Survive or Die

by Catherine Dilts

  Berdie spun around on one heel and stomped out of the museum.

  After a brief stunned silence, the tour group moved on. Aubrey joined Grant as he worked his way from one cluttered room to the next, studying each display as though there would be an exam afterward.

  Aubrey was as fascinated with the building as by its contents. The self-guided tour pamphlet explained the convoluted floor plan. The original two-story brick hotel had suffered the indignity of numerous additions to accommodate the rapidly increasing population of the mining boom days. Dark wood doors, window frames, and ornate moldings made even the largest rooms feel closed in. Wallpaper, faded and curled at the edges, did nothing to brighten the interior.

  They entered a reproduction of a late 1800s kitchen. Grant placed both hands on a low railing that kept visitors an arm’s length from the items on display.

  “Imagine doing everything without electricity,” Aubrey said. “Nothing would have been quick or easy. Keeping a fire going in the stove would have been a full-time job.”

  “Harvesting the wood,” Grant said. “Chopping it to fit in the stove. I can’t imagine how people had large families back then. They should have been too exhausted to procreate.”

  “On the other hand, there would’ve been less distractions,” Aubrey said. “No TV or telephone. No computer. When you were home together, you were really together.”

  Grant nodded. “That’s why I’d love to run a camp like Survive or Die. Our family would be working together, instead of functioning like we’re separate units.” He motioned with his hands. “Here’s the Grant box.” He set the imaginary box on the railing. “Here’s the Aubrey box. The Shane and Junie and Cody boxes. They all exist in the same house, but they don’t ever have to interact if they stayed plugged into their electronics, or school, or jobs.”

  “We could start saving.” Aubrey thought of Jeremiah’s plan. “Buy a piece of land.”

  Grant pressed his hands to the railing and lowered his head. “It’s not a simple matter of owning property. You’d need cabins. Outbuildings.”

  “Bathrooms.”

  Grant smiled. “My dream camp would teach survival skills, but not by pitting people against each other. Cooperation would be the primary skill. How to work together.”

  They strolled out of the kitchen and into a hallway.

  “I wonder where this goes.” Grant jiggled the glass doorknob on a narrow door. “A closet, maybe?”

  “Old buildings rarely had closets,” Aubrey said. “They used free-standing wardrobes.”

  “Then maybe it’s another room.” He twisted the doorknob and pulled open the door, revealing a steep flight of stairs. “Let’s see where it goes.”

  “Grant! Didn’t you see the Do Not Enter sign?”

  “I’m tired of always being the Boy Scout. I’m ready to break some rules.”

  Aubrey followed Grant up the creaky steps. They emerged in the reproduction of a one-room schoolhouse. Aubrey was alarmed to realize they were on the forbidden side of the protective railing.

  “We’d better get out of here,” she said, “before the docent catches us.”

  Grant grabbed Aubrey’s hand and pulled her through the maze of wooden desks. He seemed ready for one naughty adventure after another. He stopped, pulled Aubrey into his arms, and kissed her. His whiskers tickled. She giggled. When floorboards creaked, they both jumped.

  “Busted,” Grant whispered.

  They were closer to the stairwell door than the exhibit railing, so they made a dash back the way they’d come. Grant pulled the door shut. Aubrey could hear someone enter the schoolroom. Then she heard muffled conversation.

  “If we’re quiet,” Grant whispered, “maybe they’ll go away.”

  A voice raised in anger.

  “Because it’s disgusting, watching my old man cavorting around with a cheap tart.”

  “Doug,” Grant whispered.

  “It’s none of your business what your father does,” Candace said.

  “Or who he does?”

  Aubrey heard the crack of a hand meeting flesh. After that, they lowered their voices. Aubrey could barely hear them over the rapid beating of her own heart. Their discretion did not last long, and soon she could hear every word again.

  “I’m warning you,” Doug said, “leave him alone.”

  “Are you going to make me?” Candace asked. “Was Madison’s margarita meant for me? And what about Jack’s drink last night? No one else has been drinking whiskey sours.”

  “Maybe Rankin got tired of Dad’s abuse.”

  “Rankin would use his fists before he’d spike a drink,” Candace said. “But you might use poison, if you thought daddy was going to change his will. What if he already did, Dougie boy?”

  Doug laughed. “It wouldn’t matter if he did. My mother is sole owner of all the family assets. Whether Dad lives or dies, Mother owns everything, which means I will too, someday.”

  Aubrey mentally crossed Doug off her suspect list. He had nothing to gain by killing his father. Other than pure satisfaction.

  “The plant is irrelevant,” Doug continued.

  There was a moment of silence, then Candace spoke, her words an unintelligible hiss.

  “Oh, he didn’t tell his special lady?” Doug asked. “Imagine that. Mother’s closing the factory.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Grant gasped, which might have given away their hiding place in the stairwell if a dozen scuffling feet and the droning of the docent hadn’t moved through the schoolroom display. Candace and Doug were silent until the group passed. Then their conversation resumed.

  “I know all about Bender Clips moving,” Candace said. “Jack told me. The whole package is going to Singapore. The equipment, the drawings, everything. Including me.”

  Doug laughed. “You hang on to that little fantasy. I’d think his son would know better than his mistress. Mother is selling the factory to a competitor. No American personnel are going overseas. The US plant simply closes.”

  Grant grabbed the crystal doorknob as though he intended to open the door and confront Doug Bender. Aubrey held his arm and placed a finger against her lips.

  “That’s not what he told me,” Candace said. “I’ll be moving into a sweet condo with him in Singapore. We’ll have servants and a chauffeur. Maybe Jack doesn’t tell you everything.”

  “You’re right about that. He didn’t keep me in the loop about his other mistress.”

  Now it was Candace’s turn to gasp.

  “She’s younger than you, and he’s not taking her to Singapore. If the contract I found in his desk is any indication, he’s running away to an island in the Caribbean.”

  “You’re lying, Doug Bender.”

  “I wish I were, but not for your sake. Don’t worry. I plan to put a stop to this dirty business, too.”

  “You haven’t stopped anything. You’re bluffing.”

  “I stopped things last night.”

  “You— you drugged your own father?”

  Aubrey could hear the clacking of Candace’s sandals as she left the room. Then Doug’s footsteps creaked across the floor. When Grant reached for the doorknob this time, Aubrey didn’t stop him. The stairwell had become suffocating.

  “We have to tell your coworkers,” Aubrey said. “They’re here under the pretense that they’re fighting for their jobs. If Doug is right—”

  “If.” Grant hurried through the schoolroom display and climbed over the railing. “Even if it’s true, he didn’t say when. If you think someone’s out to get Bender now, imagine if we tell people what we just heard. It would be a slaughter, three dozen people killing one man.”

  “We have two more days of camp.” Aubrey grasped Grant’s hand and hiked up her sundress to clamber over the railing, relieved the museum docent was nowhere in sight. “Two
days to survive a game we now know is pointless. We have to tell people the factory is closing. At least let me tell Madison.”

  Grant squeezed Aubrey’s hand and looked her in the eyes. “You tell Madison, and she tells Sotheara, and she tells someone else. The employees will panic. Doug didn’t give a date. How do we know he wasn’t making it up to hurt Candace? Let’s play along like we don’t know anything until we get home.”

  The whole thing felt icky, yet Aubrey couldn’t argue with Grant’s logic.

  Touring the museum just wasn’t fun now that she bore the burden of secret knowledge. As they walked through the last of the rooms in silence, they must have been so quiet that Jack Bender didn’t hear them approach the room displaying Native American history. Bender muttered sweet nothings to a woman he had hemmed up in the corner. Candace hadn’t wasted any time confronting him about Singapore.

  “What would Mrs. Bender say?” the woman asked. Veronica’s voice. Not Candace.

  “Mrs. Bender doesn’t need to know,” Jack said.

  “I don’t get involved with married men,” Veronica said, “whether their wives know or not. It’s just a policy of mine.”

  Bender laughed at this, and Aubrey would have, too, if not for the risk of revealing that she and Grant were spying on them.

  “You’ve been chasing after that little gray mouse Grant Sommers.”

  Aubrey glanced at Grant in time to catch him silently mouthing the words “little gray mouse.”

  “So you can get off your high horse,” Bender continued, “and give me a little kiss.”

  “Chasing and catching are two different things,” Veronica said. “If I wanted to catch Grant, I’d have him by now. I’m just using him as bait.”

  Grant’s face turned beet red.

  “Bait for who? Oh, not telling, eh? He can’t give you that promotion you want.”

  “According to those classes Nel made us take after that incident at the company holiday party, your offer qualifies as sexual harassment.”

  “I had to go through the class, too. All you have to do, kitten, is tell me no.”

  As Veronica rushed out the door, Grant and Aubrey pretended to study a display case. Inside the room, Bender muttered curse words.

  “I’ve had enough of this museum,” Grant whispered.

  They hurried to the nearest exit.

  Sotheara stashed her souvenirs in her room and pulled on her new Save the Bats sweatshirt. The sun slanted across the campfire circle as campers gathered around the chuck wagon. People seemed refreshed after a day off from competition. Even Millie was in a good mood.

  “Hey, Cowgirl,” she told Sotheara. “I saved you a veggie plate.”

  Sotheara explained that chicken was not a vegetable as she accepted corn on the cob, plain green beans, and a roll. She dared to relax. For the moment, people almost seemed to like each other. Then Rowdy rang the triangle, breaking the fragile peace.

  “Good news, Buckaroos. The weatherman says it’s gonna stay clear overnight. We can finish our last two challenges.”

  “Won’t the trails be too muddy?” Omari asked.

  “Some of us are training for the Denver Marathon,” Veronica said. “We can’t take chances with injuries.”

  “You have that choice.” Bender scowled at Veronica. “You can leave camp tonight. But you might not have a job Monday.”

  “Bender seems more pissed than usual,” Sotheara whispered to Madison. “I wonder what that’s about.”

  Yvette stood. “I’m out.” She headed for her cabin, limping.

  “You can’t quit!” Shirley jumped up. “We have Berdie on our team now.”

  “We have no chance of winning.” Yvette spoke loudly enough for the entire camp to hear. “Our team captain is in the hospital. Our coworkers are younger, and in better shape. I will admit to myself what you will not. I am too old for this nonsense. My feet are covered in blisters, my arthritis is killing me, and I am exhausted. To hell with this crappy job. I’m going home.”

  She turned to glare at Bender, who had a whiskey sour in his hand and a smug grin on his face. There was no smile in his eyes. They smoldered with anger.

  “You can’t leave,” Shirley said. “You rode here in my car.”

  “She can come with us.” Damon stood. He grasped Habika’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “I received a job offer from another company. Consider this my two-week’s notice.”

  “Forget a notice.” Bender pointed a shaking finger at Damon. “I don’t want to see your face in my building Monday, or ever again.”

  “Jack Bender,” Habika said, “my husband did not want to burn any bridges, but he’s got nothing to lose now. And if he won’t tell you about yourself, I’m happy to do it for him.”

  Sotheara prepared to enjoy an epic rant.

  “No, honey.” Damon placed a hand on Habika’s arm.

  Darn.

  “How many more of you have to be hurt before you wise up?” Habika continued. “Jack Bender is going to promote or fire whoever he feels like, just to toy with your lives.”

  She stomped out of the campfire circle’s light. Damon followed, leaving stunned silence in his wake. Yvette paused, turning and bowing to the crowd.

  “Au revoir.”

  Fawn stood.

  “You can’t have another job lined up,” Bender said. “You’d never pass the drug test.”

  “Nature calls,” Fawn said. “I’ll be back after a trip to the bathhouse.”

  Aubrey waited for Grant to reveal that he knew Mrs. Bender planned to close the plant. There was no point to continuing the game. Two more people on the Wild Cats left, foregoing the grandiose exit speeches. Then Roberto and Mason from Bender’s team left. In all, eight people joined the exodus.

  Aubrey wasn’t sure why she expected heroics from Grant. She pushed aside thoughts of the romantic afternoon in the hotel room. That had been an aberration in an increasingly passionless marriage. Yet she was partly to blame. She had spent most of the supposed vacation trying to convince him to leave Bender Clips, and when he presented his dream of escape, she shot it down. Just when Aubrey had screwed up the courage to make a speech like Habika, Rowdy clanged the triangle.

  “Looks like we’ve culled the herd,” he said. “Only the serious folks remain. So here’s the deal on tomorrow’s challenge.”

  Shirley waved her arms. “Hold on. This isn’t fair. We’ve only got five on our team now.”

  Rowdy looked Bender’s way, lifting one shoulder in a shrug.

  “Oh all right,” Bender said. “But hurry up.”

  While people scrambled to rearrange teams, Aubrey and Madison made a trip to the bathhouse. Aubrey hoped they wouldn’t be evicted from their teams in their absence.

  “Thanks for going with me,” Madison said. “Things are so tense, I’m scared to go anywhere alone. Especially in the dark.” She shivered.

  “That’s one of the tips in Rowdy’s book,” Aubrey said. “Chapter Six, I think. Use the Buddy System. Don’t travel alone.”

  “You’ve been reading his book?”

  “I’m skimming. Jeremiah said it’s not half bad. Rowdy may be a washed-up television star, but he does know about survival.”

  “I’ll bet he had a ghost writer. None of those celebrities write their own books.”

  As they approached the bathhouse, Aubrey heard a voice from inside.

  “Why do people think the toilet is private? I’ve heard more secrets going to—”

  “Aubrey, quiet. Maybe we’ll hear something juicy.”

  They crept up to the women’s side of the bathhouse and stood under an open window.

  “It’s Candace,” Madison whispered. “And she doesn’t sound happy.”

  “I can’t hear what she’s saying.”

  “Neither can I.”

  The t
oilet flushed. When they heard the stall door slam open, Madison shrugged and pushed the bathhouse door open. Candace spun around as the two women stepped inside.

  “What are you doing here?” She clutched a tube of poison ivy ointment in her fist.

  “Um,” was all Madison could muster. She eased past Candace and entered a stall.

  Candace’s mascara smeared under her eyes. She had been crying.

  “If you and Madison spent as much time working out as you did sticking your noses into other peoples’ business, you might have a chance of winning this game.”

  Did Candace know Aubrey and Grant had overheard her conversation with Doug at the museum?

  Madison must have felt brave behind the shield of the stall door. “You should talk. Your team is battling for last place.”

  Aubrey dared look Candace in the eyes, not sure whether that would calm her or further enrage her. “That’s not a problem for Candace. Her job’s not riding on winning this game.”

  Aubrey suspected that was not true. Not anymore. But she hoped the rash statement would push Candace to reveal the truth.

  “You don’t know anything.” Candace finished fixing her makeup. She had plenty of room to walk around Aubrey, but she deliberately shoved into her as she passed. She paused in the doorway, turning to glare. “Your snooping and spying is going to get you hurt.”

  As the door creaked closed, Aubrey considered Candace’s choice of words. Not “might” but “is.”

  “I wonder what that was about?” Madison washed her hands at the cracked ceramic sink.

  Aubrey wanted to tell Madison everything she and Grant overheard at the museum, but she had promised she wouldn’t tell anyone about the factory closing. Not at camp.

  ROWDY HUNTER’S

  SURVIVAL TIPS

  You made every greenhorn mistake in the book, and now you’re stuck in the wilderness for the night, or maybe longer. Whether it’s summer in the desert or winter in the mountains, you’re gonna need protection from the elements. This chapter covers a few basic types of shelter. Need shade from the sun? Conserving the last of your body heat before you freeze to death? Whatever the situation, you need to get a shelter up fast.