The Twelve

The Twelve is a 2012 horror-fantasy novel by American author Justin Cronin, the second instalment in Cronin’s Passage trilogy. The novel is set in a post-apocalyptic future in which the United States has been overrun by the victims of a highly contagious virus, who have a vampire-like thirst for human blood and sensitivity to light. The Twelve follows the surviving characters from 2010’s The Passage, including protagonist Amy Bellafonte, as they attempt to destroy “The Twelve,” the first-infected victims of the virus, in order to neutralize the entire epidemic. The Passage trilogy has been adapted for television, premiering in January 2019.

The novel opens by briefly checking in on the surviving characters from The Passage before jumping back in time to the outbreak of the virus.

An autistic school-bus driver named Danny decides to drive his round for the last time, as society breaks down around him. He picks up teenagers April and Tim Donadio, and they drive to a designated safe site, only to find it full of corpses. They encounter an Army sniper, Kittridge, and together they join a group of survivors.



Meanwhile, Lawrence Grey is a janitor working at a secret government complex. Readers of The Passage recognize that this complex is the site of “Project Noah,” the experiments on human subjects which caused the outbreak of the deadly virus. Grey wakes up in a hotel room, younger and fitter than he was, and unsure why. When he leaves the room, he encounters a pregnant woman who does not realize what is happening. She is Lila Kyle, the divorced wife of Brad Wolgast (one of the major characters of The Passage). Grey helps Lila paint her house and the two become friends.

A federal agent called Horace Guilder captures Grey (who he has been tracking by satellite). He takes Grey and Lila to a research center. Shortly afterwards, Kittridge’s party arrives at a nearby refugee camp.

The government’s plan is to lure the virals into attacking the refugee camp, and then bomb it, killing virals and refugees alike. Danny and April escape in Danny’s bus, but Kittridge and Tim are killed. Grey takes Guilder hostage and tries to escape with Lila in a helicopter. When the helicopter crashes, Guilder knocks Grey unconscious.



Now the story advances some 75 years. Curtis Vorhees (another character from The Passage) is picnicking with his wife and some childhood friends, Nathan and Tifty. Although they feel safe in the daylight, the men search the picnic site for signs of virals. In flashback, it emerges that Curtis blames Tifty for the death of his brother Boz. During the picnic there is a solar eclipse, and Curtis’s wife is killed by virals. Amongst the virals is a human woman, apparently with hypnotic powers.

The novel moves forward another 20 years to pick up the story of Amy Bellafonte, the protagonist of The Passage. She is working at an orphanage. She dreams of Wolgast (her protector in the immediate aftermath of the outbreak): he tells her to go to “him” when the time is right. We also catch up with Alicia Donadio, who has located the base of one of the “Twelve,” Julio Martinez, but when she leads a task force to assassinate him, he is gone.

Peter Jaxon is an Expeditionary soldier, guarding an oil convoy. The convoy is attacked by a group of virals, led by the hypnotic human woman who was involved in the attack on the picnic. Peter escapes.



Meanwhile, Alicia is investigating a city of humans in Iowa. She discovers that it is run by Guilder, who has survived the last hundred years by drinking blood from Grey, who he keeps imprisoned. Lila has also been kept alive in the same way. She and Guilder are half mad, while Grey is still sane.

Sara—assumed dead at the end of The Passage—is alive, trapped in a concentration camp in the city. A resistance group fakes Sara’s death and, under a new identity, get her appointed to the role of Lila’s assistant. There Sara learns that her daughter, who she had thought dead, was actually taken from her and given to Lila as her own.

Amy, Peter, Tifty (who was at the picnic massacre), Alicia, and several other characters escape an attack on their base by the Iowans and set out for Iowa.



Guilder is preparing a safe base for 11 of “The Twelve.” As the 11 arrive, Amy and the other characters join together with the Iowan resistance and hatch a plan to destroy them. Amy will pose as the leader of the resistance, and Guilder will be unable to resist a public execution, which will give the assembled townspeople a chance to strike.

One of the 11 turns out to be Wolgast in disguise. He detonates a bomb, killing all of the 11 and himself.

In the aftermath, Amy transforms into a viral, and leaves. She contacts the last remaining member of the Twelve, Carter, and they arrange to hunt down “Zero”—that is, “Patient Zero,” the original victim of the virus.