Writing from Walsh Mountain

Inspired by an actual escape room that we visited with our friends Eric and Nikki. Actual public domain photos of coal mines illustrate the tale.

Sara knew Nessa was up to something before she even stepped through the front doors of the Electric Building.

Her friend stood near the entrance to the escape room with Randy at her side, smiling far too brightly for a woman who had claimed this was nothing more than a casual Saturday outing. The historic building rose around them with the sort of dignified old-city charm Sara had always loved—high ceilings, polished floors, and hints of Scranton’s past tucked into unexpected corners. Outside, the afternoon traffic moved along Linden Street, and the familiar Electric City sign stretched above the building as though keeping watch over downtown.

Inside, however, Nessa was keeping watch over Sara. “You made it!” she said, hurrying forward to hug her.

“You sound surprised.”

“I am delighted, not surprised.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Of course.”

Randy coughed into his hand, though Sara was almost certain he was hiding a laugh. Beside him stood a man she had never met. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and dressed casually in jeans and a dark blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled to his forearms. His brown hair looked as though he had made an effort with it and then run a hand through it on the drive over.

Nessa stepped aside with all the subtlety of a stage director revealing the leading man.

“Sara, this is Hudson. Hudson, Sara.”

Hudson offered his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too.” His handshake was warm, and his smile seemed genuine, though there was a question in his eyes that told her he was already beginning to suspect something.

Nessa clasped her hands together. “Wonderful. Everyone knows everyone.”

“We have exchanged six words,” Sara said.

“That is how knowing people begins.”

Hudson glanced toward Nessa and Randy, who had suddenly developed great interest in a framed photograph of a coal breaker on the wall. Then he lowered his voice. “Were you told there would be a fourth person?”

“No.”

“Neither was I.”

Sara looked at him properly then. “I think we may have been invited under false pretenses.”

“Should we leave?”

She glanced at Nessa, who was pretending not to listen and failing badly. “Not yet. I’d like to see how far they take this.”

Hudson’s grin widened. “Good. I was hoping you’d say that.”

Before Sara could decide what she thought about the little flutter those words caused, a young employee appeared at the end of the lobby and called their group forward.

“Welcome to the Anthracite Collapse room,” he said. “You’ll have sixty minutes to escape from a mine before the entire structure comes down around you.”

Randy lifted a hand. “Metaphorically, right?”

The employee gave him a bland smile. “We certainly hope so.”

Sara laughed, and Hudson glanced at her as though pleased that she had.

After a short list of instructions, they were led through a heavy metal door into a mining supervisor’s office. The room was dim and close, with rough timber beams lining the ceiling and walls painted to resemble dark rock. An old wooden desk sat in the center beneath a row of yellowed mine maps. Rusted tools hung from pegs, a dented metal cabinet leaned in one corner, and a large green toolbox was chained beneath the desk.

The door slammed behind them. A digital timer on the wall lit up. 60:00

A low rumble rolled through hidden speakers, followed by a recorded voice.

“Attention. Structural instability has been reported in the lower tunnels. All personnel must evacuate immediately.”

The timer began counting down.

Nessa clapped her hands once. “All right. Let’s find clues.”

Randy opened the desk drawers while Nessa examined the maps. Hudson crossed to the chained toolbox, and Sara joined him.

“There’s a four-number lock,” he said.

A brass plate on the lid read: A good supervisor always knows who is on shift.

Sara looked around the office. “There’s a shift schedule on the wall.”

The paper listed twelve miners divided among morning, afternoon, and night shifts. Four names had tiny black stars beside them.

Hudson crouched beside a wooden crate filled with time cards. “These match the names.”

Sara knelt, trying not to notice how close his shoulder was to hers. Each card showed a miner’s name and a row of punched times. The cards belonging to the starred miners were marked with a second number in the corner.

“Four, one, seven, three,” she said.

Hudson entered the numbers, but the lock held fast.

“Maybe they need to go in shift order,” he said.

They returned to the schedule. Two of the starred miners worked mornings, one afternoons, and one nights. Sara arranged the cards by the hour each miner began work.

“Seven, four, three, one.”

Hudson tried again.

The lock clicked open.

“Nicely done,” he said.

“We did it together.”

“Yes, but saying you did it makes me sound generous.”

She looked at him. “And saying we did it makes you sound honest.”

“I suppose I can live with honest.”

Sara giggled.

Inside the toolbox they found a crank flashlight, a length of chain, a large magnet, and an old brass key attached to a tag that read NOT YET.

Randy leaned over Sara’s shoulder. “That seems unhelpful.”

“Maybe it opens something later,” she said.

“Or maybe it opens something now, and the tag is lying,” Randy replied.

Nessa patted his arm. “This is why I don’t let you assemble furniture without supervision.”

They spread through the office again. Sara checked behind the maps while Hudson inspected the filing cabinet. Nessa and Randy had chosen the far side of the room, leaving Sara and Hudson together so obviously that she nearly called them out on it.

Instead, she leaned toward him. “They aren’t even trying to hide what they’re doing.”

“I think they believe we’re too busy solving puzzles to notice.”

“Nessa once tried to set me up with a man because we both owned slow cookers.”

Hudson stopped searching the cabinet. “That was her standard?”

“She said it proved we valued commitment.”

He laughed, a full, warm sound that made the cramped office seem less oppressive. “Randy told me I’d enjoy this because I thrived on sports competition in college and like hanging out with others who are competitive.”

“I’m not competitive.”

At that moment, the lights went out.

The darkness was complete. Sara’s breath caught before she could stop it. Somewhere near the desk, someone knocked into something metal, and Nessa yelped.

“Everyone stay still,” Hudson said.

Sara reached out automatically and caught hold of his sleeve. The instant she realized what she had done, she loosened her fingers.

“Sorry.”

“You’re fine.”

“I don’t usually grab strangers in dark rooms.”

“That’s reassuring.”

She laughed despite herself.

Hudson felt along the open toolbox until he found the crank flashlight. A few turns of the handle produced a weak beam that swept across the room. It caught Sara squarely in the face.

She squinted. “You’re supposed to look for clues, not interrogate me.”

“Where were you on the night of the mine collapse?”

“Home. Not agreeing to suspicious outings with married friends.”

The light moved away, but she could still hear the smile in his voice. “Your story checks out.”

They found an electrical panel near the filing cabinet, though one fuse was missing. A narrow metal pipe ran along the wall beneath the desk, and when Hudson shone the light through one end, something glinted deep inside.

“The magnet,” Sara said.

Hudson attached it to the chain from the toolbox and fed it into the pipe. The first attempt produced nothing. On the second, the magnet struck the side with a sharp clang and stuck.

“Do you think we caught it?” Sara asked.

“Either that or I’ve permanently attached us to the plumbing.”

He pulled slowly. A small metal fuse emerged from the pipe.

Sara fit it into the empty slot on the panel. Numbers were scratched beside four switches, while colored lines on the mine map corresponded to the same numbers. Together, they traced the safest route through the tunnels and flipped the switches in order.

The lights flickered back on.

A section of the rock wall slid open with a grinding sound, revealing a narrow passage beyond.

Randy stared into it. “That looks smaller than it did in the promotional photo.”

“It probably looked larger because the people in the picture were children,” Nessa said.

Hudson bent to inspect the entrance. “I’ll go first.”

Randy pointed to Sara. “She’s smaller.”

Sara turned slowly. “How gallant of you.”

“I’m thinking strategically.”

“You’re thinking comfortably.”

Hudson looked at her. “I can go.”

“No, it’s fine.” Sara dropped to her knees and crawled into the passage. The tunnel was narrow and low enough that she had to keep her head down. Black walls pressed close on either side, timber supports crossed the ceiling, and small lights along the floor cast dim pools across what looked disturbingly like loose coal.

The passage opened slightly after several feet. Sara turned and called back, “It gets wider.”

Hudson followed, though not by much. Halfway through, a scrape sounded behind her, followed by silence.

“You all right?” she asked.

“I seem to have become part of the mine.”

She twisted around. Hudson’s belt loop had caught on the end of a timber brace, leaving him wedged awkwardly in the narrow space.

Sara bit her lip. “Do you need help?”

“No. I’m enjoying this immensely.”

She tried not to laugh. “Hold still.”

“I’m not certain I have another option.”

Sara crawled back toward him and reached past his side, but the space was too tight. Her shoulder pressed against his chest, and for one awkward second neither of them moved.

“This is very dignified,” he said.

“Please don’t make me laugh. I can’t reach the belt loop.”

“I’d help, but apparently I live here now.”

She finally freed the fabric from the nail. Hudson lurched forward, nearly knocking them both into the wall. His hand came down beside hers to steady himself.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“I assume we never speak of this again.”

“Oh, I plan to tell Nessa immediately.”

“I thought we were becoming friends.”

“We are. Friends keep one another humble.”

They continued until the tunnel opened into a wider chamber. Nessa and Randy joined them moments later, though Randy emerged with coal dust smeared across one cheek.

“You have something on your face,” Sara said.

Randy wiped the wrong side.

“Other cheek,” Hudson told him.

He wiped his forehead instead.

Nessa sighed and cleaned it off with her sleeve. “I married him for his puzzle-solving skills.”

“You married me before we ever did an escape room.”

“Exactly.”

A loud alarm suddenly shrieked overhead. Red lights began to flash, and the timer mounted above the chamber showed less than ten minutes remaining.

“Warning,” the recorded voice announced. “Collapse imminent.”

In front of them stood three wooden supports, each fitted with a metal plate labeled SAFE, WARNING, or DANGER. A sign on the wall read:

The newest support bears the burden. Choose wrongly, and the roof will fall.

Randy reached for the beam marked SAFE.

“Wait,” Sara said.

She moved closer to inspect the supports. Two were fastened with square-headed bolts darkened by age. The third had shiny hexagonal bolts.

“The newest one is the middle beam.”

Hudson unfolded the map they had carried from the office. “And according to this, the center support lines up with the escape shaft.”

They pressed the metal plate beneath the middle beam.

Nothing happened.

The timer dropped below six minutes.

“Maybe the labels matter,” Nessa said.

Sara studied them. SAFE, WARNING, DANGER. The middle support was marked WARNING.

Hudson looked at the toolbox key still in Sara’s hand. “Not yet.”

He pointed to a small keyhole beside the WARNING plate.

Sara inserted the brass key. It turned with a heavy click, and part of the beam slid aside, revealing a lever.

Randy pulled it.

A door opened at the end of the chamber.

They hurried through into a final room built to resemble an old mine elevator. A metal gate blocked the exit. Four brass wheels were mounted on the walls, each marked with compass directions.

The timer read 2:11.

“We each take a wheel,” Hudson said.

Sara grabbed the nearest one. The mine map showed four colored routes spreading outward from the supervisor’s office. She suddenly understood.

“Turn them to match the routes—north, south, east, and west.”

They called out the directions and twisted the wheels into place.

Nothing happened.

The alarm grew louder.

“Maybe all at once,” Hudson said. “On three. One, two, three.”

They turned.

The gate rattled upward.

The timer stopped at 00:43.

For a moment, no one moved. Then Nessa threw both arms into the air.

“We did it!”

Randy pointed at the clock. “Forty-three seconds. We had plenty of time.”

“You were prepared to pull the first beam you saw,” Sara reminded him.

“And yet we survived.”

They stepped back into the bright lobby, where the employee congratulated them and offered to take a group photograph. Sara stood beside Hudson while Nessa and Randy arranged themselves behind them with matching expressions of satisfaction.

After the picture, Randy announced that he and Nessa needed to leave.

Sara folded her arms. “You said we were going for coffee afterward.”

“We were?” Nessa asked.

“You sent me three messages about it.”

Nessa glanced at Randy. “Something came up.”

“What?”

“Our…dishwasher.”

Randy nodded solemnly. “Very serious.”

“You don’t have a dishwasher,” Hudson said.

Randy looked wounded. “Which makes the situation even worse.”

Nessa hugged Sara quickly, whispered, “You’re welcome,” and pulled Randy toward the door before Sara could answer.

Hudson watched them go. “That may be the poorest exit strategy I’ve ever seen.”

“They used all their cleverness on the setup.”

They walked outside together onto Linden Street. The late afternoon sun reflected in the building’s windows, and the Electric City sign stretched above them against the sky. After the darkness of the mine, the fresh air felt especially good.

Hudson shoved his hands into his pockets. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad they did it.”

Sara looked at him. “Even after you almost became permanently lodged in the coal tunnel?”

“Especially then. It revealed your true character.”

“And what is my true character?”

“You help people in distress, but only after laughing at them.”

“That seems fair.”

He smiled, then glanced toward a coffee shop farther down the street. “Would you like to get that coffee they promised us?”

Sara pretended to consider it, though she already knew her answer. “As long as there aren’t any locks, alarms, tunnels, or hidden agendas.”

“I can promise at least two of those.”

“Which two?”

“I suppose you’ll have to come along and find out.”

She shook her head, but she was smiling. “That was terrible.”

“I’ve had a difficult hour.”

They started down the sidewalk together. After a few steps, Hudson glanced at her. “And maybe, sometime after the coffee, we could hang out again?”

Sara looked up at the Electric City sign, then back at him. Nessa would be unbearable when she heard about this. Still, she found she did not mind quite as much as she should have. “I’d like that,” she said.

Hudson’s smile made the whole ridiculous setup seem worthwhile.

Behind them, the old Electric Building stood quietly in the afternoon light, as though it had been keeping Scranton’s secrets for years—and had just added one more.