#NoEscape (Volume 3) (#MurderTrending)

by Gretchen McNeil

  “I…I don’t have that kind of money. I only get twenty bucks a week.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” His surprise quickly morphed into disappointment.

  She didn’t even know why she was apologizing. It just came so naturally. And she hated herself for it.

  “Is there anything you could sell?” he pressed. “I’ll pay you back, I swear.”

  Persey shook her head slowly. She literally didn’t own a thing of value, and she was pretty sure her brother had already stripped the house of everything else that would turn a decent profit.

  His eyes shifted off-screen again, this time in the opposite direction, down and to the left. He stared hard at something or nothing, his mouth chewing around behind closed lips as if he were having a conversation with himself.

  “Okay,” he said after a moment. He was immediately energized. “Okay. No worries. I knew it was a long shot.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, secretly hating herself.

  He flashed that über-confident smile. If he’d had a moment of self-doubt or indecisiveness during that call, it was gone. “Don’t you worry, little sis. I’m going to take care of it, okay? It’s going to be fine.”

  Persey wasn’t certain who that statement was meant for, but as she hung up the call, she was pretty sure she saw a familiar gleam in her brother’s eyes, and it made her blood run cold.

  “WHAT THE FAJITA?” NEELA SAID. PERSEY ALMOST (NOT really) thought she’d been about to swear. “One of us?”

  Wes groaned. “Not this again.”

  “There is no ‘again,’” Neela said, using air quotes. “This is the first time anyone has suggested that one of us might be involved in these deaths.”

  “Murders,” Kevin said, correcting her.

  “Fine.” Wes whirled on him. “You want to single out potential murderers? You get my vote.”

  “How do you figure?” Far from being horrified or offended, Kevin merely smirked at Wes in amusement. Which only pissed off his accuser more.

  “What’s your connection to Escape-Capades, huh? You and your little girlfriend are all hot and bothered to figure out how the rest of us are linked to this place, but I don’t see you volunteering information about yourself.”

  Like you did?

  Kevin held his hands up before him, palms out, a gesture of innocence. “I’m just collateral damage, remember? Along for the ride.”

  Which wasn’t really a point Wes could argue, given the reason for Kevin’s inclusion in this competition in the first place. Not that he was willing to give up his side of the argument.

  “What about her?” Wes jabbed his thumb over his shoulder in Persey’s direction.

  Persey had spent her entire life being spoken about as if she wasn’t in the room. She’d been conditioned to remain quiet, to accept the degradation because it had come from her father. But she sure the fuck wasn’t going to take the same treatment from Wes.

  “I’m right here,” she said. “And I can hear you. So if you want to know if I have any connection to the Brownes, why don’t you sack up and ask me yourself?”

  “Persey didn’t even know who the Brownes were before today,” Neela said, clambering to her feet. “I had to tell her the whole story.” Persey appreciated Neela’s desire to defend her.

  Mackenzie, never one to stay silent for long when it meant getting in a dig at Persey, joined the fray. “And you believed that?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then why is she here, huh? Every single one of us had a connection to the Brownes—we’re just supposed to believe it’s a coincidence that she’s here too?”

  “The logical explanation—though I use that adjective loosely because literally nothing that’s happened to us so far has been logical…but I digress—the logical explanation is that whoever invited us here never expected anyone to actually beat the Hidden Library. When Persey did, they had to invite her.”

  Kevin raised his hand. “And me.”

  “And Kevin by default,” Neela concluded. “Maybe they’re even here to throw the rest of us off. In case we recognized each other.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Wes said. “There’s something strange going on.”

  That’s an understatement.

  “Why does it have to be one of us?” Riot asked. Neither his voice nor his body language was defensive or combative. His question was born of pure curiosity. “Doesn’t it make more sense that someone from Escape-Capades is killing us off?”

  “Leah.” Mackenzie scowled as she said the name, jealousy practically (definitely) seeping out of her invisible pores. “If that’s even her real name. I knew there was something fucked about her.”

  “I agree with Crazy Pants,” Wes said, waving his hand vaguely in Riot’s direction. “The trapdoor that killed Arlo, the platform that dropped Shaun into the fire. Those couldn’t be controlled by one of us.”

  Couldn’t they? But Persey didn’t really need to argue that point. “B.J. was killed by someone in the room. There was nowhere for anyone else to hide. The killer must have been desperate to get rid of him, and did it while the rest of us were focused on solving the puzzle.”

  “When we were all gathered around the computer,” Neela said. “Anyone could have slipped away.”

  “But why kill him at all?” Mackenzie asked.

  Kevin snorted. “Yeah, his singing wasn’t that bad.”

  Persey ignored the joke. “Because he knew about Wes and his connection to the Brownes. If someone is killing us off as a vendetta against them—”

  “Someone?” Wes said. “Are you accusing me of murder?”

  Maybe. “The killer might just be tying up loose ends.”

  “I didn’t kill him.” Mackenzie tossed her long blond hair out of her face. “I was busy at the keyboard solving the last puzzle.”

  “Depends when he died,” Kevin said with a shrug. “Does anyone know for sure?”

  Wes refolded his arms across his chest. “I still say it could have been an accident.”

  “Shaun’s paralysis was no accident,” Persey said. She’d never forget the panicked look in his eyes as he desperately tried to move. “Someone drugged him. Someone in this room drugged him.”

  Wes threw up his hands. “With what? We were all searched.”

  “For electronics,” Riot said. “You managed to sneak your weed through.”

  “I think perhaps the intelligent thing to do would be to have everyone turn out their pockets,” Neela began. She sounded tentative, like she really didn’t want to do the very thing she was suggesting. “And then whoever has the…Well, a syringe, I suppose, is what we’re looking for.”

  Persey was quick to comply. She pulled the pockets of her cargo pants inside out to show that they were completely empty, even though she recognized the futility of the gesture.

  “Unfortunately, anyone smart enough to kill B.J., Arlo, and Shaun was probably smart enough to dump the murder weapon into the Great Fire of London back there,” Kevin said, voicing the unspoken thought in Persey’s head while also emptying his pockets, which contained a micro pack of Altoids and a bag of airline-branded peanuts.

  Wes clenched his fists. “You want to see what’s in my pockets? Come at me.”

  Ew.

  Mackenzie was also noncompliant, her narrowed eyes fixed on Persey. “If the rest of us are all connected to the Brownes, then isn’t she the most likely suspect? She could have been in on it with Leah all along, which would explain her impossible performance in the Hidden Library.”

  She just couldn’t get over that.

  “You know,” Kevin said, “ol’ Mack here has a point.”

  Persey opened her mouth to say something, then stopped. How was she going to convince them that she wasn’t connected to the Brownes in any way?

  “It’s true,” Neela said. “She could be lying.” Persey’s stomach dropped. She thought Neela trusted her.
/>   Mackenzie beamed triumphantly. “See?”

  But Neela wasn’t done. “Then again, we all could be.”

  Persey let out a breath. Thank you.

  “You only have my word for it that I’m the TaraMehta91 who solved the Prison Break Baguenaudier,” Neela continued. “Anyone could put on a red Mohawk and pass as Riot, and Wes and Mackenzie could be in it together. So Persey’s right. We’re all suspects.”

  “Okay, so if we’re all suspects, then let’s narrow it down,” Riot said, academic even in the face of a murder. “Who would want to kill us off? An Escape-Capades employee? Seems kind of extreme, even for a die-hard career type.”

  “And difficult,” Kevin added. “Whoever’s doing this has access to money and resources. A fucking incinerator underneath a collapsing floor? Joe Blow in accounting ain’t pulling that off.”

  “L. Browne could be anyone,” Persey said.

  BZZZZZ.

  “Shit.” Persey spun around to face the sound of the buzzer and found that a clock had come to life on the wall above the door, red numbers cast from a hidden projector somewhere. Even more disturbing, the door that had once been locked now stood wide open.

  They had thirty minutes.

  “Fuck that,” Riot said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “We tried that in the last room,” Neela said. “It didn’t work out so well.”

  Mackenzie tentatively leaned to her right, trying to get a glimpse inside the now-open door. “Too dark to see anything in there. I don’t like it.”

  A heavy, metallic groan shook the room, rippling across the concrete floor like an earthquake. It sounded as if an enormous piece of machinery, rusted and inert with age, had suddenly sprung to life. Behind them, the wall of corrugated metal shuddered once, twice; then it lurched and began to slide toward them.

  “The. Fuck.” Mackenzie backed away from the wall.

  “Well, that’s one way to keep us moving,” Kevin said.

  Then, to make the situation even worse, as the wall continued to inch its way across the concrete floor, an army of sharp metal spikes emerged from its face, pointy ends of death glistening in the weak overhead lighting.

  “YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME,” RIOT SAID.

  The tips of the spiked wall reached the inflatable cushion that had broken their fall down the two-story slide. The thick vinyl was no match for the sharp spikes, and a series of hollow pops followed by the whoosh of air signaled its surrender. Not that the cushion itself was a significant impediment to the wall’s progress, but as it quickly deflated, the wall pushed forward, impaling the remains, without so much as slowing down.

  “This room is a giant iron maiden.” Neela squeaked as she spoke, eyes open so wide Persey was afraid her eyeballs might pop out of her head. “Like the name on the whiteboard. I just didn’t think it would be so literal.”

  The wall was just a few feet from them now, advancing steadily. As much as Persey hated the idea of being herded into compliance, if the choice was plunging blindly into the darkness beyond the open door or meeting the business end of Mr. Pointy, she knew which one she’d choose.

  “What the fuck is this?” Wes asked no one in particular. His voice cracked and his eyes were so wide she could see the bloodshot veins creeping through them. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  For a guy who just thirty seconds ago was still trying to convince everyone that the deaths were fakes and accidents, he sure seemed terrified for life and limb all of a sudden. What had changed?

  “I’m getting the fuck out of here.” Then he dashed through the door, without waiting for anyone else.

  “For once,” Kevin said, shaking his head, “I agree with the stoner.”

  Without another word, they packed into a dark corridor, and even though Persey was literally right behind Kevin, before they were ten feet from the door, the light was so feeble she could barely make out the plaid pattern on his T- shirt.

  “What’s up ahead?” Mackenzie asked as they continued to creep forward in the darkness.

  “Another door,” Wes answered, dejected. “Closed.”

  “Probably locked,” Neela said. She had her hand on Persey’s shoulder; it was trembling.

  “There’s something on the wall.” Wes’s voice perked up. “It looks like…goggles?”

  The line stopped abruptly, and Kevin pushed forward through Riot and Mackenzie to reach the item Wes had just described. “Not just goggles,” Kevin said. “Night-vision goggles.”

  “The door is locked,” Riot said, tugging on the handle. “Just checking all the boxes.”

  Kevin lifted the goggles from the hook on which they hung. Immediately, the door swung open. “It can’t be that easy.”

  The interior of the new room was darker, if that was possible, than the hallway they were in, and judging by the offering of night vision, Persey had to assume the rest of the challenge would take place in utter blackness.

  Then the realization dawned on her. Only one pair of goggles.

  This was a trust exercise.

  Mackenzie held out her hand. “Give them to me.”

  “Why should you get to wear them?” Wes said. “I found them. They’re mine.” He reached for the goggles, which Kevin deftly shielded with his body.

  “We’ve established that I didn’t kill that lame singer guy,” Mackenzie replied. “I’m the only one who’s for sure innocent.”

  Neela’s face was just barely visible in the darkness. “That’s what the killer would say.”

  Riot ran his hands through his drooping Mohawk, trying to bring it back to life. “Whatever lies beyond that door in the darkness, only one of us will be able to see it. And guide the others through.”

  “A trust exercise where one of us is a killer?” Kevin said. “That’s my kind of game.”

  “I’m not entirely convinced that you should be the one wearing the goggles,” Neela said, eyeing Kevin.

  “And you should?” Wes countered.

  “Holy cow babies, no. It should be Persey.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Wes said. “I don’t trust any of you fucknuts. I’m taking those goddamn goggles and getting the fuck out of here!” He made another half-hearted grab for the goggles, but even in the dulled light of the hallway, Kevin was able to dodge the attempt.

  “Persey is the only one who believed from the beginning that something awful was going on here.” Neela’s voice was calm: logic had overcome hysteria. “And she’s been actively trying to help solve each and every challenge since this game began. In my humble opinion, she is the closest thing we have to an objective observer. And on a personal note, she’s the only one of us eff-nuts I do trust.”

  “My vote is Persey too,” Kevin said, then nodded toward Wes. “And if we’re ranking us in terms of most to least trustworthy, I think Mr. Sticky Fingers over here lands at the bottom of the list.”

  Wes gritted his teeth. “I. Didn’t. Steal. Anything.”

  “Semantics,” Riot said. “You bribed someone else to steal them. Same diff. By the way, I also vote for Persey.”

  Before anyone else could agree or protest, a large crash reverberated through the corridor. Persey turned just in time to see the pointy spikes obliterate the wall with the door they’d just come through, advancing steadily toward them.

  “Out of time!” Kevin strong-armed Wes and took Persey’s hand, pulling her toward him. As she stumbled toward the open door, he pulled the goggles over her head. “Where you lead, we’ll follow.”

  “But I didn’t get a chance to vote!” Mackenzie whined.

  Persey tuned her out. She didn’t have time to think. Which scared her more than whatever danger lurked in this room. As she reached up toward the pair of goggles perched on her forehead, she fought back the panic that was gurgling in her stomach, the voice that sounded very much like her father’s roaring in her ears that an idiot like her couldn’t lead a kindergartener out of the playground let alone shepherd a group of people to safety. The now-familiar refr
ain of You shouldn’t be here…echoed in her mind. This was all wrong. She didn’t belong here. She shouldn’t be doing this.

  “You can do this,” Kevin prompted. He was the kind of guy it was difficult to say no to, and she could see why, despite his lack of “breeding” and his total lack of seriousness, Mackenzie had been attracted to him. There was something infectious about his smile, his belief in her. And while every atom in her body was screaming at Persey to hand the goggles back, she slowly, deliberately, pulled them down over her eyes.

  Persey had seen night-vision footage on television—she had a penchant for ghost hunter shows that sent a group of hardened true believers into a supposedly haunted location and let them film orbs and mist and pixelated shadow figures for a reality TV audience ready to take it all as hard evidence of the paranormal—but the green-hued footage on her screen had not prepared her brain for the weirdness of actually looking through one of those lenses.

  The moment she pulled the goggles over her eyes, the entire corridor sprang to life. She could see every detail of Kevin, from the longish sandy-brown hair swept across his forehead to the faded emblem on his T-shirt. Even his facial features were easily discernible; his wide grin was normal and humanlike, but his eyes, disturbingly, shone like glowing white coals in his head.

  Wes was behind him, scowling. His gaze was shifty, moving rapidly between Persey, Kevin, and the ceiling above them like he was searching for something. Mackenzie had wrapped her arms tightly around her body with her shoulders hunched forward in a full-body clench. She looked like she was scared to touch anything. Riot had shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans and plastered a smile on his face, focused on Persey. She wasn’t sure who he was trying to instill confidence in: her or himself. But Neela’s encouraging smile was authentic. Persey couldn’t even see her mouth—Neela’s hands were clasped together in front of her face—but her eyes smiled. Neela trusted her. Persey had to pull them all through this.

  The sharp metal spikes gleamed an eerie Matrix green as they tore through the wood, splintering it into a million pieces, some of which remained impaled on the spikes, the rest shattering before the onset, jagged shards of plywood precariously held together by plaster and stucco that tumbled into a mound before the encroaching wall swept it up, pushing it forward. She was glad no one else could see the iron maiden as clearly as she could. It was positively terrifying.