The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner Book 2) (16)
CHAPTER
16
Thomas
had a sickening thought as he pushed his way down the stairs after Winston. He
didn’t know if he was going because he wanted to help him or because he
couldn’t control his curiosity about this silvery monster-ball.
Winston
eventually thumped to a stop, his back coming to rest by chance on one of the
steps; they were still nowhere close to the bottom. The brilliant light from
the open door up top illuminated everything with perfect clarity. Both of
Winston’s hands were at his face, pulling at the silver liquid—the ball of molten
metal had already melded with the top of his head, consuming the part above the
ears. Now its edges were creeping downward like thick syrup, lipping over the
ears and covering his eyebrows.
Thomas
jumped over the boy’s body and spun around to kneel on the step directly below
him; Winston pulled and pushed at the silver goop to keep it off his eyes.
Surprisingly, it seemed to be working. But the boy was screaming at the top of
his lungs, thrashing, his feet kicking the wall.
“Get
it off me!” he yelled, his voice so strangled that Thomas almost gave up and ran
away. If the stuff hurt that bad …
It
looked like a very dense silver gel. Persistent and stubborn—like it was alive.
As soon as Winston pushed a portion of it up and off his eyes, some of it would
slip around his fingers from the side and try again. Thomas could see glimpses
of the skin on his face when he did this, and it wasn’t pretty. Red and blistering.
Winston
cried out something unintelligible—his tortured screams could have been in
another language altogether. Thomas knew he had to do something. Time had run
out.
He
threw the pack off his shoulders and dumped the contents; fruits and packages
scattered and thumped down the stairs. He took the bedsheet and wrapped it
around his hands for protection, then went for it. As Winston swiped at the
molten silver right above his eyes again, Thomas grabbed for the sides that had
just gone over the boy’s ears. He felt heat through the cloth, thought it might
burst into flame. He braced his feet, squeezed the stuff as hard as he could,
then yanked.
With
a disturbing sucking sound, the sides of the attacking metal lifted several
inches before slipping out of his hands and slapping back down onto Winston’s
ears. Impossibly, the boy screamed even louder. A couple of other Gladers tried
to move in to help, but Thomas shouted for them to back off, thinking they’d
only get in the way.
“We
have to do it together!” Thomas yelled at Winston, determined to get a stronger
hold this time.
“Listen
to me, Winston! We have to do it together! Try to get a grip on it and lift it
off your head!”
The
other boy didn’t show any sign of understanding, his whole body convulsing as
he struggled. If Thomas hadn’t been on the step below him, he would’ve tumbled
down the rest of the way for sure by now.
“On
the count of three!” Thomas yelled. “Winston! On the count of three!”
Still
no sign he’d heard. Screaming. Thrashing. Kicking. Slapping at the silver.
Tears
welled up in Thomas’s eyes, or maybe it was sweat trickling down from his
forehead. But it stung. And he felt like the air had heated up to a million
degrees. His muscles tensed; lances of pain shot through his legs. They were
cramping.
“Just
do it!” he yelled, ignoring it all and leaning in to try again. “One! Two!
Now!”
He
gripped the sides of the stretching silver, felt its odd combination of soft
toughness, then yanked once again up and away from Winston’s head. Winston
must’ve heard, or maybe it was luck, but at the same time, he pushed at the
goop with the heels of his hands, like he was trying to rip off his own forehead.
The entire mess of silver came off, a wobbly, thick and heavy sheet of the
stuff. Thomas didn’t hesitate; he flung his arms up and threw the junk over his
head and down the stairwell, then spun around on his heels to see what
happened.
As
it flew through the air, the silver quickly formed back into a sphere, its
surface rippling for a moment, then solidifying. It stopped just a few steps
down from them, hovered for a second, like it was taking a long and lasting
look at its victim, perhaps thinking over what had gone wrong. Then it shot
away, flying down the stairway until it disappeared in the darkness far below.
It
was gone. For some reason, it hadn’t attacked again.
Thomas
sucked in huge gasps of air; every inch of his body felt drenched with sweat.
He leaned his shoulder against the wall, scared to look back at Winston, who
was whimpering behind him. At least the screams had stopped.
Thomas
finally turned around and faced him.
The
kid was a mess. Curled up into a ball, shaking. The hair on his head had
vanished, replaced with raw skin and spots of seeping blood. His ears were cut
and ragged, but whole. He sobbed, surely from the pain, probably also from the
trauma of what he’d just been through. The acne on his face looked clean and fresh
compared to the raw wounds on the rest of his head.
“You
okay, man?” Thomas asked, knowing it had to be the dumbest question he’d ever
spoken aloud.
Winston
shook his head with a quick jerk; his body continued to tremble.
Thomas
looked up to see Minho and Newt and Aris and all the other Gladers just a
couple of steps above them, all staring down in complete shock. The brilliant
glare from above shadowed their faces, but Thomas could still see their
eyes—wide like those of cats stunned by a spotlight.
“What
was that shuck thing?” Minho murmured.
Thomas
couldn’t bring himself to speak, just shook his head wearily.
Newt
was the one to answer. “Magic goop that eats people’s heads, that’s what it
bloody was.”
“Has
to be some kind of new technology.” This came from Aris, the first time Thomas
had seen him participate in a discussion. The boy looked around, obviously
noticing the surprised faces, then shrugged as if embarrassed and continued.
“I’ve had a few splotchy memories come back. I know the world has some pretty
advanced techno stuff—but I don’t remember anything like flying molten metal
that tries to cut off body parts.”
Thomas
thought about his own sketchy memories. Certainly nothing like that came to
mind for him, either.
Minho
pointed absently down the stairwell past Thomas. “That crap must keep gelling
around your face, then eat into the flesh of your neck until it cuts clean
through it. Nice. That’s real nice.”
“Did
you see? Thing came right out of the ceiling!” Frypan said. “We better get out
of here. Now.”
“Couldn’t
agree more,” Newt added.
Minho
glanced down at Winston with a look of disgust, and Thomas followed his gaze.
The kid had quit shaking, and his sobs had calmed to a stifled whimper. But he
looked awful, and was surely scarred for life. Thomas couldn’t imagine hair ever
growing back on the red, raw mess of his head.
“Frypan,
Jack!” Minho called out. “Get Winston on his feet, help him along. Aris, you
gather the klunk he dropped, have a couple of guys help you carry it. We’re
leaving. I don’t care how bright or brutal that light is up there—I don’t feel
like having my head turned into a bowling ball today.”
He
turned around without waiting to see if people followed his orders. It was a
move that, for some reason, made Thomas think the guy would end up making a
good leader after all. “Come on, Thomas and Newt,” he called over his shoulder.
“The three of us are going through first.”
Thomas
exchanged glances with Newt, who returned a look that had a little fear in it
but was mostly full of curiosity. An eagerness to move on. Thomas felt it
himself, and hated to admit that anything seemed better than dealing with the
aftermath of what had happened to Winston.
“Let’s
go,” Newt said, his voice rising on the second word, as if they had no choice
but to do what they were told. Though his face revealed the truth: he wanted to
get away from poor Winston just as much as Thomas did.
Thomas
nodded and carefully stepped over Winston, trying not to look at the skin on
his injured head again. It was making him sick. He moved to the side to let
Frypan, Jack and Aris past him to do their jobs, then started up the stairs,
two at a time. Following Newt and Minho to the top, where it seemed like the sun
itself waited just outside the open door.
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