Justin Cronin - The Passage

She did not see the rest; she’d turned her face away.

“Bring them to me!” a voice was calling. “Bring me one and then another! Bring them that we should live… ”

“… in this way and no other!”

That was when she saw Theo.

In that instant, Mausami experienced a collision of joy and terror so violent it was as if she were stepping from her own body. Her breath seized up inside her; she felt dizzy and sick. Two men in jumpsuits were pushing Theo forward, driving him through a gap in the flames. His eyes had an empty, almost bovine look; he seemed to have no idea what was happening around him. He lifted his face to the crowd, blinking vacantly.

She tried to call out to him, but her voice was drowned in the foam of voices. She looked for Amy, hoping the girl would know what to do, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Above and around her the voices were chanting again:

“Ring! Ring! Ring!”

And then the second man was brought in, held at the elbows by two guards. His head was bowed, his feet seemed barely to touch the floor as the men, supporting his weight, dragged him forward and pitched him onto the ground and darted away. The cheers of the crowd were deafening now, a wash of sound. Theo staggered onward, scanning the crowd, as if someone there might be bringing help. The second man had brought himself upright on his knees.

The second man was Finn Darrell.

Suddenly a woman was standing before her: a familiar face, with a long pink scar stitched to the cheekbone like a seam. Her jumpsuit bulged with the belly of her pregnancy.

“I know you,” the woman said.

Mausami backed away, but the woman gripped her by the arm, her eyes locking on Mausami’s face with a fierce intensity. “I know you, I know you!”

“Let me go!”

She pulled away. Behind her, the woman was frantically pointing, shouting, “I know her, I know her!”

Mausami ran. All thoughts had left her but one: she had to get to Theo. But there was no way past the flames. The viral was almost done with the cattle; the last lay twitching under its jaws. In another few seconds it would rise and see the two men-see Theo-and that would be the end.

Then Mausami saw the pump. A huge greasy bulk, connected by long trailing hoses to a pair of bulging fuel tanks, weeping with rust. The operator was cradling a shotgun across his chest; a blade hung on his belt in a leather sheath. He was facing away, his eyes, like everyone’s, trained on the spectacle unfolding beyond the fluttering wall of flame.

She felt a flicker of doubt-she’d never killed a man before-but it was not enough to stop her; in a single motion she stepped behind the guard and drew the blade and shoved it with all her strength into his lower back. She felt a stiffening, the muscles of his frame drawing tight, like a bow; from deep inside his throat came an exhalation of surprise.

She felt him die.

Punching through the din, a voice from high above: Peter’s? “Theo, run!”

The pump was a throbbing confusion of levers and knobs. Where were Michael and Caleb when you needed them? Mausami picked the largest one-a wild guess, a lever as long as her forearm-and wrapped it in her fist and pulled.

“Stop her!” someone yelled. “Stop that woman!”

As Mausami felt the shot entering her upper thigh-a strangely trivial pain, like the sting of a bee-she realized she’d done it. The flames were dying, guttering around the ring. The crowd was suddenly backing away from the wires, everyone yelling, chaos erupting. The viral had broken away from the last of the cattle, drawing itself erect-all throbbing light and eyes and claws and teeth, its smooth face and long neck and massive chest bibbed in blood. Its body looked swollen, like a tick’s. It stood at least three meters, maybe more. With a flick of its head it found Finn with its eyes, head cocking to the side, body tensing as it took aim, preparing to spring, and then it did; it seemed to cross the air between them at the speed of thought, invisible as a bullet was invisible, arriving all at once where Finn lay helpless. What happened next Mausami did not see clearly and was glad that she did not, it was so fast and terrible, like the cattle but vastly worse, because it was a man. A splash of blood like something bursting, and part of Finn went one way, and part of him another.

Theo , she thought, as the pain in her leg abruptly deepened-a wave of heat and light that bent her double. The leg folded beneath her, sending her pitching forward. Theo, I’m here. I’ve come to save you. We have a baby, Theo. Our baby is a boy .

As she fell she saw a figure sprinting across the ring. It was Amy. Her hair was pulling a trail of smoke; darting tongues of fire were licking at her clothing. The viral had shifted his attention toward Theo now. Amy charged between them, protecting Theo like a shield. Faced with the creature’s immense, bloated form, she seemed tiny, like a child.

And in that instant, which felt suspended-the whole world brought to a halt while the viral regarded the small figure before him-Mausami thought: that girl wants to say something. That girl is going to open her mouth and speak.

Twenty meters overhead, Hollis had dropped through the vent with his rifle, followed by Alicia, holding the RPG. She swung it toward the floor, pointing its barrel at the place where Amy and Babcock stood.

“I don’t have a shot!”

Caleb and Sara dropped through behind them. Peter snatched Jude’s shotgun from the floor of the catwalk and fired in the direction of the two men racing down the catwalk toward them. One man uttered a strangled cry and fell away, tumbling headfirst to the floor below.

“Shoot the viral!” he called to Alicia.

Hollis fired and the second man dropped, face-down, onto the catwalk.

“She’s too close!” Alicia said.

“Amy,” Peter yelled, “get out of there!”

The girl stood her ground. How long could she hold him that way? And where was Olson? The last of the fires had gone out; people were streaming down the stairs, an avalanche of orange jumpsuits. Theo, on his hands and knees, was backing away from the viral, but his heart was nowhere in this; he had accepted his fate, he had no strength to resist. Caleb and Sara had made it across the catwalk to the stairs now, descending into the melee on the balconies. Peter heard women screaming, children crying, a voice that sounded like Olson’s, rising over the din: “The tunnel! Everyone run to the tunnel!”

Mausami lurched into the ring.

“Over here!” She stumbled, catching herself with her hands as she fell to the floor. Her pants were soaked in blood. On all fours, she tried to rise. She was waving, screaming: “Look over here!”

Maus , Peter thought, keep back .

Too late. The spell was broken.

The viral rocked its face toward the ceiling and drew down into a crouch, its body gathering energy like a coiled spring, and then it was flying, lofting through the air. It rose toward them with a pitiless inevitability, arcing over their heads and seizing one of the ceiling struts, body rotating like child swinging on a tree limb-an oddly exhilarating, even joyful image-and landed on the catwalk with a shuddering clang.

I am Babcock .

We are Babcock .

“Lish-”

Peter felt the RPG sailing past his face, the scald of hot gas on his cheek; he knew what was going to happen before it did.

The grenade exploded. A punch of noise and heat and Peter was shoved backward into Alicia, the two of them tumbling onto the catwalk, but the catwalk wasn’t there. The catwalk was falling. Something caught and held and they banged down hard, and for a hopeful moment everything stopped. But then the structure lurched again, and with a pop of rivets and a groan of bending metal the end of the catwalk broke away from the ceiling, tilting toward the floor like the head of a hammer, falling.