The Scorch Trials (The Maze Runner Book 2) (59)
CHAPTER
59
Teresa
handed Thomas a really long knife, almost a sword. He couldn’t imagine where
she’d been hiding these things, but she now held a short dagger in addition to
her spear.
As
the lighted giants stepped closer and closer, Minho and Harriet spoke to their
respective groups, moving them around, positioning them, their shouts and
commands torn away by the wind before Thomas could hear anything. He dared take
his eyes off the approaching monsters long enough to look at the sky. Tendrils
of lightning forked and arced across the bottom of the dark clouds, which
seemed to hang only a few dozen feet above them. The acrid smell of electricity
permeated the air.
Thomas
looked back down, concentrated on the creature closest to him. Minho and
Harriet had been able to get the groups to stand together in an almost perfect
circle, facing outward. Teresa stood next to Thomas, and he would’ve said
something to her if he could’ve thought of anything. He was speechless.
WICKED’s
latest abominations were only thirty feet away.
Teresa
finally elbowed him in the ribs. He looked to see her pointing at one of the
creatures, telling Thomas—making sure he knew—that she’d chosen her foe. He
nodded, then gestured toward the one he’d been thinking was his all along.
Twenty-five
feet away.
Thomas
had the sudden thought that it was a mistake to wait for them—that they needed
to be spread out more. Minho must’ve had the same idea.
“Now!”
their leader yelled, a bare and distant bark because of the storm’s sounds.
“Charge them!”
A
slew of thoughts spun through Thomas’s mind in that instant. Worry for Teresa,
despite the changes between them. Worry for Brenda—standing stoically just a
few people down the line from him—and regret over how they had barely spoken
since being reunited. He imagined her having come all this way only to be
killed by a vicious man-made creature. He thought of the Grievers, and his and
Chuck and Teresa’s charge back in the Maze to get to the Cliff and the Hole,
the Gladers fighting and dying for them so they could punch in the code and
stop it all.
He
thought of all they’d gone through to arrive at this point, once again facing a
biotech army sent by WICKED. He wondered what it all meant, whether it was
worth trying to survive anymore. The image of Chuck taking that knife for him
popped into his head. And that did it. Snapped him out of those nanoseconds of
frozen doubt and fear. Screaming at the top of his lungs, he wielded his huge
knife with both hands above his head and rushed forward, straight for his
monster.
To
his left and right, the others also charged, but he ignored them. He had to,
forced himself to. If he couldn’t take care of his own assignment, worrying
about others wouldn’t amount to anything.
He
closed in. Fifteen feet. Ten feet. Five. The creature had stopped walking,
bracing its legs in a fighting stance, hands outstretched, blades pointing
directly at Thomas. Those shining orange lights pulsed now, flaring and
receding, flaring and receding, as if the hideous thing actually had a heart
somewhere inside. It was disturbing to see no face on the monster, but it
helped Thomas think of it as nothing more than a machine. Nothing more than a
man-made weapon that wanted him dead.
Right
before he reached the creature, Thomas made a decision. He dropped to slide on
his knees and shins and swung the swordlike weapon in an arc behind and around
him, slamming the blade into the monster’s left leg with a full and powerful
two-handed thrust. The knife cut an inch into its skin but then clanked against
something hard enough to send a jolt shivering up both of Thomas’s arms.
The
creature didn’t move, didn’t retract, didn’t let out any sort of sound, human
or inhuman. Instead it swiped downward with both blade-studded hands where
Thomas now knelt before it, his sword embedded in the monster’s flesh. Thomas
jerked it free and lunged backward just as those blades clattered against each
other where his head had been. He fell on his back and scooted away from the creature
as it took two steps forward, kicking out with the knives on its feet, barely
missing Thomas.
The
monster let out a roar this time—a sound almost exactly like the haunted moans
of the Grievers— and dropped to the ground, thrashing its arms, trying to
impale Thomas. Thomas spun away, rolling three times as he heard metal tips
scraping along the dirt-packed ground. He finally took a chance and jumped to
his feet, immediately sprinting several yards away before turning around, sword
gripped in his hands. The creature was just getting to its own feet, slicing at
the air with its stubby bladed fingers.
Thomas
sucked in huge gulps of air and could see the others battling in his peripheral
vision. Minho jabbing and stabbing with knives in both hands, the monster
actually taking steps backward, away from him. Newt scrambling across the
ground, the creature he fought lumbering after him, obviously injured. Slowing.
Teresa was the closest to him, jumping and dodging and poking her foe with the
butt of her spear. Why was she doing that? Her monster seemed to be badly hurt
as well.
Thomas
pulled his attention back to his own battle. A blur of silver movement made him
duck, a wisp of wind in his hair from the swipe of the creature’s arm. Thomas
spun, crouched close to the ground, stabbing at anything he could as the
monster pursued him, barely missing him with several more attacks. Thomas
connected with one of the orange bulb growths, smashing it in a flash of
sparks; the light died instantly. Knowing his luck had to be running short, he
dove toward the ground, tucking and rolling again until he sprang to his feet a
couple of yards away.
The
creature had paused—at least as long as it had taken Thomas to make his escape
move—but now it came after him again. An idea formed in Thomas’s mind, and it
grew to clarity when he looked back at Teresa’s fight, her creature now moving
in jilted, slow attacks. She kept after the bulbs, popping them as they
exploded in that same display of fireworks. She’d destroyed at least
three-fourths of the odd growths.
The
bulbs. All he needed to do was destroy the bulbs. Somehow they were linked to
the creature’s power or life or strength. Could it really be that easy?
A
quick glance around the rest of the battlefield showed that a few others had
also gotten the idea, but most hadn’t, fighting with bloody desperation to hack
at limbs, muscles, skin, missing the bulbs entirely. A couple of people already
lay on the ground, covered in wounds, lifeless. One boy. One girl.
Thomas
changed his whole method. Instead of charging recklessly, he jumped in and took
a jab at one of the bulbs on the monster’s chest. He missed, slicing into the
wrinkled, yellowish skin. The creature swiped at him, but he pulled back just
as the very tips of the blades ripped jagged holes in his shirt. Then he thrust
again, poking once more at the same bulb. He connected this time, bursting it
and sending out a spray of sparks. The creature halted for a full second, then
snapped back to battle mode.
Thomas
circled the creature, jumping in and back again, poking, jabbing, thrusting.
Pop,
pop, pop.
One
of the monster’s blades sliced across his forearm, leaving a long line of
bright red. Thomas went in again. And again. Again.
Pop,
pop, pop.
Sparks flying, the creature shuddering and jerking with each break.
The
pause got a little bit longer with every successful stab. Thomas felt a few
more scrapes and slices, but nothing serious. He kept at it, attacking those
orange spheres.
Pop,
pop, pop.
Every
small victory sapped the creature’s strength, and it gradually began to visibly
slump, though it didn’t stop trying to cut Thomas to pieces. Bulb by bulb, each
one easier than the one before it, Thomas attacked relentlessly. If only he
could quickly finish it off, make it die. Then he could run around and help others.
End this thing once and for—
A
blinding light flashed behind him, then a sound like the entire universe
exploding ripped away his brief moment of exhilaration and hope. A wave of
invisible power knocked him over and he fell flat onto his stomach, the sword
clattering away from him. The creature fell, too, and a burnt smell singed the
air. Thomas rolled onto his side to look, saw a massive black hole in the
ground, charred and smoking. A bladed foot and hand from one of the monsters
lay on the hole’s edge. No sign of the rest of the body.
It’d
been a lightning strike. Right behind him. The storm had finally broken.
Even
as he had the thought, he looked up to see thick shards of white heat start
falling from the black clouds above.
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