The Stand

by Stephen King

  "Sure ... if you're okay."

  "I'm better than okay--I'm ultimately fine. Go on. Shoo. Meeting's at seven. If you hurry, you've got just enough time to get back here for some supper before."

  "All right."

  He was at the gate which separated the front yard from the back when she called after him: "Don't forget to ask him what he thought of Harold."

  "Don't worry," Stu said, "I won't."

  "And watch his eyes when he answers, Stuart."

  When Stu asked casually about his impression of Harold (at this point Stu had not mentioned the vacancy on the ad hoc committee at all), Larry Underwood's eyes grew both wary and puzzled.

  "Fran told you about my fixation on Harold, huh?"

  "Yep."

  Larry and Stu were in the living room of a small Table Mesa tract house. Out in the kitchen Lucy was rattling dinner together, heating canned stuff on a brazier grill Larry had rigged for her. It ran off bottled gas. She was singing snatches of "Honky Tonk Women" as she worked, and she sounded very happy.

  Stu lit a cigarette. He was down to no more than five or six a day; he didn't fancy having Dick Ellis operating on him for lung cancer.

  "Well, all the time I was following Harold I kept telling myself he probably wouldn't be like I pictured him. And he wasn't, but I'm still trying to figure out what it is about him. He was pleasant as hell. A good host. He cracked the bottle of wine I brought him and we toasted each other's good health. I had a good time. But ..."

  "But?"

  "We came up behind him. Leo and me. He was putting a brick wall around this flower garden and he whirled around ... didn't hear us coming until I spoke up, I guess ... and for a minute there I'm saying to myself, 'Holy God, this dude is gonna kill me.' "

  Lucy came into the doorway. "Stu, can you stay for dinner? There's plenty."

  "Thanks, but Frannie expects me back. I can only stay fifteen minutes or so."

  "Sure?"

  "Next time, Lucy, thanks."

  "Okay." She went back into the kitchen.

  "Did you come just to ask about Harold?" Larry asked.

  "No," Stu said, coming to a decision. "I came to ask if you'd serve on our little ad hoc committee. One of the other guys, Dick Ellis, had to say no."

  "Like that, is it?" Larry went to the window and looked out on the silent street. "I thought I could go back to being a private again."

  "Your decision, of course. We need one more. You were recommended. "

  "By who, if you don't mind me--"

  "We asked around. Frannie seems to think you're pretty level. And Nick Andros talked--well, he doesn't talk, but you know--to one of the men that came in with you. Judge Farris."

  Larry looked pleased. "The Judge gave me a recommendation, huh? That's great. You know, you ought to have him. He's smart as the devil."

  "That's what Nick said. But he's also seventy, and our medical facilities are pretty primitive."

  Larry turned to look at Stu, half smiling. "This committee isn't quite as temporary as it looks on the face of it, is it?"

  Stu smiled and relaxed a little. He still hadn't really decided how he felt about Larry Underwood, but it was clear enough the man hadn't fallen off a hayrick yesterday. "We-ell, let's put it this way. We'd like to see our committee stand for election to a full term."

  "Preferably unopposed," Larry said. His eyes on Stu were friendly but sharp--very sharp. "Can I get you a beer?"

  "I better not. Had a few too many with Glen Bateman a couple nights ago. Fran's a patient girl, but her patience only stretches so far. What do you say, Larry? Want to ride along?"

  "I guess ... oh hell, I say yes. I thought nothing in the world would make me happier than to get here and dump my people and let somebody else take over for a change. Instead, pardon my French, I've been just about bored out of my tits."

  "We're having a little meeting tonight at my place to talk over the big meeting on the eighteenth. Think you could come?"

  "Sure. Can I bring Lucy?"

  Stu shook his head slowly. "Nor talk to her about it. We want to keep some of this stuff close for a while."

  Larry's smile evaporated. "I'm not much on cloak-and-dagger, Stu. I better get that up front because it might save a hassle later. I think what happened in June happened because too many people were playing it a little too close. That wasn't any act of God. That was an act of pure human fuckery."

  "That's one you don't want to get into with Mother," Stu said. He was still smiling, relaxed. "As it happens, I agree with you. But would you feel the same way if it was wartime?"

  "I don't follow you."

  "That man we dreamed about. I doubt if he's just gone away."

  Larry looked startled, considering.

  "Glen says he can understand why nobody's talking about that," Stu went on, "even though we've all been warned. The people here are still shellshocked. They feel like they've been through hell to get here. All they want to do is lick their wounds and bury their dead. But if Mother Abagail's here, then he's there." Stu jerked his head toward the window, which gave on a view of the Flatirons rising in the high summer haze. "And most of the people here may not be thinking about him, but I'd bet my bottom dollar that he's thinking about us."

  Larry glanced at the doorway to the kitchen, but Lucy had gone outside to talk to Jane Hovington from next door.

  "You think he's after us," he said in a low voice. "That's a nice thought to have just before dinner. Good for the appetite."

  "Larry, I'm not sure of anything, myself. But Mother Abagail says it won't be over, one way or the other, until he's got us or we've got him."

  "I hope she's not saying that around. These people would be headed for fucking Australia."

  "Thought you didn't hold much with secrets."

  "Yeah, but this--" Larry stopped. Stu was smiling kindly, and Larry smiled back, rather sourly. "Okay. Your point. We talk it out and keep our mouths shut."

  "Fine. See you at seven."

  "Sure thing."

  They walked to the door together. "Thank Lucy for the invite again," Stu said. "Frannie and I'll take her up on it before long."

  "Okay." As Stu reached the door, Larry said, "Hey."

  Stu turned back, questioning.

  "There's a boy," Larry said slowly, "that came across from Maine with us. His name is Leo Rockway. He's had his problems. Lucy and I sort of share him with a woman named Nadine Cross. Nadine's a little out of the ordinary herself, you know?"

  Stu nodded. There had been some talk about a peculiar little scene between Mother Abagail and the Cross woman when Larry brought his party in.

  "Nadine was taking care of Leo before I ran across them. Leo kind of sees into people. He's not the only one, either. Maybe there were always people like that, but there seems to be a little bit more of it around since the flu. And Leo ... he wouldn't go into Harold's house. Wouldn't even stay on the lawn. That's ... sort of funny, isn't it?"

  "It is," Stu agreed.

  They looked at each other thoughtfully for a moment and then Stu left to go home and get his supper. Fran seemed preoccupied herself during the meal, and didn't talk much. And while she was doing the last of the dishes in a plastic bucket full of warm water, people began arriving for the first meeting of the Free Zone Ad Hoc Committee.

  After Stu had gone over to Larry's, Frannie rushed upstairs to the bedroom. In the corner of the closet was the sleeping bag she had carried across the country strapped to the back of her motorcycle. She had kept her personal belongings in a small zipper bag. Most of these belongings were now distributed through the apartment she and Stu shared, but a few still hadn't found a home and rested at the foot of the sleeping bag. There were several bottles of cleansing cream--she had suffered a sudden rash of skin outbreaks after the deaths of her mother and father, but that had now subsided--a box of Stayfree Mini Pads in case she started spotting (she had heard that pregnant women sometimes did), two boxes of cheap cigars, one marked IT'S A BOY! and the othe
r marked IT'S A GIRL! The last item was her diary.

  She drew it out and looked at it speculatively. She had entered in it only eight or nine times since their arrival in Boulder, and most of the entries had been short, almost elliptical. The great outpouring had come and gone while they were still on the road ... like afterbirth, she thought a little ruefully. She hadn't entered at all in the last four days, and suspected that the diary might eventually have slipped her mind altogether, although she had firmly intended to keep it more fully when things settled down a little. For the baby. Now, however, it was very much on her mind once more.

  The way people get when they convert to religion...or read something that changes their lives...like intercepted love letters...

  Suddenly it seemed to her that the book had gained weight, and that the very act of turning back the pasteboard cover would cause sweat to pop out on her brow and ... and ...

  She suddenly looked back over her shoulder, her heart beating wildly. Had something moved in here?

  A mouse, scuttering behind the wall, maybe. Surely no more than that. More likely just her imagination. There was no reason, no reason at all, for her to suddenly be thinking of the man in the black robe, the man with the coathanger. Her baby was alive and safe and this was just a book and anyhow there was no way to tell if a book had been read, and even if there was a way, there would be no way to tell if the person who had read it had been Harold Lauder.

  Still, she opened the book and began to turn slowly through its pages, getting shutterclicks of the recent past like black-and-white photographs taken by an amateur. Home movie of the mind.

  Tonight we were admiring them and Harold was going on about color & texture & tone and Stu gave me a very sober wink. Evil me, I winked back...

  Harold will object on general principles, of course. Damn you, Harold, grow up!

  ...and I could see him getting ready with one of his Patented Harold Lauder Smartass Comments...

  (my God, Fran, why did you ever say all those things about him? to what purpose?)

  Well, you know Harold...his swagger...all those pompous words & pronouncements...an insecure little boy...

  That was July 12. Wincing, she turned past it rapidly, fluttering through the pages now, in a hurry to get to the end. Phrases still leaped up, seeming to slap at her: Anyway, Harold smelled pretty clean for a change...Harold's breath would have driven away a dragon tonight... And another, seeming almost prophetic: He stores up rebuffs like pirate treasure. But to what purpose? To feed his own feelings of secret superiority and persecution? Or was it a matter of retribution?

  Oh, he's making a list ...and checking it twice...he's gonna find out ...who's naughty and nice...

  Then, on August 1, only two weeks ago. The entry started at the bottom of a page. No entry last night, I was too happy. Have I ever been this happy? I don't think so. Stu and I are together. We

  End of the page. She turned to the next one. The first words at the top of the page were made love twice. But they barely caught her eye before her glance dropped halfway down the page. There, beside some blathering about the maternal instinct, was something that caught her eyes and froze her almost solid.

  It was a dark, smeary thumbprint.

  She thought wildly: I was riding on a motorcycle all day long, every day. Sure, I took care to clean up every chance I got, but your hands get dirty and ...

  She put out her hand, not at all surprised to see that it was shaking badly. She put her thumb on the smudge. The smudge was a lot bigger.

  Well, of course it is, she told herself. When you smear something around, it naturally gets bigger. That's why, that's all that is ...

  But this thumbprint wasn't that smeared. The little lines and loops and whorls were still clear, for the most part.

  And it wasn't grease or oil, there was no use even kidding herself that it was.

  It was dried chocolate.

  Paydays, Fran thought sickly. Chocolate-covered Payday candybars.

  For a moment she was afraid to do so much as turn around--afraid that she might see Harold's grin hanging over her shoulder like the grin of the Cheshire cat in Alice. Harold's thick lips moving as he said solemnly : Every dog has his day, Frannie. Every dog has his day.

  But even if Harold had sneaked a glance into her diary, did it have to mean he was contemplating some secret vendetta against her or Stu or any of the others? Of course not.

  But Harold's changed, an interior voice whispered.

  "Goddammit, he hasn't changed that much!" she cried to the empty room. She flinched a little at the sound of her own voice, then laughed shakily. She went downstairs and began to get supper. They would be eating early because of the meeting ... but suddenly the meeting didn't seem as important as it had earlier.

  Excerpts from the Minutes of the Ad Hoc Committee Meeting

  August 13, 1990

  The meeting was held in the apartment of Stu Redman and Frances Goldsmith. All members of the ad hoc committee were present, those being: Stuart Redman, Frances Goldsmith, Nick Andros, Glen Bateman, Ralph Brentner, Susan Stern, and Larry Underwood ...

  Stu Redman was elected moderator of the meeting. Frances Goldsmith was elected recording secretary ...

  These notes (plus complete coverage of every burp, gurgle, and aside, all recorded on Memorex cassettes for anyone crazy enough to want to listen to them) will be placed in a safe-deposit box of the First Bank of Boulder ...

  Stu Redman presented a broadside on the subject of food poisoning written by Dick Ellis and Laurie Constable (eye-catchingly titled IF YOU EAT YOU SHOULD READ THIS!). He said Dick wanted to see it printed and nailed up all over Boulder before the big meeting on August 18, because there have already been fifteen cases of food poisoning in Boulder, two of them quite serious. The committee voted 7-0 that Ralph should duplicate a thousand copies of Dick's poster and get ten people to help him put them up all over town ...

  Susan Stern then presented another item that Dick and Laurie wanted to put before the meeting (we all wished one or the other of them could have been here). They both feel that there must be a Burial Committee; Dick's idea was that it should be put on the agenda of the public meeting and that it be presented not as a health hazard--because of the possibility it might cause panic--but as "the decent thing to do." We all know there are surprisingly few corpses in Boulder in proportion to its pre-plague population, but we don't know why ... not that it matters much now. But there are still thousands of dead bodies and they must be gotten rid of if we intend to stay here.

  Stu asked how serious the problem was at present and Sue said she thought it would not become really serious until fall, when the dry, hot weather usually turns damp.

  Larry made a motion that we add Dick's suggestion that a Burial Committee be formed to the agenda of the August 18 meeting. A motion was carried, 7-0.

  Nick Andros was then recognized, and Ralph Brentner read his prepared comments, which I am here quoting verbatim:

  "One of the most important questions this committee must deal with is whether or not it will agree to take Mother Abagail into its complete confidence, and shall she be told about everything that goes on at our meetings, both open and closed? The question can also be put the other way: 'Shall Mother Abagail agree to take this committee--and the permanent committee that will follow it--into her complete confidence, and shall the committee be told about all that goes on in her meetings with God or Whoever ... particularly the closed ones?'

  "That may sound like gibberish, but let me explain, because it's really a pragmatic question. We have to settle Mother Abagail's place in the community right away, because our problem is not just one of 'getting on our feet again.' If that was all, we wouldn't really need her in the first place. As we all know there is another problem, that of the man we sometimes call the dark man, or as Glen puts it, the Adversary. My proof for his existence is very simple, and I think most people in Boulder would agree with my reasoning--if they wanted to think of it at all. Here
it is: 'I dreamed of Mother Abagail and she was; I dreamed of the dark man and therefore he must be, although I have never seen him.' The people here love Mother Abagail, and I love her myself. But we won't get far--in fact, we won't get anywhere--if we don't start off with her approval of what we're doing.

  "So this early afternoon I went to see the lady and put the question to her directly, with all the bark on it: Will you go along? She said that she would--but not without conditions. She was perfectly blunt. She said we should be perfectly free to guide the community in all 'worldly matters' --her phrase. Clearing the streets, allocating housing, getting the power back on.

  "But she was also very clear about wanting to be consulted on all matters that have to do with the dark man. She believes we are all a part of a chess game between God and Satan; that Satan's chief agent in this game is the Adversary, whose name she says is Randall Flagg ('the name he's using this time,' is how she puts it); that for reasons best known to Himself, God has chosen her as His agent in this matter. She believes, and in this I happen to agree with her, that a struggle is coming and it's going to be us or him. She thinks this struggle is the most important thing, and she's adamant about being consulted when our deliberations touch on it...and on him.

  "Now I don't want to get into the religious implications of all this, or argue whether she's right or wrong, but it should be obvious that all implications aside, we have a situation we must cope with. So I have a series of motions."

  There was some discussion of Nick's statement.

  Nick made this motion: Can we, as a committee, agree not to discuss the theological, religious, or supernatural implications of the Adversary matter during our meetings? By a 7-0 vote, the committee agreed to bar discussion on those matters, at least while we're "in session."

  Nick then made this motion: Can we agree that the main private, secret business of the committee is the question of how to deal with this force known as the dark man, the Adversary, or Randall Flagg? Glen Bateman seconded the motion, adding that from time to time there might be other business--such as the real reason for the Burial Committee-- that we should keep close to the vest. The motion carried, 7-0.

  Nick then made his original motion, that we keep Mother Abagail informed of all public and private business transacted by the committee.