فصل 19

CHAPTER 19

Soon after dark, Thomas heard a girl screaming.

At first he didn’t know what he was hearing, or if maybe it was just his imagination. With the thumps of dry footsteps, the rustling of the packs, the whispers of conversation between heavy breaths, it was hard to tell. But what had started as almost a buzz inside his head soon became unmistakable. Somewhere ahead of them, maybe all the way in the town but more likely closer, a girl’s screams tore through the night.

The others had obviously noticed it, too, and soon the Gladers quit running. Once everyone caught their breath, it became easier to hear the disturbing sound.

It was almost like a cat. An injured, wailing cat. The kind of noise that made your skin crawl and made you press your hands to your ears and pray it went away. There was something unnatural about it, something that chilled Thomas inside and out. The darkness only added to the creepiness. Whoever the source, she still wasn’t very close, but her shrill screeches bounced along like living echoes, trying to smash their unspeakable sounds against the dirt until they ceased to exist in this world.

“You know what that reminds me of?” Minho asked, his voice a whisper with an edge of fear.

Thomas knew. “Ben. Alby. Me, I guess? Screaming after the Griever sting?”

“You got it.”

“No, no, no,” Frypan moaned. “Don’t tell me we’re gonna have those suckers out here, too. I can’t take it!” Newt responded, just a couple of feet to the left of Thomas and Aris. “Doubt it. Remember how moist and gooey their skin was? They’d turn into a big dust ball if they rolled around in this stuff.” “Well,” Thomas said, “if WICKED can create Grievers, they can create plenty of other freaks of nature that might be worse. Hate to say it, but that rat-lookin’ guy said things were finally going to get tough.” “Once again, Thomas gives us a cheerful pep talk,” Frypan announced; he tried to sound jovial, but it came out more like a spiteful rub.

“Just saying it how it is.”

Frypan huffed. “I know. And how it is sucks big-time.”

“What now?” Thomas asked.

“I think we should take a break,” Minho said. “Fill our little tummies and drink up. Then we should book it for as long as we can stand it while the sun is still down. Maybe get a couple hours’ sleep before dawn.” “And the psycho screaming lady out there?” Frypan asked.

“Sounds like she’s plenty busy with her own troubles.”

For some reason that statement terrified Thomas. Maybe the others, too, because no one said a word as they slipped the packs off their shoulders, sat down and began eating.

“Man, I wish she’d shut up.” It was about the fifth time Aris had said that as they ran along in the darker-than-dark night. The poor girl, somewhere out there, getting closer all the while, was still crying her fretful, high-pitched wails.

Their meal had been quiet and somber, the talk drifting toward what the Rat Man had said about the Variables and how their responses to them were all that mattered. About creating a “blueprint,” about finding the “killzone” patterns. No one had any answers, of course, only meaningless speculations. It was odd, Thomas thought. They now knew they were being tested somehow, put through WICKED’s trials. In some ways it felt like they should behave differently because of this, and yet they just kept going, fighting, surviving until they could get the promised cure. And that was what they’d keep doing; Thomas was sure of it.

It had taken a while for his legs and joints to loosen up once Minho got everyone moving again. Above them, the moon was a sliver, barely providing any more light than the stars. But you didn’t need to see much to run along flat and barren land. Plus, unless it was his imagination, they were actually starting to reach the lights from the town. He could see that they flickered now, which meant they were probably fires. Which made sense—the odds of having electricity in this wasteland hovered around zero.

He wasn’t sure when it happened exactly, but suddenly the cluster of buildings they were running toward seemed a lot closer. And there were a lot more of them than he or anyone else had thought. Taller, too. Wider. Spread out and organized in rows and in an orderly fashion. For all they knew, the place might’ve once been a major city, devastated by whatever had happened to the area. Could sun flares really inflict that much damage? Or had other things caused it during the aftermath?

Thomas was starting to think they’d actually reach the first buildings sometime the next day.

Even though they didn’t need the cover of their sheet at the moment, Aris still jogged right next to him, and Thomas felt like talking. “Tell me more about your whole Maze thing.” Aris’s breaths were even; he seemed to be in just as good shape as Thomas. “My whole Maze thing? What’s that supposed to mean?” “You’ve never really told us the details. What was it like for you? How long were you there? How’d you get out?” Aris answered over the soft crunch, crunch, crunch of their footsteps on the desert ground. “I’ve talked with some of your friends, and it sounds like a lot of it was exactly the same. Just … girls instead of guys. Some of them had been there for two years, the rest had shown up one at a time, once a month. Then came Rachel, then me the next day, in a coma. I barely remember anything, just those last few crazy days after I finally woke up.” He went on to explain what had happened, and so much of it matched what Thomas and the Gladers had been through, it was just plain bizarre. Almost impossible to believe. Aris came out of his coma, said something about the Ending, the walls quit shutting at night, their Box stopped coming, they figured out the Maze had a code, on and on and on until the escape. Which went down almost the same as the Gladers’ terrifying experience, except less of the girl group died—if they were tough like Teresa, this didn’t surprise Thomas in the least.

In the end, once Aris and his group were in the final chamber, a girl named Beth—who’d disappeared days earlier, just like Gally had—killed Rachel, right before rescuers came in and whisked them away to the gym Aris had mentioned before. Then the rescuers took him to the place where the Gladers had finally discovered him—what had been Teresa’s room.

If that was what had happened. Who knew how things worked anymore, after seeing what could happen at the Cliff and the Flat Trans that had taken them to the tunnel. Not to mention the bricked-up walls and the name change on Aris’s door.

It all gave Thomas a big fat headache.

When he tried to think of Group B and imagine their roles—how he and Aris were basically switched, and how Aris was actually Teresa’s counterpart—it twisted his mind. The fact that Chuck had been killed in the end instead of him … that was the only major difference that stood out in the parallels. Were the setups meant to instigate certain conflicts or provoke reactions for WICKED’s studies?

“It’s all kind of freaky, huh?” Aris asked after letting Thomas digest his story for a while.

“I don’t know what the word for it is. But it blows me away how the two groups went through these trippy parallel experiments. Or tests, trials, whatever they were. I mean, if they’re testing our responses, I guess it makes sense that we were put through the same thing. Weird, though.” Right when Thomas stopped speaking the girl in the distance let out a shriek even louder than her now-regular cries of pain and he felt a fresh rush of horror.

“I think I know,” Aris said, so quietly Thomas wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly.

“Huh?”

“I think I know. Why there were two groups. Are two groups.”

Thomas looked over at him, could barely see the surprising look of calm on his face. “You do? What then?” Aris still didn’t seem very winded. “Well, actually I have two ideas. One is I think these people—WICKED, whoever they are—are trying to weed out the best of both groups to use us somehow. Maybe even breed us or something like that.” “What?” Thomas was so surprised he almost forgot about the screaming. He couldn’t believe anyone would be so sick. “Breed us? Come on.” “After going through the Maze and what we just saw happen in that tunnel, you think breeding is far-fetched? Give me a break.” “Good that.” Thomas had to admit that the kid had a point. “Okay, so what was your other theory?” As he asked it Thomas could feel the weariness brought on by the run settling in; his throat felt like someone had poured a glassful of sand down his gullet.

“Kind of the opposite,” Aris responded. “That instead of wanting survivors from both groups, they only want one group to live through to the end. So they’re either weeding out people from the guys and the girls, or an entire group altogether. Either way, it’s the only explanation I can think of.” Thomas thought about what he’d said for quite some time before responding. “But what about the stuff the Rat Man said? That they’re testing our responses, building some kind of blueprint? Maybe it’s an experiment. Maybe they don’t plan for any of us to survive. Maybe they’re studying our brains and our reactions and our genes and everything else. When it’s all done, we’ll be dead and they’ll have lots of reports to read.” “Hmm,” Aris grunted, considering. “Possibly. I keep trying to figure out why they had one member of the opposite sex in each group.” “Maybe to see what kind of fights or problems it would cause. Study people’s reactions—it’s kind of a unique situation.” Thomas almost wanted to laugh. “I love how we’re talking about this—like we’re deciding when we need to stop for a klunk.” Aris actually did laugh, a dry chuckle that made Thomas feel better—actually made him like the new kid even more. “Man, don’t say that. I’ve had to go for at least an hour.” It was Thomas’s turn to snicker, and right on cue, like he’d heard Aris calling for it, Minho yelled out for everyone to stop.

“Potty break,” he said with his hands on his hips as he caught his breath. “Bury your klunk and don’t do it too close. We’ll rest for fifteen, then we’ll just walk awhile. I know you shanks can’t keep up with Runners like me and Thomas.” Thomas tuned out—he didn’t need directions on how to use the bathroom—and turned to get a look at where they’d stopped. He took a deep, full breath, and when he relaxed his eyes caught on something. A dark shadow of a shape a few hundred yards in front of them, but not directly in the path of their journey. A square of darkness against the faint glow of the town up ahead. It stood out so distinctly he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it until now.

“Hey!” he yelled, pointing toward it. “Looks like a little building up there, just a few minutes away, to the right some. You guys see it?” “Yeah, I see it,” Minho responded, walking up to stand next to him. “Wonder what it is.”

Before Thomas could respond, two things happened almost simultaneously.

First, the haunted screams of the mystery girl stopped, instantly, cut short as if a door had closed on her. Then, stepping out from behind the dark building up ahead, the figure of a girl appeared, long hair flowing from her shadowed head like black silk.