Justin Cronin - The Passage

Sara, sitting at the desk in the outer room, was remembering this, wondering if she should have told Peter about it, when her attention was taken by a sound of voices on the porch. She lifted her face toward the window. Ben was still sitting at the rail, facing away-Sara had carried out a chair for him-the end of his cross visible where it protruded from his lap; whomever he was speaking to was standing below him, Sara’s view obscured by the angle. What are you doing there? she heard Ben say, his voice gathering into a tone of warning. Don’t you know there’s a curfew?

And as Sara rose to her feet, to see whom Ben was speaking to, she saw Ben rising also, sweeping his cross before him.

Peter and Michael, moving through the trailer park, darting from shadow to shadow: they made their final approach to the lockup in the cover of the trees.

No guard.

Peter gently pushed open the door, which stood ajar. As he stepped inside, he saw a body pushed against the far wall, its arms and legs bound, just as Alicia, moving from his left, dropped the cross she was pointing at his back.

“Where the hell have you been?” she said.

Caleb was standing behind her, holding the blade.

“A long story. I’ll tell you on the way.” He gestured toward the body on the floor, which he now recognized as Galen Strauss. “I see you decided to get started without me. What did you do to him?”

“Nothing he’ll remember when he wakes up.”

“Ian knows about the guns,” said Michael.

Alicia nodded. “So I figured.”

Peter explained the plan. First to the Infirmary to get Sara and the girl, then to the stables, for mounts. Just before First Bell, Dale, on the Wall, would call sign. In all the confusion, they should be able to slip out the gate, just as the sun was rising, and make their way down to the power station. From there they could figure out what to do.

“You know, I think I misjudged Dale,” Alicia said. “He’s got more stones than I thought.” She looked at Michael. “You too, Circuit. I wouldn’t have figured you as someone ready to storm the lockup.”

The four of them stepped out. Dawn was fast approaching; Peter didn’t think they had more than a few minutes. They moved in quick silence toward the Infirmary and circled around to the west wall of the Sanctuary, giving them cover and a clear view of the building.

The porch was empty; the door stood open. Through the front windows came a flicker of lamplight. Then they heard a scream.

Sara.

Peter got there first. The outer room was empty. Nothing was disturbed except the chair at the front desk, which was lying on its side. From the ward Peter heard a groan. As the others entered behind him, he raced down the hallway and tore through the curtain.

Amy was huddled at the base of the far wall, her arms folded over her head as if to ward off a blow. Sara was on her knees, her face covered in blood.

The room was full of bodies.

The others had burst in behind him. Michael rushed to his sister’s side.

“Sara!”

She tried to speak, opening her bloodied lips, but no sound came. Peter dropped to his knees beside Amy. She appeared uninjured, but at his touch she flinched, pulling farther away, waving her arms protectively.

“It’s okay,” he was saying, “it’s okay,” but it wasn’t okay. What had happened here? Who had killed these men? Had they slaughtered one another?

“It’s Ben Chou,” Alicia said. She was kneeling by one of the bodies. “Those two are Milo and Sam. The other one is Jacob Curtis.”

Ben had been taken on a blade. Milo, face-down in a spreading puddle of blood, had been killed by a blow to the head; Sam appeared to have gone down the same way, his skull caved in from the side.

Jacob was lying at the foot of Amy’s cot, the bolt from Ben’s cross jutting from his throat. A bit of blood was still bubbling from his lips; his eyes were open, wearing a look of surprise. In his outstretched hand he was clutching a length of iron pipe, smeared with blood and brain, white flecks among the red, clinging to its surface.

“Holy shit!” Caleb said. “Holy shit, they’re all dead!”

Everything about the scene had taken on a horrifying vividness. The bodies on the floor, the pooling blood. Jacob with the pipe in his hand. Michael was helping Sara to her feet. Amy was still cowering against the wall.

“It was Sam and Milo,” Sara croaked. Michael had helped his sister onto one of the cots. She spoke haltingly, through cracked and swollen lips, her teeth lined in crimson. “Ben and I tried to stop them. It was all… I don’t know. Sam was hitting me. Then someone else came in.”

“Was it Jacob?” Peter said. “He’s lying dead here, Sara.”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!”

Alicia took Peter by the elbow. “It doesn’t matter what happened,” she said urgently. “No one will ever believe us. We have to go now .”

They couldn’t risk the gate; Alicia explained what she wanted everyone to do. The important thing was to keep out of sight of the Wall. Peter and Caleb would go to the Storehouse, for ropes and packs and shoes for Amy; Alicia would lead the others to the rendezvous.

They crept from the Infirmary and fanned out. The main door to the Storehouse stood ajar, the lock hanging on its hasp-an odd detail, but nothing they had time to worry about now. Caleb and Peter moved into the dim interior with its long rows of bins. That was where they found Old Chou and, beside him, Walter Fisher. They were hanging side by side from the rafters, the ropes tight around their necks, their bare feet suspended above a bin of crated books. Their skin had taken on a grayish cast; both men’s tongues were hanging from their mouths. They had evidently used the crates as a kind of stepladder, assembling them into a pile and then, once the ropes were in place, kicking them away. For a moment Peter and Caleb just stood there, looking at the two men, the improbable image they made.

“Fuck… me,” said Caleb.

Alicia was right, Peter knew. They had to go now. Whatever was happening was vast and terrible, a force to sweep over them all.

They assembled their supplies and stepped outside. Then Peter remembered the maps.

“Go ahead,” he told Caleb. “I’ll catch up.”

“They’ll already be there.”

“Just go. I’ll find you.”

The boy darted away. At Auntie’s house, Peter didn’t bother to knock; he stepped inside and moved straight to the bedroom. Auntie was asleep. He paused for a moment in the doorway, watching her breathe. The maps were where he’d left them, under the bed. He bent to retrieve them and slid the box into his pack.

“Peter?”

He froze. Auntie’s eyes were still closed. Her hands lay still at her sides.

“I was just lying here to rest some.”

“Auntie-”

“No time for goodbyes,” the old woman intoned. “You go on now, Peter. You’re in your own time now.”

By the time he reached the cutout, filaments of pink were rising from the east. Everyone was there. Alicia was climbing from under the trunk line, dusting herself off.

“Everybody ready?”

Footsteps behind them: Peter wheeled around, drawing his blade. But then he saw, stepping from the undergrowth, the figure of Mausami Patal. A cross was slung from one shoulder; she was wearing a pack.

“I tracked you from the Storehouse. We better hurry.”

“Maus-” Alicia began.

“Save your breath, Lish. I’m going.” Mausami focused her eyes on Peter. “Just tell me one thing,” she said. “Do you believe your brother’s dead?”

He felt as if he had been waiting for someone to ask him this very question. “No.”

“Neither do I.”

Her hand moved toward her belly, an unconscious gesture. Its meaning came upon him with such completeness it felt less like something discovered than remembered, as if he’d known all along.