The Stand

(my God, Fran, why did you ever say all those things about him? to what purpose?)

Well, you know Harold… his swagger… all those pompous words & pronouncements… an insecure little boy…

That was July 12. Wincing, she turned past it rapidly, fluttering through the pages now, in a hurry to get to the end. Phrases still leaped up, seeming to slap at her: Anyway, Harold smelled pretty clean for a change… Harold’s breath would have driven away a dragon tonight… And another, seeming almost prophetic: He stores up rebuffs like pirate treasure. But to what purpose? To feed his own feelings of secret superiority and persecution? Or was it a matter of retribution?

Oh, he’s making a list… and checking it twice… he’s gonna find out… who’s naughty and nice…

Then, on August 1, only two weeks ago. The entry started at the bottom of a page. No entry last night, I was too happy. Have I ever been this happy? I don’t think so. Stu and I are together. We

End of the page. She turned to the next one. The first words at the top of the page were made love twice. But they barely caught her eye before her glance dropped halfway down the page. There, beside some blathering about the maternal instinct, was something that caught her eyes and froze her almost solid.

It was a dark, smeary thumbprint.

She thought wildly: I was riding on a motorcycle all day long, every day. Sure, I took care to clean up every chance I got, but your hands get dirty and…

She put out her hand, not at all surprised to see that it was shaking badly. She put her thumb on the smudge. The smudge was a lot bigger.

Well, of course it is, she told herself. When you smear something around, it naturally gets bigger. That’s why, that’s all that is…

But this thumbprint wasn’t that smeared. The little lines and loops and whorls were still clear, for the most part.

And it wasn’t grease or oil, there was no use even kidding herself that it was.

It was dried chocolate.

Paydays, Fran thought sickly. Chocolate-covered Payday candy bars.

For a moment she was afraid to do so much as turn around—afraid that she might see Harold’s grin hanging over her shoulder like the grin of the Cheshire cat in Alice. Harold’s thick lips moving as he said solemnly: Every dog has his day, Frannie. Every dog has his day.

But even if Harold had sneaked a glance into her diary, did it have to mean he was contemplating some secret vendetta against her or Stu or any of the others? Of course not.

But Harold’s changed, an interior voice whispered.

“Goddammit, he hasn’t changed that much!” she cried to the empty room. She flinched a little at the sound of her own voice, then laughed shakily. She went downstairs and began to get supper. They would be eating early because of the meeting… but suddenly the meeting didn’t seem as important as it had earlier.

Excerpts from the Minutes of the Ad Hoc Committee Meeting

August 13, 1990

The meeting was held in the apartment of Stu Redman and Frances Goldsmith. All members of the ad hoc committee were present, those being: Stuart Redman, Frances Goldsmith, Nick Andros, Glen Bateman, Ralph Brentner, Susan Stern, and Larry Underwood…

Stu Redman was elected moderator of the meeting. Frances Goldsmith was elected recording secretary…

These notes (plus complete coverage of every burp, gurgle, and aside, all recorded on Memorex cassettes for anyone crazy enough to want to listen to them) will be placed in a safe-deposit box of the First Bank of Boulder…

Stu Redman presented a broadside on the subject of food poisoning written by Dick Ellis and Laurie Constable (eyecatchingly titled IF YOU EAT YOU SHOULD READ THIS!). He said Dick wanted to see it printed and nailed up all over Boulder before the big meeting on August 18, because there have already been fifteen cases of food poisoning in Boulder, two of them quite serious. The committee voted 7–0 that Ralph should duplicate a thousand copies of Dick’s poster and get ten people to help him put them up all over town…

Susan Stern then presented another item that Dick and Laurie wanted to put before the meeting (we all wished one or the other of them could have been here). They both feel that there must be a Burial Committee; Dick’s idea was that it should be put on the agenda of the public meeting and that it be presented not as a health hazard—because of the possibility it might cause panic—but as “the decent thing to do.” We all know there are surprisingly few corpses in Boulder in proportion to its pre-plague population, but we don’t know why… not that it matters much now. But there are still thousands of dead bodies and they must be gotten rid of if we intend to stay here.

Stu asked how serious the problem was at present and Sue said she thought it would not become really serious until fall, when the dry, hot weather usually turns damp.

Larry made a motion that we add Dick’s suggestion that a Burial Committee be formed to the agenda of the August 18 meeting. A motion was carried, 7–0.

Nick Andros was then recognized, and Ralph Brentner read his prepared comments, which I am here quoting verbatim:

“One of the most important questions this committee must deal with is whether or not it will agree to take Mother Abagail into its complete confidence, and shall she be told about everything that goes on at our meetings, both open and closed? The question can also be put the other way: ‘Shall Mother Abagail agree to take this committee—and the permanent committee that will follow it—into her complete confidence, and shall the committee be told about all that goes on in her meetings with God or Whoever… particularly the closed ones?’

“That may sound like gibberish, but let me explain, be cause it’s really a pragmatic question. We have to settle Mother Abagail’s place in the community right away, be cause our problem is not just one of ‘getting on our feet again.’ If that was all, we wouldn’t really need her in the first place. As we all know there is another problem, that of the man we sometimes call the dark man, or as Glen puts it, the Adversary. My proof for his existence is very simple, and I think most people in Boulder would agree with my reasoning—if they wanted to think of it at all. Here it is: ‘I dreamed of Mother Abagail and she was; I dreamed of the dark man and therefore he must be, although I have never seen him.’ The people here love Mother Abagail, and I love her myself. But we won’t get far—in fact, we won’t get anywhere—if we don’t start off with her approval of what we’re doing.

“So this early afternoon I went to see the lady and put the question to her directly, with all the bark on it: Will you go along? She said that she would—but not without conditions. She was perfectly blunt. She said we should be perfectly free to guide the community in all ‘worldly matters’—her phrase. Clearing the streets, allocating housing, getting the power back on.

“But she was also very clear about wanting to be consulted on all matters that have to do with the dark man. She believes we are all a part of a chess game between God and Satan; that Satan’s chief agent in this game is the Adversary, whose name she says is Randall Flagg (‘the name he’s using this time,’ is how she puts it); that for reasons best known to Himself, God has chosen her as His agent in this matter. She believes, and in this I happen to agree with her, that a struggle is coming and it’s going to be us or him. She thinks this struggle is the most important thing, and she’s adamant about being consulted when our deliberations touch on it… and on him.

“Now I don’t want to get into the religious implications of all—this, or argue whether she’s right or wrong, but it should be obvious that all implications aside, we have a situation we must cope with. So I have a series of motions.”

There was some discussion of Nick’s statement.

Nick made this motion: Can we, as a committee, agree not to discuss the theological, religious, or supernatural implications of the Adversary matter during our meetings? By a 7–0 vote, the committee agreed to bar discussion on those matters, at least while we’re “in session.”

Nick then made this motion: Can we agree that the main private, secret business of the committee is the