Doctor Sleep

  Dan went into the bathroom, took a facecloth, wetted it in warm water, wrung it out. When he returned to Charlie's bedside, Azzie got to his feet and delicately stepped to the other side of the sleeping man, leaving Dan a place to sit down. The sheet was still warm from Azzie's body. Gently, Dan wiped the blood from beneath Charlie's nose. As he was doing the mouth, Charlie opened his eyes. "Dan. It's you, isn't it? My eyes are a little blurry."

  Bloody was what they were.

  "How are you feeling, Charlie? Any pain? If you're in pain, I can get Claudette to bring you a pill."

  "No pain," Charlie said. His eyes shifted to Azzie, then went back to Dan. "I know why he's here. And I know why you're here."

  "I'm here because the wind woke me up. Azzie was probably just looking for some company. Cats are nocturnal, you know."

  Dan pushed up the sleeve of Charlie's pajama top to take a pulse, and saw four purple bruises lined up on the old man's stick of a forearm. Late-stage leukemia patients bruised if you even breathed on them, but these were finger-bruises, and Dan knew perfectly well where they had come from. He had more control over his temper now that he was sober, but it was still there, just like the occasional strong urge to take a drink.

  Carling, you bastard. Wouldn't he move quick enough for you? Or were you just mad to have to be cleaning up a nosebleed when all you wanted to do was read magazines and eat those fucking yellow crackers?

  He tried not to show what he was feeling, but Azzie seemed to sense it; he gave a small, troubled meow. Under other circumstances, Dan might have asked questions, but now he had more pressing matters to deal with. Azzie was right again. He only had to touch the old man to know.

  "I'm pretty scared," Charlie said. His voice was little more than a whisper. The low, steady moan of the wind outside was louder. "I didn't think I would be, but I am."

  "There's nothing to be scared of."

  Instead of taking Charlie's pulse--there was really no point--he took one of the old man's hands in his. He saw Charlie's twin sons at four, on swings. He saw Charlie's wife pulling down a shade in the bedroom, wearing nothing but the slip of Belgian lace he'd bought her for their first anniversary; saw how her ponytail swung over one shoulder when she turned to look at him, her face lit in a smile that was all yes. He saw a Farmall tractor with a striped umbrella raised over the seat. He smelled bacon and heard Frank Sinatra singing "Come Fly with Me" from a cracked Motorola radio sitting on a worktable littered with tools. He saw a hubcap full of rain reflecting a red barn. He tasted blueberries and gutted a deer and fished in some distant lake whose surface was dappled by steady autumn rain. He was sixty, dancing with his wife in the American Legion hall. He was thirty, splitting wood. He was five, wearing shorts and pulling a red wagon. Then the pictures blurred together, the way cards do when they're shuffled in the hands of an expert, and the wind was blowing big snow down from the mountains, and in here was the silence and Azzie's solemn watching eyes. At times like this, Dan knew what he was for. At times like this he regretted none of the pain and sorrow and anger and horror, because they had brought him here to this room while the wind whooped outside. Charlie Hayes had come to the border.

  "I'm not scared of hell. I lived a decent life, and I don't think there is such a place, anyway. I'm scared there's nothing." He struggled for breath. A pearl of blood was swelling in the corner of his right eye. "There was nothing before, we all know that, so doesn't it stand to reason that there's nothing after?"

  "But there is." Dan wiped Charlie's face with the damp cloth. "We never really end, Charlie. I don't know how that can be, or what it means, I only know that it is."

  "Can you help me get over? They say you can help people."

  "Yes. I can help." He took Charlie's other hand, as well. "It's just going to sleep. And when you wake up--you will wake up--everything is going to be better."

  "Heaven? Do you mean heaven?"

  "I don't know, Charlie."

  The power was very strong tonight. He could feel it flowing through their clasped hands like an electric current and cautioned himself to be gentle. Part of him was inhabiting the faltering body that was shutting down and the failing senses

  (hurry up please)

  that were turning off. He was inhabiting a mind

  (hurry up please it's time)

  that was still as sharp as ever, and aware it was thinking its last thoughts . . . at least as Charlie Hayes.

  The bloodshot eyes closed, then opened again. Very slowly.

  "Everything's all right," Dan said. "You only need sleep. Sleep will make you better."

  "Is that what you call it?"

  "Yes. I call it sleep, and it's safe to sleep."

  "Don't go."

  "I won't. I'm with you." So he was. It was his terrible privilege.

  Charlie's eyes closed again. Dan closed his own and saw a slow blue pulse in the darkness. Once . . . twice . . . stop. Once . . . twice . . . stop. Outside the wind was blowing.

  "Sleep, Charlie. You're doing fine, but you're tired and you need to sleep."

  "I see my wife." The faintest of whispers.

  "Do you?"

  "She says . . ."

  There was no more, just a final blue pulse behind Dan's eyes and a final exhalation from the man on the bed. Dan opened his eyes, listened to the wind, and waited for the last thing. It came a few seconds later: a dull red mist that rose from Charlie's nose, mouth, and eyes. This was what an old nurse in Tampa--one who had about the same twinkle as Billy Freeman--called "the gasp." She said she had seen it many times.

  Dan saw it every time.

  It rose and hung above the old man's body. Then it faded.

  Dan slid up the right sleeve of Charlie's pajamas, and felt for a pulse. It was just a formality.

  5

  Azzie usually left before it was over, but not tonight. He was standing on the counterpane beside Charlie's hip, staring at the door. Dan turned, expecting to see Claudette or Jan, but no one was there.

  Except there was.

  "Hello?"

  Nothing.

  "Are you the little girl who writes on my blackboard sometimes?"

  No response. But someone was there, all right.

  "Is your name Abra?"

  Faint, almost inaudible because of the wind, there came a ripple of piano notes. Dan might have believed it was his imagination (he could not always tell the difference between that and the shining) if not for Azzie, whose ears twitched and whose eyes never left the empty doorway. Someone was there, watching.

  "Are you Abra?"

  There was another ripple of notes, then silence again. Except this time it was absence. Whatever her name was, she was gone. Azzie stretched, leaped down from the bed, and left without a look back.

  Dan sat where he was a little longer, listening to the wind. Then he lowered the bed, pulled the sheet up over Charlie's face, and went back to the nurses' station to tell them there had been a death on the floor.

  6

  When his part of the paperwork was complete, Dan walked down to the snack alcove. There was a time he would have gone there on the run, fists already clenched, but those days were gone. Now he walked, taking long slow breaths to calm his heart and mind. There was a saying in AA, "Think before you drink," but what Casey K. told him during their once-a-week tete-a-tetes was to think before he did anything. You didn't get sober to be stupid, Danny. Keep it in mind the next time you start listening to that itty-bitty shitty committee inside your head.

  But those goddam fingermarks.

  Carling was rocked back in his chair, now eating Junior Mints. He had swapped Popular Mechanics for a photo mag with the latest bad-boy sitcom star on the cover.

  "Mr. Hayes has passed on," Dan said mildly.

  "Sorry to hear it." Not looking up from the magazine. "But that is what they're here for, isn't i--"

  Dan lifted one foot, hooked it behind one of the tilted front legs of Carling's chair, and yanked. The chair spun away and Carling land
ed on the floor. The box of Junior Mints flew out of his hand. He stared up at Dan unbelievingly.

  "Have I got your attention?"

  "You sonofa--" Carling started to get up. Dan put his foot on the man's chest and pushed him back against the wall.

  "I see I have. Good. It would be better right now if you didn't get up. Just sit there and listen to me." Dan bent forward and clasped his knees with his hands. Tight, because all those hands wanted to do right now was hit. And hit. And hit. His temples were throbbing. Slow, he told himself. Don't let it get the better of you.

  But it was hard.

  "The next time I see your fingermarks on a patient, I'll photograph them and go to Mrs. Clausen and you'll be out on the street no matter who you know. And once you're no longer a part of this institution, I'll find you and beat the living shit out of you."

  Carling got to his feet, using the wall to support his back and keeping a close eye on Dan as he did it. He was taller, and outweighed Dan by a hundred pounds at least. He balled his fists. "I'd like to see you try. How about now?"

  "Sure, but not here," Dan said. "Too many people trying to sleep, and we've got a dead man down the hall. One with your marks on him."

  "I didn't do nothing but go to take his pulse. You know how easy they bruise when they got the leukemia."

  "I do," Dan agreed, "but you hurt him on purpose. I don't know why, but I know you did."

  There was a flicker in Carling's muddy eyes. Not shame; Dan didn't think the man was capable of feeling that. Just unease at being seen through. And fear of being caught. "Big man. Doctor Sleeeep. Think your shit don't stink?"

  "Come on, Fred, let's go outside. More than happy to." And this was true. There was a second Dan inside. He wasn't as close to the surface anymore, but he was still there and still the same ugly, irrational sonofabitch he'd always been. Out of the corner of his eye Dan could see Claudette and Jan standing halfway down the hall, their eyes wide and their arms around each other.

  Carling thought it over. Yes, he was bigger, and yes, he had more reach. But he was also out of shape--too many overstuffed burritos, too many beers, much shorter wind than he'd had in his twenties--and there was something worrisome in the skinny guy's face. He'd seen it before, back in his Road Saints days. Some guys had lousy circuit breakers in their heads. They tripped easy, and once they did, those guys would burn on until they burned out. He had taken Torrance for some mousy little geek who wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful, but he saw that he'd been wrong about that. His secret identity wasn't Doctor Sleep, it was Doctor Crazy.

  After considering this carefully, Fred said, "I wouldn't waste my time."

  Dan nodded. "Good. Save us both getting frostbite. Just remember what I said. If you don't want to go to the hospital, keep your hands to yourself from now on."

  "Who died and left you in charge?"

  "I don't know," Dan said. "I really don't."

  7

  Dan went back to his room and back to bed, but he couldn't sleep. He had made roughly four dozen deathbed visits during his time at Rivington House, and usually they left him calm. Not tonight. He was still trembling with rage. His conscious mind hated that red storm, but some lower part of him loved it. Probably it went back to plain old genetics; nature triumphing over nurture. The longer he stayed sober, the more old memories surfaced. Some of the clearest were of his father's rages. He had been hoping that Carling would take him up on it. Would go outside into the snow and wind, where Dan Torrance, son of Jack, would give that worthless puppy his medicine.

  God knew he didn't want to be his father, whose bouts of sobriety had been the white-knuckle kind. AA was supposed to help with anger, and mostly it did, but there were times like tonight when Dan realized what a flimsy barrier it was. Times when he felt worthless, and the booze seemed like all he deserved. At times like that he felt very close to his father.

  He thought: Mama.

  He thought: Canny.

  He thought: Worthless pups need to take their medicine. And you know where they sell it, don't you? Damn near everywhere.

  The wind rose in a furious gust, making the turret groan. When it died, the blackboard girl was there. He could almost hear her breathing.

  He lifted one hand out from beneath the comforters. For a moment it only hung there in the cold air, and then he felt hers--small, warm--slip into it. "Abra," he said. "Your name is Abra, but sometimes people call you Abby. Isn't that right?"

  No answer came, but he didn't really need one. All he needed was the sensation of that warm hand in his. It only lasted for a few seconds, but it was long enough to soothe him. He closed his eyes and slept.

  8

  Twenty miles away, in the little town of Anniston, Abra Stone lay awake. The hand that had enfolded hers held on for a moment or two. Then it turned to mist and was gone. But it had been there. He had been there. She had found him in a dream, but when she woke, she had discovered the dream was real. She was standing in the doorway of a room. What she had seen there was terrible and wonderful at the same time. There was death, and death was scary, but there had also been helping. The man who was helping hadn't been able to see her, but the cat had. The cat had a name like hers, but not exactly.

  He didn't see me but he felt me. And we were together just now. I think I helped him, like he helped the man who died.

  That was a good thought. Holding onto it (as she had held the phantom hand), Abra rolled over on her side, hugged her stuffed rabbit to her chest, and went to sleep.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE TRUE KNOT

  1

  The True Knot wasn't incorporated, but if it had been, certain side o' the road communities in Maine, Florida, Colorado, and New Mexico would have been referred to as "company towns." These were places where all the major businesses and large plots of land could be traced back, through a tangle of holding companies, to them. The True's towns, with colorful names like Dry Bend, Jerusalem's Lot, Oree, and Sidewinder, were safe havens, but they never stayed in those places for long; mostly they were migratory. If you drive the turnpikes and main-traveled highways of America, you may have seen them. Maybe it was on I-95 in South Carolina, somewhere south of Dillon and north of Santee. Maybe it was on I-80 in Nevada, in the mountain country west of Draper. Or in Georgia, while negotiating--slowly, if you know what's good for you--that notorious Highway 41 speedtrap outside Tifton.

  How many times have you found yourself behind a lumbering RV, eating exhaust and waiting impatiently for your chance to pass? Creeping along at forty when you could be doing a perfectly legal sixty-five or even seventy? And when there's finally a hole in the fast lane and you pull out, holy God, you see a long line of those damn things, gas hogs driven at exactly ten miles an hour below the legal speed limit by bespectacled golden oldies who hunch over their steering wheels, gripping them like they think they're going to fly away.

  Or maybe you've encountered them in the turnpike rest areas, when you stop to stretch your legs and maybe drop a few quarters into one of the vending machines. The entrance ramps to those rest stops always divide in two, don't they? Cars in one parking lot, long-haul trucks and RVs in another. Usually the lot for the big rigs and RVs is a little farther away. You might have seen the True's rolling motorhomes parked in that lot, all in a cluster. You might have seen their owners walking up to the main building--slow, because many of them look old and some of them are pretty darn fat--always in a group, always keeping to themselves.

  Sometimes they pull off at one of the exits loaded with gas stations, motels, and fast-food joints. And if you see those RVs parked at McDonald's or Burger King, you keep on going because you know they'll all be lined up at the counter, the men wearing floppy golf hats or long-billed fishing caps, the women in stretch pants (usually powder-blue) and shirts that say things like ASK ME ABOUT MY GRANDCHILDREN! or JESUS IS KING or HAPPY WANDERER. You'd rather go half a mile farther down the road, to the Waffle House or Shoney's, wouldn't you? Because you know they'll take f
orever to order, mooning over the menu, always wanting their Quarter Pounders without the pickles or their Whoppers without the sauce. Asking if there are any interesting tourist attractions in the area, even though anyone can see this is just another nothing three-stoplight burg where the kids leave as soon as they graduate from the nearest high school.

  You hardly see them, right? Why would you? They're just the RV People, elderly retirees and a few younger compatriots living their rootless lives on the turnpikes and blue highways, staying at campgrounds where they sit around in their Walmart lawnchairs and cook on their hibachis while they talk about investments and fishing tournaments and hotpot recipes and God knows what. They're the ones who always stop at fleamarkets and yardsales, parking their damn dinosaurs nose-to-tail half on the shoulder and half on the road, so you have to slow to a crawl in order to creep by. They are the opposite of the motorcycle clubs you sometimes see on those same turnpikes and blue highways; the Mild Angels instead of the wild ones.

  They're annoying as hell when they descend en masse on a rest area and fill up all the toilets, but once their balky, road-stunned bowels finally work and you're able to take a pew yourself, you put them out of your mind, don't you? They're no more remarkable than a flock of birds on a telephone wire or a herd of cows grazing in a field beside the road. Oh, you might wonder how they can afford to fill those fuel-guzzling monstrosities (because they must be on comfy fixed incomes, how else could they spend all their time driving around like they do), and you might puzzle over why anyone would want to spend their golden years cruising all those endless American miles between Hoot and Holler, but beyond that, you probably never spare them a thought.

  And if you happen to be one of those unfortunate people who's ever lost a kid--nothing left but a bike in the vacant lot down the street, or a little cap lying in the bushes at the edge of a nearby stream--you probably never thought of them. Why would you? No, it was probably some hobo. Or (worse to consider, but horribly plausible) some sick fuck from your very own town, maybe your very own neighborhood, maybe even your very own street, some sick killer pervo who's very good at looking normal and will go on looking normal until someone finds a clatter of bones in the guy's basement or buried in his backyard. You'd never think of the RV People, those midlife pensioners and cheery older folks in their golf hats and sun visors with appliqued flowers on them.