The Stand: Complete and Uncut Edition/Prologue: The Circle Opens

The Circle Opens is the prologue to the Complete and Uncut Edition of The Stand. It contains the first appearance of Charles Campion, and the first and only appearance alive of his wife Sally and daughter Baby Lavon, and the only appearance of the Reservation guard. It is also the first appearance of the Reservation, the Army base in the California desert where the superflu Captain Trips was presumably engineered and was kept until its escape, due to the flight of the Campions, which begins in this chapter.

It was cut from the original novel, but part or all of its events are depicted in most subsequent adaptations.

Summary
A man named Charlie wakes up his wife Sally in the middle of the night and says they need to leave. He is a guard at a military base named the Reservation, and Sally realizes he intends to go AWOL. When he first starts packing and insisting they leave, she believes he has gone insane, or else this is all a dream. But when he takes the $40 she has saved up to buy a house, she realizes he is serious.

He is so frantic, he refuses to give his 3-year-old daughter Baby LaVon a pony-ride, despite her crying. Charlie tells Sally the people in the north tower of the Reservation are "D-E-A-D," spelling it out, and that the light had gone from green to red. He claims not to know how he escaped the guard room before the doors automatically closed, but he, Sally and Baby LaVon need to go far away.

As he is packing in a hurry, he has a slight cough. The Reservation guard seems to be unaware anything is wrong as they drive their Chevrolet through the gates. By the time they reach Nevada, Charlie's cough has worsened.