Page 133 of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand

THE UNFORTUNATE CONVALESCENCE OF THE SUPERLAWYER

Nat Cassidy

His fever breaks and there are earthquakes.

When he comes to in the middle of the road, his face is resting against the hot asphalt. His head is fuzzy, his mouth is dry, the sun is cooking his clammy skin… but all things considered, he feels pretty dang good.

Such a beautiful dream.

He peels himself off the ground. Wipes flakes of black grit from his cheek. Tries to get his bearings.

A lonely strip of Highway 70. Damn lucky nobody ran him over.

But, of course, nobody would have run him over. Because everyone is

—a beautiful dream—

dead. Dead or dying. That’s why he’d thrown supplies in his car and started driving north towards the badlands of Utah in the first place. No plan, other than fleeing Phoenix and getting to the least populated area he could think of. The first truly impulsive thing he’s done in his adult life.

He stands, legs wobbly as a newborn foal.

The world seems to be holding its breath. A breeze plays against his skin, but even that feels tentative. A slow pulse in a comatose body.

So remarkably different from the chaos he’d left behind. Sickness all around him. Panic in the streets, on the airwaves. In this isolated silence, all that feels impossible. More like, well, some fever dream.

The difference in his body is amazing, too.

At some point, probably around Prescott, he’d started to feel sick himself. Mucus pooling in every sinus. Insides heating up. Glands starting to swell.

Now he feels downright refreshed. He puts a hand to his throat and confirms the swelling has gone down. Fever’s gone, too—maybe the hot asphalt helped burn it out of him?

Or… maybe it had all been psychosomatic. No sickness could move that fast, right? Not even the so-called “superflu” with that stupid nickname. He’s always been a little prone to nervous suggestion.

But what the hell was I doing in the middle of the road?

How long was I out?

And where is everybody? There should still be at least a little traffic out here, shouldn’t there? Other people fleeing cities?

He brushes the remaining road grit off his blazer and front. Notices his shirt is untucked and the top button undone. He sets all that to right and feels good. Better than good.

Alive.

All that matters.

I got out just in time.

He holds tight to his beautiful dream. Swirling lights and disembodied hands, gently scooping him up. Like a UFO. Like the Great Eagles rescuing Frodo and Sam. Taking him away from harm. Taking control from chaos.

He’d done that for himself.

Despite everything, he smiles a little.

I’m going to survive.

That’s when the earth starts to shake.

For a few years during his scattershot, bohemian childhood, he’d lived in and around California. He knows earthquakes. Something about this one feels wrong.

For starters, it goes on for too long. Three, four minutes of active tremors.

As soon as it starts, he hurries back to his car, the closest thing to shelter. When the shaking doesn’t stop, he starts to wonder if it’s his own body, maybe another symptom of his waning illness. Then he notices the power lines swaying.

Eventually, the quake comes to an end.

He gets out and looks around, dismayed by the cracks in the road.

A couple power lines lean in their foundations, shaken into drunkenness.

The air smells faintly of burning metal. Of sewage lines cracked open.

The silence is dreadful.

No. Not quite silence. A faint noise, almost like a whirring or a grinding. Worlds away. Barely perceptible let alone decipherable.

Even the clouds seem to have been affected by the quake.

There’s a sort of distinguishably straight line cutting through the cloud cover, which would be weird enough, but that straight line is also now jagged in parts.

Broken. He’d think the broken parts would make that path seem more realistic, but it doesn’t. It looks… awful.

Earth’s fever is breaking, too . He doesn’t like that sentiment one bit.

He slaps his cheeks a little—the way he sometimes did in courthouse bathrooms before big trial appearances.

“Just an earthquake,” he says. His voice sounds very strange in the flat air. “Nothing to get freaked out about.”

He heads back to the car. Checks the radio. Nothing across the dial. Only static.

Now that he’s in better shape, he should start driving again. Find somewhere safe to hole up, wait for the apocalypse to settle itself. There’s a gas station up ahead, a national park and a town beyond that.

Something stays his hand. A feeling so strong and clear he can practically hear it: No. The car stays here.

He turns the engine back off. The key chain—a leather fob, embossed with the initials SL —sways like the power lines had swayed.

He hates this car. Hates driving it, hates the complicated transmission. Hates how noticeable it can make him feel. Hates the stupid key chain that had come with it. Not my initials, Dad.

And yet, for all his hate, he still kept the Plymouth in the garage. Still made sure it had an up-to-date battery, even while its exterior dulled and rusted. As if he knew one day the world might fall apart while his own, far more compliant Honda happened to be in the shop.

Honestly, he’s amazed he managed to drive the Plymouth this far. All these hills. All that shifting. He wouldn’t be surprised if the stress of operating the damn thing contributed to his feeling so sick.

So, maybe I’ll be impulsive one more time and just leave the stupid thing here. Walk and go find a new one. One better suited for me.

No doubt there are thousands of other working cars he can find nearby. After all, the world is ending.

That thought gives him a strange, giddy thrill.

The world is ending.

Right now, I might be the last man on earth. Like Vincent Price in that stupid movie. Or like Burgess Meredith. Time enough at last.

No one to live for but myself.

Before he knows it, he’s crying. Hot tears searing his face.

He stumbles out of the car, screaming.

“Hello?! Is anyone else alive? HELLO?!”

Oblivion answers back. Not even an echo. Just that strange, unplaceable noise coming from far, far away. Maybe electricity cycling through damaged power lines?

He scrambles onto the hood of the Plymouth. “HELLOOOO?! ANYBODY?!”

The sun beats down. And the wind curls like heat off a cooling body. And the clouds are boiling, bleached brains, except for that mostly straight line cutting through them, dividing them into crumbling hemispheres.

Right before the vertiginous fear of a man lost at sea can overtake him, off in the distance, light blinks off of metal. He squints.

Several hills away, across an intersecting road. A vehicle speeding past. He can’t be sure, but it looks like a van. A splash of unnaturally vibrant green.

Not the last man after all.

Instantly, he regrets his screaming. He holds his breath until the van disappears over the horizon.

I need to calm down , he tells himself. I’m overstressed. Psychosomatic sickness or not, I did just have a fainting episode. That was real .

“Yeah,” he says to himself. “Just need to get my strength back. Then… we’ll find a new car and… go on an adventure. Like Bilbo.”

He knows just what will help settle his heart.

Before he’d oh-so-impulsively abandoned his apartment in Phoenix and hit the road, he’d thrown all the supplies he could into the Plymouth’s trunk.

Canned food, sodas, jackets and shirts (folded neatly), boots.

All very practical. All very him. He only allowed himself one extraneous item, which he’d had to pull out from the depths of his closet, behind his suits and ties and dress shirts.

He retrieves it from the trunk now. A soft, plain three-ring binder. Stuffed with pages tucked into individual clear plastic pouches.

Each page is covered in art.

His art.

Drawings of his favorite heroes. His favorite villains. Characters from Tolkien. Herbert. Bradbury. Kirby and Ditko and Adams. Some done in pencil. Some in ink.

It’s an impressive collection. No need to be modest about it.

He’s quite talented. He could’ve pursued a career as an illustrator or a comic book artist if he were a bolder, braver, more reckless man.

More like his dad, in other words. Instead, he’d settled for something far more practical.

And it was a good thing he did. As any good lawyer understands: settling is always the wisest thing to do.

He hasn’t added anything new to the notebook in a while, but he still likes to look at it during times of stress.

It helps him feel moored to some secret, truer self.

One that manages to survive despite the daily deluge of statutes and case law and legal briefs and discovery demands and forensic reports.

Ironic, he supposes, considering these drawings are mostly of other people’s creations.

That’s always been a big part of the appeal, though.

He prefers playing in those kinds of sandboxes, where the rules are already in place.

Creating your own work is just so messy. So… unsettling.

That said, whenever he’s feeling particularly ambitious, there is one original character in his notebook. Several drawings and physical studies, tucked all the way in the back.

The SuperLawyer.

Corporate litigator by day. Preternaturally gifted crime fighter by night.

Able to convince even the most hardened criminals to do his bidding with his silver tongue (metaphorical) and his superior brain (not metaphorical).

Able to freeze moments of great chaos with his stentorian catchphrase: “I OBJECT!”

Actually, now that he thinks of it, he’d created the SuperLawyer right after he was gifted this damn Plymouth. Inspired by that stupid key chain. A way to digest his complicated feelings. Talk about messy and unsettling.

He flicks that key chain now. Watches it sway back and forth.