The Most Dangerous Game

Chapter 20 Did You Get That?

Greg’s back throbbed and his forearms burned from the adrenaline hangover. He slung on his pack and followed Sean out of the cave toward the river. Three in the afternoon and the sun hung above them like a guillotine blade, waiting. The air was a wet rag over their mouths; every breath felt like drowning in sweat. Their shirts clung to them as if stitched into their skin. Somehow, they kept moving.

Sean took point. Greg’s eyelids fought him with every step, but the thought of food kept him awake. Twenty minutes to the river felt like twenty hours. The forest swallowed direction—trees in every direction, no path, just the endless insect hum.

Then—salvation. The distant roar of rushing water. To thirsty men, it might as well have been a choir. Sean dropped onto a rock and pawed through his bag. Greg mirrored him, spilling out their improvised fishing kit: a stick, fishing line, and a dirt clod full of wriggling worms he’d dug up earlier. As the worms writhed, Greg flashed back to last night’s nightmare, felt his stomach knot, and flung the dirt aside.

Sean gave him a sideways smirk. “You know what we’re missing?”

Greg squinted at their setup. “Rod, line, bait. What else?”

Sean held up the line and a worm. “The hook, genius.”

It hit Greg like a punch. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Sean echoed.

Greg scanned the bank, grabbed a sturdy branch—part walking stick, part weapon—and stripped down to his pink GAP underwear. He waded shin-deep into the cloudy current, brandishing the stick like a harpoon. To Sean, he looked like a metrosexual Tom Hanks auditioning for Castaway 2.

Greg stood still, watching fish drift past his legs. Palm-sized mostly, but a few tilapia darted by before vanishing into the murk. Each time he lunged, the stick stabbed nothing but water.

Sean’s annoyance morphed into inspiration. He dug out the camera. Content over calories. “Come on,” he muttered to himself, framing Greg—half-drenched, underwear clinging, jabbing at invisible prey.

After the tenth miss, Greg erupted. “Fuck!” He hurled the stick across the river, sending a ripple out that scattered the fish.

They sat side-by-side on the bank. Greg’s shirt was soaked halfway up. Both wished they’d listened harder to Don Rightenour’s “Survival Basics” spiel.

Sean finally broke the silence. “Tyler had oatmeal cream pies in his bag. We could eat those… and maybe call for help?”

Greg stared at him like he’d suggested cannibalism. “No. We finish this video.”

Sean gave him a long, slow blink. “And if we starve before the finale?”

Greg didn’t have an answer.

“Give me the Starlink,” he said instead.

Sean handed it over. Greg connected without thinking, muscle memory guiding his thumbs: passcode, Instagram, record.

His face appeared in the front camera—eyes sunken, charm drained. “Hey guys,” he started, forcing a smile that collapsed mid-sentence. “Day two of seven. Things aren’t great. I’m sure you’ve seen the video—guy gets eaten by a bear. That was our cameraman. We didn’t bring supplies. We lost a crew member.” His gaze kept sliding from the lens, the way it had the first time he’d slept with Selena—afraid of being truly seen.

“Please send help,” he said. Once. Twice. Posted it.

They ate the cream pies in silence, the sugar gluing their tongues to their mouths. The sweetness only made them hungrier.

Then Sean nodded past Greg. “Look.”

Two squirrels wrestled on a tree trunk, squealing like rusty hinges. Sean rose, grabbed Greg’s abandoned “harpoon,” and crept forward. The squirrels kept at it, oblivious.

Greg realized too late what Sean was doing. Sean swung like a man teeing off—one squirrel bolted up the trunk, the other caught the full blow. THUNK. Bark sprayed. A red smear bloomed where it had clung.

The squirrel hit the ground twitching. Sean’s second swing crushed it flat, cutting the squeals short. The third strike turned bone and meat into something wet and unrecognizable.

Greg caught the stick mid-air before the fourth. “Stop! It’s dead!”

Sean froze, panting, eyes locked on the mangled pulp. The stick’s end was coated in bloody fur. “D-did you…” He swallowed. “Did you get that recorded?”