Sentries. They've posted sentries. Be funny to come all this way and get shot by a sentry outside the Table Mesa Shopping Center. Real funny. That's one even Randall Flagg could appreciate.
"Stu Redman!" he yelled into the dark. "It's Stu Redman here!" He swallowed and heard an audible click in his throat. "Who's that over there?"
Stupid. Won't be anyone that you know -
But the voice that drifted out of the snow did sound familiar. "Stu? Stu Redman?"
"Tom Cullen's with me... for Christ's sake, don't shoot us!"
"Is it a trick?" The voice seemed to be deliberating with itself.
"No trick! Tom, say something."
"Hi there," Tom said obediently.
There was a pause. The snow blew and shrieked around them. Then the sentry (yes, that voice was familiar) called: "Stu had a picture on the wall in the old apartment. What was it?"
Stu racked his brain frantically. The sound of the drawn rifle bolt kept recurring, getting in the way. He thought, My God, I'm standing here in a blizzard trying to think what picture was on the wall in the apartment - the old apartment, he said. Fran must have moved in with Lucy. Lucy used to make fun of that picture, used to say that John Wayne was waiting for those Indians just where you couldn't see him -
"Frederic Remington!" He bellowed at the top of his lungs. "It's called The Warpath! "
"Stu!" the sentry yelled back. A black shape materialized out of the snow, slipping and sliding as it ran toward them. "I just can't believe it - "
Then he was in front of them, and Stu saw it was Billy Gehringer, who had caused them so much trouble with his hot-rodding last summer.
"Stu! Tom! And Kojak, by Christ! Where's Glen Bateman and Larry? Where's Ralph?"
Stu shook his head slowly. "Don't know. We got to get out of the cold, Billy. We're freezing."
"Sure, the supermarket's right up the road. I'll call Norm Kellogg... Harry Dunbarton... Dick Ellis... shit, I'll wake the town! This is great! I don't believe it!"
"Billy - "
Billy turned back to them, and Stu limped over to where he stood.
"Billy, Fran was going to have a baby - "
Billy grew very still. And then he whispered, "Oh shit, I forgot about that."
"She's had it?"
"George. George Richardson can tell you, Stu. Or Dan Lathrop. He's our new doc, we got him about four weeks after you guys left, used to be a nose, throat, and ears man, but he's pretty g - "
Stu gave Billy a brisk shake, cutting off his almost frantic babble.
"What's wrong?" Tom asked. "Is something wrong with Frannie?"
"Talk to me, Billy," Stu said. "Please."
"Fran's okay," Billy said. "She's going to be fine."
"That what you heard?"
"No, I saw her. Me and Tony Donahue, we went up together with some flowers from the greenhouse. The greenhouse is Tony's project, he's got all kinds of stuff growing there, not just flowers. The only reason she's still in is because she had to have a what-do-you-call-it, a Roman birth - "
"A cesarean section?"
"Yeah, right, because the baby came the wrong way. But no sweat. We went to see her three days after she had the baby, it was January seventh we went up, two days ago. We brought her some roses. We figured she could use some cheering up because..."
"The baby died?" Stu asked dully.
"It's not dead," Billy said, and then he added with great reluctance: "Not yet."
Stu suddenly felt far away, rushing through the void. He heard laughter... and the howling of wolves...
Billy said in a miserable rush: "It's got the flu. It's got Captain Trips. It's the end for all of us, that's what people are saying. Frannie had him on the fourth, a boy, six pounds nine ounces, and at first he was okay and I guess everybody in the Zone got drunk, Dick Ellis said it was like V-E Day and V-J Day all rolled into one, and then on the sixth, he... he just got it. Yeah, man," Billy said, and his voice began to hitch and thicken. "He got it, oh shit, ain't that some welcome home, I'm so f**kin sorry, Stu..."
Stu reached out, found Billy's shoulder, and pulled him closer.
"At first everybody was sayin he might get better, maybe it's just the ordinary flu... or bronchitis... maybe the croup... but the docs, they said newborn babies almost never get those things. It's like a natural immunity, because they're so little. And both George and Dan... they saw so much of the superflu last year..."
"That it would be hard for them to make a mistake," Stu finished for him.
"Yeah," Billy whispered. "You got it."
"What a bitch," Stu muttered. He turned away from Billy and began to limp down the road again.
"Stu, where are you going?"
"To the hospital," Stu said. "To see my woman."
BOOK III THE STAND Chapter 76-77