Desire ❃ newt

cнapтer 53

Almost at once the Grievers had shut down completely, their instruments sucked back through their blubbery skin, their lights turned off, their inside machines dead quiet. And that door . . .

I fell to the floor after being released by my captor's claws, and despite the pain of several lacerations across my back and shoulders, elation surged through me so strongly I didn't know how to react. I gasped, then laughed, then choked on a sob before laughing again.

Chuck had scooted away from the Grievers, bumping into Teresa—she held him tightly, squeezing him in a fierce hug.

"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."

I 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!" I scrambled to my 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. I felt mt elation wither, and I 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 me and my 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?" I 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."

My 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 us might've died, it still hurt, even though I 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.

I pointed down the long tunnel. "I heard the door open down that way." I tried to push away the ache of it all—the horrors of the battle they'd just won. The losses. I pushed it away, knowing we 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 I.

"I'll go last," Thomas said.

No one argued. Me and Newt went, then Chuck, then Teresa, into the black tunnel. Even the flashlights seemed to get swallowed by the darkness. Thomas followed.

After a minute or so of walking, I 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 I turned to Newt. "Looks like it ends in a slide up there, shooting downward." My stomach turned at the thought. It seemed like it was a game—for whoever had built the place, at least.

One by one I heard the Gladers' dwindling shouts and hoots up ahead. Then it was Teresa's turn, then Chuck's.

"Guess we have no choice." I said to Newt, looking down the dark tunnel.

"Guess not."

I had a strong feeling it wasn't a way out of our nightmare; I just hoped it didn't lead to another pack of Grievers.

I slipped down the slide with an almost cheerful shriek, and Newt followed me.

My body shot down a steep decline, slick with an oily goo that smelled awful—like burnt plastic and overused machinery. I twisted my body until I got my feet in front of me, then tried to hold my hands out to slow myself down. It was useless—the greasy stuff covered every inch of the stone; I couldn't grip anything.

The screams of the other Gladers echoed off the tunnel walls as we slid down the oily chute. Panic gripped my heart. I 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 my thoughts had materialized, the smells changed—to something more like mildew and rot. I started gagging; it took all my effort not to throw up.

The tunnel began to twist, turning in a rough spiral, just enough to slow them down, and Newt's feet smacked right into me, hitting me in the head; I recoiled and a feeling of complete misery sank over me. We were still falling. Time seemed to stretch out, endless.

Around and around we went down the tube. Nausea burned in my stomach—the squishing of the goo against my body, the smell, the circling motion. I was just about to turn my head to the side to throw up when I let out a sharp cry—this time there was no echo. A second later, Newt flew out of the tunnel and landed on me.

Bodies scrambled everywhere, people on top of people, groaning and squirming in confusion as they tried to push away from each other. I wiggled my arms and legs to scoot away from Newt, then crawled a few more feet to throw up, emptying my stomach.

Still shuddering from the experience, I wiped at my mouth with my hand, only to realize it was covered in slimy filth. I sat up, rubbing both hands on the ground, and I finally got a good look at where we had arrived. As I gaped, I saw, also, that everyone else had pulled themselves together into a group, taking in the new surroundings. I had seen glimpses of it during the Changing, but didn't truly remember it until that very moment.

We 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 my 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 I'd already seen it, my breath catching in my throat. Goose bumps broke out all over me, a creepy fear trickling down my spine like a wet spider.

Directly in front of us, 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. I shuddered, terrified—they all looked like ghosts. Angry, starving, sinister apparitions of people who'd never been happy when alive, much less dead.

But I knew they were not, of course, ghosts. They were the people who'd sent us all to the Glade. The people who'd taken out lives away from us.

The Creators.