“Let’s go,” I say.
Within minutes, we clear the worst of the destruction. We’ve returned to simple desolation. All that work, all that money, and all we had to do was walk by a bus. Not that it was easy, but their wastefulness irks me.
“Mae?” asks Brennan. “Why don’t we take the highway?”
His question rests atop my lingering unease. It’s like he’s trying to get me to break the rules.
“No driving,” I say.
“Oh.” A beat of silence, then, “What about to walk on? It’s gotta be quicker than this.” Is this a Clue? Have they closed down the highways too? That’s big. Too big. I don’t believe him. “There’s a sign for it right there,” he says. “It’s close.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I can’t answer; I don’t know the answer.
“Mae, why not?”
I keep walking.
“Mae?”
The name burns through me.
“Mae?”
I can feel his fingers crawling through the air, approaching my arm.
“What did I say about touching me?” My voice shudders with all that I’m keeping inside.
He draws back, sputtering an apology. For a moment it seems that he’s let his question pass. Then he says, “So, the highway?”
“No, Brennan.” My frustration is building, turning to anger. “We’re not taking the highway.”
“Why not, Mae?”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Why?”
“And stop saying, ‘why.’ ”
Agitation speeds my steps. Why is he challenging me like this? Why doesn’t he have any regard for the rules of the game?
Why?
You know why.
I grasp my glasses lens, tight. My thumb’s callus catches as I rub. I remember all Brennan has said about quarantine and illness. I remember the flyer, a house filled with blue, so much blue, as blue as the summer sky and just as clear. I remember the teddy bear, watching me.
If I allow myself to doubt, I’ll be lost. I can’t doubt. I don’t. It all makes sense. Metal and fur, a drone far above. He’s a cog like everything else. Like me. His rules are just different.
I’m walking carelessly, faster than I should be. My foot catches on nothing; I stumble. Brennan reaches out to steady me, but I pull away.
“Mae,” he says.
“I’m fine.” I set my blurred gaze to the ground, start walking again.
“Mae, what’s that?”
He’s looking ahead. I try to see what he’s seeing, but the horizon is a fuzzed mass. I thumb my glasses lens, harder, creating heat. “What’s what?” I ask.
Brennan looks at me. His eyes are huge. He looks terrified. I feel my chest tighten.
Whatever’s up there, it’s not real.
But even if it’s not, it is, and contradictions can be dangerous. Remember the fine print. Remember the coyote. Teeth and gears and blood and fear. The doll’s pursed lips crying for Mama.
I pull the lens from my pocket and wipe it on my shirt. I close my left eye, hold the lens up to my right.
Suddenly, the trees have leaves. Crisp, singular leaves. The guardrail to my left has dings and dents and dots of rust. There are lines of white paint edging the road, faint but there, and a squashed frog has dried to jerky not three feet from where I stand. How much subtlety have I missed since my glasses broke? How much roadkill?
I look at Brennan. He has freckles, and a small scab on his cheek.
I look away, look ahead.
A fallen tree blocks the road. A white sheet is tied into the branches so that it falls flat like a sign. There’s writing on the sign, but it’s too far away to read, even with the lens to my eye. Another Clue, finally. I march forward.
“Mae, wait,” says Brennan.
“Can you see what it says?” I ask.
“No, but—”
“Then come on.” I open my left eye; clarity and ambiguity mingle in my vision, and I weave slightly, adjusting. Within seconds I can begin to make out the letters on the sign, the shapes of the words. There are two lines. The first is two words, maybe three; the second line is longer, giving the overall text a plateau shape. Runs in the paint further confuse the letters, but after a few more steps I can decipher the first word: NO.
I feel as though I’ve just scored a point. I read a word; I’m winning this Challenge.
“Mae…”
I want to figure out the message before I get too close, just to say I did. The second word starts with a T. I bet the word is “trespassing.” A sinuous middle increases my confidence. The second line is harder. A V-word to start. “Violators,” must be.
Brennan grabs my arm. “Mae, stop,” he says, frantic.
And then the text clicks into place and I read the full message:
NO TRESPASSING.
VIOLATORS WILL BE GUTTED.
“Gutted?” I say, lowering the lens. “That’s a bit much.” And yet I feel my body constricting, wanting to hide. I can barely remember how it feels to be held by someone I love, but I have no trouble imagining the sensation of a blade ripping into my abdomen. The fire, a moment of frozen time, then spilling outward. I imagine steam rising as my warm guts hit the cool air. Then I imagine myself as the one doing the gutting.
“Let’s go,” says Brennan, nodding back the way we came.
The only way out of a Challenge is to say the words, to quit.
“We’ll go around, Mae.”
Gutted, I think. The sign is so extreme, so ridiculous. It’s like the flyer, meant for the viewing audience, not for me.
With the thought, a sense of extreme unimportance overwhelms me. This show isn’t about me. It’s not about the other contestants. It’s about the world we’ve entered. We’re bit players, our purpose one of entertainment, not enlightenment. I’ve been thinking about this whole experience the wrong way—I’m not here because I’m interesting or because I’m scared of having kids, I’m simply an accent on their creation. No one cares if I make it to the end. All they care about is that the viewers watch to the end.
I put the lens back into my pocket and stride forward.
“Mae!”
This is the game I agreed to play.
“Don’t!” His hand is on my arm again, but he’s not pulling. “Please.”
Yes, I think. This feels right. I bet Cooper is on the other side of that sign, waiting for me. Maybe one of the others. Probably one of the others. Complication comes in threes: love triangles, third wheels, the trinity.
I’m close enough now that I can read the sign without my lens; knowing what it says helps. Brennan is still with me, so I must be going the right way, no matter what he says. Will Cooper have a shadow too? A pouty white girl? Maybe the Asian kid—what was his name?—will be the third; that’d be fitting, a nice TV-friendly diversity. Or Randy, for a dash of drama? I doubt there will be another woman. There’s no way Heather’s made it this far, and Sofia—well, Sofia’s a possibility.
I reach the downed tree. I’m standing next to the banner. Is this a starting line or a finishing line? I don’t know, but I know it’s something. I reach forward. Touching the tree is going to be a trigger. For what, I don’t know. Bells and whistles, maybe, or flashing lights.
My hand slips into the blur, finds a solid branch.
Sirens don’t erupt. Signal flares don’t shoot into the sky. The earth doesn’t shake. The woods are unchanged.
Disappointment thrums through me. I was so certain this moment mattered.
It’s not the first time I’ve been wrong.
I climb over the tree, then take out my lens and scan the road ahead. It’s clear. Brennan hops down next to me on the pavement.
“Well,” I say. “We still have our guts.”
“Shh,” he whispers. He’s curled like a thief. “I heard about this kind of thing.”
I didn’t listen closely to his story, but I’m pretty sure this is a contradiction. “I tho
ught you didn’t see anyone after leaving your church.” I speak at a normal volume and he shushes me again. “Fine,” I whisper.
“I met a few, at first,” he tells me. “They were always sick.”
That’s a fair revision, I think. And I have to admit, his worry is contagious. Are we about to meet my marauders? I creep forward and keep my lens in my palm, ready. As we advance, Brennan’s gaze darts from side to side.
I wonder how I’m being portrayed now. I know what my role was when we started. I was the earnest animal lover, always cheerful and up for a Challenge. But now? Will they cast me as off my rocker? Probably not; that’s Randy’s role, with his stupid gold cross and his tales of possessed toddlers. But whoever I am now, I’m no longer who I was.
I wonder if I can even do it anymore, be that person grinning until her cheeks ache. It was exhausting, as exhausting as this endless trekking, in its own way.
Give it a try.
Well, why not?
I look at Brennan and smile. I summon my most chipper voice and say, “Some weather we’re having, huh?” My stomach turns; being cheerful hurts.
He just looks at me, eyebrows raised. I drop the painful smile and look away. What if I can never be that person again? Not the exaggeration of myself I put on for the show, but the person I really was. The person I worked so hard to become after leaving my mother’s sour home. I hate the idea of being this miserable for the rest of my life. But I’ll readjust. Once this is over. I have to. My husband will help. As soon as I see him again, all this misery will be banished. This experience will become what it was meant to be—one last adventure. A story to tell. We’ll adopt the wacky-looking greyhound of our dreams, toss our condom supply in the trash, make a small family. I’ll do it, even if I’m not ready, because you can’t be ready for everything and sometimes overthinking a challenge makes overcoming it impossible and I am not my mother. Soon these hardships will be far enough in the past that I’ll be able to pretend I had fun here. Or maybe being pregnant will be so awful this will seem like a vacation. I read a book before I left that makes that seem possible, with its talk of grape-sized hemorrhoids and crusty gum growths.
Is that why I haven’t had my period yet?
No. I’m not pregnant. I know I’m not pregnant. This is my body’s reaction to physical stress—all this hiking, and how long did I go without eating when I was sick?
But. What if?
My last period was a week or so before I left for the show. We had sex after that, but with protection—I’ve never been on the pill; sex without a condom is nigh inconceivable to me—but maybe something went wrong. Maybe after all these years something finally went wrong.
I remember being so scared that I’d get my period while here, anticipating it, fearing a cameraman would get something incriminating on film. As if menstruation were shameful. As if it were a choice. Now I just want it to happen so I can know, so I can be certain of something.
I think of the doll in the cabin. Its sunken, spotty face. Its mechanical kitten cries.
I’m not pregnant.
I want to think about something else. I need to think about something else.
“So, what’s with the zebra print?” I ask Brennan.
“Shh!”
I forgot we were whispering. I mouth an apology, just to get him talking.
It works. After a moment he says, so quietly, “Reminds me of Aiden.”
The brother. I don’t remember if he’s supposed to be dead or alive. Wait—Brennan said something about calling him, about phones not working. He doesn’t know. “If you survived, he might have too,” I try. “Immunity could be genetic.”
“My mom didn’t survive.”
“What about your dad?”
He shrugs. “He was in the Army. Died when I was little.”
I’m trying to decide what to say next when a loud snap to our left interrupts my thoughts. I pivot toward the sound; Brennan jumps behind me. Hurriedly, I find my lens and hold it to my eye. I close my other eye and scan the woods.
This is it, I think. Everything is about to change.
A flash of white, a curled tan body on stiltlike legs, big dumb eyes. An eastern white-tailed frozen in our presence. I take a step toward it and the ice cracks. The deer scrambles over a log, then bounds away, its snowy tail erect.
“What was that?” asks Brennan, voice trembling.
“A deer,” I tell him. I hear anger in my voice, but all I feel is tired.
Soon a driveway sprouts to our right. I take out my lens. The driveway is a semicircle leading past a gas station, a minimart, and a motel, and then back to the road. There’s a black pickup truck by the pumps, and the windows of the minimart are boarded. One of the motel room doors is open. There’s a vending machine by another.
“I bet this is their base,” says Brennan.
Of course the marauders have a base. I’m anticipating a Challenge, but this place looks abandoned and it’s out of the way. There is no blue that I can see.
“Do you think we should check it out?” Brennan asks, suddenly bold.
“You didn’t want to cross the tree,” I say, “but you want to go in there?”
He shrugs.
Something about that open door strikes me as far more menacing than a banner stretched across a fallen tree.
“We don’t need anything,” I say. “There’s no reason to.”
“The vending machine’s open,” he says. “I’m going to check.” He dashes toward the motel. I almost call after him.
I keep my lens to my eye and watch as Brennan jogs up to the vending machine. As he said, its front is ajar. He pries it fully open—the metallic screech makes me cringe—and reaches in. He’s taking bottles of something, I can’t see what. When he’s done he creeps toward the open door. I hold my breath as he steps inside. I expect screams, I expect gunshots, I expect silence. I expect everything, nothing. This might be where we part ways, because no matter what happens, I’m not going in there after him.
Brennan steps back outside. He jogs toward me, leaving the door open.
“I got some water,” he says. “And Fanta.”
“Terrific,” I deadpan, slipping my lens back into my pocket. “Let’s go.”
“Don’t you want to know what was in the room?” he asks.
“No.”
“Well, let’s just say—”
“No!” I snap. I don’t need to be told what’s in that room. I already know. More props, more games. A reward if I can hold my breath long enough to cross the room and reach a safe, or a briefcase, or a bag. But there is no blue. If it’s a Challenge, it’s optional, and I choose not to participate.
Over the next few hours, we pass a handful of houses and see several more deer. When we stop to make camp, I notice Brennan acting squirrely. He keeps looking at me, then looking away. He clearly wants to say something. About halfway through building my shelter I can’t take it anymore. “What?” I ask him.
“That piece of glass in your pocket,” he says.
“I wear glasses,” I tell him. “They broke shortly before we met and that lens was all I could salvage.”
“Oh,” he says. “I didn’t know.”
Because I didn’t tell you, I think.
We finish our shelters, then sit together between them and split a bag of trail mix. As the sun sets I feel heavy and anxious. I don’t build a fire and Brennan doesn’t ask for one. He chugs a warm soda. I sip my water. I can’t stop thinking about the motel, about what was behind the open door. If it was what I thought, then why isn’t Brennan upset? Why does he no longer seem to care about the NO TRESPASSING sign? I don’t want to ask.
The moon’s waning and the sky is clouded. There’s very little light. My vision is a checkerboard of grays implying trees, implying a boy. I need to close my eyes. I back into my shallow shelter, snuggle into dry leaves, and pull my hood over my hat.
“Good night, Mae,” says Brennan. I hear rustling as he settles into his own shelter.
That night in my dreams I knock a crying baby off a cliff and then run to catch it, but I’m too late and my husband’s there, watching, and no matter how much I apologize to him it can never be enough.
When I wake up, it’s still dark and I’m shivering. I remember my dream too well, variation on a theme. My hood is off and I’ve squirmed partway out of my shelter. At first I think the cold woke me—ever since the rain, it’s as though Mother Nature flipped a switch to turn summer into autumn—but as I push back into my shelter, I realize there’s a sound overhead. Another airplane. I look up, but can’t see its lights through the canopy, the clouds. It sounds far away, but it’s there. That’s all that matters.
The next time I open my eyes, it’s light out. From the sun’s position I know it’s later than I usually sleep. I’m still cold—not shivering, but chilly. My fingers are stiff. It might be time to find some warmer clothing. But we should reach the river—if not today, tomorrow. From there it can’t be more than another two or three days. I can last that long. Then I’ll be able to sleep in my own bed with the covers tucked up to my chin, my husband a furnace at my back. I hope Brennan won’t put up too much of a fuss about being cold. That is, if he even feels it. He might not, if he’s anything like I was at eighteen. My freshman year at Columbia, I often wouldn’t bother putting on a coat while rushing between buildings for class in the winter. My friends would shiver beside me, incredulous, and I would shrug and say, “Vermont.”
I glance toward Brennan’s shelter as I crawl from mine. His zebra pack leans against the exterior. I start pulling apart my debris hut, figuring the noise will wake him, but every time I look in his direction I see only stillness. I toss the last of my framing branches aside. It crashes into leaf litter and strikes a rock. He sleeps through the racket, somehow.
“Hey,” I say, approaching his shelter. “Time to get up.” I crouch by the opening.
The shelter is empty.
“Brennan!” I shout, standing. “Brennan!” And then I’m hyperventilating and can’t call his name again. I turn in a circle, the forest suddenly ominous. I know he’s part of the game and I’ve been wishing him gone since he first appeared, but I can’t do it, I can’t be alone. There’s not enough of me left to survive being left alone again.
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