Justin Cronin - The Passage

Michael lifted his voice to the rear of the car, where Gus was priming the fuel system, clearing any air from the line: “Go ahead!”

Gus fired the starter. A great roar rose from below, carrying the satisfying smell of combusting diesel. The engine gave a shuddering lurch as the wheels engaged and began to push against their brakes.

“So,” Michael said, turning to Billie, “how do you drive this thing?”

In the end, they could only take Olson at his word. They simply had no choice.

They divvied up the weapons and split into two groups. Olson and his men would storm the room from ground level while Peter and the others entered from above. The space they called the ring had once been the prison’s central courtyard, covered by a domed roof. Part of the roof had fallen away, leaving the space open to the outside, but the original structural girders were intact. Suspended from these girders, fifteen meters above the ring, was a series of catwalks, once used by the guards to monitor the floor below. These were arranged like the spokes of a wheel with ducts running above them, wide enough for a person to crawl through.

Once they had secured the catwalk, Peter and the others would descend by flights of stairs at the north and south ends of the room. These led to three tiers of caged balconies encircling the yard. This would be where most of the crowd would be, Olson explained, with perhaps a dozen stationed on the floor to operate the fireline.

The viral, Babcock, would enter through the opening in the roof, on the east side of the room. The cattle, four head, would be driven in from the opposite end, through a gap in the fireline, followed by the two people slated for the sacrifice.

Four and two , Olson said, for each new moon. As long as we give him the four and two, he keeps the Many away .

The Many: that was what Olson called the other virals. The ones of Babcock, he explained. The ones of his blood. He controls them? Peter asked, not really believing any of it yet; it was all too fantastic-though even as he formed the question, he felt his skepticism giving way. If Olson was telling the truth, a great deal suddenly made sense. The Haven itself, its impossible existence; the strange behavior of the residents, like people carrying a terrible secret; even the virals themselves and the feeling Peter had harbored his whole life that they were more than the sum of their parts. He doesn’t just control them , Olson answered. As he spoke, a heaviness seemed to come over him; it was as if he’d waited years to tell the story. He is them, Peter .

“I’m sorry I lied to you before, but it couldn’t be helped. The first settlers who came here weren’t refugees. They were children. The train brought them here, from where exactly we don’t know. They were going to hide in Yucca Mountain, in the tunnels inside it. But Babcock was already here. That was when the dream began. Some say it’s a memory from a time before he became a viral, when he was still a man. But once you’ve killed the woman in the dream, you belong to him. You belong to the ring.”

“The hotel, with the blocked streets,” Hollis ventured. “It’s a trap, isn’t it?”

Olson nodded. “For many years we sent out patrols, to bring in as many more as we could. A few just wandered through. Others were left there by the virals for us to find. Like you, Sara.”

Sara shook her head. “I still don’t remember what happened.”

“No one ever does. The trauma is simply too great.” Olson looked imploringly at Peter again. “You must understand. We’ve lived this way always. It was our only way to survive. For most, the ring seems a small price to pay.”

“Well, it’s a lousy deal, if you ask me,” Alicia cut in. Her face was hardened with anger. “I’ve heard enough. These people are collaborators . They’re like pets .”

Something darkened in Olson’s expression-though his tone, when he continued, was still almost eerily calm. “Call us what you like. You can’t say anything I haven’t said to myself a thousand times. Mira was not my only child. I had a son, too. He would be about your age if he had lived. When he was chosen, his mother objected. In the end, Jude sent her into the ring with him.”

His own son, Peter thought. Olson had sent his own son to die.

“Why Jude?”

Olson shrugged. “It’s who he is. There has always been Jude.” He shook his head again. “I would explain it better if I could. But none of that matters now. What’s past is past, or so I tell myself. There’s a group of us who’ve been preparing for this day for years. To get away, to live our lives as people. But unless we kill Babcock, he’ll call the Many. With these weapons we have a chance.”

“So who’s in the ring?”

“We don’t know. Jude wouldn’t say.”

“What about Maus and Amy?”

“I told you, we don’t know where they are.”

Peter turned to Alicia. “It’s them.”

“We don’t know that,” Olson objected. “And Mausami is pregnant. Jude wouldn’t choose her.”

Peter was unconvinced. Even more: everything Olson had said made him believe that Maus and Amy were the ones in the ring.

“Is there another way inside?”

That was when Olson explained the layout, the ducts above the catwalks, kneeling on the floor of the garage to draw in the dust. “It will be pitch-black for the first part,” he warned, as his men were passing out rifles and pistols from the cache taken from the Humvee. “Just follow the sound of the crowd.”

“How many more men do you have inside?” Hollis asked. He was filling his pockets with magazines. Kneeling by an open crate, Caleb and Sara were both loading rifles.

“The seven of us, plus another four in the balconies.”

“That’s all?” Peter said. The odds, not good to begin with, were suddenly much worse than he’d thought. “How many does Jude have?”

Olson frowned. “I thought you understood. He has all of them.”

When Peter said nothing, Olson continued: “Babcock is stronger than any viral you’ve ever seen, and the crowd won’t be on our side. Killing him won’t be easy.”

“Has anyone ever tried?”

“Once.” He hestitated. “A small group, like us. It was many years ago.”

Peter was about to ask what had happened. But he heard, in Olson’s silence, the answer to this question.

“You should have told us.”

A look of abject resignation came into Olson’s face. Peter realized that what he was seeing there was a burden far heavier than sorrow or grief. It was guilt.

“Peter. What would you have said?”

He didn’t answer; he didn’t know. Probably he wouldn’t have believed him. He wasn’t sure what he believed now. But Amy was inside the ring, of that he was certain; he felt it in his bones. He popped the clip from his pistol to blow it clean, then reinserted it into the handle and pulled the slide. He looked toward Alicia, who nodded. Everyone was ready.

“We’re here to get our friends,” he said to Olson. “The rest is up to you.”

But Olson shook his head. “Make no mistake. Once you’re in the ring, our fights are the same. Babcock has to die. Unless we kill him, he’ll call the Many. The train will make no difference.”

New moon: Babcock felt the hunger uncoiling inside him. And he stretched out his mind from This Place, the Place of Return, saying:

It is time .

It is time, Jude .

Babcock was up. Babcock was flying. Soaring over the desert floor in leaps and bounds, the great joyful hunger coursing through him.

Bring them to me. Bring me one and then another. Bring them that you should live in this way and no other .