The Maze Runner Read Online Free PDF Page A

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