Jack Cavanaugh - Death Watch

Watching from the vomitory, Sydney felt like crying. She knew that for Cheryl this was no longer a game show but a chance to provide for her children after she was gone. With only hours left to live, she’d gambled on staying in LA and lost precious time. She still had to get back to Evanston, convince the doctor to induce labor, and give birth to a child before her time was literally up.

The way Cheryl kept trying to see past the studio lights, Sydney knew Cheryl blamed her for leaking the news of her Death Watch.

Josh Leven arrived at the studio midway through the airing of Wonder Wheel.

“Syd,” he said, walking up behind her and looking at the contestant totals. “She’s not doing too well, is she?”

The podiums told the story. Cheryl had managed to regain a portion of ground—by correctly identifying the meaning of the word obfuscate, to darken, to make obscure—which brought her total to minus $22,600, but the gap between her and Barb Whitlock still seemed insurmountable.

Barb was playing it safe. She passed on two difficult questions and correctly answered one low-risk question—in what town was Jesus born?—to pad her lead by $8,100, bringing her total to $74,600.

Junior, meanwhile, had fallen to minus $39,600 and third place with two incorrect answers. He had yet to answer a question correctly.

The contestants had just locked in another round. Barb Whitlock passed on the number of players on an NFL team roster. “My husband will kill me when I get home,” she said. And Cheryl passed on the atomic weight of silver.

“Which brings it down to you, Junior,” Skip said. “And I have to say, this is a first for Wonder Wheel. Never in the history of the show have we had a contestant spin a combination so low. With a question value of one and a factor of difficulty zero, for $100 the category is Hysterical History. Pass or play?”

Junior’s eyes did his gasping thing. He hesitated. “I’m . . I’m gonna play, Skip.”

“Here’s your question: For $100, what color was George Washington’s white horse? (a) Dapple gray, (b) Black, (c) Chestnut brown, (d) White.”

Junior gripped the side of his podium, his head lowered in thought, his eyes squeezed shut.

“Three seconds.”

Junior was in agony.

“I have to have an answer,” Skip said.

Junior bit his lower lip. His eyes popped open so wide it looked like they were going to disgorge from their sockets.

“D. White!” he shouted, just as the buzzer sounded.

“Judges, did he get in under the wire?”

A double beep signaled he did.

“White, that’s correct!” Skip shouted.

Junior’s deficit was erased by $100.

The audience clapped without enthusiasm.

Skip leaned forward. With a smirk, he said, “Tell me, Junior, now that you have answered correctly, it was obvious you struggled with it. Can you tell us how you figured out the answer to the question?”

“Well, Skip,” Junior said proudly, “I just thought of the pictures I’d seen of George Washington when I was a kid in school, and in the pictures his horse was white.”

Josh whispered to Sydney, “Is this guy for real?”

“You said you wanted to talk,” she replied. Sydney really didn’t want to get into this now, but there seemed to be no avoiding it. She led him to a quiet corner of the studio.

“Look, Josh,” she said, “I’m going to make this easy for you. I know you’re infatuated with Cori and that when a guy’s in love, his brain freezes up and he does amazingly dumb things. I don’t know what Cori promised you to get you to go along with her twisted attempt to steal this assignment from me, and frankly, I don’t want to know. We’re still friends, okay? Let’s just leave it at that. I don’t particularly like you right now and it’ll take me a few days to get over this, but it’s not going to permanently damage our friendship. Just don’t do it again, all right?”

“Syd, I got a death watch notice.”

“Oh, Josh!” Sydney cried. “Are you sure?”

His eyes were glassy. His chin quivered. Sydney had never seen Josh emotionally distraught before, and it broke her heart. He was the good-natured jock, competitive, occasionally frustrated and angry just like everyone else. But never like this. Never broken. Never scared.

He reached into his back pocket and handed her a folded sheet of paper.

Sydney unfolded it.

An email printout.

It was addressed to Joshua Leven at his KSMJ address. The wording was word-for-word identical to all the other notices.

“Confirmation phone call?” Sydney asked.

Josh nodded.

Behind them, the game show stadium crowd erupted with cheers.

Under blazing studio lights, Cheryl McCormick blinked back tears. She’d pulled within striking distance of Barb Whitlock, but the pressure, the pregnancy, and the looming death sentence had spun her emotions out of her control.

Since the announcement that she was under Death Watch, she’d become the studio audience favorite. Everyone in the stands was living and dying with each spin of the Wonder Wheel and each breathless second she took to answer a question.

Meanwhile, Barb Whitlock had stumbled; whether out of greed or a moment of confusion, it was hard to say. Instead of passing and protecting her lead, she took a chance on answering a question.

“How many yards is an NFL football team penalized for going offside?”

The risk was relatively low with a dollar value of $13,500. It appeared to be easy money that would put her well beyond Cheryl McCormick’s reach.

“I’m a big Raider’s fan, Skip,” she’d said. “My husband and I haven’t missed a game in over ten years. The answer is A. Ten yards.”

“I’m sorry,” Skip cried. “But the penalty for offsides in the NFL is five yards.”

“Wait! No! I was thinking of holding. You said holding, didn’t you? The penalty for holding is ten yards!”

But it was too late. Barb Whitlock’s total dropped to $61,100.

Cheryl won the next spin and the first chance to answer a question.

“With a question value of ninety-five, and a factor of difficulty of seven, for $66,500 the category is Rocks of Ages.”

The studio audience groaned. Cheryl had spent most of the show recovering from a wrong answer in this category.

“Pass or play?”

Time was running out. Cheryl might not get another chance to make up this much ground.

“Play, Skip,” Cheryl said.

“For $66,500, here’s your question: The discovery of the Rosetta stone led to a better understanding of what ancient language?”

Cheryl shook her head. Another language question.

“Is it, (a) Paleo Hebrew, (b) Egyptian hieroglyphics, (c) Attic Greek, or (d) Vedic Sanskrit? You have fifteen seconds.”

Each tick of the clock had a dampening effect on the studio audience until it became so quiet Cheryl would have sworn she could hear the heartbeat of her unborn child.

“Eight seconds, Cheryl.”

She remembered something about the Rosetta stone being on display at the British Museum in London. A tour brochure, if she remembered correctly. That didn’t help.

“I have to have an answer, Cheryl,” Skip said.

“B, Skip. Egyptian hieroglyphics.”

It was a guess, pure and simple. But she said it with conviction.

“Correct!” Skip shouted.

That’s when the studio erupted with noise, the very moment Josh Leven convinced Sydney his death watch notice was real.

Sydney and Josh came running. Hunz filled them in. “She’s within $17,200!” he shouted but could barely be heard. “Not much time left, though. One spin left, maybe two.”