The journalism editors went to Mystery & Intrigue Escape Rooms as a group bonding activity. The ordinary outing turned into the typical “don’t go into the basement” scene of a horror movie.
I followed my GPS to the location and the first red flag showed itself. It took me not into a shopping center, but a sketchy alleyway. I finally navigated into the correct shopping center, surprised to find my destination surrounded by an adult store and Planned Parenthood. The prime destination for all school outings.
The adventure started when we went inside. Ten of us waited on our final editor to show up for 20 minutes. While we waited, we took advantage of their waiting room activities. The inside had a pretty cool vibe and not as sketchy as the outside. They had Uno (the supreme card game), giant checkers, giant Jenga, Connect Four and cool pillows.
We finally entered into the escape room without our last editor, thinking the night would continue on as a normal escape room. The worker read off the story and it seemed like an exciting, unique storyline. Senior Kathryn Pedroza volunteered to have herself locked into the “electric” chair and act as Jack Jackson, an accused murderer on death row. Our group had to free him and escape the “prison” before a bomb went off.
The multiple “rooms” really just had thin wood panels to divide the different sections. Jackson, Pedroza, did not really have the straps locked around her wrists, and walked around to look for clues with the rest of us. The group moved metal chairs and found clues. The escape room went as most do, we “unlocked Jackson” out of the chair. As we moved to the final room, things got weird again. A bunk bed stood in the middle of the room with an air mattress on each tier. The bottom bunk was wet to the touch. We did not know why or how, but we immediately regretted our decisions to try to lift it up.
We came to the last two locks and could not figure out how to unlock them. We tried what we believed to be the correct code on the lockbox, but the button for it would only go halfway down. Our time continued to dwindle as we repeatedly entered a different combination of numbers. We finally called the escape room worker and told her we thought the mechanism was broken. We read off the numbers we tried, and she confirmed we had the correct combination. She came in and tried to open it but the lock would not budge. She left to ask another worker to open it. A large, muscular man in a wife-beater came in attempting to conquer the lock, but like all tragic heroes, he was not destined to slay this beast. He told us to wait as he left to find the spare key to the one inside the lockbox. Instead, he came back with a pair of bolt cutters, breaking the lock off of our final door. We thought we had finished, but we forgot one of the other locks. Tired and frustrated, the group decided to use a hint for this final lock. The man came back with a script, unable to remember what we needed to unlock this last lock. We unlocked our final box and finished the escape room with 25 minutes left, and took pictures to commemorate our accomplishment.
All in all, I would give this a 10/10 for the funny stories we gained from it alone. While at times we questioned Mr. Mallett’s motive for sending us to the sketchiest place he could find, the escape room itself had well thought out challenges and led to a memorable bonding experience.
