Page 79 of The Most Dangerous Games

The roar of a great river running through beneath them.

When he does force himself to look down, there is just enough from the flashlights that he is able to see the powerful, swirling water that seems to be yelling up at them.

In the next moment the one yelling is the English boy, Rupert, as his footing goes and he disappears into the darkness.

Jack spins.

Rupert’s arms pinwheel.

Then the boy is gone.

Not into the void—down slick rock that drops off the ledge in a steep slick chute, funneling toward the roaring water below.

Rupert’s scream trails after him.

And then the dark swallows it.

Steven Noble

52.

Death Valley

Two hours in 120-degree heat and this daytime nightmare has turned into what Alek had predicted:

A death march across Death Valley.

Jimmy can’t tell if he’s been walking for two hours or a day. Time doesn’t work right out here. It’s just sun, glare, breath, footfall.

His mouth feels like sandpaper. His tongue feels too big for his teeth. Every swallow is dry.

His strap screen shows what he already knows: heart rate high, temperature climbing.

No coordinates.

No cache.

No mercy.

Two options scream inside his head:

Find water.

Get help.

But maybe the only way to get help at this point is for one of them to push the red button.

They have to find water—somewhere—as remote a possibility as that seems.

Jimmy once considered doing a video in the Great Basin Desert in Nevada. He scouted locations himself. But no heat he’s ever felt comes close to this hellscape.

I’ll die before I let any of the others die out here, he thinks.

Lopez has fallen down once. So has Marcelo. Jimmy caught himself on his hands and felt the ground scrape skin like concrete.

Then Alek calls out: “I have to stop.”

She pitches forward.