[-] MachOneMama 29 days ago
How do they get away with all the killing? I’m surprised PETA hasn’t stormed the set.
[-] BaldingCamel 29 days ago
I’m sure they have all the necessary permits.
[-] CoriolisAffect 29 days ago
Maybe they have. It’s not like they’re showing us everything. I texted my friend who’s on set but he keeps replying “confidentiality clause.” Lame.
[-] Coriander522 29 days ago
It was fine for staying in on a Friday with the beginnings of a cold. Don’t know that I’ll go out of my way to keep watching once I feel better.
…
20.
Exorcist, Biology, Engineer, and Banker trickle into camp long after dark, limp with exhaustion. They failed the last Challenge so badly they had to be picked up in a van and driven back to the others. Their ride will be edited out, their failure will not. If the fourth episode of In the Dark were ever to air, it would have opened with a shot of fictitious Eli Schuster limping through the woods, a bloody rag tied around his forehead. A reminder, fading to mystery.
All of the remaining contestants are gathered around a fire.
“I wonder what happened to him,” says Biology.
Zoo feeds a stick to the flames. “Ours fell off a cliff,” she says.
Biology stares at her and asks, “Really?”
Zoo’s reply is clear: a look that says, no, not really, remember where we are. A look that cannot, will not, be shown, though the editor loves her for it. Loves her despite the exhaustion rolling over him as he watches.
Exorcist is tying a squirrel tail around his wrist. “We’ll find him,” he says. He takes an end of the tail in his teeth and pulls the knot tight. Speaking around the hair, he adds, “If not in this world, then in the next.”
“Shut up,” Waitress tells him, but her heart’s not in it. Exorcist is tired too. He pretends not to hear.
Tracker is sitting off on his own, a shadowy figure far from the fire. As Waitress starts complaining about her aching foot, Zoo stands and walks over to Tracker. She sits next to him so that their knees touch. “You okay?” she asks. Tracker slips a hand over his microphone before replying, “No.”
That night the contestants sleep crowded together in a ramshackle last-minute shelter. In the morning, they gather before the host, wary.
The host greets them from beside the elimination post, then pulls a neon-yellow bandana from his pocket and stabs it in beside Cheerleader Boy’s pink. The most surprising thing about the action this time around is the reminder that only one night has passed since Carpenter Chick quit. Banker thinks of the strong, beautiful shelter at their last camp, then glances back at the ugly collection of downed branches they slept under last night.
“Yesterday,” says the host, “was a tough day for us all.”
Us all? mouths Zoo.
“What do you know?” whispers Waitress.
The host continues, “But as you know, it was too much for one of your companions, who quit before even undertaking your most recent Challenge.” He begins pacing before them, holding Carpenter Chick’s backpack. “Today I have only one item to distribute.” He pulls a full water bottle out of the bag.
Had he ever seen this footage, the editor would have cut now to Carpenter Chick, riding away in the back of a car with tinted windows. “There’s only one other woman I think has a chance of winning anything,” she says. “So I guess give my water to her. Girl power and whatnot.”
The host hands the water bottle to Zoo.
“Thanks,” she says, not especially surprised. She thought she had about a fifty-fifty chance of getting the bottle, with the other fifty percent going to Engineer. Engineer had reckoned about the same, though he gave Zoo the edge—sixty-forty, he’d thought.
The host stalks back to his centered position. “Today promises to be even more challenging than yesterday.”
A cameraman interrupts with a loud, hacking cough. Everyone turns to him. He’s to the group’s left, the same cameraman who interrupted yesterday. Zoo’s silently and secretly given each cameraman a name and she thinks of this one as Bumbles. “Excuse me,” says Bumbles. “Sorry.” His voice sounds weak. He coughs again, doubling over. He can’t stop coughing. The producer walks up to him and the two speak quietly between loud coughs. The host keeps his distance, openly disgusted. After a moment, the cameraman walks away with the producer, who motions for the host to continue.
“Good thing they have redundancy,” says Engineer to Zoo, motioning toward the half dozen other cameramen currently milling about. In Zoo’s internal parlance: Marathon Man, Slim, Wallaby, the Plumber, Goat Face, and Coffee Breath, whose breath only smelled like coffee once, but that was enough. A fraction of the crew.
The host coughs a look-at-me cough. “Today promises to be even more challenging than yesterday,” he says again. “Come with me.”
As they walk, Air Force says to Black Doctor, “We never got a reward for finding that guy yesterday.”
“You’re right,” says Black Doctor. “That’s strange.”
Zoo overhears and thinks, Your reward was not having to pull a wallet from a blood-soaked pocket. Not having to watch the man jump. Tracker walks beside her, thinking about the vast inappropriateness of receiving rewards for farce.
The group reaches the small clearing atop yesterday’s cliff, where the Expert stands in the middle of ten color-coded stations wearing the same flannel shirt he wore in his first appearance. He greets the contestants with a gruff nod. The host steps forward to stand with him and says, “Until now, you’ve had modern means at your disposal for starting fires. Now, if you want fire, you will have to learn to make it the way it was made before matches, before”—he looks pointedly at Zoo—“fire starters. You’ll have to use a bow drill.”
“I’m here to show you the technique,” says the Expert. “Gather ’round and watch closely.” He kneels and picks up the pieces of his bow-drill kit: a curved wooden bow strung with deer tendon, a thin wooden baseboard, a thumb-thick spindle of harder wood, a palm-sized rock, and a tinder bundle made from twisted-together dried grass and threads of inner bark. Within seconds he has the spindle secure in the bowstring and pressed to the baseboard, which he braces against the ground with his foot. The socket rock has disappeared into his palm, which he rests atop the spindle. Bracing his spindle hand, the Expert begins to run the bow horizontal to the ground. The spindle catches, then spins. The Expert bows faster. A thin trail of smoke wafts upward. To the uninitiated: magic. Waitress gasps. Even Tracker is impressed—he couldn’t do it better himself.
The Expert pulls the spindle from the baseboard, revealing a charred indent lined with soft black dust. He cuts a pie wedge into the charred hole with his knife. “The objective here is to make a coal,” he says. He places a piece of bark under the baseboard, reassembles the kit, and bows again. Smoke blooms and he keeps bowing. The smoke thickens. The Expert removes the spindle to reveal a tiny glowing coal, which he tips into the tinder bundle. He cups the bundle in his hands and blows into its center. A speck of warm light expands into flickering orange. With another breath, flames erupt.
The Expert angles the flames away from his face. “You know the rest,” he says. He drops the bundle and stomps it out. “Good luck.”
The host steps up. “First one to ignite their tinder bundle wins,” he says. “Go!”
The contestants head toward their respective stations—except for Exorcist, who eschews his lime green for Tracker’s red, sprinting. He snatches the red-marked baseboard and flings it over the cliff. “Now the rest of us—”
Air Force grabs Exorcist’s arm and cranks it up behind his back. Exorcist yelps.
“What the fuck?” says Air Force.
“Just leveling the field, friend,” says Exorcist, squirming to relieve the pressure.
Tracker walks to the edge of the cliff and peers down. He’s regretting not running to his station. He didn’t think he had
to hurry to win this Challenge.
Black Doctor touches Air Force’s arm. “Hey, easy,” he says.
Air Force tenses, then relaxes. “Sorry,” he says. He lets go of Exorcist’s arm.
Exorcist punches him in the stomach.
Air Force recoils, more surprised than hurt.
“Wasn’t your face!” says Exorcist. “Wasn’t your genitals!” He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a squirrel tail, throws it at Air Force. It flutters down to land near his feet. “Let’s see your defensive fetal!” he shouts. Another squirrel tail, this one hits Air Force in the knee. Air Force stares at Exorcist, bewildered.
Black Doctor steps between them. “Hey, hey, hey,” he says. A squirrel tail thwaps him in the chest.
Tracker is walking away from the group; he will make this right on his own.
Exorcist takes off his backpack. Crouching, he pulls out another handful of squirrel tails.
Black Doctor looks at the host for help.
“I’m sure you can settle this on your own,” says the host.
A tail whizzes by Black Doctor’s ear.
“Why don’t you just take his chunk-of-wood thing?” Biology calls to Tracker from her orange station.
Tracker has collected a piece of deadwood. He takes out his knife.
“He’s carving a new one!” cries Exorcist. He flings a tail toward Tracker; it falls about twenty feet short.
“Do you smell smoke?” asks Air Force. Everyone involved in the conflict turns to find Engineer bowing, a thick stream of smoke curling up from his maroon-and-brown-striped baseboard. Engineer is a natural, and far ahead of the others who decided to engage in the Challenge instead of Exorcist’s drama. Zoo hasn’t even gotten her baby-blue spindle to turn yet; it keeps popping out of the bowstring. Waitress is trying to get her spindle to stand without winding it into the string. Biology can’t get hers to turn. Banker’s bowing, but instead of smoke his kit produces a high-pitched squeak.
Exorcist springs toward his lime-green kit, and Air Force turns to his navy-blue one. Black Doctor steps toward his mustard-yellow station; his boot strikes a small rock at the wrong angle. He falls, landing heavily on his right hand. He hears the pop of a ligament tearing. He pushes to his knees, holding his wrist tight to his body. The wrist is already swelling, pooling blood pushing angrily at the skin.
Air Force is at his side. “Doc? You okay?” he asks.
“Need a medic?” asks the host.
“I’m fine,” Black Doctor assures his friend, but then he meets the host’s eyes and nods. “Medic, please.” An intern ushers him away. Air Force watches him dissolve into the tree line, then reluctantly returns to his station. He knows he’s lost too much time to have a chance of winning this Challenge.
Engineer finishes carving his notch and winds his spindle back into the bow. Tracker’s new baseboard is almost finished, but it’s too late; by the time he starts bowing, Engineer has his coal. A moment of tension as Engineer tips the coal into his tinder bundle and blows, but the bundle ignites and the host cries, “We have a winner!”
Engineer places his flaming tinder bundle gingerly onto the dirt. He’s smiling, shy but proud. “Do I have to put it out?” he asks.
Tracker drops his kit and stalks up to Exorcist.
Exorcist is sitting cross-legged with his spindle in one hand and his bow in the other. “Hey, so I—” he starts.
Tracker grabs him by his jacket and hauls him to his feet. Exorcist’s spindle and bow clatter to the ground.
“You think you’re the scary one,” Tracker says. His face is inches from Exorcist’s, his eyes as narrow as Exorcist’s are wide. His voice is cold, even. “But you’re wrong. One more stunt like that and I’ll make sure you envy those squirrels whose hides you’re defiling. Understood?”
“Holy shit,” whispers Waitress, her face flipping between shock and glee as Exorcist nods rapidly and endlessly. Everyone is watching. The host steps forward, uncertain; Tracker has been so steady, he never expected true confrontation. Neither did Exorcist, not even when it was walking straight at him. The only one who understands that this isn’t about Exorcist is Zoo. She wants to take Tracker by the arm, take him away, tell him it’s okay, it’s just a game. Remind him of why he’s here. But she fears what it might look like if she steps forward, what it might mean—and she doesn’t.
Tracker lets go of Exorcist, maintaining his still stance and iron stare until Exorcist breaks and stumbles back a step. As Exorcist begins sputtering a quiet apology, Tracker turns away and walks back to his station. Awed silence descends on the clearing.
Engineer’s tinder bundle has burnt out at his feet. The host attempts to regain control by clapping him on the back. “Time for your reward!” The contestants trickle over. Exorcist arrives last and stands on the far side of the group from Tracker.
Meanwhile, out of sight, Black Doctor tells the EMT, “I felt the pop,” and they exchange a knowing look. Black Doctor’s next look is for the camera, as he says with only a sliver of bitterness, “Ad tenebras dedi.”
The host says to Engineer, “First, you get to choose one other person to join you in your advantage.”
Engineer names Zoo, quickly and decisively. She steps forward to join him.
The host pulls two plastic bags filled with dry pasta out of the duffel.
Zoo has decided to pretend that nothing unusual has happened, to play the role she was assigned. She takes the one-pound bag of penne and grins until it hurts. “Pasta!” she says, trying so hard to make up for cracking last night. “Thank you.” Engineer is as pleased by her reaction as he is by his own bag of penne.
“And,” says the host, “you each now get to steal one item from any other contestant.” Waitress gasps; Biology grimaces; Air Force doesn’t care, he’s still thinking about Black Doctor. “But before you do, know that the next phase of this competition is a long-term Solo Challenge. Starting tonight, each of you is going to be entirely on your own.”
About time, thinks Zoo. Tracker looks to the ground, thinking the same. Most of the others grumble.
Engineer chooses first, stealing Tracker’s thermal blanket. “Sorry, man,” he says. Engineer gets cold easily; he feels chilly even now, despite the warm afternoon air.
“Anything other than the blanket can now be yours,” says the host to Zoo.
Zoo’s thinking about her pasta and how to cook it. Her plastic water bottles will melt if put in the fire. Even attempting hot-stone cooking will probably damage them. “I’ll take one of those metal cups,” she says to Waitress. She doesn’t feel bad, doesn’t apologize. Waitress has two, after all.
An intern bursts out of the woods, lugging a backpack and the post with the pink and yellow bandanas. He sets the post upright near the host and whispers into his ear.
“What happened?” asks Air Force, turning quickly toward the woods. “Where’s Doc?”
“The good doctor didn’t make it,” says the host. That’s all he knows, but he says it like he’s hiding something and Air Force wants to punch him in the face. The host pulls out Black Doctor’s mustard-yellow bandana and stabs it into the post.
“What happened?” Air Force demands again.
The host ignores him, stepping away to confer with the on-site producer. When he returns he speaks as though he never left. “Due to the circumstances of your next Challenge, we will be distributing his supplies now.” He takes two water bottles and the water purification drops out of the backpack. “I doubt anyone will be surprised by who these go to.” He hands the drops and one bottle to Air Force. “And this.” He hands the other bottle to Banker, who was kind when Black Doctor hurt his hand. “But we do have one surprise.” With a flourish he pulls out the wrinkled black trash bag that Black Doctor received from Cheerleader Boy. “This goes to…” He eyes the contestants, and then jerks his head to stare at Zoo. “You.”
“Huh,” says Zoo. She had a few casual conversations with Black Doctor, but nothing memorable. This gift, as sm
all as it may be, is a mystery to her.
Waitress scowls, watching. If this episode were ever edited, if it were to air, it would cut now from her sour face to Black Doctor. “I hope Ethan wins,” he says. He’s sitting on a log, his arm in a sling. “Give him the drops and a water. Elliot can have the other.” He closes his eyes for a moment, clearly in pain. “The bag? Give it to that woman, the blonde with the green eyes who tries so hard. She’s here for the right reasons.” With that, an EMT helps him up and starts leading him down the trail. A moment later, the cameraman turns away, and the EMT drops Black Doctor’s arm.
The host hands each contestant a marked orienteering map. “These will get each of you to your home for the night. You will receive new instructions in the morning. Over the course of this Solo Challenge, new supplies will be made available for each of you, but they will not always be obvious. So, stay aware and remember your color—or starve.”
“How long will this Challenge last?” asks Rancher.
“You’ll know when it’s over.”
“What are we supposed to eat?” asks Waitress. She’s almost out of rice. Her eyes flick toward Air Force, accusing.
“As I said, stay aware—or starve.” The host likes that line. Tonight he will be sleeping in a hotel, and as he gets ready for bed he will repeat it to himself with various intonations and flourishes. “Good luck,” he says, and then he walks a few steps away, just out of frame.
Tracker orients his map and compass, then turns to the group. He makes eye contact with Zoo and mouths, You can do this, then starts off toward the first landmark indicated on his map: a small lake about a mile north. He is unfazed by the loss of his thermal blanket; he hasn’t used it once.
As Engineer and Zoo pack their new supplies, Rancher, Air Force, Biology, and Banker set off on their separate paths. Waitress looks at her map and bites her lip—unconsciously. She’s terrified. Exorcist sees this. He’s still a little rattled himself, and for the first time he approaches her with kindness. “You’ll be fine,” he says.
“I know,” she snaps.
Exorcist’s anger flares. “Or maybe you won’t be. Maybe you’ll starve, or fall down a hole. No loss either way.” He gives her one last sneer, then backtracks down the trail toward where the group spent the night.
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