The Passage

Peter and Alicia are in a meeting, part of a crowd filled with people who lost someone in the attack. Ian recounts the facts, beginning with the failing lights—a product of Michael’s attempt to read the tracking device in Amy’s neck. Ian doesn’t blame Michael and Elton, because he saw the bodies of Dana, Soo, and Jimmy after the lights came back. A pod of virals attacked Platform Six, while another trio pod advanced on Platform Nine. Their tactics are disturbing and uncharacteristically coordinated.

Sanjay is sick and Walter is temporarily in charge. Milo argues to open the armory as Sam Chou blames Amy for their fear. The crowd chants to put her out with Caleb as Alicia jumps onto a table.

She accepts the blame, claiming that she unknowingly led the virals here. The crowd erupts and Peter draws his blade as they kick at Alicia, who is on the ground. Members of the Watch enter and stop them as Ian declares Martial Law. Alicia tells Peter to leave, buying him time to get Amy. Ian arrests her and guards lead her away.

Irrationally, Mausami decides that since the baby is Theo’s, Theo is alive, and she’ll find him. She wonders if she’s experiencing delusions but decides that she doesn’t care. She plans while she knits baby booties and imagines the ways that people will grieve her disappearance.

The worst moment of Michael’s life was when the lights went out. He invents a story for Ian about a debilitating power surge, and Ian seems to believe it. Elton claims that he was asleep, so the blame isn’t his. Michael visits Peter in the barracks and says, “You have to hear Amy” (472).

Michael shows Peter the transmitter, which has a nuclear battery. The data has two partitions. Despite some glitches and encryptions, Michael finds the record of “Amy NLN, Subject 13” (473). NLN might stand for “no last name” (474).

The second partition is an endless string of numbers, including 98.6, the normal body temperature. Michael thinks she was a patient, and the numbers are logs of her vital statistics. The transmitter cycles every 90 minutes, meaning that somehow the transmitter has been inside Amy for more than 93 years.

The first partition contained the word USAMRIID, which Michael recognizes: United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. Most of the numbers are coordinates. A yellow dot appears on a map, showing Telluride, Colorado, the start of the CQZ, or Central Quarantine Zone. Michael thinks Amy might be the cure for the infection.

Michael shows Peter an 80-year-old record of the transmission with one extra addition: the code says, “If you found her, bring her here” (476). That message is still transmitting, which Michael learned when he strung the wire up the Platform. Whoever did this is asking for someone to return Amy to Colorado.

Peter brings Sara to the Lighthouse. After Michael recounts his findings, he tells them about the failing batteries. Theo already knew but hadn’t wanted to scare anyone. Sara thinks that if Amy is really that old, she has probably forgotten how to speak.

Sanjay feels the girl in his mind with Babcock and “The Many” (480). He awakes to Gloria asking him what he’s done. He thinks he must hold completely still and focus to keep his mind from breaking as Babcock says, “Be my one” (481). Sanjay dreams of the telephone woman. He tries to stab her, but his arm stops in mid-air as she laughs. He wakes again, crying out for Jimmy, but Gloria reminds him that Jimmy is dead. Sanjay thinks they’re in a dream and the girl is the Dreamer.

Peter visits Auntie to ask how she knew about Amy, and why she said that Amy might be a chance. Instead of answering, Auntie shows him some objects she calls her “worry things” (483), including a picture of a smiling couple. It is Monroe and Anita, Auntie’s parents.

She shows Peter a box of maps that his father Demo used on the Long Rides. Peter’s mother gave them to her and said they were for Peter when he was ready. Michael knocks and Dale is with him. Dale will help them leave through the gate, but it must be at first light, because Michael says people are gathering the guns.

Sara waits with Amy. She trusts Michael’s projections and worries that he’ll collapse whenever he’s eventually wrong. Sara told no one that Amy sat up just before the lights failed. Amy had moaned a melody for what Michael would have said was two minutes and 56 seconds before going silent again.

Peter and Michael go to lockup, where they find Galen unconscious, thanks to Alicia. They will get Sara, take horses from the stables, and leave when Dale distracts the others at First Bell. They hear Sara scream from the Infirmary.

When they arrive, Sara is kneeling, and Amy is bloody. Peter sees the bodies of Milo, Sam, and Jacob Curtis. Ben, a guard, shot Jacob with an arrow. Sam and Milo attacked him. Sara doesn’t know more and can’t remember what happened.

They find Old Chou and Walter hanging from the rafters and decide to leave immediately. Peter gets the maps and Auntie says that he’s “in your own time now” (491). Mausami appears and asks if Peter thinks Theo is dead. Peter agrees that he’s alive, and she reveals that she’s pregnant and must join them.

Peter knows they must reach the CQZ, but he doesn’t have time to plan like his father had with the Long Rides. Alicia takes them through a secret tunnel and says everything depends on who reaches the guns first.

At the mountain’s base, they find a donkey’s corpse, killed with a blade. They find the guns they hid, still in their crates. Hollis arrives and says that six others are in pursuit. He says they must reach the bunker, and that it’s what Demo would have done.

They study a Los Angeles Basin map and Hollis estimates a two-day trip. He says Demo fortified an old fire station along the trail and called the bunker a war chest. The virals tend to stay away from the desert, but Hollis doesn’t know what’s east of the bunker. They’ll have to travel all night and avoid virals.

Galen rides with the pursuers but doesn’t think he can do it. He remembers Gloria saying, “kill them” (500) and watching the crowd throw Elton from the wall. Ian had told Galen to bring him the guns. Now Galen only wishes the baby were his. He suddenly realizes he is alone as he hears a tearing sound from the Overpass.

They reach the fire station, which contains cots, rifles, grenades, and stables. Hollis takes first watch. Peter sees an old Newsweek with a blurry picture of a viral, captioned with the words, BELIEVE IT.

Later, Sara shows Peter a solitary viral crouched in the road. Others gather and soon a group is probing the roof for an entry. Amy walks out, asleep, just as one starts scratching the door. Suddenly, the virals leave and she returns to bed. They don’t know how she did it, or whether the virals are Amy’s friends or pets. Peter thinks Amy is crying.

After a long march the next day, they find a row of empty vehicles before leaving the road in the afternoon. When they reach Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, a sign warns of undetonated ordnance in the road. There are 32 buses and a helicopter onsite. Caleb finds two sets of dog tags in the helicopter. When they reach the bunker—a vault carved into a mountain—Hollis seals them inside. It reminds Peter of a library, with weapons instead of books.

Chapter 44 comprises excerpts from Sara’s journal, read aloud at the Third Global Conference on the North American Quarantine Period. She records 11 days of their efforts to repair two Humvees and prepare for the next stage of the journey. Mausami’s pregnancy begins to show. They have a party to celebrate the Humvee repairs.

When they reach Kelso, a pod attacks. Hollis gets shot during the fight, but both Kelso and Alicia claim to have shot him by accident. There’s no more safety on the way to Las Vegas, but Sara realizes she doesn’t care. She is happy to be with people she cares for, sharing a common goal.

After losing the road, they try to relocate Highway 215. The main bridge to Las Vegas is gone, but another is intact. They cross without incident and find a battle tank, then walls of sandbags comprising a defensive perimeter. They decide to shelter that night and reach the airport tomorrow.

The strip is like a maze and is too cluttered for the Humvees to navigate. They pry their way into a building that smells horrible. There are angels painted on the ceiling. When they reach a floor of slot machines, there are corpses at the card tables.

Amy finds a snow globe containing a replica of the tower they’re in: the Milagro Hotel and Casino. The bad smell is sewer gas and methane. After searching several floors, they find a room without bodies in it and look at the Eifel Tower at the casino across the street.

Peter can’t sleep. He finds Sara playing cards alone after Alicia goes to bed. Sara says he doesn’t have to be sorry for the night they spent together. She looks out the window. Amy enters just as the glass explodes. A viral rushes in, takes Sara, and leaves. Hollis says he saw the direction the virals took her. Peter gives Amy a pistol and senses that they’re in a trap.

In the lobby, as they prepare to run to the vehicles, Alicia approaches with a hoard of virals chasing her. They break glowsticks and race through the hotel. In a kitchen below ground, Peter swings a pan at a viral that is attacking Alicia. The viral stops when it sees its reflection in the metal. It moans. Alicia throws a grenade behind it, hoping to ignite the methane gas. They cross the street as the explosions begin.

A truck pulls up as they try for the Humvees again. The truck, driven by a masked woman in heavy padding, has a mounted flamethrower on top. Alicia and Peter find their friends in the back.

Theo hates the dream woman in the kitchen. She mocks him. He is a captive, but he doesn’t know where. The walls of his room are covered in writing and doodles. A voice asks about the lady in his head. It asks if he has cut her yet as a boot stomps on his wrist. The voice says there are worse things than him and tells him to sleep well.