Escape Room Read online

  Chance stops to study one of the paintings.

  It’s a square canvas, maybe two feet wide. Every inch is filled with bright color. A swirl of lemon-yellow rises from the bottom left to the top right. The background is a cacophony of cadmium-orange with streaks of a deep scarlet for some reason reminds Chance of his mother.

  And then, suddenly, she is there.

  She stands close enough that he can feel her there. She is wearing a long, flowing sundress, yellow with purple flowers. Her feet are bare. She looks like she’s ready for a picnic in the rolling hills behind their house. She looks radiant in the light.

  “Chance,” she says.

  “Mom?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Never far,” she says. “And I’m here now.”

  “Your painting,” Chance says. “It’s so beautiful.”

  “What do you see in that painting?” she asks.

  “Color and light,” he says. “I don’t know why, but it makes me happy.”

  “It makes me happy too.”

  “What are you doing here?” Chance asks.

  “I loved the poem,” she says, “from the science fair. There is power in your creativity.”

  “It doesn’t seem like it.”

  “It’s a power that some people will always struggle to understand. It’s a power that will make you different.”

  “Different isn’t good.”

  “People don’t trust what they don’t understand,” she says. “You and your friends should know that.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Take another look at the painting,” she says. “Tell me again what you see.”

  “I told you. Swirling colors. Like waves.”

  “This painting is about you, Chance.”

  “I don’t see it.”

  “Look closely. See the lemon-yellow there, how it rises up? That’s you. When you were a baby, your favorite toy duck was that exact color. This wave is you, passing through time, growing into a man. And see these streaks of scarlet in the background? That’s me.”

  She smiled radiantly. “There’s something you should always remember about true art. Art is not about a thing. It’s not about the paint on a canvas or the clay in a sculpture. You have to look beyond what’s in front of your eyes to see the truth.

  “Van Gogh painted a simple scene of a café at night called Café Terrace at Night. But it only looks simple. Look more closely and you will see a figure dressed in a white robe, surrounded by 12 people, with a cross just above them. It’s his version of The Last Supper, cleverly hidden in a pleasant night scene.

  “Van Gogh’s most famous painting was probably his Sunflowers. That painting hangs in living rooms all over the world, because it’s bright and it livens up any room. But Van Gogh wasn’t just painting flowers. He chose sunflowers because he had rented a cute little yellow house and intended to use it as an artists’ colony. When he first painted Sunflowers, he was bursting with optimism and excitement that his friend Gauguin was on his way to join his colony. Sunflowers is not a painting of flowers – it’s a painting about hope.

  “In the same way, my painting isn’t just a swirl of color. It’s a painting about us. And how I will always be there for you, wherever you go, supporting you, watching you.”

  “But…you are going to leave me.”

  “No Chance,” she says quietly. “I will never really leave you.”

  With the tip of her forefinger, she wipes some lemon-yellow paint from the canvas and then swipes it against a patch of scarlet. She rubs them together until a sun-streaked orange colors the tip of her finger. She holds it up towards Chance.

  “Me and you,” she says.

  She walks to the wood table and pulls a small chain from the drawer. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment to give this to you,” she says.

  It is a small glass locket in the shape of a circle. It is empty.

  She opens the metal clasp and presses her finger to the interior of the glass panes. She closes the locket, and gazes at it for a few moments, lost in the yellow-scarlet-orange sunburst. Gently, she presses her lips to the locket.

  “I want you to have this,” she says. “So you’ll always remember.”

  She pulls it around his neck, clasping it shut in the back.

  Chance fingers the locket, momentarily lost in the colors. “Mom, I don’t understand.”

  “It’s time to go, Chance.”

  She steps backward, her figure brightening. Chance tries to follow but is unable to move. His legs feel weighted down, leaden. Somewhere behind him there is a flash. Has someone taken a picture?

  “Mom!”

  She is merely a faint outline now, a silhouette in a room of spectacular color. Chance can no longer see her face.

  “MOM!”

  “It’s time to go, Chance.”

  Chance voice falters. “Mom …”

  “Chance, it’s time to go. RIGHT NOW!”

  With a sudden, desperate gasp, Chance eyes pop open, his body tense, alert.

  “Mom!”

  He felt a slap across his face. He blinked hard, and his vision stared to clear. Jenny’s face hovered over him. Water streamed down her dark hair. There was something bright behind her, casting her in a soft halo of light.

  “You’re back,” she said.

  “What … happened?” he stammered.

  Jenny slipped a hand under his back and helped him to his feet. “I don’t know, you just checked out a little there. “Ordinarily, I would tell you to take a minute or two,” she said. “But we need to move. Right now.”

  Chance rubbed his eyes and squinted as his vision came into focus.

  He stepped gingerly out of the storage container.

  “What the hell—”

  They were standing in a massive hangar. Surrounded by hundreds of shipping containers, stacked three high, in multiple colors in every direction.

  “Stay with me, Chance,” Jenny said sharply. “You cracked the combination to get us out of the container, but we need to move now. We need to catch up to the others.”

  “The others?”

  “You are the last one,” she said.

  “The colors,” Chance muttered.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Just had this crazy dream or vision. Or something.”

  He instinctively reached for his neck, his fingers fumbling until they found the silver chain. Slowly, he pulled out a small glass locket in the shape of a circle. Inside, there was a swirl of color.

  Not a dream, he realized. A memory.

  One of the few things he remembered about his mother. The day she gave him this locket. He had never taken it off since, not even for showers. It wasn’t long after that day that she left.

  He jabbed his hand into his jeans pocket and removed the rumpled photograph. The picture of his mother that he had taken from his father’s bedside table.

  “Is that your mother?” Jenny asked. “She’s beautiful.”

  Chance suddenly felt light-headed. The photograph and his vision, they captured the same moment. The last time he saw his mother. Every detail was there. The colors, the canvases, the spilled paints, the stained papers.

  The yellow paper on the desk. The writing was just barely visible.

  Chance’s right leg buckled. Jenny caught him and shoved him through the narrow channel between the containers. “Come on, Chance. We’ve got to hurry.”

  “I feel dizzy,” he protested. “Just give me a moment. Why can’t I just have a moment to clear my head?”

  The pop-pop-pop of gunfire echoed in the hangar. A bullet pinged on the steel container just above their heads. It ricocheted off another container in the narrow passageways.

  “Someone’s shooting at us, Chance. That’s why.”

  FIFTEEN

  “RUN!”

  The sound of bullets thundered inside the hangar. A chunk of scaffolding sparked just over
Chance’s head, spraying him with bits of sharp metal. Chance shoved the picture back into his pants as they sprinted down the aisle, hand in hand, ducking between the shipping containers. Jenny led them into a narrow space between two containers, out the other side and down another aisle. Another bullet slammed into one of the containers, blasting Chance’s eardrums.

  The bullets seemed to be coming from all directions. No matter which way they turned, another bullet exploded. The shooter — or shooters — must be up high. Wherever they were, the smoke and the sprinklers must have drawn Desmond and Scarface.

  They hurtled through the maze of containers.

  “Where are we going?” Chance yelled over a fresh round of gunfire.

  “The exit is just ahead!” Jenny called back. “The others are waiting.”

  They darted from the hangar through a narrow door and into a corridor. It was drier here, out of the reach of the sprinkler system. Jenny sprinted down the hall, and Chance followed. They reached a steel ladder that disappeared into a hole in the ceiling.

  “Up here,” she said. “Almost there.”

  “Wait,” Chance said, breathing heavily. “My legs … I need a rest.”

  A piece of wall exploded just over his shoulder. Down the hallway, a darkened figure appeared.

  “We’ve got to go!” Jenny yelled. She scampered up the ladder.

  Chance wasn’t going to argue. A volley of gunfire echoed in the corridor. As he turned to the ladder, he caught a glimpse of one of the bullet holes, a three-inch gouge in the wall and … something else. Chance peered closer. A piece of wire?

  “Now, Chance!” Jenny shouted from above.

  Chance scurried up the ladder on legs that threatened to give out. His lungs burned with the sudden burst of exertion, and his eyes watered. Everything swam in and out of focus. When he reached the floor above, Jenny slammed a portal door shut over the ladder way and jammed a locking bolt into place.

  “That buys us some time,” she said.

  “What the hell is happening? Who is shooting at us?”

  Jenny ignored his question. “The others are just ahead,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  They sprinted down another corridor, through a low door, then up a flight of steep steel steps. The staircase ended in the floor of a large, windowless room.

  “Chance!” Tahoe shouted. She wrapped her arms around him in a tight bear hug.

  “We thought we lost you,” Wolfie said. Kate was there too but looked pale. She managed a weak smile.

  “Where are we?” Chance asked. “What is this place?”

  “No clue,” Wolfie replied. “We only got here a few minutes ago ourselves. Some kind of warehouse.”

  The waterfront along East Newgate Lane was lined with cargo warehouses. They could be in any one of them, which meant that they weren’t far from the highway. Help and safety were nearby.

  But that also meant that Desmond and Scarface were close too.

  “We need to find a way out of here,” Chance said.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Tahoe said. She pointed to a steel door on the far side of the room. “That leads to another set of stairs, going up. Or we can go back down in the direction we came.”

  Something slammed beneath them. It sounded like a metal door banging open. It must’ve been Desmond and Scarface; they had reached the steel ladder.

  “That answers that,” Chance said.

  He hurtled to the door, pulled it open and yelled for the others to run up the stairs. The room above was identical to the featureless room, but this one had windows. Light shone in from the outside.

  Without pausing, they burst through another door into the open air and the pungent stench of the ocean. Shielding their eyes from the sun with outstretched hands, they surveyed their surroundings.

  They had just emerged from a white building that towered several stories over their heads. There were no markings on the building, no indication of an address. Turning from the building, they were surrounded as far as they could see by shipping containers, brightly colored and stacked three high. Standing so close to the giant crates, Chance could sense their immense weight. It was like standing beside metal skyscrapers. All of a sudden, Chance felt very small and vulnerable.

  “Hey!” someone shouted. “Stop right there!”

  Chance turned to see a head poke out from a window above them in the white building. He didn’t need to bark an order. Everyone ran.

  “This way!” shouted Tahoe.

  They barreled single file down the narrow space between containers. Tahoe led, weaving them through the labyrinth of metal. It was like a giant corn maze, the kind that Chance had enjoyed as a boy. He happily spent hours navigating the twists and turns and dead ends in the maze, his father shouting directions from a viewing platform above. Only this time, there was no help from above, just a pair of relentless killers.

  “Keep heading in one direction!” shouted Chance from the rear of their five-person line. “We need to find a way out of these containers.”

  Tahoe must’ve heard, because she stopped weaving and sprinted down a narrow passageway. They darted past five, six, seven containers. Just when Chance doubted it would ever end, he heard Tahoe yell, “I see the end!”

  Then he saw it too: a sliver of light. He sprinted even faster, the sliver widening, growing, until the five of them emerged from the container maze.

  And stopped.

  “What the hecking heck,” said Tahoe.

  Chance couldn’t believe his eyes. He blinked hard, then rubbed them with the back of his hand. He thought he was still hallucinating. When he looked again, his mind reeled with the scene before him.

  Water. Stretching for miles to the horizon. He saw nothing but a dark gray mass of heaving white-capped ocean.

  “A ship,” he murmured. “We’re on a ship.”

  Part Three

  September 10, 2019

  Dear Parents:

  As you may have read in recent news reports, the Poland School System Board of Supervisors has made a series of strategic cost reductions to bring the 2019-20 school year budget into balance. A balanced budget is required by state law.

  One of the most difficult decisions made by the Supervisors was the elimination of the popular Young Artists Program. You are receiving this letter because you have at least one child enrolled in this program.

  The Young Artists Program was implemented ten years ago to nurture aspiring painters, sculptures and writers. Over the years, we have brought in professional artists to serve as guest teachers and our annual Young Artists Exhibition at the Poland Library was an important showcase of creativity.

  The program was generously underwritten by the Lenore Foundation, funds that allowed the Poland School System to reallocate resources to other programs including the Digital Coding and Drupal programs. A week ago, the Foundation informed us that they would not be extending their funding. With no other available resources, we were forced to make this cut. It is probably no consolation, but the Lenore Foundation eliminated funding for nearly 60 Young Artists programs across the country.

  Your child has been automatically enrolled in the Digital Coding or Drupal programs, both exemplary opportunities to learn a practical skill that is much in demand. It is our hope that your child(ren) will find these programs as enriching and academically rewarding as the Young Artists Program.

  Sincerely,

  Steve Alten

  Principal

  SIXTEEN

  The cargo ship was a floating super fortress.

  Its name, Colombo Express, was painted in 6-foot-tall white letters on its side. It looked to Chance like it was the size of an aircraft carrier; it surely must be one of the largest container ships in the world. Chance could scarcely imagine the weight of this floating tanker, or the massive power its engines needed to generate to move it. All he knew was that the deck stretched for hundreds of football fields and towered 200 feet over the water below.

  The group of five s
tood on the port side of the ship, near the stern, still in the shadow of the five-story wheelhouse. The realization that they were on a massive cargo ship threatened to sap what remained of the group’s resolve.

  “What the hecking heck,” Tahoe said again. “I can’t even see the front of this thing.”

  “And that water is a long way down,” Wolfie added. “We’d never survive a jump from here.”

  “Jump?” whimpered Kate.

  Chance stretched out his hands. “Nobody is jumping. Everyone just calm down. We need to think this through. Just give me a second.”

  His mind raced. His knowledge of container ships was restricted to a single viewing of Captain Phillips, that movie where Tom Hanks gets hijacked by Somali pirates. I am the captain now. If the movie was accurate, these ships were almost entirely automated. The crew would include just a captain and a few others. The containers were loaded and unloaded by cranes, even the docking was done on autopilot.

  “How did we even get here?” Apprehension tinged Tahoe’s voice. It was the first time Chance had seen vulnerability in her. It shone in her green eyes, like a leaf fluttering in a brisk autumn wind.

  Nobody answered her. They were all wondering the same thing. Except Chance — he was wondering where they were going.

  He focused on what he knew. One, he knew Baltimore lay at the northern tip of a curled finger of the Chesapeake Bay. Two, he knew the Colombo was headed south; the setting afternoon sun glinted off the starboard containers. And three, he knew there was no land on either side of the ship. So, they were already in the open ocean. With every passing minute, they steamed farther away from home.

  There was one more thing he knew. There were people on this ship who wanted them dead.

  “We need to get off this ship,” he said. He pointed toward the stern. Hoisted to the side of the wheelhouse was a large orange pod. “See that orange pod? That’s a lifeboat.”