A/N: I do not own the Percy Jackson series Kane Chronicles or The Stand Cut or Uncut version. I have however posted 'The Tales of...' series. This story takes place after The Tales of Magicians and Demigods: The Crown of Ptolemy but before the events of Trials of Apollo. Before reading this I suggest to read if you haven't yet:

The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Early Adventures
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Lightning Thief
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Sea of Monsters
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Titan's Curse
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Magical Labyrinth
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Stolen Chariot
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Sword of Hades
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Bronze Dragon
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Last Olympian
The Tales of the Son of Poseidon: The Staff of Hermes
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Quest for Buford
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Neptune
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The House of Hades
The Tales of the Heroes of Olympus: The Blood of Olympus
The Tales of Magicians and Demigods: The Son of Sobek
The Tales of Magicians and Demigods: The Staff of Serapis
The Tales of Magicians and Demigods: The Crown of Ptolemy

Also I'm going to let this out. On rough decisions based on what I know from The Stand, any mystical creatures Monsters, and automatons that are usually associated which characters from The Tales of and/or Percy Jackson won't be in this story

Also there's no character list for the stand, but if I had too pick two from the book it be Stu Redman and Fran Goldsmith as a pairing, and if I was allowed to add a fifth character to show, it would be of course Mother Abigail.

For the list of pairings which would be spoiler alert for those showing up later:

Percy Jackson/Annabeth Chase
Leo Valdez/Calypso
Jason Grace/Piper McLean
Frank Zhang/Hazel Levesque
Stu Redman/Fran Goldsmith
Larry Underwood (no relations to Grover obviously)/Lucy Swan

Other Important Characters

Mother Abigail
Nick Andros
Tom Collins
Glen
Ralph
Trashcan Man
Susan Stern
a few more demigods as extra characters to help out.

Antagonist but still important
Randal Flagg
Harold Lauder
Nadine Cross
Lloyd

And of course the two main forces that are mention but more of Lead Supporting Roles without actually making a character appearance: God and Devil

Also if you see '-' after a letter and there's a space before the next word, that me censoring a curse word.

Now, since at this point the Heroes of Olympus were introduced and paired up with key characters of the "Stand" when Captain Trips hit (at least those that aren't among the antagonist), I decided to include chapters more focus on chapters with the main characters of the "Stand" without the demigods. The reason being is that I would have to anyways with Lloyd and Flagg since they an important antagonist character. So if those chapters are too much like the original, apologize in advance.

Lastly (for now), I am aware of the 2020-2021 version of the mini-series of the Stand and I did try to watch the first part, but frankly I couldn't even finish watching the first part and didn't dare to watch the rest of it nor do I planned to. I don't like it. I don't like many of the changes they made since the 90s adaptation. But there are a few changes in the 2020-2021 adaptations that actually involved info from the books the Stand. May I remind you this crossover involved the UNCUT VERSION of the books, so if you see parts that seem to come from 2020-2021 adaptation, it's because those parts/info actually came from the book itself

Plague Hits Shoyo Hard

Frank opened the door between Sheriff's Baker's office and the jail cells and they started yelling immediately. It didn't matter if Frank wasn't Nick, they would do this. If it was Hazel they would start harassing and threatening to rape her. Normally Frank was use to teasing due to him growing up being a big clumbsy Chinese-Canadian with a baby face. But these guys were threatening their lives just for helping Nick out.

Vince Hogan and Billy Warner were in the two Saltine-box cells on Frank's left. Mike Childress was in one of the two of the right. The other was empty and it was saved for Ray Booth for when he's caught.

Only Vince Hogan didn't participate in the threats. Mike and Billy didn't even bother with him. Nick and Sheriff picked him up from his work and true to the sheriff's word Hogan spilled the beans. They were to be taken up to the Calhoun County seat and jugged pending trial. Nick had joined Frank and Hazel in helping out in the office.

They were able to get Mike Childress in the jug and Billy Warner at his house just as Billy was packing up his old Chrysler to leave. Sadly Ray Booth was quicker and got out of there before being arrested.

Baker took Nick home with Frank and Hazel to meet his wife, have some supper. In the car, Nick wrote on the menu pad: "I'm sure sorry it's her brother. How is she taking it?"

"She's bearing up," Baker said, both his voice and the set of his body almost formal. "I guess she's done some crying over him, but she knew what he was. And she knows you can't pick your relatives like you do your friends."

"That's for sure," Frank muttered knowing well from being a son of Mars.

Jane Baker was a small, pretty woman who had indeed been crying. Looking at her deeply socketed eyes made Nick uncomfortable. But she shook his hand warmly and said, "I pleased to know you, Nick. And I apologize deeply for your trouble. I feel responsible, with one of mine being part of it and all."

Nick shook his head and shuffled his feet awkwardly.

"Frank, Hazel, good to see you two well." Jane said.

"Thank you Mrs. Baker," Both responded.

"I offered Nick a job helping Frank and Hazel around the place," Baker said. "Painting and picking up mostly. He's gonna have to stick around for a while anyway-for the...you know."

"The trial, yes," she said.

There was a moment then in which the silence was so heavy even Nick found it painful. Frank and Hazel stayed Quiet out of respect.

Then, with forced gaiety, she said, "I hope you eat redeye ham, Nick. That's what there is, along with some corn and a big bowl of slaw. My slaw never been up to what his mother used to make. That's what he says, anyway."

"She makes the best redeye ham," Hazel said.

Nick rubbed his stomach and smiled.

Over desert of strawberry shortcake, Jane said to her husband: "Your cold sounds worse. You've been taking too much on, John Baker. And you didn't eat enough to keep a fly alive."

Baker looked guiltily at his plate for a moment, then shrugged. "I can afford to miss a meal now and then," he said, and palpated his double chin.

Nick, watching them, wondered how two people of such radically differently size got along in bed. I guess they manage, he thought with an interior grin. They sure look comfortable enough with each other. And not that it's any of my business anyway.

"You're flushed, too. You carrying a fever?"

Baker shrugged. "Nope... well. Maybe a touch."

"Well you're not going out again tonight. That's final."

"My dear, I have prisoners. If they don't specially need to be watched, they do need to be fed and watered."

"Nick Frank and Hazel can do it," she said with finality. "You're going to bed. And don't go on about your insomnia; it won't do you any good."

"I can't send them," he said weakly. "Nick's a deaf-mute, and Frank and Hazel are underage. Besides, neither of them are deputy."

"Well then, you just up and deputize them."

"Neither of them are residents!"

"I won't tell if you won't," Jane Baker said inexorably. She stood up and began clearing the table. "Now you just go on and do it, John."

And that was how Nick Andros Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque became Shoyo deputy. As they were preparing to go up to the sheriff's office, Baker came into the downstairs hall, looking large and ghostly in a frayed bathrobe. He seemed embarrassed to be the view in such attire.

I never should have let her talked me into this," he said. "Wouldn't have done, either, if I didn't feel so punk. My chest's all clogged up and I'm as hot as a fire sale two days before Christmas. Weak, too."

Nick nodded sympathetically.

"I'm stuck between deputies. Bradley Caide and his wife went up to Little Rock after their baby passed away. One of those crib deaths. Awful thing. I don't blame them for going."

"Would we be okay?" Hazel asked.

"Sure, you'll be okay. You just take normal care, you hear? There's a .45 in the third drawer of my desk, but don't you be takin it back there. Nor the keys either. Understand?"

All three nodded.

"If you go back there, stay out of their reach. If any of em tries playin sick, don't you fall for it. It's the oldest dodge in the world. If one of em should get sick, Doc Soames can see them just as easy in the morning. I'll be in then."

Nick took his pad from his pocket and wrote: "I appreciate you trusting me as well as Frank and Hazel. Thank for locking them up & thanks for the job."

Baker read this carefully. "You're a puredee caution, boy. Where are you from? How come you're out on your own like this?"

"That's a long story." Nick jotted. "I'll write some of it down for you tonight, if you want."

"You do that," Baker said. "I guess you know I put your guys' name on the wire."

Nick Frank and Hazel nodded. It was SOP. But they were clean.

"I'll get Jane to call Ma's Truck Stop out by the highway. Those boy'll be hollering police brutality if they don't get their supper."

"Okay," Baker hesitated a moment longer. "You three got cots. It's hard bu it's clean. You just remember to be careful. You can't call for help if there's trouble."

"Hazel and I can take care of ourselves," Frank assured Baker. That is after all what Lupa trained Roman demigods to do.

"I can take of myself," Nick wrote.

"Still, I'd get someone from town if I thought any of them would-" He broke off as Jane came in.

"You still jawing these three? You let them go on, now, before my stupid brother comes along and breaks them all out."

Baker laughed sourly. "He'll be in Tennesssee by now, I guess." He whistled out a long sigh that broke up into a series of phlegmy, booming coughs. "I b'lieve I'll go upstairs and lie down, Janey."

"I'll bring you some aspirin to cut that fever," she said.

She looked back over her shoulder at Nick Hazel and Frank as she went to the stairs with her husband. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Nick. Take good care of Frank and Hazel. Whatever the circumstances. You be just as careful as he says."

Nick bowed to her, and she dropped half a curtsy in return. He thought he saw a gleam of tears in her eyes.

...

A pimply curious boy in dirty busboy jacket brought three dinner trays about half an hour after Nick Frank and Hazel had gotten down to the jail. Hazel got the trays and placed them on the cot and Frank took the trays in one at a time and pushed each one through the slots in the bottom of the cell door with a broomhandle as Nick worked on his life story for the Sheriff.

As hours passed not much happened. Nick let Hazel and Frank read some of his work and they learned Nick was an orphan like themselves at a young age and learn how to read and write from his mom then by some guy name Rudy when Nick was in an orphanage. When Nick was 16 he left on his own and been on the road since.

The next morning Baker had come in around seven-thirty while Nick was emptying wasebaskets. The sheriff looked better.

"How you feeling?" Nick wrote.

"Pretty good. I was burnin up until midnight. Worst fever I've had since I was a kid. Aspirin didn't seem to help it. Janey wanted to call the doc, but around twelve-thirty the fever broke. I slep like a log after that. How are you doing?"

"We're good," Frank said.

"How's our guests?"

"Yelling like always," Hazel responded.

"Did you write your life story down like you said you was gonna try to do?" John asked Nick.

Nick nodded and handed the two sheets of longhand over. The sheriff sat down and read them carefully. When he was done he looked at Nick so long and so piercingly that Nick stared down at his feet for a moment, embarrassed and confused.

When he looked up again Baker said: "You've been on your own since you were sixteen? For six years?"

Nick nodded.

"And you've really taken all these high school courses?"

Nick wrote for some time on one of the memo sheets. "I was way behind because I started to read & write so late. When the orphanage closed I was just starting to catch up. I got six h.s. Credits from there and another six since then from La Salle in Chicago. I learned about from a matchbook cover. I need four more credits."

"What course do you still need?" Baker asked, then turned his head and shouted: "Shut up in there! You'll get your hotcakes and coffee when I'm d- good and ready and not before!"

Nick wrote: "Geometry. Advance math. Two years of a language. Those are the college requirements."

"A language. You mean like French? German? Spanish?"

Nick nodded.

Baker laughed and shook his head. "Don't that beat all. A deaf-mute learning to talk a foreign language. Nothing against you, boy. You understand that."

Nick smiled and nodded.

"So why you been driftin around so much?"

"While I was still a minor I didn't dare stay in one place for too long," Nick wrote. "Afraid they'd try to stick me in another orphanage or something. When I got old enough to look for a steady job, times got worse. They said the stock-market crashed, or something, but I'm deaf I didn't hear it (ha-ha)."

"Most places would have just let you ramble on," Baker said. "In hard times the milk of human kindness don't flow free, Nick."

"He's not wrong," Hazel muttered remembering her life in the Great Depression.

"As for a steady job, I might be able to put you onto something around here, unless those boys soured you on Shoyo and Arkansas for good. But... we ain't all like that."

Nick nodded to show he understood.

"How's your teeth? That was quite a shot in the mouth you took," Nick shrugged.

"Take any of those pain pills?"

Nick held up two fingers.

"Well, look, I got some paperwork to do on those boys. You three go on with what you were doing. We'll talk more later.

...

Dr. Soames, the man who had almost hit Nick with his car, came by around 9:30 a.m. the same morning. He was a man of about sixty with shaggy white hair, a scrawny chicken neck, and a very sharp blue eyes.

"Big John tells me you read lips," he said. "He also says he wants to see you gainfully employed, so employed, so I guess 7I better make sure you're not going to die on his hands. Take off your shirt."

Nick unbuttoned his blue workshirt and took it off.

"Holy Jesus, Lookitim," Baker said.

"They did a job of work, all right," Soames looked at Nick and said dryly, "Boy, you almost lost your left tit." He pointed to a crescent shape scab just above the nipple. Nick's belly and ribcage looked like a canadian sunrise.

Frank and Hazel tried to fake surprise but not their sympathy as Nick's injuries was no different than they seen after War Games at Camp Jupiter. Especially since the their Cohort-the 5th Cohort-normally the throw away Cohort that the other Cohorts send at the enemy first just to get them knocked out of the way. If Nick was a demigod, they would offer ambrosia nectar or even unicorn powder to heal it right up. But they did had some sympathy for Nick at least.

Soames poked and prodded him and looked carefully into the pupils of hheis eyes. At last he examined the shattered remains of NIck's front teeth, the only part of him that really hurt now, in spite of the spectacular bruises.

"That must hurt like a s-," he said, and Nick nodded ruefully. "You're gonna lose them," Soames went on. "You-" he sneezed three times in quick succession. ":Excuse me."

He began to put his tools back into his black bag. "The prognosis is favorable, young man, barring strokes of lightning or further trips to Zack's ginmill. Is your speaking problem physical, or does it come from being deaf?"

"He wrote to us he was born that way," Hazel said.

Nick nodded to confirmed it.

Soames nodded. "D- shame. Got to think positive, though, and thank God that he didn't decide to give you brains a stir while he was at it. Put your shirt on."

Nick did. He liked Soames; in his way.

Soames said, "I'll tell em to give you a refill on that pain medication down at the drugstore. Tell moneybags here to pay for it."

"Ho-oh," John Baker said.

"He's got more dough stashed away in fruit jars than a hog has warts," Soames went on. He sneezed again, wiped his nose, rummage in his bag and brought out a stethoscope.

"You want to look out, Gramps, I'll lock you up for drunk and disorderly," Baker said with a smile.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Soames said. "You'll open your mouth too wide one day and fall right in."

"They were like this when Dr. Soames brought you here," Frank told NIck. "Soames pretty much comes here for the sheriff anytime a prisoner gets sick to make sure they're not faking."

Nick nodded as he understood.

"Take off y'shirt, John, and let's see if your boobs are as big as they used to be." Soames told John.

"Take off my shirt? Why?"

"Because your wife wants me to look at you, that's why. She thinks you're a sick man and she doesn't want you to get any sicker, God knows why. Ain't I told her enough times that she and I wouldn't have to sneak around anymore if you were underground? Come on, Johnny. Show us some skin."

"It was just a cold," Baker said, reluctantly unbuttoning his shirt. "I feel fine this morning. Honest to God, Ambrose, you sound worse'n than I do."

"You don't tell the doctor, the doctor tells you." As Baker pulled his shirt off, Soames turned to Nick Hazel and Frank and said. "But you know it's funny how a cold will just start making the rounds. Mrs. Lathrop is down sick, and the whole Richie family, and most of those no-accounts out on the Baker Road are coughing their brains out. Even Billy Warner in there's hacking away. How about you two, Frank and Hazel? Feel under the weather?"

"No sir," Frank said.

"We're as healthy as we were the first day we came here." Hazel said.

"Well you two are fortunate then," Soames said.

Baker had wormed out of his undershirt.

"There, what'd I tell you?" Soames asked. "Ain't he got a set of knockers on him? Even an old s- like me could get horny looking at that."

Baker gasped as the stethoscope touched his chest. "Jesus, that's cold! What do you do, keep it in a deep freeze?"

"Breathe in," Soames said, frowning, "Now let it out."

Baker exhaled into a weak cough.

Soames kept at the sheriff for a long time. Front and back both. At last he put away his stethoscope and used a tongue depressor to look down Baker's throat. Finished, he broke it in two and tossed it into the waste basket.

"Well?" Baker said.

Soames pressed the fingers on his right hand into the flesh of Baker's neck under the jaw. Baker winced away from it.

"I don't have to ask if that hurt," Soames said. "John, you go home and go to bed and that isn't advice, that's an order."

The sheriff blinked. "Ambrose," he said quietly, "come on. You know I can't do that. I"ve got three prisoners who have to go up to Camden this afternoon. I left these kids with them last night, but I had no business doing it, and I won't do it again. One is a mute and one isn't even 16. I wouldn't have agreed to it last night if I had been thinking right."

"You never mind them, John. You got problems of your own. It's some kind of respiratory infection, a d- good one by the sound, and a fever to go with it. Your pipes are sick, Johnny, and to be perfectly frank, that's no joke for a man who's carrying around the extra meat you are. Go to bed. If you still feel okay tomorrow morning, get rid of them, then. Better still, call the State Patrol to come down and get them."

Baker looked apologetically at the trio. "You know," he said. "I do feel kind of dragged out. Maybe some rest-"

"Go home and lie down," Nick wrote. "I'll watch over Frank and Hazel and we'll be careful. Besides, I have earned enough to pay for those pills."

"Nobody works so hard for you as a junkie," Soames said, and cackled.

Baker picked up two sheets of paper with Nick's background on them. "Could I take these home for Janey to read? She took a real shine to you, Nick."

Nick scrawled on the pad, "Sure can. She's very nice, and Hazel and Frank already read them to pass the time."

"Janey is one of a kind," Baker said, and sighed as he buttoned his shirt back up. "This fever's comin on strong again. Thought I had it beat."

"My grandmother use to cook peppermint tea and cooling fruits for the worse of colds. She would also brew ginger cinnamon green onion and garlic to my food if it's minor," Frank said. "A chinese treatment for the cold you could say."

"I told you he looked Chinese," John joked to Soames

"No one doubt your ethnicity knowledge, John." Soames responded. "All I said was that he looked like he had more than Chinese in him."

"Actually he does," Hazel said. "Frank's maternal ancestors goes all the way back to both the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece."

Frank blushed at the comments as Nick grinned.

"Give the remedy a shot if you want, but I recommend to take aspirin John," Soames said, latching his bag. "It's that glandular infection I don't like."

"There's a cigar box in the bottom desk drawer," Baker said. "Petty cash fund. You three can go out for lunch and Nick, you can get your medication on the way. Those boys are more dildoes than desperadoes. They'll be okay. Just leave a voucher for how much money you take. I'll get in touch with the state police and you'll be shut of them by late this afternoon."

Nick made a thumb-and-forefinger circle.

"I've been trusting you three a lot on short notice," Baker said soberly, "but Janey says it's all right. You have a care."

All three nodded.

...

Jane had come in around six the next evening with a covered dish supper and carton of milk for Hazel and Nick and orange juice for Frank due to his lactose intolerance.

"Thanks," Frank said.

Nick wrote, "Haw's your husband?"

She laughed, a small woman with chestnut brown hair, dressed prettily in a checked shirt and faded jeans. "He wanted to come down himself, but I talked him out of it. His fever was up so high this afternoon that it scared me, but it's almost normal tonight. I think it's because of the State Patrol. Johnny's never really happy unless he can be mad at the State Patrol."

"What do you mean?" Hazel asked.

"They told him they couldn't send anybody down for his prisoners until nine tomorrow morning. They've had a bad sick-day, twenty or more troopers out. And a lot of people who are on have been fetching people to the hospital up at Camden or even Pine Bluff. There's a lot of this sickness around. I think Am Soames is a lot more worried than he's letting on."

"Makes sense. If the doctor starts to waver, how can you expect the patients to stay calm," Frank responded.

Jane nodded, looking worried herself. Then she took the two folded sheets of memo paper from her breast pocket.

"This is quite a story," she said quietly, handing the papers back to him. "You've had just about the worse luck than Hazel and Frank from what they told me of their history."

Frank and Hazel shrugged. They didn't tell Jane and John their whole back ground. Just that they were both orphans, Frank's mom died protecting her comrades and his grandmother died after the family home was destroyed, Hazel's mom died in a cave in (which is partially true but not completely) then of course there was the racism Hazel endure and how some called her mom a witch, They tried to not get into the mythical stuff of course. But neither of them were born deaf mute like Nick so that was something Nick had worse than them. As far as anyone knew about either's dad Frank and Hazel just say they only saw them on occasions but not enough for them to really call them their dad's.

"I think the way you've risen above your handicaps is admirable. And I have to apologize again for my brother."

Nick, embarrassed, could only shrug.

"I hope you'll stay in Shoyo," she said standing. "My husband likes you, and I do, too. Be careful of those men in there. All three of you."

"I will," Nick wrote. "Tell the sheriff I hope he feels better."

"I'll take him your good wishes."

She left then, and the trip passed the night of broken rest, taking turns to get up and check on their three wards. Desperadoes they were not; by ten o'clock they were all sleeping. Two town fellows came in to check and make sure the trio were alright, and all three noticed the two seemed to have colds.

Frank and Hazel had what they figured were demigod dreams. Nothing new for them. Just them being in rows of corn with something scarry behind them. At first they thought it might be Karpos or grain spirit but then they wonder if the vision was of their universe or this universe. If it was this universe they doubt it be Karpois then.

Nick seem to have nightmares too but they figure it was just normal mortal nightmares and didn't ask. Little did they know until later, Nick was too having dream visions of his own.

...

That morning Nick and Frank were up early, carefully sweeping out the back of the jail and ignoring Billy Warner and Mike Childress as Hazel watched the office. As they went out, Billy called after Nick. "Ray's gonna be back, you know. And when he catches you, you're gonna wish you were blind as well as deaf and dumb!"

Nick turned his back and missed most of it, but Frank heard it all and sighed.

They went to the office and spend some time and Nick learn Frank and Hazel could speak French, albeit different dialects from each other, and asked them to teach him how to write it so he has something to go by for his high school credit.

By eight o'clock they were wondering uneasily if Sheriff Baker might have had a relapse in the night. They had expected him by now, ready to turn the three people in his jail over to the county when the State Patrol came for them. Also, they were getting hungry as no one had showed up from the truck-stop down the road. Hazel made the call

"They're short on staff so it's taking longer than usual," Hazel said. "They said we can also go over and get it."

"How about you check on the prisoners and Nick and I go get the food," Frank said.

Nick nodded liking the idea.

Billy and Mike were both standing at their cell doors. Both of them had been banging o the bars with their shoes. Vince Hougan was lying down. He only turned his head and stared at Hazel when she came to the door. Hogan's face was pallid except for a hectic flush on his cheeks, and there were dark patches under his eyes. Beads of sweat were standing out of his forehead. Hazel met his apathetic, fevered gaze and realized that the man was sick. Being a daughter of Pluto, Hazel could sense death lingering over him.

"Hey lady, how about some brefus?" Mike called down to her. "And ole Vince seems like he could use a doctor. Tattle-Talein don't agree with him, does it, Bill?"

Bill didn't want to banter. "I'm sorry I harrassed you and yelled at your deaf friend. Vince, he's sick all right. He needs a doctor."

"Nick and Frank are heading out to get something to eat, I'll let them know," Hazel said rushing outside.

Hazel manage to get word to Nick and Frank. Frank believed Hazel about how sick Vince was, which was good enough for Nick as he came to trust them in the few days they been together.

"Stay here incase someone else comes here," Nick wrote to Hazel. "Keep an eye on Vince."

Hazel nodded as they left.

The first thing that struck them was the still heat of the day and smell of the greenery. By afternoon it was going to be a scorcher. It was the sort of day when people like to get their chores and errands done early so they can spend the afternoon as quietly as possible, but Shoyo mainstreet was quiet.

Most of the diagonal parking spaces in front of the stores were empty. A few cars and farm trucks were going up and down the street, but not many. The hardware store looked open, but the shades of the Mercantile Bank were still drawn, although it was past nine now.

Nick and Frank made a turn to the right toward the truck stop, five blocks down. They made it to the corner of the third block when Frank recognized Dr. Soames' car moving slowly up the street toward them, weaving a little from side to side, as if with exhaustion.

"That's Dr. Soames' car," Frank told Nick.

They waved vigorously as Frank shout for the doctor. Soames pulled in at the curb, indifferently taking up four of the slanted parking spaces. He didn't get out but merely sat behind the wheel. The look of the man shocked them. Soames had aged twenty years since they had last seen him bantering casually with the Sheriff. It was partly exhaustion, and partly sickness. The doctor even produced a wrinkled handkerchief from his breast pocket like an old magician doing a creaky trick and sneezed into it repeatedly. When he was doen, he leaned his head back against the carseat, mouth half open to draw a breath. His skin looked shiny and yellow like a dead person.

Then Soames opened his eyes and said, "Sheriff Baker's dead. If that's what you two flagged me down for, you can forget it. He died a little after two o'clock this morning. Now Janey's sick with it."

Nick's eyes widened as Frank stumbled back. They just saw Jane yesterday and she was fine and told them told them the sheriff was doing better.

"Are you sure?" Frank felt stupid as the words came out. "Sorry."

Soames waved it off as though it was not the first time someone responded that way. "Dead, all right." Soames said. "And he's not the only one. I've signed twelve death certificates in the last twelve hours. And I know of another twenty that are going to be dead by noon unless God shows mercy. But I doubt this is God's doing. I suspect he'll keep right out of it as a consequence."

Nick pulled out the pad from his pocket and wrote: "What's the matter with them?"

"Don't know," Soames said, crumpling the sheet slowly and tossing the ball into the gutter. "But everyone in town seems to be coming down with it, and I'm more frightened than I ever have been in my life. I have it myself, although what I'm suffering most from right now is exhaustion. I'm not a young man anymore. I can't go these long hours without paying the price, you know." A tired frightened petulance had entered his voice, which Nick was the only one fortunate not to hear. "And feeling sorry for myself won't help."

Frank and Nick didn't take the doctor as someone to feel sorry for. Frank remembered what Hazel said about Vince.

Soames got out of his car, holding on to Nick's arm for a minute to help himself. He had an old man grip, weak and a little frenzied. "Come on over to the bench, you two. I feel like I need someone to talk to anyways."

"Hazel is back at the jail watching over the prisoners," Frank said. "Vince Hogan is sick."

"Unless Hazel is sick too, Hogan can wait as he's on the bottom of my list."

Nick shook his head to indicate Hazel wasn't sick.

They sat on the bench, which was painted bright green and bore the advertisement on the backrest for some local insurance company. Soames turned his face gratefully up to the warmth of the sun.

"Chills and fever," he said. "Ever since about ten o'clock last night. Just lately been the chills. I tried that chinese remedy you advised Frank. I doubt it would matter but I figured to give it a shot. Thank god there hasn't been any diarrhea."

"You ought to go home to bed," Nick wrote.

"So I ought. And I will. I just want to rest for a few minutes first." His eyes slipped shut and Nick and Frank thought he had gone to sleep. Frank thought of just going to the truck stop and get breakfast and return for Nick.

Then Dr. Soames spoke again, without opening his eyes. Nick watched his lips. "The symptoms are all very common," he said, and began to enumerate them on his fingers until all ten were spread out in front of him like a fan. "Chills. Fever. Headache. Weakness and general debilitation. Loss of appetite. Painful urination. Swelling of the glands, progressing from minor to acute. Swelling in the armpits and in the groin. Respiratory weakness and failure."

Frank frowned remembering all the health lessons taught in Camp Jupiter and best way to treat them he took in hopes to get recognition from Apollo before Mars claimed him.

"That sounds a lot more than the common cold," Frank said.

"You're right. It's also symptoms of influenza and pneumonia." Dr. Soames said.

"But we can cure all those, can't we?" Frank asked.

"At the most part, yes. Unless of course the patient is very young or very old, or perhaps already weakened by a previous illness, or at one time with the influenza you had a healthy immune system as back before my time it was the healthy that were hit hardest of it. But now we can knock most of them out with antibiotics. But not this. It comes on the patient quickly or slowly. It doesn't seem to matter. Nothing helps. THe thing escalated, back up, escalates again; debilitation increases; the swelling gets worsel finally death.

"What about the blackening under the eyes?" Frank asked although already having a bad feeling what that meant "Hazel saw that on Hougan."

"Thta seems to be the final state before death," Soames said.

Frank muttered some words in a language Nick didn't recognize but impressed Soames.

"I didn't know you speak Latín, Mr. Zhang," Soames said.

Frank turned pink in embarrassment. "Sorry. That kinda slipped. Hazel and I both were taught it." Frank and Hazel both agreed to keep the speaking Latín on a downlow since they knew it was a dead language to mortals.

Nick wanted to add Frank and Hazel could speak French too, but decided not. Instead he wrote: "Somebody made a mistake."

"And they're trying to cover up." SOames responded knowing where Nick was going.

Nick looked at him doubtfully, wondering if he had picked the words rightly from the doctor's lips, wondering if Soames might be raving.

"That's a bit paranoid for a doctor to say, don't you think?" Frank asked.

"I used to be frightened of the younger generation's paranoia, do you know that? Always afraid someone was tapping their phones... following them... running computer check on them... and now I find out they were right and I was wrong. Life is a fine thing, Nick, Frank, but old age takes an unpleasantly high toll on one's dearly held prejudices, I find."

"What do you mean?" Nick wrote.

"None of the phones in Shoyo works," Soames said.

"But Hazel called the truck stop about breakfast before we left," Frank argued.

"Oh, you can make calls inside Shoyo with no problem. But if you try to dial any number not on this town's circuit, you get a recorded announcement. Furthermore, the two Shoyo exits and entrances from the turnpike are closed off with barriers which say ROAD CONSTRUCTION. But there is no construction. Only the barriers. I was out there. I believe it would be possible to move the barrier aside, but the traffic on the turnpike seems very light this morning. And most of it seems to consist of army vehicles. Trucks and jeeps."

Frank got a sinking bad feeling. He learned alot about military tactics from Camp Jupiter, especially after being made Praeter, and he knew you either summoned military forces either to attack or defend, and from what Soames was telling them, the vehicles were assembled to defend, and from the sounds of it, against Shoyo.

"What about the other roads?" Nick wrote.

"Route 63 has been torn up at the east end of town to replace a culvert," Soames said. "At the west end of town there appears to have been a rather car accident. Two cars across the road, blocking it entirely. There are smudge pots out, but no sign of state troopers or wrecked."

"Staged," Nick wasn't sure Frank meant it as a question or statement.

Soames removed his handkerchief, and blew his nose.

"The men working on the culvert are going very slowly, according to Joe Rackman, who lives out that way. I was at the Rickmans' about two hours ago, looking at their little boy, who is very ill indeed. Joe said that he thinks that men at the culvert are in fact soldiers, thought they're dressed in state road crew coveralls and driving a state truck."

"How does he know?" Nick wrote.

Standing up, Soames said: "Workmen rarely salute each other."

"That would do it," Frank responded as he and Nick stood up.

"Back roads?" Nick wrote.

"Possibly." Soames replied. "But I am a doctor, not a hero. Joe said he saw guns in the cab of that truck. Army issued carbines. If one tried to leave Shoyo by the back roads and if they were watched, who knows? And what might one find beyond Shoyo? I repeat: someone made a mistake. And now they are trying to cover it up. Madness. Madness. Of course the news of something like this will get out, and it won't take long. And in ht meantime, how many will die?"

Nick and Frank were frightened and Nick saw Frank reached for his pocket as if to check on something as Soames went back to his car and climbed slowly in.

"And you two, Nick and Frank," Soames said, looking out the window at them. "How do you feel? A cold? Sneezing? Coughing?"

Nick shook his head to each one.

"I feel as healthy as an ox," Frank said thinking back to all the times his grandmother use to refer to him as one.

"What of Hazel?" Soames asked.

"Same as us," Frank said now feeling concern about Hazel.

"Will you three try to leave town? I think you could, if you went by the fields."

Nick shook his head and wrote, "Those men are locked up. I can't just leave them. We'll get their breakfast along with Hazel's and I'll go see Mrs. Baker."

"We'll stick around to help," Frank said. "Hazel and me."

"You are thoughtful," Soames said. "That's rare. Two boys and a girl in this degraded age who has a sense of responsibility is even rarer. She'd appreciate that, Nick, I know. Mr. Braceman, the Methodist minister, also said he would stop by. I'm afraid he'll have a lot of calls to make before the day is over. You three will be careful of those three you have locked up, won't you?"

Nick and Frank nodded.

"Good. I'll try to stop by and check on you guys this afternoon." He dropped the car into gear and drove away, looking weary and red-eyed and shriveled. Nick and Frank stared after him, his face troubled.

"Go back to the prison and check on Hazel," Nick wrote to Frank. "I'll get the food."

"Are you sure?" Frank asked.

Nick nodded and waved as to tell Frank go ahead.

"Thanks," Frank responded before racing back to the jail. Fortunately Hazel was still fine but Hogan was delirious and scaring everyone. That didn't stop Frank though as he told Hazel everything Soames told him and Nick.

A/N: as some might have guessed I decided to work on The Tales of the Heroes of the Stand for Halloween. Why? Because I felt like working on something related to the Stand. Reminder Frank still has his piece of firewood that his life is tied to because this story takes place before the events of the tyrant's tomb as I did not know Frank would burn up the fire wood fighting Calligula and survived thus being free of his curse when I started this crossover otherwise I would have waited until AFTER I was done with The Tales of the Trials of Apollo part of The Tales of series. As for why Frank and Hazel are with Nick Andros. Uh duh! Nick is a deaf mute and Frank isn't dyslexic so he can read what Nick writes. And Hazel is Frank's girlfriend so of course they be together in the crossover. Also Frank does have a gladius that I had Mars give him. So he's an archer and swordsman. And yes Frank can get him and Hazel out of Shoyo easy using his family gift or Hazel can get Frank and Nick out using Shadow Traveling but they are keeping their powers on a down low for now as is the other demigod powers.

Also I got a review of someone bringing up how mother Abigail and Randall Flagg assembled their followers like an occult. Look, if you got a problem how The Stand uses Christian beliefs in the story line that's fine: but keep in mind the Stand was written by Stephen King, so you have issues you want to bring up on such matters bring it up to him.