The Stand

by Stephen King

The light of an early summer afternoon as it slipped toward dark had so many good things wrapped up in it: baseball at the Little League park, where Fred had always played third and batted clean-up; watermelon; first corn; iced tea in chilled glasses; childhood.

A memory circuit in the Department of Masochism clicked open and he heard Wayne Stukey saying, There’s something in you that’s like biting on tinfoil.

“I’ll tell you the truth, man,” Poke said. “All of a sudden I feel as nervous as a longtail cat in a room fulla rockin chairs.”

That thudding noise had terrified him—it was as if God had suddenly stamped his foot down on the desert floor somewhere not too distant.