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Chapter 4
Thomas leaned against the tree as he waited for Chuck. He scanned the
compound of the Glade, this new place of nightmares where he
seemed destined to live.The shadows from the walls had lengthened
considerably, already creeping up the sides of the ivy-covered stone
faces on the other side.
At least this helped Thomas know directions—the wooden
building crouched in the northwest corner, wedged in a darkening
patch of shadow, the grove of trees in the southwest.The farm area,
where a few workers were still picking their way through the fields,
spread across the entire northeast quarter of the Glade.The animals
were in the southeast corner, mooing and crowing and baying.
In the exact middle of the courtyard, the still-gaping hole of the
Box lay open, as if inviting him to jump back in and go home. Near
that, maybe twenty feet to the south, stood a squat building made of
rough concrete blocks, a menacing iron door its only entrance—there
were no windows.A large round handle resembling a steel steering
wheel marked the only way to open the door, just like something
within a submarine. Despite what he’d just seen,Thomas didn’t know
which he felt more strongly—curiosity to know what was inside, or
dread at finding out.
Thomas had just moved his attention to the four vast openings in
the middle of the main walls of the Glade when Chuck arrived, a
couple of sandwiches cradled in his arms, along with apples and two
metal cups of water.The sense of relief that flooded through Thomas
surprised him—he wasn’t completely alone in this place.
“Frypan wasn’t too happy about me invading his kitchen before
suppertime,” Chuck said, sitting down next to the tree, motioning to
Thomas to do the same. He did, grabbed the sandwich, but hesitated,
the writhing, monstrous image of what he’d seen in the shack popping
back into his mind. Soon, though, his hunger won out and he took a
huge bite.The wonderful tastes of ham and cheese and mayonnaise
filled his mouth.
“Ah, man,” Thomas mumbled through a mouthful. “I was
starving.”
“Told ya.” Chuck chomped into his own sandwich.
After another couple of bites,Thomas finally asked the question
that had been bothering him.“What’s actually wrong with that Ben
guy? He doesn’t even look human anymore.”
Chuck glanced over at the house. “Don’t really know,” he
muttered absently.“I didn’t see him.”
Thomas could tell the boy was being less than honest but decided
not to press him.“Well, you don’t want to see him, trust me.” He
continued to eat, munching on the apples as he studied the huge breaks
in the walls.Though it was hard to make out from where he sat, there
was something odd about the stone edges of the exits to the outside
corridors. He felt an uncomfortable sense of vertigo looking at the
towering walls, as if he hovered above them instead of sitting at their
base.
“What’s out there?” he asked, finally breaking the silence.“Is this
part of a huge castle or something?”
Chuck hesitated. Looked uncomfortable.“Um, I’ve never been
outside the Glade.”
Thomas paused. “You’re hiding something,” he finally replied,
finishing off his last bite and taking a long swig of water. The
frustration at getting no answers from anyone was starting to grind his
nerves. It only made it worse to think that even if he did get answers,
he wouldn’t know if he’d be getting the truth.“Why are you guys so
secretive?”
“That’s just the way it is.Things are really weird around here, and
most of us don’t know everything. Half of everything.”
It bothered Thomas that Chuck didn’t seem to care about what
he’d just said.That he seemed indifferent to having his life taken away
from him.What was wrong with these people? Thomas got to his feet
and started walking toward the eastern opening.“Well, no one said I
couldn’t look around.” He needed to learn something or he was going
to lose his mind.
“Whoa, wait!” Chuck cried, running to catch up. “Be careful, those
puppies are about to close.” He already sounded out of breath.
“Close?”Thomas repeated.“What are you talking about?”
“The Doors, you shank.”
“Doors? I don’t see any doors.”Thomas knew Chuck wasn’t just
making stuff up—he knew he was missing something obvious. He
grew uneasy and realized he’d slowed his pace, not so eager to reach
the walls anymore.
“What do you call those big openings?” Chuck pointed up at the
enormously tall gaps in the walls. They were only thirty feet away
now.
“I’d call them big openings,”Thomas said, trying to counter his
discomfort with sarcasm and disappointed that it wasn’t working.
“Well, they’re doors.And they close up every night.”
Thomas stopped, thinking Chuck had to have said something
wrong. He looked up, looked side to side, examined the massive slabs
of stone as the uneasy feeling blossomed into outright dread.
“What do you mean, they close?”
“Just see for yourself in a minute.The Runners’ll be back soon;
then those big walls are going to move until the gaps are closed.”
“You’re jacked in the head,”Thomas muttered. He couldn’t see
how the mammoth walls could possibly be mobile—felt so sure of it
he relaxed, thinking Chuck was just playing a trick on him.
They reached the huge split that led outside to more stone
pathways.Thomas gaped, his mind emptying of thought as he saw it all
firsthand.
“This is called the East Door,” Chuck said, as if proudly revealing
a piece of art he’d created.
Thomas barely heard him, shocked by how much bigger it was up
close.At least twenty feet across, the break in the wall went all the way
to the top, far above.The edges that bordered the vast opening were
smooth, except for one odd, repeating pattern on both sides. On the left
side of the East Door, deep holes several inches in diameter and spaced
a foot apart were bored into the rock, beginning near the ground and
continuing all the way up.
On the right side of the Door, foot-long rods jutted out from the
wall edge, also several inches in diameter, in the same pattern as the
holes facing them on the other side.The purpose was obvious.
“Are you kidding?”Thomas asked, the dread slamming back into
his gut.“You weren’t playing with me? The walls really move?”
“What else would I have meant?”
Thomas had a hard time wrapping his mind around the
possibility.“I don’t know. I figured there was a door that swung shut or
a little mini-wall that slid out of the big one. How could these walls
move? They’re huge, and they look like they’ve been standing here for
a thousand years.” And the idea of those walls closing and trapping
him inside this place they called the Glade was downright terrifying.
Chuck threw his arms up, clearly frustrated.“I don’t know, they
just move. Makes one heck of a grinding noise. Same thing happens
out in the Maze—those walls shift every night, too.”
Thomas, his attention suddenly snapped up by a new detail, turned
to face the younger boy.“What did you just say?”
“Huh?”
“You just called it a maze—you said,‘same thing happens out in
the maze.’ ”
Chuck’s face reddened. “I’m done with you. I’m done.” He walked
back toward the tree they’d just left.
Thomas ignored him, more interested than ever in the outside of
the Glade.A maze? In front of him, through the East Door, he could
make out passages leading to the left, to the right, and straight ahead.
And the walls of the corridors were similar to those that surrounded
the Glade, the ground made of the same massive stone blocks as in the
courtyard.The ivy seemed even thicker out there. In the distance, more
breaks in the walls led to other paths, and farther down, maybe a
hundred yards or so away, the straight passage came to a dead end.
“Looks like a maze,” Thomas whispered, almost laughing to
himself.As if things couldn’t have gotten any stranger.They’d wiped
his memory and put him inside a gigantic maze. It was all so crazy it
really did seem funny.
His heart skipped a beat when a boy unexpectedly appeared
around a corner up ahead, entering the main passage from one of the
offshoots to the right, running toward him and the Glade. Covered in
sweat, his face red, clothes sticking to his body, the boy didn’t slow,
hardly glancing at Thomas as he went past. He headed straight for the
squat concrete building located near the Box.
Thomas turned as he passed, his eyes riveted to the exhausted
runner, unsure why this new development surprised him so much.
Why wouldn’t people go out and search the maze? Then he realized
others were entering through the remaining three Glade openings, all
of them running and looking as ragged as the guy who’d just whisked
by him.There couldn’t be much good about the maze if these guys
came back looking so weary and worn.
He watched, curious, as they met at the big iron door of the small
building; one of the boys turned the rusty wheel handle, grunting with
the effort. Chuck had said something about runners earlier. What had
they been doing out there?
The big door finally popped open, and with a deafening squeal of
metal against metal, the boys swung it wide. They disappeared inside,
pulling it shut behind them with a loud clonk.Thomas stared, his mind
churning to come up with any possible explanation for what he’d just
witnessed. Nothing developed, but something about that creepy old
building gave him goose bumps, a disquieting chill.
Someone tugged on his sleeve, breaking him from his thoughts;
Chuck had come back.
Before Thomas had a chance to think, questions were rushing out
of his mouth.“Who are those guys and what were they doing? What’s
in that building?” He wheeled around and pointed out the East
Door.“And why do you live inside a freaking maze?” He felt a rattling
pressure of uncertainty, making his head splinter with pain.
“I’m not saying another word,” Chuck replied, a new authority
filling his voice. “I think you should get to bed early—you’ll need
your sleep.Ah”—he stopped, held up a finger, pricking up his right
ear— “it’s about to happen.”
“What?”Thomas asked, thinking it kind of strange that Chuck was
suddenly acting like an adult instead of the little kid desperate for a
friend he’d been only moments earlier.
A loud boom exploded through the air, making Thomas jump. It
was followed by a horrible crunching, grinding sound. He stumbled
backward, fell to the ground. It felt as if the whole earth shook; he
looked around, panicked.The walls were closing.The walls were really
closing—trapping him inside the Glade. An onrushing sense of
claustrophobia stifled him, compressed his lungs, as if water filled
their cavities.
“Calm down, Greenie,” Chuck yelled over the noise. “It’s just the
walls!”
Thomas barely heard him, too fascinated, too shaken by the
closing of the Doors. He scrambled to his feet and took a few
trembling steps back for a better view, finding it hard to believe what
his eyes were seeing.
The enormous stone wall to the right of them seemed to defy every
known law of physics as it slid along the ground, throwing sparks and
dust as it moved, rock against rock.The crunching sound rattled his
bones.Thomas realized that only that wall was moving, heading for its
neighbor to the left, ready to seal shut with its protruding rods slipping
into the drilled holes across from it. He looked around at the other
openings. It felt like his head was spinning faster than his body, and
his stomach flipped over with the dizziness. On all four sides of the
Glade, only the right walls were moving, toward the left, closing the
gap of the Doors.
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.
>> Back to Chapter 3
>> On to Chapter 5
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