Leo Gries is not as confident as the star of his show. “I don’t think it’s appropriate to bring in an 18-year-old where accidents have already happened,” he tells Hemslock angrily.

“Seems to me that Alon can decide that.”

Leo Gries looks at me. “Are you sure about this?”

“I am, sir.”

“See?” Hemslock says. “We’re getting along great.”

Melissa offers me a meal and I politely accept. The crew treats me like a hero and I, embarrassed, try to brush it off. Nobody likes Armani, I soon learn, but they appreciate my efforts, regardless.

We eat on one of the tables, and I absorb the conversations happening around me. Askal lays down and chomps happily on a large bowl of boiled chicken that the chef made for him.

It sounds like half of the crew are ready to leave the island, while the other half are optimistic enough to finish the season so they can get paid in full. Melissa finds that hilarious. “At least they’re getting paid,” she notes ironically. “But with my luck, I’m gonna get punted into some Real Housewives spinoff when we get back and still not get a paycheck.”

Hawaiian Shirt is buzzing with excitement, the sandwich on his plate untouched. “It’s too soon to tell, but we might have something,” he says. “Remember when I said that Christie had mapped out a huge chunk of the Godseye’s cave system? And that it’s way different than the map that the plane crash investigators gave us? Christie’s adamant that her work’s accurate, but I’ve reached out again to the supervisor in charge of that crash investigation, and he’s adamant that he hadn’t made any mistakes. Hemslock’s on a roll. His theory is that they’re both right, and that there’s something underneath the soil creating new tunnels and collapsing others, which would explain the differences between the reports. Wild as shit, but it’ll make for compelling TV.”

“You can’t tell me this place isn’t haunted,” Straw Hat says mournfully, poking at his salad.

Goatee, who is sitting nearby and high on his fifth shot of whiskey, snorts. “We came to this island knowing it’s haunted.”

“We came here to make it look haunted for a show.”

“At this point, I don’t care if this whole island is standing on a bedrock of bones. I’m gonna have to remind you fellas that choosing to leave at this point means you’re fired. Show gets pulled, nobody gets money.”

“Mr. Galant’s in a coma,” one of the crew members says nervously. “What if that happens to us, too?”

“Steve isn’t in a coma; he’s just too soft for fieldwork. Hemslock never should’ve talked him into coming along. Anyway, they’ll fly him to the nearest hospital soon.” A staff member places another shot of whiskey by his elbow; Hawaiian Shirt downs it in a gulp. “You know what, Andy, leave the bottle. Don’t you understand? We’re getting all the footage we could hope for. I don’t care about the curse. I care that we’re getting enough shit to make the curse believable. And when we blow up on social media, on streaming sites—you’re going to have the résumés you all need to work on whatever other shows you’d like.”