The book was also adapted into a television mini-series, starring Gary Sinise, Molly Ringwald, and Rob Lowe and was released by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) network in 1994.
He manages to flee with his wife and baby daughter when a computer relay system briefly fails and alerts do not sound in time for the base to enter lockdown before the Campions break out.
In an attempt to maintain plausible deniability, he activates a contingency plan to have spies release the virus in the Eastern Bloc and China, ensuring these Communist nations are destroyed along with the United States.
[6][7] Stu Redman is a quiet, intelligent widower and veteran from Arnette, Texas, with a tragic history; he has lost most of his family, leaving only his brother Bryce (who lived in Minnesota working as a system analyst for IBM) as a sole surviving relative, prior to the apocalyptic pandemic.
A college student from Ogunquit, Maine, Frances Goldsmith (often called Frannie) is pregnant at the start of the book, a topic which resulted in a painful standoff with her mother Carla and the end of her relationship with the baby's birth father, Jesse Rider.
The superflu wipes out Goldsmith's community, with she and Harold Lauder being the only local survivors after a parking lot attendant, Gus Dinsmore, contracts the virus and dies on June 30.
A 22-year-old deaf-mute drifter, originally from Caslin, Nebraska, Nick Andros is beaten and robbed outside of (fictional) Shoyo, Arkansas by some local thugs, shortly after the start of the epidemic.
Along the way he meets Tom Cullen, and later, Ralph Brentner, June Brinkmeyer, Gina McCone, Dick Ellis, and Olivia Walker; the group becomes a surrogate family to him.
The sight of the full moon rising over Las Vegas triggers Cullen to act on a post-hypnotic suggestion planted in his mind and begin the return trip to Boulder, avoiding the nuclear explosion that destroys the city.
Larry Underwood is a young, narcissistic singer-songwriter who, at the beginning of the novel, is starting to achieve significant success with his debut single, "Baby, Can You Dig Your Man?"
He tallies a debt with a drug dealer while living in Los Angeles and travels to New York City to hide, on the pretext of visiting his loving, but deeply disapproving, mother.
Recovering after a night's sleep, Underwood travels to Maine, where he plans to spend the summer; along the way he meets Nadine Cross and the young Leo Rockway (known then only as "Joe" and behaving like a feral creature).
An associate professor of sociology who went into retirement some years before the superflu hit, Glendon Pequod "Glen" Bateman met Stu Redman near his home in Woodsville, New Hampshire.
Ralph Brentner, an amiable Midwest farmer and United States Army veteran, meets Nick Andros and Tom Cullen as their paths cross on a highway in Kansas; together they form the first party to find Mother Abagail.
Despite a lack of formal education, Brentner possesses a great deal of common sense and is very skilled with tools and machines; he uses a powerful radio transmitter to contact other groups of survivors across the country.
To protect Cullen and save herself from torture, Jurgens commits suicide by ramming her head through a plate glass window and turning so that the broken edges slice open her jugular vein.
This version of Jurgens takes on characteristics of Susan Stern and Mark Zellman from the novel and retains her death scene, albeit toned down (stabbing herself in the neck with a broken bottle).
Although Flagg possesses the ability to predict the future, along with several demonic powers, he begins to very gradually lose control as his plans proceed in an increasingly problematic manner.
A weakness of Flagg's that turns out to be completely disastrous for him and his followers is his inability to read the minds or track the movements of individuals with mental deficits or illness, most significantly Tom Cullen.
It's through The Dark Tower series that readers have been able to further understand the multifarious character, as King reveals that he was born with the name "Walter Padick" and that his father was Sam the Miller of Eastar'd Barony.
Henreid's character demonstrates both resilience and an ability to forecast problems by rapidly concluding that his situation is growing dire well before the cessation of regular services to inmates.
While running from the Powtanville fires, he vaults over a railing and breaks his right wrist; the fracture does not set properly and the injury eventually causes his hand to point away from his body at an almost 90-degree angle.
With the threat of "The Kid" neutralized, the Trashcan Man continues west to Las Vegas, where he receives a black stone with a red flaw and becomes one of Flagg's key associates.
Due to his savant talent regarding destructive devices, the Trashcan Man is assigned to search for weapons in the desert and assist in arming the fighter aircraft at Indian Springs Air Force Base.
The Trashcan Man undergoes a schizophrenic episode and reverts to his old destructive ways, destroying several trucks and aircraft, which kills all the experienced pilots in Las Vegas.
He flees into the desert, overcome with anguish over his actions; at first he plans to kill himself, but later he seeks redemption by bringing Flagg the most powerful weapon he can find: an atomic bomb in the form of a nuclear warhead that has been detached from a missile.
The Trashcan Man ultimately causes Flagg's apparent destruction, as the Hand of God descends from the sky and activates the warhead, destroying Las Vegas and every one of its inhabitants.
He is the younger brother of Goldsmith's best friend, Amy Lauder, and is a social outcast at Ogunquit High School, where he served as an editor for its literary magazine and wrote a number of strange stories.
Realizing that he is dying, Lauder writes a note in which he takes responsibility for his actions and expresses remorse, and signs it with the "Hawk" nickname as a way of accepting the best version of himself that existed briefly in Boulder.
Bobby Terry and Dave Roberts are among the men who Flagg places at several outposts surrounding Las Vegas to intercept and kill Free Zone spy Judge Farris.