The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,275

had meant it, when she’d told Peter she wasn’t afraid of the girl. She had been, at first. But as the hours and then days had moved by, the two of them locked away, she’d begun to feel something new. In the girl’s watchful and mysterious presence—silent and unmoving, and yet not—she’d begun to feel a quality of reassurance, even of hope. A feeling that she was not alone, but even more: that the world was not alone. As if they were all waking from a long night of terrible dreams to step back into life.

Dawn would soon come. The attack of the night before had evidently not repeated; Sara would have heard the shouts. It was as if the night were holding the last of its breath, waiting for what would come next. Because what Sara hadn’t told Peter, or anyone at all, was what had occurred in the Infirmary in the moments just before the lights had gone out. The girl had suddenly sat bolt upright on her cot. Sara, exhausted, had just lain down to sleep; she was roused by a sound she realized was coming from the girl. A low moaning, a single continuous note, rising at the back of her throat. What is it? Sara said, rising quickly to go to her. What’s wrong? Are you hurt, has something hurt you? But the girl gave no reply. Her eyes were very wide, and yet she seemed not to see Sara at all. Sara had sensed that something was happening outside—the room was strangely dark, there were shouts coming from the Wall, the sounds of a commotion, voices calling and feet racing past—but while this seemed important, a fact worthy of her attention, Sara could not look away; whatever was going on outside was being waged here also, in this room, in the vacancy of the girl’s eyes and the tautness of her face and throat and in the mournful melody that she was playing from somewhere deep within her. Things continued this way for some unknown numbers of minutes—two minutes and fifty-six seconds, according to Michael, though it felt like an eternity—and then, as quickly and alarmingly as it had begun, it was over; the girl fell silent. She lay back down on the cot, pulling her knees to her chest, and that had been the end of it.

Sara, sitting at the desk in the outer room, was remembering this, wondering if she should have told Peter about it, when her attention was taken by a sound of voices on the porch. She lifted her face toward the window. Ben was still sitting at the rail, facing away—Sara had carried out a chair for him—the end of his cross visible where it protruded from his lap; whomever he was speaking to was standing below him, Sara’s view obscured by the angle. What are you doing there? she heard Ben say, his voice gathering into a tone of warning. Don’t you know there’s a curfew?

And as Sara rose to her feet, to see whom Ben was speaking to, she saw Ben rising also, sweeping his cross before him.

Peter and Michael, moving through the trailer park, darting from shadow to shadow: they made their final approach to the lockup in the cover of the trees.

No guard.

Peter gently pushed open the door, which stood ajar. As he stepped inside, he saw a body pushed against the far wall, its arms and legs bound, just as Alicia, moving from his left, dropped the cross she was pointing at his back.

“Where the hell have you been?” she said.

Caleb was standing behind her, holding the blade.

“A long story. I’ll tell you on the way.” He gestured toward the body on the floor, which he now recognized as Galen Strauss. “I see you decided to get started without me. What did you do to him?”

“Nothing he’ll remember when he wakes up.”

“Ian knows about the guns,” said Michael.

Alicia nodded. “So I figured.”

Peter explained the plan. First to the Infirmary to get Sara and the girl, then to the stables, for mounts. Just before First Bell, Dale, on the Wall, would call sign. In all the confusion, they should be able to slip out the gate, just as the sun was rising, and make their way down to the power station. From there they could figure out what to do.

“You know, I think I misjudged Dale,” Alicia said. “He’s got more stones than I thought.” She looked at Michael. “You too, Circuit. I wouldn’t