JasonSanjo
Your Overlord and Jester
I Don’t Wanna Be Famous
A Total Drama SI story
Disclaimer: Total Drama belongs to Fresh TV Inc. I’m simply borrowing it to tell some stories.
Author’s Notes: Due to last-minute scheduling changes, I got the day off work! Thanks to that, I was able to finish the chapter early. Enjoy!
Chapter 20: Wild Hearts
Chris stood on the dock as he addressed the camera.
“Previously, on Total Drama Island…”
Clips began rolling, showing scenes from the previous episode.
“An escaped psycho killer terrorized our campers with his meat-mangling hook and his mega-murderous chainsaw.
“There was a large amount of screaming, especially once Jason and Izzy joined in on the pranking.
“Ohh, ohh, ohh! I love this part! Duncan tried to out-psych the psycho, only to find himself set ablaze… in more ways than one!
“But ultimate victory went to Jason, who did things to the actual psycho killer that we can’t show on TV, leaving DJ the chicken-heart to float the Loser Boat home.”
The view changed, revealing Chris sitting on one of the stumps by the bonfire pit. There was a beaver in his lap, idly eating peanuts out of the host’s hand.
“Only seven campers remain. Who will win? Who will lose?”
Suddenly, the beaver bit Chris’s hand. “Ow! Who will need a rabies shot thanks to this ungrateful little- Uh, find out on this episode of… Total. Drama. Island!”
Are you okay?
It was the morning immediately after the horror movie challenge, and Heather wasn’t having the best time. She’d barely slept, as the scenes from the previous night kept repeating in her mind. How Jason had scared her half to death in the communal bathroom, only to turn around and save her from the psycho killer.
Are you okay?
The concern in his voice – on his face – had been so unlike his normal behavior it was difficult for her to wrap her head around. And his eyes…
Heather buried her face in her pillow and let out a muffled scream.
Are you okay?
What the heck was with his eyes?! It wasn’t like she’d never looked him in the eyes before… Although, come to think of it, that might have been the first time she did so up close. With his hand holding hers.
Heather pushed herself up on the bed and punched her pillow repeatedly.
What the hell was wrong with her?!
“Stupid Jason and your stupid… Augh!”
“Um… Do you wanna talk about it?”
Heather twitched upon hearing the voice. Very slowly, she turned her head to look sideways. There, standing in the doorway to the girls’ cabin, was Courtney, still in her sleep wear, and seemingly just returned from the bathroom, if the toothbrush and tube of toothpaste clutched in her hands were any indication. There was no sign of Eva and Izzy, however, so the other girls were presumably still taking care of their morning rituals.
Briefly, Heather considered Courtney’s proposal, then almost instantly rejected it.
“Absolutely not,” she said haughtily and turned, laying back down with her back toward the door.
“Aww, Heather…”
Heather felt her eye twitch in irritation. Was that pity in the other girl’s voice? To her dismay, Courtney proceeded to sit down on the edge of her bed.
“Uh, no,” Heather protested before the Hispanic girl could speak. She sat up. “We are not having a heart-to-heart about this. Get lost.”
“But-”
“What part of get lost do you not understand?!”
Courtney sighed. “Fine. I’m getting dressed and heading out for breakfast. Let me know if you want to talk, okay?”
Duncan was waiting when Courtney, fully dressed and ready to face the day, emerged from the girls’ cabin.
“Duncan!” she exclaimed happily and ran up to hug him, a motion he promptly returned, making sure to squeeze the girl tight.
“Mornin’, cutie,” he said with a grin as they parted, then immediately leaned back in and stole a kiss. “How’d you sleep?”
“I slept great!” Courtney returned. Then she frowned. “I don’t think Heather did, though…”
Duncan quirked an eyebrow as they started to slowly walk away from the cabin, hand-in-hand. “What, after almost getting chainsawed by a real psycho killer? I’m not surprised.”
“Nooo, that’s not it. I walked in on her talking about Jason and punching her pillow.”
“Y’mean there are people who don’t fantasize about punching Jason in the face?”
“Duncan, come on! I’m being serious!”
The delinquent sighed and let go of Courtney’s hand to instead cross his arms over his chest. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the next part of the conversation. “Fine. Go on.”
“I think she’s embarrassed,” Courtney said, her brow furrowing in thought. “Last night in the lodge was suuuuuper romantic, but then she ruined it by freaking out about the blood. So now I think she’s too embarrassed with herself to do anything.”
Duncan was right; he didn’t like this part of the conversation at all. He and Courtney had finally gotten together, so why did they still have to make a fuzz over the make-believe romance between Heather and Jason?! “And we care because…?”
“Oh, Duncan, you know I’ve been cheering them on since forever,” Courtney said, rolling her eyes as she turned to look toward the boys’ cabin. “Last night should have been it, but I’m not sure Heather can recover from this on her own. I think she needs help!”
Duncan barely suppressed a laugh, managing instead to make a derisive snort. “Yeah, she needs help all- Huh?!”
Suddenly, when he happened to adjust his footing by taking a half-step to the side, Duncan felt something close around his ankle. A split-second later, the world turned upside-down, and he found himself hanging, suspended via rope, from a tree.
Oh, well; at least this way he wouldn’t have to continue the conversation right away. He looked downward to see the other campers join Courtney on the ground, but none of them had seen him. To his annoyance, it was Heather who spoke first.
“Wasn’t there a street rat talking to you just now?”
“I’m not a street rat, jeez,” Duncan interjected. When they all looked up, he added, “Someone set a trap.”
At that moment, something large whooshed past him from higher up, and Duncan barely had time to blink before he saw a large cage, fashioned from pieces of debarked wood tied together, perfectly entrap the rest of the campers.
“… Or two,” he added lamely.
At that moment, Chris’s voice rang out. “Gooood morning, campers! Or should I say… trappers?” With those words, the host grabbed the beaver that was for some unfathomable reason resting on his head and put it under his arm, then pulled out what looked like a serrated knife, to Duncan’s mild alarm. He wasn’t going to skin a live beaver or anything, was he? “Ready for today’s challenge? Excellent. Then let’s chat about it over chow, shall we?”
“Wait! Aren’t you going to untrap us?” Duncan called out as the host walked toward the lodge.
Without missing a beat, Chris turned, threw the knife, and then disappeared into the lodge. The knife’s serrated blade somehow not only struck but cut through the rope holding Duncan up, causing him to fall unceremoniously onto the top of the cage. The delinquent was dimly aware that the impact not only rattled his skull, but also jarred the door loose and caused it to open with a creak to let the other campers out of the cage.
“Good aim. Ow…”
Breakfast that day consisted of a particularly bland and sticky paste that may at one point have possibly been porridge. But whatever the true nature of its existence, it wasn’t exactly appetizing, and I found myself eating little. Looking around, I saw my fellow campers were in pretty much the same boat, with no one showing any particular enthusiasm about eating.
I glanced over toward Heather, who promptly looked away. Yeah, she was still mad about the blood, all right. So annoying.
At that moment, Chris decided to address us.
“Campers, there are only seven of you left on Total Drama Island. After tonight’s dramatic bonfire ceremony, only six of you will remain. We’re nearing the end, people, so look alive!”
“What are my chances of winning? I’d say they’re pretty darn great,” Duncan said in the confessional. “I just have to watch out for Jason and I’m golden. Plus, now I’ve got Courtney on my side!”
“I think I have a pretty good chance of winning this,” Trent said in the confessional. “I mean, there’s only seven of us left already, and I’m still here. And when I win, maybe Gwen…”
“Today’s challenge involves making like our province’s great rangers and game wardens,” Chris explained. “You’ll each have eight hours to trap an animal, which you must bring back to the campfire. Unharmed.”
“Hey, what are you lookin’ at me for?!” I spoke up, feeling just a tad insulted.
However, it wasn’t Chris who spoke up next, but Heather. “Gee, I wonder why,” she said in a dry tone. “Maybe because you’re a violent maniac?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Hey, this ‘violent maniac’ saved you from a psycho killer last night, so show some respect, why don’t cha?”
A look of uncertainty passed over Heather’s face before she huffed and turned away.
Chris snickered, apparently finding something amusing in the exchange. He spoke, saying, “Rangers and game wardens often have to relocate animals for their own good and the good of campers.”
“For my good, I think I’ll have to barbecue my animal,” Eva interjected. “I’m starving. When do we get some meat?!”
“Yeah, there’s been a notorious lack of protein lately,” I agreed, turning back to the host.
“It’s funny you should mention that,” Chris said with a grin, “because the reward for winning today’s challenge is a meal of all your favorite foods!”
“I am so winning,” Heather said.
“Not if I win, first,” I pointed out, giving the Asian girl a smirk in response to the quick glare she sent my way.
Yeah, that’s it. The sooner she gets over the blood thing and back to her usual self, the better.
After breakfast, we all gathered at the old boathouse a ways away from camp. Us campers stood with our backs to the door boathouse facing Chris, who stood closer to land, but still on the dock leading to the boathouse. He had an upside-down safari hat in hand, filled with scraps of paper.
“Everyone, choose an animal assignment!” the host called out, bidding us all to walk up one by one and pick a scrap of paper out of the hat.
Trent was first. “Chipmunk. Oh, that shouldn’t be too hard!”
Followed by Courtney. “Frog?”
And Duncan. “Raccoon.”
Then, it was my turn. I pulled a scrap of paper from the hat and examined it as I rejoined the other campers. “Duck, huh?”
After me was Eva. “Beaver? Eh, piece of cake.”
Then Izzy. “Deer. Yes! Baggin’ a doe!”
And finally, Heather. “Bear?! Are you kidding me?!”
“It’s the only animal left,” Chris said disarmingly, holding up the empty hat.
“These degenerates get cute little froggy and wee baby ducky and I’m supposed to trap a bear with my bare hands?!”
I snickered. “Good one.”
Evidently, Heather hadn’t made the pun intentionally, because she whirled on me with a heated glare and the words, “What’s so funny, Wild Boy?!”
I blinked, finding myself briefly taken aback by the unexpected flash of anger. “Uh, y’know… Bear? Bare hands?”
“Do I sound like I’m joking to you?!”
“Uh, well, not anymore, no,” I murmured, scratching the back of my head.
“Just because you are a freak of nature who can take on chainsaw-wielding psycho killers with his bare hands doesn’t meant everyone is!”
“I never said-”
“Shut up! Just shut up! I’ve had enough out of you, you, you-!”
“Oh, come on!” I said then, finally raising my voice somewhat. “I got blood on you. Get over it, already!”
Heather’s eyes grew wide in… disbelief? It looked like disbelief. “You think this is abo- No, you know what? I’m done talking about this, you moron!”
“Who’s a moron?!”
Alas, the Asian girl crossed her arms over her chest and turned her back on me, ignoring my query. There was a moment of silence as I glared at her back.
“Well,” Chris spoke up then, his voice irritatingly mirthful, “you do get sixty seconds in the boathouse to gather any equipment that might help.”
His words prompted Heather to do a half-turn to face him. “Unless there’s an animal trainer and a zebra carcass in there, I don’t think it’ll be adequate. This is ridiculous!”
As she spoke, the Asian girl began to walk along the dock back toward land. Clearly, she was done with the whole situation.
“I don’t think I’ve mentioned the penalty yet,” Chris pointed out as Heather walked past him.
“I don’t care. I’ll take it,” she said.
The host smirked. “Loser cleans the communal washrooms.”
Heather froze mid-step.
“Could’ve been worse,” Eva interjected. “At least Owen’s not here anymore.”
There were gasps from all around as people imagined what that would have been like.
“Eh, still wouldn’t be that bad,” I said, shrugging even as I smirked at Heather’s back. “Try doing sanitation work at a sewage treatment plant. Now that’s stinky.”
“You worked at a sewage treatment plant?” Courtney asked, incredulous.
“Oh, yeah,” I confirmed without really thinking about it. “Y’see, they were renovating the whole plant, and at the time my dad was working at one of the sanitation firms contracted to do the work, so when they needed extra workers to help go through all the canals and chambers with high-pressure hoses and drudging equipment, I was-”
“Ewww,” Izzy interrupted. “Worst summer job ever! How stinky was it?”
Oh, right, “summer job”, I thought, realizing that maybe I had said too much. Silently thanking Izzy for her inadvertent help with not blowing my cover, I replied, “Well, after a while, my nose just kinda shut down, y’know? It was really-”
“Hey, eyes on me,” Chris interrupted then, clapping his hands to get our attention. “As stinky as Jason’s summer job stories are, we’re here to do a challenge, people! You have just one minute in the boathouse to grab your critter-catching gear. Hop to it, campers!”
Moments later, we were digging through the mostly useless junk scattered around the interior of the boathouse. I looked up from my own digging to see Heather pull a fishing net out of a barrel. And not just any fishing net, either; it was one of those super-thin ones you tossed into a lake from a rowboat or other small craft to catch small fish.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna catch a bear,” I pointed out.
Heather scoffed and let go of the net. “Whatever.”
“Um, Duncan? You’re gonna trap a raccoon with a sledgehammer?” Courtney asked dubiously nearby, and I looked over to see Duncan who was, indeed, holding a sledgehammer in his hands.
“You may wanna rethink that,” Heather chimed in.
Shrugging, Duncan put down the sledgehammer to instead pick up a chainsaw. He chuckled. “Thanks for the tip!”
I rolled my eyes at the ceiling and returned to digging. I did consider grabbing the fishing net, but honestly I didn’t think it would help all that much with catching a duck. No, I needed something else.
“Hey, I remember these,” I murmured then as I picked up a pair of faux deer horns and tail – from the look of it, the same ones we had used during the paintball deer hunt challenge, weeks ago. “Man, that was fun. ‘Kiss my fluffy tail!’ Heh heh heh heh heh heh.”
Heather let out a disgusted groan. “Don’t remind me. Jerk.”
I glanced in the girl’s direction. “Oh, you’re talking to me now?”
Wordlessly, she turned her back on me.
“That’s what I thought,” I muttered as I rolled my eyes again.
At that moment, Chris poked his head in the doorway. “Ten seconds remaining!”
Crap. Come on! There has to be something-
And that’s when I saw it: a small carton box labeled “Duck bait”, with a picture of a duck on the side. That had to have been planted by Chris or ROB or someone. Still, deciding not to look a “gift duck” in the mouth, I grabbed it.
I looked up when I heard Izzy let out a laugh, just in time to see the redhead jog out of the boathouse carrying a pair of wooden boxes and a small barrel. “Excuse me, pardon, coming through!”
“Is that legal?” Duncan, in an uncharacteristic display of caring about the rules, asked. “Can she just grab whole boxes?!”
Chris shrugged. “It’s not illegal. Time’s up, people! Mosey on outside!”
“I dunno, I guess I got a decent chance,” Jason said, giving a shrug as he sat in the confessional. “I mean, I’m in the final seven already.”
The boy leaned back. “Sure, it depends on the challenges remaining and the voting, but I should at least get a few more challenges in before I go, right? Besides, a hundred k would make putting up with all the cameras actually worth it.”
“I assume I’m the favorite to win,” Heather said as she sat in the confessional, filing her nails. She started counting off on her fingers as she continued, “I mean, look who’s left: Crazy Gym Girl, a criminal, a shipper in love with a criminal, a guitar player, a psycho hose beast, and Jason. And the only things he has going for him are that he’s evil, manipulative, violent, completely unpredictable, fit, protective, and has eyes that…”
The Asian girl trailed off, a deer-in-the-headlights look making its way onto her face before she looked away, her cheeks tinged with red.
Once I and the other campers left the boathouse it was to find Izzy digging through one of the boxes she’d liberated from inside.
The redhead tossed item after item out of the box as she spoke, “’Kay, bobbin’ thingies, old sandwich, stick, big nasty hook… Score! Tranquilizer gun! Guys, look!”
As Izzy waved the gun around, Heather raised one hand protectively over her face. “Could you please aim the other way?”
“Everybody ready?!” Chris called out.
“““““Yes!”””””
“No!” Heather interjected, being the only one who wasn’t ready. On the way out she’d apparently picked up the fishing net again, but otherwise she didn’t look to be carrying anything.
Alas, the host didn’t seem to hear her. “Game on!” he announced, prompting everyone to run off on their respective hunts. Everyone besides Heather… and myself.
“Okay, look, I know the bears around here are kinda pathetic, but they’re still dangerous,” Jason said as he sat in the confessional, “and Heather’s obviously still upset about the blood or whatever, so…”
The boy shrugged helplessly.
“Besides, I might be able to get her to cooperate for future votes. I’m pretty sure she’s been voting against me for a while, and if I can turn that around…”
“Look, how about this: I help you catch a bear, and we’re square on the blood thing. How’s that?”
Heather gave me a look of pure disbelief. “Are you joking?!”
I shook my head. “No joke. I help you catch a bear, you forget about the blood. Deal?”
I held out my hand, expecting a handshake to seal the deal. Heather glanced at it before quickly looking away.
“… So, what, you’re offering to take me to the final two?” she asked in a sarcastic tone.
I blinked, not having expected that. After taking a moment to mentally regroup and consider the idea, I said, “Yeah, sure. It’ll be fun to kick your butt in the finale.”
The Asian girl whirled on me, her eyes shifting between anger and surprise, before turning to calculation. Eventually, she said, “Fine. It’s a deal.”
She didn’t deign to shake my hand, though, and after a moment I lowered it.
“Good. Now, I’m gonna have to go catch a duck, so I can’t really help you until I’m done with that. Until then, you could always try this.”
I pulled out the deer horns and tail I’d picked up earlier. Though I tried, I failed to hide a grin upon seeing the look on Heather’s face.
“You are not serious,” she deadpanned.
“Oh, but I am,” I retorted. “Well, mostly. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to actually catch a bear, so a better idea might be to lure it toward the camp and into the cage. You know what I’m saying?”
Heather took the proffered items and looked them over before looking back at me. “You’re not just doing this to make me look stupid, are you?”
“No, that’s just a bonus.”
Heather scoffed. “Jerk.”
“This is just an alliance of convenience, nothing more,” Heather said firmly in the confessional. “With Jason on my side, that means I’ve got Izzy and Eva’s votes, too. With that majority vote, I’ll be safe until we reach the final four.”
The Asian girl smirked, but there was something unusually giddy about it.
“Oh, but don’t misunderstand: I trust Jason about as far as I can throw him. He’s a sick, sadistic, evil, manipulative bastard… Honestly, I sorta respect him for it… But I don’t trust him. Not one bit.”
It didn’t take long to find a duck; during my wanderings around the island, I had seen several of their watering holes – both literal and metaphorical. The first one I got to was empty at the moment, but the second one wasn’t, holding instead a curiously alone duck.
I opened the box of duck bait and strewed some of the vaguely bread-crumb-like substance on the ground near the tiny pond before backing off. First of all, I had to find out if the duck bait even worked. Once that was done, I could proceed with the actual catching portion of the challenge; I had found a hand net in one of the boxes Izzy left behind which I intended to use for that purpose. It honestly felt a bit too small to hold a duck, but it might help me slow it down until I could get a hold of it with my hands.
I waited. To my quiet elation, it didn’t take long before the duck swam up to the edge of the pond and walked onto dry land. It looked this way and that, quacked once, and then waddled on over toward the small pile of duck bait. It looked around once more, then, apparently satisfied it wasn’t in any danger, it proceeded to eat the bait.
Yes! It worked!
Then, to my utter surprise and bewilderment, the duck jumped into the air, wiggled its feet, and let out a “Quack-quack!” in an alarmingly familiar tone before it landed and proceeded to run away at comically high speed, its little legs moving in ways I was almost certain they weren’t anatomically capable of.
“Did that fucker just ‘meep-meep’ me?!” Jason asked, furious, in the confessional. “Two can play that game, ducky!”
Courtney snickered to herself as she approached a number of wet puddles, her eyes glued to the frog sitting in one of them. She had a metal bucket in her hands, perfect for catching unsuspecting little amphibians.
“I figure I’ve got as good a chance to win as anyone. Better, even!” Courtney said as she sat in the confessional. “After all, I used to be a CIT – a Counselor in Training. Who’s more suited to win a competition centered around a summer camp? No one, that’s who!”
Courtney cautiously approached the frog from behind, hoping to stay in its blind spot. It must have seen her, however, as it croaked and leapt to the next puddle. When Courtney followed, it croaked and leapt again, and before long the amphibian was leading her on a merry chase around the puddles.
… That was, until she stepped into one puddle in particular and her entire world became water. She emerged soon after, gasping for breath, the bucket stuck over her head.
“What the heck just happened?!”
Nearby, the frog croaked.
Grunting, Heather pulled a trash can she’d taken from behind the main lodge up to one of the multiple caves on the island. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she straightened and turned to face the cave opening.
“Uhhh…” She began uncertainly, then paused to clear her throat, before continuing with, “Look, I’m no bear whisperer, but I’ve got some garbage here. So, just come and get it!” When there was no answer from within the cave, she raised her voice and called out, “Hello? I don’t have all-”
She gasped when her words were cut off by distinctly ursine sounds from within the cave. Frightened, she beat a hasty retreat.
This… was not going to work.
Izzy moved stealthily through the underbrush at the edge of camp, on the lookout for her prey. When she heard movement, she rose up from within the bushes, shouted “Banzai!”, aimed her tranquilizer gun and fired three times in quick succession.
Unfortunately, the movement she heard turned out to have been Chef Hatchet, not the deer she was looking for. The chef lay collapsed on his face behind the lodge, three tranquilizer darts sticking out of his ass.
Izzy winced. “Whoops.”
“Oh, my gosh, I should totally win!” Izzy said in the confessional. She giggled. “Okay, you know that time I dressed up as a bear and like, scared everyone and I was like, ‘Rahhh!’ and they were like, ‘Ahhh! Save me!’? Well, if someone else dressed up as a bear and it wasn’t me, I totally wouldn’t have been scared! I would’ve known, which makes me smarter than they are. Oh, did I mention I have an IQ of 188? Because I do! Hahaha!”
Heather was on her way back to camp, finding that she needed time to think… and maybe sit around and wait for Jason to show up.
Not that she couldn’t have lured the bear out on her own, of course, but because this meant less work for her. Also, she wasn’t in the mood to be mauled to death.
Suddenly, what looked like a small duck or other waterfowl ran past her at speeds that seemed impossible for a bird of its size without the aid of flight. She could feel the wind as it went past.
A moment later, she heard the sound of rapidly running feet behind her, and she turned just in time to see Jason whoosh past her, going just as fast as the bird. Of course, with him being much larger, not to mention passing much closer to her, the air displacement was enough to actually knock her clear off her feet.
“Jason?! What are you doing?! Hey!”
The boy didn’t answer, and within seconds disappeared from view. There was a distant “Quack-quack!” coming from the direction the pair had disappeared in, but that was it. Somehow, it appeared the duck was a little harder to catch than she would have thought.
Maybe… she had to lure the bear on her own, after all?
No, no. That was madness. She just had to go back to camp, sit down, and think. Yes, that was it.
It occurred to me, as I ran around the island, that maybe this was how the others had felt during the paintball deer hunt challenge. Was this duck some weird form of personified karma, coming back to bite me in the ass? I certainly wouldn’t have put it past ROB to arrange something to that effect just to mess with me.
At some point during all that running around, I saw Trent fall screaming out of a tree, which provided some much-needed lifting of my spirit. A while after that, I thought I saw Duncan running from… a giant raccoon made up of a whole bunch of regular raccoons?
Okay, I was clearly in need of more oxygen. Maybe I ought to take a break for a little while, maybe go after a slower duck-
“Quack-quack!”
Oh, you little fucker…
“A bear. A bear.” Heather was not happy. She had returned to camp – specifically, to the bonfire area, where the cage was set up; it was still empty, signifying not a single camper had managed to catch their prey as of yet – and was trying to think of a way to catch a bear that didn’t involve dressing up as a deer. “I mean, how on Earth am I supposed to catch a bear?”
“Open the cage!” a voice called out suddenly. “Open the cage!”
Surprised, Heather hurried over to the cage and opened the door. Looking back in the direction the voice had come from, she saw Jason, in close pursuit of the same insanely fast duck as before.
However, the duck didn’t run into the cage, instead veering off at the last instant, somehow performing a perfect, ninety-degree turn without losing any momentum whatsoever. Jason was less lucky, and ran into the cage only to bounce off the interior wall and run back out. As he did so, he tossed a carton box with a duck on the cover into the cage, spreading what looked like bread crumbs all over the interior.
“What are you-” Heather started to ask, but before she could finish Jason had already rushed past her. “Hey! Get back here!”
The duo – duck and boy – did a runaround of the camp, and soon made a beeline for the bonfire pit. At that point, however, the duck spotted the box of bread crumbs, let out a “Quack-quack!” and made another perfect ninety-degree turn, this time right into the cage.
Jason grabbed the door and slammed it shut. Laughing maniacally while gasping for air, the boy leaned his back against the cage and dropped down onto the ground, looking utterly exhausted. Between wheezing breaths, he gasped out, “Caught ya, ya bastard! Ha!”
“Okay, since your ‘duck hunt’ is now finished,” Heather said and she leaned down and grabbed Jason by the front of his shirt, “help me catch a bear!”
Jason blinked. He spent several seconds simply breathing before he spoke. “What… the deer outfit… didn’t work?”
Heather hesitated. “Um, well…”
“Didn’t… try it, huh?”
The Asian girl straightened and turned away in a huff. “There is no way I’m wearing that. It’s ridiculous!”
“That…. didn’t stop you…. last time.”
“Because it was part of a challenge!”
“So is this…. you know.”
Heather grit her teeth. As much as she hated to admit it, the boy had a point. Still she opened her mouth to offer a counterpoint-
“Open the cage!”
Oh, great, another one, she thought irritably as Duncan came running toward them, all while wrestling a raccoon stuck to his head. The delinquent managed to dislodge the mammal just as Heather opened the cage and he quickly tossed it inside.
Duncan slammed the door shut. “Ha! What do you think of that?!”
“Uh, Jason won already,” Heather pointed out and gestured toward the duck.
Duncan tsked. “Dammit!”
At that moment, there was a metallic squeal as the camp’s PA system came online, and with it, Chris’s voice. “Don’t forget: last camper to catch their critter cleans the washroom!”
“Hey… I remember those movies!” Jason said slowly. “Critters… Ugly things… I liked Gremlins better.”
“Riiiiight... I’m gonna go find Courtney,” Duncan said. “Later.”
Heather watched the delinquent go, then turned back to Jason, who was still sitting on the ground, though he seemed to finally have stopped struggling to simply breathe. “Well?”
He looked up at her. “Well, what?”
“Are you going to help me or not?!”
“That depends,” he replied, smirking slightly. “Are you gonna... be a deer about it?”
Heather growled.
Somewhere quite a ways away from camp, Eva had, at long last, reached her target: the river running through the island. And, more importantly, the beaver dam in the middle of it.
The athletic girl waded out into the water, which thankfully only reached her waist, then dove under.
“There you are,” she said once she resurfaced, now inside the beavers’ burrow, where three of the industrious mammals were watching her with avid interest and perhaps just a hint of wariness. “One of you is coming with me.”
In response, the nearest beaver used its tail to slap her across the face. The mostly flat appendage struck Eva’s cheek with a clapping sounds that seemed to echo inside burrow.
Eva narrowed her eyes. “Oh. Is that how it’s going to be, huh?”
There was another slap, causing her to grunt in irritation. The third slap never landed, her fingers clenching instead around the beaver’s tail and stopping it mid-slap.
“You brought this on yourselves, beavers,” she said darkly.
It was on.
“I figure it’s either me or Jason who’s gonna win in the end,” Eva said in the confessional. “I mean, come on: we’re way more athletic than everyone else. Sure, Izzy’s pretty good, too, and I suppose Duncan might not be a total wimp… But let’s face it: at the end of the day, it’s me or Jason.”
The frog croaked.
This time around, Courtney had brought out a piece of cheese tied to a string, the other end of which was tied around a stick. Holding the stick in her hands, the Hispanic girl tried to lure the frog with the cheese, so far to little success.
“Come on, froggy,” she said in a cutesy voice, “it’s gouda! You like gouda, right?”
The frog croaked disinterestedly.
“Do frogs even eat cheese?”’
Courtney gasped excitedly. “Duncan! You came to help me?”
Duncan grinned. “’course, babe.”
“Aww, that’s so- Huh? Ah!”
When she turned, Courtney did a half-step in the wrong direction and began slipping into one of the puddles. Duncan quickly stepped forward and reached out to grab her wrist, but he, too, slipped on the muddy ground, and both teens ended up falling into the puddle.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be another one of the mindbogglingly deep puddles, and they both ended up submerged up to their necks.
“What the heck is up with this puddle?!” Duncan asked.
“Don’t ask. I need another shower…”
The frog offered commentary in the form of a lazy croak.
Courtney scowled. “I hate that frog...”
A while after our rendezvous at the camp, Heather and I had made our way to the nearest bear cave. At the moment, we were hiding behind some bushes outside, debating what to do.
“Well? Go on, then.”
“I already told you: no!”
I sighed. “Look, either you dress up as a deer and lure the bear back to camp where I help you trap it, or I go in there, beat it up, and carry it back.”
Heather put her hands together under her chin in a mock attempt at acting cute. “That sounds great. Good luck!”
I grabbed her shoulder as she started to walk away, stopping her dead in her tracks. “However, it’s going to take me a helluva lot longer to drag an unconscious bear back to camp than it’s gonna take the bear to go to camp under its own power. By the time I get it back there, everyone else will have already caught their animals, putting you in last anyway.”
Heather shook herself out of my grip and turned to face me, a scowl on her face.
I gave her a sidelong grin. “So unless you want to clean the bathroom…”
The Asian girl threw her hands at the sky. “Fine, fine! I’ll do it! Just give me the stupid costume.”
“It’s a win-win,” Jason said casually in the confessional. “Win or lose, Heather gets humiliated, and I get a front-row seat. What’s not to love?”
It honestly wasn’t that difficult to lure the bear out of the cave. All Heather had to do was keep a low profile with her horns sticking out from behind the bushes and trees, and the bear followed. I followed as well, of course, a ways behind the bear, just so I could intervene in case things got dicey.
Unfortunately, I had only accounted for the bear. We were about halfway back to camp when I spotted none other than Izzy, decked out in a military camouflage cap in addition to her regular outfit, sneaking her way through the bushes. She was over on the other side of Heather, and from the angle I was at I had a good look as the redhead spotted Heather’s horns jutting out over the bushes.
Hold on. What was Izzy hunting, again?
I remember the answer too late. Izzy rose up and fired her tranquilizer gun into the bushes hiding Heather, and soon after there was an audible thud as the horns disappeared from view.
Ohhhhhh, crap. She was hunting deer, wasn’t she?
And the bear was still on its way, too.
“Yo! Yo! Hey, bear! Get outta here!” I said loudly, making sure to cause plenty of noise by smacking trees and bushes as I hurried my steps in Heather’s direction.
The bear didn’t like my presence, as intended. It let out a warning growl, then started running off into the woods, fortunately deciding to give up on its hunt. It passed Izzy on the way, and I ran up to join the surprised girl.
“Jason? What happened?” she asked.
“Never mind that. Where’s Heather?”
“Who?”
I shot the redhead a flat look, then shook my head and held up a hand. “About this tall, long, dark hair, hot in a bitchy sort of way, and wearing deer antlers and a fluffy tail. Pretty sure you just shot her.”
At that moment, there was a rustling noise, and we both turned to see Heather very slowly stagger out of the bushes toward us. She had barely stepped out of the greenery before she collapsed in a heap with her ass in the air, and from said ass protruded a single tranquilizer dart.
I tried very hard not to laugh. I really did. Honest.
“Bwahahahahahahah!” Jason laughed hard in the confessional, pausing only to take a deep, wheezing breath before continuing, even harder. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Later that evening, after an excellent winner’s meal featuring multiple types of meat and potatoes, I joined the rest of the campers at the bonfire for the day’s elimination ceremony.
Of course, even though I had taken her to the infirmary to have the medics remove her tranquilizer dart and apply some disinfectant, Heather was still very much paralyzed. Well, not technically paralyzed actually; the tranquilizer dart had contained a powerful muscle relaxant, and it was likely to still be a while before Heather could stand or sit up under her own power, let alone walk anywhere. As such, she had been strapped to a wooden board and wheeled in on one of those trolleys you used for luggage. Right at the moment, she was propped up in a semi-standing position, her head lolling to one side with a line of drool running down her cheek. It was kind of hilarious and sad at the same time.
I may or may not have been snickering at her.
“You’ve all cast your votes and made your decision,” Chris said after spending a moment looking us over in what the viewers would certainly see as a dramatic fashion. “When I call your name, come up and claim your marshmallow. The camper who does not receive a marshmallow tonight must immediately return to the Dock of Shame to catch the Boat of Losers and leave. That means you’re out of the contest. And you can’t come back. Ever.”
I rolled my eyes at the theatrics. No matter how many times we did this, it never got less inane. I glanced over at Heather, who grunted something unintelligible at me.
“Heather wanted to vote for Izzy, for… obvious reasons,” Jason said in the confessional. “I managed to convince her it was better to keep Izzy around for the sake of maximizing our votes. Of course, there was still a choice to be made…”
“The first marshmallow goes to… Eva.”
Despite what he’d said earlier, Chris tossed the marshmallow to Eva, who caught it easily and sat back, smirking.
“Jason.” I easily caught mine as well and popped it into my mouth. It was nice to have some dessert after dinner.
“Heather.” And then I caught Heather’s marshmallow as well, barely keeping it from hitting her in the face. She gave me a look that may have been gratitude… or simply irritation; it was hard to tell.
“Izzy.” Naturally, the redhead caught her marshmallow with a laugh.
“Trent.” The guy I probably liked the least of everyone on the island caught his as well, albeit with a bit more difficulty than everyone else did.
Chris turned to the last remaining campers. “One marshmallow. Two campers. Courtney. Duncan. One of you has spent their last night on Total Drama Island.”
The two campers stared into each other’s eyes, their hands clasped tightly together.
Courtney swallowed. “Oh, Duncan…”
“Hey, it’s fine,” the delinquent returned soothingly. “We’ll see each other after it’s all over, right?”
The Hispanic girl nodded. “Mmm!”
Chris waited for several more seconds, then finally spoke. “Courtney.”
Alas, Courtney made no move to catch her marshmallow, the fluffy piece of sweetness instead bouncing off the side of her head to land on the ground between her and Duncan.
It was over. Or, well, not quite. Leaving the two lovebirds to say their goodbyes, Chris walked over to Heather and quietly, slyly, said, “Being the loser, you realize you still have some unfinished business, right?”
As he spoke, the host pulled out a bucket and a mop.
Heather let out an annoyed grunt and swiveled her eyes around to look at me. In a very slurry voice, she said, “Jason, I require your services.”
“Ugh, when did they last clean this? Sure, it’s not the worst I’ve seen, but come on,” came Jason’s voice through the open doorway leading into the communal bathroom.
Heather, for her part, was outside, her board propped up against the wall. The effects of the tranquilizer dart had mostly worn off, and she was busily filing her nails.
“Courtney took, like, three froggy mud rinses today,” she said in reply to Jason’s complaining. “Don’t forget to scrub the grout with Izzy’s toothbrush!”
“Okay, that might be going a bit too fa-”
To her alarm, Jason poked his head out of the open doorway and saw her. For a split-second Heather found herself frozen, then she quickly relaxed her body, her head lolling to the side and her nail file dropping to the ground.
Unfortunately, the boy didn’t buy it for a second. “I see the muscle relaxant wore off,” he said dryly.
“It’s coming back slowly, like the memories of you getting me shot! Something you will never, ever be allowed to forget.”
For a long moment, the two teens stared at one another. Despite her best efforts to resist, Heather felt heat starting to rush to her cheeks… only for it to vanish instantly when Jason reached out and undid the clasp on the belt holding her up, caught her as she fell forward, and then carried her bodily inside the bathroom.
“Hey, what are you doing?! Unhand me, you brute-! Ow! Ow, ow, ow! Okay, ow! I said, ‘okay’!”
“Shut up and clean.”
“Ugh, you’re such an ass…”
To his credit, the boy didn’t leave, and instead stayed to help her clean, even if he insisted on her doing her part.
Though Heather would have never admitted it to Jason’s face, it wasn’t the worst way she’d spent an evening.
End Chapter 20
The roster
The Screaming Gophers:Gwen, Trent, Heather, Cody, Lindsay, Beth, Izzy, Owen, Leshawna, Justin, Noah
The Killer Bass:Geoff, Bridgette, DJ, Tyler, Sadie, Katie, Courtney, Jason, Duncan, Eva, and Harold
A Total Drama SI story
Disclaimer: Total Drama belongs to Fresh TV Inc. I’m simply borrowing it to tell some stories.
Author’s Notes: Due to last-minute scheduling changes, I got the day off work! Thanks to that, I was able to finish the chapter early. Enjoy!
Chapter 20: Wild Hearts
Chris stood on the dock as he addressed the camera.
“Previously, on Total Drama Island…”
Clips began rolling, showing scenes from the previous episode.
“An escaped psycho killer terrorized our campers with his meat-mangling hook and his mega-murderous chainsaw.
“There was a large amount of screaming, especially once Jason and Izzy joined in on the pranking.
“Ohh, ohh, ohh! I love this part! Duncan tried to out-psych the psycho, only to find himself set ablaze… in more ways than one!
“But ultimate victory went to Jason, who did things to the actual psycho killer that we can’t show on TV, leaving DJ the chicken-heart to float the Loser Boat home.”
The view changed, revealing Chris sitting on one of the stumps by the bonfire pit. There was a beaver in his lap, idly eating peanuts out of the host’s hand.
“Only seven campers remain. Who will win? Who will lose?”
Suddenly, the beaver bit Chris’s hand. “Ow! Who will need a rabies shot thanks to this ungrateful little- Uh, find out on this episode of… Total. Drama. Island!”
Are you okay?
It was the morning immediately after the horror movie challenge, and Heather wasn’t having the best time. She’d barely slept, as the scenes from the previous night kept repeating in her mind. How Jason had scared her half to death in the communal bathroom, only to turn around and save her from the psycho killer.
Are you okay?
The concern in his voice – on his face – had been so unlike his normal behavior it was difficult for her to wrap her head around. And his eyes…
Heather buried her face in her pillow and let out a muffled scream.
Are you okay?
What the heck was with his eyes?! It wasn’t like she’d never looked him in the eyes before… Although, come to think of it, that might have been the first time she did so up close. With his hand holding hers.
Heather pushed herself up on the bed and punched her pillow repeatedly.
What the hell was wrong with her?!
“Stupid Jason and your stupid… Augh!”
“Um… Do you wanna talk about it?”
Heather twitched upon hearing the voice. Very slowly, she turned her head to look sideways. There, standing in the doorway to the girls’ cabin, was Courtney, still in her sleep wear, and seemingly just returned from the bathroom, if the toothbrush and tube of toothpaste clutched in her hands were any indication. There was no sign of Eva and Izzy, however, so the other girls were presumably still taking care of their morning rituals.
Briefly, Heather considered Courtney’s proposal, then almost instantly rejected it.
“Absolutely not,” she said haughtily and turned, laying back down with her back toward the door.
“Aww, Heather…”
Heather felt her eye twitch in irritation. Was that pity in the other girl’s voice? To her dismay, Courtney proceeded to sit down on the edge of her bed.
“Uh, no,” Heather protested before the Hispanic girl could speak. She sat up. “We are not having a heart-to-heart about this. Get lost.”
“But-”
“What part of get lost do you not understand?!”
Courtney sighed. “Fine. I’m getting dressed and heading out for breakfast. Let me know if you want to talk, okay?”
Duncan was waiting when Courtney, fully dressed and ready to face the day, emerged from the girls’ cabin.
“Duncan!” she exclaimed happily and ran up to hug him, a motion he promptly returned, making sure to squeeze the girl tight.
“Mornin’, cutie,” he said with a grin as they parted, then immediately leaned back in and stole a kiss. “How’d you sleep?”
“I slept great!” Courtney returned. Then she frowned. “I don’t think Heather did, though…”
Duncan quirked an eyebrow as they started to slowly walk away from the cabin, hand-in-hand. “What, after almost getting chainsawed by a real psycho killer? I’m not surprised.”
“Nooo, that’s not it. I walked in on her talking about Jason and punching her pillow.”
“Y’mean there are people who don’t fantasize about punching Jason in the face?”
“Duncan, come on! I’m being serious!”
The delinquent sighed and let go of Courtney’s hand to instead cross his arms over his chest. He had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the next part of the conversation. “Fine. Go on.”
“I think she’s embarrassed,” Courtney said, her brow furrowing in thought. “Last night in the lodge was suuuuuper romantic, but then she ruined it by freaking out about the blood. So now I think she’s too embarrassed with herself to do anything.”
Duncan was right; he didn’t like this part of the conversation at all. He and Courtney had finally gotten together, so why did they still have to make a fuzz over the make-believe romance between Heather and Jason?! “And we care because…?”
“Oh, Duncan, you know I’ve been cheering them on since forever,” Courtney said, rolling her eyes as she turned to look toward the boys’ cabin. “Last night should have been it, but I’m not sure Heather can recover from this on her own. I think she needs help!”
Duncan barely suppressed a laugh, managing instead to make a derisive snort. “Yeah, she needs help all- Huh?!”
Suddenly, when he happened to adjust his footing by taking a half-step to the side, Duncan felt something close around his ankle. A split-second later, the world turned upside-down, and he found himself hanging, suspended via rope, from a tree.
Oh, well; at least this way he wouldn’t have to continue the conversation right away. He looked downward to see the other campers join Courtney on the ground, but none of them had seen him. To his annoyance, it was Heather who spoke first.
“Wasn’t there a street rat talking to you just now?”
“I’m not a street rat, jeez,” Duncan interjected. When they all looked up, he added, “Someone set a trap.”
At that moment, something large whooshed past him from higher up, and Duncan barely had time to blink before he saw a large cage, fashioned from pieces of debarked wood tied together, perfectly entrap the rest of the campers.
“… Or two,” he added lamely.
At that moment, Chris’s voice rang out. “Gooood morning, campers! Or should I say… trappers?” With those words, the host grabbed the beaver that was for some unfathomable reason resting on his head and put it under his arm, then pulled out what looked like a serrated knife, to Duncan’s mild alarm. He wasn’t going to skin a live beaver or anything, was he? “Ready for today’s challenge? Excellent. Then let’s chat about it over chow, shall we?”
“Wait! Aren’t you going to untrap us?” Duncan called out as the host walked toward the lodge.
Without missing a beat, Chris turned, threw the knife, and then disappeared into the lodge. The knife’s serrated blade somehow not only struck but cut through the rope holding Duncan up, causing him to fall unceremoniously onto the top of the cage. The delinquent was dimly aware that the impact not only rattled his skull, but also jarred the door loose and caused it to open with a creak to let the other campers out of the cage.
“Good aim. Ow…”
Breakfast that day consisted of a particularly bland and sticky paste that may at one point have possibly been porridge. But whatever the true nature of its existence, it wasn’t exactly appetizing, and I found myself eating little. Looking around, I saw my fellow campers were in pretty much the same boat, with no one showing any particular enthusiasm about eating.
I glanced over toward Heather, who promptly looked away. Yeah, she was still mad about the blood, all right. So annoying.
At that moment, Chris decided to address us.
“Campers, there are only seven of you left on Total Drama Island. After tonight’s dramatic bonfire ceremony, only six of you will remain. We’re nearing the end, people, so look alive!”
“What are my chances of winning? I’d say they’re pretty darn great,” Duncan said in the confessional. “I just have to watch out for Jason and I’m golden. Plus, now I’ve got Courtney on my side!”
“I think I have a pretty good chance of winning this,” Trent said in the confessional. “I mean, there’s only seven of us left already, and I’m still here. And when I win, maybe Gwen…”
“Today’s challenge involves making like our province’s great rangers and game wardens,” Chris explained. “You’ll each have eight hours to trap an animal, which you must bring back to the campfire. Unharmed.”
“Hey, what are you lookin’ at me for?!” I spoke up, feeling just a tad insulted.
However, it wasn’t Chris who spoke up next, but Heather. “Gee, I wonder why,” she said in a dry tone. “Maybe because you’re a violent maniac?”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Hey, this ‘violent maniac’ saved you from a psycho killer last night, so show some respect, why don’t cha?”
A look of uncertainty passed over Heather’s face before she huffed and turned away.
Chris snickered, apparently finding something amusing in the exchange. He spoke, saying, “Rangers and game wardens often have to relocate animals for their own good and the good of campers.”
“For my good, I think I’ll have to barbecue my animal,” Eva interjected. “I’m starving. When do we get some meat?!”
“Yeah, there’s been a notorious lack of protein lately,” I agreed, turning back to the host.
“It’s funny you should mention that,” Chris said with a grin, “because the reward for winning today’s challenge is a meal of all your favorite foods!”
“I am so winning,” Heather said.
“Not if I win, first,” I pointed out, giving the Asian girl a smirk in response to the quick glare she sent my way.
Yeah, that’s it. The sooner she gets over the blood thing and back to her usual self, the better.
After breakfast, we all gathered at the old boathouse a ways away from camp. Us campers stood with our backs to the door boathouse facing Chris, who stood closer to land, but still on the dock leading to the boathouse. He had an upside-down safari hat in hand, filled with scraps of paper.
“Everyone, choose an animal assignment!” the host called out, bidding us all to walk up one by one and pick a scrap of paper out of the hat.
Trent was first. “Chipmunk. Oh, that shouldn’t be too hard!”
Followed by Courtney. “Frog?”
And Duncan. “Raccoon.”
Then, it was my turn. I pulled a scrap of paper from the hat and examined it as I rejoined the other campers. “Duck, huh?”
After me was Eva. “Beaver? Eh, piece of cake.”
Then Izzy. “Deer. Yes! Baggin’ a doe!”
And finally, Heather. “Bear?! Are you kidding me?!”
“It’s the only animal left,” Chris said disarmingly, holding up the empty hat.
“These degenerates get cute little froggy and wee baby ducky and I’m supposed to trap a bear with my bare hands?!”
I snickered. “Good one.”
Evidently, Heather hadn’t made the pun intentionally, because she whirled on me with a heated glare and the words, “What’s so funny, Wild Boy?!”
I blinked, finding myself briefly taken aback by the unexpected flash of anger. “Uh, y’know… Bear? Bare hands?”
“Do I sound like I’m joking to you?!”
“Uh, well, not anymore, no,” I murmured, scratching the back of my head.
“Just because you are a freak of nature who can take on chainsaw-wielding psycho killers with his bare hands doesn’t meant everyone is!”
“I never said-”
“Shut up! Just shut up! I’ve had enough out of you, you, you-!”
“Oh, come on!” I said then, finally raising my voice somewhat. “I got blood on you. Get over it, already!”
Heather’s eyes grew wide in… disbelief? It looked like disbelief. “You think this is abo- No, you know what? I’m done talking about this, you moron!”
“Who’s a moron?!”
Alas, the Asian girl crossed her arms over her chest and turned her back on me, ignoring my query. There was a moment of silence as I glared at her back.
“Well,” Chris spoke up then, his voice irritatingly mirthful, “you do get sixty seconds in the boathouse to gather any equipment that might help.”
His words prompted Heather to do a half-turn to face him. “Unless there’s an animal trainer and a zebra carcass in there, I don’t think it’ll be adequate. This is ridiculous!”
As she spoke, the Asian girl began to walk along the dock back toward land. Clearly, she was done with the whole situation.
“I don’t think I’ve mentioned the penalty yet,” Chris pointed out as Heather walked past him.
“I don’t care. I’ll take it,” she said.
The host smirked. “Loser cleans the communal washrooms.”
Heather froze mid-step.
“Could’ve been worse,” Eva interjected. “At least Owen’s not here anymore.”
There were gasps from all around as people imagined what that would have been like.
“Eh, still wouldn’t be that bad,” I said, shrugging even as I smirked at Heather’s back. “Try doing sanitation work at a sewage treatment plant. Now that’s stinky.”
“You worked at a sewage treatment plant?” Courtney asked, incredulous.
“Oh, yeah,” I confirmed without really thinking about it. “Y’see, they were renovating the whole plant, and at the time my dad was working at one of the sanitation firms contracted to do the work, so when they needed extra workers to help go through all the canals and chambers with high-pressure hoses and drudging equipment, I was-”
“Ewww,” Izzy interrupted. “Worst summer job ever! How stinky was it?”
Oh, right, “summer job”, I thought, realizing that maybe I had said too much. Silently thanking Izzy for her inadvertent help with not blowing my cover, I replied, “Well, after a while, my nose just kinda shut down, y’know? It was really-”
“Hey, eyes on me,” Chris interrupted then, clapping his hands to get our attention. “As stinky as Jason’s summer job stories are, we’re here to do a challenge, people! You have just one minute in the boathouse to grab your critter-catching gear. Hop to it, campers!”
Moments later, we were digging through the mostly useless junk scattered around the interior of the boathouse. I looked up from my own digging to see Heather pull a fishing net out of a barrel. And not just any fishing net, either; it was one of those super-thin ones you tossed into a lake from a rowboat or other small craft to catch small fish.
“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna catch a bear,” I pointed out.
Heather scoffed and let go of the net. “Whatever.”
“Um, Duncan? You’re gonna trap a raccoon with a sledgehammer?” Courtney asked dubiously nearby, and I looked over to see Duncan who was, indeed, holding a sledgehammer in his hands.
“You may wanna rethink that,” Heather chimed in.
Shrugging, Duncan put down the sledgehammer to instead pick up a chainsaw. He chuckled. “Thanks for the tip!”
I rolled my eyes at the ceiling and returned to digging. I did consider grabbing the fishing net, but honestly I didn’t think it would help all that much with catching a duck. No, I needed something else.
“Hey, I remember these,” I murmured then as I picked up a pair of faux deer horns and tail – from the look of it, the same ones we had used during the paintball deer hunt challenge, weeks ago. “Man, that was fun. ‘Kiss my fluffy tail!’ Heh heh heh heh heh heh.”
Heather let out a disgusted groan. “Don’t remind me. Jerk.”
I glanced in the girl’s direction. “Oh, you’re talking to me now?”
Wordlessly, she turned her back on me.
“That’s what I thought,” I muttered as I rolled my eyes again.
At that moment, Chris poked his head in the doorway. “Ten seconds remaining!”
Crap. Come on! There has to be something-
And that’s when I saw it: a small carton box labeled “Duck bait”, with a picture of a duck on the side. That had to have been planted by Chris or ROB or someone. Still, deciding not to look a “gift duck” in the mouth, I grabbed it.
I looked up when I heard Izzy let out a laugh, just in time to see the redhead jog out of the boathouse carrying a pair of wooden boxes and a small barrel. “Excuse me, pardon, coming through!”
“Is that legal?” Duncan, in an uncharacteristic display of caring about the rules, asked. “Can she just grab whole boxes?!”
Chris shrugged. “It’s not illegal. Time’s up, people! Mosey on outside!”
“I dunno, I guess I got a decent chance,” Jason said, giving a shrug as he sat in the confessional. “I mean, I’m in the final seven already.”
The boy leaned back. “Sure, it depends on the challenges remaining and the voting, but I should at least get a few more challenges in before I go, right? Besides, a hundred k would make putting up with all the cameras actually worth it.”
“I assume I’m the favorite to win,” Heather said as she sat in the confessional, filing her nails. She started counting off on her fingers as she continued, “I mean, look who’s left: Crazy Gym Girl, a criminal, a shipper in love with a criminal, a guitar player, a psycho hose beast, and Jason. And the only things he has going for him are that he’s evil, manipulative, violent, completely unpredictable, fit, protective, and has eyes that…”
The Asian girl trailed off, a deer-in-the-headlights look making its way onto her face before she looked away, her cheeks tinged with red.
Once I and the other campers left the boathouse it was to find Izzy digging through one of the boxes she’d liberated from inside.
The redhead tossed item after item out of the box as she spoke, “’Kay, bobbin’ thingies, old sandwich, stick, big nasty hook… Score! Tranquilizer gun! Guys, look!”
As Izzy waved the gun around, Heather raised one hand protectively over her face. “Could you please aim the other way?”
“Everybody ready?!” Chris called out.
“““““Yes!”””””
“No!” Heather interjected, being the only one who wasn’t ready. On the way out she’d apparently picked up the fishing net again, but otherwise she didn’t look to be carrying anything.
Alas, the host didn’t seem to hear her. “Game on!” he announced, prompting everyone to run off on their respective hunts. Everyone besides Heather… and myself.
“Okay, look, I know the bears around here are kinda pathetic, but they’re still dangerous,” Jason said as he sat in the confessional, “and Heather’s obviously still upset about the blood or whatever, so…”
The boy shrugged helplessly.
“Besides, I might be able to get her to cooperate for future votes. I’m pretty sure she’s been voting against me for a while, and if I can turn that around…”
“Look, how about this: I help you catch a bear, and we’re square on the blood thing. How’s that?”
Heather gave me a look of pure disbelief. “Are you joking?!”
I shook my head. “No joke. I help you catch a bear, you forget about the blood. Deal?”
I held out my hand, expecting a handshake to seal the deal. Heather glanced at it before quickly looking away.
“… So, what, you’re offering to take me to the final two?” she asked in a sarcastic tone.
I blinked, not having expected that. After taking a moment to mentally regroup and consider the idea, I said, “Yeah, sure. It’ll be fun to kick your butt in the finale.”
The Asian girl whirled on me, her eyes shifting between anger and surprise, before turning to calculation. Eventually, she said, “Fine. It’s a deal.”
She didn’t deign to shake my hand, though, and after a moment I lowered it.
“Good. Now, I’m gonna have to go catch a duck, so I can’t really help you until I’m done with that. Until then, you could always try this.”
I pulled out the deer horns and tail I’d picked up earlier. Though I tried, I failed to hide a grin upon seeing the look on Heather’s face.
“You are not serious,” she deadpanned.
“Oh, but I am,” I retorted. “Well, mostly. It’s unlikely you’ll be able to actually catch a bear, so a better idea might be to lure it toward the camp and into the cage. You know what I’m saying?”
Heather took the proffered items and looked them over before looking back at me. “You’re not just doing this to make me look stupid, are you?”
“No, that’s just a bonus.”
Heather scoffed. “Jerk.”
“This is just an alliance of convenience, nothing more,” Heather said firmly in the confessional. “With Jason on my side, that means I’ve got Izzy and Eva’s votes, too. With that majority vote, I’ll be safe until we reach the final four.”
The Asian girl smirked, but there was something unusually giddy about it.
“Oh, but don’t misunderstand: I trust Jason about as far as I can throw him. He’s a sick, sadistic, evil, manipulative bastard… Honestly, I sorta respect him for it… But I don’t trust him. Not one bit.”
It didn’t take long to find a duck; during my wanderings around the island, I had seen several of their watering holes – both literal and metaphorical. The first one I got to was empty at the moment, but the second one wasn’t, holding instead a curiously alone duck.
I opened the box of duck bait and strewed some of the vaguely bread-crumb-like substance on the ground near the tiny pond before backing off. First of all, I had to find out if the duck bait even worked. Once that was done, I could proceed with the actual catching portion of the challenge; I had found a hand net in one of the boxes Izzy left behind which I intended to use for that purpose. It honestly felt a bit too small to hold a duck, but it might help me slow it down until I could get a hold of it with my hands.
I waited. To my quiet elation, it didn’t take long before the duck swam up to the edge of the pond and walked onto dry land. It looked this way and that, quacked once, and then waddled on over toward the small pile of duck bait. It looked around once more, then, apparently satisfied it wasn’t in any danger, it proceeded to eat the bait.
Yes! It worked!
Then, to my utter surprise and bewilderment, the duck jumped into the air, wiggled its feet, and let out a “Quack-quack!” in an alarmingly familiar tone before it landed and proceeded to run away at comically high speed, its little legs moving in ways I was almost certain they weren’t anatomically capable of.
“Did that fucker just ‘meep-meep’ me?!” Jason asked, furious, in the confessional. “Two can play that game, ducky!”
Courtney snickered to herself as she approached a number of wet puddles, her eyes glued to the frog sitting in one of them. She had a metal bucket in her hands, perfect for catching unsuspecting little amphibians.
“I figure I’ve got as good a chance to win as anyone. Better, even!” Courtney said as she sat in the confessional. “After all, I used to be a CIT – a Counselor in Training. Who’s more suited to win a competition centered around a summer camp? No one, that’s who!”
Courtney cautiously approached the frog from behind, hoping to stay in its blind spot. It must have seen her, however, as it croaked and leapt to the next puddle. When Courtney followed, it croaked and leapt again, and before long the amphibian was leading her on a merry chase around the puddles.
… That was, until she stepped into one puddle in particular and her entire world became water. She emerged soon after, gasping for breath, the bucket stuck over her head.
“What the heck just happened?!”
Nearby, the frog croaked.
Grunting, Heather pulled a trash can she’d taken from behind the main lodge up to one of the multiple caves on the island. Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she straightened and turned to face the cave opening.
“Uhhh…” She began uncertainly, then paused to clear her throat, before continuing with, “Look, I’m no bear whisperer, but I’ve got some garbage here. So, just come and get it!” When there was no answer from within the cave, she raised her voice and called out, “Hello? I don’t have all-”
She gasped when her words were cut off by distinctly ursine sounds from within the cave. Frightened, she beat a hasty retreat.
This… was not going to work.
Izzy moved stealthily through the underbrush at the edge of camp, on the lookout for her prey. When she heard movement, she rose up from within the bushes, shouted “Banzai!”, aimed her tranquilizer gun and fired three times in quick succession.
Unfortunately, the movement she heard turned out to have been Chef Hatchet, not the deer she was looking for. The chef lay collapsed on his face behind the lodge, three tranquilizer darts sticking out of his ass.
Izzy winced. “Whoops.”
“Oh, my gosh, I should totally win!” Izzy said in the confessional. She giggled. “Okay, you know that time I dressed up as a bear and like, scared everyone and I was like, ‘Rahhh!’ and they were like, ‘Ahhh! Save me!’? Well, if someone else dressed up as a bear and it wasn’t me, I totally wouldn’t have been scared! I would’ve known, which makes me smarter than they are. Oh, did I mention I have an IQ of 188? Because I do! Hahaha!”
Heather was on her way back to camp, finding that she needed time to think… and maybe sit around and wait for Jason to show up.
Not that she couldn’t have lured the bear out on her own, of course, but because this meant less work for her. Also, she wasn’t in the mood to be mauled to death.
Suddenly, what looked like a small duck or other waterfowl ran past her at speeds that seemed impossible for a bird of its size without the aid of flight. She could feel the wind as it went past.
A moment later, she heard the sound of rapidly running feet behind her, and she turned just in time to see Jason whoosh past her, going just as fast as the bird. Of course, with him being much larger, not to mention passing much closer to her, the air displacement was enough to actually knock her clear off her feet.
“Jason?! What are you doing?! Hey!”
The boy didn’t answer, and within seconds disappeared from view. There was a distant “Quack-quack!” coming from the direction the pair had disappeared in, but that was it. Somehow, it appeared the duck was a little harder to catch than she would have thought.
Maybe… she had to lure the bear on her own, after all?
No, no. That was madness. She just had to go back to camp, sit down, and think. Yes, that was it.
It occurred to me, as I ran around the island, that maybe this was how the others had felt during the paintball deer hunt challenge. Was this duck some weird form of personified karma, coming back to bite me in the ass? I certainly wouldn’t have put it past ROB to arrange something to that effect just to mess with me.
At some point during all that running around, I saw Trent fall screaming out of a tree, which provided some much-needed lifting of my spirit. A while after that, I thought I saw Duncan running from… a giant raccoon made up of a whole bunch of regular raccoons?
Okay, I was clearly in need of more oxygen. Maybe I ought to take a break for a little while, maybe go after a slower duck-
“Quack-quack!”
Oh, you little fucker…
“A bear. A bear.” Heather was not happy. She had returned to camp – specifically, to the bonfire area, where the cage was set up; it was still empty, signifying not a single camper had managed to catch their prey as of yet – and was trying to think of a way to catch a bear that didn’t involve dressing up as a deer. “I mean, how on Earth am I supposed to catch a bear?”
“Open the cage!” a voice called out suddenly. “Open the cage!”
Surprised, Heather hurried over to the cage and opened the door. Looking back in the direction the voice had come from, she saw Jason, in close pursuit of the same insanely fast duck as before.
However, the duck didn’t run into the cage, instead veering off at the last instant, somehow performing a perfect, ninety-degree turn without losing any momentum whatsoever. Jason was less lucky, and ran into the cage only to bounce off the interior wall and run back out. As he did so, he tossed a carton box with a duck on the cover into the cage, spreading what looked like bread crumbs all over the interior.
“What are you-” Heather started to ask, but before she could finish Jason had already rushed past her. “Hey! Get back here!”
The duo – duck and boy – did a runaround of the camp, and soon made a beeline for the bonfire pit. At that point, however, the duck spotted the box of bread crumbs, let out a “Quack-quack!” and made another perfect ninety-degree turn, this time right into the cage.
Jason grabbed the door and slammed it shut. Laughing maniacally while gasping for air, the boy leaned his back against the cage and dropped down onto the ground, looking utterly exhausted. Between wheezing breaths, he gasped out, “Caught ya, ya bastard! Ha!”
“Okay, since your ‘duck hunt’ is now finished,” Heather said and she leaned down and grabbed Jason by the front of his shirt, “help me catch a bear!”
Jason blinked. He spent several seconds simply breathing before he spoke. “What… the deer outfit… didn’t work?”
Heather hesitated. “Um, well…”
“Didn’t… try it, huh?”
The Asian girl straightened and turned away in a huff. “There is no way I’m wearing that. It’s ridiculous!”
“That…. didn’t stop you…. last time.”
“Because it was part of a challenge!”
“So is this…. you know.”
Heather grit her teeth. As much as she hated to admit it, the boy had a point. Still she opened her mouth to offer a counterpoint-
“Open the cage!”
Oh, great, another one, she thought irritably as Duncan came running toward them, all while wrestling a raccoon stuck to his head. The delinquent managed to dislodge the mammal just as Heather opened the cage and he quickly tossed it inside.
Duncan slammed the door shut. “Ha! What do you think of that?!”
“Uh, Jason won already,” Heather pointed out and gestured toward the duck.
Duncan tsked. “Dammit!”
At that moment, there was a metallic squeal as the camp’s PA system came online, and with it, Chris’s voice. “Don’t forget: last camper to catch their critter cleans the washroom!”
“Hey… I remember those movies!” Jason said slowly. “Critters… Ugly things… I liked Gremlins better.”
“Riiiiight... I’m gonna go find Courtney,” Duncan said. “Later.”
Heather watched the delinquent go, then turned back to Jason, who was still sitting on the ground, though he seemed to finally have stopped struggling to simply breathe. “Well?”
He looked up at her. “Well, what?”
“Are you going to help me or not?!”
“That depends,” he replied, smirking slightly. “Are you gonna... be a deer about it?”
Heather growled.
Somewhere quite a ways away from camp, Eva had, at long last, reached her target: the river running through the island. And, more importantly, the beaver dam in the middle of it.
The athletic girl waded out into the water, which thankfully only reached her waist, then dove under.
“There you are,” she said once she resurfaced, now inside the beavers’ burrow, where three of the industrious mammals were watching her with avid interest and perhaps just a hint of wariness. “One of you is coming with me.”
In response, the nearest beaver used its tail to slap her across the face. The mostly flat appendage struck Eva’s cheek with a clapping sounds that seemed to echo inside burrow.
Eva narrowed her eyes. “Oh. Is that how it’s going to be, huh?”
There was another slap, causing her to grunt in irritation. The third slap never landed, her fingers clenching instead around the beaver’s tail and stopping it mid-slap.
“You brought this on yourselves, beavers,” she said darkly.
It was on.
“I figure it’s either me or Jason who’s gonna win in the end,” Eva said in the confessional. “I mean, come on: we’re way more athletic than everyone else. Sure, Izzy’s pretty good, too, and I suppose Duncan might not be a total wimp… But let’s face it: at the end of the day, it’s me or Jason.”
The frog croaked.
This time around, Courtney had brought out a piece of cheese tied to a string, the other end of which was tied around a stick. Holding the stick in her hands, the Hispanic girl tried to lure the frog with the cheese, so far to little success.
“Come on, froggy,” she said in a cutesy voice, “it’s gouda! You like gouda, right?”
The frog croaked disinterestedly.
“Do frogs even eat cheese?”’
Courtney gasped excitedly. “Duncan! You came to help me?”
Duncan grinned. “’course, babe.”
“Aww, that’s so- Huh? Ah!”
When she turned, Courtney did a half-step in the wrong direction and began slipping into one of the puddles. Duncan quickly stepped forward and reached out to grab her wrist, but he, too, slipped on the muddy ground, and both teens ended up falling into the puddle.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be another one of the mindbogglingly deep puddles, and they both ended up submerged up to their necks.
“What the heck is up with this puddle?!” Duncan asked.
“Don’t ask. I need another shower…”
The frog offered commentary in the form of a lazy croak.
Courtney scowled. “I hate that frog...”
A while after our rendezvous at the camp, Heather and I had made our way to the nearest bear cave. At the moment, we were hiding behind some bushes outside, debating what to do.
“Well? Go on, then.”
“I already told you: no!”
I sighed. “Look, either you dress up as a deer and lure the bear back to camp where I help you trap it, or I go in there, beat it up, and carry it back.”
Heather put her hands together under her chin in a mock attempt at acting cute. “That sounds great. Good luck!”
I grabbed her shoulder as she started to walk away, stopping her dead in her tracks. “However, it’s going to take me a helluva lot longer to drag an unconscious bear back to camp than it’s gonna take the bear to go to camp under its own power. By the time I get it back there, everyone else will have already caught their animals, putting you in last anyway.”
Heather shook herself out of my grip and turned to face me, a scowl on her face.
I gave her a sidelong grin. “So unless you want to clean the bathroom…”
The Asian girl threw her hands at the sky. “Fine, fine! I’ll do it! Just give me the stupid costume.”
“It’s a win-win,” Jason said casually in the confessional. “Win or lose, Heather gets humiliated, and I get a front-row seat. What’s not to love?”
It honestly wasn’t that difficult to lure the bear out of the cave. All Heather had to do was keep a low profile with her horns sticking out from behind the bushes and trees, and the bear followed. I followed as well, of course, a ways behind the bear, just so I could intervene in case things got dicey.
Unfortunately, I had only accounted for the bear. We were about halfway back to camp when I spotted none other than Izzy, decked out in a military camouflage cap in addition to her regular outfit, sneaking her way through the bushes. She was over on the other side of Heather, and from the angle I was at I had a good look as the redhead spotted Heather’s horns jutting out over the bushes.
Hold on. What was Izzy hunting, again?
I remember the answer too late. Izzy rose up and fired her tranquilizer gun into the bushes hiding Heather, and soon after there was an audible thud as the horns disappeared from view.
Ohhhhhh, crap. She was hunting deer, wasn’t she?
And the bear was still on its way, too.
“Yo! Yo! Hey, bear! Get outta here!” I said loudly, making sure to cause plenty of noise by smacking trees and bushes as I hurried my steps in Heather’s direction.
The bear didn’t like my presence, as intended. It let out a warning growl, then started running off into the woods, fortunately deciding to give up on its hunt. It passed Izzy on the way, and I ran up to join the surprised girl.
“Jason? What happened?” she asked.
“Never mind that. Where’s Heather?”
“Who?”
I shot the redhead a flat look, then shook my head and held up a hand. “About this tall, long, dark hair, hot in a bitchy sort of way, and wearing deer antlers and a fluffy tail. Pretty sure you just shot her.”
At that moment, there was a rustling noise, and we both turned to see Heather very slowly stagger out of the bushes toward us. She had barely stepped out of the greenery before she collapsed in a heap with her ass in the air, and from said ass protruded a single tranquilizer dart.
I tried very hard not to laugh. I really did. Honest.
“Bwahahahahahahah!” Jason laughed hard in the confessional, pausing only to take a deep, wheezing breath before continuing, even harder. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Later that evening, after an excellent winner’s meal featuring multiple types of meat and potatoes, I joined the rest of the campers at the bonfire for the day’s elimination ceremony.
Of course, even though I had taken her to the infirmary to have the medics remove her tranquilizer dart and apply some disinfectant, Heather was still very much paralyzed. Well, not technically paralyzed actually; the tranquilizer dart had contained a powerful muscle relaxant, and it was likely to still be a while before Heather could stand or sit up under her own power, let alone walk anywhere. As such, she had been strapped to a wooden board and wheeled in on one of those trolleys you used for luggage. Right at the moment, she was propped up in a semi-standing position, her head lolling to one side with a line of drool running down her cheek. It was kind of hilarious and sad at the same time.
I may or may not have been snickering at her.
“You’ve all cast your votes and made your decision,” Chris said after spending a moment looking us over in what the viewers would certainly see as a dramatic fashion. “When I call your name, come up and claim your marshmallow. The camper who does not receive a marshmallow tonight must immediately return to the Dock of Shame to catch the Boat of Losers and leave. That means you’re out of the contest. And you can’t come back. Ever.”
I rolled my eyes at the theatrics. No matter how many times we did this, it never got less inane. I glanced over at Heather, who grunted something unintelligible at me.
“Heather wanted to vote for Izzy, for… obvious reasons,” Jason said in the confessional. “I managed to convince her it was better to keep Izzy around for the sake of maximizing our votes. Of course, there was still a choice to be made…”
“The first marshmallow goes to… Eva.”
Despite what he’d said earlier, Chris tossed the marshmallow to Eva, who caught it easily and sat back, smirking.
“Jason.” I easily caught mine as well and popped it into my mouth. It was nice to have some dessert after dinner.
“Heather.” And then I caught Heather’s marshmallow as well, barely keeping it from hitting her in the face. She gave me a look that may have been gratitude… or simply irritation; it was hard to tell.
“Izzy.” Naturally, the redhead caught her marshmallow with a laugh.
“Trent.” The guy I probably liked the least of everyone on the island caught his as well, albeit with a bit more difficulty than everyone else did.
Chris turned to the last remaining campers. “One marshmallow. Two campers. Courtney. Duncan. One of you has spent their last night on Total Drama Island.”
The two campers stared into each other’s eyes, their hands clasped tightly together.
Courtney swallowed. “Oh, Duncan…”
“Hey, it’s fine,” the delinquent returned soothingly. “We’ll see each other after it’s all over, right?”
The Hispanic girl nodded. “Mmm!”
Chris waited for several more seconds, then finally spoke. “Courtney.”
Alas, Courtney made no move to catch her marshmallow, the fluffy piece of sweetness instead bouncing off the side of her head to land on the ground between her and Duncan.
It was over. Or, well, not quite. Leaving the two lovebirds to say their goodbyes, Chris walked over to Heather and quietly, slyly, said, “Being the loser, you realize you still have some unfinished business, right?”
As he spoke, the host pulled out a bucket and a mop.
Heather let out an annoyed grunt and swiveled her eyes around to look at me. In a very slurry voice, she said, “Jason, I require your services.”
“Ugh, when did they last clean this? Sure, it’s not the worst I’ve seen, but come on,” came Jason’s voice through the open doorway leading into the communal bathroom.
Heather, for her part, was outside, her board propped up against the wall. The effects of the tranquilizer dart had mostly worn off, and she was busily filing her nails.
“Courtney took, like, three froggy mud rinses today,” she said in reply to Jason’s complaining. “Don’t forget to scrub the grout with Izzy’s toothbrush!”
“Okay, that might be going a bit too fa-”
To her alarm, Jason poked his head out of the open doorway and saw her. For a split-second Heather found herself frozen, then she quickly relaxed her body, her head lolling to the side and her nail file dropping to the ground.
Unfortunately, the boy didn’t buy it for a second. “I see the muscle relaxant wore off,” he said dryly.
“It’s coming back slowly, like the memories of you getting me shot! Something you will never, ever be allowed to forget.”
For a long moment, the two teens stared at one another. Despite her best efforts to resist, Heather felt heat starting to rush to her cheeks… only for it to vanish instantly when Jason reached out and undid the clasp on the belt holding her up, caught her as she fell forward, and then carried her bodily inside the bathroom.
“Hey, what are you doing?! Unhand me, you brute-! Ow! Ow, ow, ow! Okay, ow! I said, ‘okay’!”
“Shut up and clean.”
“Ugh, you’re such an ass…”
To his credit, the boy didn’t leave, and instead stayed to help her clean, even if he insisted on her doing her part.
Though Heather would have never admitted it to Jason’s face, it wasn’t the worst way she’d spent an evening.
End Chapter 20
The roster
The Screaming Gophers:
The Killer Bass:
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