PHOTOGRAPHS & STORY BY ERIK CHALHOUB
A puzzling
escape W
hen your friend goes missing in the bayou while searching for supernatural sightings, the wise thing to do is go looking for them without any preparation, of course. A colleague and I found our way to a cabin at the edge of a swamp, where various creepy creatures crawled and soared their way into sticky situations. But perhaps that friend truly did find something supernatural here. It was obvious that someone took great pains to deter unsuspecting visitors, with locks of various digits, letters and other combinations holding a tight grip on doors that could lead the way out. We surveyed the room, looking for patterns or anything else out of the ordinary that could provide a hint of what was going on here. Our hunt for clues revealed a set of numbers, possibly for one of the locks. The question was, however, which one? And if we couldn’t figure it out, would we ever leave the bayou alive? Thankfully, the “bayou” was actually in downtown Morgan Hill, on the second floor of an office building that MPower Escape Rooms calls home.
Friends launch endeavor Hilary Andrews, Janelle Gallagher and Rebecca Hargreaves are the creators of MPower Escape Rooms, which opened at 17415 Monterey Road, Suite 207 in late 2018. An “escape room” is exactly as it sounds: a group is locked in a room and must find hidden clues and solve puzzles in order to leave, usually within a 60-minute time period. The term “escape” might be a little exaggerated, though, as participants are never truly locked in the room and can leave at any time. The three Morgan Hill friends, with backgrounds in design and ➝6
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