"Get it off me!" he yelled, his voice so strangled that Thomas almost gave up and ran away. If the stuff hurt that bad ...
It looked like a very dense silver gel. Persistent and stubborn―like it was alive. As soon as Winston pushed a portion of it up and off his eyes, some of it would slip around his fingers from the side and try again. Thomas could see glimpses of the skin on his face when he did this, and it wasn't pretty. Red and blistering.
Winston cried out something unintelligible―his tortured screams could have been in another language altogether. Thomas knew he had to do something. Time had run out.
He threw the pack off his shoulders and dumped the contents; fruits and packages scattered and thumped down the stairs. He took the bedsheet and wrapped it around his hands for protection, then went for it. As Winston swiped at the molten silver right above his eyes again, Thomas grabbed for the sides that had just gone over the boy's ears. He felt heat through the cloth, thought it might burst into flame. He braced his feet, squeezed the stuff as hard as he could, then yanked.
With a disturbing sucking sound, the sides of the attacking metal lifted several inches before slipping out of his hands and slapping back down onto Winston's ears. Impossibly, the boy screamed even louder. A couple of other Gladers tried to move in to help, but Thomas shouted for them to back off, thinking they'd only get in the way.
"We have to do it together!" Thomas yelled at Winston, determined to get a stronger hold this time. "Listen to me, Winston! We have to do it together! Try to get a grip on it and lift it off your head!"
The other boy didn't show any sign of understanding, his whole body convulsing as he struggled. If Thomas hadn't been on the step below him, he would've tumbled down the rest of the way for sure by now.
"On the count of three!" Thomas yelled. "Winston! On the count of three!"
Still no sign he'd heard. Screaming. Thrashing. Kicking. Slapping at the silver.
Tears welled up in Thomas's eyes, or maybe it was sweat trickling down from his forehead. But it stung. And he felt like the air had heated up to a million degrees. His muscles tensed; lances of pain shot through his legs. They were cramping.
"Just do it!" he yelled, ignoring it all and leaning in to try again. "One! Two! Now!"
He gripped the sides of the stretching silver, felt its odd combination of soft toughness, then yanked once again up and away from Winston's head. Winston must've heard, or maybe it was luck, but at the same time, he pushed at the goop with the heels of his hands, like he was trying to rip off his own forehead. The entire mess of silver came off, a wobbly, thick and heavy sheet of the stuff. Thomas didn't hesitate; he flung his arms up and threw the junk over his head and down the stairwell, then spun around on his heels to see what happened.
As it flew through the air, the silver quickly formed back into a sphere, its surface rippling for a moment, then solidifying. It stopped just a few steps down from them, hovered for a second, like it was taking a long and lasting look at its victim, perhaps thinking over what had gone wrong. Then it shot away, flying down the stairway until it disappeared in the darkness far below.
It was gone. For some reason, it hadn't attacked again.
Thomas sucked in huge gasps of air; every inch of his body felt drenched with sweat. He leaned his shoulder against the wall, scared to look back at Winston, who was whimpering behind him. At least the screams had stopped.
Thomas finally turned around and faced him.
The kid was a mess. Curled up into a ball, shaking. The hair on his head had vanished, replaced with raw skin and spots of seeping blood. His ears were cut and ragged, but whole. He sobbed, surely from the pain, probably also from the trauma of what he'd just been through. The acne on his face looked clean and fresh compared to the raw wounds on the rest of his head.
"You okay, man?" Thomas asked, knowing it had to be the dumbest question he'd ever spoken aloud.
Winston shook his head with a quick jerk; his body continued to tremble.
Thomas looked up to see Minho and Newt and Aris and all the other Gladers just a couple of steps above them, all staring down in complete shock. The brilliant glare from above shadowed their faces, but Thomas could still see their eyes―wide like those of cats stunned by a spotlight.
"What was that shuck thing?" Minho murmured.
Thomas couldn't bring himself to speak, just shook his head wearily.
Newt was the one to answer. "Magic goop that eats people's heads, that's what it bloody was."
"Has to be some kind of new technology." This came from Aris, the first time Thomas had seen him participate in a discussion. The boy looked around, obviously noticing the surprised faces, then shrugged as if embarrassed and continued. "I've had a few splotchy memories come back. I know the world has some pretty advanced techno stuff―but I don't remember anything like flying molten metal that tries to cut off body parts."
Thomas thought about his own sketchy memories. Certainly nothing like that came to mind for him, either.
Minho pointed absently down the stairwell past Thomas. "That crap must keep gelling around your face, then eat into the flesh of your neck until it cuts clean through it. Nice. That's real nice."
"Did you see? Thing came right out of the ceiling!" Frypan said. "We better get out of here. Now."
"Couldn't agree more," Newt added.
Minho glanced down at Winston with a look of disgust, and Thomas followed his gaze. The kid had quit shaking, and his sobs had calmed to a stifled whimper. But he looked awful, and was surely scarred for life. Thomas couldn't imagine hair ever growing back on the red, raw mess of his head.