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Dataset card Data Studio Files
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When they reached the corner they accelerated, turning toward the hospital. The exhaust of their bikes crackled and echoed back, hitting buildings and bouncing off them, finally fading away to nothing.
People did not go home. They remained standing for a while, renewing their conversations, examining each word George had said. Prognosis, now what might that mean? Coma. Brain-death. If her brain was dead, that was it. Might as well expect a can of peas to talk as a person with a dead brain. Well, maybe that would be i...
They sat down again. Darkness came. The glow of Coleman lamps came on in the house where the old woman lay. They would go home later, and lie sleepless.
Talk turned hesitantly to the dark man. If Mother Abagail died, didn’t that mean he was stronger?
What do you mean, “not necessarily”?
Well I hold he’s Satan, pure and simple.
The Antichrist, that’s what I think. We’re living out the Book of Revelation right in our own time… how can you doubt it? “And the seven vials were opened…” Sure sounds like the superflu to me.
Ah, balls, people said Hitler was the Antichrist.
If those dreams come back, I’ll kill myself.
In mine I was in a subway station and he was the ticket-taker, only I couldn’t see his face. I was scared. I ran into the subway tunnel. Then I could hear him, running after me. And gaining.
In mine I was going down cellar to get a jar of pickled watermelon slices and I saw someone standing by the furnace… just a shape. And I knew it was him.
Crickets began to chirrup. Stars spread across the sky. The chill in the air was duly commented on. Drinks were drunk. Pipes and cigarettes glowed in the dark.
I heard the Power people went right ahead turning things off.
Good for them. If they don’t get the lights and heat back on pretty quick, we’re going to be in a peck of trouble.
Low murmur of voices, now faceless in the gloom.
I guess we’re safe for this winter. Sure enough. No way he can get over the passes. Too full of cars and snow. But in the spring…
Suppose he’s got a few A-bombs?
Fuck the A-bomb, what if he’s got a few of those dirty neutron bombs? Or the other six of Sally’s seven vials?
Or planes?
What’s to do?
I don’t know.
Damn if I know.
Ain’t got a friggin clue.
Dig a hole, then jump in and pull it over you.
And around ten o’clock Stu Redman, Glen Bateman, and Ralph Brentner came among them, talking quietly and giving out fliers, telling them to pass the word on to those not here tonight. Glen was limping slightly because a flying stove dial had clipped a piece of meat out of his right calf. The mimeographed posters said: ...
That seemed to be the signal to leave. People drifted away silently into the dark. Most of them took the fliers, but quite a few were crumpled into balls and thrown away. All of them went home to get what sleep they could.
Perchance to dream.
The auditorium was crammed but extremely quiet when Stu convened the meeting the following night. Sitting behind him were Larry, Ralph, and Glen. Fran had tried to get up, but her back was still much too painful. Unmindful of the grisly irony, Ralph had patched her through to the meeting by walkie-talkie.
“There’s a few things that need talking about,” Stu said with quiet and studied understatement. His voice, although only slightly amplified, carried well in the silent hall. “I guess there’s nobody here who doesn’t know about the explosion that killed Nick and Sue and the others, and nobody who doesn’t know that Mother...
Brad walked toward the podium, not nearly as nervous as he had been the night before last, and was greeted by listless applause. When he got there he turned to face them, gripped the lectern in both hands, and said simply: “We’re going to switch on tomorrow.”
This time the applause was much louder. Brad held up his hands, but the applause rode over him in a wave. It held for thirty seconds or more. Later Stu told Frannie that if it hadn’t been for the events of the last two days, Brad probably would have been dragged down from the podium and carried around the auditorium on...
But at last the applause subsided.
“We’re going to switch on at noon, and I’d like to have every one of you at home and ready. Ready for what? Four things. Listen up now, this is important. First, turn off every light and electrical appliance in your own house that you’re not using. Second, do the same for the unoccupied houses around yours. Third, if y...
There were several, all of them reconfirming Brad’s original points. He answered each one patiently, the only sign of nervousness the way he bent his little black notebook ceaselessly back and forth in his hands.
When the questions had slowed to a trickle, Brad said: “I want to thank the folks who busted their humps getting us going again. And I want to remind the Power Committee that it isn’t disbanded. There are going to be lines down, power outages, oil supplies to track down in Denver and haul up here. I hope you’ll all sti...
“Not if that hardcase gets his way!” someone shouted out hoarsely in the back of the hall.
There was a moment of dead silence. Brad stood with his hands clutching the lectern in a deathgrip, his face pasty white. He’s not going to be able to finish, Stu thought, and then Brad did go on, his voice amazingly even:
“My business is power, whoever said that. But I think we’ll be here long after that other guy’s dead and gone. If I didn’t think that, I’d be wrapping motors over on his side. Who gives a shit for him?”
Brad stepped away front the podium and someone else bellowed, “You’re goddam right!”
This time the applause was heavy and hard, nearly savage, but there was a note to it Stu didn’t like. He bad to pound with his gavel a long time to get the meeting back under control.
“The next thing on the agenda—”
“Fuck your agenda!” a young woman yelled stridently. “Let’s talk about the dark man! Let’s talk about Flagg! It’s long overdue, I’d say!”
Roars of approval. Shouts of “out of order!” Disapproving babble at the young woman’s choice of words. Rumble of side-chatter.
Stu whacked at the block on the podium so hard that the mallet-head flew off his gavel. “This is a meeting here!” he shouted. “You’re going to get a chance to talk about whatever you want to talk about, but while I’m chairing this meeting, I want… to have… some ORDER!” He bellowed the last word so loudly that feedback ...
“Now,” Stu said, his voice purposely low and calm, “the next thing is to report to you on what happened up at Ralph’s on the night of September second, and I guess that falls to me, since I’m our elected law enforcement officer.”
He had quiet again, but like the applause that had greeted Brad’s closing remarks, this wasn’t a quiet Stu liked. They were leaning forward, intent, their expressions greedy. It made him feel disquieted and bewildered, as if the Free Zone had changed radically over the last forty-eight hours and he didn’t know what it ...
But there was no time to think about it now.
He described the events leading up to the explosion briefly, omitting Fran’s last-minute premonition; with the mood they were in, they didn’t need that.
“Yesterday morning Brad and Ralph and I went up and poked through the ruins for three hours or more. We found what seemed to be a dynamite bomb wired up to a walkie-talkie. It appears that this bomb was planted in the living room closet. Bill Scanlon and Ted Frampton found another walkie-talkie up in Sunrise Amphitheat...
“Assume, my ass!” Ted Frampton shouted from the third row. “It was that bastard Lauder and his little whore!”