Justin Cronin - The Passage

“If you can hear me, wake up now.”

His train of thought was broken by movement behind him. Sara entered through the curtain, Jimmy trailing behind.

“Please, Sanjay. Let her rest.”

“This woman is a prisoner, Sara. There are things we need to know.”

“She’s not a prisoner, she’s a patient .”

He regarded the girl again. “She doesn’t look like she’s dying.”

“I don’t know if she is or not. It’s a miracle she’s still alive, all the blood she lost. Now will you please go? It’s a wonder I can keep this place clean with all of you trooping through here.”

Sanjay could see how worn down Sara was, her hair sweaty and askew, her eyes bleary with exhaustion. It had been a long night for everyone, leading to an even longer day. And yet her face radiated authority; in here she made the rules.

“And you’ll let me know if she wakes up?”

“Yes. I told you.”

Sanjay turned to Jimmy where he stood by the curtain. “All right. Let’s go.”

But the man made no response. He was looking at the girl-staring, really.

“Jimmy?”

He broke his gaze away. “What did you say?”

“I said let’s go. Let’s let Sara do her work.”

Jimmy shook his head vaguely. “Sorry. Guess I went away for a second there.”

“You should get some sleep,” Sara said. “You too, Sanjay.”

They exited onto the porch, where Ben and Galen were standing guard, sweating in the heat. Earlier, there had been a crowd, people eager for some glimpse of the Walker, but Ben and Galen had managed to send them all away. It was past half-day; only a few people were moving about. Across the way, Sanjay saw an HD crew with masks and heavy boots and buckets headed to the Sanctuary, to wash the Big Room down again.

“I don’t know what it is,” Jimmy said. “But something about that girl… Did you see her eyes?”

Sanjay startled. “Her eyes were closed, Jimmy.”

Jimmy was squinting down at the floor of the porch, as if he’d dropped something and couldn’t find it. “Come to think of it, I guess maybe they were closed,” he said. “So why would I think she was looking at me?”

Sanjay said nothing. The question made no sense. And yet something about Jimmy’s words hit a nerve. Watching the girl, he’d had the distinct feeling of being observed.

He looked toward the other two men. “Do either of you know what he’s talking about?”

Ben shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe she’s got a thing for you, Jimmy.”

Jimmy turned sharply. His face, glowing with sweat, was actually panicked. “Will you be serious? You go in there and see what I mean. It’s weird, I’m telling you.”

Ben flicked his eyes quickly to Galen, who offered only a helpless shrug. “Flyers,” said Ben, “it was just a joke. What are you getting so riled up for?”

“It wasn’t funny, goddamnit. And what are you smirking at, Galen?”

“Me? I didn’t say anything.”

Sanjay felt his impatience boiling over. “The three of you, enough. Jimmy, no one gets in here. Is that understood?”

Jimmy gave a chastened nod. “Sure. Like you say.”

“I mean it. I don’t care who it is.”

Sanjay focused his eyes on Jimmy’s face, holding them there an extra moment. The man was no Soo Ramirez, that was obvious; he was no Alicia, either. Sanjay wondered if that was why, in the end, he’d chosen him for the job.

“What do you want us to do about Hightop?” Jimmy asked. “I mean, we’re not really putting him out, are we?”

The boy, Sanjay thought wearily. The last thing he wanted to think about, suddenly, was Caleb Jones. Caleb had given the first hours of the crisis a kind of clarity it demanded; people needed something to focus their anger on. But in the light of day, putting the boy out had begun to seem simply cruel, a pointless gesture that everyone would regret later. And the boy had real courage. When the charges were read, he’d stood before the Household and taken full blame without hesitation. Sometimes you found courage in the strangest places, and Sanjay had seen it in the wrench named Caleb Jones.

“Just keep a guard on him.”

“What about Sam Chou?”

“What about him?”

Jimmy hesitated. “There’s talk, Sanjay. Sam and Milo and some others. About putting him out.”

“Where did you hear this?”

“I didn’t. Galen did.”

“That’s what I heard,” Galen volunteered. “It was actually Kip who told me. He was at his folks’ place and heard a bunch of them talking.”

Kip was a runner, Milo ’s oldest boy. “Well? What did he say?”

Galen shrugged uncertainly, as if to distance himself from his own story. “That Sam says if we don’t put him out, he will.”

He should have seen this coming, Sanjay thought. It was the last thing he needed, people taking the situation into their own hands. But Sam Chou-it seemed completely out of character for the man, as mild a fellow as Sanjay had ever known, to go off half-cocked like that. Sam ran the greenhouses, a Chou always had; it was said that he fussed over the banks of peas and carrots and lettuce like pets. He supposed all those Littles had something to do with it. Every time Sanjay turned around, it seemed, Sam was passing out the celebratory shine and Other Sandy was pregnant again.

“Ben, he’s your cousin. You hear anything about this?”

“When would I? I’ve been here all morning.”

Sanjay told them to double the guard at the lockup and stepped down onto the path. It really was awfully damn quiet, he thought. Not even the birds were singing. It made him think again of looking at the girl, the feeling he’d had of being seen. As if, behind her sweetly sleeping face-and there was something sweet about it, he thought, a babyish kind of sweetness; it reminded him of Mausami when she was just a Little, climbing into her cot in the Big Room and waiting for Sanjay to bend toward her to kiss her good night-as if her mind, the girl’s mind, behind her eyelids, that veil of soft flesh, was seeking his out in the room. Jimmy wasn’t wrong; there was something about her. Something about her eyes.

“Sanjay?”

He realized his thoughts were drifting, carrying him away on a current. He swiveled to find Jimmy standing on the top step, his eyes pulled into a squint and his body leaning forward expectantly, the words of some unspoken declaration stalled on his lips.

“Well?” Sanjay’s mouth was suddenly dry. “What is it?”

The man opened his mouth to speak, but no words came; the effort seemed lost.

“It’s nothing,” Jimmy said finally, looking away. “Sara’s right. I really could use some sleep.”

There would come a time, many years later, when Peter would recall the events surrounding the girl’s arrival as a series of dancelike movements: bodies converging and separating, flung for brief periods into wider orbits, only to be drawn back again under the influence of some unknown power, a force as calm and inevitable as gravity.

When he’d come into the Infirmary the night before and seen the girl-so much blood, blood everywhere, Sara frantically trying to seal off the wound and Caleb with the soaked compress in his hands-he’d felt not horror or surprise but a blast of pure recognition. Here was the girl of the carousel; here was the girl of the hallway and the mad dash in darkness; here was the girl of the kiss and the closing door.

The kiss. In the long hours on the catwalk, standing the Mercy for Theo, Peter’s mind had returned to it, again and again, to the puzzle of its meaning, the kind of kiss it was. Not a kiss like Sara’s, that night under the lights; not the kiss of a friend or even, strictly speaking, the chaste kiss of a child, though there had been something childlike about it: its furtive haste and embarrassed quickness, ending almost before it had begun, and the girl’s abrupt reversal, stepping back into the hallway before he could say a word and sealing the door in his face. It was all of these and none, and it wasn’t until he’d come into the Infirmary and seen her lying there that he understood what it was: a promise. A promise as clear as words from a girl who hadn’t any. A kiss that said: I’ll find you .