Page 12 of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand

Mollie led them to the entrance, near sunset, as mirages shimmered and clouds boiled in the heat, riding up a concrete drainage channel behind Caesars Palace.

She stood on the pedals, excited. “I rode bikes up here once with my friends—”

Friends. Her face scrunched and her lip trembled.

Thunder rumbled, reverberating off dead hotels.

Jesse tented a hand over his eyes. “Jesus, those clouds are black.” A shiver ran across his shoulders. “Like they’re more than thunderheads.”

Gut check. Graffiti splashed the tunnel entrance, green, violet, crimson, but past that, it was inky. Dani inhaled and got a nod from him. They couldn’t wait. Dismounting, they walked the bikes inside.

Dani’s breathing echoed off the walls. What was down here? “I’ll take out the zombies.”

“ I’ll take out the zombies,” Jesse said. “You tackle the Zodiac.”

She felt thankful for his presence. Even if he was a baby. He was cute. Hell, he was handsome. But so alone. As if he was—severed. From the life he’d planned. From a love, somebody meant for him, he hadn’t even met yet. Maybe gone now. Who knew?

Daylight quickly weakened. When they reached the first branch in the tunnel Jesse pulled out a marker and drew an arrow on the wall.

“So we know we’ve been here, and which way we went.”

They flicked on their flashlights. The sharpened glare turned their faces ghoulish. A hundred yards on they reached the first encampment.

A stench hit them. Mollie moaned. They pulled bandannas over their faces.

“Walk beside me, Mollie,” Dani said.

Electric bulbs were strung overhead on a tangle of extension cords. Beds, camp stoves, old dressers, a broken guitar, rotting food. And the dead. A body. Then another.

Dani set her hand atop Mollie’s, on her handlebars. “I’m here.”

Above them, a grate let in stormy light. Perched atop it, pecking, was a crow.

Snap. Lightning bleached the view. Thunder cracked and the clouds ruptured.

Rain pelted through the grate, splashing, echoing. The crow clicked its head sideways, staring at Dani. A biting chill seeped into her.

Cawing, the bird flew away.

Jesse forged on to a branching tunnel. Immediately they hit another dead encampment. Mollie balked, whimpering. Dani hugged her tightly to her side and began to hum. Low, barely a sound. “Viva, Las Vegas.” Don’t hate on the King. They inched forward.

Jesse glanced back over his shoulder. Dani mouthed, How much farther?

He mouthed back, Mile and a half.

Then the space opened into a wide chamber. Tunnels branched off, black mouths. Aboveground, thunder boomed. Jesse paused to check the map.

And they heard scuffing sounds. Footsteps. Jesse straightened, alarmed. Mollie grabbed Dani’s shirt. Dani frantically shook her head. Not a word.

But her heart plummeted. Had Amber’s people spotted them? How?

Crowcrowcrow. No. Crazy.

A new rumble echoed through the tunnel. Dirt bikes. They were coming.

She killed her flashlight. Jesse did the same. Then Mollie, her entire body chattering.

And then Dani heard a trickle. Water was running down the center of the tunnel floor.

A steel band seemed to tighten around her chest. She needed air. Sky. To soar above it all. Away. Away. Away .

The water grew from a trickle to a stream.

Jesse whipped out the map, flicked his flashlight on just long enough to check it, and pointed at one of the branching tunnels. “This way.”

Dani hesitated. Water flowed around her boots. Mollie stared at her intensely.

Dani gazed up the tunnel they’d been following. She dropped her bike. Her pack.

She held out her hand to Mollie. “Give me your flashlight.”

She was going to run. On her own. It was the only possibility for escape.

“What?” Mollie said. “No…”

Jesse understood. Gently he took the flashlight and passed it to Dani. “It’s okay.”

The water gushed, now ankle-deep. The voices in the dark, the rumblings, were louder.

Dropping his bike, too, Jesse pointed at the branching tunnel. Mere drips of water fell from it to the channel where they stood. “Different watershed. It runs uphill, and a mile along we’ll reach an exit.”

“Don’t go,” Mollie said.

Dani crouched in front of her. “Sometimes you brace. Sometimes you jump. Now you run. Run. ”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“I’ll see you on the other side. We’ll meet at…”

Jesse said, “I-15, exit 64.”

“That’s the place,” Dani said emphatically. It was pure wish, but might get Mollie moving.

She clasped the girl’s shoulders. “Remember the stick-on wings I gave you?”

Tears fell. “I lost them.”

“You didn’t.” She tapped Mollie’s chest. “They’re here. You understand?”

Mollie blinked. Clamped her jaw to stop her chin from trembling. Inhaled. Pinned Dani with her gaze.

“ Fly ,” Dani said.

They clambered into the branching tunnel and took off.

Dani stood in the channel for another moment, braced against the increasing rush of water, hearing engines. And chains. And voices.

A young woman’s voice, like radio static.

Dani aimed both flashlights at an arrow Jesse had drawn on the wall. The arrow that would let her backtrack to the big junction, where floodwaters would fill the tunnel to the top with pitiless force.

The arrow that would let her draw the gang away from Mollie.

She inhaled and shouted, loud and raw, then swung both flashlights around the tunnel, as if two people were running.

“This way,” she guttered, a sob in her voice. It wasn’t playacting.

Her greatest fear had arrived: that one day she would face trouble she couldn’t run from.

Fuck you, greatest fear . She spun and raced down the tunnel, splashing, the water now a foot deep. She crazily swung the flashlights. She heard bikes revving. Closer.

Dark, so dark, nothing but concrete, and she ran around a bend and knew the bikes were following her now—her, not Jesse and Mollie. Just her.

Amber didn’t know Jesse was with them.

Adrenaline jacked into her veins. She shouted again, desperate, straining. Ahead, far, far ahead, where the water was going to fill the tunnel to the top, she saw a faint light. An exit. She ran.

Hope. That’s what you need. That’s what she’d given Amber. Hope, and a chance.

That’s what she’d given Mollie. Hope. A chance. And time.

Fly away.

She heard the bikes, engines closer.

Gods of fortune, give me strength.

Headlights bounced off the curving tunnel walls behind her. Frank Sinatra, bring me grace.

She ran. Someone guide me—I’m alone.

Ahead, water roared. Beyond it, dimly, was daylight.

Elvis Presley, sing me home.

Daylight. Distant, but there. A voice rang, deep inside her.

Bright light city—

Gonna send her soaring.

She dug in, sprinting, water splashing over her knees.

On fire. Soul and spirit. Burning, roaring.

Heart blazing, she ran toward the light.