Justin Cronin - The Passage

Day 269

Spirits lifting. We saw our first cross today-a great red splash on the side of a grain silo, fifty meters high. Maus was up top and saw it first. Everyone started to cheer. We’re spending the night in a concrete bunker just behind it. Hollis thinks it used to be some kind of pumping station. Dark and dank and full of pipes. There’s fuel stacked in drums, just like Greer said, which we siphoned off into the Humvee before bolting down for the night. There’s nothing much to sleep on, just the hard cement floor, but we’re close enough to Albuquerque now that no one thinks we should sleep in the open .

Strange, and nice, to be sleeping with a baby in the room. Listening to the little noises he makes, even when he’s asleep. I haven’t told Hollis my news yet, wanting to be sure. Part of me thinks he already knows. How could he not know? I’m sure it’s written all over my face. Whenever I think about it, I can’t stop smiling. I caught Maus staring at me tonight when we were moving the fuel and I said, What? What are you staring at? And she said, Nothing. Just, you know, anything you want to tell me, Sara? I did my best to look innocent, which wasn’t easy, and told her no and what are you talking about and she said, laughing, Well, okay. That’s certainly okay with me .

I don’t know why I’m thinking this but if it’s a boy, I want to name it Joe, and if it’s a girl, Kate. After my parents. It’s strange how being happy about one thing can make you just as sad about another .

We are all wondering about the others, hoping they’re okay .

Day 270

Tracks all around the Humvee this morning. It looks like there were three of them. Why they didn’t try to break into the bunker is a mystery-I’m sure they could smell us. Hoping to make Socorro in plenty of time to lock down for the night .

Day 270 (again)

Socorro. Hollis is pretty sure the bunkers are part of an old gas pipeline system. We are bolted down for the night. Now we wait [illegible]

Day 271

They came again. More than three, a lot more. We could hear them scratching at the walls of the bunker all night long. Tracks everywhere this morning, too many to count. The windshield of the Humvee was shattered, and most of the windows. Anything we’d left inside was scattered over the ground, smashed and torn to pieces. I’m afraid it’s just a matter of time before they try to break into one of the bunkers. Will the bolts hold? Caleb cries half the night no matter what Maus does, so it’s no secret where we are. What’s stopping them?

It’s a race now. Everybody knows it. Today we are crossing the White Sands Missile Range to the bunker at Carrizozo. I want to tell Hollis but I don’t. I just can’t, not like this. I will wait until the garrison, for luck .

I wonder if the baby knows how afraid I am .

Day 272

No sign tonight. Everyone is relieved, hoping we lost them .

Day 273

The last bunker before Roswell. A place called Hondo. I fear this will be my last entry. All day long they were following us, tracking us in the trees. We can hear them moving around outside and it’s barely dusk. Caleb won’t be still. Maus just holds him to her chest, crying and crying. It’s Caleb they want, she keeps saying. They want Caleb .

Oh, Hollis. I’m sorry we ever left the farmstead. I wish we could have had it, that life. I love you I love you I love you .

Day 275

When I look at the words in my last entry, I can’t believe we’re alive, that we somehow got through that terrible night .

The virals never attacked. When we opened the door in the morning, the Humvee was lying on its side in a puddle of fluid, looking like some great broken-winged bird fallen to earth, its engine smashed beyond repair. The hood was lying a hundred meters away. They’d ripped off the tires and torn them to shreds. We knew we were lucky to have made it through the night, but now we had no vehicle. The map said fifty more kilometers to the garrison. Possible, but Theo could never make it. Maus wanted to stay with him but of course he said no, and none of us were going to allow it anyway. If they didn’t kill us last night, Theo said, I’m sure I can make it through another if I have to. Just get moving and use all the light you can and send back a vehicle when you get there. Hollis rigged a sling out of some rope and a piece of one of the seats for Maus to carry Caleb and then Theo kissed the two of them goodbye and drew down the door and sealed the bolts and we left, carrying nothing but water and our rifles .

As it turned out, it was more than fifty kilometers, a lot more. The garrison was on the far side of town. But it didn’t matter because a little after half-day we were picked up by a patrol. Of all people, Lieutenant Eustace. He seemed more perplexed than anything to see us, but in any case they sent a Humvee back to the bunker and now we are all safe and sound, behind the walls of the garrison .

I am writing this in the civilian mess tent (there are three, one for enlisted, one for officers, and one for civilian workers). All the others have already gone to bed. The CO here is someone named Crukshank. A general, like Vorhees, but that’s where the similarity stops. With Vorhees you could tell there was a real person in there, behind all that military sternness, but Crukshank looks like the sort of man who’s never cracked a smile in his life. I also get the feeling Greer is in a lot of trouble, and this seems to extend to the rest of us. But tomorrow at 06:00, we’re going to be debriefed, and we can tell the whole story then. The Roswell Garrison makes the one in Colorado seem flimsy by comparison. I think it’s nearly as big as the Colony, with gigantic concrete walls supported by metal struts that extend down into the parade ground. The only way I can think to describe it is to say that it looks like an inside-out spider. A sea of tents and other fixed structures. Vehicles have been coming in all evening, huge tanker trucks and five-tons full of men and guns and crates of supplies, their cabs rigged with banks of lights. The air is full of the roar of engines, the smell of burning fuel, the showering sparks of torches. Tomorrow I’m going to go find the infirmary and see if there’s anything I can do to help. There are a few other women here, not many but some, mostly with the medical corps, and as long as we stay in the civilian areas, we’re free to move as we please .

Poor Hollis. He was so worn out I never got the chance to tell him the news. So tonight will be the last night for me to be alone with my secret, before someone else knows. I wonder if there’s anyone here who can marry us. Maybe the CO can do it. But Crukshank doesn’t seem the type, and I should wait until Michael’s with us, in Kerrville. He should be the one to give me away. It wouldn’t be fair to do it without him .

I should be exhausted, but I’m not. I’m much too keyed up to sleep. Probably it’s my imagination, but when I close my eyes and sit very still, I swear I can feel the baby inside me. Not moving, nothing like that, it’s far too early. Just a kind of warm and hopeful presence, this new soul my body carries, waiting to be born into the world. I feel… what’s the word? Happy. I feel happy .

Shots outside. I am going to look .

*****END OF DOCUMENT*****

Recovered at Roswell Site (“Roswell Massacre”)

Area 16, Marker 267