The Kill Order (maze runner prequel)

by James Dashner

  “Oh, man,” Alec said, “I forgot how bad that smells.” He carefully closed the door. “Let’s hope we find something more useful soon.”

  They came upon the next door about twenty yards farther along, and there were three more past it, then finally one facing them where the hall ended. Each one of these doors also stood ajar about three inches, lit by a bulb encased in a cage just like the generator room. Except these lights were yellow and barely working.

  “There’s something really creepy about the doors being open,” Mark whispered. “And it’s so dark inside the rooms.”

  “What’s your point?” Alec asked. “Ready to turn around and go home?”

  “No. Just saying that you should go in first.”

  Alec chuckled. He stuck his foot out and nudged open the first door, which swung inward. It let out a metallic creak as dim yellow light spilled across the floor within, though it wasn’t enough to reveal anything else. The door came to a stop with a soft thud; then there was only silence.

  Alec made a harrumphing noise and walked on to the next room instead of going into the first one. He lightly kicked that door open as well, with a similar result. Mostly darkness, no sign of people, no sounds. He went to the next door and kicked it open, then to the last one at the end of the hallway. Nothing.

  “Guess we better go in,” he said. He turned back to Mark and jerked his head, a clear order to follow him into the last room. Mark quickly stepped up close to him, ready to do as he was told. Alec reached around the edge of the frame and searched for a light switch but came up empty, then went inside, Mark right behind him. They stood there for a moment, waiting for their eyes to adjust, searching the darkness.

  Alec finally sighed and pulled out the workpad again. “What’s the point of generators if none of the lights are on? This thing won’t work much longer.” He powered it up.

  The light from the device cast a spooky blue glow across the large room-bigger than Mark would’ve guessed-revealing two long rows of bunks lining both walls, probably ten on each side. They were all empty except for one, almost at the end, where a slouched figure sat with its back to them; it looked to be the slumped shoulders of an older man. A chill raced through Mark at the sight of him. In the dim light, the mostly empty room, the pressing silence… he felt as if he were staring at the back of a ghost waiting to pronounce their doomed destiny. The person didn’t move, didn’t make a sound.

  “Hello?” Alec called out, his voice a boom in the silence.

  Mark snapped his head to look at him, shocked. “What’re you doing?”

  Alec’s face was hidden in shadow since the workpad was pointed down the room. “Being nice,” he whispered. “I’m going to ask this fella some questions.” Then, louder, “Hello down there? Mind helping us out a bit?”

  A low, raspy mumble-what Mark thought a man on his deathbed might sound like-answered. The words were a jumble of lost syllables.

  “What’s that?” Alec asked.

  The man didn’t move, didn’t reply. He sat on his cot, facing away from them, a lump of a human body. Head down, shoulders slumped.

  Mark suddenly had to know- had to-what the guy had said. He started walking down the aisle between the cots, ignoring the short burst of protest from Alec. As he made his way toward the man, the spaces between the cots flashing by, he heard Alec hurrying to catch up to him, the light from the workpad bobbing about and making weird shadows dance on the walls.

  Mark slowed as he neared the slumped man, felt an icy tingle across his skin. The stranger was broad-shouldered and thick-chested, but his demeanor made him look frail and pathetic. Mark steered clear a few feet as he reached the man’s side, saw a face covered in shadow and hanging low.

  “What did you say?” Mark asked when he was in front of the man. Alec reached his side and held the workpad up to cast light on the visibly depressed stranger. The man sat forward with elbows on knees, hands clenched together, his entire visage appearing as if it might melt and drip onto the floor.

  The man slowly raised his eyes and looked at them, his head tilting on his neck like rusty machinery. His face was grave and long and wrinkled more than it should have been. His eyes were dark caverns that the light seemed unable to penetrate.

  “I didn’t want to give her away,” he said with a raspy edge. “Oh, dear God, I didn’t want to. Not to those savages.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Mark had so many questions, he couldn’t get them out fast enough.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “Who was given away? What can you tell us about this place? What about a virus? Do you know anything about two women and a little girl, maybe captured outside?” He paused to swallow the golf-ball-sized lump in his throat and slowed down. “My friend’s name is Trina. Blond hair, my age. There was another woman and a girl. Do you know anything about them?”

  The man lowered his gaze to the floor again and heaved a sigh. “So many questions.”

  Mark was so frustrated that he had to compose himself for a second. He took a deep breath and walked over to sit down on the cot facing the raspy-voiced stranger. Maybe the old man was dotty. Bombarding him with questions probably wasn’t the smartest approach. Mark looked up to see that Alec was a little astonished at his outburst, but then he shook his head and came over to join Mark on the cot. Alec placed the workpad on the floor so that its glow shone up and gave everyone that slightly monstrous look you get when you place a flashlight under your chin.

  “What can you tell us?” Alec asked in one of his gentler tones. He’d obviously reached the same conclusion as Mark-this guy was on edge and needed to be handled with care. “What’s happened here? All the lights are out, no one’s around. Where is everybody?”

  The man merely groaned in response, then covered his face with both hands.

  Alec and Mark exchanged a look.

  “Let me try again,” Mark said. He leaned forward, inching to the edge of the cot and putting his forearms on his knees. “Hey, man… what’s your name?”

  The stranger dropped his hands, and even in the dim light Mark could see that his eyes were moist with tears. “My name? You want to know my name?”

  “Yeah. I want to know your name. Our lives are just as crappy as yours, I promise. I’m Mark and this is my friend, Alec. You can trust us.”

  The man made a scoffing sound, then had a short bout of racking coughs. Finally he said, “The name’s Anton. Not that it matters.”

  Mark was afraid to continue. This man could hold so many answers to so many questions, and he didn’t want to screw it up. “Listen… we came from one of the settlements. Three of our friends were taken in the canyon above this place. And our village was attacked by someone from here, we think. We just want to… understand what’s going on. And get our friends back. That’s it.”

  He sensed Alec about to say something and shot him a glare to shut up. “Is there anything you can tell us? Like… what is this place? What’s happening out there with the Bergs and the darts and the virus? What happened here? Anything you got.” A heavy weariness was starting to weigh on him, but he forced himself to focus on the man across from him, hoping for answers.

  Anton took a few low, deep breaths and a tear trickled out of his right eye. “We chose a settlement two months ago,” he finally said. “As a test. Not that the disastrous results changed the overall plan in the end. But the girl changed it for me. So many dead, and it was the one who lived who made me realize what a horrible thing we’d done. Like I said, I didn’t want them to give her back to her people today. That’s when I was truly done. Officially done.”

  Deedee, Mark realized. It had to be Deedee. But what about Trina and Lana? “Tell us what happened,” he urged. He felt guiltier with every passing second that they weren’t actively searching for their friends, but they needed information or they might never find them. “From the beginning.”

  Anton began to speak in a somewhat distant tone. “The Post-Flares Coalition in Alaska wanted something
that spread fast, killed fast. A virus that some monsters had developed back in the good old days before the sun flares burned it all out. They say it shuts down the mind. Instant comas, they said, rendering the bodies useless but causing massive hemorrhaging that would spread it to those nearby. Transmission is by blood, but it’s also airborne when the conditions are right. A good way to kill off the settlements that are forced to live in close quarters.”

  The man’s words spilled out of him without a hitch or a change in volume. Mark’s mind was growing numb from exhaustion, and he found it hard to follow the details. He knew that what he was hearing was important, but it still wasn’t fitting together. How long had he been awake now? Twenty-four hours? Thirty-six? Forty-eight?

  “-before they realized they’d screwed up big-time.”

  Mark shook his head again. He’d just missed part of what Anton had been saying.

  “What do you mean?” Alec asked. “How’d they screw up?”

  Anton coughed, then sniffled and wiped a hand across his nose. “The virus. It’s all wrong. It didn’t work right on the test subjects over the last two months, but they went ahead with the plan anyway, saying what’s left of the planet’s resources is being depleted. All they did was up the dosage in those darts. Those bastards are trying to wipe out half the population. Half!”

  “What about the little girl?” Mark almost shouted. “Did she have two women with her?”

  Anton didn’t seem to be hearing a word that Mark or Alec said. “They said we’d be taken care of once the deed was done. That they’d bring us all back to Alaska and give us homes and food and protection. Let half the world die and we’d start over. But they screwed up, didn’t they? That little girl lived even though she was struck with a dart. But it’s more than that. The virus isn’t what they thought. It spreads like wildfire, all right. Too bad it’s got a mind of its own. Pardon the pun.”

  He let out something that was vaguely like a chuckle, but it soon transformed into a hacking cough. Suddenly he was sobbing freely. The man finally slumped over onto his side and pulled his legs up onto the cot, curling into the fetal position, his shoulders shaking as he cried.

  “I’ve got it,” he said through the sobs. “I’m sure of it. We’ve all got it. You’ve got it, too. Have no doubts, my friends. You’ve got the virus. I told my coworkers I didn’t want anything to do with them. Not anymore. They left me up here by myself. Suits me just fine.”

  Mark felt like he was observing the whole scene through a fog. He couldn’t concentrate. He tried to snap out of it. “Do you have any idea where our friends could be?” he asked, more calmly this time. “Where are your coworkers?”

  “They’re all down below,” Anton whispered. “I couldn’t bear it anymore. I came up here to die or go crazy. Both, I guess. I’m just glad they let me.”

  “Down below?” Alec repeated.

  “Farther down in the bunker,” Anton answered, his voice getting quieter as his crying subsided. “They’re down there, planning. Planning to revolt in Asheville, let them know we’re not happy how things ended up. They wanna take it all the way to Alaska.”

  Mark looked at Alec, who was just staring at Anton. It seemed like everything the poor stranger said was a little more bizarre than the statement before it.

  “Revolt?” Mark asked. “Why Asheville? And who are these people?”

  “Asheville is the last safe haven in the East,” the man replied, his words barely perceptible now, nothing but dry, faint rasps. “Walls and everything-ramshackle as they may be. And they are my coworkers, all hired by the PFC-the almighty Post-Flares Coalition. My esteemed associates want to bring their bosses down before they pull out. Before they head back to Alaska through the Flat Trans.”

  “Anton,” Alec said. “Listen to me. Is there anyone else we can talk to? And how can we find out about the friends we’re looking for? The girl, two women.”

  The man coughed; then a little more life sprang into his voice. “Those people I work with have started to lose their minds. Do you understand? They’re… not… right. They’ll be down there for hours, planning and scheming. They’re going to Asheville, and they’ll gather an army along the way if they have to. Oh, there’s talk of an antidote there, but that’s a bunch of hooey. In the end, my people will make sure that others don’t get what’s been taken from them: life. And you know what they’ll do after that. You know, don’t you?”

  “What?” Mark and Alec said at the same time.

  Anton got up onto one elbow. The angle of light from the workpad caused one half of his face to be in shadow from the cot, the other in that pale blue glow. The eye on the lighted side looked as if a spark had been lit inside the pupil.

  “They’ll go to Alaska through that Flat Trans in Asheville,” the man said. “They’ll go to where the governments have gathered and make sure the world ends, even though that’s not their intent. They’ll carry on about finding an antidote and taking down the makeshift government. But all they’ll really do is spread the virus once and for all. Make sure they finish what the sun flares started. Fools, every last one of them.”

  Anton collapsed back into a heap on the cot, and a few seconds later the sounds of his snores filled the room.

  CHAPTER 34

  Mark and Alec sat in silence for a long time, listening to the wheezes and hitched breathing of Anton as he slept.

  “I’m not sure we can trust much of what came out of this guy’s mouth,” Alec said after a while. “But I’m troubled, to say the least.”

  “Yeah,” Mark responded flatly. His head was pounding and he felt sick to his stomach. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so tired. But they had to get up, get out of that room, find Trina and the others.

  He didn’t move.

  “Boy, you look like a zombie,” Alec said after twisting to face him. “And I feel like one.”

  “Yeah,” Mark said again.

  “You’re not going to like what I’m about to say, but there’ll be no argument.”

  Mark raised his eyebrows. Even that seemed to take all the energy he had. “And what’s that?”

  “We need to sleep.”

  “But… Trina… Lana…” He suddenly couldn’t remember the little girl’s name. Impossible. His head ached like a storm had erupted inside his skull.

  Alec stood up. “We’re not going to do our friends a bit of good if we can’t function because we’re too tired. We’ll just catch a few winks. Maybe an hour each while the other keeps an eye out. Anton said his coworkers would be in some meeting for hours.” He got up from the bed and walked quickly over to the door to the room, closed it, locked it. “Just to be safe.”

  Mark slumped to his side, then slowly drew his legs up onto the cot. He folded his arms under his head. He wanted to protest but nothing came out.

  Alec started talking again. “I’ll take first watch, so…”

  But Mark fell asleep before he heard any more.

  The dreams came. The memories. More vivid than ever before. As if the depth of his exhaustion had created the perfect canvas for them.

  CHAPTER 35

  There’s that short moment that seems to last a lifetime when Mark sees the wall of water rushing down the steps of the subtrans station, like a stampede of white, frothy horses. He wonders a thousand things. How he got there. What’s happened above them in the city. Is his family dead. What does the future hold. What’s it like to drown.

  All these thoughts storm through his mind in the one second it takes for the water to reach the bottom of the steps. Then someone is grabbing his arm, pulling him in the opposite direction, forcing his head to turn away from the oncoming disaster. He sees Trina, yanking on him as pure terror brightens her eyes in a sick way that snaps him into motion.

  He breaks into an all-out run, this time grabbing her arm, making sure they stay together. Alec and Lana are right ahead of them, moving quickly, passing the thugs who accosted them, a thing that now seems so silly and outrageous
it angers Mark all over again. The moment passes; he keeps running down the tunnel, Trina by his side. He shoots a quick glance backward, sees Baxter, Darnell, the Toad, Misty, all keeping up, their eyes painted with the same fear as Trina’s, the same fear that Mark feels himself.

  There’s a great rushing sound in the air that takes Mark back to his family’s visit to Niagara Falls. People are screaming and things are breaking, glass shattering. Alec looks nothing like an old man as he sprints past the far edge of the station landing and slips back into the darkness of the train-sized tunnel. They can’t have much time, and Mark realizes with a jolt of horror that he’s entrusted his entire life to the two people in front of him. That this is it. That he’ll be alive or dead within minutes.

  Someone cries out behind him; then he’s hit hard in the shoulder, and he stumbles. He rights himself, letting go of Trina, who can’t stop her momentum and keeps rushing forward. Mark looks back and sees two things: Misty has fallen to the ground, and a surging pool of water is funneling down the tracks of the subtrans from the station. The deluge of water from the streets above is washing over the landing and spilling into the wide groove of the tunnel, and it’s just a few dozen feet away.

  When it washes over Misty’s body, the flood is already inches deep. She pushes against the ground to get up. Mark is leaning forward to help when Misty suddenly screams and leaps to her feet as if the water carries an electric charge.

  “It’s hot!” she yells as she reaches out and squeezes Mark’s hand.

  They turn and begin running again, water now sloshing across their feet. It soaks through Mark’s shoes and socks, the bottom of his pants, and he feels its warmth, then its full heat. He jumps, like someone who has stepped into a bath with the temperature drawn too high. It’s unnerving, and hot enough to burn his skin.

  The group continues to run down the tunnel, doing their best to slog through the rising river. It’s suddenly two feet high and Mark can’t believe how quickly it’s happened. It moves up past his knees and it’s coming faster now-he has to plant his feet more firmly to prevent them from being swept out from under him. He catches up with Trina, the others only a few feet ahead. They’re not running anymore. They’re struggling, using their whole bodies to push forward step by careful step. The water is almost to Mark’s upper thighs, and he knows the current is about to win the battle against all of them.