The Plague
The
superflu descends upon Phoenix, killing all of the prison guards and most of the inmates. Lloyd is abandoned in his cell to starve to death. Eight days after the last prison meal is served, he has eaten all of his stored-up food, including a dead rat. He has begun to consider eating the leg of the nearest dead inmate,
Trask.
When
Randall Flagg arrives on the cellblock, Lloyd is immediately both hopeful and afraid, perceiving that he must be "the devil". Flagg seems empathetic to Lloyd's plight, but also makes light of his haggard condition and descent into cannibalism (in the uncut novel, Lloyd did indeed begin "lunching on filet of Trask") and even taunts him with descriptions of his lunch.