The Scorch Trials - James Dashner [88]
“We can’t do this here.” Was that Newt?
“Let’s get out of this shuck city.” Definitely Minho.
“All right. Help me carry him.” No idea.
Hands gripping him from underneath, grasping his legs. The pain. Someone saying something about the count of three. The pain. It really, really hurt. One. The pain. Two. Ouch. Three!
He rose toward the sky, and the pain exploded anew, fresh and raw.
Then his wish to pass out came true and darkness washed his troubles away.
He awoke, his mind a haze.
Light blinded him; he couldn’t open his eyes all the way. His whole body jostled and bumped, hands still holding him tight. He heard the sounds of breathing, heavy and fast. Feet pounding on pavement. Someone shouting, though he couldn’t understand the words. In the distance, the mad screams of Cranks. Close enough that they might be pursuing.
Heat. The air was burning hot.
His shoulder, on fire. Pain tore through him like a series of toxic explosions, and he fled to the darkness once again.
* * *
He cracked his eyes.
This time the light was much less intense. The golden gleam of twilight. He lay on his back, the ground beneath him hard. A rock dug into his lower back, but it felt heavenly compared to the rot in his shoulder. People lumbered about him, talking in short and tight whispers.
The cackle of Cranks had grown more distant. He saw nothing but sky above him, no buildings. Pain in his shoulder. Oh, the pain.
A fire licked and spit somewhere close. He felt the heat wafting across his body, hot wind through hot air.
Someone said, “You better hold him down. Legs and arms.”
Though his mind still floated in fog, those words didn’t sound good.
A flash of light on silver in his vision, the fading sun’s reflection on … a knife? Was it glowing red?
“This is gonna hurt somethin’ awful.” No idea who said it.
He heard the hiss right before a billion pounds of dynamite exploded in his shoulder.
His mind said goodbye for the third time.
He sensed that a long spell of time had passed this go-around. When he opened his eyes again, stars like pinpricks of daylight shone down from the dark sky. Someone held his hand. He tried to turn his head to look over, but it sent a fresh wave of agony shooting down his spine.
He didn’t need to see. It was Brenda.
Who else would it be? Plus, the hand was soft and small. Brenda for sure.
The intense pain of before had been replaced. In some ways, he now felt worse. Something like an illness crept through the inner workings of his body. A gnawing, itching filthiness. Something foul, like maggots squirming through his veins and the hollows of his bones and between his muscles. Eating away at him.
It hurt, but now it was more of an ache. Deep and raw. His stomach, gurgly and unstable, fire in his veins.
He didn’t know how he knew, but he was sure of it. Something was wrong.
The word infection popped up in his mind, then stayed there.
He drifted off.
The sunrise woke Thomas in the morning. The first thing he realized was that Brenda no longer held his hand. Then he noticed the cool air of early morning on his skin, which gave him the briefest moment of pleasure.
Then he became fully aware of the throbbing pain that consumed his body, dwelling in every last molecule. It no longer had anything to do with his shoulder and the bullet wound. Something terrible had gone wrong with his entire system.
Infection. That word again.
He didn’t know how he’d make it through the next five minutes. Or the next hour. How could he possibly go through an entire day? Then sleep and start the whole thing all over again? Despair sucked at him, an empty, yawning void that threatened to pull him down into an awful abyss. A panic-laced craziness struck him. Suffusing it all, the pain.
That was when things got bizarre.
The others heard it before he did. Minho and everyone else were suddenly scrambling, searching for something, many of them scanning the sky. The sky? Why would they be doing that?
Someone—Jorge, he thought—yelled the word Berg.
Then Thomas heard it. A deep thrumming, full of heavy thumps. It