THE STAND
BY
STEPHEN KING
Book 1: Captain Trips
*Converted to eBook by DeadCell
Uploaded: May 11, 2009



The Stand is such a long book that I have been forced to upload it in three pieces. Thankfully, Stephen King split the book into three "books" withing the book, so I didn't just have to cut off at some point. This is Part 1 of 3 of Stephen King's "The Stand: Complete and Uncut Edition". The uncut edition is the ultimate version of The Stand, because it has almost 500 more pages than the original version. King was forced by his publisher to cut these pages in his original version of the book, because they told him that it was too long. This edition brings back almost all of the deleted content, and provides for a much better experience.

Also look for Parts 2 and 3 of the book.



THE CIRCLE OPENS

"Sally."
A mutter.
"Wake up now, Sally."
A louder mutter: leeme lone.
He shook her harder.
"Wake up. You got to wake up!"
Charlie.
Charlie's voice. Calling her. For how long?
Sally swam up out of sleep.
First she glanced at the clock on the night table and saw it was quarter past
two in the morning. Charlie shouldn't even be here; he should be on shift. Then
she got her first good look at him and something leaped up inside her, some
deadly intuition.
Her husband was deathly pale. His eyes started and bulged from their sockets.
The car keys were in one hand. He was still using the other to shake her,
although her eyes were open. It was as if he hadn't been able to register the
fact that she was awake.
"Charlie, what is it? What's wrong?"
He didn't seem to know what to say. His Adam's apple bobbed futilely but there
was no sound in the small service bungalow but the ticking of the clock.
"Is it a fire?" she asked stupidly. It was the only thing she could think of
which might have put him in such a state. She knew his parents had perished in a
housefire.
"In a way," he said. "In a way it's worse. You got to get dressed, honey. Get
Baby LaVon. We got to get out of here."
"Why?" she asked, getting out of bed. Dark fear had seized her. Nothing seemed
right. This was like a dream. "Where? You mean the back yard?" But she knew it
wasn't the back yard. She had never seen Charlie look afraid like this. She drew
a deep breath and could smell no smoke or burning.
"Sally, honey, don't ask questions. We have to get away. Far away. You lust go
get Baby LaVon and get her dressed."
"But should I . . . is there time to pack?"
This seemed to stop him. To derail him somehow. She thought she was as afraid
as she could be, but apparently she wasn't. She recognized that what she had
taken for fright on his part was closer to raw panic. He ran a distracted hand
through his hair and replied, "I don't know. I'll have to test the wind."
And he left her with this bizarre statement which meant nothing to her, left
her standing cold and afraid and disoriented in her bare feet and babydoll
nightie. It was as if he had gone mad. What did testing the wind have to do with
whether or not she had time to pack? And where was far away? Reno? Vegas? Salt
Lake City? And . . .
She put her hand against her throat as a new idea struck her.
AWOL. Leaving in the middle of the night meant Charlie was planning to go
AWOL.
She went into the small room which served as Baby LaVon's nursery and stood
for a moment, indecisive, looking at the sleeping infant in her pink blanket
suit. She held to the faint hope that this might be no more than an
extraordinarily vivid dream. It would pass, she would wake up at seven in the
morning just like usual, feed Baby LaVon and herself while she watched the first
hour of the "Today" show, and be cooking Charlie's eggs when he came off-shift
at S A.M., his nightly tour -in the Reservation's north tower over for another
night. And in two weeks he would be back on days and not so cranky and if he was
sleeping with her at night she wouldn't have crazy dreams like this one and
"Hurry it up!" he hissed at her, breaking her faint hope. "We got just time to
throw a few things together . . . but for Christ's sake, woman, if you love
her"-he pointed at the crib-"you get her dressed!" He coughed nervously into his
hand and began to yank things out of their bureau drawers and pile them helterskelter
into a couple of old suitcases.
She woke up Baby LaVon, soothing the little one as best she could; the threeyear-
old was cranky and bewildered at being awakened in the middle of the night,