King, Stephen - The Stand: Complete and Uncut by King Stephen

Author:King, Stephen [King, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781439557877
Published: 2008-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

As he trained its beam on the front cover of the Spiral, there was a moment of sanity. For just a moment part of his mind cried out Harold! Stop! so strongly that he was shaken to his heels. And stop he almost did. For just a moment it seemed possible to stop, to put the diary back where he had found it, to give her up, to let them go their own way before something terrible and irrevocable happened. For that moment it seemed he could put the bitter drink away, pour it out of the cup, and refil it with whatever there was for him in this world. Give it over, Harold, this sane voice begged, but maybe it was already too late.

At age sixteen he had given up Burroughs and Stevenson and Robert Howard in favor of other fantasies, fantasies that were both wel loved and much hated—not of rockets or pirates but of girls in silk see-through pajamas kneeling before him on satin pil ows while Harold the Great lol ed naked on his throne, ready to chastise them with smal leather whips, with silver-headed canes. They were bitter fantasies through which every pretty girl at Ogunquit High School had strol ed at one time or another. These daydreams always ended with a gathering expletive in his loins, an explosion of seminal fluid that was more curse than pleasure. And then he would sleep, the sperm drying to a scale on his bel y. Every doggy has his day.

And now it was those bitter fantasies, the old hurts, that he gathered around him like yel owed sheets, the old friends who never died, whose teeth never dul ed, whose deadly affection never wavered.

He turned to that first page, trained his flashlight on the words, and began to read.

In the hour before dawn, he replaced the diary in Fran’s pack and secured the buckles. He took no special precautions. If she woke, he thought coldly, he would kil her and then run. Run where? West. But he would not stop in Nebraska or even in Colorado, oh no.

She didn’t wake.

He went back to his sleeping bag. He masturbated bitterly. When sleep came, it was thin. He dreamed he was dying halfway down a steep grade of tumbled rocks and moonscape boulders. High above, riding the night thermals, were cruising buzzards, waiting for him to make them a meal. There was no moon, no stars—

And then a frightful red Eye opened in the dark: vulpine, eldritch. The Eye terrified him yet held him.

The Eye beckoned him.

To the west, where the shadows were even now gathering, in their twilight dance of death.

When they made camp at sundown that evening, they were west of Joliet, Il inois. There was a case of beer, good talk, laughter. They felt they had put the rain behind them with Indiana. Everyone remarked special y on Harold, who had never been so cheerful.

“You know, Harold,” Frannie said later that evening, as the party began to break up, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you feeling so good.

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