything. So I would suggest that you shut up until you have some kind of solution to the problem. Or better yet, don’t say anything at all.”
Harper’s mouth hung open in surprise. She smiled back at her as sweetly as possible, given the circumstances. Harper began to interject, but she had already stood up to leave the campsite.
Since no one had any clue as to what was going on, she decided that she might as well make herself at home in her cabin. If she could just get some sleep, then maybe everything would make more sense in the morning.
Harper called after her, “You don’t have to be such a bitch about it!”
Sleep was an impossibility. She had never had to lie on a flat, lumpy twin cot before in her life.
For better or worse, she had missed out on the whole summer camp bonding experience. She’d chosen instead to stay home and take extracurricular classes every summer. So, instead of coming back from camp with hilarious stories about shaving cream fights in the cabin after lights out, she had managed to graduate from high school two years early and finish college by the time she was twenty.
It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now she wished she was more prepared for the rugged wilderness. After what felt like hours of tossing and turning, she remembered Brinkley. Where was her roommate anyway?
She peered through the torn screen next to her bed. The moon was high in the sky. It seemed like it was the middle of the night. Of course, given the fact that there were absolutely no city lights, streetlights, or lampposts next to the cabins, it could have been eight PM for all she knew. But Brinkley had definitely been gone a while.
That was probably a good sign, seeing as she was on her first one-on-one date with Ky. Or maybe it was a terrible sign, and they were the first two people to be abducted from the campsite, per Sarah M.’s paranoid terrorist theory.
Morgan heard footsteps outside the cabin door. There was a distinct giggle and then a sigh. Brinkley opened the cabin door and let it slam shut behind her.
“Oops!” she whispered loudly. “I hope I didn’t wake you up. I’m so sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it. I haven’t been able to sleep all night,” she replied. “How did your date go, anyway? Are you just getting back?”
Another sigh and a giggle. “Oh, gosh. I don’t even know what to say
. It was . . . magical.”
Magical? Was she reading off the script from some crappy Disney movie? Morgan didn’t think she had ever been on a date that she could have classified as “magical.” Sure, she’d had some pretty good ones. She’d even had a great date or two, but nothing that made her sigh and swoon and declare the evening “magical.”
But that was Brinkley for you. She was the one who was constantly encouraging the group to “look on the bright side” about the fact that they were stranded in the middle of nowhere with no clue about when they would get to leave. So, her judgment couldn’t be trusted.
Brinkley continued. “Why are you sleeping in here, silly? It’s like ten degrees hotter in here than it is outside. Why don’t you get your pillows and blanket and move to the hammocks on the porch with me? That’s what we always did at church camp when it was too hot to sleep inside.”
Grudgingly, Morgan grabbed her threadbare blanket and flat pillow and followed Brinkley to the porch. But the optimistic Jesus freak was right. It was noticeably cooler on the porch, and the soothing rocking motion of the hammock helped her drift off into a much-needed, albeit restless, sleep.
Her only comfort the next morning around the campfire at breakfast was that all the women looked as bad as she felt. Even though sleeping on the hammock was a godsend, it was hell on her back.
And she kept waking up periodically throughout the night because she heard crazy sounds coming from the jungle. Like birds calling, frogs croaking, and even an animal scream or two that she didn’t want to give too much thought to.
The faces around the campfire were puffy, swollen, and creased with sleep. Even the ever-glamorous Harper wasn’t wearing her thousand-dollar extensions. Probably because they had been destroyed by the heat and soot of the campfire the night before, and there was no way to wash them without running water.
That thought made her uncharacteristically giddy. It made her even happier to see Harper with her natural mousy brown hair tucked underneath a bandanna, like a bad version of Bret Michaels.
When Ky joined the group as breakfast was being served, the women barely acknowledged his presence. She gave him a big smile but didn’t say anything. With just twenty-four hours in the wilderness, the group had lost their spirit.
Normally, the ladies would be elbowing and talking over one another to get Ky’s attention when he made his grand entrance in the morning. But today, no one seemed to be able to snap out of their funk.
She didn’t know about anyone else, but she was starved. The fish stew from last night had barely held her over for an hour before her stomach was rumbling again. Not like she couldn’t afford to lose a pound, or two, or five, given the gourmet food she’d been stuffing into her face for the past few weeks, but a hunger strike wasn’t her idea of fun.
One of the camp workers ceremoniously placed a large steaming pot on the campfire. She heard her stomach growl even louder. All eyes were fixed on the pot, probably willing it to be full of pancakes, waffles, or omelets.
She reached up to take the lid off the pot in front of her. Inside was a mountain of steamed rice.
“Is that it?” Lindsay shrieked, her bloodshot eyes darting rapidly from side-to-side. “I thought that they would give us protein or something. And what about coffee? Is that even an option?”
Lindsay looked expectantly at Ky, but he only shrugged his shoulders. Their fearless leader was just as clueless as the rest of the group.
Harper had to put in her two cents, as usual. As she helped herself to a large spoonful of white rice, she said, to no one in particular, “I don’t know about you ladies, but this wilderness diet is just what I needed to lose those last five pounds.”
She looked at Brinkley, who flushed in embarrassment. While Brinkley was the heaviest out of the group, she was by no means overweight. In fact, in corn-fed, middle America, she was probably what you would consider to be a little too thin. But in comparison to Harper the Stick Figure, she looked like she could stand to lose a good twenty pounds.
Morgan glared at Harper. “Don’t listen to her, Brinkley. Most guys I know back home like a little bit of meat on their bones. Right, Ky?”
“Hmm?” Ky looked up in a daze. “Yes, yes, all of you women are truly beautiful. You’re perfect just the way you are.”
God. Was he really going to start that again? She had liked the Ky she’d gotten to know on her one-on-one date, but she couldn’t stand his syrupy sweet personality that he used on camera the majority of the time.
Obviously, the women knew they were “perfect” the way they were, but she was hoping Ky would have offered up a little more substance. More specifically, she was hoping he would have told Harper to shut the fuck up once and for all.
But Ky just sat there like a bump on a log, literally. The entire group sat on logs around the campfire, choking down spoonful after spoonful of steamed rice. Without any salt, without any fish, and without anything besides suspiciously murky water to wash it down with.
The only one who looked perfectly content with their starvation diet was Harper. She smiled happily to herself and finished off a second helping of steamed rice. She turned to Cori to her left and said, “Girl, you know what this reminds me of? Have you ever tried the Hollywood Diet?”
Cory shook her head mutely.
Harper chirped on, “Of course, with the Hollywood Diet, you have to order all of these different special juice drinks off the Internet, and it costs like $200 or something, but it’s totally worth it. Did I ever tell you about the time that I got to go to the 50/50 premiere? I mean, it wasn’t really that big of a deal because who cares that much about Seth Rogen anyway, but I did get to wear an Oscar de la Renta gown that was a size double zero. And I only had like a week to prepare. So I had to order the Hollywood Diet thing off the Internet and live off of the juice for like six days in a row, but I lost ten pounds, so it was totally worth it.”
Cori stared back at Harper without comprehension. It appeared as if the lack of food mixed with the lack of sleep had already taken its toll on her personality. Granted, Cori was pretty quiet to begin with. But now she resembled a zombie more so than the shy, exotic beauty she once was.
Morgan realized that everyone had finished eating. The only action in the group was coming from Harper. She continued to flap her jaws about seeing someone or another at the premier, like Brad Pitt’s personal assistant. Morgan couldn’t have cared less.
She reached across Lindsay to tug at Ky’s arm. “Hmm?” He looked up at her with sleepy eyes.
If she didn’t know better, she would have sworn that the whole scene was a reenactment from The Village. But she felt as bad as everyone else looked. And she probably looked just as bad, too.
Everyone was moving in slow motion. It was Day Two without enough calories to satisfy a small child, and she was feeling it. Even after she’d eaten two full plates of steamed rice, her stomach was grumbling. She felt saliva rush into her mouth as she thought about the breakfast she could have had back at the resort: crispy bacon, a thick bowl of oatmeal, a waffle dripping with syrup . . .
No, she couldn’t think about that now. Or else she would definitely go stir crazy and might consider eating one of her fellow camp members if something “bad” were to happen to them. What was she doing again? That’s right. Ky.
“Ky,” she rasped. “Do you have any idea what we’re doing today?”
She didn’t know why she’d asked that question. She just hoped that the answer was going to be something other than sitting around the campfire, staring at each other, and wasting away from hunger, which the group had already obviously mastered.
Ky gazed back at Morgan. “Uh . . .”
She gave him a moment. It was taking everyone longer than usual to get their thoughts together. Ky rubbed the scruff that had already started to form on his chin after one day w
ithout a razor.
He snapped his head up and looked at the group, “That’s right. I forgot to tell you ladies what we’re going to do today. After we’ve all finished our lovely breakfast, we’re going to have a food challenge.”
She let out a sigh of relief. A food challenge! They must have been testing the group for twenty-four hours, and now they were going to give them a delicious five-course meal with lobster and sea bass and other delicacies from the Indian Ocean.
The group seemed to collectively relax. Finally, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Finally, they were going to get some food so that they could think straight and figure out what they were doing at a jungle campsite in the middle of nowhere.
Ky continued. “So, each of you has to set off into the jungle to find and cook your own food for lunch. Remember, this is the time to get creative. And you can’t work in teams. You have to work by yourself and find something that you can make for lunch that is going to be absolutely delicious. I’ll be the judge.”
What. The. Fuck? That was hardly what she was hoping for when the group was presented with a food challenge for the day. She knew nothing about survival. And she knew even less about what kind of food she should forage for around the island. With her luck, she was going to cook up some kind of poisonous mushroom that would kill Ky and end the show right then and there.
As if on cue, she heard a familiar whine.
“Ky, are you kidding me? I don’t even cook in real life when there’s a grocery store around. So how am I supposed to figure out what to cook from this awful island? Are we supposed to grill a frog or something?”
As much as she hated to admit it, Harper had a point. She was willing to say, or whine about, what no one else in the group was willing to say. How on earth were they supposed to figure out how to cook some kind of lunch from what they found on the island? The only person in the group that seemed up to the job was Brinkley.
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