Troy actually looks her in the eye this time.
“Ha,” he says. “Right.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “If you didn’t have anxiety, then you probably wouldn’t have insomnia. And if you didn’t have insomnia, you wouldn’t’ve stayed up watching nature documentaries. And if you didn’t watch the documentaries, you wouldn’t have known how to scare off a blustering bear. So, Will, Troy’s anxiety saved you. I think you should thank it.”
Will is quiet. He doesn’t thank Troy’s anxiety. But he doesn’tnotthank it.
Troy just holds tight to the whisk, and everyone is silent as the sun finally makes its way over the horizon and sheds some salmon-colored light on the campsite. The lake is pink and orange, and it meets the sky at a point on the horizon. The clouds hover over it all, reflecting the light. You stare for at least a minute, as the night disappears around you. Once again, it would be beautiful in other circumstances. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t for the revelation the light brings. Because even though it’s faint, you can see everything around you now.
“Oh my god,” says Diana.
Decimated.
That’s the word that comes to mind.
What looks like every bit of your food has been shredded and half digested. Wrappers strewn all over. And when you open the lid to the cooler, you almost begin to cry. Because it’s empty. At least, that’s what you think at first glance. And you’re almost right. At the very bottom is a small package of lemon drops. The one food Silas brought with zero nutritional value. He had them, he said, to dole out on the hardest hikes in order to boost morale. And now here they are, the lone survivors of a devastating attack, the last of your store-bought food.
“Is it that bad?” asks Troy in a matter-of-fact voice.
Instead of speaking, you tip the cooler upside down and let the package tumble out. It hits the grass with an anticlimacticthwap.
“Whoa. I risked my life for lemon drops?” says Will.
The package stays in the grass until Will finally gets off his seat and picks it up. He looks at it briefly, then he rips open the package. For a moment, you’re afraid he’s going to chuck it into the woods out of frustration. But, instead, he starts walking around. He walks, and he solemnly hands out some candy.
Nobody protests or tells him to save it. Everyone knows not to argue. You could all be eaten by a bear any minute. So you take the candy. You take what is offered, and you put the hard, tart lemon drop directly in your mouth. It could be the last sugar you ever have. So it is both amazing and deeply sad at the same time. Your taste buds are overwhelmed by the citrus and sweetness, almost burning, but there’s no way you’re going to spit it out.
“Hey,” says Fran suddenly.
There’s an odd expression on her face. Your body is so exhausted from the panic that you can’t bring yourself to look up the way you normally would. This time it takes the words she says to bring back the tingle that had only moments ago receded.
“Is that Silas’s hat?”
TWENTY-TWO
For a moment, it’s hard to distinguish the voices. Everyone is talking at once, and all at the same frantic, high-pitched register. But Fran’s the one who actually wanders out of the clearing and snatches the cap from the low-hanging branch of a pine. She brings it back and drops it in front of you on the ground.
At that, everyone goes silent. Because it’s definitely the hat. His hat. Red with white mesh and a faint halo of sweat around the back and sides. In the front, just above the bill, it clearly readsADVENTURE CLUB. You all stand in a circle around the cap like you’re praying over it. And maybe a few of you are.
“Okay,” says Will. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
You look at him, surprised by the hopeful half smile you find on his lips.
“Go on…,” says Fran.
“Well, we know now, right? It’s a test! He left us a clue. He’s making us work for it.”
Will is in his arrogant stance, the one where he crosses his arms to make his biceps look bigger.
“I mean… I guess it’s a possibility,” says Diana.
“Of course it’s a possibility!” says Will. “We just have to man up and complete these challenges. Then we can go home. It’s likeSurvivor!”
“Man up?” says Troy. “Is that still a thing?”
Diana looks around at the remnants of food scattered in your vicinity. No one has even gathered the scraps. You’ve barely had time to take in how quickly everything was devastated. How one mistake left you with nothing. Now this.
“But why a hat?” she says. “If he was going to leave a clue.”
