Stephen King - The Stand

Larry ran his eyes over them, and every eye he met turned away. Every face seemed pallid, distant, marked for death and seeming to know it. Yet they were here.

He and Ralph were nudged toward the cages, and as they went, Larry noticed the cars with their chains and trailer hitches. But it was Ralph who understood the implication. He had, after all, spent most of his life working with and around machinery.

“Larry,” he said in a dry voice. “They’re going to pull us to pieces!”

“Go on, get in,” Rat-Man said, breathing a stale odor of garlic into his face. “Get on up there, Wonder Bread. You and your friend goan ride the tiger.”

Larry climbed onto the flatbed.

“Gimme your shirt, Wonder Bread.”

Larry took off his shirt and stood barechested, the morning air cool and kind on his skin. Ralph had already taken off his. A ripple of conversation went through the crowd and died. They were both terribly thin from their walk; each rib was clearly visible.

“Get in that cage, graymeat.”

Larry backed into the cage.

Now it was Barry Dorgan giving the orders. He went from place to place, checking arrangements, a set expression of disgust on his face.

The four drivers got into the cars and started them up. Ralph stood blankly for a moment, then seized one of the welded handcuffs that dangled into his cage and threw it out through the small hole. It hit Paul Burlson on the head, and a nervous titter ran through the crowd.

Dorgan said, “You don’t want to do that, fella. I’ll just have to send some guys to hold you.”

“Let them do their thing,” Larry said to Ralph. He looked down at Dorgan. “Hey, Barry. Did they teach you this one in the Santa Monica P.D.?”

Another laugh rippled through the crowd. “Police brutality!” some daring soul cried. Dorgan flushed but said nothing. He fed the chains farther into Larry’s cell and Larry spit on them, a little surprised that he had enough saliva to do it. A small cheer went up from the back of the crowd and Larry thought, Maybe this is it, maybe they’re going to rise up —

But his heart didn’t believe it. Their faces were too pale, too secretive. The defiance from the back was meaningless. It was the sound of kids cutting up in a studyhall, no more than that. There was doubt here—he could feel it—and disaffection. But Flagg colored even that. These people would steal away in the dead of night for some of the great empty space that the world had become. And the Walkin Dude would let them go, knowing he only had to keep a hard core, people like Dorgan and Burlson. The runners and midnight creepers could be gathered up later, perchance to pay the price of their imperfect faith. There would be no open rebellion here.

Dorgan, Rat-Man, and a third man crowded their way into the cage with him. Rat-Man was holding the cuffs welded to the chains open for Larry’s wrists.

“Put out your arms,” Dorgan said.

“Isn’t law and order a wonderful thing, Barry?”

“Put them out, goddammit!”

“You don’t look well, Dorgan—how’s your heart these days?”

“I’m telling you for the last time, my friend. Put your arms out through those holes!”

Larry did it. The cuffs were slipped on and locked. Dorgan and the others backed out and the door was shut. Larry looked right and saw Ralph standing in his cage, head down, arms at his sides. His wrists had also been cuffed.

“You people know this is wrong!” Larry cried, and his voice, trained by years of singing, rolled out of his chest with surprising strength. “I don’t expect you to stop it, but I do expect you to remember it! We’re being put to death because Randall Flagg is afraid of us! He’s afraid of us and the people we came from!” A rising murmur ran through the crowd. “Remember the way we die! And remember that next time it may be your turn to die this way, with no dignity, just an animal in a cage!”

That low murmur again, rising and angry… and the silence.

“Larry!” Ralph called out.

Flagg was coming down the steps of the Grand, Lloyd Henreid beside him. Flagg was wearing jeans, a checked shirt, his jeans jacket with the two buttons on the breast pockets, and his rundown cowboy boots. In the sudden hush the sound of those bootheels clocking their way down the cement path was the only sound… a sound out of time.

The dark man was grinning.

Larry stared down at him. Flagg came to a halt between the two cages and stood looking up. His grin was darkly charming. He was a man completely in control, and Larry suddenly knew this was his watershed moment, the apotheosis of his life.

Flagg turned away from them and faced his people. He passed his eyes over them, and no eye would meet his. “Lloyd,” he said quietly, and Lloyd, who looked pale, haunted, and sickly, handed Flagg a paper that had been rolled up like a scroll.

The dark man unrolled it, held it up, and began to speak. His voice was deep, sonorous, and pleasing, spreading in the stillness like a single silver ripple on a black pond. “Know you that this is a true bill to which I, Randall Flagg, have put my name on this thirtieth day of September, the year nineteen hundred and ninety, now known as The Year One, year of the plague.”

“Flagg’s not your name!” Ralph roared. There was a shocked murmur from the crowd. “Why don’t you tell em your real name?”

Flagg took no notice.

“Know you that these men, Lawson Underwood and Ralph Brentner, are spies, here in Las Vegas with no good intent but rather with seditious motives, who have entered this state with stealth, and under cover of darkness—”

“That’s pretty good,” Larry said, “since we were coming down Route 70 in broad daylight.” He raised his voice to a shout. “ They took us at noon on the Interstate, how’s that for stealth and under cover of darkness? ”

Flagg bore through this patiently, as if he felt that Larry and Ralph had every right to answer the charges… not that it was going to make any ultimate difference.

Now he continued: “Know you that the cohorts of these men were responsible for the sabotage bombing of the helicopters at Indian Springs, and therefore responsible for the deaths of Carl Hough, Bill Jamieson, and Cliff Benson. They are guilty of murder.”

Larry’s eyes touched those of a man standing on the front rim of the crowd. Although Larry did not know it, this was Stan Bailey, Operations Chief at Indian Springs. He saw a haze of bewilderment and surprise cover the man’s face, and saw him mouthing something ridiculous that looked like Can Man .

“Know you that the cohorts of these men have sent other spies among us and they have been killed. It is the sentence then that these men shall be put to death in an appropriate manner, to wit, that they shall be pulled apart. It is the duty and the responsibility of each of you to witness this punishment, so you may remember it and tell others what you have seen here today.”

Flagg’s grin flashed out, meant to be solicitous in this instance, but still no more warm and human than a shark’s grin.

“Those of you with children are excused.”

He turned toward the cars, which were now idling, sending out small puffs of exhaust into the morning. As he did so, there was a commotion near the front of the crowd. Suddenly a man pushed through into the clearing. He was a big man, his face nearly as pallid as his cook’s whites. The dark man had handed the scroll back to Lloyd, and Lloyd’s hands jerked convulsively when Whitney Horgan pushed into the clear. There was a clear ripping sound as the scroll tore in half.

“ Hey, you people! ” Whitney cried.

A confused murmur ran through the crowd. Whitney was shaking all over, as if with a palsy. His head kept jerking toward the dark man and then away again. Flagg regarded Whitney with a ferocious smile. Dorgan started toward the cook, and Flagg motioned him back.