"Had some homefries and chocolate milk to go with it, and then for dessert... holy crow, I'm torturing you, ain't I? Someone ought to take a hosswhip to me, that's what they ought to do. I'm sorry. I'll let you right out and then we'll go get something to eat, okay?"
Lloyd was too stunned to even nod. He had decided that the man with the key was indeed a devil, or even more likely a mirage, and the mirage would stand outside his cell until Lloyd finally dropped dead, talking happily about God and Jesus and Gulden's Spicy Brown mustard as he made the strange black stone appear and disappear. But now the compassion on the man's face seemed real enough, and he sounded genuinely disgusted with himself. The black stone disappeared into his clenched fist again. And when the fist opened, Lloyd's wondering eyes beheld a flat silver key with an ornate grip lying on the stranger's palm.
"My - dear - God! " Lloyd croaked.
"You like that?" the dark man asked, pleased. "I learned that trick from a massage parlor honey in Secaucus, New Jersey, Lloyd. Secaucus, home of the world's greatest pig farms."
He bent and seated the key in the lock of Lloyd's cell. And that was strange, because as well as his memory served him (which right now was not very well), these cells had no keyways, because they were all opened and shut electronically. But he had no doubt that the silver key would work.
Just as it rattled home, Flagg stopped and looked at Lloyd, grinning slyly, and Lloyd felt despair wash over him again. It was all just a trick.
"Did I introduce myself? The name is Flagg, with the double g. Pleased to meet you."
"Likewise," Lloyd croaked.
"And I think, before I open this cell and we go get some dinner, we ought to have a little understanding, Lloyd."
"Sure thing," Lloyd croaked, and began to cry again.
"I'm going to make you my righthand man, Lloyd. Going to put you right up there with Saint Peter. When I open this door, I'm going to slip the keys to the kingdom right into your hand. What a deal, right?"
"Yeah," Lloyd whispered, growing frightened again. It was almost full dark now. Flagg was little more than a dark shape, but his eyes were still perfectly visible. They seemed to glow in the dark like the eyes of a lynx, one to the left of the bar that ended in the lockbox, one to the right. Lloyd felt terror, but something else as well: a kind of religious ecstasy. A pleasure. The pleasure of being chosen. The feeling that he had somehow won through... to something.
"You'd like to get even with the people who left you here, isn't that right?"
"Boy, that sure is," Lloyd said, forgetting his terror momentarily. It was swallowed up by a starving, sinewy anger.
"Not just those people, but everyone who would do a thing like that," Flagg suggested. "It's a type of person, isn't it? To a certain type of person, a man like you is nothing but garbage. Because they are high up. They don't think a person like you has a right to live."
"That's just right," Lloyd said. His great hunger had suddenly been changed into a different kind of hunger. It had changed just as surely as the black stone had changed into the silver key. This man had expressed all the complex things he had felt in just a handful of sentences. It wasn't just the gate-guard he wanted to get even with - why, here's the wise-ass pusbag, what's the story, pusbag, got anything smart to say? - because the gate-guard wasn't the one. The gate-guard had had THE KEY, all right, but the gate-guard had not made THE KEY. Someone had given it to him. The warden, Lloyd supposed, but the warden hadn't made THE KEY, either. Lloyd wanted to find the makers and forgers. They would be immune to the flu, and he had business with them. Oh yes, and it was good business.
"You know what the Bible says about people like that?" Flagg asked quietly. "It says the exalted shall be abased and the mighty shall be brought low and the stiffnecked shall be broken. And you know what it says about people like you, Lloyd? It says blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. And it says blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God."
Lloyd was nodding. Nodding and crying. For a moment it seemed that a blazing corona had formed around Flagg's head, a light so bright that if Lloyd looked at it for long it would burn his eyes to cinders. Then it was gone... if it had ever been there at all, and it must not have been, because Lloyd had not even lost his night vision.
"Now you aren't very bright," Flagg said, "but you are the first. And I have the feeling you might be very loyal. You and I, Lloyd, we're going to go far. It's a good time for people like us. Everything is starting up for us. All I need is your word."
"W-word?"
"That we're going to stick together, you and me. No denials. No falling asleep on guard duty. There will be others very soon - they're on their way west already - but for now, there's just us. I'll give you the key if you give me your promise."