The Stand:BOOK I(34)

The first thing that struck him was the still heat of the day and the smell of greenery. By afternoon it was going to be a scorcher. It was the sort of day when people like to get their chores and errands done early so they can spend the afternoon as quietly as possible, but to Nick, Shoyo's main street looked strangely indolent this forenoon, more like a Sunday than a workday.

Most of the diagonal parking spaces in front of the stores were empty. A few cars and farm trucks were going up and down the street, but not many. The hardware store looked open, but the shades of the Mercantile Bank were still drawn, although it was past nine now.

Nick turned right, toward the truck-stop, which was five blocks down. He was on the corner of the third block when he saw Dr. Soames's car moving slowly up the street toward him, weaving a little from side to side, as if with exhaustion. Nick waved vigorously, not sure if Soames would stop, but Soames pulled in at the curb, indifferently taking up four of the slanted parking spaces. He didn't get out but merely sat behind the wheel. The look of the man shocked Nick. Soames had aged twenty years since he had last seen him bantering casually with the sheriff. It was partly exhaustion, but exhaustion couldn't be the whole explanation-even Nick could see that. As if to confirm his thought, the doctor produced a wrinkled handkerchief from his breast pocket like an old magician doing a creaky trick that does not interest him much anymore, and sneezed into it repeatedly. When he was done he leaned his head back against the car's seat, mouth half-open to draw breath. His skin looked so shiny and yellow that he reminded Nick of a dead person.

Then Soames opened his eyes and said, "Sheriff Baker's dead. If that's what you flagged me down for, you can forget it. He died a little after two o'clock this morning. Now Janey's sick with it."

Nick's eyes widened. Sheriff Baker dead? But his wife had been in just last night and said he was feeling better. And she …  she had been fine. No, it just wasn't possible.

"Dead, all right," Soames said, as though Nick had spoken his thought aloud. "And he's not the only one. I've signed twelve death certificates in the last twelve hours. And I know of another twenty that are going to be dead by noon unless God shows mercy. But I doubt if this is God's doing. I suspect He'll keep right out of it as a consequence."

Nick pulled the pad from his pocket and wrote: "What's the matter with them?"

"I don't know," Soames said, crumpling the sheet slowly and tossing the ball into the gutter. "But everyone in town seems to be coming down with it, and I'm more frightened than I ever have been in my life. I have it myself, although what I'm suffering most from right now is exhaustion. I'm not a young man anymore. I can't go these long hours without paying the price, you know." A tired, frightened petulance had entered his voice, which Nick fortunately couldn't hear. "And feeling sorry for myself won't help."

Nick, who hadn't been aware Soames was feeling sorry for himself, could only look at him, puzzled.

Soames got out of his car, holding on to Nick's arm for a minute to help himself. He had an old man's grip, weak and a little frenzied. "Come on over to that bench, Nick. You're good to talk to. I suppose you've been told that before."

Nick pointed back toward the jail.

"They're not going anywhere," Soames said, "and if they're down with it, right now they're on the bottom of my list."

They sat on the bench, which was painted bright green and bore an advertisement on the backrest for a local insurance company. Soames turned his face gratefully up to the warmth of the sun.

"Chills and fever," he said. "Ever since about ten o'clock last night. Just lately it's been the chills. Thank God there hasn't been any diarrhea."

"You ought to go home to bed," Nick wrote.

"So I ought. And will. I just want to rest for a few minutes first … " His eyes slipped shut and Nick thought he had gone to sleep. He wondered if he should go on down to the truck-stop and get Billy and Mike some breakfast.

Then Dr. Soames spoke again, without opening his eyes. Nick watched his lips. "The symptoms are all very common," he said, and began to enumerate them on his fingers until all ten were spread out in front of him like a fan. "Chills. Fever. Headache. Weakness and general debilitation. Loss of appetite. Painful urination. Swelling of the glands, progressing from minor to acute. Swelling in the armpits and in the groin. Respiratory weakness and failure."

He looked at Nick.

"They are the symptoms of the common cold, of influenza, of pneumonia. We can cure all of those things, Nick. Unless the patient is very young or very old, or perhaps already weakened by a previous illness, antibiotics will knock them out. But not this. It comes on the patient quickly or slowly. It doesn't seem to matter. Nothing helps. The thing escalates, backs up, escalates again; debilitation increases; the swelling gets worse; finally, death.

"Somebody made a mistake.

"And they're trying to cover it up."

Nick looked at him doubtfully, wondering if he had picked the words rightly from the doctor's lips, wondering if Soames might be raving.

"It sounds slightly paranoid, doesn't it?" Soames asked, looking at him with weary humor. "I used to be frightened of the younger generation's paranoia, do you know that? Always afraid someone was tapping their phones …  following them …  running computer checks on them …  and now I find out they were right and I was wrong. Life is a fine thing, Nick, but old age takes an unpleasantly high toll on one's dearly held prejudices, I find."

"What do you mean?" Nick wrote.

"None of the phones in Shoyo work," Soames said. Nick had no idea if this was in answer to his question (Soames seemed to have given Nick's last note only the most cursory of glances), or if the doctor had gone off on some new tack-the fever could be making Soames's mind jump around, he supposed.

The doctor observed Nick's puzzled face, and seemed to think the deaf-mute might not believe him. "Quite true," he said. "If you try to dial any number not on this town's circuit, you get a recorded announcement. Furthermore, the two Shoyo exits and entrances from the turnpike are closed off with barriers which say ROAD CONSTRUCTION. But there is no construction. Only the barriers. I was out there. I believe it would be possible to move the barriers aside, but the traffic on the turnpike seems very light this morning. And most of it seems to consist of army vehicles. Trucks and jeeps."

"What about the other roads?" Nick wrote.

"Route 63 has been torn up at the east end of town to replace a culvert," Soames said. "At the west end of town there appears to have been a rather nasty car accident. Two cars across the road, blocking it entirely. There are smudge pots out, but no sign of state troopers or wreckers."

He paused, removed his handkerchief, and blew his nose.

"The men working on the culvert are going very slowly, according to Joe Rackman, who lives out that way. I was at the Rackmans' about two hours ago, looking at their little boy, who is very ill indeed. Joe said that he thinks that the men at the culvert are in fact soldiers, though they're dressed in state road crew coveralls and driving a state truck."

Nick wrote: "How does he know?"

Standing up, Soames said: "Workmen rarely salute each other."

Nick got up, too.

"Back roads?" he jotted.

"Possibly." Soames nodded. "But I am a doctor, not a hero. Joe said he saw guns in the cab of that truck. Army-issue carbines. If one tried to leave Shoyo by the back roads and if they were watched, who knows? And what might one find beyond Shoyo? I repeat: someone made a mistake. And now they're trying to cover it up. Madness. Madness. Of course the news of something like this will get out, and it won't take long. And in the meantime, how many will die?"

Nick, frightened, only looked at Dr. Soames as he went back to his car and climbed slowly in.

"And you, Nick," Soames said, looking out the window at him. "How do you feel? A cold? Sneezing? Coughing?"

Nick shook his head to each one.

"Will you try to leave town? I think you could, if you went by the fields."

Nick shook his head and wrote, "Those men are locked up. I can't just leave them. Vincent Hogan is sick but the other two seem okay. I'll get them their breakfast and then go see Mrs. Baker."

"You're a thoughtful boy," Soames said. "That's rare. A boy in this degraded age who has a sense of responsibility is even rarer. She'd appreciate that, Nick, I know. Mr. Braceman, the Methodist minister, also said he would stop by. I'm afraid he'll have a lot of calls to make before the day is over. You'll be careful of those three you have locked up, won't you?"

Nick nodded soberly.

"Good. I'll try to drop by and check on you this afternoon." He dropped the car into gear and drove away, looking weary and red-eyed and shriveled. Nick stared after him, his face troubled, and then began to walk down to the truck-stop again. It was open, but one of the two cooks was not in and three of the four waitresses hadn't shown up for the seven-to-three shift. Nick had to wait a long time to get his order. When he got back to the jail, both Billy and Mike looked badly frightened. Vince Hogan was delirious, and by six o'clock that evening he was dead.