Stephen King’s The Stand Gets New Life in The End of the World As We Know It — Read an Excerpt! (Exclusive)

Stephen King fans, have we got a treat for you.

A new, star-studded anthology presents fresh takes on the bestselling thriller The Stand, and PEOPLE has an exclusive excerpt. The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand returns to the harrowing world with “brilliant, terrifying and painfully human tales” set during and after the events of The Stand. The anthology, edited by Christopher Golden and Brian Keene, features an introduction by King, 77, and a foreword by Golden.

Contributors include such literary heavy hitters and celebrities as Wayne Brady, S. A. Cosby, Tananarive Due, Meg Gardiner, Alex Segura, Paul Tremblay, Chuck Wendig and many more.

Below, read — and listen to — a short story by Tim Lebbon in The End of the World As We Know It set far above an apocalyptic Earth.

Listen to an excerpt from ‘The End of the World As We Know It’

GRACE

She smells rotting corn and hears a breeze shushing through dead crops, and somewhere far away an old woman plucks the strings of a guitar and sings an unknown song. The guitar is out of tune, and the song itches and stings like insects inside her skull. But Gemma knows this is only a dream.

Reality is closer and darker, and it knows her name.

Gemma, you disgrace me! Her father’s words, though he is over a decade dead, and these are spoken in mocking tones by another. The old fool was wrong, Gemma. You’re no disgrace. It was only f——, after all, where’s the disgrace in that? And now you can make yourself free.

The voice is deep with a hint of terrible humor.

The man’s fingers scratch at the door … scrit, scrit … and though he is already there, Gemma hears the approach of worn boot heels, close, closer. As if he has always been coming for her.

“Gemma!” Matt shook her again, hard. Everyone on board the space shuttle Discovery was having nightmares, but they had to hold themselves together. They needed each other. “ Gemma, wake––!”

Her eyes snapped open and for a moment she stared right through him, her pupils dilated, and glimmering red. Matt shifted position, and the red glow disappeared. Reflected light, he thought. That’s all.

“Hey, Gemma,” Lizzie said. She was beside him, holding on to one of the sleeping bags tethered against the bulkhead. Her voice was calm, and Matt was glad she was still with them. If Frank had taken her with him instead of Hans, Matt didn’t know what the f— he would have done.

“I’m okay,” Gemma said, plainly not. She was shivering, and a bead of sweat lifted from the end of her nose and drifted between them. “Bad dreams, that’s all.”

“Bad dreams,” Matt said. He’d had a nightmare when he last slept, a rabid dog chasing him through a field of fading crops. And Lizzie said she’d slept fitfully, too. It was hardly a surprise.

They helped Gemma unstrap and she shoved herself across to the toilet, grabbing the handle and spinning herself around.

“Anything new?” she asked as she started undoing her suit. She left the door open and reached for her urine hose.

Matt turned away, hanging on to the ladder to the flight deck. Even with everything that was happening, they all deserved privacy and dignity.

“Plenty of transmissions on our last two orbits,” Matt said. “None of them good.”

“Such as?”

“Gemma, why don’t you have something to eat before–”

“You’re trying to protect me, Lizzie?” Gemma said, voice raised. “Seriously?”

Matt turned around. “Let’s keep it down. We can’t lose it.”

“I’m not losing it,” Gemma said, her voice softer. “But there’s no point hiding anything. Is there?”

Matt sighed. “No point.” He looked at Lizzie. They’d been talking about Gemma while she slept, the things she mumbled in her sleep, disturbing whispers of two-headed snakes and rabid canines that struck a chilling chord with them both. The similarity of their dreams was troubling, but he didn’t believe they were relevant to the current situation. They were simply a product of it.

“Most of the broadcasts from Europe suggest they’re a few days behind the U.S.,” Matt said. “There are widespread lockdowns, borders are closing, mass burials. There’ve been skirmishes in the English Channel.”

“Skirmishes?” Gemma asked.

“Naval battles.” He didn’t elaborate. The phrase was enough to shock them into a brief silence.

Matt glanced at the door to the air lock. His two dead friends and crew members were beyond, wrapped up in their sleeping bags. They’d pushed them into the air lock and through to the depressurized payload bay after their deaths. Frank Mancini was from London. He’d slit his wrists, and in the tussle when they tried to stop him, Hans took a knife jab to the throat that pricked his carotid. Some of their blood was still circulating the flight deck.

“But what about Kennedy?” Gemma asked. “They’ve been working on something. They can bring us down, right? Frank was the pilot, but you can fly this thing, too.”

“I’ve said before — not without help.”

Gemma zipped her suit and sanitized her hands, shaking her head, every movement angry.

“We’re not giving up hope,” Lizzie said. She and Matt swapped a glance, and Gemma turned to face them both.

“Kennedy,” she said.

“Last orbit, there was only one reply to our transmissions,” Matt said. “Tech guy I don’t know, name of Joslin. He could hardly breathe, could barely talk. He said a few people have died in Mission Control, but most have gone home to their families.”

“Abandoned us?” Gemma asked.

“Doing what any of us would do,” Matt said. “Except Joslin, right?”

“He said he’s stayed there because he has no family, and all his friends are dead.”

“So, you asked him about us? About what we should do?”

Matt sighed. “He’s just a tech guy, Gemma. An engineer. He had no answers. He just said . . . ”He drifted off, remembering Joslin’s clotted voice, his hopelessness.

“What?” Gemma asked.

“He said he wished he was up here with us, instead of down there in hell.”

Matt brushed aside floating blood as he pulled himself onto the flight deck. It spread across the back of his hand, sticking in the hairs there, and he wondered whether it belonged to Frank or Hans. Lowering into the commander’s seat and strapping in, he tried to blink away the memory of their violent deaths.

Earth was visible to his left, breathtakingly beautiful and awe-inspiring as ever, only now he saw it through different eyes. In Discovery’s payload bay was a large component for the fifth SDI satellite to be built, a multibillion-dollar venture to ensure safety and security down on earth. Their mission was secret, and their cargo even more secretive than usual. This SDI satellite was built to be offensive, with missle capabilities providing a rapid response to any attack.

Within 10 meters of him were two fully armed nuclear missiles. “Still beautiful,” Lizzie said. “You never tire of that view.” She moved forward to float above the pilot’s seat beside him, but did not strap herself in. That had been Frank’s place. “How is she?”

“On the edge. Like all of us.”

“I’m not on the edge,” Matt said.

“Really? Your wife, your daughter? Aren’t they in New York?” Matt stared at the Pacific Ocean passing beneath them, wondering if some of those islands might survive. Then he understood that Discovery was the remotest island of them all.

“I’m mission commander,” Matt said. “I can’t be on the edge.”

Lizzie laughed without humor. When Matt looked at her, she was blurred from the tears in his eyes.

“Maybe Frank did the right thing,” Lizzie said. “Killing himself? Killing Hans?”

“Hans was a mistake.”

“No,” Matt said. “Not the right thing. Not at all.” “But we’re…”

“We’re waiting,” Matt said.

“For what?”

“We have food and water for another 12 days. More, now that Hans and Frank…” He sighed. “By then, maybe something will have changed.”

“All that’s going to change in that time is more Captain Trips, more dead people and less chance than ever of us bringing Discovery down.”

“Captain who?”

“It’s a name I heard for the flu. In France it’s ‘Gorge Noire.’ In New Zealand it’s ‘Whiu Hou.’ It’s everywhere, Matt. We can’t assume anyone gives a f— about us, and we can’t just wait for a miracle.”

“You know what we’ve got on this boat.”

Lizzie shrugged. Her hair had come loose, strands floating around her head like unruly snakes.

“If I try to land and we come apart in low atmosphere, we’ll spread radioactive contamination over hundreds of miles.”

“We won’t come apart.”

“The chance of me landing Discovery successfully with no copilot and precisely no help from Mission Control—”

“Don’t say zero,” Lizzie said.

“—is 5 percent. Probably less.”

“And the chance of us dying up here is 100.” They watched the beautiful, dying planet passing them by. “That’s not chance,” Matt said. “That’s certainty.”

“Pedant.”

Gemma opens one of their food lockers and brings out the bags of freeze-dried rations. A spot of blood lands on her forearm and rolls across her skin like an excited bug. She blows on it. It lifts away, drifting. She is shaking.

… scritch … scritch …

She looks at the door to her left, leading into the air lock and payload bay beyond. Frank and Hans are through there, dead, wrapped in their sleeping bags, and something is scratching at the door.

… scritch …

“Go away,” she says. Soft, so the others won’t hear.

Why don’t you want them to hear? a voice asks from beyond the door. It’s impossible. But she has heard this voice before.

“Go away!”

They already hear you talking in your sleep, apologizing to your father when there is nothing to apologize for, you never meant to—

Gemma slams her hand on the locker, loud, and the voice ceases. She runs her fingers across the top of the food packages, counting. With Frank and Hans dead, there is more for them, and Matt has already said they can ration. Twelve days, maybe more. Their mission was only supposed to be four days long, so their return is already two days overdue. These extra packets were only ever in case of emergency.

Gemma laughs, and it comes out as a loud yelp. “Emergency!” “Gemma, you okay?” Lizzie floats down from the flight deck.

… scritch … scritch …

“You hear that?” Gemma asks.

“Hear what?” Lizzie rights herself so they stand face-to-face. “Hey, Gemma. I’m here for you.”

“Who’s here for you?” Gemma asks. “Thirty-six meals. Plenty of water.”

“That’s good.”

“Why? A meal each per day. Twelve more days to look down and wonder what’s going on.” Gemma glances at her watch. “How long until we’re over Florida again? I want to talk to Joslin.”

She does, and she doesn’t. What she wants most is to get away from that voice—

They don’t trust you, they talk about you, you should never feel guilt for something you didn’t do.

—and the terrible scratching at the door, like something eager to be let in.

… scritch … scritch …

But I’m already inside, he says.

She shoves past Lizzie and grabs the ladder, pulling herself up toward the flight deck. Matt turns to her as she arrives.

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“Hey, Gemma.”

She looks from the window, crouching to see past him. They are coming up on the West Coast.

“Joslin,” she says.

“I was just about to start trying him.”

For the first three times, the only response is static. Lizzie comes in behind Gemma, and the two of them stand close by Matt’s chair. Gemma breathes through her mouth, listening for the slightest hint of response. She tries to imagine Mission Control empty, screen displays still flowing, lights flashing, computers humming, everything meant to keep them safe now playing to the dead.

As the landmass of the USA passes by beneath them at 300 miles per minute, the static is replaced by a low, long rattle.

A breath, Gemma thinks. From behind her, down on mid-deck, she hears a loud laugh. She glances at Lizzie wide-eyed. She must have heard that!

“Is that someone breathing?” Lizzie asks.

No, she didn’t hear the laugh. Am I mad? Gemma thinks.

No, they’re mad, the muffled voice says from down through the hatch and beyond the air lock door. Scritch … scriiitch … as he speaks, as if determined to scratch his way through to her.

She feels those scratches against the inside of her skull. “Joslin?” Matt asks. “That you, friend?”

“Yeah,” a voice says from the radio. It sounds like Joslin is speaking through a throatful of soup. “Not doing so good here, Discovery.”

“Has anyone come back?” Lizzie asks. “Anyone come up with a plan to help us—”

“Wish I could go … to her,” Joslin says, drawing in agonized breaths. “Wish I could … see. But he’s got his … hands on my throat. Squeezing. Feel hot. And cold. Got better—”

“Who’s squeezing your throat, Joslin?” Matt asks.

“—better yesterday, pulling through, then slept and … smells like death now, in here, and I think … I think it’s me.”

“Is there anyone else left?” Lizzie asks. Desperate. Leaning forward, as if to feed herself down along the radio waves.

Gemma watches the landmass of home passing beneath them. “No one,” she whispers.

“Only you,” Joslin says. “Damn I feel so… ” He says no more. His breathing is low and fast, wet and cloggy. Gemma hears a soft thud and imagines Joslin resting his head on the desk.

“Joslin?” Lizzie asks. “Joslin, what do we do? What do we do?!” “We go round and round,” Gemma says. “Eight days, or twelve. A hundred orbits, or two. And we watch the world die.”

“No!” Lizzie says. “We take her down, right, Matt? We take Discovery down!”

Gemma drifts back down through the hatch, and this time she does not look away from the air lock.

There is no voice. The scratching has ceased, as if he’s allowing her grief. A graceful man, she thinks, without knowing why, but his grace is horrifying, like the dance of fire in zero gravity.

The Graceful Man’s silence is the worst thing she has ever heard.

Passing over the Atlantic Ocean they picked up a distress call from a cruise ship that was adrift with no crew left alive or able to work. The call was from a 7-year-old child whose mother was telling her how to use the radio. The girl was fine. She said her mommy was feeling poorly and a man had fallen over in the kids’ play area.

Approaching Europe, Matt tuned into several big news agencies and listened to the reports. All of them were dreadful and tragic. None projected hope. A French channel broadcast what appeared to be a series of public executions of government officials. An English voice talked of skirmishes all along the south coast as boats from Europe attempted to land. One Spanish radio station played frantic guitar music with the presenter coughing and shouting over the top. Matt was pleased he didn’t speak Spanish.

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He understood enough, though. He felt like that kid on the ocean liner, adrift and asking for help from a world that no longer had the ability to care. I’m mission commander, he thought, but the fact that there was no longer a mission and the only thing left to command was a dying crew…

He hated to think of them and himself like that, but it was the truth.

“I feel like that kid on the ship,” Lizzie said, and Matt laughed. There was no other way to react. “So, I’ve been thinking…” she said, but a noise from behind silenced her.

Gemma came up from mid-deck and gave them both a food packet. They were half-empty, the leftovers from yesterday. They’d stopped tasting of anything, but Matt still ate, and drank from the water bottle by his seat.

“Thinking what?” Gemma asked. She was quieter than ever now, eyes wide, the skin around them dark from exhaustion. She didn’t want to sleep, she said, because she wanted to grasp every minute left to them.

Matt heard the lie every time she spoke it, because she was grasping nothing. Gemma hung around on mid-deck most of the time, staring at the air lock entrance, sometimes with her head cocked. She watched them with those wide eyes, hardly saying anything.

“Nothing,” Lizzie said. “Just thinking.”

“Thinking about how we finish things,” Gemma said.

Lizzie caught Matt’s eye. He’d been thinking about that, too. There would soon come a day when the food ran out. It would be a long time before the water was gone, and he knew they could live for weeks without food, but they’d weaken, fade, and if they were going to do something…

“Yes,” Matt said. It needed saying. “Thinking about how we do that, when the time comes.”

“Time came days ago,” Gemma said. “Everything’s worse. Nothing’s better down there. Joslin’s rotting in Mission Control.”

“We can’t try to land,” Matt said. He was worried they were about to have that discussion again. But Gemma surprised him by nodding, smiling, and he thought it was the first time she’d smiled in a while.

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“How long would we stay in orbit?” Gemma asked.

“A good while,” Lizzie said. “Years. Maybe a lot of years.” “And our payload?” Gemma asked.

“Eventually our orbit will decay, and we’ll skim the atmosphere. Probably too shallow, and Discovery will come apart high up, and Matt says…” She looked at Matt, the truth that they’d already been discussing this now hanging between them.

“That high up, pollution from the warheads shouldn’t cause too much trouble down on the surface,” he said. “ It’ll just be added to the upper atmosphere.”

“And so will we,” Gemma said. Matt and Lizzie followed her gaze through the window. “Kinda beautiful.”

“But that time’s not yet,” Matt said. “So how about you grab that illicit bottle of Jack I brought on board?”

Lizzie raised her eyebrows. “You’ve waited til now?” “In the small locker behind my sleeping bag.”

“I’ll get it,” Gemma said.

Excerpted from THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand. Volume copyright © 2025 by Daring Greatly Corporation, Inc. and Brian Keene. Grace copyright © 2025 by Tim Lebbon. Reprinted by permission of Gallery Books, an Imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC.

The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand will hit shelves on Aug. 19 and is available for preorder now, wherever books are sold.