Justin Cronin - The Passage

“Good, you’re up.”

Lish was standing above him. Peter rubbed his eyes and rose, accepting without comment the canteen of water she was handing him. His limbs felt heavy and slow, as if his bones had been replaced by tubes of sloshing liquid. He took a drink of tepid water and cast his gaze over the edge of the rampart. Beyond the fireline, a faint mist was rising slowly from the hills.

“How long was I out?”

She squared her shoulders toward him. “Forget it. You’d been up seven nights without a break. You had no business being out here as it was. Anybody who says different can take it up with me.”

Morning Bell sounded. Peter and Alicia watched in silence as the gates commenced to retract into their pockets. The herd, restless and ready to move, began to surge through the opening.

“Go home and sleep,” Alicia said, as the logging crews were preparing to leave. “You can worry about the Stone later.”

“I’m going to wait for him.”

She steadied her eyes on his face. “Peter. It’s been seven nights. Go home.”

They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps ascending the ladder. Hollis Wilson hoisted himself onto the catwalk and looked at the two of them, frowning.

“You standing down, Peter?”

“All yours,” Alicia answered. “We’re done here.”

“I said, I’m staying.”

The day shift was commencing. Two more Watchers clambered up the ladder, Gar Phillips and Vivian Chou. Gar was telling some kind of story, Vivian laughing along, but when they saw the three of them standing there, they abruptly fell silent and moved briskly down the catwalk.

“Listen,” Hollis said, “if you want to take this post, it’s okay with me. But I’m the OD, so I’ll have to tell Soo.”

“No, he’s not,” Alicia said. “I mean it, Peter. It’s not a request. Hollis won’t say it, but I will. Go home.”

The urge to protest rose within him. But as he opened his mouth to speak he was met with a blast of grief that stunned him into surrender. Alicia was right. It was over; Theo was gone. He should have felt relieved, but all he felt was exhausted-a bone weariness that ran so deep he felt as if he’d be dragging it for the rest of his life like a chain. It took nearly all of his strength just to lift his cross from the floor of the rampart.

“I’m sorry about your brother, Peter,” Hollis said. “I guess I can say that now since it’s been seven nights.”

“I appreciate that, Hollis.”

“I guess that makes you Household now, huh?”

Peter had barely considered this. He supposed he was. His cousins, Dana and Leigh, were both older, but Dana had taken a pass when Peter’s father had stepped down, and he doubted Leigh would be interested in the job now, with a baby to look after in the Sanctuary.

“I guess it does.”

“Well, um, congratulations?” Hollis gave an awkward shrug. “Funny to say it, but you know what I mean.”

He’d told no one about the girl, not even Alicia, who might have actually believed him.

The distance from the mall roof to the ground had been less than Peter had thought. He had been unable to detect, as Alicia could from below, how high the sand was piled against the base of the building-a tall, sloping dune that had absorbed the impact of his fall as he tumbled headlong down it. Still clutching the axe, he’d climbed onto Omega’s back behind Alicia; it wasn’t until they were clear on the other side of Banning, and could reasonably conclude that no pursuit was forthcoming, that he’d thought to wonder how they’d gotten away, and why the horses themselves were not dead.

Alicia and Caleb had fled the atrium through the kitchen of the restaurant. This connected through a series of hallways to a loading dock. The big bay doors were rusted tight, but one was open a crack, letting in a thin beam of sunlight. Using a length of pipe as a wedge, the two of them had managed to force it open wide enough to scramble through. They rolled out into sunlight to find themselves on the south side of the mall. That was when they spotted two of the horses, obliviously chewing on a stand of tall weeds. Alicia couldn’t believe their luck. She and Caleb were making a circuit around the building when she heard the crash of the door and saw Peter on the edge of the roof.

“Why didn’t you just go when you found the horses?” Peter asked her.

They had stopped on the power station road to water the animals, not far from the place where they had seen the viral in the trees, six days earlier. They had only what was in their canteens, but after they had each taken some, they poured what was left into their hands and let the horses lick it off. Peter’s bleeding elbow was wrapped in a bandage they’d cut from his jersey; the wound wasn’t deep but would probably need stitches.

“I don’t second-guess these things, Peter.” Alicia’s voice was sharp; he wondered if he’d offended her. “It seemed like the right thing to do, and it was.”

That was when he could have told them about the girl. And yet he’d hesitated, feeling the moment pass away. A young girl alone, and the thing she’d done under the carousel, covering him with her body; the look that passed between them, and the kiss on his cheek, and the suddenly slamming door. Maybe in the heat of the moment he had simply imagined all of it. He told them he’d found a stairwell and let it go at that.

They returned to a great commotion; they were four days overdue, on the verge of being declared lost. At the news of their return, a crowd had assembled at the gate. Leigh actually fainted before anyone could explain that Arlo was not dead, that he had stayed behind at the station. Peter didn’t have the heart to go find Mausami in the Sanctuary, to give her the news about Theo. In any case, someone would tell her. Michael was there, and Sara too; it was she who washed and stitched his elbow while he sat on a rock, wincing at the pain and feeling cheated that the trancelike numbness brought on by the loss of his brother did not also apply to having one’s skin sewn closed with a needle. She wrapped it in a proper bandage, hugged him quickly, and burst into tears. Then, as darkness fell, the crowd parted, making room for him to pass, and as Second Bell began to ring, Peter ascended the rampart, to stand the Mercy for his brother.

He left Alicia at the bottom of the ladder, promising that he’d go home and sleep. But home was the last place he wanted to go. Only a few of the unmarried men still used the barracks; the place was filthy and reeked as bad as the power station. But that would be where Peter lived from now on. He needed a few things from the house, that was all.

The morning sun was already warm on his shoulders when he arrived at the house, a five-room cabin facing the East Glade. It was the only home that Peter had ever known, since coming out of the Sanctuary; he and Theo had barely done more than sleep there since their mother’s death. They certainly hadn’t done much to keep the place tidy. It always bothered Peter what a mess it was-dishes piled in the sink, clothing on the floor, every surface tacky with grime-and yet he could never quite bring himself to do anything about this. Their mother had been nothing if not neat, and had kept the house well-the floors washed and rugs beaten, the hearth swept of ashes, the kitchen clear of debris. There were two bedrooms on the first floor, where he and Theo slept, and one, his parents’, tucked under the eaves on the second. Peter went to his room and quickly packed a rucksack with a few days’ worth of clothing; he’d look over Theo’s belongings later, deciding what to keep for himself before carting the rest to the Storehouse, where his brother’s clothes and shoes would be sorted and stowed, to await redistribution among the Colony at Share. It was Theo who had seen to this chore after their mother’s death, knowing that Peter could not; one winter day, almost a year later, Peter had seen a woman-Gloria Patal-wearing a scarf he recognized. Gloria was in the market stalls, sorting jars of honey. The scarf, with its bit of fringe, was unmistakably his mother’s. Peter had been so disturbed he’d darted away, as if from the scene of some misdeed in which he was implicated.