The Stand

jerked. The engine coughed into life, spluttered, missed, stalled. Stu groaned, as much with frustration as with the bolt of pain that shot up his shattered leg.

“Shit-fire!” he cried, and depressed the clutch again. “Pump that gas pedal, Tom! Use your hand!”

“Which one is it?” Tom cried anxiously.

“It’s the long one!”

Tom got down on the floor and pumped the gas pedal twice. The car was picking up speed again, and Stu had to force himself to wait. They were better than halfway down the slope.

“Now! ” he shouted, and popped the clutch again.

The Plymouth roared into life. Kojak barked. Black smoke boiled out of the rusty exhaust pipe and turned blue. Then the car was running, choppily, missing on two cylinders, but really running. Stu snap-shifted to third and popped the clutch again, running all the pedals with his left foot.

“We’re going, Tom,” he bellowed. “We got us some wheels now!”

Tom shouted with pleasure. Kojak barked and wagged his tail. In his previous life, the life before Captain Trips when he had been Big Steve, he had ridden often in his master’s car. It was nice to be riding again, with his new masters.

They came to a U-turn road between the westbound and eastbound lanes about four miles down the road. OFFICIAL VEHICLES ONLY, a stern sign warned. Stu managed to manipulate the clutch well enough to get them around and into the eastbound lanes, having only one bad moment when the old car hitched and bucked and threatened to stall. But the engine was warm now, and he eased them through. He got back up to third gear and then relaxed a little, breathing hard, trying to catch up with his heartbeat, which was fast and thready. The grayness wanted to come back in and swamp him, but he wouldn’t let it. A few minutes later, Tom spotted the bright orange sleeping bag that had been Stu’s makeshift travois.

“Bye-bye!” Tom called in high good humor. “Bye-bye, we’re going to Boulder, laws, yes!”

I’ll be content with Green River tonight, Stu thought.

They got there just after dark, Stu moving the Plymouth carefully in low gear through the dark streets, which were dotted with abandoned cars. He parked on the main drag, in front of a building that announced itself as the Utah Hotel. It was a dismal frame building three stories high, and Stu didn’t think the Waldorf-Astoria had anything to worry about in the way of competition just yet. His head was jangling again, and he was flickering in and out of reality. The car had seemed stuffed with people at times during the last twenty miles. Fran. Nick Andros. Norm Bruett. He had looked over once and it had seemed that Chris Ortega, the bartender at the Indian Head, was riding shotgun.

Tired. Had he ever been so tired?

“In there,” he muttered. “We gotta stay the night, Nicky. I’m done up.”

“It’s Tom, Stu. Tom Cullen. Laws, yes.”

“Tom, yeah. We got to stop. Can you help me in?”

“Sure. Getting this old car to run, that was great.”

“I’ll have another beer,” Stu told him. “And ain’t you got a cigarette? I’m dying for a smoke.” He fell forward over the wheel.

Tom got out and carried him into the hotel. The lobby was damp and dark, but there was a fireplace and a half-filled woodbox beside it. Tom set Stu down on a threadbare sofa below a great stuffed moosehead and then set about building a fire while Kojak padded around, sniffing at things. Stu’s breath came slow and raspy. He muttered occasionally, and every now and then he would scream something unintelligible, freezing Tom’s blood.

He kindled a monster blaze, and then went looking around. He found pillows and blankets for himself and Stu. He pushed the sofa Stu was on a little closer to the fire and then Tom bedded down next to him. Kojak lay on the other side, so that they bracketed the sick man with their heat.

Tom lay looking at the ceiling, which was scrolled tin and laced with cobwebs at the corners. Stu was very sick. It was a worrisome thing. If he woke up again, Tom would ask him what to do about the sickness.

But suppose… suppose he didn’t wake up?

Outside the wind had picked up and went howling past the hotel. Rain lashed at the windows. By midnight, after Tom had gone to sleep, the temperature had dropped another four degrees, and the sound turned to the gritty slap of sleet. Far away to the west, the storm’s outer edges were urging a vast cloud of radioactive pollution toward California, where more would die.

At some time after two in the morning, Kojak raised his head and whined uneasily. Tom Cullen was getting up. His eyes were wide and blank. Kojak whined again, but Tom took no notice of him. He went to the door and let himself out into the screaming night. Kojak went to the hotel lobby window and put his paws up, looking out. He looked for some time, making low and unhappy sounds in his throat. Then he went back and laid down next to Stu again.

Outside, the wind howled and screeched.

Chapter 75

“I almost died, you know,” Nick said. He and Tom were walking up the empty sidewalk together. The wind howled steadily, an endless ghost-train highballing through the black sky. It made odd low hooting noises in the alleyways. Ha’ants, Tom would have said awake, and run away. But he wasn’t awake—not exactly—and Nick was with him. Sleet smacked coldly against his cheeks.

“You did?” Tom asked. “My laws!”

Nick laughed. His voice was low and musical, a good voice. Tom loved to listen to him talk.

“I sure did. That’s a big laws yes. The flu didn’t get me, but a little scratch along the leg almost did. Here, look at this.”

Seemingly oblivious of the cold, Nick unbuckled his jeans and pushed them down. Tom bent forward curiously, no different from any small boy who has been offered a glimpse of a wart with hair growing out of it or an interesting wound or puncture. Running down Nick’s leg was an ugly scar, barely healed. It started just below the groin, in the slab part of the thigh, and corkscrewed past the knee to mid-shin, where it finally petered out.

“And that almost killed you?”

Nick pulled up his jeans and belted them. “It wasn’t deep, but it got infected. Infection means that the bad germs got into it. Infection’s the most dangerous thing there is, Tom. Infection was what made the superflu germ kill all the people. And infection is what made people want to make the germ in the first place. An infection of the mind.”

“Infection,” Tom whispered, fascinated. They were walking again, almost floating along the sidewalk.

“Tom, Stu’s got an infection now.”

“No… no, don’t say that, Nick… you’re scaring Tom Cullen, laws, yes, you are!”

“I know I am, Tom, and I’m sorry. But you have to know. He has pneumonia in both lungs. He’s been sleeping outside for nearly two weeks. There are things you have to do for him. And still, he’ll almost certainly die. You have to be prepared for that.”

“No, don’t—”

“Tom.” Nick put his hand on Tom’s shoulder, but Tom felt nothing… it was as if Nick’s hand was nothing but smoke. “If he dies, you and Kojak have to go on. You have to get back to Boulder and tell them that you saw the hand of God in the desert. If it’s God’s will, Stu will go with you… in time. If it’s God’s will that Stu should die, then he will. Like me.”

“Nick,” Tom begged. “Please—”

“I showed you my leg for a reason. There are pills for infections. In places like this.”

Tom looked around and was surprised to see that they were no longer on the street. They were in a dark store. A drugstore. A wheelchair was suspended on piano wire from the ceiling like a ghostly mechanical corpse. A sign on Tom’s right advertised: CONTINENCE SUPPLIES.

“Yes, sir? May I help you?”

Tom whirled around. Nick was behind the counter, in a white coat.

“Nick?”

“Yes, sir.” Nick began to put small bottles of pills in front of Tom. “This is penicillin. Very good for pneumonia. This is ampicillin, and this one’s amoxicillin. Also good stuff. And this is V-cillin, most commonly given to children,