The Stand - The Stand Part 92
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The Stand Part 92

... so tell the truth, it isn't just Harold who is his instrument. It's you too. You, who once defined the single unforgivable sin in the postplague world as murder, as the taking of a single life ...

Suddenly she found herself wishing that the dynamite was was old, that it would blow up and put an end to both of them. A merciful end. And then she found herself thinking about what would happen afterward, after they had gotten over the mountains, and felt the old slippery warmth kindle in her belly. old, that it would blow up and put an end to both of them. A merciful end. And then she found herself thinking about what would happen afterward, after they had gotten over the mountains, and felt the old slippery warmth kindle in her belly.

"There," Harold said gently. He had lowered his apparatus into a Hush Puppies shoebox and set it aside.

"It's done?"

"Yes. Done."

"Will it work?"

"Would you like to try it and find out?" His words were bitterly sarcastic, but she didn't mind. His eyes were working her over in that greedy, crawling little boy's way that she had come to recognize. He had returned from that distant place-the place from which he had written what was in the ledger that she had read and then replaced carelessly under the loose hearthstone where it had originally been. Now she could handle him. Now his talk was just talk.

"Would you like to watch me play with myself first?" she asked. "Like last night?"

"Yeah," he said. "Okay. Good."

"Let's go upstairs then." She batted her eyelashes at him. "I'll go first."

"Yeah," he said hoarsely. Little dots of sweat stood out on his brow, but fear hadn't put them there this time. "Go first."

So she went up first, and she could feel him looking up the short skirt of the little-girl sailor dress she was wearing. She was bare beneath it.

The door closed, and the thing that Harold had made sat in the open shoebox in the gloom. There was a battery-powered Realistic walkie-talkie handset from Radio Shack. Its back was off. Wired to it were eight sticks of dynamite. The book was still open. It was from the Boulder Public Library, and the title was 65 National Science Fair Prize Winners. 65 National Science Fair Prize Winners. The diagram showed a doorbell wired up to a walkie-talkie similar to the one in the shoebox. The caption beneath said: The diagram showed a doorbell wired up to a walkie-talkie similar to the one in the shoebox. The caption beneath said: Third Prize, 1977 National Science Fair, Constructed by Brian Ball, Rutland, Vermont. Say the word and ring the bell up to twelve miles away! Third Prize, 1977 National Science Fair, Constructed by Brian Ball, Rutland, Vermont. Say the word and ring the bell up to twelve miles away!

Some hours later that evening, Harold came back downstairs, put the cover on the shoebox, and carried it carefully upstairs. He put it on the top shelf of a kitchen cupboard. Ralph Brentner had told him that afternoon that the Free Zone Committee was inviting Chad Norris to speak at their next meeting. When was that going to be? Harold had inquired casually. September 2, Ralph had said.

September 2.

CHAPTER 57.

Larry and Leo were sitting on the curb in front of the house. Larry was drinking a warm Hamm's Beer, Leo a warm Orange Spot. You could have anything to drink in Boulder that you wanted these days, as long as it came in a can and you didn't mind drinking it warm. From out back came the steady, gruff roar of the Lawnboy. Lucy was cutting the grass. Larry had offered to do it, but Lucy shook her head. "Find out what's wrong with Leo, if you can."

It was the last day of August.

The day after Nadine had moved in with Harold, Leo hadn't appeared for breakfast. Larry had found the boy in his room, dressed only in his underpants, his thumb in his mouth. He was uncommunicative and hostile. Larry had been more frightened than Lucy, because she didn't know how Leo had been when Larry had first encountered him. His name had been Joe then, and he had been brandishing a killer's knife.

The best part of a week had passed since then, and Leo was a little better, but he hadn't come back all the way and he wouldn't talk about what had happened.

"That woman has something to do with it," Lucy had said, screwing the cap onto the lawnmower's tank.

"Nadine? What makes you think that?"

"Well, I wasn't going to mention it. But she came by the other day while you and Leo were trying the fishing down at Cold Creek. She wanted to see the boy. I was just as glad the two of you were gone."

"Lucy-"

She gave him a quick kiss, and he had slipped his hand under her halter and given her a friendly squeeze. "I judged you wrong before," she said. "I guess I'll always be sorry for that. But I'm never going to like Nadine Cross. There's something wrong wrong with her." with her."

Larry didn't answer, but he thought Lucy's judgment was probably a true one. That night up by King Sooper's she had been like a crazy woman.

"There's one other thing-when she was here, she didn't call him Leo. She called him the other name. Joe."

He looked at her blankly as she turned the automatic starter and got the Lawnboy going.

Now, half an hour after that discussion, he drank his Hamm's and watched Leo bounce the Ping-Pong ball he had found the day the two of them had walked up to Harold's, where Nadine now lived. The small white ball was smudged, but not dented. Thok-thok-thok Thok-thok-thok against the pavement. Bouncy-bouncy-bally, look-at-the-way-we-play. against the pavement. Bouncy-bouncy-bally, look-at-the-way-we-play.

Leo (he was was Leo now, wasn't he?) hadn't wanted to go inside Harold's house that day. Leo now, wasn't he?) hadn't wanted to go inside Harold's house that day.

Into the house where Nadine-mom was now living.

"You want to go fishing, kiddo?" Larry offered suddenly.

"No fish," Leo said. He looked at Larry with his strange, seawater green eyes. "Do you know Mr. Ellis?"

"Sure."

"He says we can drink the water when the fish come back. Drink it without-" He made a hooting noise and waved his fingers in front of his eyes. "You know."

"Without boiling it?"

"Yes."

Thok-thok-thok.

"I like Dick. Him and Laurie. Always give me something to eat. He's afraid they won't be able to, but I think they will."

"Will what?"

"Be able to make a baby. Dick thinks he may be too old. But I guess he's not."

Larry started to ask how Leo and Dick had gotten on that that subject, and then didn't. The answer, of course, was that they hadn't. Dick wouldn't talk to a small boy about something so personal as making a baby. Leo had just ... had just known. subject, and then didn't. The answer, of course, was that they hadn't. Dick wouldn't talk to a small boy about something so personal as making a baby. Leo had just ... had just known.

Thok-thok-thok.

Yes, Leo knew things ... or intuited them. He hadn't wanted to go in Harold's house and had said something about Nadine ... he couldn't remember exactly what ... but Larry had recalled that discussion and had felt very uneasy when he heard that Nadine had moved in with Harold. It had been as if the boy was in a trance, as if- (-thok-thok-thok-) Larry watched the Ping-Pong ball bounce up and down, and suddenly he looked into Leo's face. The boy's eyes were dark and faraway. The sound of the lawnmower was a far-off, soporific drone. The daylight was smooth and warm. And Leo was in a trance again, as if he had read Larry's thought and simply responded to it.

Leo had gone to see the elephant.

Very casually Larry said: "Yes, I think they can make a baby. Dick can't be any more than fifty-five at the outside. Cary Grant made one when he was almost seventy, I believe."

"Who's Cary Grant?" Leo asked. The ball went up and down, up and down.

(Notorious. North by Northwest.) "Don't you know?" he asked Leo.

"He was that actor," Leo said. "He was in Notorious. Notorious. And And Northwest." Northwest."

(North by Northwest.) by Northwest.) "North by Northwest, by Northwest, I mean," Leo said in a tone of agreement. His eyes never left the Ping-Pong ball's bouncing course. I mean," Leo said in a tone of agreement. His eyes never left the Ping-Pong ball's bouncing course.

"That's right," he said. "How's Nadine-mom, Leo?"

"She calls me Joe. I'm Joe to her."

"Oh." A cold chill was weaving its slow way up Larry's back.

"It's bad now."

"Bad?"

"It's bad with both of them."

"Nadine and-"

(Harold?) "Yes, him."

"They're not happy?"

"He's got them fooled. They think he wants them."

"He?"

"Him. "

The word hung on the still summer air.

Thok-thok-thok.

"They're going to go west," Leo said.

"Jesus," Larry muttered. He was very cold now. The old fear swept him. Did he really want to hear any more of this? It was like watching a tomb door swing slowly open in a silent graveyard, seeing a hand emerge- Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to know it.

"Nadine-mom wants to think it's your fault," Leo said. "She wants to think you drove her to Harold. But she waited on purpose. She waited until you loved Lucy-mom too much. She waited until she was sure. It's like he's he's rubbing away the part of her brain that knows right from wrong. Little by little he's rubbing that part away. And when it's gone she'll be as crazy as everyone else in the West. Crazier maybe." rubbing away the part of her brain that knows right from wrong. Little by little he's rubbing that part away. And when it's gone she'll be as crazy as everyone else in the West. Crazier maybe."

"Leo-" Larry whispered, and Leo answered immediately: "She calls me Joe. I'm Joe to her."

"Shall I call you Joe?" Larry asked doubtfully.

"No." There was a note of pleading in the boy's voice. "No, please don't."

"You miss your Nadine-mom, don't you, Leo?"

"She's dead," Leo said with chilling simplicity.

"Is that why you stayed out so late that night?"

"Yes."

"And why you wouldn't talk?"

"Yes."

"But you're talking now."

"I have you and Lucy-mom to talk to."

"Yes, of course-"

"But not for always!" the boy said fiercely. "Not for always, unless you talk to Frannie! Talk to Frannie! Talk to Frannie!" Talk to Frannie!"

"About Nadine?"

"No!"

"About what? About you?"

Leo's voice rose, became even shriller. "It's all written down! You know! Frannie knows! Talk to Frannie!" Talk to Frannie!"

"The committee-"

"Not the committee! The committee won't help you, it won't help anyone, the committee is the old way, he he laughs at your committee because it's the old way and the old ways are laughs at your committee because it's the old way and the old ways are his his ways, you know, Frannie knows, if you talk together you can-" ways, you know, Frannie knows, if you talk together you can-"

Leo brought the ball down hard-THOK!-and it rose higher than his head and came down and rolled away. Larry watched it, his mouth dry, his heart thudding nastily in his chest.

"I dropped my ball," Leo said, and ran to get it.

Larry sat watching him.

Frannie, he thought. he thought.

The two of them sat on the edge of the bandshell stage, their feet dangling. It was an hour before dark, and a few people were walking through the park, some of them holding hands. The children's hour is also the lovers' hour, Fran thought disjointedly. Larry had just finished telling her everything Leo had said in his trance, and her mind was whirling with it.

"So what do you think?" Larry asked.

"I don't know what to think," she said softly, "except I don't like any of the things that have been happening. Visionary dreams. An old woman who's the voice of God for a while and then walks off into the wilderness. Now a little boy who seems to be a telepath. It's like life in a fairy tale. Sometimes I think the superflu left us alive but drove us all mad."

"He said I should talk to you. So I am."

She didn't reply.

"Well," Larry said, "if anything comes to you-"