The Maze Runner Series Complete Collection (43 page)

Other sounds snuck their way into his consciousness. Thumps. The clang of metal against metal. Something shattering. Boys shouting. More like the echo of shouts, very distant, muted. Suddenly they became more like screams. Unearthly cries of anguish. But still distant. As if he’d been wrapped in a thick cocoon of dark velvet.

Finally something pricked the comfort of sleep. This wasn’t right. Teresa had called for him, told him something was wrong! He fought the deep sleep that had consumed him, clawed at the heavy weight pinning him down.

Wake up!
he yelled at himself.
Wake up!

Then something disappeared from inside him. There one instant,
gone the next. He felt as if a major organ had just been ripped from his body.

It had been her. She was gone.

Teresa!
he screamed out with his mind.
Teresa! Are you there?

But there was nothing, and he no longer felt that comforting sense of her closeness. He called her name again, then again, as he continued to struggle against the dark pull of sleep.

Finally, reality swept in, washed away the darkness. Engulfed in terror, Thomas opened his eyes and shot to a sitting position on his bed, scooted out until he got his feet under him and jumped up. Looked around.

Everything had gone crazy.

The other Gladers in the room were running around, shouting. And terrible, horrible, awful sounds filled the air, like the wretched squeals of animals being tortured. There was Frypan, pointing out a window, his face pale. Newt and Minho were running to the door. Winston, hands held up to his frightened, acne-plagued face like he’d just seen a flesh–eating zombie. Others stumbling over each other to look out the different windows, but keeping their distance from the glass. Achingly, Thomas realized he didn’t even know most of the names of the twenty boys who’d survived the Maze, an odd thought to have in the middle of all that chaos.

Something at the corner of his eye made him turn to look toward the wall. What he saw immediately wiped away any peace and safety he’d felt talking to Teresa in the night. Made him doubt such emotions could even exist in the same world in which he now stood.

Three feet from his bed, draped by colorful curtains, a window looked out into a bright, blinding light. The glass was broken, jagged shards leaning against crisscrossed steel bars. A man stood on the other side, gripping the bars with bloody hands. His eyes were wide and
bloodshot, filled with madness. Sores and scars covered his thin, sun–burnt face. He had no hair, only diseased splotches of what looked like greenish moss. A vicious slit stretched across his right cheek; Thomas could see teeth through the raw, festering wound. Pink saliva dribbled in swaying lines from the man’s chin.

“I’m a Crank!” the horror of a man yelled. “I’m a bloody Crank!”

And then he started screaming two words over and over and over, spit flying with every shriek.

“Kill me! Kill me! Kill me! …”

A hand slammed down on Thomas’s shoulder from behind; he cried out and spun around to see Minho staring past him at the maniac screaming through the window.

“They’re everywhere,” Minho said. His voice had a gloom to it that perfectly matched how Thomas felt. It seemed as if everything they’d dared hope for the previous night had dissolved to nothing. “And there’s no sign of those shanks who rescued us,” he added.

Thomas had lived in fear and terror the past few weeks, but this was almost too much. To feel safe only to have that snatched away again. Shocking even himself, though, he quickly set aside that small part of him that wanted to jump back into his bed and bawl his eyes out. He pushed away the lingering ache of remembering his mom and the stuff about his dad and people going crazy. Thomas knew that someone had to take charge—they needed a plan if they were going to survive this, too.

“Have any of them gotten in yet?” he asked, a strange calm washing over him. “Do all the windows have these bars?”

Minho nodded toward one of the many lining the walls of the long rectangular room. “Yeah. It was too dark to notice them last night, especially with those stupid frilly curtains. But I’m sure glad for ’em.”

Thomas looked at the Gladers around them, some running from window to window to get a look outside, others huddling in small groups. Everyone had a look of half disbelief, half terror. “Where’s Newt?”

“Right here.”

Thomas turned to see the older boy, not knowing how he’d missed him. “What’s goin’ on?”

“You think I have a bloody clue? Bunch of crazies want to eat us for breakfast, by the looks of it. We need to find another room, have a Gathering. All this noise is driving nails through my buggin’ skull.”

Thomas nodded absently; he agreed with the plan but hoped Newt and Minho would take care of it. He was eager to make contact with Teresa—he hoped her warning had just been part of a dream, a hallucination from the drug of deep and exhausted slumber. And that vision of his mom …

His two friends moved away, calling out and waving their arms to collect Gladers. Thomas took a tremulous glance back at the shredded madman at the window, then looked away immediately, wishing he hadn’t reminded his brain of the blood and torn flesh, the insane eyes, the hysterical screaming.

Kill me! Kill me! Kill me!

Thomas stumbled to the farthest wall, leaned heavily against it.

Teresa
, he called out again with his mind.
Teresa. Can you hear me?

He waited, closing his eyes to concentrate. Reaching out with invisible hands, trying to grasp some trace of her. Nothing. Not even a passing shadow or brush of feeling, much less a response.

Teresa
, he said more urgently, clenching his teeth with the effort.
Where are you? What happened?

Nothing. His heart seemed to slow until it almost stopped, and he felt like he’d swallowed a big hairy lump of cotton. Something had happened to her.

He opened his eyes to see the Gladers gathered around the green-painted door that led to the common area where they’d eaten pizza the night before. Minho was jerking on the round brass handle to no avail. Locked.

The only other door was to a shower and locker room, from which no other exits existed. There was that, and the windows. All with those metal bars. Thank goodness. Each one had raging lunatics screaming and yelling on the other side.

Even though worry ate at him like spilled acid in his veins, Thomas gave up momentarily on trying to contact Teresa and joined the other Gladers. Newt was having a go at the door, with the same useless result.

“It’s locked,” he muttered when he finally gave up, his arms falling weakly to his sides.

“Really, genius?” Minho said, his powerful arms folded and tensed, veins bulging all over the place. Thomas thought for a split second he could actually see the blood pumping through them. “No wonder you were named after Isaac Newton—such an amazing ability to think.”

Newt wasn’t in the mood. Or maybe he’d just learned long ago to ignore Minho’s smart-aleck remarks. “Let’s break this bloody handle off.” He looked around as if he expected someone to give him a sledgehammer.

“I wish those shuck … Cranks would shut up!” Minho yelled, turning to glower at the closest one, a woman who looked even more hideous than the first man Thomas had seen. A bleeding wound crossed her face, ending on the side of her head.

“Cranks?” Frypan repeated. The hairy cook had been silent until then, barely noticeable. Thomas thought he looked even more frightened than when they’d been about to battle the Grievers to escape the Maze. Maybe this was worse. When they’d settled into bed last night, everything had seemed good and safe. Yeah, maybe this
was
worse, to have that suddenly taken away.

Minho pointed at the screaming, bloody woman. “That’s what they keep calling themselves. Haven’t you heard it?”

“I don’t care if you call ’em pussy willows,” Newt snapped. “Find me something to break through this stupid door!”

“Here,” a shorter boy said, carrying a slender but solid fire extinguisher he’d taken off the wall—Thomas remembered seeing it earlier. Again, he felt guilty for not even knowing this kid’s name.

Newt grabbed the red cylinder, ready to pile-drive the door handle. Thomas stood as close as he could, eager to see what was on the other side of the door, though he had a very bad feeling that whatever it was, they weren’t going to like it.

Newt lifted the extinguisher, then slammed it down on the round brass handle. The loud crack was accompanied by a deeper crunch, and it took only three more whacks before the entire unit of the handle crashed to the floor with a jangle of broken metal pieces. The door inched outward, cracked open just enough to show darkness on the other side.

Newt stood quietly, staring at that long, narrow gap of blackness as if he expected demons from the underworld to come flying through. Absently, he handed the extinguisher back to the boy who’d found it. “Let’s go,” he said. Thomas thought he heard the slightest quaver in his voice.

“Wait,” Frypan called out. “We sure we wanna go out there? Maybe that door was locked for a reason.”

Thomas couldn’t help but agree; something felt wrong about this.

Minho stepped up to stand right next to Newt; he looked back at Frypan, then made eye contact with Thomas. “What else’re we gonna do? Sit here and wait for those loonies to get in? Come on.”

“Those freaks aren’t breaking through the window bars anytime soon,” Frypan retorted. “Let’s just
think
for a second”

“Time for thinking’s done,” Minho said. He kicked out with his
foot and the door swung completely open; if anything, it seemed to grow even darker on the other side. “Plus, you should’ve spoken up
before
we blasted the lock to bits, slinthead. Too late now.”

“I hate when you’re right,” Frypan grumbled under his breath.

Thomas couldn’t quit staring past the open door, into the pool of inky darkness. He felt a now-all-too-familiar clench of apprehension, knowing that something had to be wrong or the people who’d rescued them would’ve come for them a long time ago. But Minho and Newt were right—they had to go out there and find some answers.

“Shuck it,” Minho said. “I’ll go first.”

Without waiting for a response he walked through the open door, his body vanishing in the gloom almost instantly. Newt gave Thomas a hesitant look, then followed. For some reason Thomas thought it should be up to him to go next, so he did.

Step by step, he left the dorm room and entered the darkness of the common area, hands reaching out in front of him.

The glow of light coming from behind didn’t do much to illuminate things; he might as well have been walking with his eyes squeezed shut. And the place smelled. Horrible.

Minho yelped up ahead, then called back. “Whoa, be careful. Something … weird’s hanging from the ceiling.”

Thomas heard a slight squeak or groan, something creaking. As if Minho had bumped into a low-hanging chandelier, sending it swaying back and forth. A grunt from Newt somewhere to the right was followed by the squeal of metal dragging across the floor.

“Table,” Newt announced. “Watch out for tables.”

Frypan spoke up behind Thomas. “Does anyone remember where the light switches were?”

“That’s where I’m heading,” Newt responded. “I swear I remember seeing a set of them somewhere over here.”

Thomas continued walking blindly forward. His eyes had adjusted a little; where before, everything had been a wall of blackness, now he could see traces of shadows against shadows. Yet something was off. He was still a little disoriented, but things seemed to be in places they shouldn’t be. It was almost as if—

“Bluh-huh-huh,” Minho groaned, a shudder of repulsion, like he’d just stepped in a pile of klunk. Another creaking sound cut through the room.

Before Thomas could ask what had happened, he bumped into something himself. Hard. Awkwardly shaped. The feel of cloth.

“Found it!” Newt shouted.

A few clicks were heard; then the room suddenly blazed with fluorescent lights, temporarily blinding Thomas. He stumbled away from the thing he’d bumped into, rubbing his eyes, ran into another stiff figure, sent it swaying away from him.

“Whoa!” Minho yelled.

Thomas squinted; his vision cleared. He forced himself to look at the scene of horror around him.

Throughout the large room, people hung from the ceiling—at least a dozen. They’d all been strung up by the neck, the ropes twisted and trenched into purple, bloated skin. The stiff bodies swung to and fro ever so slightly, pale pink tongues lolling out of their white-lipped mouths. All of them had eyes open, though glazed over with certain death. By the looks of it, they’d been that way for hours. Their clothes and some of their faces looked familiar.

Thomas dropped to his knees.

He knew these dead people.

They were the ones who’d rescued the Gladers. Just the day before.

Thomas tried not to look at any of the dead bodies as he stood up. He half walked, half stumbled over to Newt, who was still by the bank of light switches, his terrified gaze darting between the corpses hanging throughout the room.

Minho joined them, swearing under his breath. Other Gladers were emerging from the dorm room, shouting as they realized what they were seeing; Thomas heard a couple of them throw up, gagging and spitting. He felt the sudden urge himself, but fought it. What had happened? How could everything be taken away from them so fast? His stomach tightened up as despair threatened to bowl him over.

Then he remembered Teresa.

Teresa!
he called out with his mind.
Teresa!
Again and again, mentally screaming it with his eyes closed and jaw clenched.
Where are you!

“Tommy,” Newt said, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. “What’s bloody wrong with you?”

Thomas opened his eyes, realized he was doubled over, arms wrapped around his stomach. He slowly straightened, tried to push away the panic eating him inside. “What … what do you think? Look around us.”