#NoEscape (Volume 3) (#MurderTrending)

by Gretchen McNeil

  “Five minutes.”

  Persey snapped back to reality. Was the countdown still going? Was she supposed to find another exit in just five minutes? That wasn’t enough time. She spun around, searching the loft. Mounted in the middle of the brick wall at the far end of the room was a digital timer—the kind Persey would expect to see on the scoreboard at a high school basketball game—which very clearly showed that the clock was still ticking from the same place she’d just left it in the ATM booth.

  Keep your eye on the clock, Leah had said. If it ever reaches zero, you will lose.

  The clock had continued its countdown, which meant the last challenge wasn’t completed.

  She turned back to look at the door through which she’d entered, which still hung open on its hinges, exposing the dark closet beyond. Circling to the other side, she saw that the door contained a poster mounted in such a way that the edges of the black wooden frame were flush with the edge of the door itself. Sinéad O’Connor’s brooding “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a song about a woman mourning the loss of a relationship. Was that supposed to represent her in some way?

  When pushed, the door swung noiselessly closed, locking into place with the faintest of metallic clicks, and the only sign that a door even existed was a thin line, camouflaged by the poster frame, which delineated the wall from the door itself.

  Persey scanned the room. There were eight framed posters on the wall. She had to assume that behind each of them, another contestant was sequestered in front of an ATM machine, trying to figure out the PIN while the oxygen was slowly sucked away. Which meant she had been the first to solve the puzzle. Crazy.

  “Four minutes.”

  Almost immediately, the Green Day poster swung open and Wes stumbled into the loft, wheezing as he gasped for breath.

  Persey wanted to laugh. “Basket Case” seemed like the perfect theme song for this guy, but she decided not to antagonize him since he was currently her only ally.

  “You okay?” she asked, eying him closely as he slowly straightened up. His face was slick with perspiration, his eyes wide, pupils dilated.

  “Yeah.” Like Persey, he looked around the room. “You’re the only one?”

  She nodded.

  “Sweet.” A slow smile spread across his face. “That narrows down the competition quite a bit.”

  Only Persey wasn’t so sure. “The clock is still going,” she said, pointing at the digital readout on the brick wall.

  Wes shrugged. “Yeah, for them.”

  “For all of us.”

  “I understand that you haven’t done many escape rooms,” Wes said, strolling along the far wall as he examined the display of gold records, “so you don’t get it. We already solved the challenge. We smart. Them stupid. If they don’t make it out, they don’t move on. End. Of. Story.”

  He spoke to her like he was explaining a complicated concept to a young child—overarticulating, tone as condescending as was humanly possible. For all his happy-go-lucky stoner vibe, Wes was actually an asshole.

  “There won’t be a next challenge if we don’t help them figure this out in time.”

  “Whatever.” Wes arrived at the desk, pulled out the ergonomic leather chair, and plopped into it, kicking his gross sandals up onto the desk beside the computer. “You be you, kid. I’m just going to wait for the next challenge to start.”

  Kid?

  “I will.” Persey turned to the nearest song poster. “Hey!” she cried, pounding her fists against the lead singer of Radiohead’s face. “It’s your SAT score! S. A. T!”

  From across the room, Wes snorted. “They can’t hear you. Pretty sure that shit is soundproof.”

  She hated to admit that he was right, but he was right. Even if the person inside could feel the impact of her fists against the wall, they wouldn’t be able to hear what she was saying. And the door itself had no release mechanism.

  Another door swung open, the Beastie Boys this time, and Neela bolted into the music loft, glasses knocked askew in her rush.

  “Son. Of. A. Shatner!” she cried between breaths. Even near asphyxiation didn’t curb her need to talk. “That was. So crazy.” She caught sight of Persey, and a huge smile spread across her face. “Knew you’d. Beat me.”

  Neela was apparently the only person other than Kevin that had any faith in Persey’s problem-solving abilities.

  “The countdown’s still going.”

  Neela straightened her glasses as she checked the clock. “All of us or none of us. We have to help them before time runs out.”

  “Exactly.” Persey was relieved to have an actual ally. Even if they were, technically, competitors. “The posters conceal the doors, but the booths are soundproof and there’s no way to open them from our side.”

  “Maybe the trick is oral?” Neela spun around and pushed the Beastie Boys closed. When the lock clicked into place, she stood back a couple of feet and raised her chin. “Fifteen fifty!”

  “You scored fifteen fifty on your SAT?” Persey asked, wide-eyed. She’d never met anyone who’d scored that high. Not even her brother.

  Neela flushed, embarrassed. She might have been the only other person in the competition with a sense of modesty. “I know. My dad didn’t understand it either. Why I didn’t get a perfect score, I mean.”

  That was pretty much the opposite of what Persey was thinking. She really was surrounded by a bunch of geniuses.

  A spicy, dank scent wafted into the loft. It was equal parts skunk, wet newspaper, and aftershave, and it was a stink Persey recognized right away. Turning to the computer, she found that despite the confiscation of his e-cigs, Wes had blazed up a giant blunt and was proceeding to suck it down, filling the loft with the pungent aroma of grade-A ganja.

  What the actual fuck?

  Wes registered Persey’s reaction. “It’s medicinal,” he said while holding his breath. Then he tilted back his head as he blew smoke up over the piano keyboard.

  He was completely useless.

  “Did you transport that over state lines?” Neela asked with a gasp. “I realize Leah said you were from Vegas, but I was unclear as to whether or not you still live here, but I asked about interstate transportation because that is considered trafficking due to current federal statutes, and if you are caught they could charge you with possession with intent to sell, which is a felony instead of a possession misdemeanor, which carries a minimum sentence of—”

  “Two minutes.”

  The voice came from a speaker mounted in the corner of the loft, and as Persey’s eyes bounced between it and the desk at which Wes sat, she suddenly had an amazing idea.

  “There was a speaker in my room.”

  “Mine too,” Neela said, abandoning her previous monologue. Her brows knitted together, unclear of Persey’s point, but then, all of a sudden, her forehead smoothed out, her eyes grew wide, and her jaw gaped open. “The speakers must connect to something.”

  There was literally nothing else in the room but…Persey’s eyes met Neela’s. “The microphone!” they said in unison.

  The girls sprinted across the room to where Wes continued to lounge and toke.

  “Um, Wes,” Neela said politely. “Would it be possible for you to relocate to the—”

  Only, Persey wasn’t waiting for him. While Neela was mid-sentence, she yanked Wes’s wheelie chair away from the desk and spun him out of the way.

  Wes’s feet crashed to the floor, stopping the momentum of the chair. “What the hell?”

  Persey didn’t give two shits about him. With a swipe of the mouse, she woke the computer screen from its sleep state. “There must be some kind of program that runs the mic.”

  “Judging by the blue translucent body and matching mouse, I believe this to be an iMac G3, launched in 1998 and probably running Mac OS 8.1. Standard QuickTime 3.0 software for recording through internal or external microphones.”

  Another door popped open, but Persey didn’t even turn from the computer. “Arlo,” Neela said. �
��Four left.”

  “What the fuck was that?” Arlo panted. She staggered over to the desk, bracing herself against it. “Are you fuckers trying to kill me?”

  “Wasn’t us.” Persey clicked the mouse rapidly, double clicking the “Q” icon on the desktop. “Got it!”

  “Excellent.” Neela grinned. “We make quite a team.”

  “Check to see if it’s working.”

  Neela leaned over the piano keyboard to the microphone. “Um, check one. Check two.”

  “This isn’t funny!” Arlo screamed.

  Persey jumped. She turned, expecting to see Arlo yelling at her and Neela, but instead, she had found a camera mounted in the corner of the room. Arlo was pointing at it as she screamed, her face red, eyes watery. For the snarky, self-controlled Slytherin, it seemed totally out of character.

  “How did you even know it was me, huh? Did you hack into my computer? Steal my password?” Her voice cracked. “That’s illegal. I’ll press charges. You can’t prove I run it!”

  “Chill out,” Wes said, blowing another cloud of weed into the air. “You sound like a nutjob.”

  “Fuck you!” Arlo cried.

  “One minute.”

  “Your SAT score!” Persey shouted into the microphone. She didn’t have time to worry about Arlo’s weird behavior. “Type in your score!”

  “Your final score,” Neela added. Right. Because there were people in the world who took it more than once. The idea made Persey’s skin crawl.

  “Leah, I know you can see us!” Arlo yelled as she pointed at the camera again, only slightly less ragey than before. “I want out of here right now, do you understand? I want this door open or I’m calling my attorney.”

  “Type your SAT score,” Persey repeated more slowly, pausing after each letter of SAT. Riot, Shaun, Mackenzie, and Kevin might be having difficulty understanding her, especially if the oxygen level in their rooms had dropped too low. Of course, that was only if her and Neela’s plan with the speakers had worked at all in the first place. If not, they needed to—

  Four soft clicks emanated from the back of the room. Persey spun around and saw that the final doors had opened.

  The clock stopped.

  RIOT SPUTTERED AS HE SLUMPED AGAINST THE OPEN DOOR, tweed vest unbuttoned, his eyes only half-open as if he’d just emerged from a deep sleep. “That’s…the Man,” he panted. “Test scores. Inside job.”

  Even that close to passing out, Riot was formulating a conspiracy theory.

  Mackenzie had the opposite reaction: she rushed into the loft and collapsed onto the nearest sofa, arm draped dramatically over her head like a swooning 1930s Hollywood starlet. “The. Fuck.”

  Shaun was in the worst shape—he crawled out of the room practically on his belly. Red-faced, sweating profusely, he looked to be on the edge of passing out, and the abject fear on his face was the closest thing to an emotion Shaun-bot had shown all day.

  All of them looked shaken. Except for Kevin. He sauntered out of his prison cell, smiling, calm, and showing absolutely no signs of distress. No sheen of perspiration or pallor of panic. And it wasn’t the first time that his carefree attitude intrigued (annoyed) Persey.

  “Is everyone okay?” Neela asked, her hands clasped before her as she stood up on the balls of her feet, swaying lightly back and forth. “I detect some complexion aberrations, heightened respiratory response. And I’m just worried because the symptoms of cerebral hypoxia due to oxygen deprivation include memory problems, decreased dexterity and fine motor skills, increased heart rate, and blueness of the lips and skin.”

  “Save it,” Mackenzie said, pink overtones beginning to ebb from her cheeks. “I can memorize the cerebral hypoxia Wikipedia entry too.”

  Neela dropped her hands. “Sorry.”

  “You should be less of an asshole,” Persey said, overcoming her usual (permanent) reticence to speak up. “Since she helped get you out of there.”

  Mackenzie just rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”

  “I would have figured it out eventually.” Shaun’s face was once again stony and devoid of emotion as he pushed himself to his knees. Shaun-bot had rebooted. He looked Kevin up and down, then tilted his head to the side as if discovering something for the first time. “Why aren’t you suffering from oxygen deprivation like the rest of us?”

  Kevin’s smile deepened. “Because the O2 never dropped in my coffin.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “Totally fair,” Kevin replied. “I never typed in a code. That’s what made it drop, right?”

  Shaun looked confused. “You mean, you never even tried to escape the room?” Lack of effort did not compute.

  “I figured someone else would do it for me.” He gave Persey a thumbs-up. “Thanks.”

  “Well, I thought I was going to die,” Mackenzie said, still reclining on the sofa. “Which is impressive.”

  “Impressive?” Riot asked.

  “Yeah. That’s one crazy effect! To make us think we’re actually asphyxiating?”

  Was she trying to convince herself that it was just an illusion, or everyone else? “I don’t think that was a special effect,” Persey said slowly.

  “Oh, come on!” Mackenzie laughed with practiced charm. “Do you think that was real?”

  Persey shrugged. She wasn’t sure if that’s what she was saying, but the whole episode had left her uneasy.

  “We didn’t actually almost die,” Mackenzie continued. “This is just a game. No one actually wants to kill us.”

  You sure about that?

  “I mean, they couldn’t actually.” She laughed again. “We’d sue.” Mackenzie swung her right leg over her left, bouncing it jauntily. “I still might. Sue, that is. But it would be worse if someone was actually trying to suffocate us, so that means it had to be staged.”

  “Actually staged?” Riot asked, with a wink in Persey’s direction. Heat rose from her neck to her cheeks again, despite her best effort to suppress it.

  Mackenzie narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes. Also, who’s smoking weed?”

  “Who do you think?” Kevin replied, but his eyes were fixed on Persey.

  Mackenzie marched over to Wes and whipped the blunt out of his hand. “Gimme that.” She took a long pull.

  “There needs to be a serious investigation into this when the competition is over,” Riot said as he rebuttoned his vest. “Our SAT scores aren’t something you can just download from the dark web. Who released this information without our permission? Or, more accurately, who stole it?” His near-death experience seemed to have less of an effect on him than the possibility that “the Man” had somehow infringed on his sovereign rights.

  “The most important question,” Shaun began, “is who was out first?”

  “Not me!” Neela cried, her buoyant mood recovered. “Persey and Wes were here when I arrived.”

  “It was just a lucky guess,” Wes said, retrieving his weed from Mackenzie’s outstretched hand. “Leah’s repeated use of the word ‘scholastic’ caught my notice. I’d been waiting to put that clue to good use.”

  Persey stiffened. Did Wes just imply that he solved the puzzle first? “Um…”

  “What was yours?” Shaun asked him.

  “Fifteen twenty, but I don’t like to brag,” Wes said without the kind of hesitation with which an actual humble person might speak.

  “Not bad for the lesser Ivy,” Riot said. “But fifteen forty gets you into Harvard.”

  Persey wanted to point out that Neela scored higher than either of them, and that her own was probably the lowest of the group and yet she was the first one to figure out the puzzle, but it wasn’t worth it: letting these privileged egomaniacs underestimate her was for the best. She had to win this competition, had to get the prize money. Without it, her future looked bleak.

  Arlo tugged absently at the hem of her Slytherin shirt. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet since the challenge ended. “What the hell are you guys talking about?”

  �
��Their SAT scores,” Neela answered. “In relation to the challenge we just faced.”

  “What?”

  “The code to get out of the room.” Riot eyed her closely. “It was your SAT score.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Um…” Riot turned to face the rest of the group. “Anyone not use their SAT score to open the door?”

  No one raised a hand, and as Arlo scanned their faces, slowly turning from one to the next, Persey watched all the color drain out of her face until her skin was a sickly shade of green.

  “What. The. FUCK!” Arlo screamed through clenched teeth. “What the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck?”

  “Um, are you okay?” Persey asked, stepping forward. Arlo clearly hadn’t used her SAT score to defeat the challenge, so what code had opened her door? She’d been screaming about something when Persey and Neela were trying to use the microphone…a password. That must have been it. But a password to what?

  Persey’s politeness backfired as Arlo whirled on her. “You’re supposed to be some problem-solving savant, so you tell me. Do I look okay?”

  “No.”

  “Good eyes, Sherlock.” Then she turned to the camera. “What the hell are you trying to prove, huh? I had nothing to do with it, okay? NOTHING.”

  Girl was losing her shit. “Arlo, what are you talking about?”

  “It wasn’t my fucking SAT score, okay? That wasn’t my challenge.”

  Duh. “What was it?”

  Arlo shook her head. “Something isn’t right here. The competition, the prize. It’s all wrong.”

  “We got different challenges. So what?” Wes leaned back in his chair, his eyes half-closed and sleepy. “Doesn’t mean the check for the prize money won’t clear the bank.”

  “Don’t you have a trust fund?” Kevin asked.

  “I never said that.” Wes’s voice was instantly serious, despite the weed.

  “This is just part of the game,” Mackenzie said, giggling. “Like that fake-suffocation thing. So clever!”

  She sounded calmer now, like the weed had helped her to fully accept her own theory about their experience in the ATM booth being nothing but an illusion. Not that Persey blamed her. Because if it wasn’t all an illusion, then what were they supposed to believe? As much as she hated to admit it even to herself, Mackenzie was right. The whole near-suffocation thing was just a fancy hoax.