The last one.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

When Zoo agrees to take part in a new reality TV show, In The Dark , she's hoping for a challenge. Facing eleven competitors, she's prepared for her physical and mental strength to be tested in a series of unforgiving survival tasks.

But as her fellow contestants are overcome by hunger, injury and psychological breakdown, Zoo becomes increasingly afraid. Because the deserted TV set and gruesome props are starting to feel all too real.

Is there something they're not telling Zoo about the world outside?

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

The first one on the production team to die will be the editor. He doesn't yet feel ill, and he's no longer out in the field. He went out only once, before filming started, to see the woods and to shake the hands of the men whose footage he'd be shaping; asymptomatic transmission. He's been back for more than a week now and is sitting alone in the editing studio, feeling perfectly well. His T-­shirt reads: coffee in, genius out. He taps a key and images flicker across the thirty-­two-­inch screen dominating his cluttered workstation. The opening credits. A flash of leaves, oak and maple, followed immediately by an image of a woman who described her complexion as "mocha" on her application, and aptly so. She has dark eyes and large breasts barely contained in an orange sport top. Her hair is a mass of tight black spirals, each placed with perfection. Next, panoramic mountains, one of the nation's northeastern glories, green and vibrant at the peak of summer. Then, a rabbit poised to bolt and, limping through a field, a young white man with buzzed-­off hair that glints like mica in the sun. A close-­up of this same man, looking stern and young with sharp blue eyes. Next, a petite woman of Korean descent wearing a blue plaid shirt and kneeling on one leg. She's holding a knife and looking at the ground. Behind her, a tall bald man with panther-­dark skin and a week's worth of stubble. The camera zooms in. The woman is skinning a rabbit. This is followed by another still, the man with the dark skin, but this time without the stubble. His brown-­black eyes meet the camera calmly and with confidence, a look that says I mean to win. A river. A gray cliff face dotted with lichen--­and another white man, this one with wild red hair. He clings to the cliff, the focus of the shot manipulated so that the rope holding him fades into the rock, like a salmon-­colored slick. The next still is of a light-­skinned, light-­haired woman, her green eyes shining through brown-­rimmed square glasses. The editor pauses on this image. There's something about this woman's smile and the way she's looking off to the side of the camera that he likes. She seems more genuine than the others. Maybe she's just better at pretending, but still, he likes it, he likes her, because he can pretend too. The production team is ten days into filming, and this woman is the one he's pegged as Fan Favorite. The animal-­loving blonde, the eager student. The quick study with the easy laugh. So many angles from which to choose--­if only it were his choice alone. The studio door opens and a tall white man strides in. The editor stiffens in his chair as the off-­site producer comes to lean over his shoulder. "Where do you have Zoo now?" asks the producer. "After Tracker," says the editor. "Before Rancher." The producer nods thoughtfully and takes a step away. He's wearing a crisp blue shirt, a dotted yellow tie, and jeans. The editor is as light-­skinned as the producer but would darken in the sun. His ancestry is complicated. Growing up, he never knew which ethnicity box to check; in the last census he selected white. "What about Air Force? Did you add the flag?" asks the producer. The editor swivels in his chair. Backlit by the computer monitor, his dark hair shimmers like a jagged halo. "You were serious about that?" he asks. "Absolutely," says the producer. "And who do you have last?" "Still Carpenter Chick, but--­" "You can't end with her now." But that's what I'm working on is what the editor had been about to say. He's been putting off rearranging the opening credits since yesterday, and he still has to finish the week's finale. He has a long day ahead. A long night too. Annoyed, he turns back to his screen. "I was thinking either Banker or Black Doctor," he says. "Banker," says the producer. "Trust me." He pauses, then asks, "Have you seen yesterday's clips?" Three episodes a week, no lead time to speak of. They might as well be broadcasting live. It's unsustainable, thinks the editor. "Just the first half hour." The producer laughs. In the glow of the monitor his straight teeth reflect yellow. "We struck gold," he says. "Waitress, Zoo, and, uh . .  ." He snaps his fingers, trying to remember. "Rancher. They don't finish in time and Waitress flips her shit when they see the"--­air quotes--­"  'body.' She's crying and hyperventilating--­and Zoo snaps." The editor shifts nervously in his seat. "Did she quit?" he asks. Disappointment warms his face. He was looking forward to editing her victory, or, more likely, her graceful defeat in the endgame. Because he doesn't know how she could possibly overcome Tracker; Air Force has his tweaked ankle working against him, but Tracker is so steady, so knowledgeable, so strong, that he seems destined to win. It is the editor's job to make Tracker's victory seem a little less inevitable, and he was planning to use Zoo as his primary tool in this. He enjoys editing the two of them together, creating art from contrast. "No, she didn't quit," says the producer. He claps the shoulder of the editor. "But she was mean." The editor looks at Zoo's soft image, the kindness in those green eyes. He doesn't like this turn of events. This doesn't fit at all. "She yells at Waitress," the producer continues, "tells her she's the reason they lost. All this shit. It's fantastic. I mean, she apologizes like a minute later, but whatever. You'll see." Even the best among us can break, thinks the editor. That's the whole idea behind the show, after all--­to break the contestants. Though the twelve who entered the ring were told that it's about survival. That it's a race. All true, but. Even the title they were told was a deception. Subject to change, as the fine print read. The title in its textbox does not read The Woods, but In the Dark. "Anyway, we need the updated credits by noon," says the producer. "I know," says the editor. "Cool. Just making sure." The producer purses his fingers into a pistol and pops a shot at the editor, then turns to leave. He pauses, nodding toward the monitor. The screen has dimmed into energy-­saving mode, but Zoo's face is still visible, though faint. "Look at her, smiling," he says. "Poor thing had no idea what she was in for." He laughs, the soft sound somewhere between pity and glee, then exits to the hall. The editor turns to his computer. He shakes his mouse, brightening Zoo's smiling face, then gets back to work. By the time he finishes the opening credits, lethargy will be settling into his bones. The first cough will come as he completes the week's finale early tomorrow morning. By the following evening he will become an early data point, a standout before the explosion. Specialists will strive to understand, but they won't have time. Whatever this is, it lingers before it strikes. Just along for the ride, then suddenly behind the wheel and gunning for a cliff. Many of the specialists are already infected. The producer too will die, five days from today. He will be alone in his 4,100-­square-­foot home, weak and abandoned, when it happens. In his final moments of life he will unconsciously lap at the blood leaking from his nose, because his tongue will be just that dry. By then, all three episodes of the premiere week will have aired, the last a delightfully mindless break from breaking news. But they're still filming, mired in the region hit first and hardest. The production team tries to get everyone out, but they're on Solo Challenges and widespread. There were contingency plans in place, but not for this. It's a spiral like that child's toy: a pen on paper, guided by plastic. A pattern, then something slips and--­madness. Incompetency and panic collide. Good intentions give way to self-­preservation. No one knows for sure what happened, small scale or large. No one knows precisely what went wrong. But before he dies, the producer will know this much: Something went wrong. Excerpted from The Last One by Alexandra Oliva All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Twelve strangers selected for a wilderness survival challenge with a $1 million prize go in expecting a standard reality-show environment: dramatic but not life or death. Unknown to them, a mysterious disease changes the game into a battle for literal survival. One contestant, Zoo, stumbling through the mostly dead world, interprets the devastation around her as props in a game. Narration alternates between Mike Chamberlain, reading scenes about the contest, and Nicol Zanzarella, the voice of Zoo during her solo journey. While plot and style are strong, the story starts at an inexplicable midpoint of Zoo's challenge, transitions to a group scene near the beginning, and is hard to interpret until at least an hour into the audio. VERDICT This complicated construction might make some wish to select the print version, although listeners who stick with it will be rewarded with a fine story and excellent performances.--Janet Martin, Southern Pines P.L., NC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

The TV show Survivor meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road in Oliva's stellar debut. One of the 12 contestants on In the Dark, a reality show set in the remote Pennsylvania wilderness and billed as a "reality experience of unprecedented scale," is Zoo, so called by the show's producers because she works at a wildlife sanctuary and rehabilitation center. Zoo decided to go on In the Dark as one last big adventure before settling down to start a family with her husband. The host explains that the game is a race with no finish line; the only way out is to quit. Trouble arrives in the form of an unidentified pathogen that begins to kill off a substantial portion of the world's population. Alone on an extended solo challenge, Zoo has no idea that the lines between reality and reality show have been blurred into nonexistence. Fueled by brilliantly intimate and insightful writing as well as an endearing and fully realized female lead, this apocalyptic novel draws its power from Zoo's realizations about society and herself as she struggles to survive long enough to somehow make it back to her home and, hopefully, her husband. Agent: Lucy Carson, Friedrich Agency. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Zoo, a nature-preserve educator, joined the cast of the reality show In the Dark to experience a final solo adventure before starting a family. The competition is set in a large forest, and the cast, selected for maximum volatility, competes to win food and survival tools. With fierce determination and some basic survival skills, Zoo emerges as a top contender. After their small teams split into solo challenges, Zoo notices a dark shift in the producers' reality-bending machinations: disappearing cameramen, torturously long periods of solitude, and even horrifically realistic fake bodies planted in her path. But when Zoo encounters Brennan, whom she quickly pegs as an artfully inserted replacement cameraman, his despairing stories of pandemic disease and mass chaos force Zoo to question her perceptions about what she has witnessed while stumbling toward the show's finish line. Part wilderness-survival thriller and part dystopian pandemic story, Oliva's debut is a gripping portrayal of an ordinary person's evolving survival instincts as she realizes that she can't trust the reality she sees.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2016 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

A young woman's participation in a survival reality show conceals an actual apocalyptic event in the outside world. Telling herself that she is after one last big adventure before starting a family, Zoo (as she is dubbed by producers) decides to participate in a hard-core wilderness survival show. The novel's first narrative strand takes us through the show's initial week: we see a series of group and solo challenges, such as tracking animals and filtering water, accomplished in order to earn prizes. We are also introduced to the reality show contestants, who are called by easy-label names like Asian Chick and Air Force. Zoo quickly rises as a leader among the contestantsshe's easy to get along with and has "moxie." But intercut with the narrative of the show's first week is that of Zoo alone, on what she believes is a long solo challenge. Thinking that the production team has cleared out entire towns and strategically placed corpselike "props" (complete with the smell of decay), Zoo moves east in the direction of her home, determined to be the last one standing and the winner of the $1 million prize. In her debut novel, Oliva has written a book that is clever in the best sense: she is able to skewer reality show culture and dystopian tropes while never letting concept or critique become more important than a good yarn. The novel is thoroughly steeped in its timesthe use of a Reddit-like forum plays a key plot rolebut unlike other dystopian novels, it doesn't so much use contemporary times to warn us about potential future collapse as it shows what impact our times have on the ways we think about identity and human relationships. An astute and compelling entry into the post-apocalypse genre. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.