"Better turn off your pumps, Hap"

http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/80261/King_-_The_Stand.html


Stephen King

The Stand - The Complete & Uncut Edition


“This scares me, Starkey. It scares me because nobody but a very smart doctor with all the facts is going to be able to diagnose anything but a common cold in the people who are out there carrying this. Christ, nobody goes to the doctor anymore unless they’ve got pneumonia or a suspicious lump on the tit or a bad case of the dancing hives. Too hard to get one to look at you. So they’re going to stay home, drink fluids and get plenty of bedrest, and then they’re going to die. Before they do, they’re going to infect everyone who comes into the same room with them. All of us are still expecting the Prince—I think I used his real name here someplace, but at this juncture I don’t really give a fuck—to come down with it tonight or tomorrow or the day after, at the latest. And so far, no one who’s come down with it has gotten better. Those sonsofbitches out in California did this job a little too well for my taste.

“Deitz, Atlanta PB facility 2, this report ends.”

He turned off the recorder and stared at it for a long time. Then he lit another cigarette.

Chapter 15

It was two minutes to midnight.

Patty Greer, the nurse who had been trying to take Stu’s blood pressure when he went on strike was leafing through the current issue of McCall’s at the nurses’ station and waiting to go in and check Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Hapscomb. Hap would still be awake watching Johnny Carson and would be no problem. He liked to josh her about how hard it would be to pinch her bottom through her white all-over suit. Mr. Hapscomb was scared, but he was being cooperative, not like that dreadful Stuart Redman, who only looked at you and wouldn’t say boo to a goose.










http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/80261/King_-_The_Stand.html


Stephen King

The Stand - The Complete & Uncut Edition


Chapter 4


Starkey pushed a button under the middle screen and the picture flashed on with the unnerving suddenness of solid state components. It showed the western California desert, looking east. It was desolate, and the desolation was rendered eerie by the reddish-purple tinge of infrared photography.

It’s out there, straight ahead, Starkey thought. Project Blue.

The fright tried to wash over him again. He reached into his pocket and brought out a blue pill. What his daughter would call a “downer.” Names didn’t matter; results did. He dry-swallowed it, his hard, unseamed face wrinkling for a moment as it went down.

Project Blue.










http://www.e-reading.org.ua/bookreader.php/80261/King_-_The_Stand.html


Stephen King

The Stand - The Complete & Uncut Edition


Chapter 13


“What did you people do?” he shouted. “What did you do? What in Christ’s name did you do?”

“Mr. Redman—”

“Huh? What the fuck did you people do?”

The door hissed open. Three large men in olive-drab uniforms stepped in. They were all wearing nose-filters.

Deitz looked over at them and snapped, “Get the hell out of here!”

The three men looked uncertain.

“Our orders—”

“Get out of here and that’s an order!”

They retreated. Deitz sat calmly on the bed. His lapels were rumpled and his hair had tumbled over his forehead. That was all. He was looking at Stu calmly, even compassionately. For a wild moment Stu considered ripping his nose-filter out, and then he remembered Geraldo, what a stupid name for a guinea pig. Dull despair struck him like cold water.



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 10:19 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Sunday 12 October 2014