Justin Cronin - The Passage

But whenever he thought this, his next thought would be of Amy. Alicia had been right: to come so close and turn away felt like something he would regret, probably for the rest of his life. Michael had tried to pick up the signal from the radio in the general’s tent, but their radio equipment was all short range, worthless in the mountains. In the end, Vorhees said he had no reason to doubt their story, but who knew what the signal meant?

“The military left all kinds of crap behind. Civilians, too. Believe me, we’ve seen it before. You can’t go chasing every squeak.” He spoke with the weariness of a man who had seen a lot, more than enough. “This girl of yours, Amy. Maybe she’s a hundred years old, like you say, and maybe she isn’t. I have no reason to disbelieve you, except for the fact that she looks about fifteen and scared shitless. You can’t always explain these things. My guess is she’s just some poor traumatized soul who survived somehow and by a stroke of luck just wandered into your camp.”

“What about the transmitter in her neck?”

“Well, what about it?” Vorhees’s tone wasn’t mocking, merely factual. “Hell, maybe she’s Russian or Chinese. We’ve been waiting for those people to show up, assuming there’s even anyone left alive out there.”

“Is there?”

Vorhees paused; he and Greer exchanged a look of caution.

“The truth is, we don’t know. Some people say the quarantine worked, that the rest of the world is just humming right along out there without us. This raises the question as to why we wouldn’t hear anything over the wireless, but I suppose it’s possible they set up some kind of electronic barricade in addition to the mines. Others believe-and I think the major and I share this opinion-that everybody’s dead. This is all conjecture, mind you, but the story goes that the quarantine wasn’t quite as tight as people thought. Five years after the outbreak, the continental United States was pretty much depopulated, ripe for the picking. The gold depository at Fort Knox. The vault at the Federal Reserve in New York. Every museum and jewelry shop and bank, right down to the corner savings and loan, all just sitting there, nobody minding the store. But the real prize was all that American military ordnance just lying around, including upwards of ten thousand nuclear weapons, any one of which could shift the balance of power in a world without the United States to babysit it. Frankly, I don’t think it’s a question of if anyone came ashore, but how many and who. Chances are, they took the virus back with them.”

Peter gave himself a moment to absorb all this. Vorhees was telling him the world was empty, an empty place.

“I don’t think Amy’s here to steal anything,” he said finally.

“If it’s any help, I don’t think so either. She’s just a kid, Peter. How she survived out there is anybody’s guess. Maybe she’ll find a way to tell you.”

“I think she already has.”

“That’s what you believe. And I won’t disagree with you. But I’ll tell you something else. I knew a woman growing up, crazy old lady lived in a shack behind our housing section, an old falling-down dump of a place. Wrinkled as a raisin, kept about a hundred cats, place absolutely reeked of cat piss. This woman claimed she could hear what the dracs were thinking . We kids would tease the hell out of her, though of course we couldn’t get enough of her, either. The kind of thing you feel bad about later, but not at the time. She was what you all call a Walker, just appeared at the gates one day.” Vorhees concluded with a shrug: “Time to time you hear stories like this. Old people mostly, half-crazy mystics, never a young one like this girl. But it’s not a new story.”

Greer leaned forward. He seemed suddenly interested. “What happened to her?”

“The woman?” The general rubbed his chin as he searched his memory. “As I recall, she took the trip. Hanged herself in her cat-piss-smelling house.” When neither Peter nor Greer said anything, the general went on: “You can’t overthink these things. Or at least we can’t. I’m sure the major will agree with me. We’re here to clear out as many dracs as we can, lay in supplies, find the hot spots and burn them out. Maybe someday it’ll all add up to something. I’m sure it’s nothing I’ll live to see.”

The general pushed back from the table, and Greer as well; the time for talk was over, at least for the day. “In the meantime, think about my offer, Jaxon. A ride home. You’ve earned it.”

By the time Peter had stepped to the door, Greer and Vorhees were already leaning over the table, where a large map had been unrolled. Vorhees raised his face, frowning.

“Was there something else?”

“It’s just… ” What did he want to say? “I was wondering about Alicia. How she’s doing.”

“She’s fine, Peter. However Coffee did it, he taught her well. You probably wouldn’t even recognize her.”

He felt stung. “I’d like to see her.”

“I know you would. But it’s just not a good idea right now.” When Peter didn’t move from the door, Vorhees said, with barely concealed impatience, “Is that all?”

Peter shook his head. “Just tell her I asked for her.”

“I’ll do that, son.”

Peter stepped through the flap, into the darkening afternoon. The rain had let up, but the air felt completely saturated, heavy with bone-chilling dampness. Beyond the walls of the garrison, a dense fogbank was drifting over the ridge. Everything was spattered with mud. He hugged his jacket around himself as he crossed the open ground between Vorhees’s tent and the mess hall, where he caught sight of Hollis, sitting alone at one of the long tables, spooning beans into his mouth from a battered plastic tray. More soldiers were scattered around the room, quietly talking. Peter fetched a tray and filled it from the pot and went to where Hollis was sitting.

“This seat taken?”

“They’re all taken,” Hollis said glumly. “They’re just letting me borrow this one.”

Peter took a place on the bench. He knew what Hollis meant; they were like extra limbs here, something vestigial, with nothing to do, no role to play. Sara and Amy had been relegated to their tent, but for all his relative freedom, Peter felt just as trapped. And none of the soldiers would have anything to do with them. The unstated assumption was that they had nothing worth saying and would be leaving soon anyway.

He updated Hollis on all he had learned, then asked the question that was really on his mind: “Any sign of her?”

“I saw them leaving this morning, with Raimey’s squad.”

Raimey’s unit, one of six, was doing short recon patrols to the southeast. When Peter had asked Vorhees how long they’d be gone, he had answered, enigmatically, “However long it takes.”

“How’d she look?”

“Like one of them.” Hollis paused. “I waved to her, but I don’t think she saw me. Know what they’re calling her?”

Peter shook his head.

“The Last Expeditionary.” Hollis frowned at this. “Kind of a mouthful, if you ask me.”

They fell silent; there was nothing more to say. If they were extra limbs, Alicia felt to Peter like a missing one. He kept looking for her in his mind, turning his thoughts to the place where Alicia should be. It wasn’t the kind of thing he thought he could ever really get used to.

“I don’t think they really believe us about Amy,” Peter said.

“Would you?”

Peter shook his head, conceding the point. “I guess not.”

Another silence descended.

“So what do you think?” Hollis said. “About the evac.”

With all the rain, the battalion’s departure had been delayed another week. “Vorhees keeps urging us to go. He may be right.”