The Stand (Original Edition) (99 page)

Late that afternoon, Dayna was up in the cherry-picker, removing the Plexiglas hood from one of the streetlamps and musing on how much she liked the people she was working with, particularly Jenny Engstrom, a tough and beautiful ex-nightclub dancer who was now running the cherry-picker’s controls. She was the type of girl Dayna would have wanted for her best friend, and it confused her that Jenny was over here, on the dark man’s side. It confused her so much that she didn’t dare ask Jenny for an explanation.

The others were also okay. She thought that Vegas had a rather larger proportion of stupids than the Zone, but none of them wore fangs, and they didn’t turn into bats at moonrise. They were also people who worked much harder than she remembered the people in the Zone working. In the Free Zone you saw people idling in the parks at all hours of the day, and there were people who decided to break for lunch from noon until two. That sort of thing didn’t happen over here. From 8
a.m.
to 5
p.m.,
everybody
was working, either at Indian Springs or on maintenance crews here in town. And school had started again. There were about twenty kids in Vegas, ages ranging from four (that was Daniel McCarthy, the pet of everyone in town, known as Dinny), up to fifteen. They had found two people with teaching certificates, and classes went on five days a week. Lloyd, who had quit school after repeating his junior year for the third time, was very proud of the educational opportunities that were being provided. The pharmacies were open and unguarded. People came and went all the time ... but with nothing heavier than a bottle of aspirin or Gelusil. There was no drug problem in the west. The penalty for a habit was crucifixion. There were no Rich Moffats, either. Everyone was friendly and straight. And it was wise to drink nothing stronger than bottled beer.

Germany in 1938,
she thought.
The Nazis? Oh, they're charming people. Very athletic. They don’t go to the nightclubs, the nightclubs are for the tourists. What do they do? They make clocks.

She tested the bulb in the hood of the fight standard. It was bad. She removed it, set it carefully between her feet, and got the last fresh one. Good, it was near the end of the day. It was—

She glanced down and froze.

People were coming back from the bus stop, headed home from Indian Springs. All of them were glancing up casually, the way a group of people always glance up at someone high in the air. The circus-for-free syndrome.

That face, looking up at her.

That wide, smiling, wondering face.

Dear sweet Jesus in heaven, is that Tom Cullen?

A dribble of salt-stinging sweat ran into her eye, doubling her vision. When she wiped it away, the face was gone. The people from the bus stop were halfway down the street, swinging their lunch buckets, talking and joking. Dayna gazed at the one she thought it was, but from the rear it was so hard to tell—

Tom? Would they send Tom?

Surely not. That was so crazy it was almost—

Almost sane.

But she just couldn’t believe it.

“Hey Jurgens!” Jenny called up brassily. “Did you fall asleep up there, or are you just playing with yourself?”

Dayna leaned over the cherry-picker’s low railing and looked down at Jenny’s upturned face. Gave her the finger. Jenny laughed. Dayna went back to her streetlamp bulb, struggling to snap it in, and by the time she had it right, it was time to knock off for the day. On the ride back to the garage, she was quiet and preoccupied.

It couldn’t have been Tom.

Could it?

“Wake up! Wake up! Goddammit, wake up, you bitch!”

She was coming out of murky sleep when a foot caught her in the small of the back, knocking her out of the big round bed and onto the floor. She came awake at once, blinking and confused.

Lloyd was there, looking down at her with cold anger. Whitney Horgan. Ken DeMott. Ace High. Jenny. Only Jenny’s usually open face was also blank and cold.

“Jen—?”

No answer. Dayna got up on her knees, dimly aware of her nakedness, more aware of the cold circle of faces looking down at her. The expression on Lloyd’s face was that of a man who has been betrayed and has discovered the betrayal.

“Get the fuck dressed, you lying, spying
bitch!”

She felt a sinking terror in her stomach that seemed almost preordained. They had known about the Judge, and now they knew about her.
He
had told them. She glanced at the clock on the night table. It was quarter of four in the morning.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“Around,” Lloyd said grimly. His face was pale and shiny. His amulet lay in the open V of his shirt. “You’ll wish he wasn’t before long.”

“Lloyd?”

“What.”

“I gave you VD, Lloyd. The bad kind. I hope it rots off.”

He kicked her just below the breastbone, knocking her on her back.

“I hope it rots off, Lloyd.”

“Shut up and get dressed.”

“Get out of here. I don’t dress in front of any man.”

Lloyd kicked her again, this time in the bicep of her right arm. The pain was tremendous and her mouth drew down in a quivering bow but she didn’t cry out.

“You in a little hot water, Lloyd? Sleeping with Mata Hari?” “Come on, Lloyd,” Whitney Horgan said. He saw murder in Lloyd’s eyes and now stepped forward quickly and put a hand on Lloyd’s arm. “We’ll go in the living room. Jenny can watch her get dressed.”

“And what if she decides to jump out the window?’*

“She won’t get the chance,” Jenny said. Her broad face was dead blank.

“She can’t anyway,” Ace High said. “The windows up here are just for show, didn’t you know that? Sometimes big losers at the tables get wanting to take a high dive, and that would be bad publicity for the hotel. So they don’t open.” His eyes fell on Dayna, and they held a touch of compassion. “Now you, babe, you’re a real big loser.”

“Come on, Lloyd,” Whitney said again. “You’re going to do something you’ll be sorry for later if you don’t get out of here.”

“Okay.” They went to the door together, and Lloyd looked back over his shoulder. “He’s going to make it bad for you, you bitch.” “You were the crappiest lover I ever had, Lloyd,” she said sweetly. He tried to lunge at her, but Whitney and Ken DeMott held him back and drew him through the doorway. The double doors closed with a low snicking sound.

“Get dressed, Dayna,” Jenny said.

Dayna stood up, still rubbing the purpling bruise on her arm. “You like people like that?” she asked. “Is that where you’re at?” “You were the one sleeping with Lloyd, not me.” Her face showed an emotion for the first time: angry reproach. “You think it’s nice to come over here and spy on folks? You deserve everything you’re going to get. And sister, you’re going to get a lot.”

“I was sleeping with him for a reason.” She drew on her panties. “And I was spying for a reason.”

“Why don’t you just shut up?”

Dayna turned and looked at Jenny. “What do you think they’re doing here, girl? Why do you think they’re learning to fly those jets out at Indian Springs? Those Shrike missiles, do you think they’re so Flagg can win his girl a Kewpie doll at the county fair?”

Jenny pressed her lips tightly together. “That’s none of my business.”

“Is it none of your business if they use the jets to fly over the Rockies and the missiles to wipe out another community?”

“I hope they do. It’s us or you people, that’s what
he
says. And I believe him.”

“You don’t believe him. You’re just scared gutless of him.”

“Get dressed, Dayna.”

Dayna pulled on her slacks, buttoned them, zipped them. Then she put her hand to her mouth. “I ... I think I’m going to throw up

. . . God! . . Clutching her long-sleeved blouse in her hand, she turned and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. She made loud retching noises.

“Open the door, Dayna! Open it or I’ll shoot the lock out of it!” “Sick—” She made another loud retching noise. Standing on tiptoe, she felt along the top of the medicine cabinet, thanking God she had left the knife and its spring clip up here, praying for another twenty seconds—

She had the clip. She strapped it on. Now there were other voices in the bedroom.

With her left hand she turned on the water in the basin. “Just a minute, I’m sick, dammit!”

But they weren’t going to give her a minute. Someone dealt the bathroom door a kick and it shuddered in its frame. Dayna clicked the knife home. It lay along her forearm like a deadly arrow. Moving with desperate speed, she yanked the blouse on and buttoned the sleeves. Splashed water on her mouth. Flushed the toilet.

Another kick dealt to the door. Dayna twisted the knob and they burst in, Lloyd looking wild-eyed, Jenny standing behind Ken DeMott and Ace High, her pistol drawn.

“I puked,” Dayna said coldly. “Too bad you couldn’t watch it, huh?”

Lloyd grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her out into the bedroom. “I ought to break your neck, you cunt.”

“Remember your master’s voice,” she said. “All of you, remember your master’s voice.” She buttoned the front of her blouse, sweeping them with her flashing eyes. “He’s your dog-god, isn’t that right? Kiss his ass and you belong to him.”

“You better just shut up,” Whitney said gruffly. “You’re only making it worse for yourself.”

She looked at Jenny, unable to understand how the openly smiling, bawdy day-girl could have changed into this blank-faced night-thing. “Don’t you see that he’s getting ready to start it all over again?” She asked them desperately. “The killing, the shooting
... the plague?”
“He’s the biggest and the strongest,” Whitney said with curious gentleness. “He’s going to wipe you people off the face of the earth.” “No more talk,” Lloyd said. “Let’s go.”

They moved to take her arms, but she shook her head. “I’ll walk.”

The casino was deserted except for a number of men with rifles, sitting or standing by the doors. They seemed to find interesting things to look at on the walls, the ceilings, the bare gaming tables, as the elevator doors opened and Lloyd’s party stepped out, herding Dayna along.

She was taken to the gate at the end of the rank of cashiers’ windows. Lloyd opened it with a small key and they stepped through. She was herded quickly through an area that looked like a bank: There were adding machines, wastebaskets full of tapes, jars of rubber bands and paper clips. Computer screens, now gray and blank. Cash drawers ajar. Money had spilled out of some of them and lay on the tile floors.

At the rear of the cashiers’ area, Whitney opened another door and she was led down a carpeted hallway to an empty receptionist’s office. Tastefully decorated. Free-form white desk for a tasteful secretary who had died some months ago. A picture on the wall that looked like a Klee print. A mellow light brown shag rug. The antechamber to the seat of power.

Fear trickled into the hollows of her body like cold water, stiffening her up, making her feel awkward. Lloyd leaned over the desk and flicked the toggle switch there. Dayna saw that he was sweating lightly.

“We have her, R.F.”

She felt hysterical laughter bubbling up inside her and was helpless to stop it—not that she cared. “R.F.!
R.F.!
Oh, that’s
good!
Ready when you are, C.B.!” She went off into a gale of giggles, and suddenly Jenny slapped her.

“Shut up!” she hissed. “You don’t know what you’re in for.”

“I know,” Dayna said, looking at her. “You and the rest, you’re the ones who don’t know.”

A voice came out of the intercom, warm and pleased and cheerful. “Very good, Lloyd, thanks. Send her in, please.”

“Alone?”

“Yes indeed.” There was an indulgent chuckle as the intercom cut off. Dayna felt her mouth dry up at the sound of it.

Lloyd turned around. A lot of sweat now, standing out on his forehead in large drops and running down his thin cheeks like tears. “You heard him. Go on.”

She folded her arms below her breasts, keeping the knife turned inward. “Suppose I decline?”

“I’ll drag you in.”

“Look at you, Lloyd. You’re so scared you couldn’t drag a mongrel puppy in there.” She looked at the others. “You’re all scared.

Jenny, you’re practically making in your pants. Not good for your complexion, dear.
Or
your pants.”

“Stop it, you filthy sneak,” Jenny whispered.

“I was never scared like that in the Free Zone. I felt good over there. I came over here because I wanted that good feeling to stay on. It was nothing any more political than that. You ought to think it over. Maybe he sells fear because he’s got nothing else to sell.”

“Ma’am,” Whitney said apologetically, “I’d sure like to listen to the rest of your sermon, but the man is waiting. I’m sorry, but you either go through that door on your own or I’ll drag you.”

“You won’t have to do that.”

She forced her feet to get started, and then it was a little easier. She was going to her death; she was quite sure of that. If so, let it be so. She had the knife. For him first, if she could, and then for herself. She turned the knob and stepped through into Flagg’s presence.

The office was large and mostly bare. The desk had been shoved up against the far wall, the executive swivel chair pinned behind it. The pictures were covered with dropcloths. The lights were off.

Across the room, a drape had been pulled back to uncover a window-wall of glass that looked out on the desert. Dayna thought she had never seen such a sterile and uninviting vista in her life. Overhead was a moon like a small, highly polished silver coin. It was nearly full.

Standing there, looking out, was the shape of a man. He continued to look out long after she had entered, indifferently presenting her his back, before he turned. How long does it take a man to turn around? Two, maybe three seconds at the most. But to Dayna it seemed that the dark man went on turning forever, showing more and more of himself, like the very moon he had been watching. She became a child again, struck dumb by the dreadful curiosity of great fear. For a moment she was caught entirely in the web of his attraction, his
glamour,
and she was sure that when the turn was completed, unknown eons from now, she would be staring into the face of her dreams: a Gothic cowled monk, his hood shaped around total darkness. A negative man with no face. She would see and then go mad.