Escape Read online

  For those seeking a new adventure

  Title Page

  Dedication

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  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  ESCAPE YOUR TROUBLES! ESCAPE TO ADVENTURE!

  It was the same tagline Cody had read a hundred times. But he still felt a thrill every time he read it. ESCAPE wasn’t just a theme park. It was an Event. A Happening. It promised everything a kid could want, and more.

  Want to cast magical spells in cutting-edge VR?

  Done.

  Fly among dragons and dinosaurs on a real live hang glider?

  No problem.

  Eat all the junk food you can stomach and stay up until four in the morning?

  Go for it.

  ESCAPE was built to cater to dreams. Whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted it—the moment you stepped foot within the park’s doors, it was yours.

  And the best part?

  No. Adults. Allowed.

  Cody would have given anything to go. He was obsessed. He’d read every article, interacted with every post, watched every behind-the-scenes video. But he knew, deep down, that he wouldn’t get the chance.

  ESCAPE wasn’t built for kids like him.

  He wasn’t famous enough.

  For the incredibly exclusive grand opening week, only a hundred tickets had been made available, given out one at a time with grand announcements.

  For the first few months, Cody watched as every single ticket went to someone he knew. Not because they were his classmates, but because the kids were famous. Pop star, social media sensation, child actor, business-tycoon-kid famous. He had to watch as ESCAPE posted them one by one to its feed. The kids gloated and humblebragged about getting to go. The chance of a lifetime, they called it. Yeah—but to them, those chances came every day.

  Cody had still liked the posts. Just in case.

  Then, a month ago, the website had changed.

  A registration form had appeared.

  Along with it came a new promise: The final thirty kids chosen wouldn’t be celebrities. They’d be selected by a random drawing.

  Whoever wanted to register would have a chance.

  Cody signed up. Of course he did. He clicked submit before even reading the fine print.

  He would do anything to get out of his nowhere town. Even though he had a few friends, he still felt closed in. He knew Laura and Patrick didn’t dream as big as him, didn’t spend their days thinking of building their own massively popular theme park and traveling the world exploring new rides.

  They were happy here.

  He was not.

  So for the next twenty-six days, Cody watched as, one by one, regular kids like him were picked from the draw.

  Twenty-six more opportunities lost.

  Every time, he felt like the walls were closing in a little bit tighter. Every time, he felt his chances of ESCAPE—both the theme park and getting out of his town—were slipping from his hands.

  * * *

  If only he’d known that soon, he wouldn’t be trying to escape his boring routine.

  Instead, he’d be trying to escape with his life.

  Cody sat in the back of the classroom, staring at his phone, which was hidden behind his textbook, while his teacher droned on and on about the short stories they were reading. He’d barely had his phone off since the registration had gone live, twenty-six days ago. Which meant for the last month, he’d had to watch day after day as someone else got the opportunity he’d been dreaming for.

  It was killing him.

  “Cody Baxter!” his teacher called out.

  Cody jerked and looked up.

  “Yes, Mr. Kearns?”

  Mr. Kearns wasn’t like most of the teachers at Judkins Middle School. He was fresh out of grad school, for one thing, with a hipster beard and man bun, and he wore funky vests. Today, his vest was covered in a woolly mammoth print. He wasn’t from around here, that was for sure.

  Mr. Kearns was an outcast, like him. Of all the teachers here, Cody liked Mr. Kearns best. But he couldn’t understand why someone—when Cody wanted nothing more than to get out—would choose to come here.

  “I gotta ask,” Mr. Kearns said. “Are you a wizard or something?”

  Cody felt his face flush. A few of his classmates giggled, and every eye was on him.

  “What? No. Why?”

  Mr. Kearns grinned.

  “Because your book is somehow magically glowing. I mean, that’s the only probable cause, right? Because you wouldn’t dream of being on your phone while I’m teaching. I know these stories are older than me, but they aren’t that boring, are they? Surely I’m not that boring.”

  “What? No, sir.”

  Mr. Kearns laughed. “This isn’t the army, cadet. Just put your phone away, okay? I’m doing a surprise pop quiz in three days that you’ll probably want to be taking notes for.”

  Cody complied, and Mr. Kearns went back to teaching. Everyone hurriedly focused on their own notes, and the room was filled with the sound of scribbling pencils. He noticed that some of his classmates still looked over their shoulders at him. He wondered how many of them were writing notes to one another about him.

  At the end of class, Mr. Kearns pulled him aside.

  “So,” he said, “what was so important that you felt the need to ignore me for most of the class?”

  “I wasn’t ignoring you!” Cody protested.

  “Please,” Mr. Kearns said. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone that focused in my class since, well … actually, no. That’s the first time anyone’s been that focused in my class. Maybe I should start choreographing dances to the stories we’re reading.”

  “No, definitely don’t. I mean, you don’t need to do that.” Mr. Kearns raised an eyebrow. Cody dropped his head. “I was looking at ESCAPE.”

  “ESCAPE? You mean that death trap they’re calling a theme park?”

  Cody nodded, even as he thought, It isn’t a death trap.

  Adults—even cool adults—never understood.

  “Why do you want to go so badly?” Mr. Kearns asked. He didn’t seem to be making fun of him, though. He actually seemed interested.

  Cody couldn’t answer right away. He didn’t want to say too much, didn’t want to tell his teacher that although his parents weren’t mean to him, they weren’t, well, nice. They didn’t let him have any fun. Not strict in the normal “I can’t eat ice cream for dinner or play video games until sunrise” way, but strict in the “no fun, ever” way. He wasn’t even allowed video games, and only got dessert on Fridays. It wouldn’t have been so bad if his parents didn’t also fight all the time. But they did. Every night. The only time he got to escape was when he went over to his friends’ houses, though he couldn’t hide at Laura’s or Patrick’s forever.

  E
scape.

  That’s what he wanted. To escape to ESCAPE.

  But of course, he’d never tell Mr. Kearns all that.

  “I don’t know,” Cody lied. “I guess it just seems so much cooler than anything here, you know? You can do anything you dream of there. Fight pirates or adventure underwater or have superpowers. It’s like … everything real life isn’t.”

  “Yeah, but,” Mr. Kearns said slowly, gently, “it’s all just a game. I mean, it looks fun! Don’t get me wrong. I’ll totally be going when it’s open to the public. But it’s virtual reality. Made up. It isn’t worth forgetting about what’s right in front of you.”

  “There’s nothing right in front of me,” Cody mumbled.

  Mr. Kearns sighed.

  “Is everything okay at home?” he asked.

  Cody shrugged. “Yeah. It’s fine. Look, I gotta get to my next class. Thanks for not giving me detention.”

  “I don’t punish dreamers,” Mr. Kearns said. He put a hand on Cody’s shoulder. “Just make sure to drop in on reality once in a while. And study for that quiz.”

  * * *

  It was lunchtime, and once more, Cody was secretly on his phone, watching the official feed of ESCAPE. They posted the winners of the draw at different times every day. Probably to ensure that you were always watching the feed, rather than just tuning in at certain times. The last post was a sneak peek of their haunted house: a five-second video clip of some unknown kid running and screaming while a dozen ghosts and ghouls swarmed around him, the halls dripping green and breathing in and out.

  Cody had watched it, like, a dozen times, trying to see how they did it. The ghosts looked so real. But he couldn’t see any wires or mirrors, and it wasn’t VR. He had no clue. And that was just one more reason why he wanted to go so badly. At ESCAPE, they were doing the impossible. Someday, he wanted to build his own theme park. What better way to learn than to attend the most cutting-edge park in the world? He played the video again and tried to zoom in.

  “I heard you got called out in Kearns’s class,” Patrick said.

  Cody jumped and looked up as his friend sat down beside him.

  “Yeah,” Laura replied, sitting down on the other side. “What did you do? Make fun of his vest or something?”

  “No,” Cody admitted. “I was, you know …” He held up his phone.

  Laura rolled her eyes, but Patrick was on board. He was also trying to win a chance to go.

  “Did they announce anything yet?” Patrick asked, grabbing Cody’s phone. “The last kid was revealed at nine forty yesterday morning, so I would have thought …”

  Cody shook his head. “No, nothing yet. I keep checking, but they haven’t updated.”

  “I still don’t see why you’re so obsessed with this,” Laura said. “It’s just a theme park. Once the grand opening is over, we can all just go together.”

  Both Cody and Patrick looked at her.

  “With what money?” Patrick asked before Cody could say anything. “Tickets are bound to be hundreds of dollars a day, and it’s like a five-hour drive. Not only does the grand opening raffle cover entry and travel, but you’d have the park basically to yourself! No lines, no wait. Plus, you’d be around all the coolest kids in the world.”

  Laura rolled her eyes again. She did that a lot when they were discussing ESCAPE. “Just because they’re celebrities doesn’t mean they’re interesting,” she said. “Honestly, I bet they’re all really boring and stuck up. You couldn’t pay me to spend a week surrounded by influencers.”

  “Look, we don’t crush your dreams about being a bestselling YA novelist. Don’t crush ours,” Cody said. “You know this would be big for us. If we want to design rides—”

  “I know, I know,” Laura said. “This would be the opportunity of a lifetime and being part of the first group of kids means you might even land on the radar of the designers. Go from beta testers to builders. You’ve told me a million times.” Her voice softened. “I just don’t want you to get disappointed when—”

  “It’s updated!” Patrick yelped.

  “What? Who is it?”

  He held up the phone so Cody—who had crammed in super close to him—could see.

  The video post—like all the announcements for the non-famous kids—was a plain white screen with text that faded in and out.

  FOUR DAYS TO ESCAPE …

  FOUR SPOTS LEFT …

  “Come on, get on with it,” Patrick grumbled.

  Cody couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe.

  OUR 97th GUEST WILL BE …

  “Ugh, this is so melodramatic,” Laura said. But she didn’t look away, either.

  CODY …

  “No way. No way no way no way,” Patrick breathed beside him.

  JACOBSEN. CONGRATULATIONS!

  Patrick groaned and leaned back, setting the phone on the table in disappointment.

  Cody felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

  He’d been so close. So close. Why couldn’t they have said my name? Now some other Cody was going to get to go. What was the chance they’d pick another Cody to go after that?

  “See?” Laura said softly. “So much anticipation and so much disappointment.”

  “Not now,” Cody whispered. He pressed his hands to his eyes. He wasn’t crying. He was just trying to blot out the world. “Please.”

  Laura didn’t say anything.

  “There’s still a chance,” Patrick said. He put a hand on Cody’s shoulder.

  But Cody knew there wasn’t. There wasn’t.

  Cody went straight to his bedroom when he got home from school, grabbing a sandwich on his way up. His parents weren’t really the “sit-down meal together” sort, and he didn’t want to have to interact with them if he could help it.

  He didn’t want to interact with anyone right then.

  The trouble was, being in his room didn’t help. At all.

  Every single space on his walls was filled with posters and drawings and diagrams. Not of bands or cars or trains or spaceships. Of rides.

  There was the drawing of the first roller coaster he ever designed, eight years ago. He was four, and it was in crayon, and it didn’t even really look like a roller coaster—just a bunch of blue and red lines, really—but he’d stolen it from his parents’ memory book and hung it on his wall as a reminder of his life’s passion.

  From there, his skill at drawing and design had gotten a lot better.

  On that wall was a mock-up of a haunted house ride, complete with diagrams of every jump scare, every strobe placement, every mechanical ghoul. He’d even written out the moods of every room, the temperature changes, the slight breezes so it felt like you were being followed.

  And there! His take on bumper cars. Only in these, you weren’t driving your car—you were remote-controlling someone else’s, and someone was controlling yours, so no one would know what was going on.

  There weren’t just drawings, either. He’d constructed models of attractions from clay, dioramas of entire theme parks from cardboard and Popsicle sticks. One had even won him the science fair last year, since his focus was on physics and motion. There was a LEGO roller coaster spiraling around the ceiling over his bed. That had been a gift from his parents years ago. Before they started fighting. That had been the best birthday ever. Probably because it was the last good one he ever had. It had amped up his desire to design and build rides—and reinfornced his newfound need to get as far away from here as he could.

  He spun slowly on the spot.

  Normally, this room made him feel good. Seeing all the drawings and designs inspired him, gave him purpose, gave him hope. But ever since ESCAPE started announcing its winners, the room had made him feel worse and worse.

  It was a reminder of the life he’d probably never live.

  A part of him wanted to tear it all down. Find a new hobby, something normal. Like basketball or soccer or even band. But every time he thought about changing hobbies—no, obsessions—he felt hollow
inside. Wrong. Theme parks were just it.

  “I’m going to get out of here,” he whispered to himself and his drawings. “This is my calling.”

  His words made him feel better. Just for a moment. Then he heard the door open downstairs and one of his parents get home. He sighed, went over to his computer, put on his headphones, and started blaring his music.

  He didn’t know when his parents started fighting, only that eventually they both got home and did.

  They didn’t stop when he finished his homework.

  They didn’t stop when he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed.

  They didn’t stop when he turned off the lights and tried to sleep, headphones still on.

  It was okay.

  He was going to get out of here.

  And he was never coming back.

  * * *

  Cody checked his phone the moment he opened his eyes.

  Within seconds, still bleary eyed, he had pulled up ESCAPE’s feed.

  Nothing. Not even a teaser video.

  Just the last update, playing on loop, announcing that another Cody was going to be living out his dream.

  Downstairs, he heard his parents arguing over breakfast. Frustration grew inside him; he wanted to throw his phone out the window.

  But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. His phone was his lifeline. Besides, this wasn’t the first morning he’d skipped breakfast because he couldn’t stand to be in the same room as his parents. And, unless he got to ESCAPE, it probably wouldn’t be his last, either.

  He slowly got ready for school and made his way downstairs. Their arguing went silent when he walked past the kitchen toward the front door.

  “Where do you think you’re going without breakfast?” his mom called out.

  “Did you do your homework?” his dad demanded.

  Seriously, the only time they stopped fighting was when they were ganging up on him.

  “Yes, Dad,” he said. “I did it last night. And I’ll pick something up from the gas station on the way—”

  “You will not,” his mom interrupted. “We don’t have the money for you to be wasting it on junk food. You’re going to have a real breakfast—now sit down.”

  “I’m going to be late,” he said. “I’ve got to study with Patrick for a quiz before class.”