Justin Cronin - The Passage

Michael says there has to be some other explanation, that Gus must have said something to her earlier. But I can tell Peter believes her, and I know I do, too. Peter is more convinced than ever that the signal from Colorado is the key to all of this, and I agree. After what we saw in the Haven, I am beginning to think that Amy is the only hope we have-that any of us has .

Day 31

A real town, the first since Caliente. We are spending the night in some kind of school, like the Sanctuary, with the same little desks in rows in all the rooms. I was worried that it would have more slims in it, but we haven’t found any. We’ve been taking the watch in shifts of two. I’m on second shift with Hollis, which I thought would be hard, sleeping a few hours and then waking up again, then trying to sleep a couple more before dawn. But Hollis makes the time pass easily. For a while we talked of home, and Hollis asked me what I missed the most, and the first thing that came to mind was soap, which made Hollis laugh. I said, What’s so funny and he said, I thought you were going to say the lights. Because I sure as hell miss those lights, Sara. And I said, What do you miss and he was quiet for a moment, and I thought he was going to say Arlo, but he didn’t. He said, The Littles. Dora and the others. The sounds of their voices in the courtyard, and the smell in the Big Room at night. Maybe it’s this place, that it kind of reminds me of them. But that’s what I’m missing tonight, the Littles .

Still no virals. Everybody’s wondering how long our luck will hold out .

Day 32

It looks like we’re going to spend an extra night here-everybody needs to rest .

The big news is the store we found, Outdoor World, full of all kinds of supplies we can use, including bows. (The gun case was empty.) We got knives and a hand axe and canteens and packs with frames and a pair of binoculars and a camp stove and fuel that we can use to boil water. Also maps and a compass and sleeping sacks and warm jackets. Now we all have new gaps to wear, and warm socks for our boots, and thermal underwear, which we don’t really need yet but probably will soon. There was one slim in the store, we didn’t see him until we were almost done, lying under the counter with the binoculars. It made us all feel a little bad that we’d been pulling stuff off the shelves and not even noticing he was there. I know Caleb would have made a joke about it to cheer everyone up. I can’t believe he’s gone .

Alicia and Hollis went hunting and came back with another deer, a yearling. I wish we could stay long enough to cure the meat but Hollis thinks there’ll be more where we’re going. What he didn’t say because he didn’t need to was that if there’s game there’s probably smokes, too .

It’s cold tonight. I think it must be fall .

Day 33

Walking again. We’re on Highway 15 now, headed north. The highway is quaked out but at least we know we’re going the right way. Lots of abandoned vehicles. They seem to come in clusters, you see a bunch of them together and then nothing for a while and then you hit a line of twenty or even more. We’ve stopped to rest by a river. Hoping to make Parowan by late afternoon .

Day 35

Still walking. Peter thinks we are covering about 25 kilometers a day. Exhausted. I am worried about Maus. How can she keep this up? She’s clearly showing now. Theo never leaves her side .

It’s suddenly hot again, scorching. At night there’s lightning to the east , where the mountains are, but never any rain. Hollis got a jack on the bow so that’s what we’re eating, roast jack split eight ways, plus a few leftover apples. Tomorrow we’re going to try to look for a grocery and see if there are any cans there that are still okay to eat. Amy says that you can eat plenty of what’s there if you have to. More 100-year-old food

Why no virals?

Day 36

We smelled the fires last night and by morning we knew the forest was burning over the ridgeline to the east. We debated if we should turn around or wait or try to go around somehow, but that would mean leaving the highway, which no one wants to do. We’ve decided to press on and if the air gets worse we’ll have to make a decision .

Day 36 (again)

A mistake. The fires are close now, no way to outrun them. We have taken shelter in a garage off the highway. Peter isn’t sure what town this is, or if there even is a town. We used the tarps and some nails and a hammer we found to cover the broken windows in the front and now all we can do is wait and hope the wind shifts. The air is so thick I can barely see what I’m writing .

[Pages missing.]

Day 38

We’re past Richfield now, on Highway 70. In places it’s washed away but Hollis was right about the major roads, how they follow the passes. The fire came straight through here. There are dead animals everywhere, and the air smells like charred meat. Everyone thinks the sound we heard that night was the screams of virals, caught in the fire .

Day 39

The first dead virals. They were beneath a bridge, three of them huddled together. Peter thinks we haven’t seen any before because they’d driven all the game up into the higher elevations. When the wind changed, they got trapped by the fire .

Maybe it was just the way they looked, all burned up and their faces pressed to the ground, but I found myself feeling sorry for them. If I didn’t know they were virals I would have sworn they were human, and I know it could just as easily have been us lying dead there. I asked Amy do you think they were afraid and she said yes, she thought that they had been .

We’re going to stay an extra day in the next town we come to, to rest and scavenge supplies. (Amy was right about the cans. As long as the seams are tight and it feels heavy in your hand, they’re OK.)

[Pages missing.]

Day 48

Moving east again, the mountains behind us. Hollis thinks we’ve seen the last game for a while. We are crossing a dry, open tableland, stitched by deep gullies. There are bones everywhere you look-not just small game but deer and antelope and sheep, and something that resembles a cow only larger, with a huge knobby skull (Michael says they’re buffalo). At half-day we stopped to rest by an outcrop of boulders and saw, scraped into the rocks, “Darren loves Lexie 4Ever” and “Green River SHS ’16, PIRATES KICK ASS!!!” The first part everybody understood but nobody knew what to make of the rest. It made me feel a little sad, I can’t quite say why, maybe it was just that the words had been there so long with no one to read them. I wonder if Lexie loved Darren back?

We got off the highway and are sheltering near the town of Emery. Nothing really left here, just foundations and a few sheds with rusted farm equipment, full of mice. There’s no pump we can find, but Peter says there’s a river near here and tomorrow we’ll go look for it .

Stars everywhere. A beautiful night .

Day 49

I have decided to marry Hollis Wilson .

Day 52

Going south now from Crescent Junction, on Highway 191. At least we think it’s 191. We actually walked straight past the turnoff at least five clicks and had to double back. There’s not much of a road to follow, which was why we missed it in the first place. I asked Peter why we had to get off the 70 and he said we’re too far north for where we’re going. Sooner or later we’ll have to head south, so it might as well be now .