Justin Cronin - The Passage

Brood, brood, brood-Sara was right; he spent far too much time with his head stuck down the hole of worry. The signal was between cycles; he’d have to wait another forty minutes to listen to it again. With nothing else to occupy his mind, he called up the battery monitors on the screen, hoping for good news, not finding it. Bell plus two, a hard wind blowing all day through the pass, and the cells were below 50 percent already .

He left Elton in the hut and went to take a walk, to clear his mind. The signal: 1,432 megahertz. It meant something, but what? There was the obvious thing, namely that the numbers were the first four positive integers in a repeating pattern: 1432143214321432 and so on, the 1 closing out the sequence, which reloaded with the 4. Interesting, and probably just a coincidence, but that was the thing about the ghost signal: nothing about it felt like a coincidence.

He came to the Sunspot, where often there would be people milling about well into the night. He blinked into the light. A single figure was sitting at the base of the Stone, dark hair tumbling over her folded arms, which rested on top of her knees. Mausami.

Michael cleared his throat to alert her of his approach. But as he neared, she glanced his way with only passing curiosity. Her meaning was clear: she was alone and wanted to stay that way. But Michael had been in the hut for hours-Elton hardly counted-chasing ghosts in the dark, and was more than willing to risk a little rejection for even a few meager crumbs of company.

“Hey.” He was standing above her. “Would it be okay if I sat?”

She lifted her face then. He saw that her cheeks were streaked with tears.

“Sorry,” Michael said. “I can go.”

But she shook her head. “It’s all right. Sit if you want.”

Which he did. It was awkward, because the only way to sit properly was to take a place beside her, their shoulders practically touching, his back braced by the Stone as hers was. He was beginning to think this hadn’t been such a great idea after all, especially as the silence lengthened. He realized that by staying he had tacitly agreed to ask what was bothering her, even, perhaps, to find the right words to comfort her. He knew that being pregnant could make women act moodily, not that they weren’t moody to begin with, their behavior at any given moment as changeable as the four winds. Sara made sense to him most of the time, but that was only because she was his sister and he was used to her.

“I heard the news. I guess, congratulations?”

She wiped her eyes with her fingertips. Her nose was running, but he didn’t have a rag to offer her. “Thanks.”

“Does Galen know you’re out here?”

She gave a dismal laugh. “No, Galen does not.”

Which made him think that what was bothering her wasn’t just a mood at all. She had come to visit the Stone because of Theo; her tears were for him.

“I just… ” But he couldn’t find the words. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry. We were friends too.”

She did something that surprised him then. Mausami placed her hand on top of his, twining their fingers together where they rested at the top of his knee. “Thank you, Michael. People don’t give you enough credit, I don’t think. That was exactly the right thing to say.”

For a while they sat without speaking. Mausami didn’t withdraw her hand but left it where it was. It was strange-not until this moment had Michael truly felt Theo’s absence. He felt sad, but something else, too. He felt alone. He wanted to say something, to put this feeling into words. But before he could, two more figures appeared at the far end of the plaza. The pair came striding toward them. Galen and, behind him, Sanjay.

“Listen,” Mausami said, “my advice is, don’t let any of Lish’s shit get to you. That’s just how she does things. She’ll come around.”

Lish? Why was she talking about Lish? But there was no time to consider this; Galen and Sanjay were suddenly towering over them. Galen was perspiring and breathing hard, as if he’d been running laps around the walls. As for Sanjay: the befuddled sleepwalker of two nights ago was nowhere to be seen. Standing in his place was a scowling figure of pure paternal self-righteousness.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Galen’s eyes were pulled into an angry squint, as if trying to bring the image of her into focus. “You’re not supposed to be out of the Sanctuary, Maus. You’re not.”

“I’m fine, Gale.” She banished him with a wave. “Go home.”

Sanjay shouldered forward so he was standing above the two of them, an imperious presence, bathed in the lights. His skin seemed to glow with his fatherly disappointment. He glanced down at Michael once, casting his presence aside with a quick clenching of his generous eyebrows-dashing, with this single gesture, any hope Michael might have had for some light-hearted acknowledgment of the other night’s events.

“Mausami. I’ve been patient with you, but that is at its end. I don’t understand why you have to be so difficult about this. You know where you’re supposed to be.”

“I’m staying right here with Michael. Anybody who thinks different will have to take it up with him.”

Michael felt his stomach drop. “Listen-”

“You stay out of this, Circuit,” Galen snapped. “And while we’re at it, what do you think you’re doing out here with my wife?”

“What am I doing?”

“Yeah. Was this your idea?”

“For godsakes, Galen,” Mausami sighed. “Do you know how you sound? No, it wasn’t Michael’s idea.”

Michael became aware that everyone was looking at him now. That he’d come to find himself in the middle of this scene, when all he’d wanted was a little company and fresh air, seemed like the cruelest trick of fate. The expression on Galen’s face was pure burning humiliation; Michael considered whether the man was, in fact, capable of doing him real harm. There was something vaguely ineffectual about the way he carried himself, his attention always seeming to lag a step behind the goings-on around him, but Michael wasn’t fooled: Galen had a good thirty pounds on him. On top of which, and more to the point, Galen viewed himself at this moment as defending something like his honor. Michael’s knowledge of male combat was limited to a few childhood skirmishes in the Sanctuary over not very much, but he had swapped enough punches to know that it helped if your heart was in it. Which Michael’s certainly wasn’t. If Galen could actually manage to aim a blow, it would all be over fast.

“Listen, Galen,” he began again, “I was just taking a walk-”

But Mausami didn’t let him finish. “It’s all right, Michael. He knows you were.”

She rolled her face to look at him; her eyes were swollen and heavy-lidded from crying. “We’ve all got our jobs to do, right?” She took his hand again and squeezed it, as if to seal a bargain between them. “Mine apparently is to do as I’m told and not be difficult. So for now, that’s what I’m going to do.”

Galen reached down to help her to her feet, but Mausami ignored him, rising on her own. Still glowering, Sanjay had stepped back, his hands on his hips.

“I don’t see why this has to be so hard, Maus,” Galen said.

But Mausami acted like she hadn’t heard him, turning away from the two men to face Michael instead, still seated with his back against the Stone. In the glance that passed between them, Michael could feel the diminishment of her surrender, the shame of marching to her orders.

“Thanks for keeping me company, Michael.” She gave him a sad smile. “That was nice, what you said.”

Sara, in the Infirmary, was waiting for Gabe Curtis to die.