Escape Room

by Maren Stoffels

  I had to go, so that I could protect Alissa. I needed to make sure all three of them got out safely.

  Over the past year, Julie had warned me about Cleo several times. She said my sister was confused, that she needed help. But Cleo’s over eighteen. She can decide for herself, and she didn’t want any help.

  She was a genius at fooling the social workers, smiling at all the right moments, and getting away with everything. She convinced our doctor that she was fine, that she was even thinking of resuming her studies.

  But I knew she wasn’t fine. Cleo retreated more and more to her dorm room. When I was there, all she talked about was Alissa, or about the Escape Room, where she had a part-time job. The people there thought her ideas for the Happy Family were so good that they actually built the room.

  “Wait until you see it, little brother,” she said. “All of the details are just right.”

  I never told Julie what Cleo was up to. If she found out that Cleo was having a replica of our house built…

  I couldn’t betray Cleo. She is my sister, after all.

  She’s the only other one left of our family. Dad, Mom, Lia—they’re all dead.

  “You’re alive,” I say to Alissa. “That is what you did to us.”

  I don’t want to talk about this. It physically hurts. But Alissa needs to understand why Cleo’s doing this.

  “Our old house doesn’t exist anymore,” I say. “Everything’s gone. Burned down.”

  Alissa’s eyes widen. I can see that the cogs inside her head are starting to turn. And then I have to tell her. The story that my psychologist is so eager to hear, the story that Julie’s been trying to drag out of me for months.

  “I was out the night when it all went wrong. Dad told me to be home by ten, because it was Christmas Eve and he wanted us to be together. I thought it was dumb. Ten o’clock was for little kids. And I was seventeen.

  “We went out dancing: Karla; her best friend, Peyton; and me. I was mad at Dad because of the fight we’d had before I left the house. The three of us got blind drunk.

  “When I finally headed home at twelve, there were clouds of smoke above the houses. I remember thinking it was exciting. I even sped up. But when I got to our street, it turned out that it was our house that was on fire. I instantly sobered up.

  “I ran to the fence, and a firefighter held me back. He shouted that his buddy was inside, and that I should wait outside. He asked me how many people were in the house, and I told him four. Cleo had already moved into a dorm room, but she was at home that night because of the holidays.

  “It was driving me crazy, waiting there. The flames were licking the bricks, and there was smoke everywhere.

  “Cleo came out. She had a big burn on her neck, and she was leaning on a firefighter. She was coughing, and she fell into my arms. She said she had to go back, that Lia had been calling for help. The firefighter shook his head.

  “ ‘You guys stay here. We’ll help your family,’ he said, and he went back. His buddy went with him. I watched them run into the burning house.

  “As Cleo was helped into the ambulance, the inferno spread.

  “It was so incredibly hot where I was standing, but it didn’t even occur to me to move away.

  “Cleo came back. She’d fought her way out of the ambulance, and she had a blanket around her shoulders.

  “I held my sister. I was scared she was going to run back inside for Lia. And at that moment…something collapsed. My mom and dad’s bedroom, I think. The neighbors standing around us were screaming and shouting, but Cleo and I were both silent.

  “More firefighters went into the house. They were shouting, but I didn’t know the names. And then a man came out. The same man who had brought Cleo out. The man who had promised to help our family. His whole face was black. He could barely stand. The ambulance guy gave him an oxygen mask.

  “The firefighters didn’t do anything else after that. All their attention went to the other fireman. Dad, Mom, Lia were forgotten.”

  “M-my dad…,” stammers Alissa. “That man was my dad.”

  I look up. “So now you get it.”

  It’s deadly silent in the room.

  I see Cleo again, standing with me behind the fence. She collapsed, clung on to me like a child to its mother. I had to keep standing, for her. But I was tired, so tired.

  “My dad lost a good friend that night.” Alissa’s voice is trembling. “He was ill for months. I told you that.”

  “He should have let Cleo and me go inside,” I say. “We knew the house. We could have saved them.”

  Alissa doesn’t say another word. Tears are streaming down her cheeks. Cleo’s always been way angrier than me. Particularly when Alissa appeared in that documentary. It was like Alissa was a flame near a gas leak. Cleo exploded.

  “She’s acting like she’s the victim of what happened that night,” Cleo had screamed. “But her dad’s just sick. At least she still has a father! She doesn’t wake up sweating every night because she can hear her sister crying out for help, and there’s nothing she can do. She doesn’t have a scar on her neck that reminds her of what happened every day.”

  I tried to calm my sister down, but she just got madder. Especially when I said I didn’t want to watch the documentary.

  “They’re your family too, or have you forgotten them? Just like all those firefighters did?”

  “Of course not.”

  “That’s not how it seems.” Cleo’s eyes were spitting fire. “You’ve just traded them in for Julie!”

  I knew it was her grief talking, but Cleo went too far. I left, and we didn’t speak for two weeks.

  Cleo seemed to have calmed down after that, and we left the subject of Alissa alone. We did fun things together again. Cleo gave me my first driving lesson, and now and then I delivered a pizza for free. For a little while, it felt like we’d been before the accident.

  But when I was over at Cleo’s one day, I saw a notebook on the windowsill. Cleo had gone to the bathroom, and I opened the book out of curiosity. There were all kinds of notes in it that didn’t seem to make sense at first.

  Has two brothers and a sister. Sister the same age as Lia.

  As I read Lia’s name, my breath stopped, and I read on frantically.

  It has everything. It’s beautiful. No scars. Dad’s still a firefighter.

  So Cleo was keeping notes about this Alissa. It was full of recent dates. She was still obsessed.

  “What are you doing?” Cleo was suddenly back in the room. “That’s mine!”

  I looked at my sister. “You’re following her.”

  “So?” Cleo snatched the book from my hands.

  “You have to stop this.”

  “Why?” Cleo looked at me venomously. “Somebody has to do it.”

  “Come live with us,” I begged her. “You know Julie won’t mind.”

  Cleo laughed. “You think? She doesn’t even want you to come see me on your own. Does she know you’re here now?”

  I felt myself blushing, because she was right. Julie didn’t know. She wanted to be around when I saw Cleo, because she knew how mad Cleo was about the past.

  “You see.” Cleo crossed her arms. “Julie doesn’t understand us. She lost her brother that night, but we lost way more.”

  I crossed my arms too. “I’m not getting involved.”

  Cleo came to stand in front of me. “Again? Like you didn’t get involved that night?”

  That hurt. If I’d come home earlier, I could have saved my sister, because Lia’s bedroom was next to mine. Maybe I’d have found the fire sooner, because I often had to go pee at night. The fire was started by a candle on a table, which Lia had lit. My little sister always wanted to have candles around, and Mom must have missed that one when they went to bed. The candle was too close to the curtains
. They caught fire after everyone had gone to bed.

  I look up at Alissa, who is still standing in front of me with the shard of glass. Maybe it should all end here for me. Perhaps it’s better that way.

  I let my mom and dad and my sister burn. I drove Karla away. I let Cleo have her way….

  Why didn’t I talk to Julie? She might have been able to stop Cleo.

  But Cleo’s my sister. Other than Julie, she’s the only family I still have. I couldn’t betray her.

  “Do you want to stab me?” I spit out the words. “Then do it!”

  “Don’t come any closer.” Alissa holds out the piece of glass, trembling. “I’ll do it. I really will do it.”

  I murdered my own father.

  And my mother, and my sister.

  Lia, who always wanted me to play the keyboard for her. I’d play until I had blisters on my fingers if only it would bring her back.

  “Don’t move.” Alissa’s voice is shaking. She holds out the glass farther. “I’m warning you, Miles.”

  “Just do it,” I beg her. “Please. It’s what I want. It’s what I deserve.”

  “No!” Alissa’s voice is an octave higher than normal. “Don’t move!”

  There’s a bang on the door. Mint and Sky are tired of waiting. They’ve come to rescue Alissa.

  “You’re lucky to have friends like that,” I hear myself saying, and I reach out my arms to Alissa.

  It happens so quickly that I don’t realize at first. But then I feel a sharp, stabbing pain.

  “No!”

  I swipe everything off the desk in one movement.

  On the screen, I see Miles lying motionless on the floor.

  I hear Lia’s voice inside my head again.

  She begged for help that night.

  Everyone abandoned her.

  That firefighter promised to help her, but he didn’t think she was important enough.

  After all, he had his own daughter at home.

  He had It.

  “No! Don’t move!” Alissa’s high-pitched voice comes through the door.

  I don’t think about it for a second, but bash my shoulder into the door, which swings opens with a bang. As I fly into the room, I take in everything at once.

  Miles is lying on the floor. Alissa is standing at his feet. She’s shaking so much that it’s as if I can see two of her. She’s holding her hands away from her, like they’re covered in something dirty.

  But then I see Miles’s stomach. In the place where I’ve had stabbing pains for the past week, there’s a piece of glass sticking out. His gray T-shirt is red with blood.

  “Alissa…”

  She doesn’t react. When I grab hold of her, she looks up with a wild expression. Her blue eyes look pleadingly at me, as if I’m the only one who can help her. That’s what Sky looked like earlier this evening too, but I don’t know if there’s anything I can do for her.

  “Take her with you,” I say to Sky, who’s staring wide-eyed at Miles.

  I push them into the hallway, toward the living room. When they’re gone, I look at Miles, who is still lying there without moving.

  What happened here?

  Alissa clearly stabbed him, but was it self-defense?

  Is he dead?

  I have to make sure he can never come anywhere near us again. Never again.

  I roll the desk chair into the hallway and am about to close the door, but I can’t do it. I can’t leave Miles behind like that, can I? That would make me even worse than Cleo, and I don’t want that.

  I step back into the room. Maybe I should pull the glass out of his stomach. Or will that make it bleed even more?

  As I go closer, I see Miles’s eyelids trembling.

  So he’s still alive. I don’t know whether to be relieved or not.

  Then a strange rattling sound comes from his mouth, and he opens his eyes. He looks at me, dazed. A crooked grin appears on his face, as if only the right half of his body is still working.

  “Hey…,” I hear him say quietly.

  Miles tries to get up, but winces.

  “You have to stay lying down,” I say, “or your organs will be even more damaged.”

  “Does that matter?” Miles makes that strange sound again, and his eyes roll back.

  Shocked, I lean forward, but then I hear his shallow breathing. He’s fainted, but he’s still alive.

  I look at the piece of glass sticking out of his stomach. What organs might it have hit? His intestines?

  I think about the anatomical model we put together at the beginning of the evening. I managed to get everything in the right place in one go, but now I can’t remember which organ went where.

  I take a deep breath and stand up. I can’t help Miles. Like the rest of us, he’ll have to wait for Cleo to open the door.

  I push the desk chair under the door handle and check that it’s sturdy enough. Even though Miles doesn’t have the strength to stand up, let alone to smash down a door.

  In the living room, I go sit with my friends. Alissa is sitting in the middle, between Sky and me. I exchange a quick glance with Sky. His face is ashen.

  “Cleo is Miles’s sister,” I hear him say.

  I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know exactly who that boy with the glass in his stomach is. I just want it all to stop.

  I take hold of Alissa’s wounded, trembling hands—and that’s when I notice that mine are shaking too.

  We don’t talk. What is there to say?

  All we can do is wait and hope for a miracle.

  He is dead.

  It murdered my little brother.

  I throw open the door to the corridor.

  She’s going away.

  That disturbed witch is really going away.

  I try to move my hands, but that just makes the ropes cut even more deeply into my skin.

  There’s a telephone on the floor, an old-fashioned one with a cord, almost within reach. The receiver is next to it. I can hear the dial tone.

  I need to hurry. She could be back at any minute.

  I twist my hands this way and that. The ropes hurt so much. It feels like I’m tearing my skin open until it bleeds.

  But slowly they loosen. I could cry with relief, even though my eyes feel so dry and raw from all the crying I’ve already done.

  On one of the screens, I see Sky. The boy who broke my heart twice tonight. First, because he never really loved me, and second because I can see him suffering.

  Did that woman mess him up like that?

  I’m free.

  I look in surprise at my hands, as if they belong to someone else.

  I have to hurry.

  With shaking fingers, I pick up the phone and call the emergency number. A woman answers.

  “Where are you calling from and what help do you require?”

  I tell them the name of the town and ask for the police and the ambulance.

  “Someone’s been hurt,” I say. “Really badly, and I…”

  There’s a click. The woman’s putting me through.

  “Wait!” I call, but there’s another voice. This time it’s a man.

  “Where exactly are you?”

  “In an Escape Room. But I can’t remember the name of the street. Please. You have to come.”

  “Do you remember anything else? There are three Escape Rooms in town.”

  Three? I think frantically. I came here on my bike. I leaned it against one of the buildings. They were old houses. The street had a bird’s name, a…

  “Gull!” I almost scream it. “Gull Street!”

  “That’s great. So now we know where you are. What happened?”

  “A member of the staff has gone crazy. Someone got stabbed….”

  “How
many people have been injured?”

  “I don’t know. Please. You have to hurry.”

  “How old are the victims?”

  “No idea. Between fifteen and eighteen. Something like that?” I start crying again. “I’m so scared.”

  “Help’s on the way.”

  I look at the screens. That boy, Miles, he’s still lying on his back, absolutely still. He hasn’t moved since he spoke to Mint. Alissa’s sitting there as if she’s stunned. Sky is hugging his injured hand, and Mint’s lips are moving but she’s not making any sound. It’s like watching a movie, but I know the actors.

  Suddenly I see movement on another screen, one that nothing’s happened on all night. It’s the camera at the entrance to the Escape Room.

  Cleo is opening the door. I can hardly believe it, but the black-and-white pictures don’t lie. Is she letting everyone go? That means this nightmare is finally over.

  But then Cleo throws a bottle into the room. There’s something wrapped around it. A cloth? The whole screen suddenly flashes bright white, as if I’m looking into the sun.

  “No…,” I groan.

  “What did you say?” asks the man on the other end of the line.

  The normal picture returns. I see flames flickering around the desk and the anatomical model with the organs.

  “Fire…” I gasp for breath. “She’s set the place on fire!”

  “Can you get to safety, miss?”

  I drop the receiver and start running.

  There’s the sound of breaking glass, a muffled explosion. I smell burning.

  “Fire,” I whisper.

  “Come on.” Mint leads Alissa and me to the far corner of the kitchen. She turns the tap. No water comes out. Everything here is fake.

  “Here.” I take three dish towels off a shelf. “Hold these over your mouth and nose. It’ll help against the smoke. Stay with Alissa. I’m going to go take a look.”

  As I walk to the doctor’s office, I can see six doors instead of three, and I have to lean against the wall so that I don’t collapse.

  The heat coming from the doctor’s office is overwhelming. When I see the flames, I know there’s no way out. We can’t even reach the door.