Marilee and Geoff had left the scene of Candace's murder and arrived at the mess hall to find the evidence from Gwen's murder. Marilee picked up the note, nodding after she read it. "Hmm. Seems like our murderer doesn't like our local Goth girl…"
"So it's Duncan, Candace and Gwen?" Geoff asked, picking up the note and looking over it. "Uh, let's see… Who hates all three of those people?"
"Does anybody hate Candace?" Marilee asked, leaning on the table that wasn't covered in blood.
"I don't," Geoff said, still looking at the note.
"Oh, really?" Marilee said, her voice dripping in sarcasm. "I'm sure Candace would be tickled to know that. Every girls likes to think that their boyfriend doesn't hate them…"
"Maybe they murdered her… to get her out of the way? For some reason?" Geoff weakly guessed, looking up from the note at the other blonde.
"Yeah…" Marilee nodded and crossed her arms. "Yeah, you might be on to something… Wait, remember this morning? Courtney got all mad because you and Candace were being all couple-ish and gross and distracting?"
"Yeah," Geoff said with a nod, still looking confused. "But… Does that…"
"She could have killed Candace for bringing her team down," Marilee said, gesturing all over the blood-covered room.
"But… that would just bring her team down by one member," Geoff pointed out.
Marilee shrugged and told him, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The few is Candace."
"… Did you just quote Star Trek?"
"What?" Marilee raised an eyebrow, sat down and said, "O-Of course not! I've never watched Star Trek a day in my life!"
"Riiiiight…" Geoff chuckled and crossed his arms, leaning against a wall. "First you make a Fairly Odd Parents reference at breakfast and now you're quoting old sci-fi shows?" Geoff shook his head and smirked. "You're a nerd."
"I am not!" Marilee stood up and stomped her foot. "I must have heard that quote from somebody else! Star Trek is a completely lame show and I wouldn't be caught dead watching it!"
Geoff shrugged. "Okay then. Let's keep looking for clues…" He started toward the door, but quickly spun around and asked, "Kirk or Picard?"
"Kirk, duh!" Marilee exclaimed without thinking.
"HA!" Geoff exclaimed, pointing at her.
Marilee's eyes widened and she held her hands up and screamed, "NO! I mean, a lot of people who have never watched the show know who William Shatner's character is and-"
Geoff ran out of the mess hall and called out, "Hey, everybody! Marilee's a nerd!"
"GEOFF!" Marilee wailed, running after him.
"Okay, I've watched a few episodes, but it really was only a few!" Marilee guiltily admitted. "It was on between two of my favorite shows and I had nothing better to do sometimes and…" She gripped the sides of her head and screamed, "That idiot! I am so not sitting next to him this Thanksgiving! Then he'll have to sit next to Uncle Norb and he smells like man-boob sweat!" She crossed her arms and smirked victoriously. "Yeah, that'll show Geoff!"
"Before I found out Marilee's dark, nerdy secret, I found something on the scene of Candace's murder," Geoff said, looking deep in thought. "I think it might be a clue, but I'm going to need more…"
*T*S*R*
"It's got to be Marilee," Courtney said, walking into the forest with Jovie.
"Maybe," Jovie muttered, looking around at all the trees. "She does seem like the type of person to snap and kill people for kicks… But Chris thought all this up so there'd be a reason for the murders, so there has to be some thought process behind it…"
Courtney stopped for a moment, and Jovie stopped too. "Wait a minute. This morning, at breakfast…" Courtney thought back to just a few hours before then…
After Duncan insulted Marilee and left her with his garbage, she was fuming mad. "Ugh! I wish I could kill him!" Her eyes flashed from a baby blue color to a blood red one and she pulled a butcher knife out from behind her back. As two small tufts of blonde hair on the sides of her head slowly curled up to look like devil's horns, she deviously grinned and whispered, "Maybe I CAN…" She let out an evil cackle and ran after him, thus ending Courtney's exaggerated flashback.
"… You had a good point up until the demonic part," Jovie commented, looking at Courtney like she had grown another head.
Courtney shrugged. "Maybe that was an exaggeration."
"You think?"
"But she really did say she wanted to kill him! Chris could have very well used that as means to make her the murderer he chose!"
"I guess," Jovie said as they kept walking. "But why would she kill Gwen? I mean, by Chris' reasoning? …She did said she dressed horribly this morning. And Marilee does hate people who dress horribly..."
"Gwen certainly fits into that category," Courtney muttered, rolling her eyes. "Okay, if we find out she killed Duke next, then we'll know for sure it's her."
"Duke isn't even here anymore," Jovie reminded her.
Courtney narrowed her eyes and pointed at her. "She's determined. She'd find a way." Before anything else could be said, they arrived by the fake blood-splattered dam and gasped once they saw Candace's spy shades in a pile of blood.
"Oh God, Candace!" Jovie cried, looking worried even though she knew Candace wasn't really dead.
Courtney picked up the discarded note and read it over. "Hmm… Would Marilee kill Candace, though?"
"I guess she wouldn't…" Jovie kneeled down to look for more clues, but found none. "She'd be above killing her brother's girlfriend… At least Geoff's girlfriend. I don't think she'd have a problem with offing Raven."
"No offense, sis!" Jovie said with a guilty laugh. "It's just, well… Nobody likes you that much! But at least it wasn't anything you didn't know before, right?"
"I mean, Marilee actually seems to like Geoff… Even if she has a weird way of showing it," Jovie pointed out, looking back up at the former CIT. "And Candace is her friend, too."
"Candace is everybody's friend," Courtney said, like it was obvious, which it was. "And besides, this isn't about friends. It's about Chris using small details to form a motive for murder…"
As she continued to think, Jovie started getting off-topic. "Ugh, look at this grass," Jovie sadly sighed, plucking a limp, brown blade of grass out of the middle of a splat of blood. "This nasty blood gunk killed it. This stuff is a hazard! It'll probably kill the beavers in that dam!"
A beaver was seated in the Confession Can, some of the fake blood on its tail. It brought the blood-covered tail to its mouth and licked a bit off. Instead of vomiting or dying, the creature chattered in approval and ravenously licked the rest off of its tail.
"Jovie, half of the grass on this island is already dead," Courtney said as Jovie stood back up. "Now, I just remembered something. Remember last night, on the plane… ?"
Candace was talking to Gwen on the bleachers in the elimination room of the jumbo jet, so she was completely unaware that Geoff was ogling her from afar.
Marilee noticed this and smacked his arm. As he whined and rubbed the red spot, Marilee told him, "Stop drooling over Candace! You can't let her get in the way of the competition!" Courtney, who was leaning on a wall nearby, eating her peanuts, couldn't help but observe the two. Okay, she could have, but she wanted to see what they were up to.
"Gaaawsh, I wooooon't!" Geoff whined like a baby.
"I know you, Geoff," Marilee said, eyes narrowed. "You will. We have to focus on leading the Ferrets to victory. As the captains of our team, it's our duty to keep out teammates in line. That means-"
Geoff began giggling like a moron and after Marilee shot him a confused glance, he squeaked out, "You said doody!" between laughs. He continued laughing as he walked off. Marilee groaned at his immaturity and crossed her arms. She looked back over at Candace, an expression on her face that made it hard to determine what was on her mind. However, Courtney knew it couldn't have been anything good…
"No, I don't remember," Jovie said, raising an eyebrow. "Because I ain't a stalker."
"My point is," Courtney continued, irritation clear in her tone, "now we know it has to be Marilee! Let's go find Chris!"
"I know this is Chris' fault and not Courtney's, but how does she not know she's actually the murderer?" Jovie asked, looking at the camera, confused. "I mean, it's not like he told the person he chose that they were the murderer. It could be me for all we know! Or DJ or-" She snorted and finished, "Even Zoey!"
*T*S*R*
"Let's see… How to tell Chris about this," Grace mused, kicking her feet back and forth as she sat on the desk, still looking down at the file in her lap.
"You would think he would already know about this," Mia mused, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. "But I guess this is why he made me look through these files today, since he was too lazy to file them himself before the show started…"
Grace ignored Mia and continued quietly talking to herself. "I could just say it in front of everybody…" She shook her head. "No, Trent is part of everybody and then he'll know I'm doing bad stuff…"
"I mean, how did he know the newbies weren't serial killers or something?" Mia asked, talking more to herself now than Grace. "He couldn't have known beforehand that Duke was an alcoholic or he probably wouldn't have let him on the show… How has McLean not gotten fired yet?"
"Maybe I could tell Chris in private and…" Grace shook her head. "No. He might tell Trent to get me in trouble just 'cause Chris is a buttface. There's got to be some way to tell him…"
"I could tell him," Mia said, not looking too interested in it either way.
"What's the fun in that?" Grace said. "I wanna tell him!"
"Then tell him!"
"Weren't you listening?" Grace groaned, hopping off the desk and onto the floor. "No, there's got to be a more discrete way where I get to enjoy her and her team's pain without anybody knowing me or you did it." She walked out of the office, Mia slowly behind her. "We'll need to think of something…"
"The money had better be worth all this," Mia grumbled quietly to herself.
*T*S*R*
As Trent and Selena made their way back to their cabin, Selena meekly looked down at her half-finished sundae, then back up at Trent. She wiped her face off on her shirt sleeve so it wasn't covered in tears, streaked make-up and ice cream anymore and sniffled. "Um, Trent? I-I just wanted to say thanks. Y'know, for being so nice to me the past two days."
"Hey, no problem," Trent said, patting her lightly on the back. "Look, I know you're sad about your… uh, 'breakup' with Zack and all but… Maybe you should call him? Like, the real him, not the one in your head."
"I would, but my cell phone broke last night," she told him.
"What? How?"
"I… put it in my Mountain Dew."
Trent stared at her blankly, not knowing what to say.
"I wanted to see if it would break!" Selena nervously exclaimed, as if that justified her actions.
"Looks like she got her answer, huh?" Trent asked the camera.
"I guess you can use my cell phone then," he said as they kept walking toward the cabins. "I think I left it in the cabin…"
"After I talk to him, we can help out with the challenge, right?" Selena asked. "I'll bet Courtney's the murderer!"
"Really? What makes you think that?"
"Because… She's Courtney!"
"Good reasoning," Trent sarcastically said, rolling his eyes. He opened the door to his side of the cabin and both of them stepped in. Trent walked over to his bunk while Selena hung back by the open door and continued to eat. "Huh, that's weird. I left it on my bed this morning…"
As he lifted up the covers to look for his phone, the large, darkly-clothed figure that had snatched Candace before came up behind Selena and grabbed her by her arms. She let out a blood-curdling scream once she looked up at his masked face.
"Calm down, Selena, I'll find it," Trent said, his back still turned to her as he searched his bunk.
The mysterious man pulled out some duct tape and slapped it over Selena's screaming mouth. The man was kind enough to splash some corn syrup-ketchup blood around the doorway and drop a note before he started to haul her out. She stomped on the ground to call out to Trent as she was dragged away, though she accidentally slammed her head on the open door and dropped her empty sundae glass.
"Sheesh, don't throw a fit," Trent told her as he finally turned around and held up his phone. "I found it…" His eyes widened once he saw the bloody scene and shattered sundae glass and he cried out, "Selena!" He ran out of the cabin, carefully avoiding the blood puddles and glass shards to go look for her.
"Man, I should have known the murderer would target one of us next!" Trent exclaimed, slapping his forehead. "Well, now that she's gone, I can actually participate." He scratched his chin and said, "Okay, DJ said the crime scenes would be covered in blood and they each have a note… Maybe I should go back to my cabin. I never read Selena's note and-"
The door to the Confession Can suddenly flew open and fake blood flew all over Trent and the Confession Can. The dark hand of the mysterious man grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him out before he even had the chance to scream, then tossed a folded note onto the toilet paper holder. The door slammed and the camera went to static.
*T*S*R*
"Let's see who else Marilee has killed," Courtney said, walking with Jovie toward the cabins, since they had heard screams coming from that direction.
"You really shouldn't jump to conclusions," Jovie said. "In every mystery book I've ever read, the one who jumps to conclusions is always either wrong or the one who actually… did it…" Jovie's dark eyes widened and she quickly looked to the side to avoid Courtney suspecting something by her facial expression. "Uh, yeah… I'll be right back…"
"Aww, this is just nasty!" Jovie exclaimed, standing in the blood-covered outhouse with the murder note in her hand. "I'm sad that Trent's dead and all, but did they really have to kill him in here of all places? Why not the washrooms? In there, it probably would have been an improvement!"
Jovie was standing outside behind the outhouse taping the camera from the door of the Confession Can to the tree behind it. "Okay, this is the new confessional," Jovie explained to the camera, leaning against the outer wall of the outhouse. "Nobody's gonna want to go in the Confession Can when it looks like a fur coat fashion show invaded by PETA…" She cleared her throat and said, "Anyway, I'm starting to think Courtney might be the murderer… Think about it! Like I said before, the one who keeps accusing someone else is almost always the murderer. She doesn't know that she could be the murderer, but Chris could easily know she'd be the most accusing… Well, Marilee is pretty accusing too… I haven't seen her since we left her all barfy and-"
"Jovie! Where are you?" Courtney faintly yelled far off-screen.
"Eep!" Jovie squeaked, quickly shutting off the camera.
"I'm here!" Jovie said as she ran up to Courtney. "And I found another murder scene!" She walked with Courtney over to the Confession Can so she could see for herself, then pulled the note out of her pocket to show it to her. "It was Trent this time."
"Hmm…" Courtney stroked her chin, nodding as she scanned over the note. "Marilee. It was definitely Marilee. She hates Trent because of that thing with their parents."
"She just said she wasn't fond of Trent," Jovie told her. "You couldn't really hear when she talked about it this morning. You were too busy killing twigs."
"Twigs are already dead," Courtney deadpanned as she tossed the note back inside the Confession Can.
Jovie nodded sadly. "I know that, but it's sort of like when you run over road kill. It's already dead, but you still feel sorry for it…"
"Okay, we've got solid evidence now," Courtney said, changing the subject. "We'll find Chris, tell him that Marilee's obviously the killer and then we'll be the winners!"
"I thought Chris said there were going to be clues besides the notes," Jovie said quietly, more to herself than Courtney. "Didn't he say that?"
"Probably not. Chris is too lazy to think through this that much." Courtney looked back at Jovie, then said, "Let's go."
"Okay… I need to use the Confessional… Behind the Can first," Jovie weakly said. As she ran behind the outhouse, she cried, "Go on without me!"
Courtney raised an eyebrow, suspicion clear in her expression, but she turned on her heel and ran off to find their beloved host.
"I… I really think Chris made Courtney the murderer." Jovie looked around nervously, as if she thought Courtney would pop up and yell at her. "Duncan and Gwen were both murdered, and she's angry at them… Candace could have possibly been murdered to keep her from bringing us down with her relationship with Geoff… Um… Maybe Chris had her murder Trent to throw us off? Maybe because he's dating Gwen? Or maybe because he's friends with Selena? She doesn't like Gwen or Selena… Then again, why didn't she just kill Selena?"
"Jovie!" Courtney yelled from far, far off-screen. "I just found another murder! I think it was Selena!"
"… Yeah, it was Courtney," Jovie said with a nod.
*T*S*R*
DJ, with Zoey perched on his large shoulder, was walking by the cabins and pouring his heart out to Zoey. "A-And sometimes I feel things went too fast with me and Heather, y'know?" He sniffled and added, "I feel weird saying we're going out when we got together and she left like five seconds later and-"
"DJ?" Zoey quietly interrupted. "I like you and all, but I'm FOUR. Talkin' about mushy stuff like love bores me after a few seconds."
"Oh… Sorry."
"That's okay. It's not your fault I have a short attention span and am easily distracted!" DJ raised an eyebrow confusedly, so she added, "That's what Xavier said about me."
"Oh." DJ nodded, still looking a bit confused.
"Xavie's so smart," Zoey said with a dreamy sigh. "One day, we're gonna get married and live in a bouncy house and he's gonna be the President of Pluto and we'll have two kids named Reginald and Brianna and-"
"Wait, why's it okay when you talk about love?" DJ asked, a little miffed.
Zoey giggled and lightly smacked his shoulder. "Because, you didn't talk about bouncy houses, silly!" She gasped upon seeing the blood covered, wide open door to the Ferret cabin. "DJ, look! More murder! Yay!"
"Okay, you're a bit too enthusiastic about that," DJ said, looking at her with worry.
Zoey hopped of his shoulder once they were on the porch and she waved a nonchalant hand at his comment. "I live with Duncan. Blood and guts and stuff doesn't bother me much."
"Really?" DJ asked.
"It does if it's real," Zoey said. "'Cause the real stuff's just icky." She picked up the note. She looked at, then gasped. "Oh no!"
"What?" DJ asked, scared.
"I dunno," Zoey said with a shrug, handing the note to him. "I can't read."
DJ took the note, read it over, then nodded. "Looks like it was Selena."
"This means I'm an only child," Zoey quietly said, tapping her chin and looking upward in thought. "That means I'll get…" She started counting on her fingers, then held all of her fingers up. "twelve times as many presents this Christmas!"
"… You realize they'll be back by tonight, right?" DJ asked.
"Can't you just let me dream!" Zoey cried, tears building up in her dark green eyes. She ran off sobbing, and DJ ran after her, afraid she would be next.
"Uh…" DJ walked toward the camera behind the outhouse. "I guess this is out here now because Trent's fake blood is all over the Confession Can…" He cleared his throat and stood by the back wall. "Anyway…" He regained his panicked expression and exclaimed, "I couldn't just let her go off by herself! The girl who runs off crying always gets murdered! Always!"
*T*S*R*
Almost everyone who had been 'murdered' were all stuffed into the same small room Duncan found himself in when he regained consciousness. Holly and Tamyra were with them and Holly was fiddling around with the flashlight and looking at several books sitting by her feet. "Um… Anybody want to read my copy of Twilight?"
"No thanks," Candace said, looking around nervously, even though she could hardly see.
"New Moon?"
"I'm good," Selena said, sniffling slightly.
" Eclipse?"
"No," Gwen flatly said.
"… Break-"
"We don't want to read your stupid, sparkling vampire books!" Duncan yelled, throwing his arms in the air.
Holly gasped in horror, clutching her books tightly to her chest. "He doesn't mean it," she whispered to them, stroking the copy of Eclipse.
A door opened and Trent, the latest murder victim, was thrown to the ground harshly.
"Trent!" Gwen exclaimed, crawling toward him to help him sit up.
"Thanks, Chef!" Tamyra called out to the mystery man, no longer so mysterious, who had thrown Trent in there.
"I'm so glad Chef volunteered to get the dead people," Holly told Tamyra, gently setting her books down. "I don't think I could have done that again."
"Done what, hit someone over the head with a monkey wrench?" Duncan grumbled as he rubbed the bump on his head.
"Hey, Chris wanted us to use a mallet, but we talked him out of it!" Tamyra said, standing up for herself and her fellow intern.
Gwen propped Trent up against a crate, trying not to get the sticky red goop all over him on her hands. "Man, at least Chef was decent enough to wait until he picked me up before he got blood all over the place."
"I saved a few napkins from when Trent and I went into the kitchen," Selena said, pulling a few paper napkins out from her skirt pocket and handing them to Gwen.
"Thanks." The Goth took them and began to gently wipe Trent's bloody face off.
Trent tried to take the napkins for himself. "Gwen, you don't have to do that. I can clean myself up."
"I don't mind," Gwen gently said, taking his hand and wiping it off. "It's the least I can do… I haven't been the best girlfriend lately," she quietly said.
"Why do you think that?" Trent asked, honestly confused. He looked over at a certain punk, who was too busy carving something into the wooden floor to focus on their conversation. "Because you and Duncan are friends?" He laughed and said, "Gwen, come on. Did you think I'd freak out and go all crazy over it like some sort of freak?"
Gwen's eyes shot a nervous glance to the side and she bit her blue bottom lip. She turned back to him, sheepishly grinned, then pinched her fingers a few centimeters apart as if to say 'Just a little!'
Trent sighed. "Okay, I guess I can be a bit… weird sometimes. But I trust you. Why wouldn't I?"
Gwen smiled a Candace-like smile, looking almost hilariously out of character. "Wow… I… I really am lucky to have a guy like you."
"Speaking of guys who are lucky enough to have someone amazing to care about… I pocketed my cell phone before Chef killed me and Selena. She and Zack need to have a talk…" He sat up straighter and craned his neck to look past Gwen. Selena was nowhere to be seen. "Selena?" He looked back at Gwen, confused. "Wasn't she just here?"
"Yeah, but where-" Gwen accidentally kicked a upside-down bucket by her feet, and the bucket let out a high-pitched yelp. "Uh… Did that bucket just scream like a thirteen year old girl?" She didn't bother to wait for an answer from him and lifted the bucket up slightly, seeing a pair of teal eyes staring back at her.
"How'd you manage to squeeze yourself into that thing?" Gwen asked incredulously. "I know you're tiny, but… Wow." She shook her head. "Never mind. Stop hiding and call Zack."
"I don't wanna!" Selena said, the bucket making her voice echo. "I'm scared! What if the real Zack's as mad at me as the one in my head?"
"Selena, how did this breakup go in your head?" Gwen asked, pulling the bucket off of her completely. The blonde was stuck in a bucket shape for a moment, but quickly regained her regular form. "No offence, but your head can sort of… warp things sometimes."
Selena stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and tapped her chin. "Well, Zack was about six feet tall, he had big muscles and great abs and- Oh, he had a mustache, too!"
"… My brother, the kid who's barely gotten past the first chapter of puberty, had a ripped body and a mustache."
Selena nodded. "Mmhmm. But not a big, bushy one. It was a little, pencil one. Like the ones those sophisticated French guys have. A big, bushy one would just be silly."
"… Right." Gwen sighed. "Selena, I know we didn't get off to the greatest start, but my brother obviously likes you. And I'm even growing to like you…" She looked to the side, seriously contemplating something. "Though I sure don't know why…"
Selena sniffed, picking up her bucket and hugging it. "Really? I... I don't really think Zack will be that mad, but… I'm still scared."
"And you're going to keep being scared and miserable if you don't talk to him about it like a man… Well, a woman… Okay, a teenage girl. A really tough one." Trent took the phone out of his pocket and handed it to Gwen, who held it out towards Selena and added, "Trust me. It's better to face these problems before they actually become problems…"
Selena looked at the phone like it was going to bite her, but gently sat her bucket down after a while and slowly grabbed the phone. She shakily started dialing, then picked the bucket up, scrunched up, and slid back under it.
Trent snaked an arm around Gwen's waist and slid her closer to him. "That was really nice of you, babe."
After they shared a small kiss, Gwen shrugged, trying to hide her smile. "Hey, I can be nice… Sometimes."
They both heard an echoing "Hello?" coming from the bucket and exchanged looks with one another. "Don't look at me," Trent said with a shrug. "I don't know how she does it, either."
Gwen nodded and muttered, "She should consider being a contortionist when she grows up."
*T*S*R*
"We saw that Duncan, Gwen, Candace and Trent were all murdered," Marilee listed, going over all the bloody scenes she and Geoff had stumbled upon. "But Selena. Selena is the one who takes the cake…"
"Courtney does hate Selena… Or does Selena hate Courtney?" Geoff questioned, scratching his head.
"Both, duh," Marilee said. "I think Selena hates Courtney more than Courtney hates Selena, but there's some major hate-on going on there."
DJ ran up to the both of them and frantically asked, "Did you guys see Zoey?"
"You lost her AGAIN?" Marilee huffed, putting her hands on her hips.
"She ran off! I tried to stop her!" DJ argued, looking on the brink of tears. "She was all excited because she thought she'd get more stuff from her folks now that Duncan and Selena were dead and I told her that they'd be back and she got upset 'cause she wanted presents and she started crying and ran off and-"
"I do not need your life story, DJ," Marilee protested, holding a hand up to quiet him. "Go find her and leave the grown ups to their work." DJ let out a squeaky whine and ran off while Marilee turned to Geoff and said, "Back to business. Courtney's done it and that's that."
"I dunno…" Geoff rubbed the back of his neck. "I just sort of… have this strange feeling that you might be wrong and-" Marilee flicked his nose, making him whine in pain, rub it and stop mid-sentence. "What was that for?"
"For thinking that I'm wrong. I'm never wrong!"
"… You are sometimes," Geoff quietly said with a pout.
Marilee slapped a hand over his mouth and shushed him. "I don't want anyone to find out about that!"
Geoff shoved her hand away and said, "I'm just saying, I found some stuff at some of the murder sights and-"
"Oh no," Marilee groaned as she threw her head back and shut her eyes. "You ate something off the ground again, didn't you?"
"Well, yeah, but I'm pretty sure it was food this time. Anyway, maybe you should look at this stuff before-"
"Wait, I think I see Chris!" Marilee yelled, interrupting him and pointing at the mess hall. "Let's go!"
*T*S*R*
DJ saw that Zoey ran off into the woods, which was not good at all. "Man, this is the perfect murder sight!" He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled out, "Zoey? Come on out, girl! This is serious!"
He heard rustling in the bushes he just walked by, so he slowly peered into them. Before he even had the chance to scream, he was dragged into one of the bushes and fake blood flew out and splattered onto the foliage.
*T*S*R*
As Courtney and Jovie ran towards one of the production tents, they bumped into Marilee and Geoff, who were going to do the same thing the two girls were.
"Murderer!" Courtney and Marilee cried, pointing at each other accusingly. "What?" they both screamed, looking at each other in disbelief. "I didn't do it, YOU DID!" Their simultaneous yelling ended and they started screaming different things, mostly about how the other was so going to lose. It ended with them wailing flat-out nonsense and stomping off toward their lone teammates, who were just watching with confusion before.
As Marilee and Courtney huffed and puffed from yelling so much, Jovie scratched the back of her head and said, "Um… Now that you two have that out of your systems… Um, let's go find Chris."
"We have to find him first," Marilee quietly said to Geoff. "We have to keep winning…"
"No, you don't!" Courtney cried, even though she seemed to be too far away to hear the blonde.
"Hmm." Marilee poked her lip out in thought. "Miss CIT's got good hearing…"
"She's got a need for victory, too!" Courtney loudly said. "And she will get that victory! … And she will stop talking in the third person!" She grabbed Jovie by the arm and drug her into the mess hall and Marilee ran after them. Geoff, however, saw something by the forest and ran toward the scene…
Chris was playing with his toy pipe by the serving area, chatting with Chef, who was still dressed in black, but had taken his ski mask off. "So… I was thinking about getting a movie off Netflix later," Chris awkwardly said, rubbing his arm and not making eye contact with Chef. "Maybe a romantic comedy… You wanna-"
"Dang it, I told you I ain't gay!" Chef barked.
"I didn't mean it like that! Sheesh!" Chris whined, crossing his arms. "It wouldn't kill you to be friendly for once!"
Chef was about to make a remark, but Courtney, Jovie, and Marilee ran in before he could.
"Chris, Chris, I know who the murderer is!" Courtney exclaimed. "It was Marilee! She had a motive for killing every single person who had been murdered so far!"
"Why would I kill Selena?" Marilee skeptically asked. "She's one of my best friends!"
"Murderers have no friends!"
"Then I know who it really is!" Marilee exclaimed after Courtney did. "It was friendless Courtney!"
"What? I have tons of friends!"
"Name four!"
"… YOU name four."
"… I asked you first!"
"Sorry, Courtney," Chris said, tossing his pipe aside. "Marilee is not the murderer."
"Haha," Marilee quietly laughed, looking smug. Jovie's eyes widened, her hunch about Courtney's guilt getting greater. "So, now that we've established that Courtney did it, I'll take-"
"Whoa, hold on, Little Miss Jumps-To-Conclusions," Chris said, putting a hand over her mouth. She glared at him but he still held it firm over her mouth. "It was not Courtney either." Jovie breathed a sigh of relief and Marilee bit Chris' palm. "Ow!" He held the hand she had taken a bite of and pouted. "Now I have to get a rabies shot…"
"This was the stupidest challenge yet!" Courtney yelled. "It made absolutely no sense! Marilee had the most motive… And I have to admit, so did I. How could it not be one of us?"
"Yeah, who else is left?" Marilee asked. "Jovie's main goal in life is to help people, DJ cries when butterflies die, Grace and Zoey are kids, and Geoff's too stupid to know how to pull off any type of murder. Wh-"
Just then, Geoff kicked the door open and yelled, "I know who the murderer is!"
Everybody stared at him for a moment, then Marilee quietly said, "This oughta be good…"
"Lemme guess," Courtney began, not looking ready to be impressed. "It was Professor Plum in the conservatory with a bacon sandwich."
Geoff scoffed, still smiling. "That's just stupid. There's no conservatory on this island!"
"Who do you think it was?" Jovie asked. "I hope it wasn't me. Several brutal murders wouldn't look good on my résumé for Greenpeace…"
"No, it wasn't you," Geoff said. "I just needed one more murder to take place to guarantee who did it."
"One more?" Jovie asked. "Who else was murdered?"
"DJ, just recently." Geoff sniffed and wiped his eye. "Poor guy. He had so much to live for…" He shrugged it off. "Oh well. He'll be back by tonight."
"Just tell me who it is!" Chris exclaimed. "I'm bored! If I don't hear your guess in ten seconds, I'm gonna go back to my place, get Leap Year off Netflix and watch it… all by myself." He looked hopefully back at Chef, who was still behind the counter. The cook growled at him and he coughed and looked back at the teens. "Okay, Geoff, answer now. You've got ten seconds."
"The murderer, my friends, was-"
"Hi, guys," Zoey said, walking into the mess hall, still sniffling a bit. "Any of you see DJ ar-"
"SHE was the murderer!" Geoff screamed, dramatically pointing an accusing finger at Zoey.
"What?" the four girls said all at once, looking at Geoff incredulously.
"… What?" Geoff asked. "It's not that hard to believe. I'm just surprised one of you didn't come up with it before me!"
Marilee stared at him for a moment, then shut her eyes and rubbed her forehead. "This should be interesting to hear. Tell us how you came to this hypothesis, Geoffrey."
"It's simple," Geoff began, pacing in front of the group. "Zoey could easily be considered the least likely to do something like this, right?"
"… Meh, I'd say it'd be Candace," Jovie said with a shrug. "Zoey does have Duncan's influence, after all."
"It's true," Zoey said with a nod, looking a little too proud.
"But think about it. She had motives for killing each and every person that has been murdered! Duncan and Trent for example. They were the ones who made her give up that wolf dog thingy!"
"What are you talking about?" Courtney asked, confused. "What 'wolf dog thingy?'"
"… Oh yeah. You two weren't there for that. Zoey and Grace stole Chris' rental wolf, named it Fluffernutter, lied about it and let it loose, it stole my check, chaos ensued, blah blah blah. Point is, Trent and Duncan weren't happy campers… And neither was Zoey after they forced the girls to give Fluffernutter up…"
"Mwahahaha!" a black-and-white Duncan cackled, twirling the tip of his handlebar mustache between his pointer finger and thumb. Black-and-white Trent was doing the same and they both were dressed like the dastardly kind of guys who would tie damsels to railroad tracks for kicks. "We're getting rid of your beloved Fluffernutter because we're mean and we hate you two!"
A black-and-white Grace, dressed up like a Southern belle, fell to her knees and clasped her hands together. "Please, don't take our beloved pup!" she begged with a deep Southern accent. "Y'all don't know how much we loves that lil' critter!"
Zoey, wearing basically the same thing as Grace, pleaded as well, "We'll do whatever y'all want! We'll milk the cows or bake y'all some pie or… Or whatever it is Southern belles do!"
"No!" Trent shouted, still twirling his swirly thin mustache as he glared down at the two. He pulled some rope out from behind his back and exclaimed, "It's off to the railroad tracks with you two!"
"… Okay, I know that rock Duncan threw at you must have been messing with your head, but I think even you know that's not how it happened," Marilee told him, looking a bit disturbed.
"Nah, that sounds about right," Zoey said, nodding.
"Okay… Everybody else, then?" Jovie asked. "What about Candace? And DJ? She likes them! Everybody does!"
"I believe I have the answers you're looking for," Geoff said, a sly grin appearing on his lips. "There are a few things that happened a few days ago that you might want to know…"
Zoey and Grace were sitting on the dock, talking about whatever it is little girls talk about while sitting on docks. Candace, who had just gone swimming, climbed onto the dock, grabbed her towel and dried off. After slipping her flip flops on, she waved at the girls and started to walk off, but accidentally stepped on the tip of Zoey's pointer finger.
"Oh no!" Candace exclaimed, looking extremely concerned as Zoey held her finger and squeaked in pain. "I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"
Zoey sucked on her finger to make the stinging go away, but she took it out of her mouth for a moment so she could weakly smile at her. "It's okay," she calmly said. "It was an accident. It only hurts a teeny bit. I'll be okay!"
Zoey was seated for lunch, DJ right next to her. He reached for the salt shaker in front of her, but accidentally knocked her glass of milk over in the process. Luckily, there was only a sip left, so it didn't make a big mess.
"Oops," he muttered, taking his napkin to wipe up the small spill. "Sorry."
"That's okay," Zoey sweetly said.
"… Geoff, those are terrible reasons to murder someone," Courtney said, dumbfounded by his stupidity. "She wasn't even angry! And they all apologized for what they did."
Geoff held up a hand and nodded in agreement. "But that's just the thing. It made her furious! She's just that good at hiding it!"
"You never did say why she killed Gwen," Jovie told him.
"Ah, I'm glad you brought that up, my dear Jovie!" Geoff exclaimed. "It's a long story, actually…"
As Gwen walked by the Fighting Ferrets table at breakfast, Zoey sneezed.
"That was the shortest long story ever," Jovie said as she raised an eyebrow.
"What was so bad about that one?" Marilee asked.
"Gwen didn't say bless you!" Geoff said, like it was obvious, and crossed his eyes. "Duh."
"I wouldn't kill her for that!" Zoey sadly cried. "That's not fair!"
Geoff looked down at her suspiciously, then bent down to get at her eye-level more. "It's fair to say that Courtney is one of the people you look up to, though. Isn't that right?"
Zoey smiled and nodded. "Yeah! She's so pretty and smart and nice and she's the perfectest girl in the whole world!"
"Aww," Courtney quietly cooed, her anger and annoyance disappearing for a moment.
"And she and Gwen haven't really been getting along lately, right?" Geoff asked.
"Yeah, they haven't," Zoey said, tapping her chin for a moment as she thought. "I wish they would. I like it when all the peoples get along!"
"Yeah, she's so vicious and blood-thirsty," Marilee grumbled.
Geoff stood back up and continued, "Zoey would kill to make Courtney happy… And yeah, I mean that, like, literally. So that would give her the perfect motive to kill Gwen."
"What about Selena then?" Courtney asked. "Surprisingly, Selena's never done anything bad to Zoey."
"Ah, that was what gave me my doubts," Geoff told her, cocking a finger at her. "But before DJ's untimely demise, he gave me some interesting information about Zoey after finding out about Selena's murder. Zoey did not care about her sister's death. No! All she cared about were the piles and piles of presents she would get now that both her money-sucking siblings were out of their parents' hair! That was the motive for killing Selena: greed."
"I'm not greedy!" Zoey protested, crossing her arms. "I just like presents. And lots of them! What kid doesn't?"
Geoff ignored Zoey, then said, "But these theories are not the only thing that made me come to my conclusion."
"What, did you find a butcher knife in Zoey's Hello Kitty backpack?" Marilee sarcastically asked.
"No…" Geoff thought this over for a moment, then slapped his forehead. "Dang it! I should have looked through her stuff!"
"No!" Zoey cried. "I keep all my important stuff in my backpack! Like my daddy's spare car keys! And a baggie of grapes!" She looked down and muttered, "Well, they're raisins now, but…"
"But what I found at Candace's murder sight is what first made me suspect it was Zoey…" From behind his back, Geoff pulled out a small pink hair bow.
"Hey, my bow!" Zoey exclaimed, excitedly jumping up to take the bow. She clipped it in its usual spot in her hair and added, "I was wonderin' where it went!"
"I thought it over at first, believe it or not-"
"Oh, we don't."
"Thanks, sis," Geoff said with a small pout. "Anyway, I thought maybe it was just a coincidence. Y'know, stuff gets dropped, it happens. But when we were by the Ferret cabins and Marilee was reading Selena's note, my eye caught something right by her blood puddle…" He held up several black hairs, then held them up to Zoey's hair. "It's a perfect match! It's too dark to be Jovie's and she's the only other girl left with hair dark enough!"
"Well…" Courtney looked doubtful, but also like she thought he might have some points. "Those could have been Selena's!"
"Selena's blonde," Geoff said, looking a bit confused.
"Yeah, bottle blonde."
"… You think so?"
Marilee rolled her eyes. "No, Geoff! Her hair is naturally platinum blonde with pink tips!"
"I knew the pink parts were fake, gosh!" Geoff whined, sounding an awful lot like Harold. "But you don't know for sure if she's got naturally black hair! Besides, these are too short!" He crossed his arms and stubbornly said, "This is my story and I'm sticking to it!"
Marilee sighed, resting a hand on her brother's shoulder. "Look, you've obviously worked hard on this, and your efforts at being smart are absolutely adorable and all, but-"
She was interrupted by super slow clapping and everyone turned to see that Chris, who had been silent and done nothing up until that point, was behind the clapping. "Geoff… That… I didn't honestly think anyone would get it… I mean, I just pulled Zoey's name out of a hat and threw random stuff of hers around, but…" Chris sounded honestly shocked. "Wow. You figured out whodunit!"
"YES!" Geoff cried, pumping a fist. "I'm smart!"
"Chris, that's absolutely ridiculous!" Courtney exclaimed. "You said this was supposed to be mystery, not a complete stab in the dark! There was absolutely no real logic behind it! You're not even trying anymore!"
"Am too," Chris grumbled, pouting. "Geoff figured it out! Maybe you girls are just all idiots!"
"You're serious? Th-That can't be! You mean… Geoff was right but I was… wrong?" Marilee asked, looking as if her world was crashing around her.
"Yep! Geoff's officially the smart one! Says a lot about you, doesn't it?" Chris said, mostly to freak Marilee out, and it worked.
"Omigoshomigosh," Marilee breathlessly said, looking like she was going to faint any second. "Cantbreathecantbreathecant-" She plopped onto one of the seats and clutched her chest, trying to regulate her breathing again.
"What are you so freaked out about?" Courtney bitterly snapped, glaring at the panicked girl. "You won! We're the ones who are going to have to vote someone off!"
"But… Geoff was right… And I wasn't!" Her head fell on the table with a loud slam and it stayed there for a good, long time.
As Geoff started doing a victory dance, Zoey ran off to apologize to everyone for murdering them, Courtney fumed, Marilee groaned, and Jovie tried to comfort both girls at once. Chris stepped in front of this scene, grinning at the camera. "Well, there you have it! The Ferrets are our winners! Who from the Ravens team is leaving the island? Will Marilee ever accept that Geoff figured out the murderer instead of her?"
"NO!" Marilee yelled off-screen.
Chris shrugged, then looked back at the screen. "Find out who's getting the boot right after the break!"
Wow, it's been a while, huh? Well, I'm back, baby! Hopefully this is satisfactory. And don't worry, the loose ends will be tied up in the next chapter! Leave a review, if you would! :D