The Stand

His name is Legion. He is the king of nowhere.

“Can you say anything else about him?” Stu asked in a low voice.

“Only that I’m afraid of him, too. But I’ll do what you want. But Tom… is so afraid.” That dreadful sigh again.

“Tom,” Ralph said suddenly. “Do you know if Mother Abagail… if she’s still alive?” Ralph’s face was desperately set, the face of a man who has staked everything on one turn of the cards.

“She’s alive.” Ralph leaned against the back of his chair with a great gust of breath. “But she’s not right with God yet,” Tom added.

“Not right with God? Why not, Tommy?”

“She’s in the wilderness, God has lifted her up in the wilderness, she does not fear the terror that flies at noon or the terror that creeps at midnight… neither will the snake bite her nor the bee sting her… but she’s not right with God yet. It was not the hand of Moses that brought water from the rock. It was not the hand of Abagail that turned the weasels back with their bellies empty. She’s to be pitied. She will see, but she will see too late. There will be death. His death. She will die on the wrong side of the river. She—”

“Stop him,” Ralph groaned. “Can’t you stop him?”

“Tom,” Stu said.

“Yes.”

“Are you the same Tom that Nick met in Oklahoma? Are you the same Tom we know when you’re awake?”

“Yes, but I am more than that Tom.”

“I don’t understand.”

He shifted a little, his sleeping face calm.

“I am God’s Tom.”

Completely unnerved now, Stu almost dropped Nick’s notes.

“You say you’ll do what we want.”

“Yes.”

“But do you see… do you think you’ll come back?”

“That’s not for me to see or say. Where shall I go?”

“West, Tom.”

Tom moaned. It was a sound that made the hair on the nape of Stu’s neck stand on end. What are we sending him into? And maybe he knew. Maybe he had been there himself, only in Vermont, in mazes of corridors where the echo made it seem as if footsteps were following him. And gaining.

“West,” Tom said. “West, yes.”

“We’re sending you to look, Tom. To look and see. Then to come back.”

“Come back and tell.”

“Can you do that?”

“Yes. Unless they catch and kill me.”

Stu winced; they all winced.

“You go by yourself, Tom. Always west. Can you find west?”

“Where the sun goes down.”

“Yes. And if anyone asks why you’re there, this is what you’ll say: They drove you out of the Free Zone —”

“Drove me out. Drove Tom out. Put him on the road.”

“—because you were feebleminded.”

“They drove Tom out because Tom is feebleminded.”

“—and because you might have a woman and the woman might have idiot children.”

“Idiot children like Tom.”

Stu’s stomach was rolling back and forth helplessly. His head felt like iron that had learned how to sweat. It was as if he was suffering from a terrible, debilitating hangover.

“Now repeat what you’ll say if someone asks why you’re in the west.”

“They drove Tom out because he was feebleminded. Laws, yes. They were afraid I night have a woman the way you have them with your prick in bed. Make her pregnant with idiots.”

“That’s right, Tom. That’s—”

“Drove me out,” he said in a soft, grieving voice. “Drove Tom out of his nice house and put his feet on the road.”

Stu passed a shaking hand over his eyes. He looked at Nick. Nick seemed to double, then treble, in his vision. “Nick, I don’t know as I can finish,” he said helplessly.

Nick looked at Ralph. Ralph, pale as cheese, could only shake his head.

“Finish,” Tom said unexpectedly. “Don’t leave me out here in the dark.”

Forcing himself, Stu went on.

“Tom, do you know what the full moon looks like?”

“Yes… big and round.”

“Not the half-moon, or even most of the moon.”

“No,” Tom said.

“When you see that big round moon, you’ll come back east. Back to us. Back to your house, Tom.”

“Yes, when I see it, I’ll come back,” Tom agreed. “I’ll come back home.”

“And when you come back, you’ll walk in the night and sleep in the day.”

“Walk at night, sleep in the day.”

“Right. And you won’t let anybody see you if you can help it.”

“No.”

“But, Tom, someone might see you.”

“Yes, someone might.”

“If it’s one person that sees you, Tom, kill him.”

“Kill him,” Tom said doubtfully.

“If it’s more than one, run.”

“Run,” Tom said, with more certainty.

“But try not to be seen at all. Can you repeat all that back?”

“Yes. Come back when the moon is full. Not the halfmoon, not the fingernail moon. Walk at night, sleep in the day. Don’t let anybody see me. If one person sees me, kill him. If more than one person sees me, run away. But try not to let anyone see me.”

“That’s very good. I want you to wake up in a few seconds. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“When I ask about the elephant, you’ll wake up, okay?”

“Okay.”

Stu sat back with a long, shuddery sigh. “Thank God that’s over.”

Nick agreed with his eyes.

“Did you know that might happen, Nick?”

Nick shook his head.

“How could he know those things?” Stu muttered.

Nick was motioning for his pad. Stu gave it to him, glad to be rid of it. His fingers had sweated the page with Nick’s script written on it almost to transparency. Nick wrote and handed it to Ralph. Ralph read it, lips moving slowly, and then handed it to Stu.

“Some people through history have considered the insane and the retarded to be close to divine. I don’t think he told us anything that can be of practical use to us, but I know he scared the hell out of me. Magic, he said. How do you fight magic?”

“It’s over my head, that’s all,” Ralph muttered. “Those things he said about Mother Abagail, I don’t even want to think about them. Wake him up, Stu, and let’s get out of here as quick as we can.” Ralph was close to tears.

Stu leaned forward again. “Tom?”