Page 83 of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand

Elise directed Ruby away from the door and toward a part of the store that was mostly intact.

There clearly wasn’t much demand for souvenirs, local history books, and potted cacti in this devastated era.

She found a cowboy hat for herself and a ball cap for Ruby and sunglasses for them both.

There were no shorts, but Ruby grabbed two Cactus Belle–themed T-shirts and another with TONOPAH, AZ across the front.

They’d find a better selection in Nebraska.

Two days , Elise told herself. Even taking rural roads and stopping when they needed to, it shouldn’t take longer than that.

They put their modest haul in a canvas tote bag with the Stars and Stripes printed on one side and a bald eagle on the other. Ruby carried it with a precocious swagger, like a girl at the mall with her mom. It broke Elise’s heart just a bit.

“We should go,” she said.

“Toilet paper?” Ruby raised one eyebrow.

“I didn’t see any,” Elise said, and puffed out her cheeks. “Okay. One more look around. Look for Kleenex, wet wipes, napkins… anything like that.”

They checked every aisle and display, but came up empty.

Elise sighed, thinking that civilization’s collapse could be epitomized by the fact that toilet paper was now a luxury item.

(She wondered if, somewhere in Vegas, Hector Drogan was dealing cocaine and Charmin out the back of an old cargo van.) She looked regretfully at Ruby, then switched her gaze to the rightmost door along the back wall.

The narrow hallway opening off it had to lead to a stockroom. A staff washroom, too.

She started toward it, registering the thickening smell with every step. It renewed her unease.

“Wait here,” she said to Ruby. “I’ll be thirty seconds.”

Elise pulled the collar of her T-shirt over her nose and entered the hallway.

Cracked tiles shifted beneath her feet. A dirty mop and bucket stood in the far corner.

The first door on her right was ajar. It was the stockroom—one-third the size of the main store and three times the havoc.

The shelving had been emptied. Cardboard boxes had been cut open, spilling unwanted items across the floor.

It took Elise all of ten seconds to ascertain that she’d find nothing of use in there.

She turned around, opened the first door on the left, and found the dead.

It was a makeshift quarantine, with cots arranged throughout the room and spoiled food crowding every surface.

Cactus Belle—an altruistic soul, no doubt—had opened her door and her supplies to friends and neighbors, hoping to outlast the pandemic.

There were too many dead to count. Two dozen, easily.

Perhaps as many as forty. Elise spied a box of Kleenex on a pillow beside an infant boy, but would not venture to get it. The flies here were overfed and slow.

She backed out of the room spluttering into her T-shirt.

The next door opened on a dark utility space.

She saw what looked a breaker panel and the rounded edge of a water heater.

The fourth and final door opened on the washroom.

A dead man was slumped beside the toilet with his pants around his ankles.

Elise checked the cupboard under the sink and found cleaning supplies, boxes of rat poison, and a single roll of toilet paper.

Elise grabbed it. There was also a tarantula back there, huddled in the corner, but she didn’t bother it and it didn’t bother her.

She walked through the hallway and into the store. “Okay, Ruby, let’s—” She froze in her tracks. The toilet paper fell from her hand and rolled across the floor.

The man angled the sole of his boot and stopped it.

“Heya,” he said.

Elise reached for the gun in the back of her jeans.

He was tall and snake-thin with straggly red hair spilling from beneath a trucker cap turned backward.

His left arm had been amputated just north of the elbow.

The stump poked from the sleeve of a faded Grateful Dead T-shirt and was capped with flaky skin.

His right hand clamped the back of Ruby’s neck.

“Get away from her,” Elise said. She charged the Hardballer the way Jason had shown her and thumbed off the safety. “Do it now, asshole, or I’ll put a hole through your chest.”

The man hooted laughter, unfazed and unafraid. Elise fixed him in her sights and set her finger on the trigger. Her body shook and it took everything to keep her aim steady.

“I mean it. Get away from her. Right fucking now.”

Ruby squirmed. Tears filled her eyes and wet her face. The man clamped her neck tighter and pulled her closer. Elise considered popping a round into the floor at his feet—a well-placed warning shot might inspire him to comply—but some raw, untapped part of her wanted to see him bleed.

She recalled Jason telling her that she was the baddest motherfucker he knew, and how perfectly alive this had made her feel. The memory pushed a wave of complicated emotions through her. Elise took a thin, wavering breath and kept her sights on the man’s chest.

“Three seconds. That’s all you get, then I’m pulling this trigger.”

“For a ripe piece of snatch, you’re just as sour as a new berry.

” The man removed his hand from the back of Ruby’s neck and stroked her cheek.

Elise noted the five dots inked between his thumb and forefinger.

Jason and her old man had the same tattoo, a memento of the time they’d spent behind bars.

“You want to introduce me to your friend, Rube?”

Rube. He knew her, which meant he’d followed them here from Caballo Blanco. Given the very few survivors remaining in that ghost town, Elise surmised that this ex-con piece of shit must be Hiram, cousin to Ali Cat Lawson. She was bad, according to Ruby, but Hiram was worse.

He stroked Ruby’s cheek again, underlining the bruise that someone had put there. Maybe him. Maybe Ali Cat. Ruby shuddered and shied away from him. Hiram snarled impatiently, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and yanked her back on her heels.

Elise exerted fractional pressure on the trigger. She wondered if shooting this vile son of a bitch would send a black flare into the sky, telling the devil exactly where to find her.

“The girl’s coming with me,” she said.

“Ain’t happening.” Hiram thrust out his chin and fired a line of spit across the floor between them. “Flu got her kin, every last one of them, which makes me the closest she’s got to family. Also, I promised her momma that I’d take on the role of guardian, and that’s a promise I intend to keep.”

That might be true, Elise realized, but Hiram promising such a thing didn’t mean it was what Ruby’s momma wanted. It certainly wasn’t what Ruby wanted. She shook her head and looked desperately at Elise.

“Come on, man. I’ve got a loaded .45 and an itchy trigger finger.” Elise blew over her upper lip. “You’ve got one arm and half a brain. Who do you think is going to win this argument?”

“Prob’ly the woman with the gun.”

“You’re damn right.”

“Not you.” Hiram curled his lip and winked. “The other woman.”

Elise frowned, then noticed Hiram’s eyes flick to his right, her left.

She looked in that direction and saw a woman materialize from the gloom, carrying a double-barreled shotgun at her hip.

Elise recognized her instantly: the woman from the trailer park, with her greasy red hair and X’s on her eyelids.

Ali Cat. She lifted the shotgun to her shoulder, smiled at Elise, then gestured at the Hardballer in her hands.

“That’s a lot of gun for a little girl.”

The sight of her rocked Elise, but these words rocked her more.

They were eerily similar to the first thing Jason had said when they met at Big Wheel Auto: That’s a lot of car for a little girl.

She remembered how he’d wiped a bandanna across his throat and how freely her heart had pounced, triggering a two-year relationship that had confounded, frightened, and thrilled her.

Elise relived their time together in the space of five seconds, culminating with the memory of Jason sitting at their kitchen table cleaning the parts of the pistol she now held in her hands.

Every blunt word he’d spoken recurred. They weakened Elise at the knees and doubled the quickness of her pulse.

He’d been so mean, but so right . The devil had found her, and it hadn’t taken long.

“How’s your aim?” Ali Cat asked.

“Good enough,” Elise replied.

“Looks a touch shaky to me. But that’s okay, missy.

I’m no deadeye, neither.” Ali Cat blinked slowly, deliberately displaying her X’s.

“The simple beauty of a scattergun is I don’t need to be accurate.

I pull just one of these triggers and your pretty little insides are all over this goddamn store. ”

Hiram laughed again—more a howl than a hoot this time.

He threw his head back and dipped at the knees.

His chest and throat were glaring targets.

Elise couldn’t miss, even with her shaky aim.

Ali Cat’s shotgun changed everything, though.

Those side-by-side barrels were deep and round and dark enough to snuff even the brightest light.

Elise kept her sights on Hiram, but let up on the trigger.

She sensed movement to her right and glanced that way. From this angle she could see between the empty shelves, through the open door, and into the small office. Someone was in there. It was too gloomy to discern anything more than his tall outline.

“We’re taking the girl,” Ali Cat said. She showed her X’s and grinned. “That’s nonnegotiable. However, I’m open to discussing whether you live or die.”

“She doesn’t want to go with you,” Elise said. The right side of her body—the side nearest the office—had turned cold. She steadied her legs so her heartbeat wouldn’t throw her off balance.