Charlie Campion flees a contaminated government facility with his family and crashes at a Texas gas station, infecting bystanders before dying.

Stu Redman is taken into government quarantine after exposure to Campion, showing no signs of illness while everyone around him dies.

Major Starkey reviews Project Blue and learns the escaped virus carries a 99.4% mortality rate, then orders a military cover-up.

Randall Flagg walks through the night and discovers he can levitate, sensing a great catastrophe approaching that he intends to exploit.

American society collapses as the military loses control of the plague's spread, cities empty, and the government disintegrates.

Stu escapes the Vermont plague facility by wresting a gun from Dr. Elder and shooting him, then fleeing into the night.

Nick Andros dreams repeatedly of an old woman named Abagail in Nebraska and resolves to find her, setting out on bicycle.

Randall Flagg appears at Lloyd Henreid's prison cell and offers him freedom in exchange for loyalty; Lloyd pledges himself to the dark man.

Nick Andros, Tom Cullen, and Ralph Brentner arrive at Mother Abagail's farmhouse in Nebraska, fulfilling the dream visions that guided them there.

Mother Abagail tells the assembled survivors that God has instructed them all to relocate to Boulder, Colorado, to prepare for a confrontation.

Harold detonates a remote bomb planted in Nick Andros's house during a committee meeting, killing Nick and several other people.

The dying Mother Abagail commands Stu, Glen, Larry, and Ralph to walk unarmed to Las Vegas to confront Randall Flagg, then dies.

Flagg's soldiers capture Glen, Larry, and Ralph outside Las Vegas and bring the three men into the city as prisoners.

Trashcan Man arrives in Las Vegas dragging a nuclear warhead; a stray electrical charge detonates it, obliterating the city and everyone inside.

Flagg awakens on a tropical beach with no memory of his past and begins charming a group of primitive natives into worshipping him.

Pool 1 covers the most essential events in The Stand, from the release of the deadly plague virus to the destruction of Randall Flagg's empire. It traces the emergence of two opposing forces — Mother Abagail gathering survivors in Boulder and Flagg assembling his followers in Las Vegas. Nick Andros leads the first group to Abagail's Nebraska farm, setting the stage for the Boulder Free Zone to take shape. Harold's bombing of the governing committee and Abagail's dying command send four unarmed men westward on a mission they may not survive. The mission ends in apocalyptic fashion when Trashcan Man's nuclear warhead detonates and destroys Las Vegas entirely. The story closes with Flagg awakening in a new part of the world, suggesting that evil is cyclical and will always find a way to return.

The plague outbreak, the rise of Flagg, and the final stand in Las Vegas.

Frannie Goldsmith tells her boyfriend Jesse she is pregnant; he proposes marriage but she firmly refuses and the relationship ends.

Larry Underwood returns to New York from Los Angeles and moves in with his mother, who soon develops serious plague symptoms.

Nick Andros is beaten unconscious and left for dead by local thieves, then ends up recovering in a small Arkansas jail.

Relieved of command for his role in the plague outbreak, Starkey gives his West Point ring to a colleague and then shoots himself in the contaminated lab.

Trashcan Man ignites a field of oil storage tanks in Indiana and barely escapes, believing the near-death experience confirms he has a greater destiny.

Larry Underwood and Rita Blakemoor escape New York by walking through the Lincoln Tunnel, navigating past stalled cars and piles of corpses.

Rita Blakemoor kills herself with a drug overdose while camping in Vermont, leaving Larry to continue his journey entirely alone.

Stu Redman encounters retired professor Glen Bateman and his Irish Setter Kojak on a New Hampshire road and joins their company.

Frannie and Harold leave Ogunquit on motorcycles after Harold climbs a barn and paints directions on the roof to guide other survivors.

Stu's group rescues enslaved women from armed rogue scavengers in a roadside ambush; survivor Dayna Jurgens and four others join their party.

The Boulder Free Zone holds its first full community meeting, elects a permanent governing board, and adopts the Constitution as its charter.

Harold Lauder and Nadine Cross form a secret alliance and construct a bomb intended to destroy the entire Boulder governing committee.

Flagg's soldiers ambush Judge Farris on a remote Oregon road; the judge dies in the firefight and Flagg kills the surviving ambusher.

Dayna Jurgens is exposed as a spy inside Las Vegas and kills herself on broken glass to prevent Flagg from learning Tom Cullen's identity.

Stu Redman breaks his leg at a flooded road washout; the others continue the mission westward while Kojak stays behind to tend to him.

Pool 2 traces the personal journeys of key characters as they navigate a dying world and find their way toward Boulder. Frannie, Larry, Nick, and Stu each endure distinct hardships before converging into the larger survivor community. Once in Boulder, the group works to build a functioning society by holding elections and restoring basic infrastructure. The darker side of that community emerges as Harold and Nadine conspire against the Free Zone and the council sends vulnerable spies into Flagg's territory. Judge Farris and Dayna Jurgens both die on their missions, sacrificing themselves to protect the others. The pool ends with Stu's injury fracturing the four-man mission, underscoring the personal cost that taking a stand against Flagg demands.

The survivors' journeys, the Free Zone's formation, and the spy missions against Flagg.

Major Starkey orders soldiers to intercept and kill two reporters who discovered the true nature of the plague outbreak in Texas.

While watching prisoners in the Arkansas jail, Nick Andros has his first nightmare of a faceless dark man stalking him through a cornfield.

Frannie Goldsmith buries her plague-killed father in the backyard while Harold Lauder arrives and proposes they leave town together on motorcycles.

Starving in his Phoenix jail cell, Lloyd Henreid begins cannibalizing a dead fellow inmate moments before Randall Flagg arrives to offer him freedom.

Randall Flagg visits the dying Kit Bradenton in Colorado and receives forged identity papers and a waiting car to begin his journey south.

Larry Underwood realizes Nadine Cross and a feral mute boy named Joe have been following him and accepts them as travel companions.

Larry's group spots Harold's barn-roof message in Ogunquit directing survivors northward and reverses course to follow Harold and Frannie's trail.

Tom Cullen drags Nick Andros to shelter in a cellar just moments before a massive tornado tears across the Kansas landscape.

Frannie and Stu become romantically involved during the westward journey; Harold secretly steals her diary and reads every private entry.

Nadine Cross uses a Ouija board planchette alone on a mountain summit above Boulder and surrenders herself fully to Randall Flagg's will.

Larry and Frannie search Harold's house and discover his journal revealing explicit plans to murder Stu and destroy the governing committee.

Flagg intercepts Nadine walking alone through the desert and takes her as his bride, ensuring she conceives his son and heir.

Nadine Cross taunts Randall Flagg with a list of his failures until he hurls her through a window, killing her and his unborn child.

Glen Bateman laughs in Flagg's face inside the Las Vegas jail cell and declares him unimpressive; a furious Flagg orders Lloyd to shoot Glen.

Tom Cullen sleepwalks in the rain and receives instructions from Nick's ghost, leading him to the antibiotics that save Stu Redman's life.

Pool 3 focuses on the pivotal moments where characters make choices that alter the course of the entire story. Early events reveal the government's willingness to suppress the truth and Flagg's cunning in exploiting a world in freefall. Characters like Larry, Frannie, and Nick reach crossroads that define who they will become in the new world emerging from the plague's devastation. Nadine's surrender to Flagg and Harold's bitterness-fueled betrayal illustrate how personal wounds can be weaponized by the forces of darkness. The pool culminates with the unraveling of Flagg's power through Nadine's defiant death, Glen's fearless laughter in a jail cell, and an act of accidental atonement from Trashcan Man. Tom Cullen's sleepwalking mission to save the injured Stu provides a final turning point, as an act of unexpected grace tips the balance toward survival and redemption.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that determine the story's outcome.