We worked silently for what seemed like hours as Sami and I ran back and forth with water and the men stamped out the remaining embers. Our shelter was reduced to ashes.
“What happened?” I asked when I suddenly realized I didn’t know.
“No fucking clue,” Sami began. “I went into the jungle to take a piss and I came back to see Silas and Isaac trying to put the fire out.”
Lex and I turned to the other men.
Silas shrugged. “I don’t know either. We didn’t have a campfire tonight cuz of all the food we got. I was collecting fruit and saw the smoke. Isaac showed up a few seconds after me.”
Isaac nodded but didn’t add anything.
“Where’s Cricket?” I asked.
Everyone shrugged. Lex examined the charred remains of our site. It was too dark to determine what caused the fire and I was more concerned with our missing team member.
“We can figure this out later. Right now, we should find Cricket,” I pressed, startled that I found myself so concerned about her.
We started combing the beach, shouting for our missing teammate. Nothing. It was far too dark to enter the jungle alone with no light. I was getting a little worried.
Lex pulled out the emergency walkie-talkie Julie had given us on our first day at camp. He was just turning it on when who should walk out of the foliage but our little wayward camp counselor.
“Where the hell have you been, bitch?” Sami shouted. I thought I detected more concern than contempt in her raspy voice.
“What?” Cricket said a little defensively. “I was out getting mangos for breakfast.”
That would’ve been a reasonable explanation, were it not for the fact that she had no mangos whatsoever.
“How do we know she didn’t start the fire?” Silas squinted at her suspiciously.
“What fire?” Cricket squeaked.
“How did you find your way through the jungle without any light?” Isaac asked. I thought it was a pretty good question.
“What’s your problem?” she asked. “I told you where I was – what I was doing. I didn’t start any fire.” Her eyes trailed the length of camp and stopped on the charred shelter.
“What happened?” Cricket made a slight movement with her right hand – it looked like she pocketed something she didn’t want us to see. Then she ran over to what remained of our sleeping area.
“Alright,” Lex started, “let’s just calm down. We don’t know that she’s not telling the truth and we don’t know how the fire got started.”
Isaac nodded. “And we won’t know until morning light. Let’s just give everyone the benefit of the doubt and try to get some sleep for the challenge tomorrow.”
The others nodded grudgingly and we silently dug our own spots in the sand. Silas was snoring within seconds, but I had a feeling that everyone else was awake, listening for. . .what exactly?
“I don’t want you to get cold,” Lex’s voice purred in my ear as he settled in next to me. As his arm slid over me, I could feel my temperature rise a few notches. As I heard his breathing slow down to sleep-tempo, my mind wandered.
What happened here? Did someone deliberately start the fire? If it was an accident I was pretty sure one of my teammates would own up to it. And where was Cricket? How did she maneuver through the pitch-black jungle? And what was she concealing in her pocket that she didn’t want us to see?
My brain repeated these questions over and over until I realized that someone was moving around the camp. Very gently, I lifted my head and looked around. A dark shadow was moving against the canopy of trees. I couldn’t make out who it was, and I was pretty sure whoever didn’t want anyone to know what it was doing. Slowly I turned my head to see where the rest of my teammates were sleeping. I just barely made out the dark clumps of bodies, but had no idea who was up and around. One, two, three...yup. The shadow was one of us.
Lex rolled onto his back and I lay down with my head on his shoulder. It was probably just someone going to use the bathroom. Or maybe one of my team was trying to solve the mystery. After a couple of shuffling noises, the sounds ended. Whoever it was had gone to sleep.
The urge to jump to my feet was doused by the realization I might be overreacting. Everyone had to get up sometime in the night for the bathroom. What was I going to do? Tie them up one by one and force them to confess under the threat torture? All I had on me was the bracelet and fire. No, that was too Spanish Inquisition. All I really needed was some water, a coconut shell and some copper wire. . .
This train of thought was going nowhere. The fact was that we didn’t know what had happened. In order to stay in the game to do my job, I had to keep my teammates happy. And I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be happy with me if I was grilling them about their latrine usage. I needed more evidence, so I turned off my inner Nancy Drew and tried to get some rest.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Joel: If you don't understand it, shoot it.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000
My eyes popped open at daylight. I have this weird inner alarm clock that goes off when I need something. In my imagination, it’s a Raggedy Ann clock that says, “wake up, wake up you sleepy head – it’s time to start our day.” I don’t know why it’s Raggedy Ann. I never liked her. Something about those red and white striped socks seemed creepy.
I sat up and looked around. Everyone was still asleep. I stood up slowly and moved quietly to the burned out shelter to see what I could find.
At first glance, everything seemed to be normal. I mean, a fire like that wasn’t exactly normal, but nothing looked out of place. I couldn’t smell any accelerant, like gasoline. There was no trace of foul play. Maybe it really was an accident.
Glancing over at my slumbering team, I thought I saw something shiny out of the corner of my eye. I got down on my hands and knees and peered under the floor of the shelter. Half-buried in the sand was a smooth, black oval. It took me two sticks to reach it and I managed to drag it out from under the ruins and slip it into my pocket as Silas woke up.
“Morning,” he grumbled.
I nodded. “Sleep well?”
“Yeah, right.” Silas stood and tottered off toward the jungle.
As soon as he was out of sight, I pulled the object out of my pocket. It was a cigarette lighter. Where had that come from? It certainly implied that the fire had been deliberately set. Buy why? Who? It really bothered me that I didn’t know. Especially since I was the past president of the Nancy Drew Fan Club. Of course, that was back in 1975, but it still counts and I still had the ID card in my wallet.
Sami rose next, winked at me then headed off into the jungle. It was that time of day when everyone had to turn the jungle into a latrine. I followed her with my eyes. Sami was a likely candidate. I was convinced she was a smoker. Maybe she smuggled some cigarettes and the lighter onto the show? I could just picture her sitting on the corner of the shelter, lighting a smoke and dropping it as someone came into view.
But why wouldn’t she admit it? We all had contraband the night before so it wasn’t like we were going to geek out and turn people in.
Duh! Of course she wouldn’t want anyone to know! She might think it could get her voted off somehow.
Isaac and Lex woke up simultaneously. In a few minutes they had snatched up the spear to fetch fish for breakfast. Sami and I went in search of coconuts and fruit. Silas hadn’t come back and Cricket was still asleep. As I climbed the tree to collect mangos, I toyed with the idea of handing Sami the lighter. For some reason, I just couldn’t do it.
Cricket finally woke up and Silas returned to find fish sizzling over a fire. Our perky little camper didn’t say a word about where she’d been the night before. In fact, she didn’t say anything at all. Maybe we’d come down too hard on her.
“Well,” Isaac stood and stretched. “I guess we’d better get started on another shelter.”
Sami nodded. “I am itching from all that damned sand.”
Lex and I wandered off t
o find what we needed for a new shelter.
“What a team. How did I end up here?”
“They aren’t so bad. I think it would be worse to be on Inuit.”
“Are you serious? Between Cricket the camp counselor and Silas the Civil War re-enactor we’re doomed.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. At least we have someone to lead a suicide charge should we find ourselves in combat.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“And if one of the challenges involves knots, Cricket can probably lead us through it with a song.”
“Well, I was feeling better.”
“Didn’t you ever go to summer camp as a kid?”
I wondered how much to tell him. The Bombays do their own kind of camping. Capture the Flag usually ends rather badly, and our songs sound more like bloodthirsty military cadences.
“Nope. And from being around Cricket I can tell I really missed out.”
“Well, I went to camp. And it wasn’t that bad.”
You know, it was kind of cute how he stuck up for everybody. But I didn’t have time for this.
“There’s some brush over there.” I pointed and he grabbed it. “How about re-enacting bloody carnage? Ever do that?”
“I was a stuntman in Hollywood for years. It was my job to make the guys who got hit by cannon fire fly through the air and not get hurt.”
“Silas wouldn’t like that. He seems like the type who’d love to get sun poisoning by playing dead on a battle field all day.”
“I worked with some re-enactors on a period piece once. They drove me nuts with their demands for authenticity. I eventually had to replace them with actors. They called them Farbs – people who don’t follow the tradition to a tee.”
“What didn’t they approve of?”
“We had pads for the actors to land on so they wouldn’t get hurt. And they were pissed off because the boots all fit. No one got any blisters – and that is some kind of badge of honor with them.”
“Did you work on any movies where you kill off camp counselors?” I asked hopefully.
“No. I didn’t do the Friday the 13th stuff. I worked on some television programs but mostly action flicks.”
“Anything I’d have seen?”
I listened as Lex listed a string of movies from the early 1990s.
“Are you serious? Bad Blood is one of my favorite films! Your explosions were top notch! How did you manage to make that water tower blow?” He was hitting on my territory now.
“Mostly c4. You like explosions?”
Do I! How could I phrase it without sounding like the Unabomber? “I guess I can really appreciate a good bombing scene. Most of them are so unrealistic.”
Lex nodded. “Now everything is done on computer. Very little is real these days.”
I sighed in agreement. We were almost back to camp.
Lex put his hand on my shoulder. “Let’s give Cricket and Silas a chance. If they blow it, I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong.”
My knees went a little weak. He was far more mature than I was. And he was right. Getting along with everyone was crucial to doing my job. Gorgeous, compassionate, responsible and he liked to blow things up. I was definitely in trouble.
We had just gotten back when Julie came out of the jungle, clipboard in hand. She surveyed the burned remains and looked at us.
“Have a little trouble last night?” She didn’t wait for us to reply. “I hope Bert and Ernie got it on tape.” Huh. She didn’t ask if anyone got hurt. Bitch.
Her eyes rested on me and it occurred to me that Julie wasn’t my number one fan. I shuffled my feet trying to buy time. I didn’t want to rat out our camera crew. If I told her they were AWOL last night, she’d probably shove them up our asses for the rest of the time.
“Yup. They got it.” I decided aloud.
I noticed the rest of the team staring at me. “We screwed up and accidentally caught our shelter on fire. Silly us!”
No one else spoke. Apparently, they thought I should run with this alone.
“Well,” Julie scowled. “I’m glad to hear they’re finally doing their jobs.” She squinted down the length of the beach. “Where are they now?”
“Oh,” Sami said, “they needed to get some more batteries or some shit like that.”
“Yeah.” Cricket added.
“Fine.” Julie looked at her clipboard. “We have the first challenge this morning, followed by the immunity challenge and Tribal Council.” She was reading as if she was our cruise director. Julie, the Cruise Director. Ooh! Lex could be Gopher.
“When this morning?” Cricket asked, her head cocked to one side. Suspicion reared up when I saw her and I suppressed it. There was no evidence she had done anything wrong. Maybe sneaky but not wrong.
“Now,” Julie said a little too angrily. “We’re heading there now.”
“Wait a minute,” Silas interrupted. “We have two challenges in the same day?” Apparently, he was the only one smart enough to catch that.
“Yes, that’s right.” Julie nodded.
We all began to protest at once and Julie threw her hands up in the air.
“Look! There will be no argument on this! Let’s go!”
Everyone followed her down the beach. It was hard to see where this was all going. Two challenges and a Tribal Council in the same day? What the hell was going on? Were we shortening our stay? I wasn’t ready to take care of Isaac yet. In fact, I didn’t want to take care of him at all.
A looming sense of panic bloomed in my stomach. I was running out of time and options. I prayed Monty and Jack would have something for me soon.
“Any ideas about the fire?” Isaac whispered to Lex and me as we lagged behind the rest of the group.
I pulled the lighter from my pocket. “I found this.”
Lex took it from me and after examining it – handed it to Isaac.
“Do you think maybe it came from the camera crew?” Isaac asked. Huh. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Where was it?” Lex asked.
I told them where I found it but kept my suspicion of Sami to myself. She was part of our alliance and I didn’t want them to vote her off should we lose our immunity challenge.
“It was probably just an accident,” Lex mused.
Isaac nodded. “We’re just getting paranoid. We really need to focus. Two challenges in one day is a lot.”
His words died off when we realized we were suddenly in the middle of the Inuit camp. They were only located about five minutes down the beach! Was this whole show being planned by monkeys? That made me think about monkeys in suits and I shuddered.
Now, when I said “camp,” I was using the word very loosely. This team never built a shelter and barely had a working fire pit. Where did they sleep? It looked like they just crashed in the sand – just like we had last night. Yeesh.
Julie collected the Inuit members and we took off, heading further down the beach. The other tribe said nothing. Actually, they looked incapable of thought. I wasn’t certain they’d eaten anything since we got there. They appeared to be too weak to take on one challenge, let alone two in the same day.
The other members of my team looked just as shocked as I did. Sure, you wanted to beat out everyone else for the money – but you didn’t want them to die of starvation and exhaustion in the process. Liliana looked thin and tired. I was worried about her the most. What was happening to these people? They really weren’t going to survive at this rate.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Helen: Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!
- The Day The Earth Stood Still
Julie stopped suddenly, causing us all to crash into her like the Keystone cops. She, of course, didn’t fall over. Evil never does.
“Hello.” Alan stood on the beach, waving his arms to reveal nothing around him.
Where was the challenge course? This couldn’t be it. . .could it?
“Welcome to your reward challenge.” Alan intoned.
We
looked around us. There was nothing but sand and surf. How in the hell could this be it?
“As you now know, we have two challenges today. This one is for reward. Want to know what you’re playing for?”
No one nodded. No one did anything. Alan ignored us dramatically.
“Bavarian Beer!”
Julie grunted as she dragged a keg of Beck’s out of the jungle.
Absolutely everyone cheered. Being drunk was a much better option than being sober in this situation. And the beer we’d had the other night was warm and flat by the time we got back to camp.
“Real German brew,” Alan continued. “This stuff has the highest alcohol content possible. And the keg is completely chilled – so it should stay ice-cold all day.”
I started drooling at the mention of ice-cold. I hadn’t had anything ice cold (except the cold shoulder from Julie) since we left Canada.
Jimmy, Bert & Ernie stumbled out of the jungle. But where was the other camera crew? In fact, our three boys looked pretty bad. Big party last night, perhaps? That would explain their absence last night and this morning.
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” Alan pointed at each team. “You are going to play charades. Each team member will act out the item listed on their card. The first team to guess all six answers wins the beer.”
Charades? On a reality show? Seriously? In my mind’s eye I now saw the aforementioned monkeys screaming with glee.
Julie separated the two teams and we were asked to select our first player. No one volunteered. I guess we all thought we sucked at this stupid game. Inuit chose Liliana. This was going to get really interesting.
“I’ll do it!” Cricket chirped a little too eagerly. We nodded our assent and she jumped up and stood in front of us. Julie started the stopwatch.
“Go!” Alan shouted.
Cricket nearly mauled Julie for the card and squinted at the writing. Suddenly, she leaped forward, eyes open wide, wiggling her arms and prancing about in circles in front of us.
Greatest Hits Mysteries Boxed Set (Books 1-4) Page 49
