Question: Who inspired Megan Hart and wrote the novel The Stand?
Context: Megan Hart is an American author of romantic and erotic novels.  Hart became interested in writing after reading the Ray Bradbury short story "Homecoming".  Moved by this work, she rewrote her own version and began creating stories.  She was inspired to write professionally after reading Stephen King's "The Stand".  After a long break Hart resumed writing in 1998, publishing her first book in 2002. One Night Stand is a visual novel developed by Kinmoku.  In the interactive story, players wake up from a drunken one night stand beside a stranger and must piece together the events of the previous night.  It was based on a free game Kinmoku wrote for a game jam at itch.io.  "One Night Stand" was released on October 20, 2016. Megan Anne Mooney, (born 1974 in Houston, Texas) is an American stand-up comedian who has performed at the HBO Comedy Arts Festival and the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal.  She has appeared on Comedy Central's "Premium Blend" and in 2006 her own "Comedy Central Presents" episode debuted.  Mooney transitioned from stand up comedy into television writing.  She wrote for the Nickelodeon game show revival of FIGURE IT OUT seasons five and six.  She also served as a consultant on Nickelodeon's Kids' Choice Awards in 2014, hosted by Mark Wahlberg.  And currently she's a regular contributor on Comedy Central's Tosh.0.  Mooney resides in Los Angeles with her husband Eddie Gossling and son Oliver and daughter Mia. Daniel Frederick Hart is an American musician and composer.  He is a classically trained violinist.  Hart has released music as a solo artist and with his bands The Physics of Meaning and Dark Rooms.  Hart has also toured with and recorded for numerous bands, including St. Vincent, Other Lives, John Vanderslice, Swans, The Rosebuds, Annuals, Glasser, Broken Social Scene, Pattern Is Movement, Mount Moriah, The Polyphonic Spree and Sarah Jaffe.  In 2012, Hart wrote and recorded the score for David Lowery's film "Ain't Them Bodies Saints", which premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2013.  In 2016, Hart composed the score for "Pete's Dragon".  Hart currently resides in Los Angeles. Champagne Charlie is a 1989 French-Canadian drama television movie directed by Allan Eastman and starring Hugh Grant, Megan Gallagher, Megan Follows and Béatrice Agenin.  It is based on the novel by Jacqueline Lefèvre and depicts the life of the nineteenth century wine merchant Charles Heidsieck. "Stand by Me" is a song originally performed by American singer-songwriter Ben E. King, written by King, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.  According to King, the title is derived and was inspired by a spiritual composition by Sam Cooke called "Stand by Me Father" (although Mike Stoller has stated differently).  This spiritual was sung by the Soul Stirrers with Johnnie Taylor singing lead.  The third line of the second verse of "Stand by Me" derives from Psalms 46:2c.  There have been over 400 recorded versions of the song performed by many artists.  It has been featured on the soundtrack of the 1986 film "Stand by Me".  A music video was also released to promote the film. The Argument is the fourth and final solo studio album from Grant Hart, formerly of the band Hüsker Dü.  The album was released in 2013, four years before Hart's death.  It is a concept album based on John Milton's "Paradise Lost", and inspired by Hart's friendship with renowned beat author William S. Burroughs.  The album features guitar, keyboards, mallet instruments, and found sounds.  It was released to universal critical acclaim. The Stand is a post-apocalyptic horror/fantasy novel by American author Stephen King.  It expands upon the scenario of his earlier short story "Night Surf" and outlines the total breakdown of society after the accidental release of a strain of influenza that had been modified for biological warfare causes an apocalyptic pandemic which kills off the majority of the world's human population. Die Freie Bühne, (German: "Free Stage") was a subscription-based theatre club founded in Berlin in 1889 by 10 writers and theatre critics supervised by Otto Brahm for the purpose of staging new, naturalistic plays that were either censored, not commercially viable, or not otherwise commonly produced.  The 10 founding members were: Otto Brahm, Maximilian Harden, Theodor Wolff, Julius Hart and Heinrich Hart, Paul Schlenther, Julius Elias, Julius Stettenheim, Paul Jonas and Samuel Fischer.  Inspired in part by André Antoine's Théâtre-Libre in Paris, Brahm's company gave private performances to subscribers only.  Performances were held on Sunday afternoons.  The "Freie Bühne" opened with a production of Ibsen's "Ghosts" (1881), in September 1889.  Later productions included works by writers such as Gerhardt Hauptmann, Arno Holz, Émile Zola, August Strindberg, as well as dramatic adaptations of Tolstoy.  The "Freie Bühne" closed in 1894, mostly due to the fact that larger, commercial theaters in Berlin had by then begun to embrace the new theatrical styles that the "Freie Bühne" had championed.  Together with the Théâtre-Libre in Paris and the Independent Theatre Society in London, the "Freie Bühne" inspired a number of smaller, subscription-based theatres, known collectively as the Independent Theatre Movement. Zulu Hart is a historical novel by British author Saul David, set in the late Victorian Era, and focussed around the early military career of its eponym, George Hart.  It is the first novel in the George Hart series.
Answer: Stephen King