“So what do we do?”

  “What we always do. We figure it out…”

  JACK

  We needed to figure it out.

  The only clue that jumped out at me was the lyrics in the hymn book.

  AMAzING GRACE HOW SWEeT THE SOUND THAT SAVED A WRETCH LIKE ME

  “Fifty letters,” Sam said, kneeling next to me. “The lowercase z in AMAzING is the fourth letter, and the lowercase e in SWEeT is the nineteenth letter.”

  I stood up and walked to the rear of the fake church, to the entrance door, and reflexively checked it to make sure it was still locked. Then I took the whole room in, trying to get an overall perspective.

  Altar. Organ. Choir stands. Stained-glass windows on either side of the room on the walls. Two sections of pews, five rows each, with a center aisle running through them. Harry and Harry Junior were investigating the organ. Phin was at the altar.

  I studied the windows. Eight of them, lit from behind to imitate sunlight, each depicting a person. None were immediately recognizable to me, but I assumed they were saints or martyrs or maybe even people who created the escape room, because creators tended to like dumb inside jokes. The church seemed non-denominational. No overt iconography. Could have been a place of worship for any religious order.

  I turned my attention to the two sections of pews.

  “Fifty seats,” Sam said.

  “How can you tell? They’re benches.”

  “There are fifty shelves under every seat, for the hymn books. Five per row.”

  I smiled at her. “Nice. Five rows, five seats, two columns.”

  “And fifty letters in the song lyrics. The statue is kneeling in the first row, seat four.”

  “And the lowercase z is the fourth letter.”

  “So we need to find the seat that matches the nineteenth letter. The nineteenth seat. That can be two different spots, depending on how you count them.”

  I nodded, getting it. “Whether we count across both columns, or start at one group, count to twenty-five, then start over at the front row of the other group across the aisle.”

  “I’ll try across the aisle.”

  While Sam counted seats in both columns, I kept to the first section. Seat nineteen was four rows back, four seats in. I knelt on the padded kneeler.

  Nothing happened.

  On the other side of the aisle, Sam found the fourth seat in the second row and knelt—

  —and the organ music kicked on.

  Both Harry Senior and Harry Junior screeched in terror at the abrupt burst of piped-in sound, and as they held each other in fear like Shaggy and Scooby, the side panel of the organ opened up, revealing an ornate metal slit roughly twenty centimeters long, and a pewter sign underneath with the etched word DONATIONS.

  Thankfully “Amazing Grace” only played for the one stanza, and the organ went silent again.

  Sam was the first one over there. “It looks like a giant coin slot. Anyone got a giant coin?”

  “I left my giant coins in my giant pair of pants,” McGlade said.

  “You know, I once asked a homeless man if he wanted change,” Phin said, then paused. “But he told me he was happy with the way things were.”

  “Phin.” I shot him a pleading glance. I didn’t need this to start up again.

  “Okay. Then I won’t do the joke about my pre-exercise routine,” Phin said. Pause. “Because it’s a stretch.”

  Too late. This is what I get for being a tolerant spouse.

  “You know, I just went to the ear, nose, and throat doctor,” McGlade said. “He said I have Beatle’s disease.” Pause. “Penny Lane is in my ears. And in my eyes.”

  “There’s a cure for that,” Phin said. Pause. “All you need is love.”

  “Mom, can you make them stop?”

  “Phin,” I pleaded, “I thought we already decided—”

  “I found something,” Phin interrupted.

  “If it’s another dad joke I—”

  “It’s a lock box, under the altar. Eight dials on it. Each numbered one through nine.”

  My group went to check, but something about the number eight reminded me of something.

  Eight stained-glass windows.

  Maybe my memory wasn’t as bad as I thought.

  I studied the first image, a regal-looking man in robes, and tried to find a number hidden somewhere. It was harder than I would have guessed. The colored pieces of stained glass had a lot of weird angles, so almost every intersection looked like a numeral.

  Sam bounced over. “The flowers in the bush behind him,” she said. “Six flowers.”

  “Are you sure that’s the—”

  Sam had already moved on to the second window. “Eight stripes on the hem of his robe.”

  “How can you—”

  “I’m good at finding things.”

  I followed her as she counted objects in the artworks in rapid succession.

  “Four clouds in the sky.

  “Three sheep behind her.

  “Nine rays of light coming out of the sun.

  “Eight tread lines on his sandals.”

  Sam spotted things faster than I thought possible, and rather than second-guess my daughter I went back to the first window and repeated the numbers she said to Phin.

  At the final stained-glass work, Sam’s face bunched up.

  “Can’t figure that one out?” I called to her.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “He has two hands,” I suggested.

  “His hands aren’t the same. Every other number depicted the exact same object, repeated. Like they took a cookie cutter of glass and used it over and over. It has to be exactly the same. Same size, same color…”

  She smiled suddenly.

  “You found it?”

  “I didn’t find anything, Dad!” she yelled to him. “The last number is zero!”

  I glanced at Phin, and he declared “It worked!” He held up the payoff, a large metal coin.

  “How’d you know?” I asked Sam.

  “There was nothing, Mom. Nothing means zero.”

  Fair enough.

  Harry Junior insisted on being the one who dropped the coin into the slot. When he did—

  “The door,” Phin pointed. “Behind you.”

  I turned, and the door we’d entered through was now wide open.

  I went through first, expecting to be back in the fake medical examination room.

  But somehow the room had changed again. From lobby, to exam room, to church, and now to something else, all using one door only.

  How’d they do that?

  The new room was dark, and off to the side was a floor-to-ceiling wall of plexiglass. And behind the barrier—

  A cast-iron bathtub.

  I paused, remembering the tub at the Lake Flathead B and B. The small one that required me to curl up and bend my legs, the same pose that maniac put me in when he sealed me in that concrete tomb. The one I couldn’t remember escaping from.

  This tub looked the same.

  But all cast-iron bathtubs looked the same. Didn’t they?

  When the rest of my group came into the room, the door closed behind them.

  Suddenly a woman burst out of the bathtub, screaming, and we collectively gasped.

  She stood up, wearing a bikini, sending water and ice cubes onto the floor. Then she looked at her bare side and gently touched a large red gash, stitched closed with black thread.

  Noticing us for the first time, she said. “They… they took it. They took my kidney.”

  “Dad,” Harry Junior said. “Is this real?”

  It looked pretty damn real to me.

  The woman climbed out of the tub and came up to the glass. She banged on it.

  “You have to get out of here!” she yelled, face frantic. “This isn’t an escape room! It’s real! They want your organs! They want to steal your organs!”

  Then she turned around like she saw something, and ran off into the darkness.

  And out of the same darkness, the smiling man in the lab coat appeared. The same one who took our signed waivers and consent forms.

  He met Sam’s eyes, his smile getting wider. “Type O. Universal donor. And so young. With organs that are so fresh. You’re going to make us a lot of money, young lady.”

  “Mom…” Sam said, her voice unsteady.

  Then the lights went off.

  JACK

  Darkness.

  The comforting whir of McGlade’s mechanical hand had ceased, replaced by his grunts and the TAP TAP TAP of him poking his metal prosthesis at the concrete.

  I was drained. Physically. Emotionally. Mentally.

  Especially mentally. I was completely out of touch with reality. Taking that concept a step further, I wasn’t even sure reality existed.

  For all I knew, I could have been born in this darkness, and my entire life had been my imagination.

  So what are you gonna do about it, Jack?

  Give up?

  Whine like a petulant child?

  Die?

  Maybe nothing was real.

  But if nothing was real, did I have anything to lose?

  I thought of my daughter. My husband. My parents. My friends.

  I thought of my life.

  Real or not, I wasn’t ready to give up on it.

  “Doesn’t it hurt?” I asked Harry in the dark.

  “Hells yeah it hurts. Goddamn myoelectric sensors are attached to the muscles on my stump. Titanium joints and gears are super unforgiving. It’s like whacking myself with a hammer.”

  “Use something else,” I told him. “Try fucking your way out with your giant cockasaurus.”

  Silence.

  Then I felt McGlade’s whole body shake with convulsive laughter.

  I joined him. It hurt, with my throat so dry, but for a moment I had my sanity back. Or maybe my sanity had lapsed into full-blown hysteria.

  Either way, it felt good.

  And then—

  “I’m through!”

  Harry had apparently used our peals of laughter to overcome the pain and punch through the cement, and I shared in his excitement until I noted his shouts of joy became a staccato cry of panic.

  “I touched something with my good hand,” McGlade said, shimmying through the rock salt and backing up against my body. “There’s somebody there.”

  CHANDLER

  The kneeling concrete statue appeared fresh, and Chandler approached cautiously, staying alert, not allowing herself to be controlled by fear or dread. Beretta tight in a two-handed grip, she swept the property. Once she deemed it free of hostiles, Chandler sidled up to the statue and gave it a poke.

  Still damp.

  The expression on its round face—its mouth a plaintive white O of river quartz pebbles, bulging green-blue eyes made of glass—was that of an existential pain. Chandler recognized the glass; old time telephone insulators, and remembered there was a display at the Fall Down Inn, and also on a shelf in the entryway of the B and B.

  Not wanting to, but feeling she had to, Chandler holstered her weapon and quickly began to scratch and tear at the statue’s wrist, hoping her hunch was wrong, knowing her hunch was correct, and she unwrapped sticky cement-soaked cloth strips, half-cured concrete flaking away as she peeled and unwound and pulled and scraped, taking the width down until she finally saw—

  Desiccated flesh, tight on the bones.

  This is a human body. But it’s been dead for months.

  It’s not Jack.

  Chandler temporarily became overwhelmed with relief, unaware she’d grown that fond of the older ex-cop.

  Maybe we really are friends after all.

  I’ll find you, Jack. I think I know where you are.

  Gun at the ready, Chandler followed the fresh tractor tire tracks into the woods, toward the pole barn.

  Jack has to be in there.

  There has to be another entrance.

  I’ll find it.

  I’ll find her.

  The pole barn appeared much bigger in the daytime, the woods not nearly as thick. Chandler did a quick tour around the building, but the only entry point seemed to be the garage.

  Second time’s a charm

  Once again she picked the lock.

  Once again she faced a solid wall of concrete blocks.

  But in the daylight she could clearly see the tire tracks, going right up to the wall, then disappearing beneath it like a magic trick. As if the tractor drove right through it.

  She squatted, and saw the chips and wear marks on the bottom row of mortared wall.

  He uses the tractor to lift and move the wall.

  The concrete man.

  With the long beard.

  And the dead eyes.

  That hadn’t been a psychedelic experience.

  That asshole was for real.

  Chandler stepped away from the wall, puzzling over the situation.

  Does that mean he only comes in and out of the pole barn using the tractor?

  Or is there another entry and egress point I must be missing?

  Maybe some kind of secret entrance?

  She began to circle the structure again, this time widening the perimeter by five meters, looking for something meant to be hidden from the casual eye.

  Halfway around the building she heard the sound of a vehicle.

  Eight-cylinder engine. Big block. Coming up the gravel driveway.

  Chandler sprinted back to the house, got to the west wall, and squatted. Moving in a crouch she made her way to the front yard, watching as a tow truck backed up to her rental SUV.

  Driving the truck, Mick from the Fall Down Inn.

  Standing next to the truck, Toddy, Vern, and Zeke from the Fall Down Inn.

  Toddy had a shotgun. Vern and Zeke had rifles.

  The weapons weren’t slung. They were in hand.

  These aren’t good ole boys after all. They’re bad ole boys.

  Chandler was an excellent marksperson, and all it took was a single well-placed 9mm round to drop a human being. But firing from more than fifty meters away with her subcompact Beretta and its short four-inch barrel would result in some wasted shots.

  I have thirteen plus one bullets in the weapon, and an extra thirteen-round magazine in the side pouch of my holster.

  I’m outnumbered and outgunned.

  It will take me five seconds to get in kill range and four more seconds for aiming and firing.

  If they’re competent hunters, and they see me coming, they could raise weapons and start shooting within three seconds.

  Not the worst odds I ever faced, but far from the best.

  Chandler considered hiding, waiting for a better moment to strike.

  Then she considered the statue in the backyard, and her friend, Jack, who was likely going to face the same fate, turned into grotesque outside art by the concrete man.

  This is the simplest decision I ever had to make.

  For Jack…

  Chandler filled her lungs with oxygen, then charged full speed.

  JACK

  Harry’s fear was contagious, and I worried it was the mountain man maniac who’d locked us up, or one of his insane codependent enabling family members, who heard us trying to escape.

  Then Harry said, “Wait… Traydorn Blouder?”

  After a few seconds of silence, a soft, frail voice replied, “Yeah.”

  McGlade whooped. “I did it! I found him! I am the greatest private eye in the annals of history! Or anals. Let’s call it anals. What do you think, Jackie?”

  “I think you need to stop yelling like an idiot.”

  “Fair point. Jack, help me pull this block free. Traydorn, push on your side.”

  We yanked. Traydorn shoved. The wall opened up, even faster than it had between me and Harry.

  “Mia,” Traydorn moaned. “Save Mia.”

  “I need to climb over you, Traydorn, to get to the wall,” Harry said. “If you feel anything weird, don’t take it personally. I’m just excited that I saved your life.”

  McGlade shifted around and began to scratch at the wall. I winced. Not only because Traydorn smelled awful, but because I had an awful thought.

  How many walls did we need to get through to get out of there? Were we going the wrong way? Could Mia be on the other side of this multi-celled concrete structure?

  “I have to save her… we’re getting… married…”

  I reached out in the blackness and rubbed his shoulder. “We’ll save her,” I promised. “Hang in there.”

  “Damn right you hang in there,” said Harry. “Your parents are gonna owe me a metric shit ton of money.”

  JACK

  Sam held my hand in the darkness.

  “Mom, that lady was acting, right?”

  “I think so.”

  Truth told, I wasn’t entirely sure.

  Phin located us after the lights went out, and he had his arms around us both. “Totally fake,” he assured his family.

  “We put a big coin in that coin slot on the organ,” Sam said. “Do you understand what that means?”

  “Organ donation,” McGlade said. “Son of a bitch. Clever. Why didn’t you think of that, Harry Junior?”

  “I think I made a boom-boom in my pants,” Harry Junior said.

  “All McGlades shit their shorts,” said his father. “No need to be ashamed. In fact,” he paused, “diarrhea runs in the family. Get it? The runs?”

  “That joke was crap,” Phin told Harry.

  “Don’t you guys get started again,” I warned them both.

  “It could be a developmental problem, Harry Junior,” Sam offered. “Or a medical condition called encopresis.”

  “There’s a third option,” McGlade said. “It could be intentional. Because it’s funny as hell.”

  There was silence for a few seconds, then Harry Junior said, “I just checked with my hand. It was only a wet fart.”

  “You can try again later,” his father told him.

  “Is something supposed to happen now?” Sam asked. “Or are we supposed to wander around in the dark?

  As if cued the door we came through opened by itself, letting in some light.

  We filed through the doorway, and I immediately noticed it was no longer a church.