Page 82 of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand

“Wait right here.” Elise returned to the Chevette, opened the trunk, and sifted through the box of provisions she’d packed.

She grabbed an apple and a Pepsi bottle filled with tap water.

The girl’s eyes blurred with grateful tears when Elise handed them to her.

She tried unscrewing the bottle cap, but it was too tight.

Elise did it for her. The girl drank with loud swallows. Elise tied her sneaker lace.

“What’s your name, hon?”

The girl lowered the bottle and belched. She stifled the sweetest giggle and said, “Ruby.”

“That’s a pretty name. I’m Elise.”

Ruby tore a chunk out of the apple. It was warm and bruised, but she didn’t care.

“Where you headed, Ruby?”

“I don’t know,” she replied between bites.

“You got anybody back there?” Elise stood up straight and gestured down the track again. “Is there someone you can stay with?”

Ruby took another bite of the apple. She chewed noisily and washed it down with water.

“I was staying with Courtney, but she got sick and died. She was Mom’s best friend.

She had lots of books and that was good because someone stole the gas out of her genny and we couldn’t watch Steel Magnolias no more. ”

Elise pressed her lips together. Everything about this made her feel sad. She took a deep breath through her nose, waiting for the emotion to ebb. Ruby finished the apple and gnawed the core to a strip and dropped it into the dust at her feet.

“Courtney sounds like a nice person,” Elise said.

Ruby nodded.

“Anybody else back there you know?”

“Only Ali Cat Lawson, but she’s bad. And her cousin Hiram.” Ruby lowered her eyes and visibly shuddered. “He’s worse.”

Elise looked at the bruise on Ruby’s cheek.

She remembered the woman with the X’s painted on her eyelids and wondered if that was Ali Cat.

Maybe. Maybe not. She was a part of that community, in any case, and Elise didn’t blame Ruby for wanting to take her chances and set out on her own, aimless as she was.

She’d be picked clean before the moon rose, though, and not all vultures were birds.

“Do you want to come with me?” Elise asked.

“Where you going?”

“A long way from here. Nebraska.”

“To see that sweet old lady?”

Elise drew a sharp breath and a chill raced down her spine.

The dreams she’d had in recent weeks flickered through her mind: the shack-like house surrounded by rustling corn, the tire swing hanging from the branch of an apple tree, the tin-pot chimney and crooked porch…

and of course the old Black woman sitting on that porch, rocking sweetly in her chair.

Sometimes she’d lift notes from a scuffed but melodic acoustic guitar.

Other times she’d study the corn behind Elise, as if expecting something to emerge from between the stalks and grab her.

Always, though, she effused goodness and light.

In many ways, she reminded Elise of the apple tree in her yard.

Old, yes, but deeply rooted, full of character, and still strong enough to bear weight.

Ruby had dreamed about the same place, the same old lady.

Maybe some of the details were different, but the essence was the same.

Elise felt this deep in her soul. It made her wonder if they were dreams at all.

Perhaps they were visions, or windows of collective energy, which crackled with good faith and were opened in the opaque passages between sleep cycles.

With the world in crisis, it did not seem unusual that people were tapping into the same hopeful resource.

“Yes,” Elise replied, and shivered. Her forearms prickled with gooseflesh. “Yes, Ruby. That’s exactly where I’m going.”

“Polk County, Nebraska,” Ruby said, and smiled.

“That’s right. You want to come with me?”

Ruby nodded.

“Good,” Elise said. “That’s good.”

They walked to the Chevette, similar in demeanor, their chins up and their eyes forward.

Elise opened the passenger door and Ruby climbed in.

She looked very small in the seat. Elise stepped around the hood and got in on her side.

“Seat belt,” she said. Ruby pulled the belt across her body and Elise helped her buckle it.

She buckled her own, started the engine, and they set off.

Ruby sipped her water, looking around the car’s interior. The owner had hot-glued four California Raisins figures to the dash. Ruby poked one of them and smiled, then settled back in her seat.

“She plays a guitar,” she said a moment later.

“Huh?”

“The old lady. In my dreams. That’s how I find her.” Ruby nodded and Elise saw echoes of herself in her big brown eyes. “I follow the sound of her guitar.”

“That’s right,” Elise said. “I do, too.”

“I like the song about the train.” Ruby poked another California Raisin—the one playing the saxophone—and sang in the sweetest little voice: “ This train is bound for glory, this train… ”

Elise knew the song. She grinned—it had been many weeks since that particular expression had brightened her face—and joined in. They sang the first verse together and some of the second, then dissolved into an equally tuneful laughter. Elise raised her right hand and Ruby laid a firm five on it.

She steered the Chevette onto SR 219, clear to the horizon in both directions. If every secondary road was as empty as this, and keeping to a steady fifty, they’d be halfway across the Colorado Plateau by nightfall.

They both needed to pee. Elise pulled over.

“I’ll go first. Scare off the rattlers.” She kicked the buffel grass at the edge of the road—safe enough—then yanked down her jeans and squatted.

Ruby went in the same spot. Elise walked a short distance from the car to give her some privacy.

A sun-beaten sign put Caballo Blanco eleven miles behind them.

A similarly weathered sign on the other side of the road announced that Cactus Belle’s Trading Post was four miles ahead.

“You got anything to wipe with?” Ruby called out.

“Nope,” Elise said. Toilet paper was one of the few essentials she’d neglected to pack. “Just give your tush a little shake.”

“Good thing I only needed to go pee.”

They got going again, crossed Interstate 10 at Tonopah, and came to the trading post a mile further on.

It was hard to miss, with Arizona’s distinct state flag painted along one side and numerous plastic cacti on the roof.

There were several vehicles on the lot, all with shattered windows and open doors.

Some had their fuel doors open, too—new code for Already Siphoned . A dog slept in the shade.

“Maybe they’ve got something to wipe with,” Ruby said.

“Maybe.” Elise steered onto the lot and found a space away from all the broken glass. She surveyed the front of the store and made two quick determinations: that the place had long since been looted, and that the dog wasn’t sleeping.

“Oh,” Ruby said. She’d noticed the dog, too.

Elise shifted into park, turned off the ignition, but sat for a moment.

Second thoughts swam through her mind. It was gloomy inside Cactus Belle’s.

The screen door was torn, hanging off one hinge.

The main door stood partway open, its security locks negotiated by way of a shotgun, judging by the damage.

Whoever had done this was probably long gone.

The only sign of life was the flies that had gathered on the dog.

Elise chewed her lower lip, trying to get a sense of the place.

“We going in?” Ruby asked.

There’d be no food or drink. The shelves would be bare.

The dark, dead refrigerators would be stripped to their wire racks.

Ruby had nothing, though, only the clothes on her back and her ratty sneakers.

Cactus Belle’s was no Kmart, even at the best of times, but maybe they’d find junior-sized T-shirts and shorts, sunglasses, a ball cap, a deck of cards, a soft toy, coloring books and pens.

And yes, there might even be something for them both to wipe with.

“Okay,” Elise said. “Let’s take a quick look.”

They went in but Elise removed the Hardballer from her knapsack first and tucked it into the back of her jeans.

She and Ruby stood in the doorway with the sunlight laying their shadows along the dusty wooden floor. More light came through the windows. The air was dim and hazy.

Ruby wrinkled her nose and Elise nodded.

There were dead here, more than one, if the stench was any indication.

The extreme heat didn’t help. Elise waited a moment for her eyes to adjust, then proceeded deeper into the store.

As suspected, the food shelves and refrigerators had been ransacked.

Empty boxes and wrappers littered the floor.

They stepped over broken glass and various spillages: cereals, potato chips, peanut butter, coffee beans.

On a display rack next to the checkout counter, Ruby found an unopened packet of Spitz dill pickle-flavored sunflower seeds and a roll of Certs. She held them up proudly.

“Jackpot,” Elise said.

They walked along the back wall, stepping over maps, pamphlets, and magazines.

Ruby added a copy of Ranger Rick and a word search book to her stash.

They passed two doors, both standing open.

One led to a small office. Elise saw the edge of a desk and a chair tipped on its side.

It was too gloomy to see more. The other door opened on a narrow hallway illuminated by a back window.

Four more doors led off it. A stockroom, a washroom, a closet for cleaning supplies, and another room—additional storage, maybe. The smell was thicker here.