The Stand (Original Edition)

by Stephen King

  “My life for you,” Trashcan Man whispered. And when the sun had dropped below the mountains, he gained his feet and began to walk up the broken white line toward the towers and avenues of Cibola, where the sparks of light were coming on again.

  As the heat of the day faded into the cool ol desert night, he found himself more able to walk. He plodded with his head down, and did not see the green, reflectorized sign that said LAS VEGAS 30 when he passed it.

  Around midnight he collapsed by the side of the road for a rest and fell into an uneasy doze. The city was closer now. He would make it. He was quite sure he would make it.

  It was almost dawn when Trashcan man entered Cibola, otherwise known as Vegas. Somewhere in the last five miles he had lost his left sneaker and now, as he walked down the curving exit ramp, his footfalls sounded like this: slap-THUMP, slap-THUMP, slap-THUMP. It sounded like the flap of a fiat tire.

  He was almost done in, but a little wonder came back as he made his way down the Strip, which was jammed with dead cars and quite a few dead people. He had made it. He was here in Cibola.

  He saw a hundred honky-tonk nightclubs. There were signs that read LIBERAL SLOTS, signs that said BLUEBELL WEDDING CHAPEL and 6O-SECOND WEDDING BUT IT’LL LAST A LIFETIME! He saw a Silver Ghost Rolls-Royce halfway through a plate glass window of an adult bookstore. He saw a naked woman hanging upside down from a lamppost. He saw two pages of the Las Vegas Sun go riffling by. The headline that revealed itself over and over again as the paper flapped and turned was PLAGUE GROWS WORSE WASHINGTON MUTE. He saw a gigantic billboard which said NEIL DIAMOND! THE AMERICANA HOTEL JUNE 15-AUGUST 30! Someone had slashed the words DIE LAS VEGAS for your sins! across the show window of a jewelry store seeming to specialize in nothing but wedding and engagement rings.

  As he walked on he began to see other signs, their neon dead this midsummer for the first time in years. Flamingo. The Mint. Dunes. Sahara. Glass Slipper. Imperial. But where were the people? Where was the water?

  Hardly knowing, letting his feet pick their own path, Trashcan turned off the Strip. His head dropped forward, his chin resting on his chest. He dozed as he walked. And when his feet tripped over the curbing, when he fell forward and gave himself a bloody nose on the pavement, when he looked up and beheld what was there, he could hardly believe it. Blood ran unnoticed from his nose to his tattered blue shirt. It was as if he was still dozing and this was his dream.

  A tall white building stretched up to the desert sky, a monolith in the desert, a needle, a monument, every bit as magnificent as the Sphinx or the Great Pyramid. The windows of its eastern face gave off the fire of the rising sun like an omen. In front of this bone-white desert edifice, flanking its entranceway, were two huge gold pyramids. Over the canopy was a great bronze medallion, and carved on it in bas-relief was the snarling head of a lion.

  Above this, also in bronze, the simple but mighty legend: M-G-M GRAND HOTEL.

  But what captured his eyes was what stood on the grassy quadrangle between the parking lot and the entranceway. Trashcan stared, an orgasmic shivering consuming him so fiercely that for a moment he could only prop himself on his bloody hands, the unraveling end of the Ace bandage trailing between them, and stare at the fountain with his faded blue eyes, eyes that were halfway to being glareblind by now. A little groaning noise began to escape him.

  The fountain was working. It was a flawless stone ivory, chased and inlaid with gold. Colored lights played over the spray, making the water purple, then yellow-orange, then red, then green. The constant ticking patter as the spray fell back into the pool was very loud.

  “Cibola,” he muttered, and struggled to his feet. He began to stagger toward the fountain. His stagger became a trot. The trot became a run, the run a sprint, the sprint a mad dash. His scabbed knees rose, pistonlike, almost to his neck. A word began to fly out of his mouth, a long word like a paper streamer that rose to the sky, bringing people to the windows high above. The word grew higher and shriller, longer and longer as he approached the fountain and that word was:

  “ClllIllllBOLA A AAA AAA!”

  The final “aahh” sound drew out and out, a sound of all the pleasures that all the people who have ever lived on the earth have ever known, and it ended only when he struck the lip of the fountain chest-high and yanked himself up and over and into a bath of incredible coolness and mercy. He could feel the pores of his body open like a million mouths and slurp the water in like a sponge. He screamed. He lowered his head, snorted in water, and blew it back out in a combined sneeze and cough that sent blood and water and

  snot against the side of the fountain in a splat. He lowered his head and drank like a cow.

  “Cibola! Cibola!” Trash cried rapturously. “My life for you!”

  He dogpaddled his way around the fountain, drank again, then climbed over the edge and fell to the grass. It had all been worth it, everything had been worth it. Water cramps struck him and he suddenly threw up with a loud grunt. Even throwing up felt grand.

  He got to his feet and, holding onto the lip of the fountain with his claw hand, he drank again. This time his belly accepted the gift gratefully.

  Sloshing like a filled goatskin, he staggered toward the alabaster steps which led to the doors of this fabulous place, steps that led between the golden pyramids. The doors were of the revolving type, and it took all his feeble strength to get one of them in motion. He pushed through into a plushly carpeted lobby that seemed miles long. The rug underfoot was thick and lush and cranberry-colored. There was a registration desk, a mail desk, a key desk, the cashiers’ windows. All empty.

  To his right, beyond an ornamental railing, was the casino. Trashcan Man stared at it in awe—the serried ranks of slot machines like soldiers standing at parade rest, beyond them the roulette and crap tables, the marble railings enclosing the baccarat tables.

  “Who’s here?” Trash croaked, but no answer came back.

  He was afraid then, but his fear was weakened by his exhaustion. He stumbled down the steps and into the casino, passing the Cub Bar, where Lloyd Henreid sat silently in the deep shadows, watching him and holding a glass of Perrier.

  He came to a table upholstered in green baize, the mythic legend DEALER MUST HIT 16 AND STAND ON 17 inscribed thereon. Trash climbed up on it and fell instantly asleep. Soon nearly half a dozen men stood around the sleeping ragamuffin that was the Trashcan Man.

  “What do we do with him?” Ken DeMott asked.

  “Let him sleep,” Lloyd answered. “Flagg wants him.”

  “Yeah? Where the Christ is Flagg, anyway?” another asked.

  Lloyd turned to look at the man, who was balding and stood a full foot taller than Lloyd. Nonetheless, he drew back a step at Lloyd’s gaze. The stone around Lloyd’s neck was the only one that was not solid jet; in the center gleamed a small and disquieting red flaw.

  “Are you that anxious to see him, Hec?” Lloyd asked.

  “No,” the balding man said. “Hey, Lloyd, you know I didn’t—”

  “Sure.” Lloyd looked down at the man sleeping on the blackjack table. “Flagg will be around,” he said. “He’s been waiting for this guy. This guy is something special.”

  On the table, oblivious of all this, Trashcan Man slept on.

  On August 7, Lloyd Henreid came to the room the dehydrated and semidelirious Trashcan Man had been installed in the day before. Trashcan Man recognized him but could hardly remember his name. People had drifted in and out of his room like creatures in a dream.

  Some of their names came back to him—Lloyd Henreid, this man, a balding man named Hector Drogan, a young guy trying to grow a beard who styled himself Ace High, a constantly grinning black man who dressed in bright green and red pirate-silks and called himself Ratty Erwins ... “I is just the Rat-Man, bold, black, and beautiful” . . . that recurred. But it was all so confused.

  He looked at Lloyd.

  “How you feeling, Trash?” Lloyd asked.

  “Good,” Trashcan Man said.
“Better.”

  “Some food and water and rest, that’s all you needed,” Lloyd said. “I brought you some clean clothes. Had to guess at the sizes.”

  “They look fine.”

  “You better get em on, then,” Lloyd said. His voice dropped. “He wants to see you. Flagg.”

  “He—?”

  “Yeah.”

  Trashcan Man was transported. He got out of bed, showered, and dressed quickly. He didn’t even notice how pale Lloyd looked, almost sick, or the way he kept fingering the small flawed jet stone that hung around his neck.

  “Where is he?” Trashcan asked. “My life for him, oh yes—”

  “Top floor,” Lloyd said. “He just got in last night. Late last night. From the Coast. No one ever sees him come or go, Trash, but they always know when he’s taken off again. Or when he comes back. Come on, let’s go.”

  Four minutes later the elevator arrived on the top floor and Trashcan Man, his face alight and his eyes goggling, stepped out. Lloyd did not.

  Trash turned toward him. “Aren’t you—?”

  Lloyd managed a smile, but it was a sorry affair. “No, he wants to see you alone. Good luck, Trash.”

  And before he could say anything else, the elevator door had slid shut and Lloyd was gone.

  Trashcan Man turned around. He was in a wide, sumptuous hallway. There were only two doors . . . and the one at the end was slowly opening. It was dark in there. The curtains had been drawn against the light. But Trash could see a form standing in the doorway. And eyes. Red eyes.

  Heart thudding slowly in his chest, mouth dry, Trashcan Man started to walk toward that form. As he did, the air seemed to grow steadily cooler and cooler. Goosebumps rashed out on his sunbaked arms. Somewhere deep inside him, the corpse of Donald Merwin Elbert rolled over in its grave and seemed to cry out.

  Then it was still again.

  “The Trashcan Man,” a low and charming voice said. “How good it is to have you here. How very good.”

  The words fell like dust from his mouth: “My ... my life for you.”

  “Yes,” the shape in the doorway said soothingly. Lips parted and white teeth showed in a grin. “But I don’t think it will come to that Come in. Let me look at you.”

  His eyes overbright, his face as slack as the face of a sleepwalker, Trashcan Man stepped inside. The door closed, and they were in dimness. A terribly hot hand closed over Trashcan Man’s icy one . . . and suddenly he felt at peace.

  Flagg said: “There’s work for you in the desert, Trash. Great work. If you want it.”

  “Anything,” Trashcan Man whispered. “Anything.”

  Randall Flagg slipped an arm around his wasted shoulders. “I’m going to set you to bum,” he said. “Come, let’s have something to drink and talk about it.”

  And in the end, that burning was very great.

  Chapter 39

  When Lucy Swann woke up it was fifteen minutes to midnight by the ladies’ Pulsar watch she wore. There was silent heat lightning in the west where the mountains were—the Rocky Mountains, she amended with some awe. Before this trip she had never been west of Philadelphia, where her brother-in-law lived. Had lived.

  The other half of the double sleeping bag was empty, that was what had wakened her. She thought of just rolling over and going back to sleep—he would come back to bed when he was ready—and then she got up and went quietly toward where she thought he would be, on the west side of camp. She went lithely, without disturbing a soul. Except for the Judge, of course; ten to midnight was his watch, and you’d never catch Judge Farris nodding off on duty. The Judge was seventy, and he’d joined them in Joliet. There were nineteen of them now.

  “Lucy?” the Judge said, his voice low.

  “Yes. Did you see—”

  A low chuckle. “Sure did. He’s out by the highway. Same place as last night and the night before that.”

  She drew closer to him and saw that his Bible was open on his lap. “Judge, you’ll strain your eyes doing that.”

  “Nonsense. Starlight’s the best light for this stuff. Maybe the only light. How’s this? ‘Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days like the days of an hireling? As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work: So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me. When I tie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day ’ ”

  “Far out,” Lucy said without much enthusiasm. “Real nice, Judge.”

  “It’s not nice, it’s Job. There’s nothing very nice in the Book of Job, Lucy.” He closed the Bible. “ 7 am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.’ That’s your man, Lucy; that’s Larry Underwood to a T.”

  “I know,” she said, and sighed. “Now if I only knew what was wrong with him.”

  The Judge, who had his suspicions, kept silent.

  “It can’t be the dreams,” she said. “No one has them anymore, unless Joe does. And Joe’s . . . different.”

  “Yes. He is. Poor boy.”

  “And everyone’s healthy. At least since Mrs. Vollman died.” Two days after the Judge joined them, a couple who introduced themselves as Dick and Sally Vollman had come along with Larry and assorted company. Lucy thought it extremely unlikely that the flu had spared a man and wife, and suspected that their marriage was commonlaw and of extremely short duration. They were in their forties, and obviously very much in love. Then, a week ago, at the old woman’s house in Hemingford Home, Sally Vollman had gotten sick. They camped for two days, waiting helplessly for her to get better or die. She had died. Dick Vollman was still with them, but he was a different man—silent, thoughtful, pale.

  “Larry is a man who found himself comparatively late in life,” the Judge said, clearing his throat. “At least, that is how he strikes me. Men who find themselves late are never sure. They are all the things the civics books tell us the good citizen should be; partisans but never zealots, respectors of the facts which attend each situation but never benders of those facts, uncomfortable in positions of leadership but rarely unable to turn down a responsibility once it has been offered ... or thrust upon them. They make the best leaders in a democracy because they are unlikely to fall in love with power. Quite the opposite. And when things go wrong . . .”

  The Judge lapsed into a thinking pause, hands clasped under his chin. He looked like a brooding black bird of prey.

  “When things go wrong?” Lucy prompted gently.

  “When they go wrong—when a Sally Vollman dies, of diabetes or internal bleeding or whatever—a man like Larry blames himself. The men the civics books idolize rarely come to good ends. Melvin Purvis, the super G-man of the thirties, shot himself with his own service pistol in 1959. When Lincoln was assassinated, he was a prematurely old man tottering on the edge of a nervous breakdown. We used to watch Presidents decay before our very eyes from month to month and even week to week on national TV—except for Nixon, of course, who thrived on power the way that a vampire bat thrives on blood. He only got old after he was forced to resign.”

  “I think there’s something more,” Lucy said sadly.

  He looked at her, inquiring.

  “How did it go? I am full of tossings and turnings unto the dawning of the day?”

  He nodded.

  Lucy said, “Pretty good description of a man in love, isn’t it?”

  He looked at her, surprised that she had known all along about the thing he wouldn’t say. Lucy shrugged, smiled—a bitter quirk of the lips. “Women know,” she said. “Women almost always know.”

  Before he could reply, she had drifted away toward the road, where Larry would be, sitting and smoking and thinking about Nadine Cross.

  “Larry?”

  “Here,” he said briefly. “What are you doing up?”

  “I got cold,” she said. He was sitting cross-legged on the shoulder of the road, as if in med
itation. “Room for me?”

  “Sure.” She sat down. The pavement was still warm from the heat of the day. He slipped an arm around her. According to Lucy’s estimation, they were about fifty miles east of Boulder tonight. If they could get on the road by nine tomorrow, they could be in Boulder for lunch.

  Three days after Larry, Nadine, Joe, and Lucy had arrived at Stovington and found the plague control center deserted, Nadine had suggested they pick up a CB radio and start conning the forty channels. Larry had accepted the idea wholeheartedly—the way he accepted most of her ideas, Lucy thought. She didn’t understand Nadine Cross at all. Larry was stuck on her, that was obvious, but she didn’t want to have much to do with him outside of each day’s routine.

  Anyway, the CB idea had been a good one, even if the brain that had produced it was icelocked (except when it came to Joe). It would be the easiest way to locate other groups, Nadine had said, and to agree upon a rendezvous.

  This had led to some puzzled discussion from their group, which at that time had numbered half a dozen with the addition of Mark Zellman, who had been a welder in upstate New York, and Laurie

  Constable, a twenty-six-year-old nurse. And the puzzled discussion had led to yet another upsetting argument about the dreams.

  Laurie had begun by protesting that they knew exactly where they were going. They were following the resourceful Harold Lauder and his party to Nebraska. Of course they were, and for the same reason. The force of the dreams was simply too powerful to be denied.

  After some back and forth on this, Nadine had gotten hysterical. She had had no dreams—repeat: no goddam dreams. If the others wanted to practice autohypnosis on each other, fine. As long as there was some rational basis for pushing on to Nebraska, such as the sign at the Stovington installation, fine. But she wanted it understood that she wasn’t going along on the basis of a lot of metaphysical bullshit.