the weight on her shorter body.
As soon as her foot hit the metal stairs, they began to move. Crap! “It’s an escalator,” she called back. “And it’s going in the wrong direction. Don’t run me over.”
But it was too late. Kirsten had charged forward, moving faster on the level floor than Lara was on the stairs. Kirsten’s momentum knocked Lara to her knees, but the pole kept moving forward while her partner came to a stop. Shoulder searing with pain, Lara struggled to stand on the moving stairs. Suddenly, the escalator stopped. The viewers had voted to give them a break, and the behind-the-scene engineers had complied.
Lara heaved to her feet. “Let’s go.” She pounded up the steps, breathing deeply from the pit of her stomach and pulling along her taller, weaker partner. As she hit the landing, Lara swung left, looking for a place to use the pole. Behind her, the escalator started up again and Kirsten nearly lost her footing before taking two giant steps to reach the platform.
“Hooks above the door,” Kirsten called out, breathless.
Lara looked up and spotted the curved metal hooks on both sides of the black seamless door. Christ! They were six feet off the floor. Kirsten moved toward the hook on the right, making Lara lurch forward. They lined up with the hooks, holding the heavy pole in front now at chest level. Lara’s heart pounded from the effort.
“Can you do it?” Kirsten asked.
“Yes.” Lara didn’t know how, but she would. “On the count of three. One, two, three.” She heaved her end of the pole with all her might. It cleared the tip of the hook by a hair and settled into the big curve, a moment behind Kirsten’s end.
A second later, the black door slid open and both women charged for it. Lara edged out Kirsten by half a step and went through first, running toward the next area. She had no time to celebrate her success or catch her breath. Not only did she have to beat Kirsten to advance in the competition, the Challenge was timed. The faster she completed it, the more points she scored.
The second arena stretched out the length of a soccer field, filled mostly by a deep pit of choppy water. Across the dark pool and six feet above the water lay a maze of wooden beams, each only about ten inches wide. Three main beams connected to the edge of the floor, giving her a choice. Lara instinctively moved left, avoiding the beam in the middle. She slowed as she reached the edge of the water pit. Once she hit the beams, every step counted. If she fell into the water, a six-foot drop, she would have to swim against the tide to reach the other end. She was a good swimmer, but the water would be cold and going against the current would zap her energy for the next phase.
As she started down the beam, moving steadily but with caution, she noticed Kirsten had taken the middle path and was now out in front. Lara kept her pace, not letting her opponent’s lead rattle her. She kept her eyes on the beam just in front of her steps and glanced up occasionally to process the layout. A crossbeam lay ahead and she had to choose: left, right, or straight. Glancing ahead at the configuration, she decided to go left, taking her closer to the edge of the water pit.
The air temperature seemed to drop as she picked her way through the maze, twice having to backtrack after hitting a dead end. Was the coolness because of the vast pool of water or were the viewers messing with them? Lara became aware that Kirsten was no longer out front. She slowed and allowed herself a quick glance over her right shoulder. The young Amazon woman was headed away from her, backtracking from a dead end in the center. Lara was glad she’d avoided the middle beam, but she knew it was time to start making right-fork choices to work back toward the center.
At the next junction, she didn’t step far enough and her heel missed the beam. Her body swayed and her heart skipped a beat. Lara threw herself forward, landing with her upper body on the beam and her legs dangling. She pressed her arms tight against the thick sides. The blow had knocked the wind out of her and she pulled in three long breaths, waiting for her heart to settle down. One at a time, she carefully lifted her legs back up on top of the wooden surface, then slowly brought her arms up until she had them under her chest. From there, she lifted her torso and brought her knees up together into a kneeling position. For the first time in her life, Lara was glad for her small frame.
Still moving carefully, she raised herself into a standing position. Lara took another deep breath and assessed the situation. She was about three-quarters of the way across the water pit and Kirsten, off to her right, had pulled ahead. Lara started forward, picking up her pace and getting back into a rhythm. As she neared a tangle of forks, she heard Kirsten make a yelping sound. A split second later came the splash as her competitor hit the water.
Lara felt no reprieve. They were close to the end, and a straight short swim might be just as fast as zigzagging through the maze. The waves were coming from this end of the pit, though, and the loud chop of the water below made her glad she was still on the beams.
Sensing she was near the end, her body instinctively picked up the pace. Lara had to force herself to slow down, look ahead, and predict the dead ends. Finally, she cleared the last junction and the beam ahead provided a straight line to the edge. Twenty more feet! She held back a bit, not allowing herself to get sloppy.
Relief washed over her as her feet hit solid ground. She’d survived the elevated maze. Lara glanced back to see if she could spot Kirsten in the water. Instead she saw her climbing a ladder off to the right. She sprinted for the door in the middle of the dividing wall, wondering what the hell she would encounter next.
Chapter 9
Tunnels! Dread hit Lara like a punch to the stomach. The next wall, only fifteen feet away, sported three black holes about waist high, each with a circumference of about three feet. Fuck. The tunnels were new to the Gauntlet this year and she felt unprepared. She sprinted for the middle hole, making the snap judgment that it made no difference which path she took.
She threw herself into the darkness, hoping like hell this section of the Challenge would be mercifully short. The height of the tunnel offered just enough space to crawl in a crouched position with her head down. Lara thought that Kirsten, with her long thighbones, might not have that option. A belly crawl would be slower, but Lara realized she would probably rotate between the two, depending on the pain and how long this section lasted. She listened for the sounds of her opponent in the tunnel behind her, but heard only her own labored breathing and a tiny humming noise.
After a few minutes of crawling in total darkness, her knees began to ache, even though the tunnel was constructed of thick pliable PVC. Lara tuned out the pain and the closeness of the walls and kept plowing forward. She decided that not being able to see anything was marginally better than being constantly aware of the tight space and potentially endless duration.
The pain in her knees forced her into a belly crawl. Once she was prone, she could lift her head and see out front a few feet. A tiny red light moved along the tunnel ahead of her. A motion-activated camera. The clever bastards didn’t want the viewers to miss this agony. Lara forced herself to stop scowling. She needed fans and thumbs-up voters.
Her hand touched something soft and oily. The thing moved and she suppressed a vocal reaction. A snake. They’d put a fucking snake in the tunnels-likely more than one. Lara paused for a brief moment, hoping it would slither away. It’s harmless, she told herself, crawling forward. They wouldn’t use poisonous snakes. Knowing it was ahead of her somewhere made her move a little slower.
A moment later, the floor began to slope downward. Lara tried to focus on the ease of the descent rather than the feeling that she was crawling down into hell. The tunnel curved to the right, then ten feet later, she came to a fork, barely discernable in the dark. Oh crap! Another maze. Lara chose left again, acting on impulse. In the blackness, there was no logic to apply, no pattern to analyze.
Forearms aching, she pushed back onto her knees and picked up speed. With her head down, she didn’t see the dead end and slammed straight into it, sending a shock of pain down her neck and spine. The bastards! They’d made the event more difficult this year as well as more physically punishing. With no room to turn around, she had no choice but to crawl backward to the fork.
She hadn’t practiced this skill at the National Guard training camp, but it made no difference. She would conquer whatever they threw at her. As she neared what she hoped was the fork, she heard clomping sounds somewhere in the tunnel behind her. Oh no. If Kirsten had passed the fork, then she was in the same branch tunnel
