The Stand Stephen King's The Stand is a thrilling novel that portrays the forces of good against evil. In the year 1991, a plague strikes America, leaving only a few thousand people alive who are "immune" to the epidemic. Of the survivors, those who serve God instinctively join in Boulder, Colorado, while those who worship the "Dark Man" are drawn to Las Vegas, Nevada. The two groups separately re-build society, until one must destroy the other. Franny Goldsmith comes very close to killing herself. She thinks she can not deal with her parents' deaths, being unwed and pregnant, and having the only other survivor in her hometown of Ogunquit