Justin Cronin - The Passage

“Truthfully, Hollis? I don’t know.”

“Well, we better hope she did. After Kelso, it’s open country clear to the Nevada line.” He drew his blade and wiped it on the hem of his jersey. When he resumed speaking his voice was quiet, confidential. “Before I left, you know, I heard people talking, saying things about her. The Girl from Nowhere, the last Walker. People were saying she was a sign.”

“Of what?”

Hollis frowned. “The end, Peter. The end of the Colony, the end of the war. The human race, or what’s left of it. I’m not saying they were right. It was probably just more of Sam and Milo’s bullshit.”

Sara stepped toward them. The swelling on her face had eased overnight; the worst of the bruising had faded to a greenish purple.

“We should let Maus ride,” she said.

“Is she okay?” Peter asked.

“A little dehydrated. In her condition, she has to keep her fluids up. I don’t think she should be walking in the heat. I’m worried about Amy, too.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

She shrugged. “The sun. I don’t think she’s used to it. She’s got a bad burn already. The glasses and shirt will help, but she can stay covered only so long in this heat.” She cocked her head and looked at Hollis. “So what’s this Michael tells me about a vehicle?”

They marched.

The mountains fell away behind them; by half-day, they were deep in open desert. The roadway was little more than suggestion, but they could still follow its course, tracing the bulge it made in the hardpan, through a landscape of scattered boulders and strange, stunted trees, beneath a boiling sun and a limitless sky bleached of all color. The breeze hadn’t so much died as collapsed; the air was so motionless it seemed to hum, the heat vibrating around them like an insect’s wings. Everything in the landscape looked both close and far away, the sense of perspective distorted by the immeasurable horizon. How easy it would be, Peter thought, to get turned around in such a place, to wander aimlessly until darkness fell. Past the town of Mojave Junction-no town at all, just a few empty foundations and a name on the map-they crested a small rise to discover a long line of abandoned vehicles, two abreast, facing the direction they had come. Most were passenger cars but there were some trucks as well, their rusted, sand-scoured chassis sunk in the drifting sand. It felt as if they’d stumbled on an open grave, a grave of machines. Many of the roofs had been peeled away, the doors torn off their hinges. The interiors looked melted; if there had once been bodies inside, they were long gone, scattered to the desert winds. Here and there in the undifferentiated debris, Peter detected a recognizable item of human scale: a pair of eyeglasses, an open suitcase, a child’s plastic doll. They passed in silence, not daring to speak. Peter counted over a thousand vehicles before they ended in a final plume of wreckage, the indifferent desert sands resuming.

It was midafternoon when Hollis announced that it was time to leave the road and turn north. Peter had begun to doubt that they would ever make it to the bunker. The heat was simply overwhelming. A blazing wind was blowing from the east, pushing dust into their faces and eyes. Since the line of cars, no one had said much of anything. Michael seemed the worst off; he’d begun, discernibly, to limp. When Peter questioned him, Michael removed his boot without comment to show him a fat, blood-filled blister on his heel.

They paused to rest in the sparse shadow of a yucca grove. “How much farther?” Michael asked. He’d taken off his boot for Sara to attend to his blister; he winced as she pierced it with a small scalpel from the med kit she had found at the station. From the incision came forth a single bead of blood.

“From here, about fifteen kilometers,” Hollis said. He was standing away from them, at the edge of the shade. “See that line of mountains? That’s what we’re looking for.”

Caleb and Mausami had fallen asleep, their heads propped on their packs. Sara wrapped Michael’s foot in a bandage; he wedged it back into his boot, grimacing with pain. Only Amy seemed little worse for the wear. She was sitting apart from the others, her skinny legs folded under her, watching them warily from behind her dark glasses.

Peter went to where Hollis was standing. “Will we make it?” he asked quietly.

“It’ll be close.”

“Let’s give everyone half a hand.”

“I wouldn’t go longer.”

Peter’s first canteen was empty. He allowed himself a sip from his second, vowing to hold the rest in reserve. He lay down with the others in the shade. It was as if he’d only just closed his eyes when he heard his name and opened them again to find Alicia standing over him.

“You said half a hand.”

He rose on his elbows. “Right. Time to go.”

Another hand had passed before they saw the sign, rising out of the wavering heat. First a long line of fencing, tall chain-link with coils of barbed wire at the top, and then, a hundred meters inside the open gate, the small sentry house and the sign standing beside it.

YOU ARE ENTERING THE TWENTYNINE PALMS

MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER.

DANGER. UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE.

DO NOT LEAVE THE ROAD .

“Unexploded ordnance.” Michael’s face was compacted in a fierce squint. “What does that mean?”

“It means watch your step, Circuit.” Alicia directed her voice to everyone. “It could be bombs, or maybe mines. Single file, try to step in the footprints of the person in front of you.”

“What’s that?” Mausami was pointing with one hand, the other held over her brow against the glare. “Are they buildings?”

They were buses: thirty-two of them parked in two closely spaced lines, their yellow paint almost entirely rubbed away. Peter stepped toward the closest bus, at the rear of the line. The breeze had died; the only sound came from their footsteps on the hardpan. Below windows covered in heavy-gauge wire were the words DESERT CENTER UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT. He clambered up the dune of sand that was pushed against it and peered inside. More sand had blown through, subsuming the benches in wavelike drifts. Birds had roosted in the ceiling, staining the walls with the white paint of their droppings.

“Hey! Look at this!” Caleb called.

They followed his voice around to the far side. Tipped onto its side was the shell of some kind of small aircraft.

“It’s a helicopter,” said Michael.

Caleb was standing on top of the fuselage. Before Peter could speak, Caleb had pulled the door open, like a hatch, and dropped down inside it.

“Hightop,” Alicia called, “be careful!”

“It’s okay! It’s empty!” They heard him rummaging around the interior; a moment later, his head popped through the hatch. “Nothing here, just a couple of slims.” He chinned himself up. He slid down the fuselage and showed them what he’d found. “They were wearing these.”

A pair of necklaces, tarnished from exposure. To each was attached a silver disk. Peter used some of his water to rinse the tags clean.

Sullivan, Joseph D. O+ 098879254 USMC Rom. Cath. Gomez, Manuel R. AB- 859720152 USMC No pref.

“USMC-that’s Marine Corps,” Hollis said. “You should put these back where you found them, Caleb.”

Caleb snatched the necklaces from Peter’s hand, clutching them protectively against his chest. “No way. I’m keeping these. I found them, fair and square.”

“Hightop, they were soldiers.”

Caleb’s voice was suddenly shrill. “So what? They never came back, did they? The soldiers were supposed to come back for us, and they never did.”