Page 97 of The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand

“We should always question. And here’s a few more for you: Is God showing up now because he forgot about us previously?

Are we an oil spill that happened due to neglect and the Almighty is rushing in to clean up?

Was the entirety of human existence orchestrated—the savagery, the knowledge, the longing, the loving and the hating, the genocides, the wars, the nuclear bombs, the engineered viruses—to get to this exact point in time so those who remain could, what, take up arms in His name for the final showdown? ”

Henry shouted, “Stop! Enough! I—I can’t believe you’re choosing the other side—you’re choosing evil!”

“I never said I would go with the people headed to Las Vegas. Fuck them, too.”

“You choosing not to be with us is choosing to be with them.”

“No it isn’t. I’m choosing a third option, which is to reject the both of you, to reject any further demands for blood sacrifice. I refuse to participate.”

“So, what, you’re just going to sit on the sidelines and do nothing while evil threatens us all?”

“If anyone comes to my doorstep, I will help them. And if they ask, I will advise them to not go west. The seafood is way better out here.”

Henry then ranted about the will of God, the honor of being chosen, His enemies would be bathed in cleansing, righteous fire, blah blah blah. You have to admit, Henry was proving himself not to be the best representative for the good guys.

Art continued fully embracing his El-ahrairah, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, role when speaking with Lord—

Huh? No. It’s a reference to Watership Down . Dude, read a book. We’ll hit a library tomorrow. You have plenty of time for reading now.

Anyway, by the time Henry finished his fire-and-brimstone entreaty, he was sweating and breathing heavy.

“Look, I don’t mean to be a wiseass,” Art said.

“It has been a rough month for us all. I’ll admit that I am scared.

You should be, too, by the way. I don’t know why you think being chosen or even noticed by that kind of power is a blessing and not a fundamentally terrifying curse.

I mean—fuck, I don’t know. I’m not explaining my position very well.

But, um, okay, how’s this: a week or so ago, when I was in the kitchen, crying and listening to my cousin Erin’s voice narrate the beautiful story of what could’ve been, or what could be somewhere else and sometime else, her voice was the voice of God.

That’s the voice I entrust my humanity to. Not the one you’re hearing.”

Henry loosened a deep sigh. “I’m going to come back later with others, with my group, and you’ll see they’re good people, Art. People worth fighting to save.”

“If I say no again, what will your good people do then?”

Henry left without answering, without thanking Art again for the use of his towel.

Once the front door closed, Art walked around the house, looping a circuit through the first-floor rooms. He muttered to himself.

It was difficult for me to hear, but I think he was rehashing what he and Henry had said, and he was trying to come up with better ways to explain himself.

Or maybe Art was trying to better explain himself to himself.

About ten minutes into his walk around the house, he stopped in the dining room and punched the wall.

I don’t know why he needed more pain, more hurt, but he did.

His knuckles indented the wallpaper and plaster.

He shook out his hand and then resumed his laps, walking faster and faster, until his walk was a jog and his jog was a sprint, and eventually he ran out of gas and collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table.

He cried softly, as though afraid someone would hear him, and he fell asleep.

I hated seeing Art like this. And I was gobsmacked over what had transpired during the visits.

I was proud of him, but also, I have to admit, for the first time, a little afraid of him, too.

So much so I thought about sneaking out of the basement and going somewhere else. But I stayed and listened and pondered.

Art woke up when it was full dark, inside and out. He lit a candle that squatted on a small plate and he slowly carried it out of the kitchen.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to say something. I unlatched the basement door—

Huh? Never you mind how I did that. Don’t interrupt now. We’re almost at the end.

I opened the creaking basement door slowly, trying not to startle him.

He froze in place with the candle dish quivering in his cupped hands.

Once he saw it was me, he shook his head and laughed a little.

I laughed, too, and our laughter grew and stretched out.

It was the best way, the only way, to say hi and break the glacier that had grown between us.

I wanted to tell him I understood why he was angry.

Believe me, did I ever. I wanted to tell him I appreciated the sentiment of his rejecting the visitors and their offered choices.

I wanted to tell him he’d never been more fully, maddeningly, wonderfully Art Barbara than he was now.

I wanted to tell him he was noble, but it was a chasing-windmills kind of noble.

I wanted to tell him he was not being pragmatic or realistic, which meant that he had passed over the border into the land of the immature and foolish.

I wanted to tell him that the phrase of cutting off your nose to spite your face had been invented for him.

I wanted to tell him that blood had always and would always lubricate the grinding gears of the universe.

But he didn’t need to hear any of that from me. Not then.

“Hey, you and me, let’s go to Boulder,” I said. “We don’t have to go with anyone else. Certainly not Henry. He’s probably destined to die from an infection after getting a splinter, or maybe Touchdown Jesus will call him back to Notre Dame.”

Art stopped laughing, but he’d kept a half smile on his face. He said, “No.” It was quiet, soft, and I hoped it meant, despite everything, that we were still friends.

“Fair enough. Let’s go somewhere else, then. Anywhere else,” I said. “Find a place where you can plug in a guitar amp and rock out.”

“I’m not leaving,” he said.

In retrospect, I regret saying anything to him.

I think he refused my let’s-make-like-a-tree-and-leave options because I presented them.

If I’d instead found a way to lead him into suggesting we flee the house, then he’d still be with us.

It would be me and him sitting by this fire with you. And that fucking haunts me.

I said, “I know it sucks, but you really should leave. There are far scarier things afoot than an energy vampire.”

His half smile melted away. In the flickering candlelight, he looked so scared and so damned young, younger than the beautiful, maddening, obstinate nineteen-year-old he was.

Tears filled his eyes and he couldn’t look at me anymore.

I fear, in that moment, I had stolen his hard-won, regained inner peace and I cannot forgive myself for doing so.

Maybe I am an energy vampire after all. Art nodded at me, or he nodded at everything, tears rolling down his cheeks, and he left the dining room, taking the light with him.

I knew I couldn’t save him, but I couldn’t leave him. Not yet. At the very least, I could be Art’s witness. So, I went back down to the basement and waited in the dark. I didn’t have to wait long.

There was a pounding on the front door, then a hyena-like laugh.

A mob of purposefully heavy footsteps circled the house’s perimeter, and there were harsh knocks on the windows and outside walls, and they called out Art’s name.

Just his name, over and over. They sounded like crows.

But they weren’t crows. Their footsteps lightened and multiplied and were now paw steps.

The tittering and laughter became howls and growls, and sharp-pitched barks.

One of them smashed through the door off the kitchen and the others swarmed inside, their nails and claws scrabbled across the linoleum.

I still heard their scrabbling nails over Art’s awful screams, and I heard the nails after, as I opened the bulkhead and crept out of the basement and into the night.

About two blocks away, I had to duck into a row of bushes to avoid the pious tool Henry and a group of six others. The others carried long flashlights and baseball bats and one had a shotgun. Make of that what you will.

Whatever I made of it, it pissed me off, so after they passed me, I jumped out from my hiding spot, further inserting myself into this story, and shouted, “Hey, Hank!”

The group stopped and turned, but did not double back toward me.

“You don’t have to worry about Art anymore,” I said. “He’s gone.”

Henry shouted, “He went with them?”

“No, dumbass,” I said. “Art is gone. Gone, daddy, gone.”

On cue, the night air echoed with howls. I’ve always had impeccable timing.

Almost apologetically, as if a spell had been broken, a few in Henry’s group mumbled questions, asking if it was too late, could they still help Art, but they stopped asking in the weight of my silence.

Henry invited me to go with them. I laughed and told him that maybe I’d run into him later, hoping it came off as mysteriously and threateningly pithy.

So yeah, that’s where Art’s story ends. I miss him like a lost limb.

What? No, I haven’t run into Henry again. Not yet. That certainly would make a cleaner and tidier kind of end. But good stories, real ones, or the ones that feel real, don’t wrap up so neatly.

Besides, stories don’t really end, do they? Well, I suppose the stories will end when all the storytellers are gone. But there are still a few of us stubbornly kicking around.

Let’s wait until the morning to talk about where you or I are headed next. Let’s not spoil this moment we had, are having. I want to savor it, like the fine meal it was.

Hey, man, you’re exhausted. Look at you, can barely keep your eyes open. You get some rest.

Don’t worry, I’m not tired yet. I’ll stay up and tend the fire. Keep watch for a bit. Make sure none of them cannibal vampires show up. They are a pesky lot.

Tomorrow.

You and I, we’ll figure out where the story goes from here tomorrow. It’s gotta go somewhere, right?

Sweet dreams.