Impossible, he thought. How can they do that? He fought the urge to run out there, slip past the moving slabs of rock before they shut, flee the Glade. Common sense won out—the maze held even more unknowns than his situation inside.
He tried to picture in his mind how the structure of it all worked. Massive stone walls, hundreds of feet high, moving like sliding glass doors—an image from his past life that flashed through his thoughts. He tried to grasp the memory, hold on to it, complete the picture with faces, names, a place, but it faded into obscurity. A pang of sadness pricked through his other swirling emotions.
He watched as the right wall reached the end of its journey, its connecting rods finding their mark and entering without a glitch. An echoing boom rumbled across the Glade as all four Doors sealed shut for the night. Thomas felt one final moment of trepidation, a quick slice of fear through his body, and then it vanished.
A surprising sense of calm eased his nerves; he let out a long sigh of relief. “Wow,” he said, feeling dumb at such a monumental understatement.
“Ain’t nothin’, as Alby would say,” Chuck murmured. “You kind of get used to it after a while.”
Thomas looked around one more time, the feel of the place completely different now that all the walls were solid with no way out. He tried to imagine the purpose of such a thing, and he didn’t know which guess was worse—that they were being sealed in or that they were being protected from something out there. The thought ended his brief moment of calm, stirring in his mind a million possibilities of what might live in the maze outside, all of them terrifying. Fear gripped him once again.
“Come on,” Chuck said, pulling at Thomas’s sleeve a second time. “Trust me, when nighttime strikes, you want to be in bed.”
Thomas knew he had no other choice. He did his best to suppress everything he was feeling and followed.
CHAPTER 5
They ended up near the back of the Homestead—that was what Chuck called the leaning structure of wood and windows—in a dark shadow between the building and the stone wall behind it.
“Where are we going?” Thomas asked, still feeling the weight of seeing those walls close, thinking about the maze, the confusion, the fear. He told himself to stop or he’d drive himself crazy. Trying to grasp a sense of normalcy, he made a weak attempt at a joke. “If you’re looking for a goodnight kiss, forget it.”
Chuck didn’t miss a beat. “Just shut up and stay close.”
Thomas let out a big breath and shrugged before following the younger boy along the back of the building. They tiptoed until they came upon a small, dusty window, a soft beam of light shining through onto the stone and ivy. Thomas heard someone moving around inside.
“The bathroom,” Chuck whispered.
“So?” A thread of unease stitched along Thomas’s skin.
“I love doing this to people. Gives me great pleasure before bedtime.”
“Doing what?” Something told Thomas Chuck was up to no good. “Maybe I should—”
“Just shut your mouth and watch.” Chuck quietly stepped up onto a big wooden box that sat right under the window. He crouched so that his head was positioned just below where the person on the inside would be able to see him. Then he reached up with his hand and lightly tapped on the glass.
“This is stupid,” Thomas whispered. There couldn’t possibly be a worse time to play a joke—Newt or Alby could be in there. “I don’t wanna get in trouble—I just got here!”
Chuck suppressed a laugh by putting his hand over his mouth. Ignoring Thomas, he reached up and tapped the window again.
A shadow crossed the light; then the window slid open. Thomas jumped to hide, pressing himself against the back of the building as hard as he could. He just couldn’t believe he’d been suckered into playing a practical joke on somebody. The angle of vision from the window protected him for the moment, but he knew he and Chuck would be seen if whoever was in there pushed his head outside to get a better look.
“Who’s that!” yelled the boy from the bathroom, his voice scratchy and laced with anger. Thomas had to hold in a gasp when he realized it was Gally—he knew that voice already.
Without warning, Chuck suddenly popped his head up toward the window and screamed at the top of his lungs. A loud crash from inside revealed that the trick had worked—and the litany of swearwords following it let them know Gally was none too happy about it. Thomas was struck with an odd mix of horror and embarrassment.
“I’m gonna kill you, shuck-face!” Gally yelled, but Chuck was already off the box and running toward the open Glade. Thomas froze as he heard Gally open the door inside and run out of the bathroom.
Thomas finally snapped out of his daze and took off after his new—and only—friend. He’d just rounded the corner when Gally came screaming out of the Homestead, looking like a ferocious beast on the loose.
He immediately pointed at Thomas. “Come here!” he yelled.
Thomas’s heart sank in surrender. Everything seemed to indicate that he’d be getting a fist in the face. “It wasn’t me, I swear,” he said, though as he stood there, he sized the boy up and realized he shouldn’t be so terrified after all. Gally wasn’t that big—Thomas could actually take him if he had to.
“Wasn’t you?” Gally snarled. He ambled up to Thomas slowly and stopped right in front of him. “Then how do you know there was something you didn’t do?”
Thomas didn’t say anything. He was definitely uncomfortable but not nearly as scared as a few moments earlier.