The Passage (The Passage, #1)

by Justin Cronin

Wolgast leaned back in his chair and realized how exhausted he was. It always came upon him like this, like the sudden unclenching of a fist.

She’d put her hands in her lap, close her eyes, and send her mind out as far as she could—since childhood, she had imagined it as a kite on a string, lifting higher as she let the line out—and wait to see what happened. Now, sitting on the bed, she sent the kite as high as she dared, the imaginary ball of string growing smaller in her hand, the kite itself just a speck of color far above her head, but all she felt was the wind of heaven pushing upon it, a force of great power against a thing so small.

The sensation was still in his mouth, not just the taste—a too warm, sticky sweetness that seemed to coat his tongue and throat and teeth—but the feel of soft meat yielding under his jaws, exploding with juice. Like he’d bitten into a rotten piece of fruit.

but his mind, free to go wherever it wished, chose to move over the past, hovering atop it like a bird over some immense body of water, no shoreline in sight, only the distant reflection of himself in its shining surface for company.