The Passage

Three nights later, after their mandatory quarantine, there is a party. Peter doesn’t believe much of what Olson says, but he enjoys the hospitality. Olson’s daughter is named Mira. The first settlers at the Haven were war refugees. Most of the people they see wear orange prison jumpsuits.

They meet two men, Hap and Leon, as well as four children. Peter is already thinking about escaping and wants to find fuel.

Olson takes them to a waiting crowd where smiling people applaud and embrace them. It feels staged to Peter; a ruse meant to disarm. He can’t keep track of his friends. Olson asks about Amy and says a child-bearing woman is a prize. He refers to Alicia, Amy, Mausami, and Sara as “your females” (558). Peter feels a void in the crowd. Something is wrong.

There are few boys at the Haven. The children all have short hair, but most are girls. By the end of the party, Peter realizes no one has asked about the Colony, and no one has offered their names.

Sara doesn’t think Michael had heatstroke. Rather, it’s like he entered a profound, lengthy sleep for no reason. Alicia says she can’t stop Jude’s advances forever. She mentions Liza Chou, Old Chou’s niece. Liza disappeared from the Colony on Dark Night, but Alicia saw her in the dairy barns today. Liza has a unique scar on one cheek. Liza is pregnant, like many of the women. When Alicia mentions her nightmares, Hollis asks if she sees the “Fat Woman.” Everyone but Peter is dreaming about the woman in the kitchen.

Mira brings Michael food and watches him eat. She starts kissing him and says that if she can have a baby, she won’t have to “go to the ring” (564). Before Michael can respond, several men remove her as she resists. Billie makes Michael a drink and he refuses, but then drinks when she says it will banish the dream woman. The drink makes him euphoric. When Billie asks if he’s an engineer, he confirms it. Then, Billie says he has to do what they say.

Mausami feels the baby move. She thinks it’s a boy but won’t name him until Theo’s there. At the party, she wonders why no women mention their babies’ fathers. Amy touches her belly and smiles. Mausami hears Amy in her thoughts: “He’s here” (567). Amy says Theo is with Babcock and the “Many.”

Chapter 51 gives Babcock a lengthy internal monologue in which he describes himself in grandiose terms. He remembers his abusive mother and home. She always hit him and burned him with the cigarettes she constantly smoked. He stabbed her in the kitchen—a crime that earned him his place in the Twelve.

Now, he feels that there is another who is both like them and unlike them. Babcock is angry because the Other makes the Many want to die and to remember.

Michael is missing and Olson feigns ignorance, claiming that Mira just saw him in the Infirmary. Caleb says Amy and Sara are also missing.

Michael is actually drugged in a truck. A voice at a checkpoint says they shouldn’t be out during the new moon. They let Michael out near a large shed, where a man named Gus inspects him. He shows Michael a train in good condition. They give him three hours to get it running, even though they’ve been trying for four years.

A voice urges Theo to kill the woman in the kitchen. He doesn’t know how long he’s been there, and he fights to stay awake. The voice asks about Alicia and says she’s pregnant. The voice says Theo knows about Babcock, and that Theo is Babcock. Theo resists, reminding himself that he is only Theo. A girl appears in his dream, holding a stuffed rabbit. Theo is suddenly dreaming of a library and the girl is now old. She tells him not to do it as the voice shouts that he and the Many will have them all.

Sara distracts a guard and Hollis knocks him out when she walks by. After Caleb binds the guard, they find their Humvee, but most of their guns are gone. Olson and six others surprise them. Alicia aims a gun at Olson’s head. He asks her to listen and says they don’t know about Babcock.

At the train, Michael asks himself what Elton would do. He resets the relay, and after several adjustments, the locomotive’s engine starts.

Olson splits them into two groups and explains that they owe Babcock “Four and two, each new moon” (584) in exchange for Babcock keeping the virals away. Olson says the first members at the Haven were children, delivered by train, but Babcock was already here, waiting. Once someone kills the dream woman, which is a test, they belong to Babcock and the ring. He admits that the blockage on the Vegas strip was a trap.

Alicia calls them collaborators and pets. Olson tells them that he had a son. When Olson protested the boy being chosen for the ring, Jude sent Olson’s wife into the ring with his son. With the weapons, Olson hopes they’ll have a chance to escape. Olson explains the arena’s layout and manpower. Olson has 11 men against everyone.

Babcock tells Jude it is time because Jude is his best dreamer. Babcock lands in the arena in front of the crowd. He brutally kills four cattle before sensing Amy’s presence.

Peter listens from a duct above and then drops to a catwalk. He is stunned to see Theo tied in the ring as a huge viral eats the slaughtered beasts next to him. Jude greets Peter from below and points a shotgun at him. Hollis shoots Jude as  Mausami sees Theo and Finn Darrell. A woman with a scar says she knows Mausami and raises the alarm. Mausami stabs the pump operator and pulls a lever as a bullet hits her thigh. The lever extinguishes the flames in the ring. The viral tears Finn in half. Amy steps into the ring and speaks to Babcock.

Peter and Hollis fight Jude’s men as Mausami enters the ring. Babcock swings up to the catwalk, which is then destroyed by a grenade. Peter and Alicia hit the ground, where Peter sees that Amy’s clothes are smoking and she has a burn on her head. Peter goes to Theo, and Caleb recognizes Finn’s body. Caleb helps Peter lift Theo to his feet.

Olson screams for people to board the approaching train. Michael leans out a window and says they can’t stop. They make it onboard and Peter bandages Mausami’s leg. Gus boards and gives them guns. They go to the roof and Peter sees hundreds of glowing virals chasing the train. They enter a tunnel and Hollis and Caleb pull Peter back inside as a viral pulls Mira off.

Peter realizes Theo was bait. They knew he was Peter’s brother. A huge explosion erupts, and the front cars of the train separate and race ahead, outdistancing the virals. They stop 400 kilometers later when the rails end near Utah.

Amy blew the coupler when they were overrun, producing the explosion that saved them. Peter wonders what she told Babcock when she faced him.

Theo vaguely remembers the mall attack, but not much else, other than his dreams. They vote to continue to Colorado. They hear a noise and find Jude hiding beneath a floor panel, with half of his face missing. He shoots and kills Caleb before Peter and Hollis shoot him. Alicia hits Olson with Jude’s pistol as she weeps. Olson says Jude was Babcock’s “familiar” (608). She pulls the trigger, but it is empty. In the morning, Olson is gone.

They bury Caleb and leave a marker for him. Peter feels a change in Theo. Babcock took something from him. Alicia is devastated and blames herself for Caleb’s death. Michael says there are 40 million virals ahead—there’s no point in continuing. Amy says he’s wrong because there are really only 12.

Sara’s record is read aloud at another conference. She describes the days following their escape.

Amy talks more each day. She reveals that she isn’t scared of the virals, and only remembers coming from a place with mountains. In the ring, she asked Babcock not to kill Theo, and she said please. She says Gus told her how to blow the coupler. Gus put the bomb between the train cars. Somehow, she learned what to do after he died.

They find three dead virals that were trapped by a fire. Amy says they were afraid, and Sara feels bad for them.

Sara decides to marry Hollis Wilson, but they don’t announce it. The group finds a well-stocked farmstead with a working well. Theo and Mausami choose to winter there, despite Peter’s disapproval.

Amy wakes from a nightmare in Moab. She says the man “keeps on dying and can’t stop” (622). Sara worries that the worst is coming. They reach Colorado on Day 67.

They follow Amy. Peter thinks of the beseeching radio message Michael showed him, asking for Amy’s return. Peter’s surprised that he doesn’t miss Theo more. They now have different outcomes, and Theo is indifferent to Amy. Peter wishes it had been harder for Theo to say goodbye again. He notices a difference in Sara—whom he now finds beautiful—and feels that he was foolish to reject her.

When it snows, Amy shows them snow angels. Alicia says that when she looks at Amy, she sees Peter. She thinks he’s been waiting for her since his father died. Everyone but Peter knows that this is his Long Ride. Peter says Sara and Hollis might be a couple and Alicia laughs. Peter is the last to know, which annoys him. Alicia says that he’s the reason they’re all there. The next day, they get caught in a net that spins until Michael is nauseous. Upside down, they watch a group of soldiers approach.

Mausami’s energy returns. She often looks at pictures of a family on the mantel: two parents, two girls, and a boy. There are four graves behind the house. Theo helps her bathe with soap he makes. They go fishing and eat well that night. After dinner, she convinces him to come to bed instead of standing watch, but he’s afraid to sleep: Theo can still feel the dream, even though he no longer has it. Mausami stays awake until he sleeps.

After the amiable soldiers release them from the net, they walk to a military garrison led by Colonel Greer. Their compound is small but well-fortified. Greer explains that the nets are for the virals, which they know as “dracs” (640). The spinning net disorients them and makes them easy to shoot.

They meet Brigadier General Curtis Vorhees, head of the Army of the Republic of Texas. His unit will march to Roswell in six days. Until then, Vorhees says the women must stay in their tents other than to use the latrines. Each man in the “Second Expeditionary” (642) has sworn an oath and is committed to dying for the cause. A woman can supposedly change that because women are seen as giving men hope and making them want to live.

Peter says they’ll leave, but then Alicia gives Vorhees greetings from Colonel Niles Coffee, who was an expeditionary. She is his adopted daughter. She cries, apologizes to Peter, and then admits that she’s been tracking Vorhees’s men for two days. She is already sworn in through Coffee. Peter says he can’t go on without her. She disagrees and tells Vorhees she’s ready to join his team.

Peter learns that the soldiers call Alicia “The Last Expeditionary” (652). He tells Greer and Vorhees everything about their trip. Greer wants to know about the Haven, which reminds him of Homer, a town with a similar situation. He says the dracs are dying off slowly and hiding more often. They’re going to Kerrville next. Vorhees is intrigued by Michael’s report, but he discourages them from trusting the signal’s meaning. They don’t know what’s happening elsewhere in the world, but Vorhees thinks it’s empty.

Michael is popular with the soldiers, who call him Lugnuts. On movie night, they watch Dracula. Amy and Sara sneak in to sit by Peter. Peter understands what Renfield is doing in the movie, like Jude. He also agrees with Van Helsing’s logic. A soldier interrupts them as they hear shots near the gate. Alicia and her squad enter. They report that they found a nest of virals in a mine and Raimey was killed. They then split into two groups. One stayed and fought, and Alicia’s group came back to report. They’re going to plant a bomb in the mine and destroy the nest.

Now that Alicia has the Expeditionaries, Peter wants to help with the war. Instead of agreeing, Greer says Amy was in his childhood dreams whenever he was sick. He says Peter must go to Roswell with Amy.

Peter can’t leave without knowing if Alicia is safe. Amy wants to go sooner, and it angers him. Three days later, two squads return. Greer says the hillside of the mine collapsed and he doesn’t know who survived. Alicia and a soldier named Muncey return that night. Muncey was bitten and he wants Alicia to perform the Mercy, since she brought him back. She stabs him in the chest.

They have lost 46 soldiers, including Vorhees. Alicia is promoted to Lieutenant. Sara and Amy help the wounded. Hollis finds a guitar and plays a song for Peter. Peter says Hollis and Sara should join the convoy, but he and Amy will continue to Colorado.

Greer shows Peter a charcoal portrait of a woman and two girls. Vorhees did it. He shows Peter so they will live on. He wishes Peter well and says to let him know how the dream ends.

Peter visits Alicia because Hollis’s guitar makes him sentimental. She says the Colonel left her under a tree outside at night when she was eight, to see if she could survive. She hated him. She’s glad she had Peter for a short time and hopes he’ll forgive her for never telling him how she felt about him. He hugs her, thanks her, and leaves. In the morning, he rises early, and Amy is already packed. They ride away on a horse as it snows.