The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,238

be,” Michael said. “It was broadcasting on a military frequency.”

“But you can’t tell by looking at it.”

“Peter, I don’t even know what it’s transmitting. It could be reciting the alphabet for all I know.”

Alicia frowned. “Why would it be reciting the alphabet?”

Michael let this pass without comment. He looked at Peter again. “That’s all I can tell you. If you want to know more, I’ll have to open it.”

“Then open it,” said Peter.

THIRTY-ONE

Sanjay Patal had left the Infirmary intending to find Old Chou. There were things that needed to be decided, things to be discussed. Sam and Milo, for starters—that was a wrinkle Sanjay hadn’t planned on—and what to do about Caleb, and the girl.

The girl. Something about her eyes.

But as he moved away from the Infirmary, into the afternoon, an unexpected heaviness came over him. He supposed it was only natural—up half the night and then a morning like the one he’d had, so much to do and say and worry over, so many things to consider. People often joked about the Household, that it wasn’t a real job, one of the trades, Watch or HD or Ag—it had been Theo Jaxon who had dubbed it “the plumbing committee,” a joke that had cruelly stuck—but that was because they didn’t know the half of it, the responsibility. It weighed on a person; it was a load you carried and never quite put down. Sanjay was forty-five years old, which wasn’t young, but as he moved down the gravel path, he felt much older.

At this time of day, Old Chou would be in the apiary—never mind that the gates were closed; the bees would care nothing about that. But the thought of the long walk over there, under the high, hot sun of midday, and whom Sanjay might encounter along the way and be forced to talk to, filled him with a sudden weariness like a gray mist in his brain. He decided it then: he had to get off his feet. Old Chou would keep. And almost before he knew it, Sanjay found himself moving at a slow trudge through the shadowed glade in the direction of his house, then stepping through the door (he listened for the sounds of Gloria elsewhere in the house, detecting nothing), climbing the creaking stairs under the eaves with their cobwebby corners, and lying down in bed. He was tired, so tired. Who knew how long it had been since he had let himself take a nap in the middle of the day.

He was asleep almost before he’d finished asking himself this question.

He awoke sometime later with a savagely sour taste in his mouth and a rush of blood in his ears. He felt not so much awake as ejected bodily from sleep; his mind felt beaten clean. Flyers, how he’d slept. He lay motionless, savoring the feeling, floating in it. He realized he’d heard voices downstairs, Gloria’s and someone else’s, deeper, a man’s; he thought it might be Jimmy or Ian or maybe Galen, but as he lay and listened he realized more time had passed, and the voices had gone away. How nice it was, simply to lie there. Nice and a little strange, because in fact it seemed to him that he should have gotten up some time ago; night was falling, he could see this through the window, the whiteness of the summer sky pinkening with dusk, and there were things to do. Jimmy would want to know about the power station, and who should ride down in the morning (though Sanjay couldn’t, at that moment, recall precisely why this had to be decided), and there was still the question of the boy, Caleb, whom everyone called Hightop for some reason, it had something to do with his shoes. So many things like this. And yet the longer he lay there, the more these concerns seemed distant and indistinct, as if they applied to someone else.

“Sanjay?”

Gloria was standing in the doorway. Her presence touched him less as a person than as a voice: a disembodied voice, calling his name in the dark.

“Why are you in bed?”

He thought: I don’t know. How strange I don’t know why I’m lying in this bed.

“It’s late, Sanjay. People are looking for you.”

“I was … napping.”

“Napping?”

“Yes, Gloria. Napping. Taking a nap.”

His wife appeared above him, the image of her smooth round face floating bodiless in the gray sea of his vision. “Why are you holding the blanket like that?”

“Like what? How am I holding