The Stand

sweat, escaped Ace High’s hold, and instinctively Trash knelt and pinned the arm back down, forcing the wrist against an arm of the cross. A second later, Whitey was kneeling beside Trashcan with the wooden mallet and two of the crude nails. The cigarette still hung from the corner of his mouth. He looked like a man about to do a little job of carpentering in his back yard.

“Yeah, good, hold him just like that, Trash. I’ll staple him. Won’t take a minute.”

“Drug use is not allowed in this Society of the People because it impairs the user’s ability to contribute fully to the Society of the People,” Winky was proclaiming. He spoke fast, like an auctioneer, and his eyes bunched and scrunched and wiggled. “Specifically in this case, the accused Hector brogan was found with freebasing paraphernalia and a large supply of cocaine.”

Now Heck’s screams had reached a pitch that might well have shattered crystal, if there had been any crystal around to shatter. His head lashed from side to side. There was foam on his lips. Ribbons of blood coursed down his arms as six of them, Trashcan Man included, lifted the cross into the cement pit. Now Hector Drogan was silhouetted against the sky with his head thrown back in a rictus of pain.

“—is done for the good of this Society of the People,” Winky screamed relentlessly. “This communication ends with a solemn warning and greetings to the People of Las Vegas. Let this bill of true facts be nailed above the miscreant’s head, and let it be marked with the seal of the First Citizen, RANDALL FLAGG by name.”

“Oh my God it HURTS! ” Hector Drogan screamed from above them. “Oh my God my God oh God God God! ”

The crowd remained for almost an hour, each person afraid to be remarked upon as having been the first to leave. There was disgust on many faces, a drowsy kind of excitement on many others… but if there was a common denominator, it was fear.

Trashcan Man wasn’t frightened, though. Why should he have been frightened? He hadn’t known the man.

He hadn’t known him at all.

It was quarter past ten that night when Lloyd came back to Trashcan Man’s room. He glanced at Trash and said, “You’re dressed. Good. I thought you might have gone to bed already.”

“No,” Trashcan Man said, “I’m up. Why?”

Lloyd’s voice dropped. “It’s now, Trashy. He wants to see you. Flagg.”

“He—?”

“Yeah.”

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

“Top floor,” Lloyd said. “He got in just after we finished burning brogan’s body. From the Coast. He was just here when Whitey and I got back from the landfill. 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 at 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 two doors… and the one at the end was slowly opening. It was dark in there. 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 rushed 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, std 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 burn,” he said. “Come, let’s have something to drink and talk about it.”

And in the end, that burning was very great.

Chapter 49

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, fifteen adults, three children, and Joe.

“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 lie 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. “ ‘I 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 thrown in with Larry and his assorted company of survivors. Lucy thought it extremely unlikely that the flu had spared a man and wife, and suspected that their marriage was common-law 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.

“He’s taken that to heart, hasn’t he?” she asked Judge Farris.

“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 citizens should be: partisans but never zealots, respecters of the facts which attend each situation but