The Wall vs. Choppin' Charlie

If walls could talk, no one would need to worry about the axe-wielding lunatic on the other side of the door. No one would hear over the competing clamor of voices, but if walls could shout, the four people locked in this shoebox of a room might have a chance of escaping.

“I know the answer! I know the answer!”

That’s Phil, and he does not have the answer. He thinks he does, and he sounds confident enough that the others will listen, but he has been wrong from the start. He keeps talking about coordinates, thinking the series of numbers and symbols painted over my plaster in neon blue letters will reveal a location on a map. Where is this map, Phil?

No one ever listens to me.

There is a timer above the door. A strip of black flashing an angry red glow over the room. Only nine minutes left. No one’s ever gotten this close to solving the final puzzle.

Colleen squints at the row of numbers overhead. Her eyes are hidden behind the glare of her overlarge glasses. “What if each number corresponds to a letter of the alphabet? One is ‘A,’ two is ‘B,’ and so on?”

Isaac rolls his eyes. He’s by far the youngest of the group and acts like it. “That would make the first word ‘BFG.’ There’s got to be some sort of key around here.”

“Yes, a code book!” Phil shouts, as if the idea had been his own. “Everyone – start searching!”

They scatter throughout the corners of my room. Tall and gangly Lars investigates the upper reaches of the antique display case in the corner. Isaac examines the numerous paintings hanging from my walls. Phil runs his hands across the painted numbers in a way that is not entirely unpleasant. But it’s Kami who’s the closest.

She’s on her hands and knees, the hem of her long skirt tickling my baseboard. She’s scooting closer and closer to the hidden panel. The one that, so far, no one has ever managed to discover. If she would just look behind the painting hanging feet above her head…

“What’s this?”

Lars is running his fingers over something in the far corner. The phone jack. Everyone scrambles around it, including Kami, brushing her hands on her skirt as she rises from the floor. I try to make a sound. A cough or whistle. The timer seems to be working at twice its normal speed. If they keep wasting their precious few minutes, none of them will make it.

I don’t really understand the point of this place, or why anyone would be eager to visit. Escape the room before Choppin’ Charlie breaks in? No thanks.

This building used to be an office space, hence the phone jack. I watched the new building owners slather it with paint shortly after I was constructed. They propped me up to seal off a corner of the building into an inescapable room. I’m guessing the axe murder is new like me. Perhaps a disgruntled former office worker.

The timer flashes. Five minutes left.

I can’t just do nothing. Not when they’re this close. I try to squirm or point. Can’t speak. Can’t move. I will figure out what I can do though. That’s the beauty of being brand new: you haven’t fully grasped what impossible means yet.

They’re still circled around the phone jack, staring at it with an intensity suggesting it contains the secrets of the universe.

A pounding on the door makes them all jump. Someone is trying to break in. Charlie. All this work, and they’ll fall short by one clue.

Unless I can do something to help.

I fall into the sort of trance that lapses over me sometimes. When I drift away from the world and seem to reemerge days or weeks later. I’m sinking into the basest parts of myself, feeling the buzz of electricity pulsing through the timer. The scurry of a mouse darting through the secret passages of my interior. The air whispering through the fingerprint-like whorls of my plaster.

The pinch of a nail.

Of driving it slowly, ever so slowly, forward….

Thud.

Colleen gasps. Isaac swears. They all turn as a picture frame crashes to the floor. There’s a moment’s silence, but a second later I’m rattling with the patter of footsteps as they thunder across the room.

Phil gets there first. He picks up the fallen painting and turns it over in his fingers.

“That’s odd…” he mutters.

Only Isaac isn’t staring at the painting. He’s goggling at the newly blank space in front of them. The one in front of which, seconds ago, the frame had hung.

“Look!” he cries, and, prying his fingers into a ridge along my surface, swings open the door to the secret compartment.

Three minutes.

Isaac reaches into the compartment and unfurls a crisp scroll. The others jostle to read over his shoulders.

“It’s the key to the code!” Kami says, and everyone spins to face the blue numbers once more. “An underlined seven is a ‘G,’ a one with a dot over it is an ‘E’…Phil, write this down.”

Phil fumbles to uncap a pen while Kami dictates.

“Get out…get out now…while you still can,” Lars reads with a furrowed brow. “Helpful.”

“It’s more than that. Look at the spacing!” Colleen snatches the pen from Phil’s hand and starts scribbling.

GET

OUTGET

OUTWHILEYOU

STILLCAN

And now I’m feeling truly hopeful for the first time. Waves of exhaustion are coursing through me, but I’ve never been happier in my few weeks of existence. I did that. I helped them find the last clue.

The door rattles violently on its hinges, followed by another wild roar.

They’re not out yet.

Less than a minute shows on the timer now. The door leading to safety is firmly sealed on the other side of the room, a chunky keypad above the handle.

“I’m lost,” Isaac sighs, running a hand through his hair. Kami bites her lips, eyes flickering from the code on the wall to the deciphered message.

“Thirty seconds left,” Lars groans.

They came so close.

Only Phil hasn’t looked up from the paper. He’s hunched over, face screwed up in concentration. His face is partially hidden, but I think I see a smile unfurling across his lips.

“One, two, three, two!” he barks.

Nineteen seconds.

“What?” asks Colleen. The others are staring at each other in confusion.

Phil jabs a finger towards the door. “The combination! One, two – oh just let me!”

Ten seconds. The pounding outside is growing louder.

Phil bounds across the room and kneels before the keypad. His finger slips onto the wrong button, and he swears.

Seven seconds.

The light above the lock is glowing a resolute red. Phil tries again. Sweat trickles down his forehead.

Three seconds.

“One…two…” Phil mutters, punching in the numbers. “Three…another two…”

Clunk.

The door springs open. The room bursts into cheers. Lars and Colleen have both flung their arms around Phil, who’s glowing with happiness. Kami gives an excited little hop, and Isaac, who looks astonished, keeps repeating, “One second to spare…we did it with one second to spare!”

The group pours through the open door, their laughter and excited babbling fading as they disappear through to the other side. The door swings slowly shut behind them.

I am alone.

I am a hero.

If walls could talk, the world’s puzzles might be easier to solve. In the meantime, I’ll keep doing what I can to help.

One axe murderer at a time.