The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,269

years ago, we picked up a beacon broadcasting these same coordinates. Military distress frequency, old-style Morse. But then there’s this notation.”

Michael opened the log to the page he’d marked. He placed the book in Peter’s lap, pointing at the words written there.

If you found her, bring her here.

“And here’s the clincher,” Michael went on. “It’s still transmitting. That’s what took me so long. I had to run a cable up the Wall to get a decent signal.”

Peter lifted his eyes from the page. Michael was still looking at him with the same intense gaze.

“It’s what?”

“Transmitting. Those same words. ‘If you found her, bring her here.’”

Peter felt a kind of dizziness, gathering at the fringes of his brain. “How could it be transmitting?”

“Because somebody’s there, Peter. Don’t you get it?” He smiled victoriously. “Ninety-three years. That’s year zero, the start of the outbreak. That’s what I’m telling you. Ninety-three years ago, in the spring of the year zero, in Telluride, Colorado, somebody put a nuclear-powered transmitter inside a six-year-old-girl’s neck. Who’s still alive and sitting in quarantine, like she walked straight out of the Time Before. And for ninety-three years, whoever did this has been asking for her back.”

FORTY

It was nearly half-night, no one about, everyone but the Watch inside because of the curfew. All seemed quiet on the Wall. During the intervening hours, Peter had done all he could to get a handle on the situation. He hadn’t reported for duty, and nobody had come looking for him, though probably they wouldn’t have thought to look in the Lighthouse or in the FEMA trailer, from which he had scouted the lockup. With the coming of night, and the Watch so depleted, Ian had posted only a single guard there, Galen Strauss. But Peter doubted Sam and the others would try anything before first light. By then he planned to be gone.

The Infirmary was under heavier guard—a pair of Watchers, one in the front and one in the rear. Dale had been moved up to the Wall, so there was no way Peter could get inside, but Sara was still free to come and go. He had hidden in the shrubbery at the base of the courtyard wall and waited for her to appear. A long time passed before the door opened and she stepped onto the porch. She spoke briefly to the Watcher on duty, Ben Chou, before descending the stairs and making her way down the path, evidently headed to her house to get something to eat. Peter followed her at a discreet distance until he was sure they were out of sight and made his quick approach.

“Come with me now,” he said.

He led her to the Lighthouse, where Michael and Elton were waiting. Moving through the same explanation he had given Peter, Michael told his sister what he knew. When he came to the part about the signal and showed her the words in the logbook, Sara took it from his hands and examined it.

“Okay.”

Michael frowned. “What do you mean ‘okay’?”

“Michael, it’s not that I doubt you. I’ve known you too long. But what are we supposed to do with this information? Colorado is, what, a thousand kilometers from here?”

“About sixteen hundred,” Michael said. “Give or take.”

“So how are we supposed to get there?”

Michael paused. He glanced past his sister to Elton, who nodded.

“The real problem is what happens if we don’t.”

And that was when Michael told them about the batteries.

Peter absorbed this news with a strange detachment, a feeling of inevitability. Of course the batteries were failing; the batteries had been failing all along. He could feel it in everything that had happened; he felt it in the core of him, as if he’d always known. Like the girl. This girl, Amy, the Girl from Nowhere. That she had arrived in their midst when the batteries were failing was more than coincidence. All that remained was for him was to act upon this knowledge.

He became aware that no one had spoken for a while. “Who else knows about this?” he asked Michael.

“Just us.” He hesitated. “And your brother.”

“You told Theo?”

Michael nodded. “I always wished I hadn’t. He was the one who told me not to tell anyone. Which I didn’t, until now.”

Of course, Peter was thinking. Of course Theo had known.

“I think he didn’t want people to be afraid,” Michael explained. “As long as there wasn’t anything we could do.”

“But you think there is.”

Michael paused to rub his eyes with the tips of his fingers. Peter could