The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner Book 2) (18)
CHAPTER
18
Thomas
stared at the runners. He sensed that the other Gladers around him had stopped
as well, as if there’d been an unspoken command to do so. Thomas shivered, something
that seemed completely impossible in the sweltering heat. He didn’t know why he
felt the tickle of cold fear along his back—the Gladers outnumbered the
approaching strangers almost ten times over—but the feeling was undeniable.
“Everyone
pack in tighter,” Minho said. “And get ready to fight these shanks the first
sign of trouble.”
The
blurry mirage of upward-melting heat obscured the two figures until they were
only a hundred yards or so away. Thomas’s muscles tensed when they came into
focus. He remembered all too well what he’d seen through the barred window just
a few mornings ago. The Cranks. But these people scared him in a different way.
They
stopped just a couple of dozen feet in front of the Gladers. One was a man, the
other a woman, though Thomas could only tell this from the lady’s slightly
curvy figure. Other than that, they had the same build—tall and scrawny. Their
heads and faces were almost completely covered in wrappings of tattered beige
cloth, small ragged slits cut for them to see and breathe through. Their shirts
and pants were a hodgepodge of filthy clothing sewn together, tied with ratty
strips of denim in some places. Nothing was exposed to the beating sun but
their hands, and those were red and cracked and scabby.
The
two of them stood there, panting as they caught their breath, a sound like sick
dogs.
“Who
are you?” Minho called out.
The
strangers didn’t respond, didn’t move. Their chests heaved in and out. Thomas
observed them from under his makeshift hood—he couldn’t imagine how anyone
could run so far and not die of heat exhaustion.
“Who
are you?” Minho repeated.
Instead
of answering, the two strangers split apart and started walking in a broad
circle around the bunched-up Gladers. Their eyes, hidden behind the slits in
those odd mummy wrappings, stayed fixed on the boys as they made their way in a
wide arc, as if sizing them up for a kill. Thomas felt the tension inside him
rise, hated when he could no longer see both of them at once. He turned around
and watched as they met back up behind the group and once again faced them,
standing still.
“There
are a whole lot more of us than there are of you,” Minho said, his voice
betraying his frustration. To threaten them so soon seemed desperate. “Start talking.
Tell us who you are.”
“We’re
Cranks.”
The
two words came from the woman, a short burst of guttural annoyance. For no
discernible reason she pointed across the Gladers back toward the town from
which they’d run.
“Cranks?”
Minho said; he had pushed his way through the crowd to be closest to the
strangers again. “Just like the ones that tried to break into our building a
couple days ago?”
Thomas
cringed—these people would have no idea what Minho was talking about. Somehow
the Gladers had traveled a long way from wherever that place had been—through
the Flat Trans.
“We’re
Cranks.” This time from the man, his voice surprisingly lighter and less gruff
than the woman’s. But there was no kindness in it. He pointed over the Gladers
just like his companion had done. “Came to see if you’re Cranks. Came to see if
you’ve got the Flare.”
Minho
turned to look at Thomas and then a few others, his eyebrows raised. No one
said anything. He turned back. “Some dude told us we had the Flare, yeah. What
can you tell us about it?”
“Don’t
matter,” the man responded; the strips of cloth wrapped around his face jiggled
with every word. “You got it, you’ll know soon enough.”
“Well,
what do you bloody want?” Newt asked, stepping up to stand next to Minho.
“What’s it matter to you if we’re Cranks or not?”
The
woman responded this time, acting as if she hadn’t heard the questions. “How’d
you get in the Scorch? Where’d you come from? How’d you get here?”
Thomas
was surprised at the … intelligence evident in her words. The Cranks they’d
seen back at the dorm had seemed absolutely insane, like animals. These people
were aware enough to realize that their group had appeared out of nowhere.
Nothing lay in the opposite direction from the town.
Minho
leaned over to consult with Newt, then turned and stepped closer to Thomas.
“What do we tell these people?”
Thomas
had no clue. “I don’t know. The truth? It can’t hurt.”
“The
truth?” Minho said sarcastically. “What an idea, Thomas. You’re freaking
brilliant, as usual.” He faced the Cranks again. “We were sent here by WICKED.
Came out of a hole just a little while that way, from a tunnel. We’re supposed
to go one hundred miles to the north, cross the Scorch. Any of that mean a thing
to you?”
Once
again, it was as if they hadn’t heard a word he’d said.
“Not
all Cranks are gone,” the man said. “Not all of them are past the Gone.” He
said that last word in a way that made it sound like the name of a place.
“Different ones at different levels. Best you learn who to make friends with
and who to avoid. Or kill. Better learn right quick if you’re coming our way.”
“What’s
your way?” Minho asked. “You came from that town, right? Is that where all
these Cranks live? Is there food and water there?”
Thomas
felt the same urge as Minho—to ask a million questions. He was half tempted to
suggest they capture these two Cranks and make them answer. But for the
moment the pair didn’t seem intent on helping at all, and they split again to
circle back around to the side of the Gladers closest to the town.
Once
they met up in the spot where they’d first spoken, the distant town almost
seeming to float between them, the woman said one last thing. “If you don’t
have it yet, you’ll have it soon. Same with the other group. The ones that’re
supposed to kill you.”
The
two strangers then turned around and ran back toward the cluster of buildings
on the horizon, leaving Thomas and the other Gladers in stunned silence. Soon,
any evidence of the running Cranks was lost in a blur of heat and dust.
“Other
group?” someone said. Maybe Frypan. Thomas was in too much of a trance staring
at the disappearing Cranks and worrying about the Flare to notice.
“Wonder
if they’re talking about my group.” This was definitely Aris. Thomas finally
forced himself to snap out of his gaze.
“Group
B?” he asked him. “You think they’ve already made it to the town?”
“Hello!”
Minho snapped. “Who cares? You’d think the little part about them supposedly
killing us would be the attention getter. Maybe this stuff about the Flare?”
Thomas
thought of the tattoo on the back of his neck. Those simple words that scared
him. “Maybe when she said ‘you’ she didn’t mean all of us.” He jabbed a thumb
over his shoulder, pointing down at his menacing mark. “Maybe she meant me
specifically. Couldn’t tell where her eyes were looking.”
“How’s
she gonna know who you are?” Minho retorted. “Plus, doesn’t matter. If someone
tries to kill you, or me, or anyone else, they might as well try to get all of
us. Right?”
“You’re
so sweet,” Frypan said with a snort. “Go ahead and die with Thomas. I think
I’ll sneak away and enjoy living with the guilt.” He cast his special look that
meant he was only kidding, but Thomas wondered if a little truth might be
hiding in there somewhere.
“Well,
what do we do now?” Jack asked. He had Winston’s arm around one of his
shoulders, but the former Keeper of the Blood House seemed to have recovered
some of his strength. Luckily the sheet covered the hideous parts of his head.
“What
do you think?” Newt asked, but then he nodded at Minho.
Minho
rolled his eyes. “We keep going, that’s what. Look, we don’t have a choice. If
we don’t go to that town, we’re gonna die out here of sunstroke or starvation.
If we do go, we’ll have some shelter for a while, maybe even food.
Cranks or no Cranks, that’s where we’re going.”
“And
Group B?” Thomas asked; he glanced over at Aris. “Or whoever they were talking
about. What if they really do wanna kill us? All we have to fight with are our
hands.”
Minho
flexed his right arm. “If these people are really the girls Aris was hanging out
with, I’ll show ’em these guns of mine and they’ll go runnin’.”
Thomas
kept pushing. “And if these girls have weapons? Or can fight? Or if it’s not
them at all but a bunch of seven-foot-tall grunts who like to eat humans? Or a
thousand Cranks?”
“Thomas
… no. Everybody.” Minho let out an exasperated sigh. “Would everyone just shut
their holes and slim it? No more questions. Unless you have an idea that
doesn’t involve absolute certain death, then quit your pipin’ and let’s take
the only chance we got. Get it?”
Thomas
smiled, though he didn’t know where the impulse came from. Somehow in a few
sentences Minho had cheered him up, or at least given him a little hope. They
just had to go, to move, to do. That was it.
“That’s
better,” Minho said with a satisfied nod. “Anybody else wanna pee their pants
and cry for Mommy?”
A
few snickers broke out, but no one said anything.
“Good.
Newt, you lead up front this time, limp and all. Thomas, you in the back. Jack,
get someone else to help with Winston to give you a break. Let’s go.”
And
so they did. Aris held the pack this time, and Thomas felt as if he were almost
floating along the ground, it felt so good. The only hard part was holding that
sheet up, his arm growing weak and rubbery. But on and on they went, sometimes
walking, sometimes jogging.
Luckily,
the sun seemed to gain weight and drop more quickly the closer it got to the
horizon. By Thomas’s wristwatch, the Cranks had only been gone an hour when the
sky turned a purplish orange and the intense glare of the sun started to melt
away into a more pleasant glow. Not long after that, it disappeared below the
horizon altogether, pulling nighttime and stars across the sky like a curtain.
The
Gladers kept moving, heading toward the faint twinkle of lights coming from the
town. Thomas could almost enjoy it now that he wasn’t holding the pack and
they’d put the sheet away.
Finally,
when every last trace of dusk had gone, full darkness settled on the land like
a black fog.
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