The Maze Bummer

  Text copyright © 2014 Steve Lookner

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  This book is a work of fiction. It is a parody of the book The Maze Runner. The events depicted in this work are fictional creations of the author, and any resemblance they have to actual events involving actual people is unintentional and purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-692-34989-2

  Cover and additional graphics by Dan Ashwood

  Version 1.4

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 1

  He began his new life standing in a cold, dark room.

  My name is Thomas, he thought. That’s all he could remember. He couldn’t remember anything else about his life. He couldn’t even remember what he was. Maybe I’m a giraffe, thought Thomas. That would be cool.

  Suddenly the room jolted upward. Harsh sounds of chains and pulleys echoed around Thomas as the room kept ascending. He was in some sort of elevator.

  With a groan and a clank, the room stopped. From outside the elevator above, Thomas heard a bunch of male voices chanting.

  “Girl! Girl! Girl! Girl!”

  There was the sound of a latch being opened, and a straight line of light appeared across the ceiling and expanded. Thomas looked down at his body. He wasn’t a giraffe, he was a human. Darn.

  Thomas looked up and saw a number of sets of eyes peering down at him. The male voices were talking again. But now they were angry.

  “Klunk! It’s another dude!”

  “Klunk me!”

  “Maybe it’s a girl with really short hair?”

  “It’s a dude, you piece of klunk.”

  “This klunking klunks.”

  “Motherklunker!”

  A rope dropped down from above. Thomas grabbed it and was pulled up out of the elevator. When he stepped out the light blinded him momentarily, but then his eyes adjusted and the scene came into focus.

  He was surrounded by dudes.

  They were all his age, which he vaguely remembered was 17 or 18. A bunch of 17 and 18-year-old dudes.

  One of the dudes took a step forward and spoke to Thomas. And as soon as Thomas heard the words, he knew he’d remember them for as long as he lived:

  “Welcome to the Sausage Fest.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The Sausage Fest? thought Thomas. What the heck is that?

  Thomas looked around. He was standing in a vast courtyard the size of several football fields, and the courtyard was completely surrounded by four huge walls made of stone. The walls had to be 200 feet high. Each wall was split in the middle by a small opening that seemed to lead to corridors beyond.

  “Where am I?” Thomas said.

  “With a bunch of dudes,” said one of the boys.

  Thomas guessed there were around 50 guys total, all wearing the same dull blue clothes. As he glanced around the courtyard again, he noticed that each corner was different. In one corner there were towers of pizza boxes almost as high as the wall itself. In another corner there was a large hill that looked like it consisted entirely of dirty blue clothes. In the third corner was a brown pond. And in the fourth corner was a frat house, a dilapidated wooden structure with Greek letters on the front. Frat house, Thomas thought, why do I remember that term?

  “Which Keeper ya think he’s gonna get?” said one of the dudes.

  “He’ll definitely be a klunker!” said another dude, and everybody laughed, except for a few of the boys who were carrying scoops and wheelbarrows full of brown stuff.

  “Shut your klunken shunk-klunks!” shouted a dark-skinned dude. That must be their leader, Thomas thought.

  “What is this place?” Thomas said to the guy.

  “It’s a long story,” said the dark-skinned dude. “You’ll get the tour later. Name’s Alby, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you,” said Thomas. “So where are the girls?”

  “Klunkhead, if we knew where the girls were do you think we’d all be sittin’ here?”

  “Take it easy on him, Alby,” said a tall blonde guy. “It’s not his fault he’s another dude instead of a chick.” He extended his hand to Thomas. “I’m Newt,” he said.

  Thomas shook his hand. “How did I get here?”

  “Enough of the shankin’ questions, shank for brains!” said Alby. “We’ll tell you what you need to know when you need to know it! Now the first thing for you to get straight is that this place is called the Sausage Fest. Can you guess why?”

  “Uh...’cause it’s a bunch of dudes?” said Thomas.

  “Bingo!” said Alby. “First smart thing you’ve said all day.”

  Thomas looked again at the massive walls. “Is this a prison?” he asked.

  “It’s more like party!” said Newt. “The worst party you’ve ever been to, because no chicks show up.”

  “Then why don’t you all just leave?” said Thomas.

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  “You just don’t get it, shank,” Alby said. “But you’ll learn. Tomorrow. Gettin’ late now, Joggers will be comin’ back soon. Chuck here will get you a bed.” He pointed to a short fat kid who looked like he was only about 15. “Ok everyone, we’ve still got a few minutes of daylight left, so back to work!”

  The dudes all dispersed, except for Newt and Chuck. Newt approached Thomas and put his hand on Thomas’s shoulder. “First day’s always tough, shank,” he said. “Try to get some rest. And while you’re sleeping, remember to enjoy your dreams, ‘cause that’s the only time you’re gonna see a girl for the rest of your life.”

  Thomas sank to the ground and just sat there. He’d been hoping he was dreaming. But with every second that passed, he realized that this nightmare was actually real.

  CHAPTER 3

  Thomas just sat there for a moment, too overwhelmed to move. Then a metallic clicking sound behind him caught his attention. He peeked behind him to see a little metal thing that looked like a bug checking out his butt.

  “Hey! What are you looking at?” said Thomas, waving at it. “Shoo, shoo!” The thing scurried off.

  “Beetleperv,” said Chuck.

  “Beetleperv?” said Thomas.

  “Yeah, they’re always checking us out,” said Chuck. “Won’t hurt you, though. Unless you slip on one in the shower.”

  “They come into the shower?” said Thomas.

  Suddenly a terrifying scream tore through the air from the direction of the frat house.

  “What was that?” said Thomas anxiously.

  “They got him,” said Chuck.

  “Who are they?” said Thomas.

  “With any luck, you’ll never find out,” said Chuck.

  It was weird enough for Thomas to hear these things, but it was even weirder to hear them coming from a 15-year-old fat kid.

  “So why are you so much younger than everyone else?” said Thomas.

  “Best I can tell, it’s because I was a kid genius who started college when I was 13 and then joined a frat sophomore year,” said Chuck.

  College. Frat. The words felt
familiar to Thomas, and he vaguely remembered a place with lots of kids his age where he drank and partied and once in a while showed up in class to turn in a paper he’d copied off the Internet.

  “What does you going to college when you were 13 and then joining a frat have to do with anything?” said Thomas.

  “The last thing any of us remember before coming here is being in a frat in college,” said Chuck.

  That’s weird, thought Thomas. That’s the last thing I remember, too.

  There was another scream from the frat house. It was the same guy, but even louder. Chuck laughed.

  “How can you laugh when someone is screaming like that?” said Thomas.

  “He’ll be okay,” Chuck said. “No one dies from hooking up with a Heaver. As long as they didn’t go all the way, that is.”

  Hooking up with a Heaver? What in the world was he talking about?

  Thomas walked over to one of the openings in the walls. “What’s out there?” he said.

  Chuck looked uncomfortable. “I’ve never been.”

  Thomas rolled his eyes. “Looks like the only way I’m gonna learn stuff here is to find out for myself.” He started walking out the opening.

  “No! Wait!” Chuck yelled, and threw his body in front of Thomas. “They’re about to close!”

  “What’s about to close?” said Thomas.

  “The walls!” said Chuck.

  “Dude, if these 200-foot-high walls close, I will pour hot sauce onto my nutsack,” said Thomas. Hot sauce. Nutsack. How had he remembered these words?

  Something in the corridor caught Thomas’s attention. He looked more closely and was stunned to see an Asian dude in really short jogging shorts in the corridor, running full speed toward the opening.

  “Who the hell is that?” said Thomas.

  “One of the Joggers coming back from the Maze,” said Chuck.

  “Did you say maze?” said Thomas, as the Asian dude ran past him and into the Sausage Fest. Thomas was alarmed to notice the guy’s shorts were so small that his junk was hanging out.

  Thomas then saw a bunch of other Asian dudes run in through the other openings of the Sausage Fest, all wearing similar shorts and all with their junk hanging out. The joggers ran over to a small hut in the middle of the Sausage Fest and went inside.

  “Who were those guys? What’s that building? And aren’t there any other shorts they can wear?”

  “Dude, you gotta chill with the questions,” said Chuck. “You’re giving me a headache. Ah—” Chuck held up a finger. “It’s about to happen. You might wanna get your nutsack ready.”

  “What’s about to happen?” said Thomas. But before he could even finish asking the question, the earth shook and the walls started closing.

  Thomas couldn’t believe it. This must defy all the laws of physics, he thought. But then he remembered that when he’d taken physics he’d never actually gone to class, so he actually had no idea if this was true.

  A resounding boom echoed across the Sausage Fest as the doors all sealed shut for the night.

  “Man, are you lucky the Creators don’t send us any hot sauce,” said Chuck.

  CHAPTER 4

  Later that evening Thomas was lying in bed, with Chuck in the next bed over. The “beds” were just sleeping bags placed on a patch of grass in the Sausage Fest. As Thomas lay silently staring at the sky, he suddenly realized what he needed to do.

  “I want to be one of those guys that goes into the maze,” he said. “Except with longer shorts.”

  “You mean a Jogger?” said Chuck. “You don’t even know what they do, you piece of klunk.”

  “Why does everyone keep saying that word ‘klunk?’” said Thomas. “What does it mean?”

  “You know how when you make a number two it goes ‘klunk’ in the toilet?” said Chuck.

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s what it means.”

  Thomas nodded and drifted off to sleep. He began having an awesome dream that he was living somewhere there were actually girls. But after a few minutes, someone shook him awake. Thomas looked up annoyed, and saw it was Newt.

  “Thanks a lot,” said Thomas. “I was having a dream with girls in it!”

  “Don’t worry,” said Newt. “You’ll have that dream every single time you sleep from now on. Come on, klunkbag. I wanna show you something.”

  Newt led Thomas over to one of the walls, and pulled aside some ivy to reveal a porthole window about a foot wide.

  “Look,” said Newt.

  Thomas looked out the window.

  “What am I looking for?” said Thomas.

  “I swear, if you ask one more klunkin’ question I’m gonna klunk your klunk up your klunk hole!”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Thomas said.

  “Just shut up and look,” said Newt.

  A minute passed, and nothing happened in the dark corridor. But then Thomas saw something move. He couldn’t tell what it was at first, but gradually he began to make out something walking...something with long hair.

  “It’s a girl!” Thomas cried joyfully. He couldn’t understand why Newt didn’t seem at all excited.

  “Keep watching,” said Newt.

  A few seconds later, he realized why Newt wasn’t excited. Yes, it was a girl. But as she got closer, Thomas realized it was a fat girl. A very, very fat girl.

  “Darn,” Thomas said.

  “Now you’re startin’ to see why we don’t leave the Maze at night,” said Newt.

  “Wait, what’s the big deal?” Thomas said. “So there’s a fat girl out there, who cares?”

  “Keep watching,” said Newt. Thomas looked out the window again. When the fat girl was only a few feet away from the window, Newt knocked on the glass. The fat girl spun toward the window, saw Thomas, and faster than Thomas had ever seen a person move before, leapt toward the window and started tongue kissing it, moving its tongue at superhuman speed.

  “Ewwwwww!” Thomas said, jumping back. “I think I’m gonna heave! What is that thing?”

  “It’s called a Heaver,” said Newt.

  “A Heaver?” said Thomas. “Why’s it called that?” And then he threw up.

  “I think you just answered your own question,” said Newt. “The Heavers patrol the Maze every night after the walls close. We believe they’re some sort of humanoid robot.”

  Thomas had finally stopped vomiting. “So if you get stuck out there at night,” Thomas asked fearfully, “what do they do to you?”

  Newt looked at Thomas with deadly seriousness.

  “They make you hook up with them,” said Newt. “Sober.”

  The word sober echoed in Thomas’s brain. Sure, he’d hooked up with fat girls before. But never sober. It was always when he was totally wasted and had his beer goggles on. To Thomas, as to every frat guy, the idea of hooking up with a fat girl while sober seemed like a fate worse than death.

  “Is there really no alcohol here?” said Thomas.

  “Believe me, we’ve asked,” said Newt, and he sadly walked away.

  CHAPTER 5

  Thomas went back to sleep, but instead of dreaming of girls like Newt had promised, he had a nightmare in which he was out on a Friday night and was going from party to party and each one was a bigger sausage fest than the last. And finally, when Thomas woke up, he was back in the biggest sausage fest of all.

  Shortly after Thomas woke up, Alby approached.

  “Ready for your tour, shank?” said Alby.

  “Heck yeah,” said Thomas.

  Alby walked Thomas over to the elevator in which he’d come up.

  “This here’s the Box,” said Alby. “It’s where they deliver our supplies, and new pieces of sausage like you.”

  “Hmmmmm,” said Thomas. “So if no one’s here to receive the delivery do they just leave it here, or do they do that annoying thing where they leave the note saying they’ll come back tomorrow but they don’t tell you what time they’re coming?”

  Alby just s
hook his head and led Thomas away. They next headed to the corner of the Sausage Fest that was filled with tower after tower of empty pizza boxes

  “Sausage Fest’s divided into four sections,” said Alby. “First one is Box Forest.”

  “Wow,” said Thomas, craning his neck to look at the box towers. “You guys sure eat a lot of pizza.”

  “It’s all we eat, shank,” said Alby.

  “Just pizza?” said Thomas. “Why?”

  “Any dude you’re friends with know how to cook?” said Alby.

  Good point, thought Thomas.

  Alby then led Thomas to the second corner of the Sausage Fest, where there was a gigantic hill of clothes that were all the same pale blue color as the ones everybody in the Sausage Fest wore. A bunch of dudes were working on the hill, some driving dump trucks and bulldozers. It looked like a landfill at a garbage dump.

  “This next area is Dirty Clothes Mountain,” Alby said. “When your clothes get dirty, this is where they end up.”

  “Why don’t you guys just wash them yourself?” said Thomas.

  “Tried that once,” Alby said. “How do you think they got all blue? Dudes mixed the lights and the darks. And everything shrunk so much it was unusable. Creators figured it was just simpler to send us new clothes every few days.”

  We don’t have to do laundry? Thomas thought. Suh-weeeeet.

  Alby then brought Thomas over to the third corner of the Sausage Fest, which was dominated by a giant brown lake. Thomas was about to ask why it was brown, when he caught a whiff of the smell and immediately knew.

  “This is called Lake Klunk,” Alby said. “I’m assuming you can figure out why.”

  Thomas noticed a bunch of dudes wearing facemasks carrying wheelbarrows to the Lake and dumping them in.

  “You guys don’t have toilets?” said Thomas.

  “What does this look like, the klunking Embassy Suites?” said Alby.

  “Why don’t you just dump the klunk in the maze?” said Thomas.

  “It’s hard enough to get people to be Joggers as it is,” Alby said. “You think it’ll make it easier if we tell them they have to jog through our klunk?”