Stephen King - The Stand: The Complete and Uncut Edition

BY STEPHEN KING

NOVELS

Carrie

Salems Lot

The Shining

The Stand

The Dead Zone

Firestarter

Cujo

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger

Christine

Pet Sematary

The Talisman (with Peter Straub)

It

The Eyes of the Dragon

Misery

The Tommyknockers

The Dark Tower II:

Drawing of the Three

The Dark Half

The Stand: The Complete
& Uncut Edition

AS RICHARD BACHMAN

Rage

The Long Walk

Roadwork

The Running Man

Thinner

COLLECTIONS

Night Shift

Different Seasons

Skeleton Crew

NONFICTION

Danse Macabre

SCREENPLAYS

Creepshow

Cats Eye

Silver Bullet

Maximum Overdrive

FOR TABBY

this dark chest of wonders.

AUTHORS NOTE

The Stand is a work of fiction, as its subject matter makes perfectly clear. Many of the events occur in real placessuch as Ogunquit, Maine; Las Vegas, Nevada; and Boulder, Coloradoand with these places I have taken the liberty of changing them to whatever degree best suited the course of my fiction. I hope that those readers who live in these and the other real places that are mentioned in this novel will not be too upset by my monstrous impertinence, to quote Dorothy Sayers, who indulged freely in the same sort of thing.

Other places, such as Arnette, Texas, and Shoyo, Arkansas, are as fictional as the plot itself.

Special thanks are due to Russell Dorr (P.A.) and Dr. Richard Herman, both of the Bridgton Family Medical Center, who answered my questions about the nature of the flu, and its peculiar way of mutating every two years or so, and to Susan Artz Manning of Castine, who proofed the original manuscript.

Most thanks of all to Bill Thompson and Betty Prashker, who made this book happen in the best way.

S.K.

A PREFACE IN TWO PARTS

PART 1: TO BE READ BEFORE PURCHASE

There are a couple of things you need to know about this version of The Stand right away, even before you leave the bookstore. For that reason I hope Ive caught you earlyhopefully standing there by the K section of new fiction, with your other purchases tucked under your arm and the book open in front of you. In other words, I hope Ive caught you while your wallet is still safely in your pocket. Ready? Okay; thanks. I promise to be brief.

First, this is not a new novel. If you hold misapprehensions on that score, let them be dispelled right here and right now, while you are still a safe distance from the cash register which will take money out of your pocket and put it in mine. The Stand was originally published over ten years ago.

Second, this is not a brand-new, entirely different version of The Stand. You will not discover old characters behaving in new ways, nor will the course of the tale branch off at some point from the old narrative, taking you, Constant Reader, in an entirely different direction.

This version of The Stand is an expansion of the original novel. As Ive said, you wont find old characters behaving in strange new ways, but you will discover that almost all of the characters were, in the books original form, doing more things, and if I didnt think some of those things were interestingperhaps even enlightening I would never have agreed to this project.

If this is not what you want, dont buy this book. If you have bought it already, I hope you saved your sales receipt. The book-shop where you made your purchase will want it before granting you credit or a cash refund.

If this expansion is something you want, I invite you to come along with me just a little farther. I have lots to tell you, and I think we can talk better around the corner.

In the dark.

PART 2: TO BE READ AFTER PURCHASE

This is not so much a Preface, actually, as it is an explanation of why this new version of The Stand exists at all. It was a long novel to begin with, and this expanded version will be regarded by someperhaps manyas an act of indulgence by an author whose works have been successful enough to allow it. I hope not, but Id have to be pretty stupid not to realize that such criticism is in the offing. After all, many critics of the novel regarded it bloated and overlong to begin with.

Whether the book was too long to begin with, or has become so in this edition, is a matter I leave to the individual reader. I only wanted to take this little space to say that I am republishing The Stand as it was originally written not to serve myself or any individual reader, but to serve a body of readers who have asked to have it. I would not offer it if I myself didnt think those portions which were dropped from the original manuscript made the story a richer one, and Id be a liar if I didnt admit I am curious as to what its reception will be.

Ill spare you the story of how The Stand came to be writtenthe chain of thought which produces a novel rarely interests anyone but aspiring novelists. They tend to believe there is a secret formula to writing a commercially successful novel, but there isnt. You get an idea; at some point another idea kicks in; you make a connection or a series of them between ideas; a few characters (usually little more than shadows at first) suggest themselves; a possible ending occurs to the writers mind (although when the ending comes, its rarely much like the one the writer envisioned); and at some point, the novelist sits down with a paper and pen, a typewriter, or a word cruncher. When asked, How do you write? I invariably answer, One word at a time, and the answer is invariably dismissed. But that is all it is. It sounds too simple to be true, but consider the Great Wall of China, if you will: one stone at a time, man. Thats all. One stone at a time. But Ive read you can see that motherfucker from space without a telescope.

For readers who are interested, the story is told in the final chapter of DanseMacabre, a rambling but user-friendly overview of the horror genre I published in 1981. This is not a commercial for that book; Im just saying the tale is there if you want it, although its told not because it is interesting in itself but to illustrate an entirely different point.

For the purposes of this book, whats important is that approximately four hundred pages of manuscript were deleted from the final draft. The reason was not an editorial one; if that had been the case, I would be content to let the book live its life and die its eventual death as it was originally published.

The cuts were made at the behest of the accounting department. They toted up production costs, laid these next to the hardcover sales of my previous four books, and decided that a cover price of $12.95 was about what the market would bear (compare that price to this one, friends and neighbors!). I was asked if I would like to make the cuts, or if I would prefer someone in the editorial department to do it. I reluctantly agreed to do the surgery myself. I think I did a fairly good job, for a writer who has been accused over and over again of having diarrhea of the word processor. There is only one placeTrashcan Mans trip across the country from Indiana to Las Vegasthat seems noticeably scarred in the original version.