Page 28 of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand

It was a perfect shot. It hit Big Boy in his right eye, went deep.

The hog did what Ricky would have thought was an impossible leap for its size.

It hit the ground, kangaroo-bounced, then its legs collapsed under it and the great beast rolled on its side, ending up right next to Ricky’s feet. It squirted shit, and lay still.

And then Ricky saw Gene, weakened and bloodied, rise to his feet.

He had pulled a hunting knife out of the scabbard on his belt, and he was mummy-walking toward Ricky.

His face was covered with blood, and there was a cut on his neck where the hog had hooked him.

A lot of blood was coming out of that wound.

Still, Gene was advancing. Ricky fumbled for another load, but Gene was too close; the bastard had him.

There was a sound like a beaver tail slapping water. Gene’s expression changed. He made a prune face and went to his knees.

Standing behind him, holding a large branch, was Jett.

She was wearing moon shadow, for it was full dark now.

She had a limb about as long as her arms and as big around as a large man’s wrists.

She was swinging it savagely, striking Gene in the head again and again with a sickening, smacking noise.

She hit him as he fell over. She hit him while he lay face down on the ground.

At first, the sound of the branch against Gene’s skull was solid, then it turned wet and a lot less solid.

Gene’s face began to blend into the marsh.

Ricky did nothing to stop her. She continued to hit Gene over and over until her arm was too tired to continue.

She dropped the stick, hung her head, gulped in deep breaths, then coughed them out.

Jett put her hands on her knees. She was breathing a bit more softly now.

She lifted her head and looked at Ricky. She smiled slightly.

“I killed him,” she said. “I killed the son of a bitch.”

Ricky nodded. “He’s the deadest person I’ve ever seen.”

Ricky and Jett made their way in the dark, up the hill, along the major trail they both knew well. They passed the fat man’s body. Hogs had been at it.

They ended up at the deer stand, but did not climb up.

They stood at the base of it and looked out through the limbs and brush at the boat.

The idiot on the boat had turned on a deck light, and they could see him sitting in a deck chair with the rifle across his lap.

He was facing the woods. In the light, they could see bugs swarming around his head.

They watched for a while. Ricky checked his wound. He had stopped bleeding for the most part. It wasn’t as good as he hoped or as bad as he feared.

Ricky and Jett whispered to each other. They left the stand and worked their way around and to the side of the boat on the shoreline, then edged quietly along the bank next to the water.

When they reached a spot close to the boat, Jett squatted on her haunches in the dark and watched Ricky slip off his boots, then glide into the water, go out into the deeper part. He swam around behind the boat.

Now she couldn’t see him. Water lapped close to her feet. If she went forward, she would soon be in the pool of light the deck lights gave off, and that would be unwise. At least she had Gene’s pistol.

She waited.

Ricky climbed up the back of the boat with some effort. When he was on the rear deck, he crouched, and crept toward the bow.

The man in the deck chair hadn’t moved.

Ricky came up behind him and pulled his knife. He leaped forward, grabbed the man’s chin, dropped his weight, pulling the man’s head back so as to stab him in the throat. But the man didn’t resist.

Now Ricky could see there were flies swarming around his head. He was dead.

Ricky pulled the rifle from the corpse and went into the wheelhouse, and after a brief moment, he came out. There was no one else.

Ricky took a breath and tried to ignore the pain in his side. He waved Jett forward. She came cautiously, carrying his boots, and climbed the hanging stairs to the front of the boat and looked at the man. His mouth was open and flies were going in and out of it as if it were a busy subway tunnel.

“Did he kill himself?” Jett said.

Ricky came around in front of the man and saw blood on his shirt. He pushed the shirt open with his knife. There was a bandaged wound and blood had seeped through it and hardened like old bread crust.

“He was wounded somehow,” Ricky said. “That’s why he didn’t come ashore. He couldn’t.”

It seemed clear now. The man had been hurt in some fight away from them, and had stayed on board as a guard, but also nursing a wound that eventually got the better of him.

They picked him up, Ricky grabbing him under the arms while Jett took his legs.

He wasn’t heavy. He was almost like a husk.

They tossed him over the side. He landed on the riverbank, but his feet were in the water and his legs were close together.

The water was just deep enough to pick his legs up and move them, wash them back and forth like a mermaid’s tail.

They looked through the boat. There was canned food and some jars of cashews and mixed nuts and one of those was open and about half full.

There was a large cookstove that worked off a battery.

It hadn’t come with the boat. It had been rigged that way.

There was a first-aid kit. There wasn’t much in it, but there was enough for Jett to dress Ricky’s wound.

They talked briefly. A decision was made.

Ricky went back to the deer stand to collect their goods, while Jett cranked up the anchor.

Ricky put their stuff in the wheelhouse, then started the boat by turning the key.

The air was filled with a rumble and at first it was disconcerting.

Ricky turned on the lights. He decided he could handle things.

He had gone fishing on his uncle’s boat once and his uncle let him drive it.

That had been a long time ago. He motored backward into the river.

It wasn’t a smooth exit, but it did move the front of the boat away from the shore.

Jett stood on the foredeck and shined the flashlight Ricky had given her toward the woods and the deer stand that had been their cramped home.

She couldn’t decide if they were leaving relative safety for certain doom, or if they were doing the right thing.

There had to be survivors that would want to work together, not just make lunch of them.

Had to be.

Hogs were coming out of the woods, trotting toward the body at the edge of the water.

And then the boat was turned around and they were too far out for the beam of the flashlight to show much.

There was only the deck and forward lights of the boat and the aft lights resting on the water. She snapped off the flashlight.

The boat was moving along the river slowly. Then it was moving more briskly.

The motor hit a sweet spot and began to hum like an enormous bumblebee along the river.

She went into the cabin and stood by Ricky and looked out at the water through the windshield, illuminated by forward lights.

The water parted before the bow of the boat and then they were cruising along nicely, heading nowhere in particular.