Justin Cronin - The Passage

A furious anger broke inside him. Peter seized the man by the scruff of his jumpsuit, shoving him against the wall of the boxcar and pushing his forearm up against his throat.

“Where the hell were you? You left us there!”

All color was drained from Olson’s face. “I’m sorry. It was the only way.”

All at once he understood. Olson had sent them into the ring as bait.

“You knew who it was, didn’t you? You knew it was my brother all along.”

Olson swallowed, the point of his Adam’s apple bobbing against Peter’s forearm. “Yes. Jude believed others would come. That’s why we were waiting for you in Las Vegas.”

Another crash detonated from the front of the train; everyone went spilling forward. Olson was ripped from Peter’s grasp. They were out of the tunnel again, back on open ground. Peter heard gunfire from outside and looked to see the Humvee racing past, Sara in the driver’s seat, her knuckles clenched to the wheel, Alicia up top on the big gun, firing in concentrated bursts toward the rear of the train.

“Get out!” Alicia was waving frantically toward the last boxcar. “They’re right behind you!”

Suddenly all the people in the car were yelling, shoving, trying to scramble away from the open door. Olson gripped one of the figures by the arm and pushed her forward. Mira.

“Take her!” he yelled. “Get her to the engine. Even if the cars are overrun, it’s safe there.”

Sara had drawn alongside, matching her speed to the train’s, trying to narrow the space.

Alicia was waving to them: “Jump!”

Peter leaned out the door. “Bring it closer!”

Sara drew in. The racing vehicles were less than two meters apart now, the Humvee positioned below them on the angled rail bed.

“Reach out!” Alicia called to Mira. “I’ll catch you!”

The girl, standing at the edge of the doorway, was rigid with fear. “I can’t!” she wailed.

Another splintering crash; Peter realized the train was barreling through debris on the tracks. The Humvee swayed away as something large and metal went whirling through the space between the vehicles, just as one of the huddled figures leapt to his feet and made a dash for the door. Before Peter could speak, the man had hurled himself into the widening breach, a desperate plunge. His body slammed into the side of the Humvee, his outstretched hands clawing at the roof; for a moment it seemed possible that he would manage to hold on. But then one of his feet touched the ground, dragging in the dust, and with a wordless cry he was whisked away.

“Hold it steady!” Peter yelled.

Twice more the Humvee approached. Each time, Mira refused to go.

“This won’t work,” Peter said. “We’ll have to go over the roof.” He turned to Hollis. “You go first. Olson and I can push you up.”

“I’m too heavy. Hightop should go, then you. I’ll lift Mira up.”

Hollis dropped to a crouch; Caleb climbed aboard his shoulders. The Humvee had swayed away again, Alicia firing in short bursts at the rear of the train. With Hightop on his shoulders, Hollis positioned himself at the edge of the door.

“Okay! Let go!”

Hollis ducked away, keeping one hand gripped on Caleb’s foot; Peter grabbed the other. Together they pushed the boy upward, propelling Caleb over the lip of the door.

Peter ascended the same way. From the roof of the car he could see that the mass of virals, having passed through the tunnel, had broken apart into three groups-one directly behind them, two following on either side. They were racing in a kind of gallop, using both their hands and their feet to propel themselves forward in long leaps. Alicia was shooting at the head of the central group, which had closed to within ten meters. Some went down, dead or injured or merely stunned he couldn’t tell; the pod closed over them and kept coming. Behind them the other two groups began to merge, passing through one another like currents of water, separating once again to re-form their original shapes.

He lay on his belly beside Caleb and reached down as Hollis lifted Mira up; they found the frightened girl’s hands and pulled, drawing her onto the roof.

Alicia, below them: “Get down!”

Three virals were on the roof of the last boxcar now. A blast of fire erupted from the Humvee and they jumped away. Caleb was already vaulting across the gap to the engine. Peter reached for Mira but the girl was frozen in place, her body pressed to the roof of the car, her arms hugging it as if it were the one thing that might save her.

“Mira,” Peter said, trying to pull her free, “please.”

Still she held on. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

From below, a clawed hand reached up, wrapping around her ankle. “Poppa!”

Then she was gone.

There was nothing else he could do. Peter dashed toward the gap, took it at a leap, and dropped through the hatch behind Caleb. He told Michael to hold the train steady and swung open the door to the cabin and looked aft.

The virals were all over the third boxcar now, clinging to the sides like a swarm of insects. So intense was their frenzy that they appeared to be fighting with one another, snapping and snarling for the right to be the first ones inside. Even over the wind, Peter could hear the screams of the terrified souls inside.

Where was the Humvee?

Then he saw it, racing toward them at an angle, bouncing wildly over the hardpan. Hollis and Olson were clinging to the vehicle’s roof. The big gun was depleted, all its ammo spent. The virals would be all over them any second.

Peter leaned out the door. “Bring it closer!”

Sara gunned the engine, drawing alongside. Hollis was the first to grab the ladder, then Olson. Peter pulled them through into the cab and called down, “Alicia, you go!”

“What about Sara?”

The Humvee was drifting away again, Sara fighting to keep them close without colliding. Peter heard a crash as the door of the last boxcar was ripped away, tumbling end over end into the receding darkness.

“I’ll get her! Just grab the ladder!”

Alicia jumped from the roof of the Humvee, hurling her body across the gap. But the distance was suddenly too great; in his mind Peter saw her falling, her hands grabbing at nothing, her body tumbling into the crushing rush of space between the vehicles. But then she had done it; her hands had found the ladder, Alicia was climbing hand over hand up the train. When her feet reached the bottom rung, she turned, stretching her body into the gap.

Sara was gripping the wheel with one hand; with the other she was frantically trying to wedge a rifle into place to brace the gas pedal.

“It won’t stay!”

“Forget it, I’ll grab you!” Alicia called. “Just open the door and take my hand!”

“It won’t work!”

Suddenly Sara gunned the motor. The Humvee shot forward, pulling ahead of the train. Sara was on the edge of the tracks now. The driver’s door swung open. Then she hit the brakes.

The edge of the train’s plow caught the door and sheared it off like a blade, sending it whirling away. For a breathtaking instant the Humvee rocked onto its two right wheels, skidding down the embankment, but then the left side of the vehicle banged down. Sara was moving away now, rocketing across the hardpan at a forty-five-degree angle to the train; Peter saw a skid in the dust and then she was pulling alongside again. Alicia stretched a hand out into the gap.

Peter: “Lish, whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”

How Alicia managed it, Peter would never fully comprehend. When he asked her about it later, Alicia only shrugged. It wasn’t anything she’d thought about, she told him; she had simply followed her instincts. In fact, there would come a time, not much later, when Peter would learn to expect such things from her-extraordinary things, unbelievable things. But that night, in the howling space between the Humvee and the train, what Alicia did seemed simply miraculous, beyond knowing. Nor could any of them have known what Amy, in the engine’s aft compartment, was about to do, or what lay between the engine and the first boxcar. Not even Michael knew about that. Perhaps Olson did; perhaps that was why he’d told Peter to take his daughter to the engine, that she’d be safe there. Or so Peter reasoned in the aftermath. But Olson never said anything about this, and under the circumstances, in the brief time they had left with him, none of them would have the heart to ask.