15. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 735-766

XI. The New Thing; Postscript: Roswell Road

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Winter sets in and the group is snowed in an abandoned hotel. After 112 days on the mountain, the spring thaw begins and they make their way off the mountain on a Sno-Cat that Michael and Greer have found and refurbished. With them is Alicia, who broke her restraints and seized Peter's hand just as he was about to stab her. The virus has given her something like superpowers: she is able to leap through the air like a viral, and although her eyes are more sensitive to light and have turned orange, she is able to withstand the sun.

The New Thing. That's what they were calling her. Neither one nor the other, but somehow both. She couldn't feel the virals, as Amy could; couldn't hear the question, the great sadness of the world. In every respect she seemed herself, the same Alicia she had always been, save one: When she chose to, she could do the most astounding things. 

After the Sno-Cat dies, they take to cross-country skis. Along the way, they see no virals, but they're aware that although Babcock's Many have died off, there must be others sired by the remaining eleven. Michael compares them to bees: "'These Twelve original subjects,' he went on, gesturing over the files, 'they're like the queens, each with a different variant of the virus. Carriers of that variant are part of a collective mind, linked to the original host.'" He posits that there must be "eleven more big hives" like Babcock's somewhere. And Peter thinks, "They always go home." He has the files that tell him where each of the subjects came from.

They reach the site of the garrison and switch to the Humvee that was left there. They arrive at Theo and Mausami's house three days after they were attacked, and find them all alive, Theo incapacitated by a broken leg. But neither Theo nor Mausami knows how they survived: The viral had been killed by a gun, but neither of them had fired it. When Peter and Alicia go to the barn and find the viral's body, they identify it as Galen Strauss.

They settle in at the farmstead while Theo's leg heals and the weather grows warmer. One day Peter comes to the decision that he will let himself be injected with the virus, on the assumption that he would gain superpowers like Alicia's. The others agree, although Sara is reluctant -- she thinks the virus is evil -- and Amy is kept unaware of the plan. But when they go to inject him, they find the vials missing from the box: Amy has taken them, and they find her dropping the last vial into the fire. She agrees with Sara that the virus is evil, and says, "it would have made you like me. And I couldn't let that happen."

They decide to separate: Sara, Hollis, Theo, Mausami and the baby will take the Humvee to Roswell. Peter, Amy, Michael, Alicia and Greer will go on foot to the site of the colony in California. They plan to reunite eventually in Kerrville.

When Peter's group reach the power station for the colony, they find it abandoned and filled with spent rifle cartridges. The guns had been taken and the place shot up, but there are no bodies and no blood. They find the power still on, but when Michael checks he realizes that no current has been drawn from the batteries for 323 days. The conclusion is that the lights have been off at the colony. And when they reach it, they find it empty except for two bodies: Gloria Patal has hanged herself, and Auntie has died, apparently peacefully. They bury Auntie and that night they turn the lights on.

Just before dawn, Amy goes outside the walls, where Wolgast comes to her and she bids him farewell as the sun rises.

Sara's journal recounts their trip to Roswell. She is pregnant. Virals begin to appear and try to break into the places where they shelter at night, eventually destroying the Humvee. They set out on foot, except for Theo, who is still unable to walk that far, and are rescued by a patrol and taken to the Roswell garrison.

The journal ends with Sara sensing the baby inside her and feeling happy. Then she hears shots and goes outside to see what's happening. There is a note that the the journal was "Recovered at Roswell Site ("Roswell Massacre").

[Yeah, I don't know for sure what the business with Wolgast is at the end. His ghost? Has he been turned by the virals yet somehow held onto his humanity? Is he the one who killed Galen Strauss and saved Theo and Mausami and the baby? And if not, who did? I only hope Cronin remembers to tell us in the next book.]

14. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 677-733

X. The Angel of the Mountain

_____

Peter and Amy are on their way again, riding on Greer's horse. But when they reach a bridge across a river, all that's left of it is the beams, too narrow for the horse to walk across. So they send the horse away, after Amy silently communicates to it that that's what they want to do, and negotiate the narrow beams across the river.

Finally they reach the ruins of the compound, where first Amy and then Peter hears someone singing. They follow the sound to a small log house in a clearing in the forest, where they find Sister Lacey Antoinette Kudoto.

Meanwhile, Sara is tending to the wounded on the convoy and thinking about settling down in Kerrville with Hollis. The convoy halts when one of the trucks breaks down. Then one of the wounded soldiers wakes up and tells Sara about his bad dream of a fat woman. And Alicia returns from scouting ahead and tells Greer that they've spotted tracks: "The Many. And they're headed straight for that mountain."

Theo and Mausami have discovered that the farm had belonged to a family named Conroy, and they give the family's name to a starving dog they find in the barn. They bathe and feed the dog who settles in with them, but Theo suddenly realizes that the barn had been latched. How did Conroy find his way into it. So he goes outside to check and finds human footprints in the barn and an opened can that someone has eaten from.

When Lacey had left Amy and Wolgast, the viral who had attacked her was Carter -- who didn't so much attack as feed, communicating to her his sadness and the whole story of the death of Rachel Wood. She realized, "He was not like the others," and she gave him her blessing. She was rescued by Jonas Lear, who helped her heal and lived with her in the cottage they built from the ruins of the Chalet, the central building of the facility. Because he had given her the form of the virus that had been given to Amy, she didn't age; but he did, and she had lived on in the cottage for fifty-four years after his death until Amy and Peter showed up.

Lacey gives Amy her old Powerpuff Girls knapsack, with the remnants of what had been in it, including the stuffed rabbit. Amy shares her memories of Wolgast, and Lacey tells her that she had stayed behind, "So someone would be here when you came back." Jonas Lear had set up the beacon to call for her return. Amy tells them of the voices she hears from the virals: "They're so sad. They have such terrible dreams. I hear them all the time.... They're dying and can't stop. Why can't they stop, Lacey?" Lacey replies, "I think that they are waiting for you, to show them the way." Then Lacey brings out the file folders on the men used in the experiments.

Alicia is leading a party that consists of Michael, Sara, Hollis, and Greer, who relinquished his command of the convoy. Along the way they find the body of the horse Peter and Amy had sent back at the bridge.

Peter reads through the files and discovers that all of the subjects of the experiment, except Amy, had been criminals sentenced to death. When he reaches Babcock's file, he learns that Babcock had originally been from Desert Wells, and thinks, "They always go home." Lacey comes to him after he has read the files and tells him the story of Noah from the Bible. Peter is Noah, she suggests, the one who will see to it that the world is reborn, and when he asks, "if I'm supposed to be Noah, then who's Amy?" "'The ship, Peter,' said Lacey. 'Amy is the ship.'"

As he's thinking about this, Lacey looks startled, and Amy comes into the room. They have sensed that Babcock is on the way. And Lacey tells Peter it's time for him to see "The passage." They follow her to the south side of the mountain and down its side to a dark tunnel. Lacey opens a doorway and they are in a brightly lit hallway -- "Level Five," she says Lear called it. They go to what looks like an infirmary, where Lacey opens a cabinet and takes out a small metal box that contains "two rows of tiny glass vials, containing a shimmering green liquid. He counted eleven; a twelfth compartment was empty." It's the virus that Amy and Lacey were given -- Lacey's is the missing twelfth vial. Peter puts the box in his backpack, along with a handful of syringes.

Alicia returns to the group and tells them she has found tracks. They move forward through the forest, but then Michael hears a sound above him. A gun goes off and Michael is knocked off his horse. He sees a viral crouching a few meters away from him and hears gunshots and people calling his name, but he concentrates on killing the viral with his knife, which he plunges into its chest. Then Peter and Amy appear, and Amy administers the coup de grace with Michael's rifle, telling it "I'm sorry" as she does. Michael, Peter and Amy hear more gunfire and run toward it.

Lacey has tricked Peter and Amy into going ahead as she sets the timer on a small nuclear bomb, then closes the door, locking them out. She communicates to Amy, "You will know how to set them free, to make their final passage." Then she waits for Peter and Amy to leave and opens the door again, waiting for Babcock.

Peter, Amy and Michael reach Lacey's cottage; Sara, Alicia, Hollis and Greer are there already. They barricade themselves inside, but the virals quickly attack the cottage, breaking through the barricade, and one of them bites Alicia before Hollis can kill it.

Lacey, concerned that Babcock hasn't taken the bait and that the virals are passing her by, goes to the mouth of the tunnel and summons Babcock. She runs back into the tunnel, thinking of how her mother had told her to run when the soldiers attacked. Babcock follows her and the bomb goes off.

Amy is the first to stand up after the explosion shakes Lacey's cottage, and she leads Peter and the others outside, where the dazed virals, freed from Babcock's control, are standing. She walks among them, communicating their old names to them, as the sun rises and begins to kill them. Peter joins her, and she tells him to go inside and save Alicia. He gives Sara one of the vials and a syringe, and when she protests that she doesn't know what it is, he tells her, "It's Amy."

The injection doesn't have much immediate effect, and they begin to worry about the lack of supplies and the oncoming winter, as well as the effects of the radiation from the bomb. When it seems that the Amy virus is not working and that she is about to turn, Peter orders the others out of the room. He has promised Alicia that he'll be the one to kill her in such a case, and he crouches over her with the knife aimed at her breastbone.

Mausami goes into labor. It's prolonged and difficult, but she finally gives birth to a boy they name Caleb. Exhausted, they all fall asleep, except when Conroy awakens Theo to be let outside. But when Theo wakes up again, Conroy has vanished. Theo goes to look for him and finds the dog dead. Then he hears Mausami scream and races back to the house to find it empty. He hears her scream again and finds her in the barn, in the back seat of the old Volvo that was stored there, clutching the baby. The creature attacks him, knocking the shotgun he is carrying out of his grip and flinging him against the car. He lets the viral attack him, not wanting to see what it would do with Mausami and the baby.

13. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 613-675

IX. The Last Expeditionary

_____

Sara writes in her journal to report that the newly talkative Amy has explained that she had asked Babcock not to kill Theo in the ring: "He's full of bad dreams. I thought it would be best to use my please and thank you." She also explains that she had been told how to blow the coupler between the engine and the boxcars by Gus, who had telepathically communicated to her after he fell from the train but before he died.

They reach another town where they find a store called Outdoor World that's full of the kind of supplies they need. They continue north on Highway 15, making by Peter's estimate about 25 kilometers a day. They encounter a forest fire and take shelter, and a few days later find the bodies of virals who had been trapped in the fire.

In an entry ten days later, Sara reports that she has decided to marry Hollis, but they decide not to tell the others yet. They come upon a farmstead that seems undisturbed and is well-stocked with supplies. There are four graves nearby. Peter estimates it has been abandoned for ten to twenty years. He wants to move on before the winter sets in, but Theo and Mausami decide to stay there. They make better time without them. Amy has a bad dream about a man who "keeps on dying and can't stop," but she falls asleep again without telling them who the man again.

They reach Colorado, where Amy begins to take the lead. One day in a forest they come across a strange smell and see up in the trees "dozens of long strands of small, white objects, bunched like fruit." Suddenly, they spring the trap and a net gathers them all up. A group of soldiers appears out of the forest and takes them to their garrison. Major Greer, a man of about forty, tells them that they're not prisoners but "under protection." The garrison is surrounded by a high timber fence and contains a number of military vehicles. What turns out to be the flag of Texas flies over it. 

Greer explains that what was hanging in the trees over the net, the source of the bad smell, was garlic, which the "dracs," as they call the virals, love. As they pass into the garrison, Peter notices that the soldiers were all looking at the women in their party.  Everyone snaps to attention when the general appears and gives the order, "You are not to look at these women. You are not to speak to them, or come near them, or approach them, or in any way think you have anything to do with them, or they with you." He leads them, along with Greer, into his tent, where there is a map of their expeditions from central Texas. One route goes through Oklahoma and into Kansas, and the other through New Mexico and then north just across the border into Colorado, where they are now.

He introduces himself as "Brigadier General Curtis Voorhees, Second Expeditionary Forces, Army of the Republic of Texas" and tells them that as long as they stay they're under his authority. In six days they will be leaving to join up with the battalion at Roswell, New Mexico, and suggests that they join them. From there, they will be sent to Kerrville, Texas. He also explains that they are "a volunteer force. To join the Expeditionary is to do so for life, by blood oath, and each of these men is sworn to die." The problem with having women in the garrison is, "A man will happily die for his friends, but a woman -- a woman makes him want to live." When Peter tells the general that they intend to continue their way, Alicia interrupts him.

Alicia, standing at attention, says, "General Voorhees. Colonel Niles Coffee of the First Expeditionary sends his regards." And she introduces herself as the Colonel's "adopted daughter.... Private Alicia Donadio, First Expeditionary. Baptized and sworn." To Peter she explains that when the Colonel arrived at the colony and claimed her in the Sanctuary, she had promised not to reveal his identity or her allegiance. The general calls Greer into the tent and tells him who she is. "Sworn is sworn. The men will have to learn to live with it. Take her to the barber" -- all the members of the force have their heads shaven. Alicia reassures Peter than he can continue his mission without her.

It rains for five days, during which Peter tells Voorhees and Greer all about Amy, the signal they were following, the colony, Theo and Mausami, and the Haven. Peter urges them to send an expedition to the colony, mentioning the bunker at Twentynine Palms, but Voorhees says it would be next spring before they could do it. He also says it reminds him of a community, Homer, Oklahoma, that the Third Battalion came across where there were twelve hundred people who had never even heard of the virals. They were offered transport to Kerrville but refused. And when the Third Battalion returned later, the community had vanished. But there were no bodies left behind. "Everything neat as a pin, dinner dishes sitting on the table."

What interests Voorhees the most is that Peter's group managed to make it all the way from California to Colorado. "Thirty years ago, when Kerrville sent out the First Expeditionary, you couldn't walk a hundred meters without tripping on a drac." Peter asks if this means the virals are dying off, but all the general will say is that "something's different. Something's changed.... The cities are still crawling, with all the empty buildings, but there's plenty of open countryside where you could go for days without seeing one."

Texas seceded because the federal government was trying to bomb the virals into extinction. Most of the cities are gone, and Houston is a petrochemical swamp. The Gulf of Mexico is "a chemical slick" from all the oil platforms. California's secession led to an all-out war, in which the federal government forgot about Texas because of its inability to fight on two fronts. And the NATO alliance tried to control the spread of the virus by bombing the coasts and mining the borders. No one seems to know about the rest of the world. Some think that the virus never made it to the other continents, but others think that the desire for American resources, including the gold at Fort Knox and the stockpile of military ordnance and nuclear weapons was too strong to resist. "Chances are, they took the virus back with them."

Discouraged, Peter talks to Hollis and Michael in the mess tent, still undecided whether they should go with the soldiers or continue their journey. Michael has made friends with some members of the motor pool and tells them that it's "movie night." The mess hall is rearranged and a projector and screen are set up. Sara and Amy also sneak in to watch. The movie is Dracula, which explains why the soldiers call the virals "dracs." Peter has never seen a movie and is caught up in the story. When he learns that Dracula "must sleep each night in his native soil," Peter wonders if that's why the ones who are "taken up" seem always to return home, and whether the story "wasn't a made-up tale at all but an account of something that had actually happened."

But the movie is interrupted by the return of Blue Squad, which had gone on patrol outside. Alicia, who was among them, reports that they discovered a "hornet's nest" of virals in an abandoned copper mine. As the camp prepares for an assault on the nest, Peter goes to Greer and volunteers to go with them. Greer turns him down, but tells him that when he saw Amy he remembered being a sick child in an orphanage, and that once he had a fever dream in which Amy was there with him. And that if they don't succeed in this mission, Red Squad has orders to take them all to Roswell, but won't stop them if they decide to leave.

Three days later two of the squads appear, led by Greer. Alicia isn't among them. Greer tells Peter that it was a disaster. Then two more squads, but still no Alicia. "Everyone told the same story: the bomb exploding, the ground tearing open beneath them, the virals pouring forth, everyone scattering, lost in the dark." Voorhees is not among them either. Finally Alicia appears with a Corporal Muncey, whose hands are bound. He has been bitten and infected, and asks that Alicia be the one to kill him.

They have lost forty-six men, including Voorhees, and Greer, now in charge, promotes Alicia to lieutenant.
They prepare for departure. Peter tells Hollis that he should join the convoy with Sara, whom Greer has allowed out of seclusion so she can nurse the wounded, and that Sara probably won't go without Michael, who has become an important part of the motor pool. He and Amy will go on with their mission. Peter also tells Greer of his plans and bids goodbye to Alicia. Greer gives them his horse and a duffel bag full of weapons.

[This is an odd aside, perhaps, but this bunch of soldiers from Texas, the buckle of the Bible Belt, reminds me of something that I've wondered about all along: the absence of religious belief in the post-viral world. Greer uses "Jesus" as an epithet, but otherwise there's no evidence that religion, or even the texts and doctrines on which religion is based, has survived in any formal way. Intentional omission?]

12. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 541-611

VIII. The Haven

_____

They ride for hours. Michael wakens from his fitful sleep in the jouncing van to remember that Sara has been lost, carried off by a viral. It was Amy who, with surprising strength, had pulled him on board the van. A man and a woman, enter the compartment where they have been kept to tell them to hand over their weapons. Through the window they can see a large building in the distance.

Michael faints when they reach their destination, but remembers the man introducing himself as Olson Hand and then somehow turning into Theo. He awakes in an infirmary, having dreamed of the fat woman breathing smoke. Peter appears, accompanied by the woman, who is named Billie, and tells him that he has suffered from heatstroke and has been out for four days. He also tells Michael that they are in a place called the Haven, where there are almost three hundred other people and no virals. But Michael notices that there is something false about Peter's cheerfulness.

Alicia then appears, accompanied by a blue-eyed man whom she introduces as Jude Cripp. And Peter informs him that Sara has been rescued and is with them. Hollis and Billie had driven back to Las Vegas and found her in a room at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Sara tells Michael that she doesn't remember anything from the time she was carried off by the viral to when she awakened in the truck. Sara and Hollis join the others at Michael's bedside, but Michael is still struck by "the way everyone was acting, as if they had no worries in the world."

Jude explains that they send regular patrols to Las Vegas for supplies, and that they were in their shelter in the ruins of a casino when they heard the explosion and found them when they went to check on it. But Michael is puzzled: "I remember it distinctly. The hotel blew up after we got out. You were already there." Hollis, however, insists that Michael is wrong; he also tell Michael that he was the one who pulled him into the truck, not Amy. Michael can't shake his skepticism: "Who would leave the safety of a fortified shelter at night and drive toward  a burning building? And why was everyone going along with it?"

They leave him to get some rest, but Sara comes back in to give him a kiss and slips a piece of paper in his hand. It says, "Tell them nothing."

The others have been aware from the start that there's something fishy about the story they've been told about the Haven, especially the fact that there are no virals nearby. The Haven has a large herd of cattle, and there's no way virals wouldn't attack it. And they claim to have no ammunition other than the flamethrowers on the vans. Olson tells them that it was settled by refugees from Las Vegas who made their way to what had been the Desert Wells State Penitentiary and the low-security Conservation Camp for juvenile offenders.

Peter and the others have been "quarantined" in some outlying buildings of the Conservation Camp. On Peter's maps, they find the prison, which is next to Nellis Air Force Test Range and the Yucca Mountain National Repository. Hollis had been able to examine more of the surroundings when he went to Las Vegas with Billie and a man named Gus. He had seen only two gates, and there were guard towers at the main one. They had also crossed railroad tracks heading north-south; in the north there was a range of mountains. Peter had already realized that they would have to steal a vehicle to escape.

On the third night they were taken to a reception to meet the residents of the Haven. Peter found the people "childlike," with "a look of wide-eyed innocence, almost of obedience." He talks to Olson and his daughter, Mira, about Amy. Olson has never heard of anyone who can't speak, but he asks if she's "otherwise ... all right?" When Peter is puzzled, Olson explains that "a woman who can bear a child is a great prize. Nothing is more important, with so few of us left. And I see that one of your females is pregnant." Peter thinks "your females" is an odd way of putting it, and he notices that many of the women who are gathered around Mausami are pregnant, too.

In addition to his sense that the women were being treated like livestock, Peter is bothered by something else at the reception: There are no boys and no older children. No one asks him anything about the Colony. When he gets together with the others afterward, they confirm his impressions. They decide they need to find a vehicle and some weapons and ammunition. Sara thinks it will take Michael several days longer to recover, and that he's not really suffering from heatstroke. Alicia is concerned because Jude seems to have taken a serious interest in her, and she doesn't know how much longer she can "hold him off." She also hesitantly brings up something else: On a visit to the dairy barns with Jude, she thinks she spotted a former member of the Colony named Liza Chou. They also remark on the absence of boys and older children, and realize that the small group of children who have been playing outside their residences are the same ones every day. And Sara, Alicia, Hollis and Caleb discover that they've all been having the same dream: the one about the fat woman. Only Peter has been spared.

In the infirmary, Michael is brought some food by Mira, who begins to flirt with him, then kisses him. She tells him, "If I have a baby, I won't have to go to the ring." But then Billie and a group of men enter and order Mira to go home. "'He's not for the ring!' Mira cried. 'Poppa said!'" Then Billie puts a pinch of powder into a cup of water and orders Michael to drink it. "You won't like the taste, but you'll feel better fast. And no more fat lady." Michael gives in and drinks the mixture. Billie says that Peter told them Michael was an engineer who can fix anything, and after thinking about the warning to "tell them nothing," he admits that it's true. They give him his clothes and leave with him.

Mausami awakens to find Amy sitting on the next bunk. She wants to feel the baby moving inside Mausami. And then Amy communicates to Mausami: "He's here.... He's in the dream. With Babcock. With the Many.... Theo. Theo is here."

Babcock remembers growing up in Desert Wells, and the abuse he suffered from his mother who not only beat him but also burned him with her cigarettes when he made too much noise and disturbed her as she sat smoking in the kitchen and watching her soap operas. So he stabbed her to death and was sent to prison for her murder. Then Wolgast took him to the facility, where he became "one of Twelve, the Babcock-Morrison-Chávez-Baffes-Turrell-Winston-Sosa-Echols-Lambright-Martinez-Reinhardt-Carter -- one of Twelve and also the Other, the Zero." And after he escaped, he infected every tenth victim with the virus, making them part of "His great and fearful company. The Many. The We of Babcock." He eats when they eat and sleeps when they sleep.

He hears the voice of Fanning say, "Brothers, we're dying." They have begun to deplete the world of people and animals. So he commands the Many to bring the remaining people to him at Desert Wells. He makes the people dream about his mother.

And those that did not bend their wills to his, that did not take up the knife when the time had come in the dark place of dreaming where Babcock's mind met theirs, they were made to die so the others could see and know and refuse no longer.

So he has built "the City of Babcock, first in all the world." But now he feels Amy's presence -- "Not the Zero or the Twelve but Another." She makes the virals, his Many, remember who they once were, which makes them want to die. "He knew that through her, all that they had done could be undone, all that they had made could be unmade."

Peter has discovered that Michael is missing from the infirmary, and Sara, Hollis and Caleb go in search of him. Peter and Alicia go to ask Olson what happened to Michael, but he's evasive. Peter sends Caleb to fetch Mausami and Amy so they can make an escape plan, but Caleb reports that they're missing, too. Alicia undoes the bandages that Sara had used to bind up her leg, wounded when the hotel exploded, and reveals that she has concealed a knife underneath them. She has only pretended to need her crutches.

Michael has been taken to a huge shed outside the fence around the Haven, where he finds them working on a diesel locomotive. Billie and a mechanic named Gus tell him they've been working on the engine for four years, but can't find a way to get current from the batteries to the pump. They want him to fix it in three hours.

Theo has been fighting sleep for days, trying not to dream about Babcock's mother. A man is outside his cell urging him to give in to the dream and, while in it, to kill the woman. He tells Theo that no one has ever held out this long without killing her. Theo isn't sure whether the voice is real or not, and whether he's asleep or awake. Then the voice begins taunting him by talking about Alicia, making sexual references. Then he mentions Babcock: "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." Theo resists: "I am Theo Jaxon.... I am not in the kitchen with the knife."

Finally, he can't resist and falls asleep, but in the dream he sees Amy as a little girl, sitting at the kitchen table with her stuffed rabbit called Peter. Then she becomes a beautiful woman and the scene shifts to the library where the virals are coming up the stairs. Then she becomes "an old woman, wizened and toothless, her hair gone ghostly white." She urges him, "Don't kill her, Theo." He wakes up and tells the man outside that he won't do it. The man angrily goes away, saying, "You won't like this next part very much, I don't expect." And he says, "We're going to have them, Theo. Maus and Alicia and the rest. One way or another, we're going to have them all."

Sara propositions the men guarding them, one of whom follows her while the other leaves. When Sara and the guard reach where Hollis is hiding, he knocks the guard out with a chair leg and Caleb ties him up. Hollis checks the guard's gun and finds three rounds in it, then gives it to Alicia.  They head toward the prison and break into the garage behind it, but are discovered by Olson Hand and six other men. There is a standoff in which Alicia points the pistol at Olson while the others raise their rifles. When Peter asks where the missing members of his group are, Olson is puzzled. He doesn't know about Amy and Musami, but he says Michael is with them. Finally he says, "You don't know about Babcock."

Michael figures out what's wrong with the ignition for the locomotive. Meanwhile, the others have formed an alliance with Olson, who has explained what's going on: The residents of the Haven sacrifice four head of cattle and two humans to Babcock every new moon, which is tonight. They do this in exchange for Babcock keeping the virals under his control away from the Haven. The blocked streets in Las Vegas were designed to trap any humans who might wander into the city, as they had done, and the Haven regularly sends out patrols to seek for them. Sometimes, as had happened with Sara, people were captured by the virals and left for the patrol to find. The dream of the fat lady is a memory of Babcock's, and if you kill her in the dream, "you belong to him. You belong to the ring."

Alicia is infuriated by Olson's excuse: "It was a our only way to survive. For most, the ring seems a small price to pay." But Olson tells her that in addition to Mira, he had once had a son. When he was chosen for the sacrifice, his mother protested and Jude, who is in charge of selecting the people for the sacrifice, sent her into the ring with their son. Now, with the help of Peter and his group, Olson and the other men with him hope to make a stand against Babcock.

Peter is convinced that Amy and Mausami are the ones to be sent into the ring tonight, but Olson says Jude wouldn't send a pregnant woman. When Peter asks how many supporters Olsen has, he admits that there are only him, the six other men with him, and four who will be in the balconies during the sacrifice. "Babcock is stronger than any viral you've ever seen, and the crowd won't be on our side. Killing him won't be easy," he warns. This kind of attack on Babcock has only been tried once before, and it was unsuccessful. They must kill Babcock or he'll call the many and pursue them, even if they get the train to run.

Babcock is ready for the sacrifice, sending the message to Jude that it's time. Jude is "his Best and Special, ... who dreamed the dream better than all others." Now Jude is leading the crowd in a kind of hymn before the sacrifice, when Babcock senses the presence of Amy, "The one who carried the seed of forever but was not of his blood, was not of the Twelve or the Zero."

Peter makes his way through a ventilation shaft but falls onto the catwalk above the arena, losing his handgun in the fall. He is shocked to see that one of the men waiting to be sacrificed is his brother, Theo. Babcock, who is feasting on the cattle, is "not like any viral Peter knew. It was the largest he had ever seen, that anyone had ever seen. Then Jude is there, aiming a shotgun at him, but Hollis shoots Jude just in time.

Mausami and Amy are also in the building, but they get separated in the crowd. Mausami is amazed and thrilled to see Theo there, too. Then she recognizes the other sacrificial victim as Finn Darrell, who had been taken from the power station. At the same moment, she is recognized by Liza Chou, whom she had spotted earlier. There is a wall of flame between her and Theo, but she spots the man who controls the pump feeding fuel to the flames, kills him and shuts off the fire. She feels a bullet enter her leg as she looks up at Babcock, who "stood at least three meters, maybe more." Then Amy rushes into the ring and stands between Theo and Babcock.

Hollis, Alicia, Caleb and Sara appear. Alicia has the RPG, but because Amy is between her and Babcock she can't get a clean shot. Babcock remains mesmerized by Amy until Mausami runs into the ring and attracts his attention. He leaps into the air, and Alicia fires the grenade. The catwalk collapses under Peter, Alicia and Hollis. Sara and Caleb run up to them, and Amy, helping Mausami, who is bleeding from the gunshot wound, joins them. Peter and Caleb together help Theo get to his feet and run to the exit, which is crowded with people. Outside, Olson is directing everyone to the train, which is arriving. There are three open boxcars in addition to the engine. Michael reaches down from the engine to help Mausami get on board. Amy is behind her. Peter and Theo manage to catch up and get on as well.

Michael and Billie are at the controls, and Billie hands Peter a first-aid kit so he can bandage Mausami's leg. Caleb and Hollis had been seen helping a woman on the train, but no one knows where Sara and Alicia are. Billie, learning that Babcock isn't dead, knows that the Many will soon be attacking, so she and Gus get on top of the train, followed by Peter, who sees the approaching virals as a "pulsing green light" at the rear of the train. "Peter understood what he was seeing -- that it was not just ten or twenty virals but an army of hundreds. The Many. The Many of Babcock." Billie and Gus fire into the crowd, but the movement of the train causes Peter to lose his grip on his shotgun as Billie and Gus disappear. He falls from the roof but manages to grip a ledge as they enter a tunnel in the mountain. Caleb and Hollis pull him into the boxcar.

The car is nearly empty, but Olson Hand is in it. Enraged, Peter attacks Olson, realizing that they had been used as bait. Olson admits that when Theo had been brought to the prison, Jude knew that others might follow, which is why they were waiting for them in Las Vegas. When they leave the tunnel, Peter sees Sara driving the Humvee alongside the train, with Alicia on top firing at the pursuing virals. Olson pushes Mira forward and tells Peter to get her to the engine. Sara maneuvers the Humvee closer to the train and yells for them to jump onto it. But Peter can't persuade Mira to make the leap and the Humvee has to dodge debris between it and the train, so Peter decides that they should go forward by way of the roof.

Hollis gives Caleb a boost up, then Peter, who pulls Mira up. Caleb goes ahead and makes it to the engine, but Peter is unable to get Mira to move forward. A viral grabs her leg and pulls her away, so Peter heads forward to the engine. He looks out and sees the Humvee, with Hollis and Olson now aboard it, racing toward them. Meanwhile the virals are swarming over the boxcars. Sara gets close enough for Hollis and Olson to get on the train, then Alicia makes the leap. Finally, as a viral makes a leap for the Humvee, Sara gets close enough for Alicia to pull her on board. And when she does, Amy blows the coupler that links the engine to the boxcars, which jackknife and derail.

Half a day later, they reach the end of the line in the town of Caliente. They take stock of what supplies they have left and try to decide what to do now. Peter of course wants to go on, but Hollis raises the possibility of going back to the colony and warning them. "Whatever was happening with the virals -- and obviously something was happening -- it appeared that they wanted people alive." And the pregnant Mausami will not be able to walk all the way to Colorado. Moreover, "Babcock, whatever he was, was still out there, as were the Many." Finally, they put it to a vote, and agree that they should keep going forward.

That afternoon, as they're packing up their supplies, Caleb finds a panel beneath the train that Michael says is a crawl pace. Caleb opens it and Jude emerges, carrying a pistol. Everyone reaches for a weapon, but Jude shoots Caleb just as Peter and Hollis open fire on him. Enraged, Alicia takes a gun, approaches Olson, and hits him in the face with it, then aims it at his head. Olson makes no effort to defend himself, but says of Jude, "He was familiar.... It means ... you can be one of them without being one of them." The next morning, Olson has gone.

They bury Caleb and get ready to leave. Michael, discouraged, worries about what chance they have against "Forty million smokes." But then Amy speaks for the first time: "He's wrong," she says. After they get over the shock of hearing her speak, she explains that there aren't forty million. There are twelve.

[The pell-mell action of this section is full of implausibilities, especially the leaps from Humvee to train and the ability of the group to manage to wind up together after being separated first in the crowd at the ring and then on the train. And I'm still not clear about the disappearance-reappearance of Mausami and Amy. The shooting of Caleb also seems gratuitous, though of all the company he is the one who had been given the least narrative attention. Once again, Cronin's action scenes play out more as scenarios than as literature.]

11. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 495-539

VII. The Darklands

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Peter, Amy, Alicia, Sara, Michael, Mausami and Caleb reach the power station and realize that the power to the electric fence is off. Near the gate is the body of a slaughtered jenny, and clinging to the fence is the burned body of Rey Ramirez, who shorted out the fence in a fatal attempt to climb it. Inside the station they find everything, including the guns, undisturbed. Caleb, who has been watching from the roof, shouts that someone riding a horse is coming: It's Hollis Wilson, who tells them that a party of at least six from the colony is in pursuit. They set out for the Marine depot at Twentynine Palms, which Hollis had seen on one of the Long Rides with Peter's father.

Galen Strauss is in the party pursuing them. Gloria Patal has ordered them to kill everyone except Mausami, and to bring her back. Galen is nominally leading the party, which consists of four others, but when they reach the freeway overpass at Banning he discovers he's alone. "That was when he heard the sound, coming from beneath the overpass. A soft, wet ripping, like sheets of damp paper being torn in half, or the skin being pried off an orange fat with juice."

At Joshua Valley Peter and the others find an abandoned, boarded-up firehouse and, once they make sure it's not infested, decide to spend the night there. In it they find more weapons and a cache of military MREs -- Meals Ready to Eat -- which Hollis recognizes from discoveries they had made on the Long Rides. During the night, several virals appear and begin to try to break into the firehouse, but Amy gets up from her cot, goes to the door at which one of the virals is scratching, leans her forehead against the door and somehow makes it and the others go away and leave them alone.

The next day they make their way toward Twentynine Palms, passing a long line of stalled and deserted cars on the road. Finally they reach the bunker, which is built into the side of a mountain. Hollis, who has been there before, finds the way to open the gate. In the bunker, Sara finds notebooks and pencils and begins a journal. Michael and Caleb, she reports, are going to try to get a couple of Humvees in running order. Supplies of all sorts are abundant and the stock up. The only casualty is the horse, which runs off into a minefield and is blown up; when its body disappears in the night, they know that virals are nearby.

After almost two weeks at the bunker, Michael and Caleb have got two Humvees in running order and they set out for Las Vegas. At Kelso they find the fuel depot, but during the night are attacked by three virals, two of which they kill and the third runs away. They drive on to Las Vegas, arriving from the south. They make their way through the ruins of the city, encountering abandoned military vehicles, including an overturned tank, as they go. But as they try to find their way toward the airport for fuel, they keep encountering roads blocked with rubble. As it grows late, they decided to find shelter for the night, and spot a building that seems not to have suffered as much damage as the others. They break into the luxury hotel, where they smell "a tart chemical scent."

They find "slims," desiccated corpses and skeletons, in room after room, sitting at the gambling tables where they had died. There are fancy shops, too, and in one Amy picks up a snow-globe souvenir for the Milagro Hotel and Casino. Michael identifies the pervasive smell as methane. "Somewhere beneath the hotel was a sea of one-hundred-year-old effluent, the pooled waste of an entire city, trapped like giant fermentation tank." The stairwells are full of debris, but Hollis jimmies open an elevator shaft and they climb the cables to the sixteenth floor. Most of the rooms have slims in them, but they find a suite that's empty and decide to spend the night there. The room has a view of the Eiffel Tower across the street, which Caleb identifies from a book he once read, though nobody can quite understand why it's here and not in Paris.

The others try to get some sleep, but Peter and Sara are looking out of the window when Sara thinks she sees something on the Eiffel Tower. Amy enters the room and takes Peter's arm, pulling him away from the window as it explodes and knocks them down. A viral grabs Sara and disappears. Hollis rushes in and says he saw which way they went. They all go in pursuit, descending by the stairway and the elevator shaft and racing to the Humvees. But Alicia, who goes first, races back into the hotel lobby shouting for them to run -- the street is full of virals. They make their way down the corridors until they find themselves in the hotel kitchen. Peter, who has used up all his ammunition, grabs a copper frying pan, which he brandishes as a female viral starts to attack. Then she stops, mesmerized, Alicia tells him, by her own reflection. "Peter became aware of a new sound, coming from the viral -- a mournful nasal moaning, like the whine of a dog. As if the image of her face, reflected in the pan's copper bottom, were the source of some deep and melancholy recognition."

Peter realizes that the smell of the gas has grown stronger, and he tells Alicia to explode a grenade. They dash for the door as the grenade explodes and the building starts to go up. Both of them are bleeding from wounds caused by the explosion, but they start to make their way to the Humvees. Suddenly a vehicle appears: It has a kind of plow in front and is encased in wire, with a flamethrower on the roof. The truck says "Nevada Department of Corrections" on its side. A voice orders them to get in, and they find the others already there.

Theo is in a jail cell, dreaming of the fat woman smoking in her kitchen. He doesn't know how he got there or how long he's been there. The man who brings him food, but whom he can't see, knows his name and also knows about his dreams of the fat woman.

10. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 441-493

VI. The Night of Blades and Stars

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[It should be obvious by now that the ten-pages-a-day pace a which this blog supposedly moves is a sham. I estimate we cover an average of thirty pages a day, and when the book is a page-turner like this one, the average gets higher. The truth is, I've read well ahead of the fifty-two pages covered in this post, having had a day with no other distractions, but summarizing several hundred pages in one post is hard to do. So I'm going to post only on what I think are normally readable chunks of the book from here on to the end. The good thing is that, having read so far ahead, I think I have a better sense of what's significant in the episodes I'm summarizing.] 

The routine of the colony has been unbroken for 92 years, eight months and 26 days until the Night of Blades and Stars, which "was, in fact, three separate nights, with a pair of days between." It begins with odd behavior by Jimmy Molyneau, who goes to Auntie's house (an unusual occurrence in itself), asks for a cup of tea and when he leaves makes sure she knows who he is, "In case anybody asks." He is "trying to decide whether or not to go to the Lighthouse, kill whomever he found there, and turn the lights off." Soo Ramirez is also behaving oddly. She has been indulging herself in reading a boxful of romance novels that she came across. Tonight she has brought one with her to the Wall.

Throughout the colony, people are having bad dreams, and wondering "Why did they feel like memories, and not just memories -- someone else's memories?" Little Jane Ramirez dreams of being eaten by a bear. Gloria Patal dreams of being covered by a massive swarm of bees and being afraid to move for fear of being stung by them. Others are not sleeping: Sara Fisher is watching over Amy, who does seem to be dreaming because of the way her eyes are moving behind her lids. Galen Strauss is standing watch on the Wall and brooding about Mausami and Theo while worrying about having to ride down to the power station in the morning. He decides to go try to talk to Soo and Dana Jaxon, who are also on Watch, to see if they can persuade Jimmy to send someone else. Peter and Alicia are playing cards while keeping an eye on the lockup. Sam Chou is on Watch and deciding not to have Caleb put outside the walls.

Michael Fisher is awake, trying to rig up an antenna to get a clearer signal from the transmitter removed from Amy. He has decided to hang a wire from the catwalk around the interior of the wall, which means he has to climb up there and do so without being caught by the Watch and the runners. He succeeds because Jimmy has killed Dana and Soo, so their posts are unattended. Then a runner cries out that the virals are "everywhere" and the lights go out.

A meeting the next morning is chaired by Walter Fisher and Ian Patal. Ian reports the facts about what had happened: The lights had failed because of a power surge and had been out for three minutes. Dana, Soo and Jimmy had died then, but because the Wall wasn't fully staffed, a pod had made it into the compound. Before they were repelled, three more Watchers had been killed and another, Sunny Greenberg, is missing. Old Chou is also missing. Sanjay Patal is ill and Walter Fisher is Head of Household. But the crowd is uncontrollable, and when Sam Chou points out all the disturbances since Amy arrived, they begin calling for both Caleb and Amy to be put outside.

Alicia runs to the front, jumps on a table and says, "All of you. This is my fault. It's not the girl they want, it's me. I was the one who torched the library. That's what started this. It was a nest, and I led them all right back here." The crowd attacks Alicia, but is held back by Peter and by members of the Watch. Ian declares martial law and an immediate curfew. Peter realizes that "by drawing the fury of the crowd down upon herself, she had deflected it away from the girl and bought them some time. Ian arrests Alicia for treason and she is taken away by Galen and Hollis Wilson.

Mausami is in the Sanctuary but has heard the news. Convincing herself that Theo is still alive, she decides that she is going to find him and tell him about their baby.

When the lights go out Michael runs to the Lighthouse and discovers that the main breaker is open. He closes it and restores power, then reports it to Ian, blaming it on a power surge but unconvinced that was the cause and unable to find any evidence that it was. Then he returns to work on his antenna. When he calls up the information on the chip that was removed from Amy, he runs to get Peter. They discover that the transmitter has been reporting Amy's vital signs "every hour-and-a-half for a little more than ninety-three years. Ninety-three years, four months, and twenty-one days, to be exact. Amy ... is a hundred years old." Michael also pinpoints the location of the USAMRIID facility as Telluride, Colorado, the center of the CQZ: "The Central Quarantine Zone. It's where the epidemic began. The first virals all came out of Colorado." Amy, Michael asserts, isn't a viral, but because of her slow aging and swift healing, he believes, "The Army did something to her." And, he adds, "Maybe she's the cure." He takes down a logbook from the time when radio was still permitted, eighty years ago, and points out that someone had picked up a signal from the same coordinates in Colorado and the notation: "If you found her, bring her here." And the signal is still 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 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."

Sara is brought to the Lighthouse because she knows the most about Amy. Although Sara thinks the idea of going all the way to Colorado is crazy, they begin to plan their escape, now that the lives of Caleb, Alicia and Amy are all threatened. Michael adds to the urgency by pointing out the problem of the failing batteries.


Sanjay is hearing Babcock's voice louder than ever. "The girl was there with Babcock and the Many -- what Many? he wondered." And Babcock begins to command, "Bring them to me, Sanjay. Bring me one and then another. Bring them to me that you should live in this way and no other." He dreams again of the woman, smoking, in her kitchen on the telephone. The voice commands, "Do it. Kill her. Kill her and be free." But when in his dream Sanjay attempts to stab the woman, some force stays his hand. 

Peter goes to see Auntie, who is "weirdly cheerful." She reaches under her bed and pulls out a shoe box full of maps that he recognizes as having belonged to his father. His mother had brought them to her, Auntie tells him. "Give them to him when he's ready, she said." He protests that she must have meant Theo, but she insists that his mother meant them for him. And he realizes that on her deathbed his mother had known who he was, that instead of "Take care of your brother, Theo," she had said, "Take care of your brother Theo." She had recognized Peter as the stronger one. Then Michael arrives with Dale Levine, who says that if they want to get Alicia and Caleb out, they had better do it "at first light," and he'll help them at the gate, because "They're going to get the guns."

Sara takes charge of getting Amy ready, now convinced of the necessity because her brother, Michael, was never wrong about things, and she wonders "what would become of her brother on that day" when he's wrong. In the lockup, Alicia has overpowered the guard, Galen Strauss. Peter and Michael show up and explain the plan to her and Caleb: They will get Sara and Amy from the Infirmary, then get horses from the stables. At sunrise, Dale will call an alarm about virals and in the confusion they will slip out the gate. But at the Infirmary they hear a scream and rush in to find Sara covered in blood and Amy crouched against the wall. They had been attacked by Milo Darrell and Sam Chou, the leaders of the mob that wanted to lynch Caleb. Ben Chou had been guarding Sara and Amy, and now Milo, Sam, Ben and Jacob Curtis are all lying there dead.

Now willing to risk going out through the gate now, Alicia takes charge of a change in plans. She sends Caleb and Peter to the Storehouse for supplies they need and they agree to rendezvous with the others. In the Storehouse, they discover that Old Chou and Walter Fisher have apparently hanged themselves. Peter tells Caleb to go ahead, and runs to Auntie's to retrieve the maps. When he joins the others at the cutout, where Alicia knows of the secret exit that the Colonel used, Mausami appears, carrying a crossbow and wearing a backpack. She asks Peter if he believes his brother is dead, and when he says no, she replies, "Neither do I." Alicia leads the way, and as Amy enters the tunnel she telepathically asks Peter where they are going. "'I don't really know,' he told her. 'But if we don't leave now, I think we'll all die here.'"

9. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 357-440

V. Girl From Nowhere

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Peter, Alicia and Caleb have made it back to the colony, where Peter awaits the duty of the Mercy: i.e., killing the transformed Theo. All three of them are surprised not only to have made it home, but that the horses were spared for them. But Peter has not yet told the others about Amy.

He is questioned by Sanjay Patal, the head of Household, about some of the details of the story, and realizes that because they haven't told anyone about the guns, "their story was full of holes -- what they were doing on the roof of the power station, how they'd rescued Caleb, Zander's death, their presence in the library." Sanjay is inclined to blame everything on Alicia, whom he calls "reckless." Sanjay informs him that Peter's cousin Dana will be taking Theo's place on household, though Peter had assumed that he would be his brother's replacement, and Soo Ramirez, the head of the Watch, tells Peter to take a few days off. Peter realizes that he is "being handled."

In the Lighthouse, Michael Fisher has isolated a signal at 1,432 megahertz that comes every ninety minutes and transmits for 242 seconds. It is not only regular in its occurrence, but it seems to be getting stronger. And one night as he's listening it, Sanjay appears at the door. Michael panics because of the forbidden radio, but he soon realizes that Sanjay is sleepwalking, which is not unusual in the colony. He tries to get Sanjay out of the Lighthouse without awakening him, but Sanjay is confused, lifting his right hand and looking at it, and then saying, "Bab ... cock?" Sanjay's wife, Gloria, appears and leads him away as he says, "This is my hand, isn't it?"

Michael goes out for a walk, and at the Stone, where the names of the dead are carved, he finds Mausami. He realizes that she is there because of Theo and comforts her. But they are interrupted by Mausami's husband, Galen, who is angry because Mausami has left the Sanctuary, where the pregnant women are expected to stay. He also turns his anger on Michael, but Mausami, after thanking Michael for his kindness, defuses the situation and returns to the Sanctuary.

Sara Fisher is in the Infirmary watching Gabe Curtis die of cancer. His wife, Mar, enters, and asks, "Sara, do you ... have something." Sara makes a mixture of digitalis, angel's trumpet and hemlock, and gives it to Gabe as a tea.

Peter goes to see Auntie, who gives him a cup of her bitter tea. She has been writing in her journals, which are completely handmade -- even the paper and the ink. "Someday someone will want to know what happened here, in this place," she tells him. When he tells her that he doesn't think Theo will be coming back, she isn't so certain. He also tells her that he saw the stars, which delights her. He asks if his father had ever said anything about a Walker, and she says, "I believe he did," and then tells him, "She comin'.... You know who, boy. You known it since the day God dreamed you up."

When he leaves Auntie, he hears shouts from the Main Gate. The Colonel has been spotted outside the walls, running toward a pod of three virals, who leap on him. Then Amy appears. The Watch mistake her for a viral and release a volley of arrows, one of which enters her shoulder. Alicia runs up, yelling for the Watch to cease fire. She grabs onto the rope used to descend the outside of the wall, descends and runs to Amy, picks her up and carries her to the gate. It's forbidden to open the gate at night for any reason, but Caleb appears and opens it for Alicia to carry Amy inside. Before they can close it again, three virals are there, but only one makes it inside. That one heads for the Sanctuary.

Hollis Wilson finds the viral in the Big Room of the Sanctuary where the children sleep. There he finds the viral standing over the crib where his brother's child, Dora, is lying. Hollis fires his crossbow, killing the viral, whom he recognizes as his brother, Arlo.

Caleb awakens Sara and tells her that they need a nurse for someone who has been shot. In the Infirmary she finds Amy, with an arrow through her shoulder, and Alicia. Caleb helps Sara remove the arrow. Peter appears and recognizes Amy. Sara stitches up the entry wound, doubting that it will save the life of the girl, whom she takes to be about fourteen. But when she checks the exit wound she finds that the bleeding has slowed and the wound appears smaller. Amy's pulse is strong and steady, and when Sara checks her pupils they're responsive. But looking into Amy's eyes Sara is overcome: "A sensation like falling, as if the earth had opened under her feet -- worse than dying, worse than death.... Sara thought the word: Alone! That's what she was, what they all were."

Then Sanjay, Soo Ramirez, Jimmy Molyneau and Ben Chou enter and arrest Caleb, for the murder of April Darrell, the Teacher who lived with the Littles in the Sanctuary -- the consequence of Caleb's opening the gate and letting in the viral Arlo, who killed Teacher when she made an attempt to kill him: She had been found holding a knife. Amy is placed under quarantine, with only Sara allowed to be with her in the Infirmary.

Peter, Alicia, Hollis and Soo are called as witnesses in the inquest. Because of Soo's presence at the events, there are only five members of the Household sitting in judgment: Sanjay, Old Chou, Jimmy Molyneau, Walter Fisher, and Dana Jaxon, Peter's cousin. When Peter testifies, he chooses to stand in an act of defiance. He tries to shift the blame away from Caleb, saying that he would have opened the gate himself if he had got there first. But he lies and says that he has never seen Amy before. Sanjay tells him to take more days off before returning to the Watch, and informs him that Jimmy has replaced Soo as First Captain, that Hollis is "off the Wall for the time being," and that Alicia has been ordered off the Watch and assigned to Heavy Duty. Then Peter reminds them that someone needs to check on the power station because of what happened to Arlo.

Peter finds Alicia in tears outside the Colonel's hut, and tells her about how Amy saved him at the mall. They go to see Caleb in the lockup and find an angry mob eager to lynch him. Peter realizes that the mob is made up of people with children in the Sanctuary. The lockup is guarded by a single Watcher, Dale Levine, but Alicia takes his crossbow and threatens the apparent leaders of the mob, Sam Chou and Milo Darrell. The mob cools off and departs. Alicia sends Dale for more Watchers and takes the key to the lockup. They talk to Caleb, and Alicia gives him a knife and tells him if he gets free to head for the cutout -- the place where the power line enters the compound.

Sanjay is suffering from bad dreams and from "The feeling that was like a whole other person, a separate soul that dwelled within his own." He has a dream of a fat woman, breathing smoke and talking on a telephone, and there is a voice inside him that says, "I am Babcock. We are Babcock. Babcock. Babcock. Babcock." He has been hearing the voice since he was a Little in the Sanctuary. Sanjay knows about the guns at the power station. His brother, Raj, had been on the Long Rides on which the guns were discovered. Though it was supposed to be a secret, Raj had told his wife, who told Sanjay's wife, Gloria. Sanjay visits Amy in the infirmary and has "the distinct feeling of being observed," an experience that he discovers is shared by Jimmy Molyneau, who asks, "Did you see her eyes?" when in fact Amy's eyes remain closed. Jimmy in particular seems profoundly affected by the visit.

Peter and Alicia sneak past the guards outside the Infirmary and enter through an old delivery chute. They find Sara with Amy, who is awake and sitting up. Sara says she is completely healed. Peter asks Amy if she followed him there, and she indicates that she did. He explains to Sara what had happened at the mall. Then Michael arrives, having followed Peter and Alicia. He explains about the signal he has been receiving and that the bandwidth on which it occurs was assigned to the military. It seems to be coming from Amy. Sara examines Amy and discovers the subcutaneous transmitter that had been implanted in the back of her neck. She removes it and gives it to Michael.

Sanjay has taken to his bed in a kind of stupor. When his wife tells him that Jimmy was there asking about whom they should send to the power station, he says to send Galen. "'It would be good for him, don't you think?' he heard a voice saying, for one part of him was still in the room while the other part, the dreaming part, was not. 'Tell him to send Galen.'"

While Michael works on the transmitter, Alicia and Peter play cards in an abandoned trailer near the lockup so they can keep an eye on things. After things remain quiet, Peter returns to the Infirmary where he finds Amy alone. He thanks her for saving him, and she communicates to him, "You're welcome. How strange it was speaking this way -- strange because it wasn't so strange. He had never heard the sound of the girl's voice, and yet he did not feel this as a lack. There was something calming about it, as if she had put aside the noise of words." Sara returns and removes the dressing from the wound, which is completely healed, so she also removes the stitches. She then removes the bandage from Peter's elbow, which he cut escaping from the mall. She leaves to go see about Caleb in the lockup. Amy gets up, pumps some water, and washes the area on Peter's arm that had been bandaged. And then she communicates something that startles Peter: "She misses you she misses you she misses you." Peter runs from the Infirmary, his eyes filling with tears.

Mausami is sitting by herself, trying to knit,  in the Big Room, which has been vacated so it can be thoroughly disinfected. She thinks about Galen and the fact that she doesn't love him, wondering why he doesn't know that the baby she carries isn't his: It was conceived one night at the power station when she made love with Theo. Now Galen arrives to tell her that Jimmy is sending him to secure the power station. The tension between them is evident: He moves his hand to his belt where his knife is, and she discovers that she has been clutching one of the knitting needles in her fist.

8. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp, 328-355

IV. All Eyes, First Colony, San Jacinto Mountains, California Republic, 92 A.V., Twenty-Two through Twenty-Three

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After the rescue of Caleb and the killing of Zander, Theo questions why Caleb, Peter and Alicia are still alive. Caleb's story still provokes suspicion, and he tells them that six days earlier Zander had begun acting oddly. Among other things, "he smelled bad. I mean, he stank." And then, three days ago, her ordered Caleb to go with him to the west field of turbine generators, but instead headed to the east field, in which none of the towers were operational.

Caleb climbed the tower that Zander insisted he should repair, but he heard the jenny, the female mule, scream and looked down to see Zander with a knife, covered in blood. Zander, Caleb tells them, didn't look different, except for the blood. His eyes had not turned orange, for one thing. When Caleb came down from the tower, armed with a wrench, in a desperate attempt to get the key to the fence away from him, Zander told him, "You're safe if you go back up the tower." Caleb stayed up there three days until he saw the relief crew coming. During his time on the tower, Caleb wasn't bothered by the virals, whom he spotted only at a distance. Finally, when he knew the relief crew had arrived at the station, he climbed down and made a run for it.

Still puzzled by Zander's behavior, they start to talk about the cache of guns. Theo is adamantly against taking them to the colony and using them, and reveals that he had already known about them: They had been put there by his and Peter's father, who had raided the Marine Corps base at Twentynine Palms. Alicia realizes what Demetrius Jaxon had been up to: "He wanted to make an army. To fight the smokes." She thinks it's "a great idea," but Theo insists that doing that is hopeless: "The Army had guns, and what happened to them? Did they ever come back for us? With their guns and rockets and helicopters? No, they didn't, and I'll tell you why. Because they're all dead."

They dispose of the bodies of the dead "smokes," including Zander, from whom they retrieve the key. They stay on at the station for five days, while the ankle that Peter had injured heals. Peter worries about his brother's pessimism, particularly when he had told Arlo, who favored the idea of arming themselves, "that there was no point, that the only thing to do was keep the lights on as long as they could -- saying this to Arlo, of all people, who had a Little in the Sanctuary -- this was not the Theo he knew. Something had changed in his brother. He wondered what it could be."

Finally, Peter, Theo, Alicia and Caleb set out for home. Arlo stays behind with Rey and Finn, until the next replacement crew will arrive. On the way, Caleb reveals that "Zander was always sneaking off to the library to get more books," so they realize that this may have been where Zander was infected. The library is near the shopping mall that they have been regularly looting for supplies, so they stop to investigate. They discover that the library is filled with the bodies of children, and that there are dozens of syringes on the floor: At the front desk is the body of a woman with a bullet hole in her head and a revolver still clutched in her hand.

They decide to torch the library, but the flames drive out the virals that had been hiding in and around it. Theo freezes, "the barrel of his gun pointed uselessly at the ground, his face slack, eyes wide and impassive: What's the use?" Alicia and Peter grab onto him and make him start running. Caleb appears on his horse and they follow him to the mall, where they race inside, leaving the horses behind as bait. They head for the sun-filled atrium as the safest place, but once they're there a pair of virals appear from above and grab Theo, tossing him to the roof.

The virals are in the rafters, but they move too fast for Peter to shoot them. One attacks Alicia and she shoots it through the mouth, deterring the attack long enough for them to run. Peter races down the hallway, but soon realizes that he's alone and that the virals aren't pursuing him. He assumes that the others are dead, but keeps running until he reaches another atrium. In it is a carousel, which he recognizes as such from a picture book he had seen. And there, standing before him, is a girl.

She seems to be in her early teens and is dressed in rags, her long dark hair matted. She signals to him not to speak and he hears the sound of the virals in the hall. She leads him to the center of the carousel in which there is a trapdoor. He follows her silent instructions to lie down and be still, and she covers him with her body as the virals search the carousel. When they're gone, she leads him through a passageway to a sign that says "ROOF ACCESS." Then she kisses him on the cheek and leaves.

He climbs to the door to the roof, which he finds padlocked. He breaks the glass of a firebox and retrieves an ax to smash the lock, and makes it out onto the roof. Having cut his elbow when he smashed the glass, he has left a trail of blood. It's too high to jump from the roof, so he waits there, expecting to be attacked. But Alicia and  Caleb appear on horseback and urge him to jump, which he does.

Amy has followed the mountains, as Wolgast told her to do, training herself to withstand the pain caused by daylight. She remembers Wolgast as "the Man": "She had tried to lead the dreaming ones away from the Man and she had, she had done it." They followed her, constantly questioning, "Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?" They remind her of "the one she'd dread about in the story of the ghost, Jacob Marley." She remembers bits of her life with the Man, including the nuclear explosion. And she hears voices saying their names, which include Babcock and Carter. "She thought of them as the Twelve, and the Twelve were everywhere.... The Twelve were the blood running below the skin of all things in the world at that time." Years pass, and she begins to communicate with the virals. She also witnesses the attack on the Long Riders.

She tries to follow the trail of the surviving Riders, but loses track of them. Finally she comes upon the mall and the carousel, whose horses she at first confused in her mind with those of the Riders. After saving Peter, she leaves the mall and eventually hears a voice that tells her,

Go into the moonlight and find the men that I should know them as I know you, Amy.

-- Amy she thought. Who is Amy?"

And the voice said, You are.

[Well, of course she is. You'd have to be a very inattentive reader not to have figured that out already. Still, it's an effective tease because it flatters the reader into thinking he or she is pretty smart to have anticipated it, probably from the moment Peter spots a girl with long dark hair.]

6. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 209-246

II. The Year of Zero

_____

Wolgast ditches the Lexus, which had belonged to Fortes, trading it for a beat-up old Corolla, and makes his way to an abandoned camp in the mountains of Oregon. The camp is one he had attended when he was a boy, and they take up residence in the lodge.

He recalls how he had met Lila in the emergency room of a hospital where she treated him for a ruptured Achilles tendon. When they married, she was four months pregnant, but in her thirty-fourth week she was diagnosed with preeclampsia, and delivered Eva three weeks before the due date.

Amy grows stronger, but she is acutely sensitive to light. He also notices that her hair doesn't grow. He begins reading to her from a box of classic novels he has found, but one day she decides to read to him, and does so in a sophisticated, adult way, without pausing for difficult words and unfazed by archaic diction. He also starts to teach her to swim, but although she says she doesn't know how, she immediately begins to do so expertly.

In search of supplies, he finds a small store down the mountains, on the porch of which are some newspaper vending boxes. The only newspaper in them is a USA Today, which is several days old. He reads an account of the outbreak of the virus in Colorado, Nebraska, Utah and Wyoming. The president has blamed it on "anti-American extremists." The Colorado borders have been sealed and the military placed on high alert. The virus is estimated by a spokesman for the CDC to have a fifty-percent mortality rate and to have caused fifty thousand deaths. And Wolgast realizes that reports that the Colorado National Guard has been taking the sick from hospitals to an "undisclosed location" means that they're rounding them up and shooting them. All this, he calculates, has taken place in just eighteen days.

The store's owner, Carl Milton, sells Wolgast some ammunition and tells him what he's learned from the Internet: that the infected can only be killed with a shot to the breastbone and that they "move at night, in the trees." When Wolgast tells Carl that he should leave and move higher into the mountains, Carl takes him into the living area behind the store where his wife, Martha, lies in a hospital bed. She has multiple sclerosis, Carl tells him, and they used to have a visiting nurse, but she hasn't shown up for a while.

In August, forest fires threaten the camp, but the wind shifts and a storm puts out the fire. Wolgast goes down to check on Carl and Martha and finds them dead. He siphons the gas from Carl's van and packs up as much of what remains in the store as he can. He also takes a month-old copy of USA Today that he has found. In it he reads that millions have died from the "vampire" virus, Chicago has fallen, California -- so far unaffected by the virus -- has seceded from the United States, the virus has spread to Canada and Mexico but not overseas, and India is threatening to use nukes against Pakistan. He remembers a military term: "OBE. Overcome by events. That was what was happening now. The world -- the human race -- had been overcome by events."

In October, Amy sees her first snowfall and tells Wolgast that she knows her mother is dead. She also tells him that she feels the others: "They're sad. They're so many. They've forgotten who they were." And when he asks who they were, she says, "Everyone. They're everyone."

In March a snowmobile arrives at the camp, driven by a man who is bleeding from a wound in the neck. He tells Wolgast that he and five others had moved into a hunting camp after Seattle was destroyed: "Everybody's sick, dying, ripping each other to shreds, the Army shows up, then poof, the place goes up in smoke." He asks Wolgast to kill him and burn the body, but at the last minute he's hit by a spasm of pleasure and asks Wolgast to stop. Wolgast shoots him, burns the body and buries the ashes.

Spring arrives and one night he awakes from a dream about Lila to see Amy standing at the window. There is a blinding light and the window shatters. Wolgast picks himself up after being blasted across the room. Amy is covered with bits of glass and can't see. He thinks she is bleeding, but finds that the blood is his own, from a shard of glass in his left leg. He realizes that it has been a nuclear explosion due west of where they are. He tends to Amy, soothing her burns with ointment and bandaging her eyes, then pours Scotch on his wound and sews it up with thread.

Ash begins to fall, and three days later Amy is better, having regained her sight. Wolgast realizes that there is nothing they can do about the radiation and that his leg has become infected. As she gets better she nurses him. He knows he is dying, and reflects that "Amy would not, could not die," although he worries about what will happen to her after he dies.

One night he awakes and realizes that Amy is gone. He goes out into the forest and sits down under a tree, aware that something is moving overhead in the branches. And he thinks, "Amy, Amy, Amy." 

[This is artfully done: the destruction caused by the virus witnessed only through glimpses and rumors. It does, however, raise one of those Questions You're Probably Supposed Not to Ask when you're reading a thriller: How is a newspaper reported, edited, printed and distributed, especially to a remote location, in such circumstances? (There are other QYPSNA that have occurred to me: Like, why did Richards not shoot Wolgast and Doyle and take Amy? Or at least Doyle, if Richards is aware that Wolgast and Amy have a special connection?) And as an old copyperson, I'm bothered by the lack of editing that allows Cronin, who should know better, to say -- twice -- that someone "wretched," when he means "retched."] 

5. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 164-208

I. The Worst Dream in the World, 5-1 B.V., Eleven-Fourteen

_____

Realizing the futility of trying to outrun the state troopers, Wolgast decides to surrender. Doyle agrees, so they turn back to the small town of Randall, Oklahoma, where they find a deputy sheriff eating breakfast at a diner. He takes them to the sheriff's office, where they're locked up while the sheriff calls the state troopers. But before the troopers can get there, Richards arrives, shoots everyone else in the sheriff's office, takes Wolgast, Doyle and Amy to the waiting helicopter, and, when the troopers arrive, uses a rocket to blast the remaining piece of evidence, the Tahoe, to bits.

Thirty-four days later, Wolgast is alone in a closely guarded room at the compound, having been there, separated from Amy and Doyle, since they arrived. Sykes appears, looking disheveled and worn, to ask Wolgast's help. They think Amy is dying and that Wolgast may be able to communicate with her. He is taken down to the subterranean observation room where he sees Amy on a hospital bed, connected to tubes. He's introduced to Fortes, who also looks exhausted. Fortes tells him that Amy is in a coma and they want Wolgast to try to talk to her. He refuses to wear the hazmat suit into the airlocked chamber: "It's not going to help if she wakes up and sees me in a space suit." Sykes authorizes the breach of protocol.

Grey has continued his routine as a sweeper, but like everyone else he is showing signs of stress. He notices Paulson in the commissary, looking "like shit, his skin stretched so tight over his face you could see the edges of his bones." Davis, too, on the security level, looks bad. Grey asks himself, "What is everyone so afraid of?"

Carter has become Number Twelve. He has lain there feeling sick as the virus takes effect: "something was happening to him, but it wasn't happening fast enough for the men in the suits." He also begins hearing voices, and realizes that there are twelve others like him. Finally, he breaks the restraints that hold him and attacks the tech, Pujol. "Anthony fell on him swiftly, from above. A scream and then the man was silent in wet pieces on the floor. The beautiful warmth of blood! He drank and drank."

Richards watches the video of the attack on Pujol, and observes that Carter had been taking the same form of the virus that they had been giving Amy. They had brought Carter under control by shining lights on him. Richards decides that Project NOAH is ready to become Operation Jumpstart: they will move the "sticks" to White Sands where the military will prepare for their use as weapons: "Just imagine what one of these things could do, say, in the mountain caves of northern Pakistan, or the eastern deserts of Iran, or the shot-up buildings of the Chechen Free Zone." Richards thinks it's "the stupidest idea he'd ever heard of in his life," and Sykes agrees, but he's following the orders from Special Weapons. Lear, Sykes says, doesn't know about it: "He still thinks he's trying to save the world."

Richards had killed the nuns, except for Lacey, who was still at large, and is preparing himself for liquidating the sweeps, techs and the soldiers. He spends his time watching the monitors, looking at Wolgast, who has sat by Amy day after day, and subject Number One, Giles Babcock, who stares at the camera as if waiting for the day when he can kill Richards. Then a call comes from the front gate that a black woman with an accent is there, looking for Wolgast.

Wolgast has been talking to Amy, and he tells her the story of the death of his daughter, Eva, who died of a heart defect three weeks short of her first birthday. When he tells Amy that when he found her "It was like she'd come back to me" and asks her to come back, she opens her eyes.

Lacey, who has made her way to the compound, sometimes riding, sometimes walking, and unerringly finding places to stay, is now running through the woods with the guards firing at her. She manages to escape and clamber on board a truck carrying a cargo of explosives.

Richards goes to the room where Doyle is being kept and orders him out. As they're walking across the parking lot, Doyle asks if Lacey is here yet. Astonished, Richards asks how he knows. Doyle says, "I could hear her coming."

Grey, on L4, hears Zero telling him "It's time." He enters the chamber, "and as Zero's bite found the soft place on his neck where the blood moved, he knew at last what the tenth rabbit was. The tenth rabbit was him."

While Richards is distracted by the sound of the alarm, Doyle escapes. Richards runs to the monitors and discovers that all of the chambers holding subjects were empty. They had all been released by the sweeps. On the monitors he sees Davis, dead, and watches as Paulson blows his brains out on camera. He tries to seal off the level, but there is an explosion in the elevator shaft and the lights go out.

Wolgast hears the commotion and the explosion, and when the emergency lights go on he makes his way to Amy's bed and disconnects her IVs. He is trying to decide what to do when the airlock opens and a long-haired, bearded, disheveled man appears. He talks about what has happened -- "the way they swooped down from the trees. Like the bats." But Wolgast doesn't understand what he's talking about. He introduces himself as Jonas Lear, but Wolgast has never heard the name. As Lear leads them, Wolgast sees Fortes's body and then others. Finally they encounter Grey, covered in blood, who collapses after saying, "I said to myself, Grey, you are having the worst dream in the world." Lear urges Wolgast to leave Grey behind, and leads Wolgast, carrying Amy, to a ventilation shaft with a ladder that goes to the surface. But when they enter, Lear closes the door, staying behind.

Richards makes his way through the turmoil to Sykes's office, where he finds the colonel wounded and vomiting blood. At Sykes's request, Richards shoots him.

Lacey has jumped from the truck and hidden in the woods, where she watches one of the "sticks" jump from an upper window and land in the trees a hundred yards away. Then others appear, and "one by one the demons fell upon the soldiers and they died." She leaves the woods, and when a soldier orders her to halt, a "demon" lands on him. She runs toward the building.

Wolgast is daunted by the task of carrying Amy up the ladder, holding her in one arm as he uses the other to climb, but he starts the attempt.

Richards exits the building and sees the truck carrying the explosives.

Doyle has been hiding in a first-floor office when Lacey appears. She tells him she knows where Wolgast and Amy are. He tells her that he heard her, "All these weeks." She tells him, "It wasn't me you heard, Agent Doyle."

Wolgast reaches the top of the ladder, but now faces the problem of getting Amy and himself into the duct next to the ladder. He manages to wake her enough to help him swing her into the opening, but he loses his balance and begins to fall, managing to save himself by grabbing the ridge of metal at the opening with his fingertips. He hoists himself into the opening and they scoot along the duct until they reach a grate. It is bolted from the outside, and Wolgast is about to lose hope when he hears Doyle say, "Chief?"

Richards makes it to the truck and finds a grenade launcher, which he loads and carries outside, calling, "Here kitty, kitty!"

Doyle finds a penknife and opens the grate. Wolgast is surprised to see Lacey there. Doyle tells him, "Trust me, I don't get it either." At the front entrance, they see more dead soldiers. Doyle goes outside where he finds a silver Lexus with the keys in it, as well as a gun. He gives the keys to Wolgast, who realizes that Doyle and Lacey will stay behind, if necessary, to let him and Amy escape. They leave the building, with Doyle leading, running toward the car.

Richards, carrying the RPG, encounters Carter, but misses because Carter is already leaping into the air. The grenade explodes into the building as Richards "experienced the sensation, utterly new to him, of being torn in half."

The exploding grenade knocks Wolgast down and deafens him in one ear. He also loses his grip on Amy, but when he finds her she is unhurt. He puts Amy in the back seat of the Lexus and starts the car just as Carter lands on the hood. He backs up quickly and dislodges Carter, who leaps into the air and disappears. The passenger door opens and Lacey gets in, holding a gun, which she drops on the floor. Doyle is running toward the car, yelling, "Just go!" There is a thump on the roof of the car that Wolgast knows is Carter, so he hits the brakes, sending Carter onto the hood. Doyle fires at Carter, but the bullets have no effect except that Carter notices Doyle and sails through the air. "Wolgast turned in time to see the creature that had once been Anthony Carter fall upon his partner, taking him in like a giant mouth."

They speed away, but Lacey tells him to stop: She is bleeding and "They will follow the blood." She tells him to take care of Amy and gets out of the car. He watches in the mirror as she waves her arms to attract the "demons" and they descend on her.

[It's clear that Cronin knows the conventions (not to say the clichés) of the thriller: The scene in which Richards walks into the sheriff's office and methodically shoots everyone appears in dozens of movies and TV dramas. So do the self-sacrificing good guys (Doyle, Lacey, possibly Lear). The various explosions -- the torpedoed Tahoe, the blasted elevator shaft, the RPG destroying the building and knocking Wolgast off course -- seem like instructions to the screenwriters for the inevitable movie. (Ridley Scott has the rights.) Even Wolgast hanging by his fingertips in the ventilation shaft -- and for that matter, the escape by ventilation shaft -- evokes a sense of déjà vu. (Has anyone in that predicament ever really been able to hoist themselves up to safety?) This is not to denigrate Cronin's skill in using them, however. Just a wish to see something new.]

4. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, pp. 92-163

I. The Worst Dream in the World, 5-1 B.V., Six-Ten

_____

[I'm going to try to keep these summaries shorter -- to stick to the plot and not get too involved in the details that give the story texture.] 

Lacey, who has overslept, decides to skip Mass and take Amy to the zoo. Sister Claire, a novitiate who joined the order after a bad marriage, agrees to cover for her. At the zoo, Amy asks to see the polar bears, but she seems to have a strange rapport with the creatures, all four of whom gather in front of her at the window that separates them from the crowd, causing water to splash over the barrier and threatening to break the glass. To Lacey, a sorrowful Amy says that the polar bears know "What I am."

At the convent, Sister Arnette has returned to find Lacey and Amy gone, and Sister Claire confesses that they went to the zoo. Arnette is concerned because she knows the real story about Lacey, whose family had been killed in the civil war. Lacey had been found by UN workers after being assaulted and left for dead. In Arnette's view Lacey "might just as well have been dead, if God hadn't protected her by washing her mind of these events." As Arnette is about to call the police, Wolgast and Doyle arrive, claiming "that Amy is a federal witness" and that they are there to "place her under protection." But while they are talking, the police call to tell Arnette that there is a disturbance at the zoo and it seems to center on a black nun with a little girl.

At the zoo all the animals seem to have gone mad, terrifying the crowds. Lacey feels the presence of a "dark man" who was coming for Amy, and the thought links in her mind with her ordeal in Sierra Leone. She picks up Amy and runs for the exit, but in the parking lot she freezes when she hears a gunshot. Claire and Arnette arrive in the van the nuns drive, followed by Wolgast and Doyle in a black sedan. Arnette grabs Amy and hands her to the FBI men, who drive away with her as Lacey collapses, filled with visions of her night in the field in Sierra Leone as well as an apocalyptic vision of the future.

Carter is on his way to the facility in Colorado, riding in a van with two soldiers, Paulson and Davis. After what seems like initial kindness, Paulson begins to mock Carter as "retarded," although Davis tries to make him stop. Paulson also says that Carter must have raped Rachel Wood, which makes Carter feel sick.

Wolgast and Doyle are making their way out of Memphis with Amy. Wolgast is increasingly upset with what they're doing, now that he's seen Amy. Realizing that there were witnesses to Amy's abduction, he checks in with Sykes and trades their sedan for a Chevy Tahoe. 

Richards meets Carter, still in the custody of Paulson and Davis, at the compound. Sensing what has gone on between Carter and the soldiers, and eager to gain Carter's trust, he draws his gun and threatens to shoot Paulson, making Carter feel better even after Richards admits he wouldn't really have shot the soldier.

Wolgast and Doyle are in Oklahoma after making a stop to pick up cash that Sykes had delivered to them. Wolgast declined the new car that was provided as well, choosing to keep the Tahoe. He also declined the bag of weapons and bulletproof vests that were in the trunk of the car. Amy has remained quiet, but Wolgast senses that she's only pretending to sleep. When Amy declares that she needs to go to the bathroom, she insists that Wolgast, not Doyle, accompany her. Now that she's beginning to open up a little, Wolgast tries to reassure her that she shouldn't be afraid. She says she isn't: "You are."

In a small town called Homer, they find a carnival taking place. Wolgast suggests that they take a break there and take Amy on some rides. Doyle reluctantly agrees, but points out that two men in suits with a little girl would attract suspicion, so they change into jeans and sport shirts and go separate ways, Amy staying with Wolgast. She wants to go on the Octopus, and when the ride ends wants to go again.

Wolgast looked down at Amy's face; still that neutral, appraising gaze, yet he detected, behind the darkness of her eyes, a warm light of happiness. A new feeling opened inside him; no one had ever given her such a present.

After riding the Octopus three more times and eating a hot dog, funnel cake and milk, Amy wants to go on the carousel. Wolgast is so taken with playing Amy's father that he thinks, "Lila, this was what I wanted. Did you know? It's all I ever wanted." He sees Doyle flirting with a woman and suddenly makes a plan to escape from everything, to run away with Amy. He tries it, but Doyle catches up with them. Wolgast realizes that Doyle has anticipated this attempt, and when Wolgast starts to plead with his partner, Doyle says, "not menacing, merely stating the facts. 'Don't even say the words. We're partners, Brad. It's time to go.'" But neither of them see that they're being watched by an off-duty state trooper who has seen a report about two men kidnapping a girl at the Memphis zoo.

Grey is hearing a voice that keeps saying: "I was called Fanning." He has slept through his morning shift and is not due to work again until 10 p.m. He has dinner at the commissary and is finishing his meal when Paulson comes up to his table and starts to bully him, wanting Grey to tell him about Level Four. Grey insists that he's just a janitor, but Paulson persists. He asks if Grey dreams, and says, "Well, I sure as hell dream. All goddamn night long. One after the other. I am dreaming some crazy shit.... I dream about you." Then he tells Grey that Jack and Sam are dead. "We're all dead."

Carter has been sedated and had something put in the back of his neck, and now remembers someone pushing the button L4 in the elevator. He is afraid that he is being executed after all. He remembers Wolgast telling him, "I can give you all the time in the world, Anthony. An ocean of time." And he recalls how Rachel Wood had stopped at the traffic light where he was begging with his sign, rolled down the window and fumbled with her purse trying to find some money to give him. The light changed and people began to honk while she continued to look through her purse. A man got out of one of the backed-up cars, carrying a gun, accusing Carter of carjacking. Panicked, Rachel opened the passenger door and let Carter in. In the car, she told him that what attracted her about his sign was the words "God bless you," because she didn't feel blessed.

He went to work for her and for her friends, but after an initial period of feeling that she had done something good for someone else, her depression worsened. One December day, Carter found her daughter Haley, a kindergartner, locked outside on the patio. "Daddy's in Mexico, the girl stated, and shivered in the cold. With his girlfriend. Her mama wouldn't get out of bed." He tried the doors and gave the girl his sweater, then found  a tiny toad in the garden and brought it to show the girl just as Rachel came out of the house and screamed at him to get away from Haley, then shoved him. He tripped over the pool skimmer and, instinctively reaching out for something to grab onto, pulled her into the pool with him. He was unable to swim, and she kept pulling him down until she drowned and released him. He decided, "It was a secret she had given him, the final secret of who she was, and he was meant to keep it."

He becomes aware that there is a figure in the doorway and decides, "All right. I'm ready. Let them come."

Richards meets with Sykes to discuss the "situation":  Amy's mother is a suspect in the shooting of the son of a federal circuit court judge after the gun she left at the scene led police to the motel whose manager ID'd Amy from the photographs taken of her at the convent. Wolgast and Doyle had been identified from the surveillance video at the Mississippi checkpoint, and an Amber Alert had been issued. "Just like that, the whole world was looking for two federal agents and a little girl named Amy Bellafonte." Sykes has ordered a helicopter to intercept Wolgast and Doyle, and as Richards boards it, Sykes warns him, "'She's a kid! ... Do this right!' Whatever that meant, Richards thought."

In the Tahoe, Doyle tells Wolgast, "Richards thought you might have problems with this." Wolgast warns Doyle to be careful of Richards: "Private security contractor. He's little more than a mercenary." When they stop for gas, Doyle reaches over and takes the keys and removes the clip from the gun Wolgast keeps in the glove box. Three state police cruisers race past on the highway, and Wolgast and Doyle realize that they're being looked for.

Sister Arnette is unable to sleep after all the events of the day, including Lacey's unwillingness to identify Wolgast, when shown his photograph, as Amy's abductor: "Do you see? He loves her." Arnette was forced to tell the detective and the other nuns about what had happened to Lacey in Sierra Leone, and Sister Claire called it post-traumatic stress disorder. Arnette dozes off and then wakes in a panic: "Some dark force had come loose in the world, and it was sweeping toward them, coming for them all." She runs to Lacey's room and finds it locked. Her pounding on the door wakes the other nuns, and when Claire pulls her away from the door they see that Arnette's palms are bleeding. Claire rationally points out that Arnette has dug her fingernails into her palms. When they get the door open, they find that Lacey has gone.

Grey is still unsettled by the encounter with Paulson when he reports for duty. And then Richards gets on the elevator with him and tells him he's been docked twelve hundred dollars -- the pay for two shifts -- for failing to show up that morning. Grey notices the signs warning that anyone with symptoms including vomiting, fever, disorientation and seizures should report them immediately. After checking in with Davis, who is working security, he goes to L4, where he meets two other sweeps, Jude and Ignacio, and sees that his duties are to mop, empty trash and watch Zero to see if he is eating. A tech named Pujol comes to see about Zero, and Grey tells him that he's still not eating. He asks Pujol why, when the subjects are given ten rabbits, they only eat nine of them. Pujol suggests they're saving it for later. Grey wants to ask why they are fed rabbits, and how Zero can stick to the ceiling, but doesn't.

Then, after Pujol has gone, Grey starts to doze off and is wakened by a voice "in his head, almost like something he was reading: the words were someone else's, but the voice was his own." It calls his name and says "Look at me." Grey looks at the image of Zero on the monitor. "I was called Fanning," it says, and then asks Grey to take him home. Grey's head is filled with visions of a city, then of a college campus and the young women on it. The voice also tantalizes him with images of the boy Grey molested and then of a girl alone and afraid on the college campus.

Grey vomits, then makes a panicked attempt to clean it up. He takes the elevator to L3, where Davis is reading a porno magazine. Davis panics when Grey tells him he isn't feeling well: The level would have to be quarantined and both of them would be stuck there. So Davis lets Grey take the elevator.

[Cronin takes a turn deeper into the paranormal -- as if swarms of man-eating bats and viruses that turn people into vampires weren't paranormal enough -- with Amy's effect on the zoo animals, the psychic connection with Wolgast, and the ability of Zero/Fanning to invade people's dreams. He handles it well, I think, because the groundwork he has laid for his novel in conventional psychology and physiology now enables him to skew off in another direction. And he has hinted at where he's going: Carter's reference on p. 48 to The X-Files, for example.  

One of the more impressive things about Cronin's narrative is his ability to juggle so many points of view and to individualize his characters. He empathizes with his characters, so that he's able to keep even the minutiae of their inner lives consistent. For example, when Paulson and Davis release Carter from his shackles, "Carter couldn't remember when he'd gone anywhere without somebody's hand on him someplace." This is consistent with an observation about Carter some eighty pages earlier, when he's in prison: "Part of you got used to people's hands being on you this way, and part of you didn't."

Cronin is also good at weaving connections between his characters. When Lacey is being raped in the field in Sierra Leone, "she had sent her mind away from her body, up and up through the branches to heaven, where God was, and the girl in the field was someone else." This echoes Jeanette's ability to see the prostitute, the Jeanette "who stood on the highway in her stretch top and skirt" as "a made-up person, like a woman in a story she wasn't sure she wanted to know the end of." And since the night in the field, Lacey has been hearing voices -- "Lacey Antoinette Kudoto. Listen. Look." -- that are eerily (and probably significantly) similar to the voice of Zero/Fanning in Grey's head.]