The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,321

is he?”

“Come on, you’re a smart fellow. You really don’t know?” An expectant pause. “Babcock is … you.”

I am Theo Jaxon, he thought, saying the words in his mind like a prayer. I am Theo Jaxon, I am Theo Jaxon. Son of Demetrius and Prudence Jaxon. First Family. I am Theo Jaxon.

“He’s you. He’s me. He’s everyone, at least in these parts. I like to think he’s kind of like our local god. Not like the old gods. A new god. A dream of god we all dream together. Say it with me, Theo. I. Am. Babcock.”

I am Theo Jaxon. I am Theo Jaxon. I am not in the kitchen. I am not in the kitchen with the knife.

“Shut up, shut up,” he begged. “You’re not making any sense.”

“There you go again, trying to make sense of things. You gotta let go, Theo. This old world of ours hasn’t made sense in a hundred goddamn years. Babcock isn’t about making sense. Babcock just is. Like the We. Like the Many.”

The words found Theo’s lips. “The Many.”

The voice was softer now. It floated toward him from behind the door on waves of softness, calling him to sleep. To just let go and sleep.

“That’s right, Theo. The Many. The We. The We of Babcock. You gotta do it, Theo. You’ve got to be a good boy and close your eyes and carve that old bitch up.”

He was tired, so tired. It was like he was melting from the outside in, his body liquefying around him, around the single overwhelming need to close his eyes and sleep. He wanted to cry but he had no tears to shed. He wanted to beg but he didn’t know what for. He tried to think of Mausami’s face, but his eyes had closed again; he had let his lids fall shut, and he was falling, falling into the dream.

“It’s not as bad as you think. A bit of a tussle at the start. The old gal’s got some fight in her, I’ll give her that. But in the end, you’ll see.”

The voice was somewhere above him, floating down through the warm yellow light of the kitchen. The drawer, the knife. The heat and smell and the tightness in his chest, the silence plugging his throat, and the soft place on her neck where her voice was bobbing in its rolls of flesh. I tell you, the boy isn’t just dumb. He’s been struck dumb. Theo was reaching for the knife, the knife was in his hand.

But a new person was in the dream now. A little girl. She was seated at the table, holding a small, soft-looking object in her lap: a stuffed animal.

—This is Peter, she stated in her little girl’s voice, not looking at him. He’s my rabbit.

—That’s not Peter. I know Peter.

But she wasn’t a little girl, she was a beautiful woman, tall and lovely, with tresses of black hair that curved liked cupped hands around her face, and Theo wasn’t in the kitchen anymore. He was in the library, in that terrible room with its stench of death and the rows of cots under the windows and on each cot the body of a child, and the virals were coming; they were coming up the stairs.

—Don’t do it, said the girl, who was a woman now. The kitchen table at which she sat had somehow traveled to the library, and Theo saw that she wasn’t beautiful at all; in her place sat an old woman, wizened and toothless, her hair gone ghostly white.

—Don’t kill her, Theo.

No.

He jerked awake, the dream popping like a bubble. “I won’t … do it.”

The voice broke into a roar. “Goddamnit, you think this is a game? You think you get to choose how this is going to go?”

Theo said nothing. Why wouldn’t they just kill him?

“Well, okay then, pardner. Have it your way.” The voice released a great, final sigh of disappointment. “I got news for you. You’re not the only guest in this hotel. You won’t like this next part very much, I don’t expect.” Theo heard the boots scraping on the floor, turning to go. “I had higher hopes for you. But I guess it’s all the same. Because we’re going to have them, Theo. Maus and Alicia and the rest. One way or the other, we’re going to have them all.”

FIFTY-FOUR

It was the new moon, Peter realized, as they made their way through the darkness. New moon, and not one soul about.

Getting past the