Datasets:
BlinAI
/
Testo

Dataset card Data Studio Files
xet
 Community
1
text
stringlengths
0
4.23k
But it was not the next day, or the day after that. On the evening of September 27 they camped in the town of Freemont Junction, and there was plenty to eat.
“I keep expecting it to be over,” Larry told Glen that evening. “And every day that it’s not, it gets worse.”
Glen nodded. “I feel the same way. It would be funny if he was just a mirage, wouldn’t it? Nothing but a bad dream in our collective consciousness.”
Larry looked at him with momentary surprised consideration. Then he shook his head slowly. “No. I don’t think it’s just a dream.”
Glen smiled. “Nor do I, young man. Nor do I.”
They made contact the following day.
At just past ten in the morning, they topped a rise and below them and to the west, five miles away, two cars were parked nose-to-nose, blocking the highway. It all looked exactly as Larry had thought it would.
“Accident?” Glen asked.
Ralph was shading his eyes. “I don’t think so. Not parked that way.”
“His men,” Larry said.
“Yeah, I think so,” Ralph agreed. “What do we do now, Larry?”
Larry took his bandanna out of his back pocket and wiped his face with it. Today either summer had come back or they were starting to feel the southwestern desert. The temperature was in the low eighties.
But it’s a dry heat, he thought calmly. I’m only sweating a little. Just a little. He stuffed the bandanna back into his pocket. Now that it was actually on, he felt all right. Again there was that queer feeling that it was a performance, a show to be played.
“We go down and see if God really is with us. Right, Glen?”
“You’re the boss.”
They started to walk again. Half an hour brought them close enough to see that the nose-to-nose cars had once belonged to the Utah State Patrol. There were several armed men waiting for them.
“Are they going to shoot us?” Ralph asked conversationally.
“I don’t know,” Larry said.
“Because some of the rifles are wowsers. Scope-equipped. I can see the sun ticking off the lenses. If they want to knock us down, we’ll be in range anytime.”
They kept walking. The men at the roadblock split into two groups, about five men in front, guns aimed at the party of three walking toward them, and three more crouched behind the cars.
“Eight of them, Larry?” Glen asked.
“I make it eight, yeah. How are you doing, anyhow?”
“I’m okay,” Glen said.
“Ralph?”
“Just as long as we know what to do when the time comes,” Ralph said. “That’s all I want.”
Larry gripped his hand for a moment and squeezed it. Then he took Glen’s and did likewise.
They were less than a mile from the cruisers now. “They’re not going to shoot us outright,” Ralph said. “They would have done it already.”
Now they could discern faces, and Larry searched them curiously. One was heavily bearded. Another was young but mostly bald—must have been a bummer for him to start losing his hair while he was still in school, Larry thought. Another was wearing a bright yellow tank top with a picture of a grinning camel on it, and bel...
“They don’t look no different from our guys,” Ralph said.
“Sure they do,” Glen answered. “They’re all packing iron.”
They approached to within twenty feet of the police cars blocking the road. Larry stopped, and the others stopped with him. There was a dead moment of silence as Flagg’s men and Larry’s band of pilgrims looked each other over. Then Larry Underwood said mildly: “How-do.”
The little man who looked like a CPA stepped forward. He was still twiddling with the Magnum. “Are you Glendon Bateman, Lawson Underwood, Stuart Redman, and, Ralph Brentner?”
“Say, you dummy,” Ralph said, “can’t you count?”
Someone snickered. The CPA type flushed. “Who’s missing?”
Larry said, “Stu met with an accident on the way here. And I do believe you’re going to have one yourself if you don’t stop fooling with that gun.”
There were more snickers. The CPA managed to tuck the pistol into the waistband of his gray slacks, which made him look more ridiculous than ever; a Walter Mitty outlaw daydream.
“My name is Paul Burlson,” he said, “and by virtue of the power vested in me, I arrest you and order you to come with me.”
“In whose name?” Glen said immediately.
Burlson looked at him with contempt… but the contempt was mixed with something else. “You know who I speak for.”
“Then say it.”
But Burlson was silent.
“Are you afraid?” Glen asked him. He looked at all eight of them. “Are you so afraid of him you don’t dare speak his name? Very well, I’ll say it for you. His name is Randall Flagg, also known as the dark man, also known as the tall man, also known as the Walkin Dude. Don’t some of you call him that?” His voice had cli...
“Grab them,” Burlson said. “Grab them all and shoot the first one that moves.”
For one strange second no one moved at all and Larry thought: They’re not going to do it, they’re as afraid of us as we are of them, more afraid, even though they have guns —
He looked at Burlson and said, “Who are you kidding, you little scumbucket? We want to go. That’s why we came.”
Then they moved, almost as though it was Larry who had ordered them. He and Ralph were bundled into the back of one cruiser, Glen into the back of the other. They were behind a steel mesh grill. There were no inside doorhandles.
We’re arrested, Larry thought. He found that the idea amused him.
Four men smashed into the front seat. The cruiser backed up, turned around, and began to head west. Ralph sighed.
“Scared?” Larry asked him in a low voice.
“I’ll be frigged if I know. It feels so-good to be off m’dogs, I can’t tell.”