Stephanie Doyle - The Contestant

Given that hint of primitiveness she detected in him, she couldn’t help but wonder what type of woman in this millennium could handle dating such a caveman. Not that she knew if he even had a girlfriend, or a wife for that matter. He’d said nothing about his past, his job, where he came from or who he was. He talked only about the game and about winning.

Actually, it wasn’t a bad strategy. Talia had decided early to take her cue from him. She’d never been a social butterfly—although she imagined she could give Reuben lessons on congeniality—but she knew it was smarter to play a little quieter than she normally would have. The less sharing on a game like this, with a group like this, the better. With each story that the others told, there was always a weakness to be found and possibly exploited.

To her surprise, Evan hadn’t said anything about her past Olympic experience. Maybe he was waiting for the most dramatic moment, maybe he forgot or maybe he didn’t know. He’d barely managed everyone’s names when they had first come onboard. And since no one had mentioned anything about it, she’d said nothing about it, either. Nor had she told anybody about her life growing up on a boat or her experience with fishing.

Her father had gotten her into this because he needed the money. It was important that she not lose sight of that. If she was going to put herself, her face, her whole life in the spotlight again, then it was damn well going to pay off. To the tune of one million dollars.

“Joe, the camera seemed to be slipping a bit toward the end of that. Are you sure you still had me in the frame?”

Joe, the veteran of the two cameramen, gave his boss a dirty look.

“How long have I been doing this?” It was clearly a rhetorical question.

“Fine. Whatever. Just checking,” Evan said and waved him off.

Talia tugged a bit at the constraints of her life jacket. She hadn’t been forced to wear one since she’d learned how to swim shortly after her fourth birthday. For someone as comfortable in the water as out of it, she felt ridiculous wearing the bulky equipment. That and it rubbed against her shoulders that had been left bare by the bikini top.

Nancy, however, who was sitting next to her on the bench, in a T-shirt and baggy shorts that did everything they could to conceal her chubby body, was hugging the orange preserver close to her chest.

“Do you think we’re going to have to swim?”

Talia considered the question. They were going to be stranded on an island surrounded by water for an unknown amount of time. It was a pretty good bet they were going to have to swim. But she knew that what Nancy was truly worrying about was the swim to the island. Talia tried to smile reassuringly. “Probably not too far. You can swim though, right?”

“Oh, definitely,” Nancy answered. “I’ve been taking lessons at my local Y for months now. Just to get ready for this.”

Months. Talia smiled, but didn’t say anything and thought about the likelihood of Nancy being able to swim more than a mile to shore. Often Talia had been called upon to watch over casual sport fishermen, who liked to drink hard under a hot sun only to want a relaxing swim after a day of fishing. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d had to pull one of those guys from the water or at least hold their heads up until her father could come to the rescue. So she was reasonably sure she could get Nancy to shore, but then she glanced at Iris, the grandmother, and considered the odds of getting both of them to safely to the island.

“What about you, Iris? You a swimmer?”

The older woman gave an affirmative nod. “All my life. One mile a day. Don’t you worry about me. I’ll get there in one piece.”

Talia sighed inwardly with relief. Until she realized Reuben’s intense focus was directed at her. She raised her eyes and met his stare, a silent dare for him to speak up.

“Hey, Pollyanna, the game is called Ultimate Endurance not Love Thy Neighbor.”

“So you’re saying we shouldn’t count on you for help. I hope I’m not hurting your feelings when I tell you I had already reached that conclusion. No wait. I take that back. I know I’m not hurting your feelings.”

His lips twitched. “All I’m saying is that it’s not a team sport. Every man…and woman…is on his own.”

There it was again. Something in his expression, the way he seemed to single her out, had the hair rising on the back of her neck. It was ridiculous. He was wearing dark sunglasses over his eyes; she didn’t really know that he was looking at her. But she swore that she could feel the heat of his gaze through his shades. This guy was dangerous. She just wasn’t sure in how many ways.

“I can take care of myself,” Nancy proclaimed, apparently sensing that she was the weak link. She was right.

Talia reached out to pat her hand gently and caught Reuben’s smirk. It didn’t matter. The future was looming in the shape of an island that was growing larger on the horizon. It seemed to explode out of the clear aqua water, and Talia figured since it was probably nothing more than a big volcano island, that’s exactly what it had done a couple of hundred years ago.

“Okay, Joe. Get ready.”

Talia heard the host’s commands and tensed. They were still a good mile or so from the shore. The water was shallowing out underneath the boat and she could see clear through it to the shadows of the coral reef below. She considered the predators, moray eels, gray reef sharks, tiger sharks and a sundry of fish that could bite hard enough to take a chunk out of a person. Not to mention the coral itself. If someone fell out of the boat the wrong way and impacted with the reef, it could rip flesh open, spilling blood into the water. Which would serve only to attract the predators they all very much needed to avoid.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Talia questioned Evan as the boat slowed to a bob in the water.

The host smiled, his stupid teeth practically gleaming in the sun. “Of course it is. If anything happens we can always pull you back on the boat. Don’t forget the cameras will be watching you the whole time.”

Talia wanted to ask who would be watching out for trouble in the water, but she figured Nancy was currently bumping up against a panic attack and there was no reason to suggest anything that might trigger it.

“What’s the matter, Pollyanna?” Reuben jibed. “Getting scared?”

“What do you think?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead he smiled. “No, I don’t think you’re scared. Of the water, anyway.”

His smile widened. It was the first time she’d seen his teeth since the trip began. They were almost as white and as straight as Evan’s. Only Reuben’s smile wasn’t so much fake as it was menacing…and perversely exciting.

The second boat moved alongside and everyone nodded to each other, their expressions cautious, but also anticipatory. Both cameramen sprang into action, focusing in on the contestants one at a time. Talia did her best not to look away.

“Okay folks, here’s how it’s going to work. For the first part of this game we will be separating you into two teams. Not randomly though. This is going to be Darwinism at its purest. The first four that make it to the island, thereby the strongest, will be one team. The final four will be on the other. Once everyone gets to the island I’ll explain how the first few days are going to work. Until then, this is a race and I’m the starter. Ready. Set. Go.”

Everyone scrambled for the single backpacks that they were allowed to bring. They were only supposed to have contained some basic clothing, sneakers and, for the women, some feminine products. But the way Tommy was clutching his made Talia wonder if he hadn’t included gold along with his illegal ration of food.