39 Students Remaining
I study the room around us, willing my breathing to steady. It would be one thing if our instructor or anyone else from our class were here, or if we were in our History and Politics classroom, but we’re alone, in the middle of the night, in a room I’ve never seen before. What’s going on?
Random charts and propaganda posters cover the walls, along with flags and maps, various locations marked by pushpins and bits of string.
One of the posters shows a massive red hand grabbing a man from off the sidewalk, but the words are in German, so I don’t know what it says.
An old-fashioned radio in the corner intermittently burps bits of static and distant voices. Beside it, there’s a door.
A door, I think, relieved. I cross the room and reach for the knob, hoping for an exit.
“Don’t you listen?” Ian says, before I can open the door. “This is a test. You can’t just walk out.”
I am so not here for Ian’s Ianness right now. I drop my hand and spin around to face him. “It’s the middle of the night. They yanked me out of bed—”
“I’m pretty sure this is an escape room,” Ian says, ignoring my outburst. He smooths his hair off his forehead and studies the room with a shrewd gaze.
I blink. “An escape room? You mean like one of those things where you solve a series of puzzles—”
“And the door unlocks, yes,” Ian says. “Congratulations, you have correctly identified an activity that’s been around for twenty years. I imagine our puzzles have to do with World War II, considering our module topic.”
I nod, breathing a little easier. All the other circumstances surrounding this so-called test notwithstanding, an escape room doesn’t sound so bad.
I don’t have to jump around on wobbly platforms and risk breaking my ankle.
I just have to solve a few puzzles. That’s not so different from breaking a lock.
You have one hour to complete your mission, I think. I picture a stopwatch inside my head, the second hand finishing its first lap. We’ve already wasted one minute just standing here. There are only fifty-nine left.
In the corner the radio erupts in static, then goes quiet. I swallow, try to tune it out. I need to focus. Solve the puzzle and I get to go back to bed. Just solve the puzzle…
The middle of the strange room is taken up by an old wooden desk and chair, a jacket tossed over the chair’s back. There’s a red band on the jacket’s sleeve, a swastika proudly displayed. Gross. But I get what the detail is supposed to tell us.
“This room is Nazi territory during World War II,” I say. “Change the course of history must mean that we’re supposed to thwart some Nazi plan.”
Ian shoots me a withering look. Okay, so I guess he’s already figured that out. Fine. I wander over to the far wall if only to keep myself from tearing down a poster, rolling it up, and whacking him on the nose like a misbehaving puppy.
I get it: We’re not going to braid each other friendship bracelets or go skipping through any meadows holding hands. But we’re supposed to be partners. Could we at least work together? Is that really so much to ask?
I swallow. How many minutes have passed by now? Three? More?
I find a stack of crates, a Nazi flag draped over them, and an old typewriter sitting on a desk, a single sheet of paper already loaded, something written on the front. My heart leaps. Instructions?
I start toward the typewriter, but Ian gets there first. He rips the page out like it’s personally offended his family, and his brow furrows as he reads. Silently. To himself.
“You know we’re a team, right?” I snap. “Have you been a part of a team before?”
Ian doesn’t say anything, but the corner of his eye twitches.
“That wasn’t supposed to be a stumper,” I say when he still doesn’t answer. “C’mon, you never did crew or lacrosse or polo or any of those rich-kid sports? Really?”
Ian lifts those icy eyes without moving his head.
It’s a cutting look, clearly designed to make whoever’s on the receiving end feel like they’re in imminent danger.
If I were a warm-blooded creature, this is when I’d shiver.
As I am not, I merely smile, canines on full display.
He’s not the only one who knows how to make people piss their pants with a look.
“Sports are for people with free time,” Ian relents. He holds up the piece of paper. “It’s the Nero Decree.”
“The Nero Decree,” I repeat. I actually know what that is. The Nero Decree was an order issued by Hitler near the end of the war. He wanted to destroy German infrastructure to prevent its use by Allied forces, but he failed. The Nazis didn’t destroy anything.
I’d rather jab myself in the eye with a rusty fork than ask Ian a question, but I’m clearly missing something. “I don’t understand. The voice said we’re supposed to change the course of history. But the Nero Decree failed. Why would anyone want to change that?”
Ian frowns down at the paper, but doesn’t answer my question.
So he’s confused, too. That shouldn’t be satisfying, but it really is.
I start to smile, but then I think about how at least five minutes of our hour have already snuck past and stop.
If Luminary boots kids for screwing up in class, there’s no way I’m keeping my spot here if I fail my first test.
Whether I like these circumstances or not, I need to focus.
Ian sighs and holds the paper out to me. I take it from him but realize immediately that it’s useless. “This is written in German.”
“Yes,” Ian agrees.
“Do you read German?”
“Nein.”
I have to work hard not to roll my eyes. “Then how do you know…” I trail off, gaze drawn to the numbers at the top right of the page. 20.3.1945. Or March 20, 1945. “The date,” I say, putting it together. “The Nero Decree was issued in March of 1945, so that’s how you know what this is.”
Ian shrugs with one shoulder. “Among other things.” His eyes move lazily around the room, taking in the details scattered around us. I look, too, trying to see what he sees. The crates and the flag and the jacket. All clues.
The ticking in my head grows louder. It’s been seven minutes, at least, and I still have no idea what I’m looking for. I’m out of my depth. I need more…something. More time, more instructions. More brains, possibly.
Instead of saying any of this out loud, I say, “We still don’t know what we’re supposed to do.”
Ian pops an eyebrow in my direction. “Do you usually sit around and wait for someone to tell you what to do? I was under the impression you were a sort of delinquent.”
My cheeks heat a little, but luckily, there will be no way for Ian to notice in this blinking red nightmare of a room.
But the insult hits. He’s right, I am a delinquent.
Or I used to be. I look around the room again.
Only, this time, I try to see it as I would if I were breaking into the place, searching for something.
Now the crates seem an obvious place to start.
Ian watches as I cross the room and attempt to pry the top off one. After a moment I snap, “Well? Are you going to help?”
In response, he picks up a crowbar that was leaning against the wall and holds it out for me.
Ass. Hole.
Together, we manage to pry the top off the crate. There’s a painting inside: a man walking through a field lined with sparse trees, all of it rendered in bright, impressionistic blues and yellows. I know shit all about art, but even I find the strokes familiar.
“This is a Van Gogh, right?” I say.
“Painter on His Way to Work,” Ian mumbles, the frown that seems permanently etched on his face fading slightly as he examines the piece.
“It’s a very good replica. The original was famously lost during the war.
” He takes the crowbar from me and gets to work on the next crate, where we find a replica of a Klimt.
There’s also a replica of a Bellini in the third, and a replica of a Rembrandt.
All pieces lost during the war, according to Ian.
I’m leaning against the wall now, a veil of sweat on my forehead from the exertion of tugging the crates apart. “If these pieces were all destroyed, then maybe our assignment is to get them out of here before…” And here I trail off as the ramifications of what I’m saying hit me in full force.
Ian finishes my thought. “Before the Nazis blow them up. Which means there’s a bomb in here with us.”
“Okay, but…not a real bomb, right?” I look at Ian, laughing a little.
Nothing about this situation is particularly funny, but I’m hoping the laughing will remind me that it would be completely insane for a school to use real explosives for a test. “It’ll be a simulation or something.
Right?” Even as I say the words, I can’t help thinking of the obstacle course in Physics. A feeling like ice fills my veins.
Ian stares back at me, something strange happening behind his eyes.
I can’t fathom what he’s thinking about.
He wasn’t the one who fell during the gauntlet.
He skipped through the obstacles like a frolicking lamb.
But there’s a glimmer of something that might be fear in his expression.
That fear scares me more than anything else I’ve seen tonight. Ian isn’t supposed to get scared.
He crosses to the door in the corner, the one next to the radio that I’d hoped was an exit, and swings it open.
Behind the door is a wooden crate filled with red and brown sticks, wires tangled chaotically around them. I’d know what they were even if they didn’t have the word Dynamite written across them.
“Those aren’t real,” I say. But the iciness has spread from my veins. Now it wraps around my bones, chills the underside of my skin. Shadows cling to the corners of the room. If I’m quiet, I swear I can hear someone whispering.
No, not whispering. Ticking. The ticking I heard, it wasn’t in my head after all. It was coming from the dynamite in the closet.
They aren’t real. They can’t be real. This is a school.
Ian turns to me. “We’ve already wasted ten minutes. We only have another fifty to find the way out.”