Well, this is it - after a fairly long delay, the story's finally finished. Once again, thanks for the reviews, support, encouragement - there's a Special Thanks at the end of this chapter, but you know who you are :)

I've also taken Cosmic Castaway's advice and set things up so anonymous reviews will be accepted. I kind of neglected changing any account settings before now, so I didn't even realize that was an option. Oh well.

Here we go with the Chapter summary, short and to the point: There's no turning back now ...

Here by my side, an angel

Here by my side, the devil

Never turn your back on me

Never turn your back on me again

Here by my side, it's Heaven



Here by my side, you are destruction

Here by my side, a new color to paint the world

Never turn your back on it

Never turn your back on it again

Here by my side, it's Heaven



- Matthew Good





Epilogue

August

Maurice Boscorelli sat in the shade by himself next to an old supply shed, thoughts languid and drifting as he chewed listlessly on his egg-salad sandwich.

He hated lunch breaks. He ate, but more out of a need to occupy his fidgeting hands than out of any real appetite. He had made plenty of friends in Las Vegas, quite a few of them right here at the Indian Springs airbase. Hank Rawson, Carl Hough, Stan Bailey ... they were all good guys, true enough, but during the working day Bosco preferred to be left alone. To put it simply, he lived only to work, and he found himself tireless. Always buzzing, always keyed up, no patience for distraction. In many ways, this inexplicable, bottomless energy almost scared him.

He worked three jobs. On Saturdays he taught hand-to-hand combat from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon. On Sundays he taught firearms at a Vegas PD firing range. Mostly handguns, but he threw in some of what he'd learned from Glen Hobart about long guns. If there was one unspoken motto in Vegas, it was Waste Nothing.

During the rest of the week he boarded a Las Vegas High School bus at seven in the morning and came out here to Indian Springs (or "The Springs" as everyone called it) where he was part of a general-duties maintenance crew. Last week, they'd finally completed the task of attaching and arming the Shrike missiles to the wings of the Skyhawk fighter planes. Everything was go as far as the technology was concerned, so all that remained was to get the pilots trained and checked out.

He'd never been much for any of that touchy-feely "self-discovery" shit, but now Bosco found himself in a more reflective state of mind, trying to examine just how far he'd come since New York. And like his newly discovered energy and enthusiasm, what he saw there sometimes frightened him.

He had witnessed one crucifixion since he'd arrived in Vegas almost two months ago - a guy named Hec Drogan. Ol' Hec had been freebasing, and that was too bad, because Flagg didn't tolerate drugs here. Not at all. So ol' Hec had ended up riding a cross. Bosco had watched it, and it hadn't affected him at all. He'd thought it would do something to him, perhaps introduce a certain level of doubt, but it hadn't. This was the way things were now, and - just maybe - the way things always should have been. No quarter was given. No punches were pulled.

Maritza Cruz would have been impressed.

The dreams had followed him all through his journey across the country. Sometimes it would be the New York street again, the car, Cruz dead and flyblown in the passenger seat, Flagg in his denim and sprung boots. But mostly the dreams were dark and obscure and ominous, exciting and yet at the same time deeply frightening. There had always been that sense of slippage, of plunging headlong into a new life, a new age. One in which there would be no turning back.

Sometimes, however, he would wake up in the darkness in whatever motel or roadside inn he was sleeping in, and Faith would be there, standing over him. Visible in spite of the pitch blackness of a world where electricity was already just a memory. In these waking dreams, she never spoke. She would only look down at him, sometimes slowly shaking her head. Or she would simply turn her back on him ... and then she would be gone.

Well, that was only lingering guilt, wasn't it? Simple guilt. He'd made a promise to her, one he'd almost immediately broken. But what was there to be guilty about? Why, nothing! He'd made the promise only to offer some pitiful comfort to her before she died - it wasn't as if he'd meant it! And he didn't believe for a second that Faith was haunting him, any more than he believed that she was sitting on a cloud somewhere with Fred and Charlie and Emily. That just wasn't the real world, brothers and sisters - that kind of thing was a fairy-story for the weak-minded. Faith was gone.

You dreamed of Flagg. And he's real.

He paused in mid-bite and frowned thoughtfully.

No ... No, totally different. Totally.

Yes, it was different, because unlike Faith, Flagg was alive.

But he still hadn't met Flagg in person, and that bothered him. While Bosco was happy doing his part, he still wanted to be noticed. He sure as hell wasn't going to be a firearms instructor or a grunt on a maintenance crew forever. Of course, he realized that Flagg was probably a very busy man - the power was on here, the streets had been cleaned up, the corpses had been removed and disposed of. That had been one hell of an undertaking, and it was still ongoing.

But Bosco knew he still had to get in somehow, someday. He had to at least thank the guy, thank Flagg for his inspiration, for giving him a sense of direction when everything and everyone around him was dying. If not for Flagg, Bosco realized he probably would have eaten his own gun.

"Hey, Boscorelli! You antisocial or somethin'?"

Bosco looked up, startled out of his thoughts. Carl Hough was coming towards him, carrying a thermos of coffee and two tin cups. Carl had been a commercial pilot before the plague, and was one of the guys currently training to fly the Skyhawk jets. He was also an ex-Marine, your typical gruff n' tough type, and Bosco supposed that out of everyone here at the Springs, Carl qualified as his closest friend. They'd get together for an occasional beer, and they'd have a great ol' time grousing about the way the world was, about how things were better now, about how the old world had gotten exactly what it deserved.

It was just a damned shame, Bosco thought, that it had to come at the cost of so many good people.

Carl sat down next to him, handed him one of the cups, and poured him a generous helping of black coffee. Bosco took it with a grunt of thanks, but inwardly he winced. He liked Carl, but true to his new habits, he wanted to be alone right now, wanted the break to be over, wanted to get back to work.

"So, you enjoying the climate?" Carl asked jovially. "Or are you getting ready to run screaming back to New York yet?"

Bosco offered a sardonic smile. Born, raised and firmly entrenched in New York most of his life, the dry desert heat had hit him pretty hard when he'd first arrived. And while he'd lived through plenty of hot New York summers, there was something different about Nevada-brand heat. Something inescapable.

"I'm still pickin' the seat o' my drawers out of the crack o' my ass every ten seconds, if that's what you mean."

Carl laughed. He sipped at his coffee, winced at either the temperature or the taste, and gestured towards one of the hangars with his cup. "Way to go with the Skyhawks. I hear you and the crew got those bad boys all locked and loaded. Great job, man."

Bosco shrugged. "Yeah, well, we had ourselves a special helper. He did most of the work."

Carl looked at him, smiled mirthlessly, and mimed flicking a lighter. "You mean ..."

"Yeah, that guy," Bosco chuckled. "He's a firebug, all right. But he helped us get those missiles on those planes in six hours. Six hours. Before he showed up we didn't know what the hell we were doing, and we were thinking it was gonna take days. I'm tellin' you, that guy must have been in the Air Force."

Carl laughed sourly. "Guy like that? You gotta be kidding." He looked up at the sound of an approaching engine. "Well, lookie lookie. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. The desert wanderer returns."

Bosco followed Carl's gaze and saw a dusty gray Land Rover advancing across the airfield, pulling a box trailer behind it. It was moving at a good clip, and Bosco saw one of the guys from his crew skitter out of the way to avoid being hit.

Carl turned to Bosco. "Wanna go see if what kind of shiny new toys Santa's brought us?"

Bosco hastily gobbled the last three bites of his sandwich and got to his feet. "Okay. No problem."

Carl shook his head, watching the Rover. "That guy gives me the creeps, personally. I'm not ashamed to admit that to another man. The spooky fuck scares me, if you want to know the truth."

Bosco nodded absently and started over to meet the Rover, and now he could see the vague shape of the driver behind the grimy windshield. The guy was bouncing happily in his seat, as if bopping to a particularly catchy tune, and as the Land Rover approached, Bosco could hear him as well.

"Bumpty-bumpty-bump!" the Land Rover's driver was yelling exuberantly out the window. "Bumpty-bumpty-bump! Ci-bo-la, Ci-bo-la, bumpty-bumpty-bump! Bumpty-bumpty-bump!"

With every bump!, the vehicle lurched slightly. Bosco waved him down, giving the vehicle a wide berth until it came to a jerky stop. The driver kept singing that lively, tuneless little ditty, and when he got out of the Land Rover he did a funny little hop-skipping jig.

He was tall and lanky, his clothes frayed and shabby after a week of roughing it in the Nevada desert. One exposed arm was a pinkish, gleaming mass of healing burn tissue. Hanging around his neck by a chain was a small, dark stone, smooth and unbroken jet-black but for a small red flaw in the center, a flaw which looked vaguely like an eye.

This, Bosco knew, was Flagg's highest badge of rank.

He was known to everyone simply as the Trashcan Man; Trashy or Trash for short. Bosco had first met him a week before, when Trash had been brought out to the Springs to help the crew get the Shrike missiles mounted on the planes. Though in many ways he seemed to be simple-minded, Trash had a peculiar gift for weapons. He would periodically disappear for days into the desert in his Land Rover, and when he returned he would usually be hauling a load of weapons. Guns, landmines, chemicals, anything you could think of.

Bosco knew that the stuff came from the military installations that were out there in the big empty between California and Nevada, but how Trash managed to actually find all that stuff was a mystery to him. Not that he wasted much time caring. Trash had obviously been a loser before the plague, but now he was in his element, and mostly everyone was glad for him. In many ways he was like a big kid, and everybody went out of their way to be kind to him.

"What'd ya bring us, Trashy?" Bosco said amiably.

Trashcan turned, his watery, not-quite-sane eyes falling on Bosco. For a moment there was no recognition ... and then his face lit up. "Bosco! How're you?"

"Good, Trash, real good," Bosco said, his earlier standoffishness suddenly gone, replaced with the same kind of big-brotherly good cheer he'd always reserved for Charlie Yokas.

"Hey Trash," he said, leaning in and whispering conspiratorially, "I saw your flametracks."

Trash brightened immediately. He had brought the flametracks back from an earlier expedition; they were tanks full of napalm. Trash absolutely adored them, arranging and re-arranging them, playing with them, the way a kid plays with Hot Wheels. And whenever anyone mentioned them, Trash seemed to swell to twice his normal size.

"Yeah?" Trashy said, a big, sloppy grin spreading on his face.

Bosco grinned back. "Yeah. Pretty fuckin' cool, my man. Especially the way you got 'em all lined 'em all up like that. Very neat."

"They are neat, aren't they?" Trash said dreamily.

"Damn straight. Now I'll tell you what, Trashy - we can't stand here shooting the shit all day, because time's a wastin'. And Mr. Flagg doesn't like people wasting time. And I mean, Flagg's the man, right?"

"My life for him," Trashy muttered distantly, obviously still thinking of his flametracks.

Bosco smiled uneasily. Trash was a bit simple, yes, and a bit weird, but he was also ... well, he was also kind of spooky.

"Yeah, sure. What say you give me a sneak peak at what you've brought back?"

Trashcan brightened again, and led Bosco around to the back of the Rover's trailer. There were eight narrow crates tucked neatly into the bay in piles of four. The tops had already been pried off; Bosco guessed that had been done by an eager Trashcan Man. He lifted the lid on the nearest crate.

The sweet, warm tang of gun oil drifted up into his face.

"Holy Christ, Trash," Bosco breathed.

Trash looked at him warily. "Did I ... did I do something wrong?"

Bosco smiled hastily. "No! No, Trash, this ... this is great!"

The crate was filled with heavy sniper rifles. Barrett A2's, if Bosco knew his weapons. They looked somewhat like bloated, oversized M-16s. He thought he might have heard Glen Hobart talking about these babies at one time - they could shoot through concrete walls, and were sometimes referred to as "anti-tank rifles."

Bosco hefted one of the guns out of the crate, feeling the righteous, deadly power in its weight and coldness. He yanked the bolt back almost viciously, and felt a thrill up his spine as it snapped closed with a loud, crisp CLACK.

He turned and beamed at Trash. "This is some serious fuckin' hardware, Trashy."

The Trashcan Man's chest puffed out again with that same giddy pride. "There's some other stuff in the other crates," he said, pointing. "Submachine guns in these here. Assault shotguns in those ones back there. Also some frag grenades, I think."

Bosco nodded, replacing the Barrett in its crate.

Then Trash looked past him and suddenly started waving frantically. "Hey, look! It's Lloyd!"

Bosco turned and caught sight of a big navy-blue Cadillac heading towards them, looking absurd and out-of-place on the airfield compared to Trashy's battered Rover. It was big, swanky, stopping just short of being a full-fledged limo.

It pulled up nearby, and Bosco recognized the driver as Barry Dorgan, head of Vegas security. He didn't know the two who were riding in the back, but the guy in the front passenger seat was Lloyd Henreid, Flagg's right-hand-man and the only person in Vegas besides Trashy to wear the black stone with the red flaw.

Bosco felt his stomach lurch with a mix of disgust and sour jealously. Henreid had been nothing but a jagoff murdering coward before the plague - Bosco knew that because he could remember seeing something about it on the news just before the shit had hit the fan back in June. It had been a tri-state murder spree. Robbery. Drugs. The whole works. Why Flagg would choose someone like that as his Second was a source of both wonder and some very unsettling doubt, which was why Bosco didn't allow himself to think about it very often. Why would someone like Henreid even be called to Flagg in the first place? For Christ's sake, people like Lloyd Henreid were part of the problem that Flagg was trying to solve!

Is he? some clouded part of him asked. Is he really?

The voice, he realized with no surprise, sounded like Faith Yokas. It was laced with bitter disgust.

Bosco pushed it away and forced himself to be polite; it would be smart stay on Henreid's good side, no matter how big a prick he might be.

And on the heels of that, something occurred to him: this could be his chance. Standing in front of him was Flagg's second-in-command.

If Bosco made only one friend in Vegas, it occurred to him that it really ought to be this jagoff.

"Well, is this just luck, or what?" Henreid said cheerily. He beamed at Trash and gave Bosco only a cursory once-over glance. "You just get back, Trashy?"

Trashcan nodded vigorously.

"Bring us a good haul?"

"You bet!"

Henreid had a quick look at the guns and whistled, impressed. "You know where to take this stuff, Trash?"

Trashcan Man nodded again. "Yeah. Quartermaster."

"Right-on! You take this iron over there, then take a break. You've earned it. Come by the Grand later tonight, if you want."

"Sure thing!" Trash said, and just like that, it was over. The Trashcan Man started back for his Rover. Henreid and his friends turned back to their Caddy.

Bosco was left standing alone, forgotten.

What the hell am I? He thought angrily. A ghost?

No way. No fucking way. This was his chance.

He gritted his teeth and started off after Henreid, feeling miserably like some brown-nosing toady. "Mr. Henreid! Hey! Could I talk to you a minute?"

Henreid turned impatiently. "What?"

Bosco stuck out a hand. "I'm ... my name's Maurice Boscorelli. Originally from New York. Used to be NYPD."

Henreid smiled thinly. "Yeah?"

"I was ... well, I was wondering if I could ... if I could see him. Mr. Flagg."

For a brief moment Henreid and his men looked shocked, and Bosco noticed how all four of them bristled at the name. One of them even made the sign of the cross.

But the moment passed, and Henreid chuckled derisively. "Oh, you do, do you? You want to see Mr. Flagg?"

Bosco's face darkened. "Yeah, I do. Somethin' about that funny to you?"

Be careful, he cautioned himself, his eyes drawn to that black stone around Henreid's neck, the red flaw that looked like an eye. Stay calm, and don't be an idiot. Shit, I almost called him a jagoff, right to his face. Watch it.

Henreid shrugged and waved an apology. "Sorry. It's just that he's a hard guy to keep track of, and he sure doesn't answer to me. He comes and goes, you know? And I mean, we still got people comin' into Vegas every day by the hundreds. We're all pretty busy."

Bosco swallowed hard and struggled to keep his voice steady. "Look, man ... Flagg ... You know, Flagg's the reason I'm still alive. I lost everything, I watched everybody I cared about die." Bosco shrugged. "I know, I know - who didn't, right? But I ... Flagg was all I had. Those dreams, they gave me hope, you know? They made me think that there might be a reason to go on breathin'. This kind of shit isn't easy for me ... but you have to understand that Flagg saved me. You know?"

And through this little speech Bosco saw Henreid's expression changing, and he knew he was in. This was it.

Henreid fingered the stone around his neck thoughtfully. "Yeah ..." he whispered after a moment, voice hoarse. "Yeah, man, I know just how it is." Then he seemed to straighten, his voice once again cool and businesslike. "Okay Boscorelli, we've got room for one more in the car. Hop in and help yourself to whatever you want from the mini-bar. I've got some stuff to take care of out here, but I'll be done in an hour. Two, tops. Then we'll take you back to the Grand and I'll see what I can do to get you in to see him."

Bosco's head reeled, and he resisted the giddy urge to thrust a triumphant fist into the air. "Thanks!" he said, aware he sounded like an asshole and not caring one little bit. "Thanks, man, thanks so much!"

And watch your back, Henreid, a colder part of him said, the part that always sounded like Cruz. Because someday, my friend, I'll be the one wearing that stone.



***



Bosco was introduced to Ronnie Sykes and Ace High, two of Lloyd's cronies and, in Bosco's estimation, just another pair of jagoffs. Nevertheless, he joked and laughed and drank with them in the back of the Caddy as they headed for the MGM Grand Hotel, Flagg's adopted headquarters.

But there was a certain level of tension in the air, and it was nothing to do with him, the newcomer in their midst. He remembered the way they'd all stiffened when he mentioned Flagg, the way Ronnie had crossed himself like a superstitious old fishwife. In fact, the more Bosco thought about it, the more he realized people rarely referred to Flagg by his proper name.

Well, it was no biggie, really. Flagg wanted an air of mystique around him, and Bosco knew the value of a good spook-story. In the neighborhoods where he'd worked Anti-Crime, Maritza Cruz' name had been well known and well feared. They used to call her Two-Bags because of the drugs she carried with her, ready to plant on any uncooperative suspect, and they all knew she never bluffed. And Bosco remembered one guy in particular who had called her the Cruz-Missile, apparently in reference to that eerie way she had of just randomly showing up out of nowhere and wreaking merciless havoc on the dealers and junkies.

He supposed it was much the same here with Flagg. People called him the dark man, the tall man, the Walkin' Dude, the hardcase. A few others. And as it had been with Cruz, these names were always applied to Flagg with a healthy mix of respect and fear.

Of course, no-one had ever claimed that Sergeant Cruz was a shape-changer. Or that she had power over the crows, the wolves, the rats, the weasels. And no-one ever claimed that Cruz had once driven a man insane just by looking at him. Those were all things that Bosco had heard in connection with Flagg at one point or another. Not that he believed any of it.

Just a little superstition working its way into the mix, he thought. Brought on by the fact that only a few months ago we all witnessed an honest-to-God Apocalypse. Some people want to read something biblical into this. Some people want to believe that Flagg is some kind of ... messiah, maybe. Well, let 'em. Hell, in a way, maybe he is.

But as for frying someone's brains just by looking at him ... that was strictly window-dressing.

The anxiety seemed to thicken palpably as they crossed the empty casino, Lloyd Henreid bringing up the front, Bosco trailing along at the rear behind Barry Dorgan. No-one spoke. He glanced around at the dead slots, the unattended card tables, the abandoned roulette wheels. Since the power had been brought back online, people sometimes went to the casinos on their off-hours to play a round of poker or maybe try their luck at the wheel. Just for fun.

A week after he'd arrived in Vegas, Bosco had won three thousand dollars playing the slots at the Golden Nugget. He'd laughed until he cried; only now, when money was better put to use as toilet paper, could he strike it that lucky. He'd never believed in gambling. Faith had, he remembered, and he remembered how he'd always gone out of his way to foil any attempt she made at buying lottery tickets.

Melancholy stole over him again.

Shit, he thought, and smiled with a grim mix of wistful nostalgia, guilt and grief. I should have let her live it up a little.

And suddenly a gruesome, disturbingly vivid fantasy wrote itself into being before he could do anything to stop it.

He saw all of his friends. All of his dead friends. Here, seated at a card table: Carlos Nieto, Doc Parker, Alex Taylor, and his own mother. All four bloated and gray with superflu. There, at the craps table: Kim Zambrano, Jimmy Doherty, Ty Davis and John Sullivan. The left side of Jimmy's head was a raw and gaping hole. Kim's lower jaw had been mostly shot away, and like Ty and Sully beside her, her jacket was tattered and bloody and full of ragged, high-caliber holes.

And Maritza Cruz was grinning at him over the roulette table, her eyes nothing but empty sockets squirming with maggots.

Where's Faith? he thought muddily, feeling his stomach turn over, his egg-salad threatening to come up on him. She's not with them. Of course not - she only comes at night. She always looks perfectly fine when she does, but it's worse when she comes at night. All she does is shake her head and then she disappears. But it's worse.

"Muh," he murmured, forcing his gorge down, closing his eyes to shut out the vision. "Muh. Fuck."

Barry Dorgan looked back at him cautiously. "You okay?"

Bosco waved a hand. "No problem."

Henreid suddenly stopped the procession. He turned to them, and Bosco saw he was jittery, nervous, maybe even a bit afraid. "Wait here and grab a seat. I'm gonna go on ahead and see if he's available."

Bosco and the others sat down around a nearby card table (thankfully, it was not the one where he'd seen Alex and Carlos and Doc). Someone's old game - maybe even one from before the plague - was still spread across the surface. There appeared to be a few thousand dollars worth of chips, some still stacked in neat little piles.

"Hey, Barry!" Ronnie Sykes cried cheerily. "Look! You're on a winnin' streak!"

Dorgan looked down; whoever had been sitting in his chair last had been up about one grand. He grunted a short, terse laugh.

But Bosco could still hear the anxiety in both of them. Ronnie's good cheer sounded breathless and forced, and Dorgan was sweating like a pig. What was it about Flagg that wound people's panties into such a bunch?

Just what was it he was gonna meet in that office today?

Across from him, Dorgan lit a cigarette with one shaky hand and pursed his lips thoughtfully. "So ... you were NYPD, huh?"

Bosco nodded, glad for a break in the silence. "Yeah. Nine years."

"Mmm. I was a cop, myself. Santa Monica PD, Detective second. Ten years. What were you?"

"Um ... what?"

"What rank?"

"Oh ... uh ... patrol officer, mainly. Last six months or so before ... before the plague I was working Anti-Crime. Elite plainclothes unit. Worked the worst neighborhoods in the city. Meth dealers, bikers, drive-bys, wall-to-wall junkies. Christ, you name it."

"You seen a lot of bad shit," Dorgan said, and being a cop himself, of course it wasn't a question.

Bosco smiled, distant and bitter. "Goddam right."

Dorgan nodded. "Things are gonna be better. Starting now. With him running the show."

"Yeah," Bosco said, thinking of ol' freebasing Hec Drogan, riding his cross somewhere out along a Nevada highway. And he thought to himself, You know who'd look good on a cross? Dougie Francis. Or maybe that biker, the meth dealer, the one who was selling to Cruz' sister. Animal. Too bad we couldn't nail him up there.

Bosco smiled.

Three minutes later Henreid came back and motioned to Bosco.

"Okay, Boscorelli. Follow me."



***



Bosco walked into Flagg's office feeling very small and almost ... unworthy. He shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, and he realized dismally that he had to take a nice, long piss. It was back to childhood, back to school, back to the principal's office. Back to coming home from school, of waiting to see which of his two moods his father would be in - would he be pissed off, or drunk and pissed off? Ah, always a point of curiosity. And what kind of interesting new colors would have appeared on his Ma's cheeks and jaw and forehead while he'd been at school?

Hey, maybe none at all! Maybe today would be the day that ol' Pa forgot to pull the punch at the right time. Maybe Ma was dead.

And what could little Maurice do about any of it? Why, nothing! Not one god-damned thing! Not unless he wanted a broken arm or crushed cheekbone or a few cracked ribs or even a fractured skull! Not one god-damned thing!

Christ, Bosco thought shakily as he walked into the dimly lit office. Where did all that just come from?

The office was devoid of any decoration or furniture. There was no desk, no chairs, no paintings on the walls. There was a large picture window, but the only view it presented was the baked, featureless empty of the Nevada desert.

And sitting cross-legged in the center of the bare floor, head bowed in meditation, was the man Bosco had once met as Officer Richard Farrell of the 55th Precinct, Third Watch. The man who now called himself Randall Flagg ... and yet was also known by many as the tall man, the Walkin' Dude, the hardcase ...

... the dark man.

He lifted his head and stood just as Bosco's eyes found him, almost as if he'd timed it for dramatic effect. And for one brief instant Bosco thought that he really was coming home to his father, that it was not Flagg over there at all but dear ol' dad, tall and dark and only half-remembered, a brutish sub-man utterly devoid of any personality, any purpose except to maim and hurt and humiliate.

But he was Flagg. Only Flagg. The costume was the same; dusty, folksy-looking old cowboy boots, jeans, a simple open-throated shirt and a jeans-jacket with a button on each lapel; the yellow smiley-face on the left; How's Your Pork? on the right.

Flagg grinned warmly, and Bosco, though anxious, returned it without thinking.

"Bosco, Bosco, Bosco," Flagg said, shaking his head ruefully. "It's been a long, long time, son, and I really should have tried to keep in touch. My bad, as the kids say." -Flagg winked- "Or used to say, eh? Now, what can I do for ya?"

Bosco floundered, and with dawning horror realized he'd put no thought whatsoever into what he wanted to say. He was here, in the place he'd so desperately wanted to be since he'd arrived, here in the presence of this great man, this leader he respected and admired so much, and he didn't know what to say.

Idiot! Idiot! You stupid fucking jagoff idiot!

"Uh ... uh, well, I thought we could ... you know, have a talk ..."

Idiot! IDIOT!!!

Flagg chuckled. "That's not very specific, son. I mean, we could talk about anything on this fine afternoon. We could talk about the Tower. The Beams. The Guardians of the Portals."

Bosco frowned, suddenly morbidly sure that Flagg was making fun of him. "What?"

Flagg waved dismissively. "Never mind. Take your time, Bosco. Think it through."

Bosco swallowed, and now there was a new thought, a new question; was this the same man he'd met five years ago, in New York? That cop who'd pried that kid's hands off the fire escape and let him drop?

Yes ... yes, it was.

But was Flagg the same man from the dreams ...?

He seemed to be, but ...

For the first time it struck Bosco how utterly silly it had been to believe that a conversation he'd had with someone in a dream could be somehow connected to the real world. He'd crossed the country based on the idea that this man had spoken to him, called to him telepathically, and how ridiculous was that? This was real life, not a fucking X-Files episode. Jesus, he should know better! Sure, he'd met Flagg a few years ago, and now here he was, leading one of two new post-plague communities. But that had nothing to do with the dreams.

It was coincidence. Nothing more.

"Uh ... forget it," Bosco mumbled, turning and heading for the door. "Sorry to waste your time."

"Not a problem," Flagg said mildly. "See ya 'round."

Tears stinging the corners of his eyes, a low, black hopelessness settled over him as he reached for the doorknob. Back he went, back to the Springs and the jets, back to being just another faceless gear in Flagg's machine.

"You still think about them, Bosco?" Flagg called casually from behind him.

Bosco's hand froze halfway to the doorknob and he turned. Flagg was studying him carefully, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.

"You know who I mean," the dark man continued. "Doc ... Carlos ... Kim ... Alex ... Ty ... Sully ... Faith Yokas ..." The dark man grinned, and he uttered the final name with a spicy Spanish flair. "Maritza Cruz?"

Bosco's heart sped up, head growing light and legs growing numb as Flagg rattled off the names of all his dead friends and colleagues.

Flagg's eyes, mirthful and sparkling with that secret glee, sent the clear, unspoken message: Yes, that's right: I know. I know all about them.

"No," Bosco said hoarsely. "No, I don't."

That's a lie. And what a lie. You just sat there in the casino and imagined you saw them all, watching you with their dead eyes, not more than five minutes ago. Ghosts. The walking dead.

Flagg clucked his tongue reproachfully. "I think you do." He moved towards Bosco, who took an involuntary step away. "I'm guessing you do still think about them, Bosco, and you always will, because you have good reason to. That shitty truth will always be with you, won't it?"

Bosco was trembling visibly now. "What truth?"

Flagg shrugged. "That their deaths were unnecessary. Unjustified. Totally senseless. And you know that no-one is ever, ever gonna be brought to justice for any of them. Isn't that right?"

Bosco felt the hot, sick rage flow over his fear, drowning it instantly.

"And there are so many people who have to pay, aren't there?" Flagg continued before he could speak. "So many people have gotten off easy. You remember Vernon Marks, Bosco?"

"Hell, yeah. He put the hit out on Miguel White."

"Right. On a twelve-year-old kid. Just because Miguel was a threat to his shitty little street empire." Flagg shook his head. "You won't want to hear this, Bosco, but I have to tell you: Vernon Marks was immune to the superflu. Just like you."

"What?" he spat, glancing around reflexively, half-expecting to see Marks here in the room with them.

Flagg chuckled. "Oh, he's not around here anywhere, you can believe me on that. You know where he ended up?"

Bosco thought a moment. "Colorado?" he asked timidly.

"One hundred percent keee-rect, Bosco. Marks ended up in Boulder, Colorado. With the old woman. Abagail Freemantle." Flagg's voice became high, bitter and mocking. "'Folks 'round here call me Mother Abagail. I'm a hundred-and-eight years old, and I still bake my own bread!' You know who I mean?"

"I saw her," Bosco said distantly.

- He can't offer you nothin', Maurice Louis Boscorelli! His promises are hollow! He's the father of lies! -

Flagg nodded. "I bet you did. And I bet you saw through her shit, right?"

Bosco snorted. "Damn right."

"Marks was drawn there," Flagg said. "They call themselves the 'Boulder Free-Zone' and you know what that means? Anything goes. The people who go there, people like Marks, they think that now the whole world's their playground, they can just kick back and let everything hang out. Understand?"

Bosco found he didn't ... but he was starting to. "Uh ..."

"What I'm talking about is respect, son. Not just justice, but respect. Respect for the rules. The old world died because nobody had any respect for anything, any boundaries. Bad shit happened, but that wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was, people were willing to let it happen. You of all people should remember how it was, because you were a cop. How many times did you bring in some jagoff with a few extra bumps and bruises and have the bleeding-hearts down on your ass for police brutality?"

Bosco laughed sourly. "Just about every damned day."

"Mmm-hmm. People had their priorities all wrong. You remember a writer named Aaron Noble?"

Bosco thought a moment and nodded. "Yeah. He wrote Blue Line, didn't he? That one that made the whole NYPD look like a zoo."

Flagg clapped him on the shoulder. "Right on! And if the superflu hadn't happened when it did, I have a feeling you would have run across Noble, or at least someone like him. People like Noble were bloodclots looking for a place to happen, looking to ruin the lives of good men and women while defending the 'rights' of failures and junkies and street trash."

"Fucking right!" Bosco snarled, feeling his temples throbbing, feeling the veins pulsing thickly in his neck. The feeling was old, familiar, so beautifully natural and easy to slip back into. So easy to slip back into like ... like ...

Like an old pair of comfortably sprung cowboy boots, he thought with a faint smile.

"It was that attitude that created the superflu in the first place," Flagg said. "That attitude was why it got loose. It was that attitude that created the likes of Animal and Vernon Marks, people who fed on the misery of others. And what can one man do against all of that? What could you ever do? You went out there and you did your best, but you were just one man, Bosco. And deep down, you always knew you didn't do enough, could never do enough. You were helpless to stop it all."

- you have to grow up, Bos ... you have to let the past go ... you're still ... still so much that little boy ... so powerless ... helpless -

Flagg was grinning again. "A ten-year-old boy sees Pa beating on his Ma every day, every night. What can the kid do about it? He wouldn't even make one hundred pounds soaking wet, as they say. He can't do a fucking thing. So he grows up and he gets strong and he puts on a badge and he tries to make up for it that way. But he never really can make up for it, can he? It's too late, and he's just one guy. At the end of the day, cops tell themselves that they made a difference ... but that's really a lot of shit, isn't it?"

"Right," Bosco rasped miserably.

"But what I'm saying to you, Maurice, is that you are actually in a position now to make that difference. The people responsible for the superflu are dead, and the people responsible for the deaths of Kim and Sully and Ty are dead, and your Pa is dead. But their breed is still out there. Over in the Free-Zone with the old witch."

Flagg's eyes narrowed dreamily. "But we're gonna wipe 'em out, Bosco. One last big fucking enema right up the ass of the old order. I have my own reasons, but you'll be doing it for Faith and Ty and Sully and Kim and Cruz and all that they stood for. I know you want to be a part of that."

Bosco clenched his teeth. "Absolutely."

Flagg's eyes focused on him again, and Bosco noticed uncomfortably how black they were, black and shiny, almost no whites at all. "You forgot something back in New York, Bosco. You forgot it ... but fortunately, I happened to find it for you."

Flagg reached into his jacket and withdrew a small rectangular object, something black and gold and glittering, something that was attached to a fine silver chain.

Bosco could not stifle an almost theatrical gasp of shock.

It was his Anti-Crime badge. Not just a clever reproduction, either; it was his badge. The number was the same, and a small scuff-mark in the upper left-hand corner removed any further doubt.

"Wha ... How did you - ?"

Flagg merely grinned and offered the badge.

And after a moment Bosco reached for it, aware of the blood rushing hot and thick in his ears, aware that he was once again hearing the voices of ghosts.

Don't, Bos, Faith seemed to say. This is it, your last chance. You take that badge and all bets are off. You'll be his. This isn't like it was with Cruz. You could have broken away from her if you'd tried, but this is different. This is for keeps, because this thing in front of you isn't really a man. On some level, I think you know that. Turn away, Bos. Turn away now.

But Bosco was already touching the badge even as this passed through his mind, running a finger over the cool metal, slipping the slender chain around his hand.

Then, abruptly, Flagg grabbed his hand in a painful, inhumanly strong grip, pinning the badge between their palms, and what happened next made Bosco cry out in mingled pain and terror.

He could feel the badge changing shape against his palm, rearranging its structure and texture and size, becoming smaller, rounder, smoother ...

Then, just as suddenly, Flagg released him. Bosco drew his hand away as if scalded. He looked at the dark man, at that terrible grin, at the feral eyes, his heart thudding sickeningly in his chest.

But even behind the fear, he realized there was a certain curious exhilaration. He wanted to see, he was excited to see, yes, just like a kid on Christmas morning, because he knew what he would be looking at when he looked down ...

When he looked down and saw the small, oval shape resting in the center of his palm. The fine-linked chain was the same, but the Anti-Crime badge on the end of it was gone.

What sat in the center of his palm was a jet-black stone.

There was, he saw with some disappointment, no red flaw in the center.

Flagg read this, either on his expression or in his mind, and said, "Don't knock it, Bosco. It puts you at the top. You put that stone on, and you take a few days to think about what you'd like to do next. Because I think you should be a bit higher on the food chain than a maintenance crew out at the Springs. Maybe you'd like to be a cop again. You could talk to Barry Dorgan ... I'm sure he could always use a reliable man to fill a position as ... say ... deputy chief."

Bosco felt a lazy, almost sappy smile spreading across his face. A cop again. Yes, he really could be a cop again, couldn't he? He could live with that. Easily.

Flagg nodded solemnly, decisively. Then, without another word, he turned away, crossing the office and once again settling into a semi-lotus position on the center of the floor, looking like some strange cowboy Buddha.

Bosco looked after him in mixed wonder, awe and dim terror, and started for the door again. He turned the jet stone over and over in his hand, feeling the dry, slithery way the little chain rubbed against the ball of his thumb. He looked at it for another moment or two, then hung it around his neck. The feeling of power was immediate and huge and sweetly exquisite.

The entire conversation had taken no more than about five minutes, and yet it had ended with him being blessed with a tremendous honor and responsibility. He felt the need for some last word of appreciation. Something lame like thanks again, probably, but what the hell? Given a million years he could never properly express what he was feeling right now, but he had to try. In his own meager way, he had to try.

He turned back to Flagg, and what he saw washed all of what he had been about to say away in an instant of pure, galvanized terror.

Flagg, still sitting cross-legged at the other end of the office, had begun to float.

I'm not seeing that. That isn't happening. Or if it is, it's a trick.

But it was happening, and it wasn't a trick, and as he watched he actually saw Flagg rise another few inches ... nine ... ten ... eleven ... a full foot now.

"You picked the winning team, Bosco," the dark man said, sensing he was being watched though his eyes were closed. His grin had mellowed into small, serene smile. "Never forget that."

Oh Jesus ...

... Jesus Christ, what have I just done?

Bosco, trembling, turned and fled the room.

***



People come and go. Nothing lasts forever. You make friends and then you move on and make new. It happens. Sometimes you don't necessarily want it to, but it happens.

Maurice Boscorelli remembered thinking these things on a night that seemed a very long time ago, and at the time the thoughts had been idle, almost petulant. He'd been sitting in a car next to Sergeant Maritza Cruz, wondering about his future and not having the slightest idea what the coming week would bring. Funny, really. Sitting there stewing over Faith, being all pissed at Faith, brooding over Cruz and wanting so badly to get in her pants again, Cruz sitting next to him, riddled with superflu and not even knowing it yet. Funny.

He didn't work at Indian Springs anymore; he was, as Flagg had suggested, Barry Dorgan's Deputy Chief. But he still came out to the desert regularly. It was the sky. He would stand with his head back, looking up into that endless blue Nevada sky that was almost frightening in its clarity. The clouds, clean-white and huge. He was perfectly capable of standing there for hours, unmindful of the sunburns darkening his cheeks and forehead, and think about old friends and broken promises. And how Fate was an artist. Fate painted you different colors through the experiences it brought you, shaped you, sculpted you. When this had first occurred to him, its uncharacteristic depth had pleased him. It still did.

Faith didn't come around his dreams as often as she used to, especially since he'd begun wearing the dark man's stone, and since he'd put the stone on his own fears and doubts had evaporated. At first he had done a lot of wondering, a lot of hard thinking. Of how ordered things had seemed; that Faith had lived just long enough to deliver her final message, bidding him not to go to Flagg; that Faith always seemed so real, so ... separate from his own thoughts when she appeared in his dreams.

But there were other forces at work. For instance, after weeks of being a nobody, he had run into both the Trashcan Man and Lloyd Henreid in the space of only a few minutes, and within an hour had been talking to Flagg himself, and had received the dark man's favor. He kept seeing Flagg, floating a foot above the cool tile of the office floor, and he found himself immensely proud to be in that favor, immensely glad he was not one of Flagg's enemies over in the Free-Zone, immensely glad he had not listened to Faith. Poor, misguided Faith. She had been good-hearted, true, but in the end, she had never truly understood him.

He was in the right place now; accepted, respected, full of power and purpose and promise. He'd tried to find that in so many places and in so many people over the years; Faith, Glen Hobart, Maritza Cruz, but now, finally, he had found it in Randall Flagg. He was, he realized, truly at peace for the first time in his life.

Maurice Boscorelli had picked the winning team, and it was good to be alive.



END



The Final Note - Many Thanks go out to ...



... all who reviewed. Won't mention names, but like I said at the beginning, you of course know who you are :)

... The creators and cast of Third Watch, for bringing the characters to life.

... Stephen King, for writing the Stand and creating some of the most interesting characters ever, particularly the dark man himself, Randall Flagg.

... Nine Inch Nails, Tool, A Perfect Circle, Alice in Chains, Disturbed, Staind, Killing Joke, Marilyn Manson, Moby, The Orb, and Johnny Cash for his "Hurt" cover; the music that fueled and inspired me as I wrote.

Guess that's all, folks :) Might not be over yet - I cut a lot of stuff out, and I might do a final total revision of all chapters.