The Scorch Trials - James Dashner [119]
“Yeah,” Thomas said. He glanced back at the mountains, guessed that all in all they’d probably come about four miles from the base. “Maybe we should bag this whole safe haven thing and try to find shelter.” But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t an option. At least not until the time ran out.
“No way,” Newt replied. “We didn’t come this far to go back now. Let’s just hope the buggin’ storm holds off a little longer.” He looked up at the almost black clouds with a grimace.
The other three Gladers had grown silent. The wind had continued to pick up, and its rushing roars and whips now made it hard to hear each other anyway. Thomas looked at his watch.
Thirty-five minutes. No way this storm would hold for—
“What’s that!” Minho shouted, jumping to his feet; he pointed at a spot over Thomas’s shoulder.
Thomas turned to look as he stood up, alarm igniting inside him. The terror on Minho’s face had been unmistakable.
About thirty feet from the group, a large section of the desert ground was … opening. A perfect square—maybe fifteen feet wide—pivoted on a diagonal axis as the dirt-packed side slowly spun away from them and what had lain underneath rose up to replace it. The sound of groaning, twisting steel pierced the air, louder than the roaring wind. Soon the rotating square had fully flipped, and where once had been desert ground now lay a section of black material, with an odd object sitting on top of it.
It was oblong and white with rounded edges. Thomas had seen something just like it before. Several of them, in fact. After they’d escaped the Maze and entered the huge chamber where the Grievers had come from, they’d seen several of these coffinlike containers. He hadn’t had much time to think about it then, but seeing it now, he thought those must’ve been where the Grievers stayed—slept?—when not hunting humans in the Maze.
Before he had time to react, more sections of the desert floor—surrounding their group in a large circle—started to rotate open like dark, gaping jaws.
Dozens of them.
CHAPTER 58
The squeal of metal was deafening as the square sections slowly spun on their axles. Thomas had his hands to his ears, trying to keep the sound out. The others in the group were doing the same. All around them, scattered evenly and fully encircling the area in which they stood, patches of desert ground rotated until they disappeared, each one eventually replaced with a large black square when it finally settled with a loud clank, one of those bulbous white coffins resting on top. At least thirty in all.
The scream of metal rubbing against metal stopped. No one spoke. The wind ripped across the land, blowing dust and dirt in streams across the rounded containers. It made a gritty pinging sound. There was so much of it, it blended into a noise that made Thomas’s spine itch; he had to squint to keep stuff out of his eyes. Nothing else had moved since the foreign, almost alien objects had been revealed. There was only that sound and wind and cold and stinging eyes.
Tom? Teresa called to him.
Yeah.
You remember those, right?
Yeah.
You think Grievers are inside?
Thomas realized that was exactly what he thought, but he’d also finally accepted that he could never expect anything. He reasoned it out for a second before he answered. I don’t know. I mean, the Grievers had really moist bodies—it’d be hard on them out here. It seemed like a stupid thing to say, but he was grasping for anything.
Maybe we’re meant to … get inside them, she said after a pause. Maybe they are the safe haven, or they’ll transport us somewhere.
Thomas hated the idea, but thought that maybe she was right. He tore his eyes away from the large pods and looked for her. She was already walking toward him. Fortunately, she was alone. He couldn’t handle both her and Brenda right then.
“Hey,” he said out loud, but the wind seemed to carry the sound away before