The Maze Runner by James Dashner Read Free Book Online Page B

Track-hoe—somethin’ll stick, always does. Come on.”
    Alby walked toward the South Door, located between what he’d called the Deadheads and the Blood House. Thomas followed, wrinklinghis nose up at the sudden smell of dirt and manure coming from the animal pens.
Graveyard?
he thought.
Why do they need a graveyard in a place full of teenagers?
That disturbed him even more than not knowing some of the words Alby kept saying—words like
Slopper
and
Bagger
—that didn’t sound so good. He came as close to interrupting Alby as he’d done so far, but willed his mouth shut.
    Frustrated, he turned his attention to the pens in the Blood House area.
    Several cows nibbled and chewed at a trough full of greenish hay. Pigs lounged in a muddy pit, an occasionally flickering tail the only sign they were alive. Another pen held sheep, and there were chicken coops and turkey cages as well. Workers bustled about the area, looking as if they’d spent their whole lives on a farm.
    Why do I remember these animals?
Thomas wondered. Nothing about them seemed new or interesting—he knew what they were called, what they normally ate, what they looked like. Why was stuff like that still lodged in his memory, but not
where
he’d seen animals before, or with whom? His memory loss was baffling in its complexity.
    Alby pointed to the large barn in the back corner, its red paint long faded to a dull rust color. “Back there’s where the Slicers work. Nasty stuff, that. Nasty. If you like blood, you can be a Slicer.”
    Thomas shook his head. Slicer didn’t sound good at all. As they kept walking, he focused his attention on the other side of the Glade, the section Alby had called the Deadheads. The trees grew thicker and denser the farther back in the corner they went, more alive and full of leaves. Dark shadows filled the depths of the wooded area, despite the time of day. Thomas looked up, squinting to see that the sun was finally visible, though it looked odd—more orange than it should be. It hit him that this was yet another example of the odd selective memory in his mind.
    He returned his gaze to the Deadheads, a glowing disk still floating in his vision. Blinking to clear it away, he suddenly caught the red lights again, flickering and skittering about deep in the darkness of the woods.
What
are
those things?
he wondered, irritated that Alby hadn’t answered him earlier. The secrecy was very annoying.
    Alby stopped walking, and Thomas was surprised to see they’d reached the South Door; the two walls bracketing the exit towered above them. The thick slabs of gray stone were cracked and covered in ivy, as ancient as anything Thomas could imagine. He craned his neck to see the top of the walls far above; his mind spun with the odd sensation that he was looking
down
, not up. He staggered back a step, awed once again by the structure of his new home, then finally returned his attention to Alby, who had his back to the exit.
    “Out there’s the Maze.” Alby jabbed a thumb over his shoulder, then paused. Thomas stared in that direction, through the gap in the walls that served as an exit from the Glade. The corridors out there looked much the same as the ones he’d seen from the window by the East Door early that morning. This thought gave him a chill, made him wonder if a Griever might come charging toward them at any minute. He took a step backward before realizing what he was doing.
Calm down
, he chided himself, embarrassed.
    Alby continued. “Two years, I’ve been here. Ain’t none been here longer. The few before me are already dead.” Thomas felt his eyes widen, his heart quicken. “Two years we’ve tried to solve this thing, no luck. Shuckin’ walls move out there at night just as much as these here doors. Mappin’ it out ain’t easy, ain’t easy nohow.” He nodded toward the concrete-blocked building into which the Runners had disappeared the night before.
    Another stab of pain sliced through Thomas’s