The Stand - The Stand Part 40
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The Stand Part 40

In the afternoon he made himself speed up a little, but he could not force himself to twist the throttle any farther once the speedometer needle had reached twenty, not even if he could see the road was clear ahead. There was a sporting goods and cycle shop on the outskirts of Wilmington, and he stopped there and got a sleeping bag, some heavy gloves, and a helmet, and even with the helmet on he could not force himself to go faster than twenty-five. On blind comers he slowed down until he was walking the big cycle along. He kept having visions of lying unconscious at the side of the road and bleeding to death unattended.

At five o'clock, as he was approaching Brattleboro, the Harley's overheat light went on. Larry parked it and turned it off with mingled feelings of relief and disgust.

"You might as well have pushed it," he said. "It's meant to run at sixty, you goddam fool!"

He left it and walked into town, not knowing if he would come back for it.

He slept on the Brattleboro Municipal Common that evening, under the partial shelter of the bandshell. He turned in as soon as it was dark, and fell asleep instantly. Some sound woke him with a jerk a time later. He looked at his watch. The thin radium lines on the dial scratched out eleven-twenty. He got up on one elbow and stared into the darkness, feeling the bandshell huge around him, missing the little tent that had held in body heat. What a fine little canvas womb it had been!

If there had been a sound, it was gone now; even the crickets had fallen silent. Was that right? Could it be right?

"Is someone there?" Larry called, and the sound of his own voice frightened him. He groped for the .30-.30 and for a long and increasingly panicky moment could not find it. When he did, he squeezed the trigger without thinking, just as a man drowning in the ocean will squeeze a thrown life preserver. If the safety hadn't been on, he would have fired it. Possibly into himself.

There was something in the silence, he was sure of it. Perhaps a person, perhaps some large and dangerous animal. Of course, a person could be dangerous, too. A person like the one who had repeatedly stabbed the poor monster-shouter or like John Bearsford Tipton, who had offered him a million in cold cash for the use of his woman.

"Who is it?"

He had a flashlight in his pack, but in order to hunt for it, he would have to let go of the rifle, which he had drawn across his lap. Besides ... did he really want to see who it was?

So he just sat there, willing movement or a repetition of the sound which had awakened him (had (had it been a sound? or just something he had dreamed?), and after a little while he first nodded, then dozed off. it been a sound? or just something he had dreamed?), and after a little while he first nodded, then dozed off.

Suddenly his head jerked up, his eyes wide, his flesh shrinking against his bones. Now Now there was sound, and if the night hadn't been cloudy, the moon, nearly full, would have shown him- there was sound, and if the night hadn't been cloudy, the moon, nearly full, would have shown him- But he didn't want to see. No, he most definitely didn't want to see. Yet he sat forward, head cocked, listening to the sound of dusty bootheels clocking away from him down the sidewalk of Main Street, Brattleboro, Vermont, moving west, fading, until they were lost in the open hum of things.

Larry felt a sudden mad urge to stand up, letting the sleeping bag slither down around his ankles, to shout: Come back, whoever you are! I don't care! Come back! Come back, whoever you are! I don't care! Come back! But did he really want to issue such a blank check to Whoever? The bandshell would amplify his shout-his plea. And what if those bootheels actually But did he really want to issue such a blank check to Whoever? The bandshell would amplify his shout-his plea. And what if those bootheels actually did did return, growing louder in a stillness where not even the crickets sang? return, growing louder in a stillness where not even the crickets sang?

Instead of standing, he lay back down and curled up in the fetal position with his hands wrapped around the rifle. I won't sleep again tonight I won't sleep again tonight, he thought, but he was asleep in three minutes and quite sure the next morning that he had dreamed the whole thing.

CHAPTER 42.

While Larry Underwood was taking his Fourth of July spill only a state away, Stuart Redman was sitting on a large rock at the side of the road and eating his lunch. He heard the sound of approaching engines. He finished his can of beer at a swallow and carefully folded over the top of the waxed-paper tube the Ritz crackers were in. His rifle was leaning against the rock beside him. He picked it up, flicked off the safety catch, and then put it down again, a little closer to hand. Motorcycles coming, small ones by the sound. Two-fifties? In this great stillness it was impossible to tell how far away they were. Ten miles, maybe, but only maybe. Plenty of time to eat more if he wanted to, but he didn't. In the meantime, the sun was warm and the thought of meeting fellow creatures pleasant. He had seen no living people since leaving Glen Bateman's house in Woodsville. He glanced at the rifle again. He had flicked the safety because the fellow creatures might turn out to be like Elder. He had left the rifle leaning against the rock because he hoped they would be like Bateman-only not quite so glum about the future. Society will reappear Society will reappear, Bateman had said. Notice I didn't use the word "reform." That would have been a ghastly pun. There's precious little reform in the human race. Notice I didn't use the word "reform." That would have been a ghastly pun. There's precious little reform in the human race.

But Bateman himself hadn't wanted to get in on the ground floor of society's reappearance. He seemed perfectly content-at least for the time being-to go for his walks with Kojak, paint his pictures, putter around his garden, and think about the sociological ramifications of nearly total decimation.

If you come back this way and renew your invitation to "jine up," Stu, I'll probably agree. That is the curse of the human race. Sociability. What Christ should have said was "Yea, verily, whenever two or three of you are gathered together, some other guy is going to get the living shit knocked out of him. " Shall I tell you what sociology teaches us about the human race? I'll give it to you in a nutshell. Show me a man or woman alone and I'll show you a saint. Give me two and they'll fall in love. Give me three and they'll invent the charming thing we call "society." Give me four and they'll build a pyramid. Give me five and they'll make one an outcast. Give me six and they'll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they'll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.

Was that true? If it was, then God help them. Just lately Stu had been thinking a great deal about old friends and acquaintances. In his memory there was a great tendency to downplay or completely forget their unlovable characteristics-the way Bill Hapscomb used to pick his nose and wipe the snot on the sole of his shoe, Norm Bruett's heavy hand with his kids, Billy Verecker's unpleasant method of controlling the cat population around his house by crushing the thin skulls of the new kittens under the heels of his Range Rider boots.

The thoughts that came wanted to be wholly good. Going hunting at dawn, bundled up in quilted jackets and Day-Glo orange vests. Poker games at Ralph Hodges's house and Willy Craddock always complaining about how he was four dollars in the game, even if he was twenty ahead. Six or seven of them pushing Tony Leominster's Scout back onto the road that time he went down into the ditch drunk out of his mind, Tony staggering around and swearing to God and all the saints that he had swerved to avoid a U-Haul full of Mexican wetbacks. Jesus, how they had laughed. Chris Ortega's endless stream of ethnic jokes. Going down to Huntsville for whores, and that time Joe Bob Brentwood caught the crabs and tried to tell everybody they came from the sofa in the parlor and not from the girl upstairs. They had been goddam good times. Not what your sophisticates with their nightclubs and their fancy restaurants and their museums would think of as good times, maybe, but good times just the same. He thought about those things, went over them and over them, the way an old recluse will lay out hand after hand of solitaire from a greasy pack of cards. Mostly he wanted to hear other human voices, get to know someone, be able to turn to someone and say, Did you see that? Did you see that? when something happened like the meteor shower he had watched the other night. He was not a talkative man, but he did not care much for being alone, and never had. when something happened like the meteor shower he had watched the other night. He was not a talkative man, but he did not care much for being alone, and never had.

So he sat up a little straighter when the motorcycles finally swept around the bend, and he saw they were a couple of Honda 250s, ridden by a boy of about eighteen and a girl who was maybe older than the boy. The girl was wearing a bright yellow blouse and light blue Levi's.

They saw him sitting on the rock, and both Hondas swerved a little as their drivers' surprise caused control to waver briefly. The boy's mouth dropped open. For a moment it was unclear whether they would stop or just speed by heading west.

Stu raised an empty hand and said "Hi!" in an amiable voice. His heart was beating heavily in his chest. He wanted them to stop. They did.

For a moment he was puzzled by the tenseness in their postures. Particularly the boy; he looked as if a gallon of adrenaline had just been dumped into his blood. Of course Stu had a rifle, but he wasn't holding it on them and they were armed themselves; he was wearing a pistol and she had a small deer-rifle slung across her back on a strap, like an actress playing Patty Hearst with no great conviction.

"I think he's all right, Harold," the girl said, but the boy she called Harold continued to stand astride his bike, looking at Stu with an expression of surprise and considering antagonism.

"I said I think-" she began again.

"How are we supposed to know that?" Harold snapped without taking his eyes off Stu.

"Well, I'm glad to see you, if that makes any difference," Stu said.

"What if I don't believe you?" Harold challenged, and Stu saw that he was scared green. Scared by him and by his responsibility to the girl.

"Well, then, I don't know." Stu climbed off the rock. Harold's hand jittered toward his holstered pistol.

"Harold, you leave that alone," the girl said. Then she fell silent and for a moment they all seemed helpless to proceed further-a group of three dots which, when connected, would form a triangle whose exact shape could not yet be foreseen.

"Ouuuu," Frannie said, easing herself down on a mossy patch at the base of an elm beside the road. "I'm never going to get the calluses off my fanny, Harold."

Harold uttered a surly grunt.

She turned to Stu. "Have you ever ridden a hundred and seventy miles on a Honda, Mr. Redman? Not recommended."

Stu smiled. "Where are you headed?"

"What business is it of yours?" Harold asked rudely.

"And what kind of attitude is that?" Fran asked him. "Mr. Redman is the first person we've seen since Gus Dinsmore died! I mean, if we didn't come looking for other people, what did we come for?"

"He's watching out for you, is all," Stu said quietly. He picked a piece of grass and put it between his lips.

"That's right, I am," Harold said, unmollified.

"I thought we were watching out for each other," she said, and Harold flushed darkly.

Stu thought: Give me three people and they'll form a society Give me three people and they'll form a society. But were these the right two for his one? He liked the girl, but the boy impressed him as a frightened blowhard. And a frightened blowhard could be a very dangerous man, under the right circumstances ... or the wrong ones.

"Whatever you say," Harold muttered. He shot Stu a lowering look and took a box of Marlboros from his jacket pocket. He lit one. He smoked on it like a fellow who had only recently taken up the habit. Like maybe the day before yesterday.

"We're going to Stovington, Vermont," Frannie said. "To the plague center there. We-what's wrong? Mr. Redman?" He had gone pale all of a sudden. The stem of grass he had been chewing fell onto his lap.

"Why there?" Stu asked.

"Because there happens to be an installation there for the studying of communicable diseases," Harold said loftily. "It was my thought that, if there is any order left in this country, or any persons in authority who escaped the late scourge, they would likely be at Stovington or Atlanta, where there is another such center."

"That's right," Frannie said.

Stu said: "You're wasting your time."

Frannie looked stunned. Harold looked indignant; the red began to creep out of his collar again. "I hardly think you're the best judge of that, my man.

"I guess I am. I came from there."

Now they both looked stunned. Stunned and astonished.

"You knew about it?" Frannie asked, shaken. "You checked it out?"

"No, it wasn't like that. It-"

"You're a liar!" Harold's voice had gone high and squeaky.

Fran saw an alarming cold flash of anger in Redman's eyes, then they were brown and mild again. "No. I ain't."

"I say you are! I say you're nothing but a-"

"Harold, you shut up!"

Harold looked at her, wounded. "But Frannie, how can you believe-"

"How can you be so rude and antagonistic?" she asked hotly. "Will you at least listen to what he has to say, Harold?"

"I don't trust him."

Fair enough, Stu thought, that makes us even.

"How can you not trust a man you just met? Really, Harold, you're being disgusting!"

"Let me tell you how I know," Stu said quietly. He told an abridged version of the story that began when Campion had crashed into Hap's pumps. He sketched his escape from Stovington a week ago. Harold glared dully down at his hands, which were plucking up bits of moss and shredding them. But the girl's face was like an unfolding map of tragic country, and Stu felt bad for her. She had set off with this boy (who, to give him credit, had had a pretty good idea), hoping against hope that there was something of the old taken-for-granted ways left. Well, she had been disappointed. Bitterly so, from her look.

"Atlanta too? The plague got both of them?" she asked.

"Yes," he said, and she burst into tears.

He wanted to comfort her, but the boy would not take to that. Harold glanced uncomfortably at Fran, then down at the litter of moss on his cuffs. Stu gave her his handkerchief. She thanked him distractedly, without looking up. Harold glared sullenly at him again, the eyes those of a piggy little boy who wants the whole cookie jar to himself. Ain't he going to be surprised, Stu thought, when he finds out a girl isn't a jar of cookies.

When her tears had tapered down to sniffles, she said, "I guess Harold and I owe you our thanks. At least you saved us a long trip with disappointment at the end."

"You mean you believe him? Just like that? He tells you a big story and you just ... you buy it?"

"Harold, why would he lie? For what gain?"

"Well, how do I know what he's got on his mind?" Harold asked truculently. "Murder, could be. Or rape."

"I don't believe in rape myself," Stu said mildly. "Maybe you know something about it I don't."

"Stop it, " Fran said. "Harold, won't you try not to be so awful?"

"Awful?" Harold shouted. "I'm trying to watch out for you-us- and that's so bloodydamn Harold shouted. "I'm trying to watch out for you-us- and that's so bloodydamn awful?" awful?"

"Look," Stu said, and brushed his sleeve up. On the inside of his elbow were several healing needle marks and the last remains of a discolored bruise. "They injected me with all kinds of stuff."

"Maybe you're a junkie," Harold said.

Stu rolled his sleeve back down without replying. It was the girl, of course. He had gotten used to the idea of owning her. Well, some girls could be owned and some could not. This one looked like the latter type. She was tall and pretty and very fresh-looking. Her dark eyes and hair accentuated a look that could be taken for dewy helplessness. It would be easy to miss that faint line (the I-want I-want line, Stu's mother had called it) between her eyebrows that became so pronounced when she was put out, the swift capability of her hands, even the forthright way she tossed her hair from her forehead. line, Stu's mother had called it) between her eyebrows that became so pronounced when she was put out, the swift capability of her hands, even the forthright way she tossed her hair from her forehead.

"So now what do we do?" she asked, ignoring Harold's last contribution to the discussion entirely.

"Go on anyway," Harold said, and when she looked over at him with that line furrowing her brow, he added hastily: "Well, we have to go somewhere go somewhere. Sure, he's probably telling the truth, but we could double-check. Then decide what's next."

Fran glanced at Stu with an I-don't-want-to-hurt-your-feelings-but kind of expression. Stu shrugged.

"Okay?" Harold pressed.

"I suppose it doesn't matter," Frannie said. She picked up a gone-to-seed dandelion and blew away the fluff.

"You didn't see anyone at all back the way you came?" Stu asked.

"There was a dog that seemed to be all right. No people."

"I saw a dog, too." He told them about Bateman and Kojak. When he had finished he said, "I was going toward the coast, but you saying there aren't any people back that way kind of takes the wind out of my sails."

"Sorry," Harold said, sounding anything but. He stood up. "Ready, Fran?"

She looked at Stu, hesitated, then stood up. "Back to the wonderful diet machine. Thank you for telling us what you know, Mr. Redman, even if the news wasn't so hot."

"Just a second," Stu said, also standing up. He hesitated, wondering again if they were right. The girl was, but the boy surely was seventeen and afflicted with a bad case of the 1-hate-most-everybodies. But were there enough people left to pick and choose? Stu thought not.

"I guess we're both looking for people," he said. "I'd like to tag along with you, if you'd have me."

"No," Harold said instantly.

Fran looked from Harold to Stu, troubled. "Maybe we-"

"You never mind. I say no."

"Don't I get a vote?"

"What's the matter with you? Can't you see he only wants one thing? Christ, Fran!"

"Three's better than two if there's trouble," Stu said, "and I know it's better than one."

"No," Harold repeated. His hand dropped to the butt of his gun.

"Yes," Fran said. "We'd be glad to have you, Mr. Redman."

Harold rounded on her, his face angry and hurt. Stu tightened for just a moment, thinking that perhaps he was going to strike her, and then relaxed again. "That's the way you feel, is it? You were just waiting for some excuse to get rid of me, I get it." He was so angry that tears had sprung to his eyes, and that made him angrier still. "If that's the way you want it, okay. You go on with him. I'm done with you." He stamped off toward where the Hondas were parked.