The Passage

The Passage is a 2010 novel by Justin Cronin. It is the first novel in a post-apocalyptic horror series that includes The Twelve and City of Mirrors. The Passage is Cronin’s take on the vampire genre. He uses world-building to examine themes of Passages and Transitions, Vampirism as a Metaphor, and The Value of Life. The Passage was well-received and was adapted into a television series for the Fox Network, which aired its final episode in 2019.

Content Warning: The novel and this guide refer to spousal and child abuse, sexual assault, suicide, infant fatality, sex work, and nuclear warfare.

Plot Summary

The novel’s first section focuses on FBI Agent Brad Wolgast and his work (unbeknownst to him at first) on behalf of Project NOAH. The project originated in a Bolivian jungle as a research team—supported by Doctor Jonas Lear—tried to figure out a way to prolong life and cure disease. After their disastrous trip, during which most of them are killed, Lear uses a virus they find in diseased bats to infect 12 American death row inmates. Wolgast’s job is to get the signatures of the 12 subjects. The first subject, known as Zero, is Tim Fanning.

The virus enlarges the thymus gland, which usually goes dormant during puberty. The enlarged thymus leads to increased strength and speed, as well as orange eyes and, in some cases, the ability to communicate through thoughts. The subjects inevitably grow erratic and violent after being infected. Dr. Lear believes that they may have better results after infecting a child. When he targets six-year-old Amy Bellafonte, it sets the novel’s major events in motion. Agents take Amy from a convent after her mother—who has a substance use disorder and is a sex worker who is fleeing from a frat house where she shot someone—leaves her there.

As the other subjects develop preternatural powers, number Zero uses psychic abilities to influence the guards and staff, making the most use of a janitor named Grey. He frees the other subjects, who quickly kill the guards and take over the compound. Wolgast gets there in time to save Amy and escape with her. Before they escape, however, Wolgast is shocked to see Sister Lacey, a nun who bonded with Amy at the convent. Carter, one of the subjects, bites Lacey after she leaves the car, giving Amy and Wolgast time to escape. Wolgast feels that they belong to each other. His infant daughter, Eva, died before she turned one, and Amy is another chance for him to have and protect a child.

Wolgast takes her to a camp in the Oregon mountains, where they have a peaceful winter together. Over the radio, he learns that the world is devolving as the outbreak spreads. One night, they see a nuclear explosion that is most likely the government attempting to destroy an infected zone before the infected can leave. Wolgast’s exposure to the radiation kills him soon after.

Nearly 100 years later, Part 2 involves a group of survivors in what is known as the Colony, including new main characters Peter Jaxon, Alicia Donadio, Michael Fisher and his sister Sara, Mausami Patal, and Hollis Wilson. The Colony has dwindling resources but does well enough until Amy arrives. At this point, she no longer speaks, but can communicate mentally. Michael is a technical engineer for the Colony and finds a radio signal that has been repeating at specific intervals for nearly a century. When he finds a transmitter in Amy’s neck, he learns that she is at least 100 years old.

As the Colony’s batteries fail—which will lead to the end of the lights that protect them from the “virals,” the term for people who have been infected, at night—Peter, Alicia, Michael, Sara, Mausami, and Hollis take Amy to a power station to escape from the mob mentality consuming the rest of the Colony against Amy. They eventually move on to Las Vegas, where a group of virals attacks them. They are saved by two men from a community that lives in a nearby prison they call the Haven.

The Haven is a false shelter, but Peter’s older brother, Theo, is there. Theo hadn’t returned to the colony from an exploratory journey and had been presumed dead. However, he’s been enslaved by a viral named Babcock, who torments him with dreams of Babcock’s abusive mother. Babcock’s familiar, Jude, sacrifices humans to Babcock each new moon so he will spare the rest of the humans at the Haven. The group escapes with Theo on a train after Michael gets it working. As they travel, Mausami and Theo stay behind at a house so she can give birth to their baby.

Next, they reach a military outpost run by General Vorhees of the Second Expeditionaries. He knew the colonel who adopted and trained Alicia when she was eight. Alicia reveals that the colonel swore her into the Expeditionaries, so she joins them and receives the nickname “The Last Expeditionary.” They go to Colorado after their stay and find the mountain outpost where the original test subjects were kept. Amy and Peter find Lacey there. Carter bit her the night Wolgast and Amy escaped. Like Amy, she has been alive the entire time.

Mausami gives birth to a boy they name Caleb, after a friend who was killed on the journey. One day, Theo hears a noise in the barn and a dog emerges. They care for the dog, but Theo is unsettled when he sees footprints in the barn. It turns out that they belong to Galen, Mausami’s spurned husband.

Lacey and Amy lure Babcock into the mountain, and Lacey detonates a nuclear bomb, which kills his hoard of virals. Peter returns to the home where Theo, Mausami, and Caleb live. Theo tells Peter that he’s proud of him, and that Peter was meant to have the more adventurous role even though he was the younger brother. He reveals that they found Galen’s corpse—he was a viral—in the barn after the bomb went off. A viral had attacked Theo and Mausami, but he’s not sure what saved them.

During a final fight with virals, Alicia is bitten. She recovers after Peter injects her with a vial of serum harvested from the 12 original virals. She recovers and finds that she now has the strength and speed of the virals. Amy is able to find the presence of Wolgast, who has been trapped between worlds this whole time, missing her. She sets him free, and he mixes with the rays of sunlight.

When Peter’s group returns to the Colony, it is empty. The novel concludes with a journal entry from Sara, one of the group members. It describes her trip to Roswell, New Mexico, with Hollis from their group and another small party of survivors. Sara writes from her new home that she is pregnant. Unfortunately, the journal is marked as being recovered from the site of the Roswell Massacre.