The Stand - complete edition, by Stephen King, author
excerpt, Chapter 44
This could be a good man you got here, woman. He wants to make something out of himself. Why don’t you cleave to him instead of using him?
No! We’re going to Vermont, to VERMONT!
From 7/21/1979 ( ) To 2/9/2007 ( ) is 10065 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 5/24/1993 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Star Trek: The Next Generation"::"Second Chances" ) is 10065 days
by me, Kerry Burgess, posted by me: H.V.O.M at 7:10 PM Friday, October 19, 2007
http://www.playbill.com/news/article/106767.html
Exit the King: Kevin Kline's Lear Closes March 25
The Public Theater's production of William Shakespeare's King Lear, starring Kevin Kline, closes March 25.
James Lapine directed the production, which began previews Feb. 9 and opened March 7.
[excerpt ends]
The Stand - complete edition, by Stephen King, author
excerpt, Chapter 49
And she wasn’t the only one who had dreamed of the dark man now.
That had disturbed her at first, then frightened her. Fright was all it was when she had only Joe and Larry to compare notes with; when they met Lucy Swann and she said she’d had the same sort of dream, fright became a kind of frenzied terror. It was no longer possible to tell herself their dreams only sounded like hers. What if everyone left was having them? What if the dark man’s time had come around at last—not just for her, but for everyone left on the planet?
This idea more than any other raised the conflicting emotions of utter terror and strong attraction within her. She had held to the idea of Stovington with a nearly panicky grip. It stood, by nature of its function, as a symbol of sanity and rationality against the rising tide of dark magic she felt around her. But Stovington had been deserted, a mockery of the safe haven she had built it up to be in her mind. The symbol of sanity and rationality was a deathhouse.
As they moved west, picking up survivors, her hope that it could somehow end for her without confrontation had gradually died. It died as Larry grew in her estimation. He was sleeping with Lucy Swann now, but what did that matter? She was spoken for. The others had been having two opposing dreams: the dark man and the old woman. The old woman seemed to stand for some sort of elemental force, just as the dark man did. The old woman was the nucleus the others were gradually cohering around.
Nadine had never dreamed of her.
Only of the dark man. And when the dreams of the others had suddenly faded away as inexplicably as they had come, her own dreams had seemed to grow in power and in clarity.
She knew many things which they did not. The dark man’s name was Randall Flagg. Those in the West who opposed him or went against his way of doing things had either been crucified or driven mad somehow and set free to wander in the boiling sink of Death Valley. There were small groups of technical people in San Francisco and Los Angeles, but they were only temporary; very soon they would be moving to Las Vegas, where the main concentration of people was growing. For him there was no hurry. Summer was on the downside now. Soon the Rocky Mountain passes would be filling with snow, and while there were plows to clear them, they would not be able to spare enough warm bodies to man the plows. There would be a long winter in which to consolidate. And next April… or May…
Nadine lay in the dark, looking up at the sky.
Boulder was her last hope. The old woman was her last hope. The sanity and rationality she had hoped to find at Stovington had begun to form in Boulder. They were good, she thought, the good guys, and if only it could be that simple for her, caught in her crazy web of conflicting desires.
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 09:02 AM Pacific-timezone USA Thursday 08/06/2026
