Survive Till Dusk (The Maze Runner)

Chapter 8 // Morgue Emergency

*Robin's P.O.V.* 

The porcelain moment only lasted an instant.

"Hey, hey, hey! Boys! We've got visitors," a man frantically yelled, skidding around the corner and whizzing past the alcove. He stopped dead in his tracks once he reached Keith.

"What visitors?" Keith growled in a commanding tone. I grabbed Minho's hand and dragged him behind me to regroup with the others.

"Cranks. WICKED. They're here. Too many to count from the post, sir," the man spoke surprisingly clearly for how hard he was panting.

"Ah, great." Keith ran his hand through his hair and let out a sigh. "Well, let's move, everyone! Plant the evidence and get the hell to your compartments!" As soon as he had finished speaking, the hall erupted into a flurry of movement. Papers were flying, furniture was being overturned; the place was being completely trashed in a matter of seconds. 

Keith hurried down the hall, ducking and avoiding people who ran about. Not knowing what else to do, I grabbed Alex and Scarlett and gestured for the rest of the group to follow. The room that the hallway ended in was just as wrecked. Keith worked his way along a metal wall, clicking latches open and pulling metal stretchers out of the wall as he skipped one every three compartments.

"Uh, Robin..." Minho leaned closer to me. "Is this a morgue or am I imagining things?"

"Why is he leaving some of those closed?" Thomas asked. We all gave each other the look of agreement. I went on a little venture, assuming that the closed ones still contained corpses.

"Hey! Could you please explain what's going on?" Alex shouted at Keith, in order to be heard over the noise.

"Weren't you listening? Our location has been compromised." Keith didn't bother to face Alex as he spoke.

"Yeah, I got that part. But shouldn't we be running then? Any person in their right mind would do that." Alex grabbed Keith's arm to get his full attention. He jerked to a stop and looked Alex in the eye. An expression flickered over his face, but it disappeared quicker than it had showed up. Strange for such a steely man.

"That's why every person in their right mind is dead or dying Crank-style," he said eerily calm. He broke away from their stare and continued to work.

"Okay then... thanks, wisecrack. What exactly are you planning on doing instead?" Before anyone could answer my question, we all ducked as a binder flew over our heads. It crashed into the metal wall and exploded into a cascade of papers.

"Watch it, Johnson! Anyways... back to you. In this world you have to simply be the smartest person in the room. And you cannot do that by running. My people are trashing this place to make it look like we left in a hurry. I have a couple of people with buses down in the street to divert anyone from searching this place too well. The buses are headed to a safe house miles away. This should distract them long enough for us to make it to the airport in a couple vans I've parked a few blocks down. Now is that enough of an explanation for you kids?"

"Where are the vans gonna take us?" Minho tried to squeeze in another question.

"Outpost. And then Denver."

"What the hell are we gonna do in Denver?" I asked.

"I'll have plenty more time to explain that once we get there."

"Okay this is all good and great," Newt cut in. "But where're we going to be when WICKED searches the place? It's not like we can disappear into thin air."

"Well make yourselves comfortable, kids," he said, patting the bare metal stretcher. I searched for a sign that he was joking, but nothing about his demeanor said so.