Justin Cronin - The Passage

“Now, I thought it would be Mausami, the way you described her,” the voice went merrily on. “Back when we had our little talk. I was pretty sure my tastes would run in her direction. But there’s something about a redhead that just gets my blood boiling.”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about. I told you. I don’t know anyone by those names.”

“You dog , Theo. Are you trying to tell me you put the wood to Alicia, too? And Mausami in the condition she is?”

The room seemed to tip. “What did you say?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You didn’t hear? Now, I’m surprised she didn’t tell you. Your Mausami, Theo.” The voice lifted to a kind of singsong. “Got a little bunski in the ovenski .”

He was trying to focus. To hold the words he was hearing in place so he could grasp their meaning. But his brain was heavy, so heavy, like a huge, slippery stone the words kept sliding off.

“I know, I know,” the voice went on. “It came as a shock to me, too. But back to Lish. If you don’t mind my asking, how does she like it? I’m thinking she’s an on-all-fours-howl-at-the-moon kind of girl. How about it, Theo? Set me straight here if I’m wrong.”

“I don’t… know. Stop using my name.”

A pause. “All right. If that’s how you want it. Let’s try a new name, shall we? How about: Babcock.”

His mind clenched. He thought he might be sick. He would have been, if there had been anything in his stomach to come up.

“Now we’re getting somewhere. You know about Babcock, don’t you, Theo?”

That was what was on the other side, the other side of the dream. One of Twelve. Babcock.

“What… is he?”

“Come on, you’re a smart fellow. You really don’t know?” An expectant pause. “Babcock is… you.”

I am Theo Jaxon , he thought, saying the words in his mind like a prayer. I am Theo Jaxon, I am Theo Jaxon. Son of Demetrius and Prudence Jaxon. First Family. I am Theo Jaxon .

“He’s you. He’s me. He’s everyone, at least in these parts. I like to think he’s kind of like our local god. Not like the old gods. A new god. A dream of god we all dream together. Say it with me, Theo. I. Am. Babcock .”

I am Theo Jaxon. I am Theo Jaxon. I am not in the kitchen. I am not in the kitchen with the knife .

“Shut up, shut up,” he begged. “You’re not making any sense.”

“There you go again, trying to make sense of things. You gotta let go , Theo. This old world of ours hasn’t made sense in a hundred goddamn years. Babcock isn’t about making sense . Babcock just is . Like the We. Like the Many.”

The words found Theo’s lips. “The Many.”

The voice was softer now. It floated toward him from behind the door on waves of softness, calling him to sleep. To just let go and sleep.

“That’s right, Theo. The Many. The We. The We of Babcock. You gotta do it, Theo. You’ve got to be a good boy and close your eyes and carve that old bitch up.”

He was tired, so tired. It was like he was melting from the outside in, his body liquefying around him, around the single overwhelming need to close his eyes and sleep. He wanted to cry but he had no tears to shed. He wanted to beg but he didn’t know what for. He tried to think of Mausami’s face, but his eyes had closed again; he had let his lids fall shut, and he was falling, falling into the dream.

“It’s not as bad as you think. A bit of a tussle at the start. The old gal’s got some fight in her, I’ll give her that. But in the end, you’ll see.”

The voice was somewhere above him, floating down through the warm yellow light of the kitchen. The drawer, the knife. The heat and smell and the tightness in his chest, the silence plugging his throat, and the soft place on her neck where her voice was bobbing in its rolls of flesh. I tell you, the boy isn’t just dumb. He’s been struck dumb . Theo was reaching for the knife, the knife was in his hand.

But a new person was in the dream now. A little girl. She was seated at the table, holding a small, soft-looking object in her lap: a stuffed animal.

– This is Peter, she stated in her little girl’s voice, not looking at him. He’s my rabbit.

– That’s not Peter. I know Peter.

But she wasn’t a little girl, she was a beautiful woman, tall and lovely, with tresses of black hair that curved liked cupped hands around her face, and Theo wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. He was in the library, in that terrible room with its stench of death and the rows of cots under the windows and on each cot the body of a child, and the virals were coming; they were coming up the stairs.

– Don’t do it, said the girl, who was a woman now. The kitchen table at which she sat had somehow traveled to the library, and Theo saw that she wasn’t beautiful at all; in her place sat an old woman, wizened and toothless, her hair gone ghostly white.

– Don’t kill her, Theo.

No .

He jerked awake, the dream popping like a bubble. “I won’t… do it.”

The voice broke into a roar. “Goddamnit, you think this is a game? You think you get to choose how this is going to go?”

Theo said nothing. Why wouldn’t they just kill him?

“Well, okay then, pardner. Have it your way.” The voice released a great, final sigh of disappointment. “I got news for you. You’re not the only guest in this hotel. You won’t like this next part very much, I don’t expect.” Theo heard the boots scraping on the floor, turning to go. “I had higher hopes for you. But I guess it’s all the same. Because we’re going to have them, Theo. Maus and Alicia and the rest. One way or the other, we’re going to have them all.”

It was the new moon, Peter realized, as they made their way through the darkness. New moon, and not one soul about.

Getting past the guards had been the easy part. It was Sara who had come up with a plan. Let’s see Lish do this , she had said, and marched straight out the door across the square to where the two men, Hap and Leon, were standing by a fire barrel, watching her approach. She stepped up to them, positioning herself between them and the door of the hut. A brief negotiation ensued; one of the men, Hap, the smaller of the two, turned and walked away. Sara ran one hand through her hair, the signal. Hollis slipped outside, ducking into the shadow of the building, then Peter. They circled around to the north side of the square and took positions in the alleyway. A moment later, Sara appeared, leading the remaining guard, whose quick step told them what she’d promised. As she walked past them, Hollis rose from his hiding place behind an empty barrel, wielding the leg of a chair.

“Hey,” said Hollis, and hit the one named Leon so hard he simply melted.

They dragged his limp body deeper into the alley. Hollis patted him down; strapped to the man’s leg in a leather sheath, hidden under the jumpsuit, was a short-barreled revolver. Caleb appeared with a length of laundry line; they bound the man’s hands and feet and stuffed a wadded rag into his mouth.

“Is it loaded?” Peter asked.

Hollis had opened the cylinder. “Three rounds.” He snapped it closed with a flick of his wrist and passed the weapon to Alicia.

“Peter, I think these buildings are empty,” she said.

It was true; there were no lights anywhere.

“We better hurry.”

They approached the prison from the south, across an empty field. Hollis believed the entrance to the building was located on the far side, facing the main gate to the compound. There was, he said, a kind of tunnel there, the entrance arched in stone and set into the wall. They would attempt this if they had to, but it stood in full view of the observation towers; the plan was to look for a less risky way in. The vans and pickups were kept in a garage on the south side of the building. It would make sense for Olson and his men to keep their hard assets together, and, in any event, they had to look somewhere first.