Stephen King Shares a Chapter of THE STAND That Describes in Eerie Detail How The Spread of a Pandemic Happens
Stephen King’s 1978 novel The Stand tells the story of a world that is devastated by a deadly disease and it leads to the ultimate battle between good and evil. This is one of my favorite Stephen King stories and I suggest you read it if you have never had the opportunity.
In the wake of the spread of the coronavirus and the pandemic we currently find ourselves in, this story The Stand tells is more chilling now than ever. The author recently shared a particular chapter from the book that describes in eerie detail how the spread of a virus pandemic happens. It’s pretty crazy because this is what’s happening! King shared a note with the video, saying:
"Chapter 8 of THE STAND. This is how it works. Heed. (But remember COID-19 is not as lethal as the superflu.)"
Listen to the chapter below and feel free to share your thoughts.
The chapter describes how as people are living their normal lives, they are unknowingly spreading the virus, which is known in the book as “Captain Tripp”, to each other. It also describes how this will lead to their death and the deaths of their loved ones. All of them unaware of the horror that awaits them.
The chapter ends with King chillingly likening the pandemic, which is named “Captain Tripp” in the book to a chain letter, which each person passes along to another:
"Chain letters don't work, it's a known fact. The million dollars or so you are promised if you just send one single dollar to the name at the top of the list, add yours to the bottom, and then send the letter to five friends, never arrives. This one, the Captain Tripp's chain letter, worked very well. The pyramid was indeed being built, not from the bottom up but from the tip down - said tip being a deceased army security guard named Charles Campion.
“All the chickens were coming home to roost - only instead of the mailman bringing each participant bale after bale of letters, each containing a single dollar bill, Captain Tripps brought bales of bedrooms, with a body or two in each one, and trenches and dead pits, and finally bodies slung into the oceans on each coast, and into quarries, and into the foundations of unfinished houses. And in the end, of course, the bodies would rot where they fell."
Yeah, I understand the chain letter model is outdated these days, but the point that King is trying to make by sharing this chapter of the book is that social distancing is needed to stop a pandemic from spreading.