The Passage

Chapter 2 comprises a series of emails exchanged between Jonas Lear and a colleague, Paul. Lear is a professor of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University. Lear writes from a Bolivian jungle, where he is traveling with a research group and accompanied by a unit of Special Ops soldiers, led by Mark Cole. Cole refers to Lear as the “vampire guy” (20). Mark promotes him to Major.

Lear emails an attachment of a humanoid sculpture with sharp teeth, similar to other findings across the world. Bats attack them at night, killing four and infecting others. The situation worsens over several days. Lear’s final message says, “Now I know why the soldiers are here” (25).

Thirty-two-year-old Anthony Lloyd Carter has been on death row for years. His only visitor was the husband and father of the woman (Mrs. Wood) and child he’d allegedly killed. The husband, now religious, forgives him. Mrs. Wood was kind. Carter doesn’t understand his involvement in her death, or his punishment.

Forty-four-year-old FBI Agent Brad Wolgast is on his way to visit Carter when his partner, Doyle, shows him a photo of Anthony Carter and says Mrs. Wood hired him to cut her grass after seeing him panhandling. Two years later, he drowned Mrs. Wood in the swimming pool while her daughter watched.

Doyle is a patriot who joined the FBI after a mall shooting. Then, he volunteered for “Project NOAH” (33). Wolgast joined after his divorce. The warden doesn’t understand why they want Carter. Wolgast calls Sykes, his boss, to intervene, which requires an additional day in Texas. Over dinner, he tells Doyle that his ex-wife Lila is marrying a man named David. They’re expecting. Wolgast calls Lila, and David answers. When Lila takes the phone, Wolgast congratulates her. As she cries, they’re both thinking about Eva, their daughter. David tells Wolgast not to call again.

Sykes needs between 10 and 20 death row inmates for “the third-stage trials of an experimental drug therapy, code-named Project NOAH” (40), in exchange for life imprisonment. Wolgast collects the signatures, and Sykes is his only contact.

Sykes tells Wolgast about a message the CDC received from a doctor in Bolivia, 10 years prior. Four Americans—the last of a group of 14—had contracted what looked like Hantavirus. They recovered, but that shouldn’t have been possible. Sykes explains the thymus gland, which usually atrophies in puberty. The four survivors had greatly enlarged, reactivated thymus glands that quickly regenerated their immune cells, but they died within 86 days.

The goal of NOAH is to harness the virus that regenerates immune cells, which would end all diseases. Sykes asks Wolgast to imagine a wounded soldier, and what it could mean to return him to the battlefield quickly. He suggests that Wolgast read about the biblical character Noah and his longevity. That night, Wolgast reads that Noah lived for 950 years. He realizes they chose Wolgast because he watched Eva die, so he would be especially driven to find the cure to death.

In the morning, the unhappy warden, who has been forbidden from speaking about this, briefs them on the paperwork. Carter will be known as “Number Twelve.” When the guards bring Carter, Wolgast makes them remove Carter’s shackles, and he gets Carter a cheeseburger. Wolgast explains his purpose but admits that he doesn’t know the nature of the trials. Carter wants time to figure out what happened to Mrs. Woods, so he accepts. Wolgast wonders why he’s so good at this job.

Wolgast prepares to leave. He wants to call Lila but realizes he’s indulging in what a counselor calls the “time machine” (54). The hardest moments are when they relive their loss. Special Agent Williams takes Wolgast off his flight home before liftoff—a car is waiting. After reading a fax, Wolgast tells Doyle, “It’s a civilian” (54).

Sister Lacey Antoinette Kudoto has always felt God’s voice. Her parents had occasionally taken her to a French doctor when she got too sad about those who did not know God. Now, she hears God’s voice at the convent after taking in Amy and finding a note in Amy’s backpack. The note offers an apology and gives Amy’s name and age: “Three tiny sentences were all this girl had in the world to explain who she was, just three sentences and the few little things in her bag” (56). Amy asks for Peter, the stuffed rabbit in her bag.

They play a game of trading secrets. Lacey admits that she ran away as a child to see horses at a fair. Amy says her mother isn’t coming back. When the police take Lacey’s report, Lacey says she’ll call Protective Services, but doesn’t. She tells the other sisters that Amy’s mother is a friend, and Amy will spend the weekend there, which excites everyone but Sister Arnette. Lacey believes that God sent Amy to her. She lied about calling Protective Services because she’s supposed to solve the mystery. The nuns buy Amy food, toys, and games and watch The Princess Bride.

While preparing for bed, Amy asks if she must sleep in the bathroom, which she did when her mother was working. Lacey decides to take Amy to the nearby zoo the next day. That night, Lacey dreams of hiding in a field as a child and hearing gunfire at her house. She feels a man nearby. She wakes and feels Amy in the room. Amy begs her not to let anyone take her.

At the Mississippi border checkpoint, Wolgast tells the agents who check their credentials that they are picking up a federal witness. He thinks about Sykes’s strange instructions from the fax: They will retrieve a girl named Amy NLN in Memphis by Saturday, noon, at the latest. It also says TUR (travel under radar).

Grey’s job is to log Subject Zero’s activities. No one has explained what Zero is. He is humanlike, but hairless and glowing, with orange eyes and sharp teeth that fall out frequently. Grey calls them “glowsticks” (69), but Zero disturbs him the most because Zero watches. They feed the subjects 10 rabbits, but they only eat nine.

Grey remembers his intake interview when he agreed to stay for a year. Richards delivered him in a van with Jack and Sam, two other workers. Increasingly unnerved, when Grey convinced Richards to let him out to urinate, he ran down a slope, but changed his mind. After finishing he saw that Richards had a gun drawn—he would have shot him.

Grey takes monthly medications as a condition of his release from prison. He isn’t allowed near schools. Dr. Wilder says the pills ensure that he’ll never meet the “bad Grey” (77) again.

Jack and Sam, the two other inmates in the program delivered with Grey, left two days prior, forfeiting their money. The data says Zero sleeps, but he feels awake to Grey, who suddenly hears a voice say, “I am here” (80) in his mind. He remembers, as a child, sexually experimenting with a boy named Roy, and then being whipped and assaulted by a man named Kurt. Gray had later found his father dead by suicide. Thousands of rabbits invade the memory as Zero whispers his name.

Richards plays free cell. He compares the game—war—to the state of the world. He remembers the “glorious” (84) day of the 9/11 attacks. He had been in Jakarta. Now the war was everywhere, which is why NOAH made sense. Cole recruited him five years prior and called NOAH the new Manhattan Project. VSA—very slow aging—was the concept of NOAH. Lear’s papers explained the hypothesis of the thymus gland and its anti-aging potential. It reminded Richards of vampires, whom he considers examples of amplified human instincts. He remembers catching Jack and Sam and killing them after they left.

The first human subjects died quickly, before an inmate named Giles Babcock survived. Richards knows that Sykes isn’t sure numbers Zero through Eleven can be killed. Their exoskeletons are hard, except for a thinner gap on the breastbone. They also carry a deadly, contagious virus. The Elizabeth Protocol—named after Lear’s wife—is what they call the failsafe abortion of the project.

Lear wants a young girl now, hypothesizing that a younger gland can repel the virus. Richards found the girl in a convent. Sykes arrives and asks about Jack and Sam, but Richards doesn’t answer. Sykes says that Lear and Fanning (who is Zero) had been friends. When he is alone, Richards listens to Babcock in his head for hours.

Lacey wakes and finds Amy at the kitchen table with Sister Claire, a novitiate. Claire had been married. She’s the only one who had a typical life before the convent. They dress Amy in a t-shirt that says SASSY and take her and her bunny Peter to the zoo, where Amy puts her face against the polar bears’ glass enclosure. One of the bears licks the glass when she asks its name. She says he has a name that she can’t pronounce because it’s in bear language.

Another bear swims to Amy. When the third and fourth bears jump in, water overflows and splashes them, including a furious woman whose husband was taking a picture. Amy kneels before the four bears as people take pictures. She says the bears know what she is.

Wolgast and Doyle visit the convent. They say Amy is under federal protection just as the zoo’s head of security calls. All of the animals are agitated and almost violent. Lacey watches the elephants stomp and knows that Amy is involved. Amy sobs, asking what she is. Lacey feels the presence of a shadowy man who isn’t really there. The animals are trying to tell Amy that he’s there.

FBI agents take Amy. Lacey realizes that since she was a girl hiding in a field, the voices have been telling her about this moment. She sees a vision of armies and fires, and the final triumph of death and evil. Amy says she is the reason.

On the way to Colorado, an agent named Paulson mocks Carter and accuses him of sexually assaulting Mrs. Woods. Carter remembers Mrs. Woods suddenly shouting and screaming for her daughter to run as Carter tried to show her a toad he’d found by the pool.

Wolgast, now a fugitive, calls Skyes. They are now fugitives. Sykes arranges a car for them, and they drive toward Arkansas.

Richards is sleeping when Carter arrives with Paulson and David. Their compound is a former executive retreat. Carter is holding a stack of comic books and crying. Richards sticks his gun under Paulson’s chin and asks Carter if he should kill him. Carter says no.

Wolgast and Doyle drive through Oklahoma in the night. Wolgast meets an agent who gives him a duffle bag of supplies, but Wolgast refuses because part of him hopes that they’ll be stopped. They find an off-road place to stop before a storm. Wolgast dreams of Lila. Amy wakes him so he can take her to the bathroom. When he gives her his name, Brad, she asks why they’re visiting a doctor in Colorado. She says she’s not afraid, but he is.

They reach a fair in Homer, Oklahoma. Wolgast asks for an hour because he wants to show Amy the rides. He asks Amy to pretend that she’s his daughter before they ride the Octopus four times. Her happiness feels like a gift. On the carousel, he thinks to Lila that he wanted this. He watches Doyle flirt with a woman and considers leaving with Amy. Doyle sees them walking toward the fence and says it’s time to leave. A state trooper watches them go.

Grey is anxious and can’t focus. He goes to the commissary, where Paulson taunts him and asks what he knows about Level Four. Grey protests that he’s only a janitor. Paulson says he dreams about Grey and wants to know about Grey’s dreams. He says Jack and Sam are dead.

On Level Four, Carter is restrained on a gurney, drugged, and scared. He remembers people looking down at him during procedures, and everything hurts. He remembers holding a panhandler’s sign in June when Mrs. Woods had pulled over. As she’d looked for cash, an impatient driver behind her got out with a gun and accused Carter of menacing her. She told him to get in.

She cried when they stopped a few miles later. She asked if he meant what his sign said: “God Bless You” (141). She didn’t feel blessed. Rather, she felt so bad that it was confusing. She shook his hand and said her husband would kill her, and then she told Carter that they would be friends. She took him home and got him other work as well, and he loved her. Carter had watched her depression grow.

One day, her daughter Haley said her mother wouldn’t leave her bed. He held out a toad to make her smile. Mrs. Wood appeared, disheveled and screaming for Haley to run. They fell into the water, tangled together. Carter couldn’t swim and she dragged him to the bottom. Then, she inhaled water on purpose and let him go.

Sykes tells Richards that Amy’s mother is a suspect in a frat house shooting. They found the gun, which led them to the nuns, who then told them about the zoo. Their transmitter implies that Wolgast is on the run. A Blackhawk helicopter lands outside, and Sykes tells Richards to do this right.

Wolgast feels that he and Amy are joined since they left the carousel. Doyle pumps gas after taking the keys and Wolgast’s gun. Three police cars pass.

Sister Arnette can’t sleep. She was horrified to learn that Amy’s mother was a sex worker, but believes it might explain why she thinks something about Amy is “unearthly” (151). Cops forbid the sisters from talking to the press. When they watched footage of Wolgast and Doyle together earlier that evening, Lacey said that Wolgast loves Amy. Arnette feels that a new evil is in the world. When she goes to Lacey’s room, it’s empty.

Richards docks Grey two shifts’ pay for being late. Grey goes to Level 4, where he sees Jude and Ignacio, workers like him. He observes Zero, who isn’t eating, until a man named Pujol arrives. A voice tells him to look at Zero and says that Zero was originally called Fanning. The voice shows him pleasant visions and Grey vomits. He tastes blood, which is a symptom of the virus. As he cleans, he remembers the feel of meat in his jaws.

Wolgast decides to surrender outside of Randall, Oklahoma. They take Amy to a restaurant. They don’t know how to turn themselves in without vanishing, since their mission is unofficial.

They ask the waitress for the police department’s address. She points out a sheriff’s deputy, Kirk, in the restaurant. Wolgast shows Amy and his FBI credentials to Kirk and surrenders. At the station, they wait for the sheriff, John Price, in a cell. Wolgast wonders if Carter felt similarly when he realized his former life was over. During fingerprinting, Amy calls Wolgast “Daddy” and says they have to leave now. Wolgast turns to see Richards shoot Price and Kirk, before making Wolgast and Amy drive to a field where a helicopter waits. When they get out, Richards issues a command from the air and their car explodes.

Wolgast has been in the compound for 27 days. He only sees the men who bring him food. He remembers Eva’s death, three weeks before her first birthday. He’d been a ghost until meeting Amy.

Sykes visits on day 34. He shows Wolgast two photos. One is of Amy, the other is her mother’s yearbook photo. He tells him about the frat shooting and Jeanette’s sex work. He also says Richards probably killed the nuns. He takes Wolgast to Level Four after saying Amy might be dying—she is in a coma. They ask Wolgast to wear a biohazard suit and talk to her, hoping for a response. He refuses to wear the suit and enters with Amy’s backpack.

Carter, whom they call Number Twelve, feels “sick with time itself” (181). After they take more of his blood, he hopes he’ll die soon. Then, he hears 11 voices calling to him in his blood. A ravenous hunger overtakes him. He frees himself, tears a man apart, and drinks his blood. This is the virus’s final stage.

Richards watches on the camera. NOAH is graduating to “Project Upstart” (183), which will transfer the subjects to a facility called White Sands where they will be weaponized. Richards dreams about shooting the nuns and wishes Lacey had been there. He watches Wolgast with Amy as Babcock says he and Richards belong together.

A woman claiming to have walked to the compound arrives outside the facility and asks for Wolgast. In Amy’s cell, Wolgast tells Amy a story about Eva, whose heart shrunk until she died and then her parents couldn’t love each other. Amy opens her eyes as he says she’s like Eva returning.

Lacey prays in the woods as she flees from six soldiers. After bus rides and hitchhiking she is overjoyed to feel Amy’s presence nearby. She jumps in the back of a passing army truck and crosses a checkpoint.

Grey contemplates the nature of time as he realizes that the voices come from the Twelve. Weeping, he enters Zero’s chamber. As Zero bites him, Grey understands that he is the 10th rabbit.

The Level Four alarm signals a breach. The subjects are out. Amidst the screaming and gunshots. Paulson shoots himself.

Wolgast shouts for help when the lights go out. He locates Amy through her moans and disconnects her IVs. A man enters and says that Sykes is dead. It is Jonas Lear. He lets Wolgast and Amy out of their cell, and they pass several bodies. Grey appears, bleeding, and says he’s having a strange dream.

Lear opens a panel and tells them to follow the duct behind it. He says Amy is everything and seals the panel without joining them. Wolgast tries to wake Amy when they reach a ladder. Unsuccessful, he climbs while carrying her. They reach the duct to the outside, but it is sealed.

Richards sees Sykes, who was wounded by Babcock. He vomits on Richards’s pants as Richards shoots him. Outside, Lacey sees a “demon” (199) jumping through a window into the treetops. Twelve of them attack and kill the guards. A sentry stops her, but she runs when a demon kills him. Richards wants to die fighting.

Lacey finds Doyle, who says he has been hearing her for weeks. She says it wasn’t her. Doyle opens the grate, releasing Wolgast and Amy. Doyle gives him the keys to a Lexus as Lacey kisses them both.

Carter approaches Richards, who shoots an RPG at him from a rocket launcher. Carter dodges the rocket and tears Richards in half. The explosion knocks Wolgast down, but he gets Amy and Lacey into the car. Carter lands on the hood as Lacey gets in. Doyle runs toward them, and Carter kills him.

Lacey makes Wolgast stop shortly after. She’s been shot in the arm. She tells Wolgast to protect Amy and runs away as the infected surround her.