"People I see, weary of me"

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


Stephen King

The Stand - The Complete & Uncut Edition


Chapter 50


Glen grinned. “There are no tea leaves in the bottom of a wine bottle.”

“No, but she explained to me just what it is you used to be. Sociology. The study of group interaction. So make some educated guesses.”

“Cross my palm with silver, O aspirant to knowledge.”

“Never mind the silver, baldy. I’ll take you down to the First National Bank of Boulder tomorrow and give you a million dollars. How’s that?”

“Seriously, Stu—what do you want to know?”

“Same things that mute guy Andros wants to know, I guess. What’s going to happen next. I don’t know how to put it any better than that.”

“There’s going to be a society,” Glen said slowly. “What kind? Impossible to say right now. There are almost four hundred people here now. I’d guess from the rate they’ve been coming in—more every day—that by the first of September there’ll be fifteen hundred of us. Forty-five hundred by the first of October, and maybe as many as eight thousand by the time the snow flies in November and closes the roads. Write that down as prediction number one.”

To Glen’s amusement, Stu did indeed produce a notebook from the back pocket of his jeans and jotted down what he had just said.

“Hard for me to believe,” Stu said. “We came all the way across the country and didn’t see a hundred people all told.”

“Yes, but they’re coming in, aren’t they?”

“Yes… in dribs and drabs.”

“In what and whats?” Glen asked, grinning.

“Dribs and drabs. My mother used to say that. You shitting on my mom’s way of talking?”

“The day will never come in when I lose enough respect for my own hide to shit on a Texan’s mother, Stuart.”

“Well, they’re comin in, sure. Ralph’s in touch with five or six groups right now that will bring us up to five hundred by the end of the week.”

Glen smiled again. “Yes, and Mother Abagail sits right there with him in his ‘radio station,’ but she won’t talk on the CB. Says she’s afraid she’ll get an electroshock.”

“Frannie loves that old woman,” Stu said. “Part of it is because she knows so much about delivering babies, but part of it is just… loving her. You know?”

“Yes. Most everybody feels the same.”

“Eight thousand people by winter,” Stu said, returning to the original topic. “Man oh man.”

“It’s just arithmetic. Let’s say the flu wiped out ninety-nine percent of the population. Maybe it wasn’t that bad, but let’s use that figure just so we have a place to put our feet. If the flu was ninety-nine percent fatal, that means it wiped out damned near two hundred and eighteen million people, just in this country.”



- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 4:12 PM Pacific Time Spokane Valley Washington USA Friday 11 March 2016