The Scorch Trials - James Dashner [123]
The creature had paused—at least as long as it had taken Thomas to make his escape move—but now it came after him again. An idea formed in Thomas’s mind, and it grew to clarity when he looked back at Teresa’s fight, her creature now moving in jilted, slow attacks. She kept after the bulbs, popping them as they exploded in that same display of fireworks. She’d destroyed at least three-fourths of the odd growths.
The bulbs. All he needed to do was destroy the bulbs. Somehow they were linked to the creature’s power or life or strength. Could it really be that easy?
A quick glance around the rest of the battlefield showed that a few others had also gotten the idea, but most hadn’t, fighting with bloody desperation to hack at limbs, muscles, skin, missing the bulbs entirely. A couple of people already lay on the ground, covered in wounds, lifeless. One boy. One girl.
Thomas changed his whole method. Instead of charging recklessly, he jumped in and took a jab at one of the bulbs on the monster’s chest. He missed, slicing into the wrinkled, yellowish skin. The creature swiped at him, but he pulled back just as the very tips of the blades ripped jagged holes in his shirt. Then he thrust again, poking once more at the same bulb. He connected this time, bursting it and sending out a spray of sparks. The creature halted for a full second, then snapped back to battle mode.
Thomas circled the creature, jumping in and back again, poking, jabbing, thrusting.
Pop, pop, pop.
One of the monster’s blades sliced across his forearm, leaving a long line of bright red. Thomas went in again. And again. Again.
Pop, pop, pop. Sparks flying, the creature shuddering and jerking with each break.
The pause got a little bit longer with every successful stab. Thomas felt a few more scrapes and slices, but nothing serious. He kept at it, attacking those orange spheres.
Pop, pop, pop.
Every small victory sapped the creature’s strength, and it gradually began to visibly slump, though it didn’t stop trying to cut Thomas to pieces. Bulb by bulb, each one easier than the one before it, Thomas attacked relentlessly. If only he could quickly finish it off, make it die. Then he could run around and help others. End this thing once and for—
A blinding light flashed behind him, then a sound like the entire universe exploding ripped away his brief moment of exhilaration and hope. A wave of invisible power knocked him over and he fell flat onto his stomach, the sword clattering away from him. The creature fell, too, and a burnt smell singed the air. Thomas rolled onto his side to look, saw a massive black hole in the ground, charred and smoking. A bladed foot and hand from one of the monsters lay on the hole’s edge. No sign of the rest of the body.
It’d been a lightning strike. Right behind him. The storm had finally broken.
Even as he had the thought, he looked up to see thick shards of white heat start falling from the black clouds above.
CHAPTER 60
The lightning exploded all around him with deafening cracks of thunder; plumes of dirt flew into the air from every direction. Several people screamed—one was cut off abruptly, a girl. And that burning smell. Overwhelming. The strikes of electricity subsided as quickly as they had begun. But light continued to flash in the clouds, and rain started to pour down in sheets.
Thomas hadn’t moved during that first flurry of lightning. There was no reason to think he’d be any safer in another spot than where he lay. But after the onslaught, he scrambled to his feet to look around, see