The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,235

as calm and inevitable as gravity.

When he’d come into the Infirmary the night before and seen the girl—so much blood, blood everywhere, Sara frantically trying to seal off the wound and Caleb with the soaked compress in his hands—he’d felt not horror or surprise but a blast of pure recognition. Here was the girl of the carousel; here was the girl of the hallway and the mad dash in darkness; here was the girl of the kiss and the closing door.

The kiss. In the long hours on the catwalk, standing the Mercy for Theo, Peter’s mind had returned to it, again and again, to the puzzle of its meaning, the kind of kiss it was. Not a kiss like Sara’s, that night under the lights; not the kiss of a friend or even, strictly speaking, the chaste kiss of a child, though there had been something childlike about it: its furtive haste and embarrassed quickness, ending almost before it had begun, and the girl’s abrupt reversal, stepping back into the hallway before he could say a word and sealing the door in his face. It was all of these and none, and it wasn’t until he’d come into the Infirmary and seen her lying there that he understood what it was: a promise. A promise as clear as words from a girl who hadn’t any. A kiss that said: I’ll find you.

Now, hidden behind a stand of junipers at the base of the Sanctuary wall, Alicia and Peter watched Sanjay depart. Jimmy left a moment later—there was something odd about his movements, Peter thought, a directionless lassitude, as if he didn’t quite know where to go or what to do with himself—leaving Ben and Galen standing guard in the shade of the porch.

Alicia shook her head. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to talk our way past them.”

“Come on,” he said.

He led her around to the rear of the building, a protected alleyway running between the Infirmary and the greenhouses. The back door of the building and its windows were all bricked in, but behind a pile of empty crates was a metal bulkhead. Inside was an old delivery chute, leading to the basement; sometimes at night, when his mother had been working alone and he was still young enough to take enjoyment from such a thing, she’d let him come over and ride the chute.

He swung the metal door open. “In you go.”

He heard her body banging off the sides of the tube, then her voice from below: “Okay.” Gripping the edges of the door, he eased himself inside, drawing the bulkhead down over his head—a sudden, enveloping blackness; it had been part of the thrill, he recalled, to ride the chute in darkness—and let go.

A quick, rattling plunge; he landed on his feet. The room was as he recalled, full of crates and other supplies and to his right the old walk-in freezer with its wall of jars, and at the center the wide table, with its scale and tools and guttered candles. Alicia was standing at the base of the stairs that led to the Infirmary’s front room, angling her head upward into the shaft of light that fell from above. The steps emerged, at the top, in full view of the porch. Getting past the windows would be the tricky part.

Peter ascended first. Near the top he peeked out, lifting his eyes over the final step. The angle was wrong, he was too low, but he could hear the muffled sound of the two men’s voices; they were facing away. He turned back to Alicia, signaling his intentions, then quickly rose and moved furtively across the room and down the hall to the ward.

The girl was awake and sitting up. That was the first thing he saw. Her bloody clothing was gone, replaced by a thin gown that revealed the white swath of her dressing. Sara, positioned on the edge of the narrow cot, was facing away; the girl’s wrist was in her hand.

The girl’s eyes flicked up then, meeting his own. A burst of panicked movement: she yanked her hand away and scrambled to the head of the cot, as Sara, sensing his presence behind her, vaulted to her feet and spun to face him.

“Flyers, Peter.” Her whole body seemed clenched; she spoke in a hoarse whisper. “How the hell did you get in here?”

“Through the basement.” The voice came from behind him: Alicia. The girl had pulled herself into a ball, her