72 pages • 2 hours read
The Stand
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Chapters 44-46Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 44 Summary
Too frightened to ride his motorcycle after his near-accident, Larry journeys on foot through New Hampshire. He is almost delirious from lack of sleep because nightmares of the dark man haunt him. “It was the devil, and he was stalking Larry with a lightless grin frozen on his face” (504).
In the middle of the afternoon, Larry comes to a white farmhouse where he decides to rest. He doesn’t realize that a woman and a young boy who wears only undershorts and brandishes a butcher knife observe him. The boy wants to kill Larry as he sleeps, but the woman commands him to stop. She says they will follow the man to decide if it’s safe to approach him.
When he awakens, Larry goes in search of a bicycle and continues his journey. The woman and boy travel close behind. Larry now senses someone following him but chooses to let his pursuers reveal themselves in their own time. He crosses the Maine state line, still followed by the woman and boy. Near the town of Wells, Larry makes a detour to sit by the ocean, feeling a sense of relief to have reached land’s-end. The boy unexpectedly charges him with the knife, but Larry drops him to the ground and disarms him. The woman arrives and introduces herself as Nadine Cross. She calls the boy “Joe” because she doesn’t know his real name, and he won’t speak.
Nadine explains that they want to travel with Larry. Since he is desperate for company, he agrees. They camp that night on the beach, and Larry starts to play a guitar that he found at the house where they scavenged their supper. Joe is fascinated by the instrument. When Larry allows the boy to play it, Joe immediately mimics Larry’s performance even though he’s never played before. The guitar thaws his animosity toward Larry.
The trio cycles southward and enters the town of Ogunquit. Joe immediately spots the sign left by Harold and Frannie on the roof of the barn. Nadine proposes that they reverse direction and follow the couple north to the plague center. Curious about who painted the message, Larry enters the barn for a closer look. Carved into one of the support beams by Harold, he finds an image of a small heart with an arrow through it, containing Harold and Frannie’s initials.
The following day, Larry suggests they acquire motorcycles to continue their journey. Nadine doesn’t know how to ride one, but Larry teaches her. By now, Joe has grown more proficient with the guitar and has begun to speak a few words to the adults. He even agrees to ride with Larry rather than Nadine once they get underway.
That night, Larry has a dream about a cornfield in Nebraska. He is traveling with Nadine and Joe when they stumble across an old black woman playing her guitar and singing. She urges them to come and meet her before the dark man arrives. She says,
That black man. That servant of the devil. We got the Rockies between us n him, praise God, but they won’t keep him back. That’s why we got to knit together. In Colorado. God come to me in a dream and showed me where (549).
The next day, the trio travels northward and stops briefly in the town of Enfield. While there, they meet another plague survivor. Her name is Lucy Swann, and she is the town’s sole inhabitant after losing her husband and daughter. Lucy talks about her strange dreams involving a dark man, a cornfield, and an old black woman in Nebraska. This prompts Larry to share his dream. Joe brokenly explains that the same nightmare as the other two haunts him. Nadine denies she has had such dreams, but Larry believes she is lying.
The four continue their journey to the plague center. When they arrive there, everyone is dead, but there is another message from Harold. He is traveling with Frannie, Stu, and Glen. “WE ARE MOVING WEST TO NEBRASKA ROUTE 29 to I-87 STAY ON OUR ROUTE I-87 SOUTH TO I-90 WATCH FOR SIGNS I-90 WEST” (558).
Chapter 45 Summary
Abagail Freemantle sits on her porch in Nebraska, waiting for the visitors she senses will arrive soon. Abagail is 108 years old, and she knows she is running out of time. She thinks:
Somewhere, far to the west, beyond the Rockies […] she felt an eye—some glittering Eye—suddenly open wide and turn toward her, searching. As clearly as if the words had been spoken aloud she heard him: Who’s there? Is it you, old woman? (585).
Abagail has been dreaming about the dark man for a long time now, as well as the group of people who will join her to oppose him. She considers herself a servant of the Lord and intends to do her part to fulfill His plan. On the 24th of July, as she expected, a truck full of people arrives on her doorstep. Ralph Brentner, the driver, has added a few passengers since he picked up Nick and Tom. Their names are Olivia Walker, June Brinkmeyer, Gina, and Dick Ellis.
Most of the survivors report having dreamed of Abagail and felt a need to find her. She tells them, “I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some awful tussle for the souls of those few people—for their souls, their bodies, their way of thinking. And I wouldn’t be surprised if that was what was on for us” (599). The Lord has told Abagail that her party is to go to Boulder, Colorado. Since Abagail has dreamed that more people are heading toward her home, the group waits a few days.
Abagail senses that everyone in the Brentner party perceives Nick to be their leader though Nick, himself, is uncomfortable in that role. He has always viewed himself as a foot soldier in somebody else’s army. He thinks:
The old woman said the dark man was a real man […] and he didn’t want to believe that, either … but in his heart he did. In his heart he believed everything she had said, and it scared him. He didn’t want to be their leader. It’s you, Nick (606).
Because the dark man will soon be able to detect their location, Nick and Abagail decide the current group must leave. On July 26, they set out for Boulder after writing a message directing others to follow them. They will stay in communication with the late arrivals using a CB radio on Citizen’s Band Channel 14.
The group commandeers a Dodge van and takes a CB radio from a wrecker truck. Once everyone boards the now loaded van, Abagail says to herself, “She was set in the center of the Lord’s will and His will would be done. The Lord’s will would be done, but she thought of that red Eye opening in the dark heart of the night and she was afraid” (608).
Chapter 46 Summary
Frannie, Harold, Stu, and Glen have joined up with a couple named Mark Braddock and Perion McCarthy. They’re all riding small motorbikes—Yamahas and Hondas, not Harleys. Frannie finds herself increasingly drawn to Stu and regretful that she ever teamed up with Harold. The latter continues to act like a pompous know-it-all because he can’t seem to get past the high school bullies who tormented him. Frannie says,
Harold could never believe that anyone could think he was cool. Part of him has such a huge investment in being square. He is determined to carry all of his problems right along with him into this not-so-brave new world (633).
The group travels as far as Ohio when a medical disaster occurs. Mark develops appendicitis. Stu and Harold go to the nearest hospital for medical books and surgical instruments. When Stu attempts to perform an appendectomy, Mark dies anyway. Mark’s girlfriend, Peri, is so distraught that she takes an overdose of Veronal.
Because everyone now suffers bad dreams of the dark man, they begin to compare notes about the details of their nightmares. All bear a striking similarity, and now Abagail is beginning to emerge as a central figure too. She urges them all to come find her in Nebraska. Glen thinks that a showdown between good and evil is about to occur. He speculates, “We’re being given the means to help shape our own futures, perhaps. A kind of fourth-dimensional free will: the chance to choose in advance of events” (638). The group chooses to throw in their lot with Abagail, and they go to seek her out in Nebraska.
Chapters 44-46 Analysis
Larry’s story dominates much of this segment as he creates his own group of survivors. When he realizes that Nadine and Joe have been following him, he suggests they all travel together. Farther in their journey, they add Lucy to their group. A significant change occurs when Larry stumbles across Harold’s sign on the roof of the barn directing survivors to the plague center in Vermont. This is the first point in the book at which one group of survivors attempts to forge a connection with another group.
The isolated units are converging both because of Harold’s written directions and also because of Abagail’s spiritual messages. Her presence in Nick’s dreams is strong enough to direct his party to find her in Nebraska. Stu’s group soon suffers from similar dreams of the dark man and of Abagail, and they decide to head to Nebraska as well. Harold’s new directions at the plague center redirect Larry’s group to the same location.
With all the focus now placed on a farmhouse in Nebraska, the owner of that house leaps out of the dreams of the plague survivors and becomes a living character in the book. Her own dreams have told her to expect their arrival. Abagail’s visions have given the survivors a new destination in Colorado. When Nick’s group leaves with Abagail, they find a way to broadcast their intentions to any other survivors, still trying to find a sense of spiritual and physical direction. Those broadcasts will enable hundreds of wandering survivors to coalesce into a community in the Free Zone of Boulder.
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