Free The Maze Runner by James Dashner Page B

familiar to him.
    The smell wasn’t quite as nice as the crops, but still, he imagined it could’ve been a lot worse. As he explored the area, he realized more and more how well the Gladers kept up the place, how clean it was. He was impressed by how organized they must be, how hard they all must work. He could only imagine how truly horrific a place like this could be if everyone went lazy and stupid.
    Finally, he made it to the southwest quarter, near the forest.
    He was approaching the sparse, skeletal trees in front of the denser woods when he was startled by a blur of movement at his feet, followed by a hurried set of clacking sounds. He looked down just in time to see the sun flash off something metallic—a toy rat—scurrying past him and toward the small forest. The thing was already ten feet away by the time he realized it wasn’t a rat at all—it was more like a lizard, with at least six legs scuttling the long silver torso along.
    A beetle blade.
It’s how they watch us
, Alby had said.
    He caught a gleam of red light sweeping the ground in front of the creature as if it came from its eyes. Logic told him it had to be his mindplaying tricks on him, but he swore he saw the word
WICKED
scrawled down its rounded back in large green letters. Something so strange had to be investigated.
    Thomas sprinted after the scurrying spy, and in a matter of seconds he entered the thick copse of trees and the world became dark.

CHAPTER 10
    He couldn’t believe how quickly the light disappeared. From the Glade proper, the forest didn’t look that big, maybe a couple of acres. Yet the trees were tall with sturdy trunks, packed tightly together, the canopy up above thick with leaves. The air around him had a greenish, muted hue, as if only several minutes of twilight remained in the day.
    It was somehow beautiful and creepy, all at once.
    Moving as fast as he could, Thomas crashed through the heavy foliage, thin branches slapping at his face. He ducked to avoid a low-hanging limb, almost falling. Reaching out, he caught hold of a branch and swung himself forward to regain his balance. A thick bed of leaves and fallen twigs crunched underneath him.
    All the while, his eyes stayed riveted on the beetle blade scuttling across the forest floor. Deeper it went, its red light glowing brighter as the surroundings darkened.
    Thomas had charged thirty or forty feet into the woods, dodging and ducking and losing ground with every second, when the beetle blade jumped onto a particularly large tree and scooted up its trunk. But by the time Thomas reached the tree, any sign of the creature had vanished. It had disappeared deep within the foliage—almost as if it had never existed.
    He’d lost the sucker.
    “Shuck it,” Thomas whispered, almost as a joke. Almost. As strangeas it seemed, the word felt natural on his lips, like he was already morphing into a Glader.
    A twig snapped somewhere to his right and he jerked his head in that direction. He stilled his breath, listened.
    Another snap, this time louder, almost like someone had broken a stick over their knee.
    “Who’s there?” Thomas yelled out, a tingle of fear shooting across his shoulders. His voice bounced off the canopy of leaves above him, echoing through the air. He stayed frozen, rooted to the spot as all grew silent, except for the whistling song of a few birds in the distance. But no one answered his call. Nor did he hear any more sounds from that direction.
    Without really thinking it through, Thomas headed toward the noise he’d heard. Not bothering to hide his progress, he pushed aside branches as he walked, letting them whip back to position when he passed. He squinted, willed his eyes to work in the growing darkness, wishing he had a flashlight. He thought about flashlights and his memory. Once again, he remembered a tangible thing from his past, but couldn’t assign it to any specific time or place, couldn’t associate it with any other person or event.