The Stand

After escaping the plague facility, Stu is hiking down a New Hampshire road when he encounters an Irish Setter named Kojak and the dog’s owner, Glen Batemen. Glen is a retired academic, and he invites Stu to join him for lunch. The professor is talkative and posits a theory that plagues and other natural disasters are the way that the universe purges humankind to prepare it for a new century. The professor then speculates about the ecological changes that will occur because some species, like deer and cats, are immune to the plague while others are not. Some babies in utero might also receive immunity.

Glen also theorizes about social change for communities that have some technological experts left alive and those that don’t, and the wars that will ensue between the two. The professor brings Stu home that night and tells his visitor about a recurring dream that troubles him. “I can never see his face, but I can see his eyes. He has red eyes. And I have a feeling that he’s looking for me—and that sooner or later he will find me or I will be forced to go to him … and that will be the death of me” (409). Later that night, Stu has his own nightmare of the same dark man.  

A second wave of the flu epidemic strikes after the initial outbreak and lasts two weeks. It takes out 16% of the super flu survivors. All around the country, individuals who escaped both waves of the flu are going about their daily lives and die of a variety of natural causes: a steep fall, a backfiring gun, an infected wound, a heart attack, a heroin overdose, getting locked in a freezer, and accidental electrocution. The narrator concludes, “No great loss” (422).

Eight days after his last meal in the Phoenix jail, Lloyd remains imprisoned. He’s so hungry that he begins cannibalizing the body of a fellow inmate lying in the next cell. Lloyd thinks he’s delirious when he hears a man approaching down the corridor. Randall Flagg appears, and Lloyd instinctively recoils, believing the man to be a devil. Flagg offers him a deal. He will release Lloyd from prison if the latter will agree to be his right-hand man.

“Lloyd felt terror, but something else as well: a kind of religious ecstasy. A pleasure. The pleasure of being chosen. The feeling that he had somehow won through … to something” (433). Flagg ignites a desire for revenge in Lloyd against all the people who have mistreated or looked down on him. When Flagg makes Lloyd promise to serve the dark man in exchange for his freedom, Lloyd readily agrees and becomes the first convert to Flagg’s cause. He also receives a pendant from Flagg. 

Nick is still living in Sheriff Baker’s office in Arkansas while recovering from his injuries. Because of his damaged eye, he can only see grey shapes, and the bullet that grazed his leg has caused an infection. He goes to the doctor’s office, hoping the penicillin he finds there will quell the disease. As he tries to sleep at night, recurring nightmares in which the dark man offers him healing and worldly wealth if he follows him torture Nick. Nick always says no. One of Nick’s nightmares finds him in a cornfield in Nebraska, where he sees an old woman playing religious hymns on a guitar:

Sitting on the porch is the oldest woman in America, a black woman with fluffy white thin hair—she is thin herself, wearing a housedress and specs. She looks thin enough for the high afternoon wind to just blow her away, tumble her into the high blue sky (441).

She tells Nick that her name is Mother Abagail and that he should come and see her anytime. When Nick awakens, he realizes the swelling in his leg is going down. He immediately leaves to gather supplies and a bicycle. He will search out Mother Abagail in Nebraska.  

Larry and Rita have traveled all the way from New York to the outskirts of Bennington, Vermont. After camping for the night, Larry awakens to realize it’s the Fourth of July. He emerges from the tent and sings a patriotic song to commemorate the day. When he returns to wake Rita, he realizes that she’s killed herself by overdosing on drugs. Larry feels horrified but also relieved.

He can’t bring himself to bury her, so he goes into town to get some supplies and new clothes that don’t smell of death. After that, he continues on his journey, nearly colliding with an overturned horse trailer. For the first time, Larry understands that his immunity from the plague doesn’t make him immortal. Shaken, he spends the night in Brattleboro and comprehends how alone he truly is.

Stu has left Glen’s house in New Hampshire and is sitting by the side of the road to contemplate his next move when he sees two motorcycles approaching. Harold and Frannie stop when they see him, suspicious that he might be up to no good. After Stu alleviates their concerns, the three talk about where their destinations. “A group of three dots which, when connected, would form a triangle whose exact shape could not yet be foreseen” (460).

Stu discourages the plan to go to the plague center and relates his experiences after his hometown got infected. He proposes that the three travel together, but Harold is hostile to the notion. He fears that Stu will crowd him out in Frannie’s affections. After Stu reassures Harold that he has no such designs, Harold backs down. Then, the trio heads back to Glen’s house to spend the night, hoping he might join their little band.

Once Nick reaches Oklahoma on his bicycle, he encounters a good-natured, disabled man named Tom Cullen. Tom can’t read, and Nick can’t speak, so communication is problematic between them.

Tom Cullen was not severely retarded, and he was capable of making simple connections. Every now and then—during his blankouts—he would be capable of making a more sophisticated inductive or deductive connection (473).

As Nick prepares to leave town after restocking his supplies, he thinks about Tom’s plight and decides to bring Tom along with him. Nick finds a bicycle that Tom can ride, and the two set out on their journey, crossing from Oklahoma to Kansas.

When rain begins to fall and the sky grows dark, Nick doesn’t realize that a tornado is approaching until Tom drags him to shelter in the cellar of a nearby barn. From the vantage of the barn doorway, Nick understands the danger and dazedly realizes that Tom has just saved his life.

I am looking at whatever it is in my worst dreams, Nick thought, and it is not a man at all […] What it really is is a tornado. One almighty big black twister ripping out of the west, sucking up anything and everything unlucky enough to be in its path (484).

They continue their journey, stopping at a town drugstore so that Nick can find some Pepto-Bismol to settle Tom’s stomach after too many green apples. While in the store, Nick encounters an attractive teenage girl named Julie Lawry. At first, he’s drawn to her but finds her cruel and self-absorbed behavior grating. Julie says something hurtful to Tom, who then runs away.

Nick tells Julie that she can’t come along with them and chases after Tom. When the two men return, Julie has slashed their bike tires and tries to shoot them with Nick’s stolen gun. Tom and Nick flee on foot, replenishing their supplies and getting new bikes in the next town. They journey on for a few more days, when they notice a pickup pulling up beside them. The driver’s name is Ralph Brentner. Glad to find other humans, Ralph offers to give them a lift.