The Passage - By Justin Cronin Page 0,398

blade to cut a length of cloth from the sheets. They weren’t clean, nothing was, but they would have to do.

“We have to tie her down,” Peter said.

“Peter, the wound is too deep,” Sara said. She shook her head hopelessly. “It’s not going to matter.”

“Hollis, give me your blade.”

He told the others what to do, cutting Lacey’s bed linens into long strips, then twisting them together. They bound Alicia’s hands and feet to the posts of the bed. Sara said the bleeding seemed to be slowing—an ominous sign. Her pulse was high and thready.

“If she survives,” Greer warned from the foot of the bed, “these sheets will never hold her.”

But Peter wasn’t listening. He moved to the main room, where among the wreckage he found his pack. The metal box was still inside, with the syringes. He removed one of the vials and returned to the bedroom, where he passed it to Sara.

“Give her this.”

She took it in her hand, examining it. “Peter, I don’t know what this is.”

“It’s Amy,” he said.

She gave Alicia half the vial. Through the day and into the night they waited. Alicia had lapsed into a kind of twilight. Her skin was dry and hot. The wound at her neck had sealed, taking on a bruised appearance, purple and inflamed. From time to time she would seem to awaken, emerging into a kind of twilight, moaning. Then she closed her eyes again.

They had dragged the corpses of the dead virals outside, with the others. Their bodies had fallen quickly into a gray ash that was still swirling in the air, coating every surface like a layer of dirty snow. By morning, Peter thought, they would all be gone. Michael and Hollis had boarded up the windows and set the door back on its hinges; as darkness fell, they burned what was left of the bureau in the fireplace. Sara stitched up Greer’s head, wrapped it in another bandage made from bed linens. They slept in shifts, two to watch Alicia. Peter said he would stay up all night with her, but in the end his exhaustion got the better of him and he slept as well, curled on the cold floor by her bed.

By morning, Alicia had begun to strain at the straps. All color had drained from her skin; her eyes, behind her lids, were rosy with burst capillaries.

“Give her more.”

“Peter, I don’t know what I’m doing,” Sara said. She was worn down, threadbare; they all were. “It could kill her.”

“Do it.”

They gave her the rest of the vial. Outside it had begun to snow again. Greer and Hollis left to scout the woods and returned an hour later, half frozen. It was really coming down, they said.

Hollis pulled Peter aside. “Food’s going to be a problem,” he said quietly. They had taken an inventory of Lacey’s cupboard; most of the jars were smashed.

“I know.”

“There’s another thing. I know the bomb was underground, but there could be radiation. Michael says that at the very least it’s in the water table. He doesn’t think we should stay here much longer. There’s some kind of structure on the other side of the valley. It looks like there’s a ridge we can use to cut to the east.”

“What about Lish? We can’t move her.”

Hollis paused. “I’m just saying we could get stuck here. Then we’re in real trouble. We don’t want to try it half-starving in a blizzard.”

Hollis was right, and Peter knew it. “You want to scout it out?”

“When the snow lets up.”

Peter offered a concessionary nod. “Take Michael with you.”

“I was thinking of Greer.”

“He should stay here,” said Peter.

Hollis was silent a moment, taking Peter’s meaning. “All right,” he said.

The squall blew through with the night; by morning, the sky was crisp and bright. Hollis and Michael gathered their gear to go. If all went well, Hollis said, they’d be back before nightfall. But it could be as long as a day. In the snowy yard, Sara hugged Hollis, then Michael. Greer and Amy were inside with Alicia. In the last twenty-four hours, since they’d given her the second dose of the virus, her condition seemed to have reached a kind of stasis. But her fever was still high, and her eyes had gotten worse.

“Just don’t … let it go too long,” Hollis told Peter. “She wouldn’t want you to.”

They waited. Amy was staying close to Alicia now, never leaving her bedside. It was clear to all what was occurring. The merest light in the