Play with me?

“Where the fuck is this place, Chris?” I asked when he confidently pointed at a random spot in the woods and started making his way through the shallow stream that separated the trees from a dirt road we’d been walking on for a good fifteen minutes already.

“There!”

He pointed his finger straight ahead, his eyes fixed on the map on his phone screen.

“It’s not another basic one-hour escape room we’ve done a million times already. It’s supposed to be a real experience. The website even said to put on comfortable clothes as it involves a short hike,” he said, looking at Simone who was dressed in a bright pink maxi-dress.

“Roll your eyes all you want – you said you have a birthday surprise for me. Of course I’m wearing a dress. Excuse me for thinking we were going somewhere civilised,” said Simone unfazed, wading through the stream with shoes in one hand and the skirt of her dress lifted to her thighs with the other.

The trail only ran about a hundred meters before dissolving into the moss, but Chris – following the directions he’d gotten and the GPS – marched forward.

I got a weird knot in my gut when we started following him off the trail. The forest itself could’ve been an escape room. The pine trees were all straight as posts, and the canopy overhead looked seamless. As soon as we stopped seeing the road behind us, every direction looked exactly the same.

Without really knowing what I was hoping to find, I ran my gaze over our surroundings. The trees all looked eerily alike – copy-and-paste alike. No other plants seemed to grow there, and the forest floor was evenly covered with moss and fallen pine cones as far as the eye could reach.

The far end of the forest, whichever way you looked, seemed to swallow light, fading into a thick black rim at the horizon.

Not another soul in sight – no birds, no squirrels, not even a single bug – yet I felt… something. A gaze of unknown origin, at the back of my head. I tried to peek without drawing attention to myself.

Nothing.

At one point I thought I noticed a flicker and a slight movement in the corner of my eye, but it was gone before I could turn toward it. Chris and Simone didn’t seem to notice anything, so I kept it to myself. Only Maisie got quieter with each passing step. As if she’d heard my thoughts, she turned to me with a smile.

“At least it’s warm, and even though cloudy, it won’t get dark at all today. It’s the summer solstice,” she said.

I suppressed the shivers.

It’s the summer solstice. No real night. Maisie’s right. It’s just my mind playing tricks on me.

“There! You see!” shouted Chris back at us triumphantly, pointing at a building that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. “It’s the building they have on their website.”

He turned his phone screen toward us trying to show us the picture, but all we saw was a large loading symbol.

He tapped on his phone screen a couple of times, raised it high and circled aimlessly among the trees.

“I seem to have lost signal, but it’s fine. We made it here. Let’s do it!”

Maisie and I looked at each other, feeling that the timing was almost too perfect. Even Simone seemed to have doubts about following Chris through the door he’d already pulled wide open.

“C’mon, now! I get Maisie and Simone, but you, Sam! Don’t be such a girl!” Chris laughed.

Reluctantly, we followed him into the front lobby – or what was left of it.

The building seemed to have been abandoned for decades. The paint was peeling off the walls and the plaster was all cracked exposing batches of grey brick underneath. Most of the windows were broken or non-existent, and every surface was covered in a mix of dust and yellow pine pollen.

“I don’t know, Chris, it feels weird,” Simone said quietly, lifting her dress so it wouldn’t drag through the greyish-yellow dust and broken glass.

“I agree. It doesn’t look like a lot of people come here,” I added, looking at the thick layer of undisturbed dust everywhere.

A hushed scraping sound drifted through the window openings. We all turned toward the sound, then to Chris.

“It’s just wind,” Chris laughed.

There was no wind outside. It was one of the things that had made this forest so strange. It had been almost stagnant.

“It’s an escape room, remember?” he added with a slight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Maisie, who had been quiet since walking through the door, suddenly started backing toward the exit. She pushed the door once – it didn’t budge. She leaned against it with her entire body weight and rattled it.

“It’s locked,” she said.

“Of course! It’s supposed to be!” said Chris excitedly. “Let’s play!”

“Something’s not right,” Maisie whispered almost inaudibly.

Her gaze snapped all over the room, as if following something invisible, and finally landed on a grimy glass door to the right of us.

Measured steps and metallic scraping crept toward us, as if someone were dragging a pipe or a crowbar behind them.

We backed against the wall opposite the glass door. The steps stopped.

The door slowly slid open, and the light outside dimmed, as if the forest had swallowed the summer solstice whole.

The lobby filled with thick, sickening stench as a large figure emerged from the hall. Heavy steps, with glass scrunching beneath its boots, walked past us through the unnatural duskiness that had taken over the entire place. A long machete dragged lazily behind it. Muffled breathing – steady and deep.

“What the fuck!?” Simone shouted, pressing herself against the wall behind me.

The figure stopped and slowly tilted its head toward Simone. It shoved me aside in one rapid movement and grabbed her by the arm.

“Let go of me, you sicko! What the fuck is this?! Let me go! Chris!” Simone yelled, struggling and smacking the figure with her free hand.

We all ran toward them to get to Simone, but just before we could reach her, the machete flashed through the air.

A thud.

Simone’s piercing screech echoed off the empty stone walls and finally cut off as the figure dragged her behind the glass door and slammed it shut.

“What the fuck, Chris! It is not an escape room! You brought us to a fucking psychopath’s cave!”

“How should I have known! We need to go and get Simone!” he screamed, running toward the glass door.

“Are you fucking kidding me? Did you see the machete this psycho had?” I yelled back at him, pointing at Simone’s hand lying on the floor, and followed Maisie, who was trying to climb out a window.

“We can’t leave her there!” Chris yelled and pushed open the door the psycho had gone through.

Maisie and I tried to heave ourselves out the nearest window, but Chris’s shriek froze us in place. The scream got cut abruptly. A nauseating screech and a heavy wet thump followed from where Chris had stood.

One leg out the window, I almost got away, but something grabbed my neck and yanked me back.

Face to the floor, I landed on broken glass and saw Chris’s head lying in a pool of blood. A long steel blade hovers in front of me, dripping.

I heard Maisie screaming and struggling, then the remaining light died, carrying me with it.

/

/

I forced my eyes open, but they refused to cooperate. My ears were ringing and a heavy wave of weakness washed over me.

Through the foggy gap between my lids, I tried to make out my surroundings. It was dark – everything except one brighter spot somewhere high. I focused on it and slowly made out a squarish shape.

The light square narrowed with each passing second, slowly shrinking into a dot and finally disappeared entirely.

“Sam! Sam, wake up!” I heard a feverish whisper near my face. My gut told me I should’ve recognized it, but my mind drew a blank.

Sam? Am I Sam? Is someone waking me? Am I asleep?

A strange weight pulled at me. It was warm and comforting.

Suddenly, someone shook me and I focused my eyes, reminding myself how to use them. I pried them open just a few millimetres. That was enough. Maisie.

The ringing cut off, the weight eased and I blinked my eyes open. It all came back to me.

I was lying on a cold, damp floor. The back of my head throbbed and my whole body ached as I tried to sit up. The air was thick. It smelled like rotten potatoes, dirt and rust – the same smell that had filled the lobby earlier.

“Oh, my god, Maisie, what the fuck happened?” I asked, pulling her into an embrace.

“Where are we?” I wanted to ask her, but before I could, she pressed her hand over my mouth.

Panic flickered in her eyes. She shot a look into a dark corner at the back of the room, pressing the index finger of her other hand on her lips.

When everything stayed quiet for a few moments, she exhaled slowly. Turning back to me, she tapped the finger on her lips twice and shook her head – no.

I blinked to clear my vision, but it did little to help. The light from the window near the ceiling was dull and grey, but it was enough to make out the dimensions of the room. I noticed a heap of something on the floor, right where the darkness and the faint patch of light faded into each other.

Maisie leaned closer to my ear and whispered, “We have to be quiet.”

I looked at the dark corner, but I couldn’t make out anything – it was pitch black.

She leaned so close that her lips grazed my ear when she spoke. “It’s in that corner. I think it’s asleep.”

She wanted to continue, but I instinctively pulled away to look at her face, and the question slipped out before I could stop it.

“It?” I mouthed. No voice. The only sound was my hammering pulse.

“It… him? I don’t know.”

I tried not to look into that corner, but it pulled at me, as if it were looking back at us. The same sensation I’d had in the forest earlier.

The words came from Maisie in a flow of warm air.

“We have to get out of here. Right now,” I felt like she chose her words carefully, leaving something unsaid. “I’m pretty sure the door is in in that corner,” she continued, and gestured at the blackness.

If I hadn't thought it impossible, I would have said the room grew even darker and the corner smirked at us.

“We’re not going there if...it... sleeps in that corner,” I whispered, as shivers shot down my spine.

“No. We’re going there,” Maisie hissed, her eyes fixed on the only source of light in the room.

A faint rustling came from the corner as if someone were turning in their sleep. Or making themselves comfortable.

We instinctively held our breath until all we heard was slow, rhythmic breathing. Sleeping.

“And how are we gonna do that? It’s quite high. I can lift you, but you won't be able to pull me up.” I whispered into her ear almost soundlessly.

“I know. But I can manage you climbing onto my shoulders if I lean against the wall. You’ll get out, and then you’ll pull me up.”

She had clearly had time to think this through.

“For how long was I out?” I asked.

Maisie turned her eyes away. “A few hours, I think.”

“Where are the...”

"others" I almost asked, when Chris’s severed head appeared before my eyes.

“...Simone. Where’s Simone?” I changed my question.

“I don’t know,” Maisie said quickly. Too quickly. “We have to go,” she added.

I nodded toward the window in agreement.

“Quietly,” she reminded me.

My knees were weak and I struggled to walk, but we finally positioned ourselves right under the window. Maisie leaned her back against the wall and squatted slightly so I could use her thigh as a step to climb onto her shoulders. She grunted softly when I put my full weight on one shoulder, but managed to stay steady.

Just as I was about to position my other foot, a soft grumble from the corner startled me, and I slipped and fell.

Hearts pounding, we held our breath and peeked at the corner.

Quiet. Maybe too quiet.

My hand caught something soft on the floor beside me. The heap I’d seen earlier.

A pile of pink fabric. Bright pink fabric.

My blood ran cold as I raised my red-stained hands into the dull beam of light. Maisie wasn’t looking at me, but I knew she knew.

My pulse thumped in my ears. I ran back to her, forgetting my aching body and the dizziness as I climbed toward the window.

A sharp creak shot out of the blackness.

Frozen in place, we slowly turned our heads toward the sound. A slow patient scrape echoed through the room – a rhythmic, gritty whisper of stone gliding against a long blade.

“Good job. You almost did it,” a deep slow voice said through muffled laughter.

I tried to reach the windowsill to heave myself up, but from the corner came a sharp scrape of steel.

Maisie broke and collapsed under my weight.

A sharp, shining tip of a machete emerged from the darkness and sliced through the pile of pink fabric on the floor like butter.

“Almost.”

The darkness edged closer.

Then the blade cut through the air.