The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,350

at intervals of a year; in each, the children had grown. The youngest, a baby in the first photograph, held in his mother’s arms—a tired-looking woman wearing a pair of dark glasses perched above her forehead—was, by the final image, a boy of five or six. He was standing in front of his older sisters, grinning greedily for the camera, showing the gap in his smile where he had lost a tooth. His T-shirt read, incomprehensibly, UTAH JAZZ.

“They’re something, aren’t they?”

Mausami turned to discover Theo observing her from the kitchen door.

“Where did you find them?”

He approached the mantel and took the last photograph, with the smiling boy, in his hands. “They were in a crawl space, under the stairs. See this here?” He tapped the glass to show her: in the background, at the edge of the photo, an automobile, packed to the tops of its windows, with more belongings lashed to the roof. “It’s the same car we found in the barn.”

Mausami regarded the photos another moment. How happy they all looked. Not just the smiling boy but his parents and sisters, as well—all of them.

“You think they lived here?”

Theo nodded, returning the picture to its place on the mantel with the others. “My guess is, they came here before the outbreak and got stranded. Or else they just decided to stay on. And don’t forget the four graves out back.”

Mausami was about to point out that there were four graves, not five. But then she realized her error. The fourth grave would have been dug by the last survivor, who couldn’t bury himself.

“Hungry?” Theo asked her.

She ran a hand through her dirty hair. “What I’d really like is a bath.”

“As it happens, I thought you might.” He was wearing a sly smile. “Come on.”

He led her out to the yard. A large cast-iron pot now hung from a length of chain over a pile of glowing embers; beside it was a metal trough, long and deep enough for a person to sit in. He used a plastic bucket to fill the trough with water from the pump, then, gripping the handle with a heavy cloth, lifted the metal pot and poured the steaming contents into the trough as well.

“Go on, get in,” Theo said.

She felt suddenly embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” he said, laughing gently, “I won’t watch.”

It seemed foolish, after everything, to be shy about her body. And yet she was. With Theo’s eyes averted, she removed her clothing quickly, standing naked for a moment in the autumn sunshine. The air was cold against her tightening skin, the taut, round shape of her belly. She eased herself into the water, which rose to cover her stomach, her swollen breasts, laced with a nimbus of blue veins.

“Okay if I turn around?”

“I feel so huge, Theo. I can’t believe you want to see me like this.”

“You’ll get bigger before you get smaller. Might as well get used to it.”

What was she afraid of? They could have a baby together, but she wouldn’t let him see her naked? They hadn’t so much as touched in days; she realized she had been waiting for him to do this, to cross the barrier that separated them, now that they were alone.

“It’s okay, you can turn around.”

For a moment his eyebrows raised at the sight of her. But just a moment. She saw that he was holding a blackened fry pan, full of some hard, glistening substance. He placed it on the ground by the trough and knelt to carve a wedge-shaped piece with his blade.

“My God, Theo. You made soap?”

“I used to make it with my mother sometimes. I don’t know if I used enough ash, though. The fat comes from a pronghorn I shot yesterday morning. They’re lean sons of bitches, but I got enough to render one batch.”

“You shot a pronghorn?”

He nodded. “It was hell dragging him back here, too,” he said. “At least five clicks. And there’s lots of fish in the river. I’m figuring we can put up enough stores to make it through the winter easy.” He rose, dusting his hands on his trouser legs. “Go ahead and finish and I’ll make breakfast.”

By the time she was done, the water was opaque with dirt and filmed with grease from the soap. She rose to her feet and used the rest of the heated water to rinse herself off, standing naked in the yard to let the sun dry her, feeling the moisture wicking off her skin in the arid air.