Selected

Ashley and Jane settled into the Airbnb, then put together a plate of nibbles: Edgefield peaches, some brie, almonds, and crackers. Ashley made them her variation on an Aperol spritz, mixing it with Fresca instead of club soda. They sat down and both checked their phones, sending messages to their husbands that they had arrived safely. They each had a notification from Airbnb, instructing them to turn on the television to channel three.

“Weird,” Jane said.

“Maybe they made a video for the house manual,” Ashley suggested as she picked up the remote. It was on channel three, and there was a message on the screen: You have been selected. If you proceed, you cannot turn back.

“What does that mean, ‘if you proceed, you cannot turn back’? Sounds absurd, like we can’t turn off the TV if we proceed.” Jane took a sip of her cocktail. “Omg, this is delicious! I’ve never tried Aperol before.”

Ashley assembled a slice of peach, an almond, and a sliver of brie on a cracker and took a bite, then said, “Speaking of delicious, this is the best peach I’ve ever tasted. Hey, what’s that counter on the bottom of the screen?”

Jane hadn’t noticed it before, but now that Ashley pointed it out, she saw that it was a timer counting down. “What the fuck? Turn the TV off!”

“No problem,” Ashley replied, picking up the remote.

The screen went dark, but the counter remained in the bottom left corner.

“Okay, that’s super weird. What do you think this is?” Jane said, taking another sip of her drink.

“I have no idea. We didn’t accidentally book an escape room, did we?”

They both picked up their phones and opened the Airbnb app.

“It doesn’t say anything about an escape room, and look, here’s the house manual.”

“Okaaayyyy,” Ashley began. “Look, this is starting to creep me out.” She held up her arm, and Jane felt every hair on her body stand up as she looked at Ashley’s goose-flesh arm.

“What do you think?” Jane asked. “I’m starting to feel like a character in a horror movie with a ridiculous premise, like that stupid one where people’s phones murdered them.”

“Please tell me you didn’t waste your time or money watching that garbage.” Ashley took a small sip of her drink and waited for Jane’s response.

“As if! The only thing I hate more than horror is a bad plot with trope characters. I just remember the stupid trailers for it.”

“We could call the host,” Ashley suggested.

“Yes! But what should we say?”

“I’ll say there’s a problem with the TV.”

“Perfect! And technically not untrue. I like it.”

Just then, the counter in the corner of the screen took over the center, and music blared from the speakers as the last minute became seconds, Europe’s “The Final Countdown.”

“Okay, that’s a little on the nose. Did you tell Matt or Merrill about this weekend? I think we’re being pranked,” Jane said, despite her growing feeling that something was off.

“No,” Ashley said. “But they aren’t the only pranksters we know. And I definitely get a sense that someone is fucking with us. Also, never knowing will make us crazy. I say we proceed.”

“It’s not like the TV is going to become some kind of portal that takes us to another realm or teleport a bunch of ninjas into the room,” Jane replied as she grabbed the chef’s knife out of the kitschy Julius Caesar knife block. “But still. Do you have any pepper spray? No harm in being defensively armed. Maybe I should grab my sand wedge out of the trunk.”

“There isn’t time,” Ashley replied, pulling a canister of pepper spray from her purse. “We only have thirty seconds.”

“Fuck it, turn the damn thing back on and proceed.”

They crouched with their weapons in hand, looking even more ridiculous than they felt, and Ashley picked up the remote.

An image of a skull with a woman’s lips in a circle filled the screen, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer’s “Karn Evil 9 1st Impression, Part 2” blared into the room.

“Oh, God. We’re going to be murdered with bad writing!” Jane exclaimed. “This is more campy than creepy.”

“So far, the soundtrack definitely sucks,” Ashley agreed, still clutching the pepper spray.

The song abruptly ended, and a scene appeared on the screen. It was Ashley and Molly, in Molly’s bedroom in fourth grade.

Ashley’s jaw dropped, and she picked up the remote to turn the TV off. Nothing happened, so she hit the mute button, activating the sound. Her nine-year old voice filled the room, criticizing someone’s outfit at school that day. “Did you see how ridiculous she looked in those corduroy knickers? And the noise they made every time she took a step nearly drove me crazy!” Giggles followed on screen. Every time Ashley pressed the volume down button, it got louder.

“I seem to remember you complimenting me on those knickers,” Jane mused. “But holy fuck, how ridiculous were all of those eighties trends. The Preppy Handbook and The Valley Girl’s Guide to Life were the source of a lot of fashion mishaps.”

Relief flooded Ashley’s face, and the scene cut to one of Jane and Amanda in the playroom at Amanda’s house in sixth grade. Jane’s eyes filled her face. She crossed the room to the wall with the TV, reached behind the television, and pulled the power cord, to no avail.

“You what?” Amanda asked on screen. “You better hope Ashley doesn’t find out. No, wait. You better tell her before someone else does.”

The Flirts’ “Jukebox (Don’t Put Another Dime)” interrupted the scene.

“Wait a minute,” Ashley stood and faced Jane. “Did you kiss Tim?!?”

Jane blushed and said, “Just once. I felt awful about it. I never told a soul except Amanda.”

“And she created an alibi for you, if I recall.” Ashley’s tone noticeably frosted over.

“I’m sorry! That was like a million years ago. I didn’t get mad at you for talking about me behind my back!” Jane returned the knife to Caesar’s back.

The scene cut again, this time to Amanda and Molly at the pool the summer after 8th grade, stomachs considerably white in contrast to their arms and legs in their new bikinis. On the screen, Amanda pushed play on a pastel pink Sony boom box that coordinated with her floral Op two-piece. Timex Social Club’s “Rumors” was the song that played on-screen.

“See what happens if you try to pause it. I think we should be taking notes.” Jane grabbed a notebook and pen from her overnight bag.

Ashley pressed pause, and a message appeared on the screen: Official Timeout. Program will resume in five minutes. Three hashmarks appeared in the top right corner of the screen, two illuminated and one dark.

“Apparently, we’re in the NFL now. I wonder if there’s a two-minute warning at the end,” Jane mused.

“Unfuckingbelievable,” Ashley replied. “So we’ve had ELP, The Flirts, and Timex Social Club. Do you think the songs have a connected meaning, or do you think they’re just a gimmick?”

“Europe was first, and I don’t know, so let’s keep a running list. Do you think it means anything that the scene with you and Molly didn’t have a song?” Jane poured herself another drink.

“No clue, but where did these recordings come from? All of these events are pre-internet. Hell, they’re pre-camcorder, too. How is their existence possible?” Ashley popped another slice of peach in her mouth, then strode into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of jalapeño tequila from the freezer. “I don’t know about you, but I think I need a shot.”

“Yeah, pony one up for me, too,” Jane replied without looking up from her notebook.

Outside, the clouds that had been gathering in the sky all day delivered the rain they promised, and lightning arced through them, flashing in the kitchen window. Thunder followed, three and a half Mississippis later.

“Damn, that’s close. It’d be a shame if the power went out and ended this shitshow,” Ashley observed.

“I don’t think that would matter. Remember, I unplugged the damn TV, and it had no effect whatsoever.”

The timeout counter hit thirty seconds, and the Jeopardy! theme song filled the room.

The footage of Amanda and Molly at the pool continued, and a message scrolled across the bottom of the screen. “Pausing the program suspends audio for the scene.” Ashley and Jane watched Amanda and Molly in an animated dialogue that involved both of them sitting up on their beach towels at different points, clearly reacting to something the other said.

Jane scribbled in her notebook.

The scene cut again, this time to Jane’s mother sitting with Ashley’s mother at her kitchen table.

“Hell, maybe we should make some popcorn. Remember how boring we thought our moms were? I bet we were wrong about that.” Ashley sat down next to Jane and put two shots of tequila on the coffee table.

Jane picked up the remote. “What did you do to turn up the volume?”

“Turned it down.”

Jane shook her head and pushed a button, accidentally pausing the program again. The countdown timer appeared again, and another hash mark went dark.

“Shit, now we’ll never know what our moms were talking about,” Ashley griped.

“We could try to read their lips,” Jane suggested.

“No,” Ashley retorted. “Remember last time we tried to read lips? Neither of us has any skill with that. Hey, see what happens if you turn on the captions. On second thought, let me. We don’t want to waste our last timeout.”

Jane handed her the remote, and she pulled up settings and turned closed captioning on. Static immediately filled the screen, and another ominous, computer-generated voice announced that the remote control had been disabled, and another music video popped up, a-ha’s “Take On Me.”

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Jane murmured and tossed back her shot of tequila.

“We’re all mad here,” Ashley responded and downed her shot.

“Let’s skip the caucus race and get to the tea party,” Jane answered.

When the MTV video ended, the screen showed Jane and Ashley as they were in the moment.

Ashley’s “What the fuck?” resounded through the room in stereo, the sound issuing from her mouth and the television simultaneously.

“This is officially freaking me out.” Jane’s voice in the room lagged a bit behind her voice from the television. When she added, “This is getting weirder and weirder,” the last three words echoed in a disturbing way.

“Okay, this is really strange,” Ashley said on the screen. Reacting to it, she repeated the line from the couch.

Televised Jane jumped up and said, “Oh my God, is this thing going to show us our future?”

In the room, Jane looked at herself on-screen and said, “Fuck you! I’m not saying that.” As soon as she spoke, video Jane yelped in pain and grabbed her right calf and yelled, “Charley horse!”

She stood up and said she was going outside to smoke, but no sound came out of her mouth. She pulled a yellow pack of American Spirits and a Bic lighter out of her bag and tried to open the front door. It wouldn’t budge. She checked that it was unlocked and tried again, and a knot formed in her right calf muscle. She reached down to rub it out, and her voice returned when she yelled, “Charley horse!”

On the screen, she and Ashley did another shot of tequila. Then the angle zoomed out and showed Ashley and Jane watching themselves on the television.

“This is getting super creepy, but I’m not going to argue with another shot of tequila,” Ashley said and brought the bottle to the table. She poured for both of them.

“You know, just because it’s on doesn’t mean we have to watch.” Jane took her shot standing up. “I have the TV on at home while I’m doing other things all the time. Let’s play a game.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, the TV showed her and Ashley seated across from each other at the kitchen table with the Trivial Pursuit board between them and The Alan Parsons Project providing the score.

“Can we get a new director for this project? Whoever put this together doesn’t exactly have a knack for subtlety.” Jane shook her head as she opened the card boxes.

“Let’s just ignore it and get shitfaced. Nothing good has come from watching it.”

The game was a close competition, each woman gaining pie pieces in tandem, both gravitating to their areas of knowledge. They both had the brown Arts & Literature wedge, the yellow History wedge, and the green Science & Nature wedge. Jane missed the blue Geography question when she was on the pie space, and Ashley landed on the orange Sports & Leisure space with little hope of acquiring the pie piece.

While they played, the television they were ignoring showed a masked man slipping into the house through a bedroom window and hiding himself in a closet.

Jane pulled a card from the box and began reading the orange question, collapsing in laughter before she could get the words out. She tried again several times, never completing the question. “What Russian pole vaulter” was so far outside both of their frames of knowledge that the rest of the question was irrelevant. When she and Ashley stopped laughing and wiped the tears from their eyes, Ashley deadpanned, “Igor Stravinsky,” and laughter consumed them again.

They eventually abandoned the game, unable to answer questions about old Hollywood for the Entertainment wedge. The television had played a series of music videos during their game, almost as if they had managed to change the channel to MTV of the past. As that thought crossed Jane’s mind, she wondered out loud what would happen if they simply changed the channel.

Ashley picked up the remote and pressed the channel up button, but the same song, “Every Breath You Take,” was playing while the image showed her standing in front of the television, failing to change the program as she surfed through all of the channels.

“Great, the stalker song everyone thought was so romantic.” Jane rolled her eyes and said, “We may as well finish it off,” holding the tequila bottle aloft.

“Says you. You’re talking in cursive,” Ashley giggled. Then she looked at the nearly empty bottle and said, “Oh, what the hell. One last shot, then bed. We’ve got to get some sleep.”

Leaving the empty tequila bottle on the table, Ashley and Jane stumbled to their separate bedrooms. The closet door in Ashley’s room was slightly ajar and wouldn’t close completely.

“Jane, will you swap rooms with me? You know how open closet doors freak me out, and this one won’t close.”

“Sure,” Jane responded, “if you don’t mind checking under the bed for wolves.”

“Done!” Ashley replied, and they shared another laugh at their childhood phobias before crawling under the covers in their respective rooms.

On the screen in the living room, a man in a ski mask crept out of the closet and strangled Jane in her sleep before creeping into Ashley’s room and winding the same scarf around Ashley’s neck. The television finally went dark with no counter ticking the clock down. But the last timeout continued glowing in the top right corner of the screen.