The Stand - complete edition, by Stephen King, author
excerpt, Chapter 3
He hated summer colds. They were the worst.
Joe Bob Brentwood, who was almost six and a half feet tall, was standing by the back of his cruiser, filling up. Beyond him, the three pumps Campion had driven over the night before were neatly lined up like dead soldiers.
“Hey Joe Bob!” Hap said, coming out.
“Hap, you sumbitch,” Joe Bob said, putting the pump handle on automatic and stepping over the hose. “You lucky this place still standin this morning.”
“Shit, Stu Redman saw the guy coming and switched off the pumps. There was a load of sparks, though.”
“Still damn lucky. Listen, Hap, I come over for somethin besides a fill-up.”
“Yeah?”
Joe Bob’s eyes went to Vic, who was standing in the station door. “Was that old geezer here last night?”
“Who? Vic? Yeah, he comes over most every night.”
“Can he keep his mouth shut?”
“Sure, I reckon. He’s a good enough old boy.”
The automatic feed kicked off. Hap squeezed off another twenty cents worth, then put the nozzle back on the pump and switched it off. He walked back to Joe Bob.
“So? What’s the story?”
“Well, let’s go inside. I guess the old fella ought to hear, too. And if you get a chance, you can phone the rest of them that was here.”
They walked across the tarmac and into the office.
“A good mornin to you, Officer,” Vic said.
Joe Bob nodded.
“Coffee, Joe Bob?” Hap asked.
“I guess not.” He looked at them heavily. “Thing is, I don’t know how my superiors would like me bein here at all. I don’t think they would. So when those guys come here, you don’t let them know I tipped you, right?”
“What guys, Officer?” Vic asked.
“Health Department guys,” Joe Bob said.
Vic said, “Oh Jesus, it was cholera. I knowed it was.”
Hap looked from one to the other. “Joe Bob?”
“I don’t know nothing,” Joe Bob said, sitting down in one of the plastic Woolco chairs. His bony knees came nearly up to his neck. He took a pack of Chesterfields from his blouse pocket and lit up. “Finnegan, there, the coroner—”
“That was a smartass,” Hap said fiercely. “You should have seen him struttin around in here, Joe Bob. Just like a pea turkey that got its first hardon. Shushin people and all that.”
“He’s a big turd in a little bowl, all right,” Joe Bob agreed. “Well, he got Dr. James to look at this Campion, and the two of them called in another doctor that I don’t know. Then they got on the phone to Houston. And around three this mornin they come into that little airport outside of Braintree.”
“Who did?”
“Pathologists. Three of them. They were in there with the bodies until about eight o’clock. Cuttin on em is my guess, although I dunno for sure. Then they got on the phone to the Plague Center in Atlanta, and those guys are going to be here this afternoon. But they said in the meantime that the State Health Department was to send some fellas out here and see all the guys that were in the station last night, and the guys that drove the rescue unit to Braintree. I dunno, but it sounds to me like they want you quarantined.”
“Moses in the bulrushes,” Hap said, frightened.
“The Atlanta Plague Center’s federal,” Vic said. “Would they send out a planeload of federal men just for cholera?”
“Search me,” Joe Bob said. “But I thought you guys had a right to know. From all I heard, you just tried to lend a hand.”
“It’s appreciated, Joe Bob,” Hap said slowly. “What did James and this other doctor say?”
“Not much. But they looked scared. I never seen doctors look scared like that. I didn’t much care for it.”
A heavy silence fell. Joe Bob went to the drink machine and got a bottle of Fresca. The faint hissing sound of carbonation was audible as he popped the cap. As Joe Bob sat down again, Hap took a Kleenex from the box next to the cash register, wiped his runny nose, and folded it into the pocket of his greasy overall.
“What have you found out about Campion?” Vic asked. “Anything?”
“We’re still checking,” Joe Bob said
From 5/8/1994 ( premiere USA TV miniseries "Stephen King's The Stand"::miniseries premiere "The Plague" ) To 8/30/2026 ( ) is 11802 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 2/24/1998 ( premiere USA TV series episode "The American Experience"::"Reagan - Part II" ) is 11802 days
The Stand - complete edition, by Stephen King, author
excerpt, Chapter 3
“You want to watch that,” Joe Bob said. “Nothin any worse than a summer cold.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Suddenly, from behind them, Vic said: “Maybe it ain’t a cold.”
They turned to him. Vic looked frightened.
“I woke up this morning sneezin and hackin away like sixty,” Vic said. “Had a mean headache, too. I took some aspirins and it’s gone back some, but I’m still full of snot. Maybe we’re coming down with it. What that Campion had. What he died of.”
Hap looked at him for a long time, and as he was about to put forward all his reasons why it couldn’t be, he sneezed again.
Joe Bob looked at them both gravely for a moment and then said, “You know, it might not be such a bad idea to close the station, Hap. Just for today.”
Hap looked at him, scared, and tried to remember what all his reasons had been. He couldn’t think of a one. All he could remember was that he had also awakened with a headache and a runny nose. Well, everyone caught a cold once in a while. But before that guy Campion had shown up, he had been fine. Just fine.
"acknowledging the following"
From 5/8/1994 ( premiere USA TV miniseries "Stephen King's The Stand"::miniseries premiere "The Plague" ) To 7/7/2026 ( ) is 11748 days
11748 = 5874 + 5874
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 12/2/1981 ( Britney Spears ) is 5874 days
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 11:29 AM Pacific-timezone USA Sunday 09/06/2026
