The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,117

yelling and shooting, but their bullets did nothing; the demons were too fast, or else the bullets were harmless against them; one by one the demons fell upon the soldiers and they died.

This was why she had come—to save Amy from the demons.

Quickly, Lacey. Quickly.

She stepped from the edge of the woods.

“Halt!”

Lacey froze. Should she raise her hands? The soldier appeared from the woods where he’d been hiding, too. A good boy, doing what he thought was his duty. Trying not to be afraid, though of course he was; she could feel the fear coming off him, like waves of heat. He didn’t know what was about to happen to him. She felt a tender pity.

“Who are you?”

“I am no one,” Lacey said, and then the demon was upon him—before he could even point his weapon, before he could finish the word he was speaking as he died—and Lacey was running toward the building.

By the time they got to the base of the tube, Wolgast was sweating and breathing hard. A faint light was falling down upon them. Far above, he could see the twin beams of an emergency light and, farther still, the stilled blades of a giant fan. The central ventilation shaft.

“Amy, honey,” he said. “Amy, you have to wake up.”

Her eyes fluttered open and closed again. He guided her arms around his neck and stood, felt her feet clamping around his waist. But he could tell she had no strength.

“You have to hold on, Amy. Please. You have to.”

Her body tightened in reply. But still, he’d have to use one of his arms to support her weight. This would leave only one hand free to pull them up the ladder. Jesus.

He turned and faced the ladder, set his foot onto the first rung. It was like a problem on a standardized test: Brad Wolgast is holding a little girl. He has to climb a ladder, fifty feet, in a poorly lit ventilation shaft. The girl is semiconscious at best. How does Brad Wolgast save both their lives?

Then he saw how he could do it. One rung at a time, he’d use his right hand to pull them up, then hook that same elbow through the ladder, balancing Amy’s weight on his knee while he changed hands and moved up another rung. Then the left hand, then the right, and so on, moving Amy’s weight between them, rung by rung to the top.

How much did she weigh? Fifty pounds? All suspended, at the moment he changed hands, by the strength of a single arm.

Wolgast began to climb.

Richards could tell from the shouts and the shooting that the sticks were outside now.

He’d known what was happening to Sykes. Probably it would happen to him too, since Sykes had puked his goddamn infected blood all over him, but he doubted he’d live long enough for this to matter. Hey, Cole, he thought. Hey, Cole, you weasel, you little shit. Was this what you hand in mind? Is this your Pax Americana? Because there’s only one outcome I can see here.

There was just one thing Richards wanted now. A clean exit, with a good showing at the last.

The front entrance of the Chalet was all broken glass and bullet holes, the doors ripped half off their hinges, hanging kitty-corner. Three soldiers lay dead on the floor; it looked as if they’d been shot by friendly fire in the chaos. Maybe they’d actually shot one another on purpose, just to hustle things along. Richards raised his hand and looked at the Springfield—why would he think this would do any good? The soldiers’ rifles would be no use either. He needed something larger. The armory was across the compound, behind the barracks. He’d have to make a run for it.

He looked out the door, across the open ground of the compound. At least the lights were still on. Well, he thought. Better now than later, since probably there would be no later. He took off at a run.

The soldiers were everywhere, scattered, running, shooting at nothing, at one another. Not even pretending to make an organized defense, let alone an assault on the Chalet. Richards ran full tilt, half-expecting to be hit.

Richards was halfway across the compound when he saw the five-ton. It was parked at the edge of the lot, at a careless angle, its doors open. He knew what was inside it.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to make it across the compound after all.

“Agent Doyle.”

Doyle smiled. “Lacey.”

They were on the first floor