The Stand

by Stephen King

  The first item of business concerned having the ad hoc committee elected as the permanent Boulder Committee. Fran Goldsmith was recognized.

  Fran: "Both Stu and I agreed that the best, easiest way for us all to get elected would be if Mother Abagail endorsed the whole slate. It would save us the problem of having twenty people nominated by their friends and possibly upsetting the applecart. But now we'll have to do it another way. I'm not going to suggest anything that isn't perfectly democratic, and you all know the plan anyway, but I just want to re-emphasize that each of us has to make sure we have someone who will nominate and second us. We won't do it for each other, obviously--that would look too much like the Mafia. And if you can't find one person to nominate you and another to second you, you might as well give up anyway."

  Sue: "Wow! That's sneaky, Fran."

  Fran: "Yes--it is, a little."

  Glen: "We're edging back into the subject of the committee's morality, and although I'm sure we all find that an endlessly fascinating topic, I'd like to see it tabled for the next few months. I think we just have to agree that we're serving in the Free Zone's best interest and leave it at that."

  Ralph: "You sound a little pissed, Glen."

  Glen: "I am a little pissed. I admit it. The very fact that we've spent so much time eating at our own livers on this subject should give a pretty good indication as to where our hearts are."

  Sue: "The road to hell is paved with--"

  Glen: "Good intentions, yes, and since we all seem so worried about our intentions, we must surely be on the highway to heaven."

  Glen then said that he had intended to address the committee on the subject of our scouts or spies or whatever you want to call them, but that he wanted to make a motion instead that we meet to discuss that on the nineteenth. Stu asked him why.

  Glen: "Because we might not all be here on the nineteenth. Somebody might get voted out. It's a remote possibility, but no one really knows what a large group of people is going to do when they all get together in one place. We ought to be as careful as we can."

  That was good for a moment of silence, and the committee voted, 7-0, to meet on the nineteenth--as a Permanent Committee--to discuss the question of the scouts ... or spies ... or whatever.

  Stu was recognized to put a third item of business before the committee, concerning Mother Abagail.

  Stu: "As you know, she's gone off for reasons of her own. Her note says she'll 'be gone for a while,' which is pretty vague, and that she'll be back 'if it's God's will.' Now, that's not very encouraging. We've had a search-party out for three days now and we haven't found a thing. We don't want to just drag her back, not if she doesn't want to come, but if she's lying up somewhere with a busted leg or if she's unconscious, that's a lot different. Now part of the problem is that there just aren't enough of us to search all the wildlands around here. But another part of it is the same thing that's slowing us down at the power station. There's just no organization. So what I'm looking for is permission to put this search-party on the agenda of the big meeting tomorrow night, same as the power station and the burial crew. And I'd like to see Harold Lauder in charge, because it was his idea in the first place."

  Glen said that he didn't think any search-party was going to find very good news after a week or so. After all, the lady in question is a hundred and eight years old. The committee as a whole agreed with that, and then voted in favor of the motion, 7-0, as Stu had put it. To make this record as honest as possible, I should add there were several expressions of doubt over putting Harold in charge ... but as Stu pointed out, it had been his idea to begin with, and not to give him command of the search-party would be a direct slap in the face.

  Nick: "I withdraw my objection to Harold, but not my basic reservations. I just don't like him very much."

  Ralph Brentner asked if either Stu or Glen would write out Stu's motion about the search-party so he could add it to the agenda, which he plans to print at the high school tonight. Stu said he'd be glad to.

  Larry Underwood then moved that we adjourn, Ralph seconded it, and it was voted, 7-0.

  Frances Goldsmith, Secretary

  The turnout for the meeting the next evening was almost total, and for the first time Larry Underwood, who had been in the Zone only a week, got an idea of just how large the community was becoming. It was one thing to see people coming and going on the streets, usually alone or by twos, and quite another thing to see them all gathered together in one place--Chautauqua Auditorium. The place was full, every seat taken and more people sitting in the aisles and standing at the back of the hall. They were a curiously subdued crowd, murmuring but not babbling. For the first time since he had gotten to Boulder it had rained all day long, a soft drizzle that seemed to hang suspended in the air, fogging you rather than wetting you, and even with the assemblage of close to six hundred, you could hear the quiet sound of rain on the roof. The loudest sound inside was the constant riffle of paper as people looked at the mimeographed agendas that had been piled up on two card tables just inside the double doors.

  This agenda read:

  THE BOULDER FREE ZONE

  Open Meeting Agenda

  August 18, 1990

  1. To see if the Free Zone will agree to read and ratify the Constitution of the United States of America.

  2. To see if the Free Zone will agree to read and ratify the Bill of Rights to the Constitution of the United States of America.

  3. To see if the Free Zone will nominate and elect a slate of seven Free Zone representatives to serve as a governing board.

  4. To see if the Free Zone will agree to veto power for Abagail Freemantle on any and all matters agreed to by the Free Zone representatives.

  5. To see if the Free Zone will approve a Burial Committee of at least twenty persons initially to decently inter those who died of the superflu epidemic in Boulder.

  6. To see if the Free Zone will approve a Power Committee of at least sixty persons initially to get the electricity back on before cold weather.

  7. To see if the Free Zone will approve a Search Committee of at least fifteen persons, its purpose to find the whereabouts of Abagail Freemantle, if possible.

  Larry found that his nervous hands had been busy folding this agenda, which he knew nearly word for word, into a paper airplane. Being on the ad hoc committee was sort of fun, like a game--children playing at parliamentary process in someone's living room, sitting around and drinking Cokes, having a piece of the cake Frannie had made, talking things over. Even the part about sending spies over the mountains and right into the dark man's lap had seemed like a game, partly because it was a thing he couldn't imagine doing himself. You'd have to have lost most of your marbles to face such a living nightmare. But in their closed sessions, with the room comfortably lit with Coleman gas lanterns, it had seemed okay. And if the Judge or Dayna Jurgens or Tom Cullen got caught, it seemed--in those closed sessions, at least--a thing no more important than losing a rook or a queen in a chess game.

  But now, sitting halfway down the hall with Lucy on one side and Leo on the other (he had not seen Nadine all day, and Leo didn't seem to know where she was, either; "Out" had been his disinterested response), the truth of it came home, and in his guts it felt as if a battering ram was in use. It was no game. There were five hundred and eighty people here and most of them didn't have any idea that Larry Underwood wasn't no nice guy, or that the first person Larry Underwood had attempted to take care of after the epidemic had died of a drug overdose.

  His hands were damp and chilly. They were trying to fold the agenda into a paper plane again and he stopped them. Lucy took one of them, squeezed it, and smiled at him. He was able to respond only with something that felt like a grimace, and in his heart he heard his mother's voice: There's something left out of you, Larry.

  Thinking of that made him feel panicky. Was there a way out of this, or had things already gone too far? He didn't want this millstone. He had already made a motion in closed session th
at could send Judge Farris to his death. If he was voted out and someone else was voted into his seat, they'd have to take another vote on sending the Judge, wouldn't they? Sure they would. And they'd vote to send someone else. When Laurie Constable nominates me, I'll just stand up and say I decline. Sure, nobody can force me, can they? Not if I decide I want out. And who the fuck needs this kind of hassle?

  Wayne Stukey on that long ago beach saying: There's something in you that's like biting on tinfoil.

  Quietly, Lucy said: "You'll be fine."

  He jumped. "Huh?"

  "I said you'll be fine. Won't he, Leo?"

  "Oh yes," Leo said, bobbing his head. His eyes never left the audience, as if they had not yet been able to communicate its size to his brain. "Fine."

  You don't understand, you numb broad, Larry thought. You're holding my hand and you don't understand that I could make a bad decision and wind up killing both of you. I'm well on my way to killing Judge Farris and he's seconding my fucking nomination. What a Polish firedrill this turned out to be. A little sound escaped his throat.

  "Did you say something?" Lucy asked.

  "No."

  Then Stu was walking across the stage to the podium, his red sweater and bluejeans very bright and clear in the harsh glow of the emergency lights, which were running from a Honda generator that Brad Kitchner and part of his crew from the power station had set up. The applause started somewhere in the middle of the hall, Larry was never sure where, and a cynical part of him was always convinced that it had been a plot arranged by Glen Bateman, their resident expert in the art/craft of crowd management. At any rate, it didn't really matter. The first solitary spats swelled to a thunder of applause. On the stage, Stu paused by the podium, looking comically amazed. The applause was joined by cheers and shrill whistles.

  Then the entire audience rose to its feet, the applause swelling to a sound like heavy rain, and people were shouting, "Bravo! Bravo!" Stu held up his hands, but they wouldn't stop; if anything, the sound redoubled in intensity. Larry glanced sideways at Lucy and saw she was applauding strenuously, her eyes fixed on Stu, her mouth curved in a trembling but triumphant smile. She was crying. On his other side Leo was also applauding, bringing his hands together again and again with so much force that Larry thought they would fall off if Leo kept on much longer. In the extremity of his joy, Leo's carefully won-back vocabulary had deserted him, the way English will sometimes desert a man or woman who has learned it as his or her second tongue. He could only hoot loudly and enthusiastically.

  Brad and Ralph had also run a PA from the generator and now Stu blew into the mike and then spoke: "Ladies and gentlemen--"

  But the applause rolled on.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, if you'll take your seats--"

  But they were not ready to take their seats. The applause roared on and on, and Larry looked down because his own hands hurt, and he saw that he was applauding as frantically as the rest.

  "Ladies and gentlemen--"

  The applause thundered and echoed. Overhead, a family of barnswallows that had taken up residence in this fine and private place after the plague struck now flew about crazily, swooping and diving, mad to get away to someplace where people weren't.

  We're applauding ourselves, Larry thought. We're applauding the fact that we're here, alive, together. Maybe we're saying hello to the group self again, I don't know. Hello, Boulder. Finally. Good to be here, great to be alive.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, if you'd take your seats, please, I sure would appreciate it."

  The applause began to taper off little by little. Now you could hear ladies--and some men, too--sniffing. Noses were honked. Conversations were whispered. There was that rustling auditorium sound of people taking their seats.

  "I'm glad you're all here," Stu said. "I'm glad to be here myself." There was a whine of feedback from the PA and Stu muttered, "Goddam thing," which was clearly picked up and broadcast. There was a ripple of laughter and Stu colored. "Guess we're all going to have to get used to this stuff again," he said, and that set off another burst of applause.

  When that had run itself out, Stu said: "For those of you who don't know me, I'm Stuart Redman, originally from Arnette, Texas, although that seems a far way down the road from where I am now, lemme tell you." He cleared his throat, feedback whined briefly, and he took a wary step back from the mike. "I'm also pretty nervous up here, so bear with me--"

  "We will, Stu!" Harry Dunbarton yelled exuberantly, and there was appreciative laughter. It's like a camp meeting, Larry thought. Next they'll be singing hymns. If Mother Abagail was here, I bet we would be already.

  "Last time I had so many people looking at me was when our little consolidated high school made it to the football playoffs, and then they had twenty-one other guys to look at too, not to mention some girls in those little tiny skirts."

  A hearty burst of laughter.

  Lucy pulled at Larry's neck and whispered in his ear, "What was he worried about? He's a natural!"

  Larry nodded.

  "But if you'll bear with me, I'll get through it somehow," Stu said.

  More applause. This crowd would applaud Nixon's resignation speech and ask him to encore on the piano, Larry thought.

  "First off, I should explain about the ad hoc committee and how I happen to be up here at all," Stu said. "There are seven of us who got together and planned for this meeting so we could get organized somehow. There's a lot of things to do, and I'd like to introduce each member of our committee to you now, and I hope you saved some applause for them, because they all pitched together to work out the agenda you've got in your hands right now. First, Miss Frances Goldsmith. Stand up, Frannie, and let em see what you look like with a dress on."

  Fran stood up. She was wearing a pretty kelly-green dress and a modest string of pearls that might have cost two thousand dollars in the old days. She was roundly applauded, the applause accompanied by some good-natured wolf whistles.

  Fran sat down, blushing furiously, and before the applause could die away entirely, Stu went on. "Mr. Glen Bateman, from Woodsville, New Hampshire."

  Glen stood, and they applauded him. He flipped a pair of twin v's from each of his closed fists, and the crowd roared its approval.

  Stu introduced Larry second-to-last and he stood up, aware that Lucy was smiling up at him, and then that was lost in a warm comber of applause that washed over him. Once, he thought, in another world, there would have been concerts, and this kind of applause would have been reserved for the show-closer, a little nothing tune called "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?" This was better. He only stood for a second, but it seemed much longer. He knew he would not decline his nomination.

  Stu introduced Nick last, and he got the longest, loudest applause.

  When it died away, Stu said: "This wasn't on the agenda, but I wonder if we could start by singing the National Anthem. I guess you folks remember the words and the tune."

  There was that ruffling, shuffling sound of people getting to their feet. Another pause as everyone waited for someone else to start. Then a girl's sweet voice rose in the air, solo for only the first three syllables: "Oh, say can--" It was Frannie's voice, but for a moment it seemed to Larry to be underlaid by another voice, his own, and the place was not Boulder but upstate Vermont and the day was July 4, the Republic was two hundred and fourteen years old, and Rita lay dead in the tent behind him, her mouth filled with green puke and a bottle of pills in her stiffening hand.

  A chill of gooseflesh passed over him and suddenly he felt that they were being watched, watched by something that could, in the words of that old song by The Who, see for miles and miles and miles. Something awful and dark and alien. For just a moment he felt an urge to run from this place, just run and never stop. This was no game they were playing here. This was serious business; killing business. Maybe worse.

  Then other voices joined in. "--can you see, by the dawn's early light," and Lucy was singing, holding his hand, crying again, and other
s were crying, most of them were crying, crying for what was lost and bitter, the runaway American dream, chrome-wheeled, fuel-injected, and stepping out over the line, and suddenly his memory was not of Rita, dead in the tent, but of he and his mother at Yankee Stadium--it was September 29, the Yankees were only a game and a half behind the Red Sox, and all things were still possible. There were fifty-five thousand people in the Stadium, all standing, the players in the field with their caps over their hearts, Guidry on the mound, Rickey Henderson was standing in deep left field ("--by the twilight's last gleaming--"), and the light-standards were on in the purple gloaming, moths and night-fliers banging softly against them, and New York was around them, teeming, city of night and light.

  Larry joined the singing too, and when it was done and the applause rolled out once more, he was crying a bit himself. Rita was gone. Alice Underwood was gone. New York was gone. America was gone. Even if they could defeat Randall Flagg, whatever they might make would never be the same as that world of dark streets and bright dreams.

  Sweating freely under the bright emergency lights, Stu called the first items: reading and ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The singing of the anthem had also affected him deeply, and he wasn't alone. Half the audience, more, was in tears.

  No one asked for an actual reading of either document--which would have been their right under the parliamentary process--for which Stu was profoundly grateful. He wasn't much of a reader. The "reading" section of each item was approved by the Free Zone citizens. Glen Bateman rose and moved that they accept both documents as governing Free Zone law.

  A voice in the back said, "Second that!"

  "Moved and seconded," Stu said. "Those in favor say aye."

  "AYE!" to the rooftops. Kojak, who had been sleeping by Glen's chair, looked up, blinked, and then laid his muzzle on his paws again. A moment later he looked up again as the crowd gave themselves a thunderous round of applause. They like voting, Stu thought. It makes them feel like they're finally in control of something again. God knows they need that feeling. We all need it.