“You did it, Chuck,” Teresa said. “We were so worried about the stupid code words, we didn’t think to look around for something to push -the last word, the last piece of the puzzle.”
Thomas laughed again, in disbelief that such a thing could be possible so soon after what they’d gone through. “She’s right, Chuck-you saved us, man! I told you we needed you!” Thomas scrambled to his feet and joined the other two in a group hug, almost delirious. “Chuck’s a shucking hero!”
“What about the others?” Teresa said with a nod toward the Griever Hole. Thomas felt his elation wither, and he stepped back and turned toward the Hole.
As if in answer to her question, someone fell through the black square-it was Minho, looking as if he’d been scratched or stabbed on ninety percent of his body.
“Minho!” Thomas shouted, filled with relief. “Are you okay? What about everybody else?”
Minho stumbled toward the curved wall of the tunnel, then leaned there, gulping big breaths. “We lost a ton of people… It’s a mess of blood up there… then they all just shut down.” He paused, taking in a really deep breath and letting it go in a rush of air. “You did it. I can’t believe it actually worked.”
Newt came through then, followed by Frypan. Then Winston and others. Before long eighteen boys had joined Thomas and his friends in the tunnel, making a total of twenty-one Gladers in all. Every last one of those who’d stayed behind and fought was covered in Griever sludge and human blood, their clothes ripped to shreds.
“The rest?” Thomas asked, terrified of the answer.
“Half of us,” Newt said, his voice weak. “Dead.”
No one said a word then. No one said a word for a very long time.
“You know what?” Minho said, standing up a little taller. “Half might’ve died, but half of us shucking lived. And nobody got stung-just like Thomas thought. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
Too many, Thomas thought. Too many by far. His joy dribbled away, turned into a deep mourning for the twenty people who’d lost their lives. Despite the alternative, despite knowing that if they hadn’t tried to escape, all of them might’ve died, it still hurt, even though he hadn’t known them very well. Such a display of death-how could it be considered a victory?
“Let’s get out of here,” Newt said. “Right now.”
“Where do we go?” Minho asked.
Thomas pointed down the long tunnel. “I heard the door open down that way.” He tried to push away the ache of it all-the horrors of the battle they’d just won. The losses. He pushed it away, knowing they were nowhere near safe yet.
“Well-let’s go,” Minho answered. And the older boy turned and started walking up the tunnel without waiting for a response.
Newt nodded, ushering the other Gladers past him to follow. One by one they went until only he remained with Thomas and Teresa.
“I’ll go last,” Thomas said.
No one argued. Newt went, then Chuck, then Teresa, into the black tunnel. Even the flashlights seemed to get swallowed by the darkness. Thomas followed, not even bothering to look back at the dead Grievers.
After a minute or so of walking, he heard a shriek from ahead, followed by another, then another. Their cries faded, as if they were falling…
Murmurs made their way down the line, and finally Teresa turned to Thomas. “Looks like it ends in a slide up there, shooting downward.”
Thomas’s stomach turned at the thought. It seemed like it was a game-for whoever had built the place, at least.
One by one he heard the Gladers’ dwindling shouts and hoots up ahead. Then it was Newt’s turn, then Chuck’s. Teresa shone her light down on a steeply descending, slick black chute of metal.
Guess we have no choice, she said to his mind.
Guess not. Thomas had a strong feeling it wasn’t a way out of their nightmare; he just hoped it didn’t lead to another pack of Grievers.
Teresa slipped down the slide with an almost cheerful shriek, and Thomas followed her before he could talk himself out of it-anything was better than the Maze.
His body shot down a steep decline, slick with an oily goo that smelled awful-like burnt plastic and overused machinery. He twisted his body until he got his feet in front of him, then tried to hold his hands out to slow himself down. It was useless-the greasy stuff covered every inch of the stone; he couldn’t grip anything.
The screams of the other Gladers echoed off the tunnel walls as they slid down the oily chute. Panic gripped Thomas’s heart. He couldn’t fight off the image that they’d been swallowed by some gigantic beast and were sliding down its long esophagus, about to land in its stomach at any second. And as if his thoughts had materialized, the smells changed-to something more like mildew and rot. He started gagging; it took all his effort not to throw up on himself.
The tunnel began to twist, turning in a rough spiral, just enough to slow them down, and Thomas’s feet smacked right into Teresa, hitting her in the head; he recoiled and a feeling of complete misery sank over him. They were still falling. Time seemed to stretch out, endless.
Around and around they went down the tube. Nausea burned in his stomach-the squishing of the goo against his body, the smell, the circling motion. He was just about to turn his head to the side to throw up when Teresa let out a sharp cry-this time there was no echo. A second later, Thomas flew out of the tunnel and landed on her.
Bodies scrambled everywhere, people on top of people, groaning and squirming in confusion as they tried to push away from each other. Thomas wiggled his arms and legs to scoot away from Teresa, then crawled a few more feet to throw up, emptying his stomach.
Still shuddering from the experience, he wiped at his mouth with his hand, only to realize it was covered in slimy filth. He sat up, rubbing both hands on the ground, and he finally got a good look at where they’d arrived. As he gaped, he saw, also, that everyone else had pulled themselves together into a group, taking in the new surroundings. Thomas had seen glimpses of it during the Changing, but didn’t truly remember it until that very moment.
They were in a huge underground chamber big enough to hold nine or ten Homesteads. From top to bottom, side to side, the place was covered in all kinds of machinery and wires and ducts and computers. On one side of the room-to his right-there was a row of forty or so large white pods that looked like enormous coffins. Across from that on the other side stood large glass doors, although the lighting made it impossible to see what was on the other side.
“Look!” someone shouted, but he’d already seen it, his breath catching in his throat. Goose bumps broke out all over him, a creepy fear trickling down his spine like a wet spider.
Directly in front of them, a row of twenty or so darkly tinged windows stretched across the compound horizontally, one after the other. Behind each one, a person-some men, some women, all of them pale and thin-sat observing the Gladers, staring through the glass with squinted eyes. Thomas shuddered, terrified-they all looked like ghosts. Angry, starving, sinister apparitions of people who’d never been happy when alive, much less dead.
But Thomas knew they were not, of course, ghosts. They were the people who’d sent them all to the Glade. The people who’d taken their lives away from them.
The Creators.
CHAPTER 59
Thomas took a step backward, noticing others doing the same. A deathly silence sucked the life out of the air as every last Glader stared at the row of windows, at the row of observers. Thomas watched one of them look down to write something, another reach up and put on a pair of glasses. They all wore black coats over white shirts, a word stitched on their right breast-he couldn’t quite make out what it said. None of them wore any kind of discernible facial expression-they were all sallow and gaunt, miserably sad to look upon.
They continued to stare at the Gladers; a man shook his head, a woman nodded. Another man reached up and scratched his nose-the most human thing Thomas had seen any of them do.
“Who are those people?” Chuck whispered, but his voice echoed throughout the chamber with a raspy
