Doctor Sleep, Page 23

  "Let's just file that away for now. Who's the baseball boy?"

  "Bradley Trevor. Brad. Sometimes he used to turn his hat around and call it a rally cap. Do you know what that is?"

  Dan nodded.

  "He's dead. They killed him. But they hurt him first. They hurt him so bad." Her lower lip began to tremble, and all at once she looked closer to nine than almost thirteen.

  (don't cry Abra we can't afford to attract)

  (I know, I know)

  She lowered her head, took several deep breaths, and looked up at him again. Her eyes were overbright, but her mouth had stopped trembling. "I'm okay," she said. "Really. I'm just glad not to be alone with this inside my head."

  8

  He listened carefully as she described what she remembered of her initial encounter with Bradley Trevor two years ago. It wasn't much. The clearest image she retained was of many crisscrossing flashlight beams illuminating him as he lay on the ground. And his screams. She remembered those.

  "They had to light him up because they were doing some kind of operation," Abra said. "That's what they called it, anyway, but all they were really doing was torturing him."

  She told him about finding Bradley again on the back page of The Anniston Shopper, with all the other missing children. How she had touched his picture to see if she could find out about him.

  "Can you do that?" she asked. "Touch things and get pictures in your head? Find things out?"

  "Sometimes. Not always. I used to be able to do it more--and more reliably--when I was a kid."

  "Do you think I'll grow out of it? I wouldn't mind that." She paused, thinking. "Except I sort of would. It's hard to explain."

  "I know what you mean. It's our thing, isn't it? What we can do."

  Abra smiled.

  "You're pretty sure you know where they killed this boy?"

  "Yes, and they buried him there. They even buried his baseball glove." Abra handed him a piece of notebook paper. It was a copy, not the original. She would have been embarrassed for anyone to see how she had written the names of the boys in 'Round Here, not just once but over and over again. Even the way they had been written now seemed all wrong, those big fat letters that were supposed to express not love but luv.

  "Don't get bent out of shape about it," Dan said absently, studying what she'd printed on the sheet. "I had a thing for Stevie Nicks when I was your age. Also for Ann Wilson, of Heart. You've probably never even heard of her, she's old-school, but I used to daydream about inviting her to one of the Friday night dances at Glenwood Junior High. How's that for stupid?"

  She was staring at him, openmouthed.

  "Stupid but normal. Most normal thing in the world, so cut yourself some slack. And I wasn't peeking, Abra. It was just there. Kind of jumped out in my face."

  "Oh God." Abra's cheeks had gone bright red. "This is going to take some getting used to, isn't it?"

  "For both of us, kiddo." He looked back down at the sheet.

  NO TRESPASSING BY ORDER OF THE CANTON COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT

  ORGANIC INDUSTRIES

  ETHANOL PLANT #4

  FREEMAN, IOWA

  CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

  "You got this by . . . what? Watching it over and over? Rerunning it like a movie?"

  "The NO TRESPASSING sign was easy, but the stuff about Organic Industries and the ethanol plant, yeah. Can't you do that?"

  "I never tried. Maybe once, but probably not anymore."

  "I found Freeman, Iowa, on the computer," she said. "And when I ran Google Earth, I could see the factory. Those places are really there."

  Dan's thoughts returned to John Dalton. Others in the Program had talked about Dan's peculiar ability to find things; John never had. Not surprising, really. Doctors took a vow of confidentiality similar to the one in AA, didn't they? Which in John's case made it a kind of double coverage.

  Abra was saying, "You could call Bradley Trevor's parents, couldn't you? Or the sheriff's office in Canton County? They wouldn't believe me, but they'd believe a grown-up."

  "I suppose I could." But of course a man who knew where the body was buried would automatically go to the head of the suspect list, so if he did it, he would have to be very, very careful about the way he did it.

  Abra, the trouble you're getting me into.

  "Sorry," she whispered.

  He put his hand over hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Don't be. That's one you weren't supposed to hear."

  She straightened. "Oh God, here comes Yvonne Stroud. She's in my class."

  Dan pulled his hand back in a hurry. He saw a plump, brown-haired girl about Abra's age coming up the sidewalk. She was wearing a backpack and carrying a looseleaf notebook curled against her chest. Her eyes were bright and inquisitive.

  "She'll want to know everything about you," Abra said. "I mean everything. And she talks."

  Uh-oh.

  Dan looked at the oncoming girl.

  (we're not interesting)

  "Help me, Abra," he said, and felt her join in. Once they were together, the thought instantly gained depth and strength.

  (WE'RE NOT A BIT INTERESTING)

  "That's good," Abra said. "A little more. Do it with me. Like singing."

  (YOU HARDLY SEE US WE'RE NOT INTERESTING AND BESIDES YOU HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO)

  Yvonne Stroud hurried along the walk, flipping one hand to Abra in a vague hello gesture but not slowing down. She ran up the library steps and disappeared inside.

  "I'll be a monkey's uncle," Dan said.

  She looked at him seriously. "According to Abra's theory of relativity, you really could be. Very similar--" She sent a picture of pants flapping on a clothesline.

  ( jeans)

  Then they were both laughing.

  9

  Dan made her go over the turntable thing three times, wanting to make sure he was getting it right.

  "You never did that, either?" Abra asked. "The far-seeing thing?"

  "Astral projection? No. Does it happen to you a lot?"

  "Only once or twice." She considered. "Maybe three times. Once I went into a girl who was swimming in the river. I was looking at her from the bottom of our backyard. I was nine or ten. I don't know why it happened, she wasn't in trouble or anything, just swimming with her friends. That one lasted the longest. It went on for at least three minutes. Is astral projection what you call it? Like outer space?"

  "It's an old term, from seances back a hundred years ago, and probably not a very good one. All it means is an out-of-body experience." If you could label anything like that at all. "But--I want to make sure I've got this straight--the swimming girl didn't go into you?"

  Abra shook her head emphatically, making her ponytail fly. "She didn't even know I was there. The only time it worked both ways was with that woman. The one who wears the hat. Only I didn't see the hat then, because I was inside her."

  Dan used one finger to describe a circle. "You went into her, she went into you."

  "Yes." Abra shivered. "She was the one who cut Bradley Trevor until he was dead. When she smiles she has one big long tooth on top."

  Something about the hat struck a chord, something that made him think of Deenie from Wilmington. Because Deenie had worn a hat? Nope, at least not that he remembered; he'd been pretty blitzed. It probably meant nothing--sometimes the brain made phantom associations, that was all, especially when it was under stress, and the truth (little as he liked to admit it) was that Deenie was never far from his thoughts. Something as random as a display of cork-soled sandals in a store window could bring her to mind.

  "Who's Deenie?" Abra asked. Then she blinked rapidly and drew back a little, as if Dan had suddenly flapped a hand in front of her eyes. "Oops. Not supposed to go there, I guess. Sorry."

  "It's okay," he said. "Let's go back to your hat woman. When you saw her later--in your window--that wasn't the same?"

  "No. I'm not even sure that was a shining. I think it was a remembering, from when I saw her
hurting the boy."

  "So she didn't see you then, either. She's never seen you." If the woman was as dangerous as Abra believed, this was important.

  "No. I'm sure she hasn't. But she wants to." She looked at him, her eyes wide, her mouth trembling again. "When the turntable thing happened, she was thinking mirror. She wanted me to look at myself. She wanted to use my eyes to see me."

  "What did she see through your eyes? Could she find you that way?"

  Abra thought it over carefully. At last she said, "I was looking out my window when it happened. All I can see from there is the street. And the mountains, of course, but there are lots of mountains in America, right?"

  "Right." Could the woman in the hat match the mountains she'd seen through Abra's eyes to a photo, if she did an exhaustive computer search? Like so much else in this business, there was just no way to be sure.

  "Why did they kill him, Dan? Why did they kill the baseball boy?"

  He thought he knew, and he would have hidden it from her if he could, but even this short meeting was enough to tell him he would never have that sort of relationship with Abra Rafaella Stone. Recovering alcoholics strove for "complete honesty in all our affairs," but rarely achieved it; he and Abra could not avoid it.

  (food)

  She stared at him, aghast. "They ate his shining?"

  (I think so)

  (they're VAMPIRES?)

  Then, aloud: "Like in Twilight?"

  "Not like them," Dan said. "And for God's sake, Abra, I'm only guessing." The library door opened. Dan looked around, afraid it might be the overly curious Yvonne Stroud, but it was a boy-girl couple that only had eyes for each other. He turned back to Abra. "We have to wrap this up."

  "I know." She raised a hand, rubbed at her lips, realized what she was doing, and put it back in her lap. "But I have so many questions. There's so much I want to know. It would take hours."

  "Which we don't have. You're sure it was a Sam's?"

  "Huh?"

  "She was in a Sam's Supermarket?"

  "Oh. Yes."

  "I know the chain. I've even shopped in one or two, but not around here."

  She grinned. "Course not, Uncle Dan, there aren't any. They're all out west. I went on Google for that, too." The grin faded. "There are hundreds of them, all the way from Nebraska to California."

  "I need to think about this some more, and so do you. You can stay in touch with me by email if it's important, but it would be better if we just"--he tapped his forehead--"zip-zip. You know?"

  "Yes," she said, and smiled. "The only good part of this is having a friend who knows how to zip-zip. And what it's like."

  "Can you use the blackboard?"

  "Sure. It's pretty easy."

  "You need to keep one thing in mind, one above all others. The hat woman probably doesn't know how to find you, but she knows you're out there someplace."

  She had grown very still. He reached for her thoughts, but Abra was guarding them.

  "Can you set a burglar alarm in your mind? So that if she's someplace near, either mentally or in person, you'll know?"

  "You think she's going to come for me, don't you?"

  "She might try. Two reasons. First, just because you know she exists."

  "And her friends," Abra whispered. "She has lots of friends."

  (with flashlights)

  "What's the other reason?" And before he could reply: "Because I'd be good to eat. Like the baseball boy was good to eat. Right?"

  There was no point denying it; to Abra his forehead was a window. "Can you set an alarm? A proximity alarm? That's--"

  "I know what proximity means. I don't know, but I'll try."

  He knew what she was going to say next before she said it, and there was no mind-reading involved. She was only a child, after all. This time when she took his hand, he didn't pull away. "Promise you won't let her get me, Dan. Promise."

  He did, because she was a kid and needed comforting. But of course there was only one way to keep such a promise, and that was to make the threat go away.

  He thought it again: Abra, the trouble you're getting me into.

  And she said it again, but this time not out loud:

  (sorry)

  "Not your fault, kid. You didn't

  (ask for this)

  "any more than I did. Go on in with your books. I have to get back to Frazier. I'm on shift tonight."

  "Okay. But we're friends, right?"

  "Totally friends."

  "I'm glad."

  "And I bet you'll like The Fixer. I think you'll get it. Because you've fixed a few things in your time, haven't you?"

  Pretty dimples deepened the corners of her mouth. "You'd know."

  "Oh, believe me," Dan said.

  He watched her start up the steps, then pause and come back. "I don't know who the woman in the hat is, but I know one of her friends. His name is Barry the Chunk, or something like that. I bet wherever she is, Barry the Chunk is someplace close. And I could find him, if I had the baseball boy's glove." She looked at him, a steady level glance from those beautiful blue eyes. "I'd know, because for a little while, Barry the Chunk was wearing it."

  10

  Halfway back to Frazier, mulling over Abra's hat woman, Dan remembered something that sent a jolt straight through him. He almost swerved over the double yellow line, and an oncoming truck westbound on Route 16 honked at him irritably.

  Twelve years ago it had been, when Frazier was still new to him and his sobriety had been extremely shaky. He'd been walking back to Mrs. Robertson's, where he had just that day secured a room. A storm was coming, so Billy Freeman had sent him off with a pair of boots. They don't look like much, but at least they match. And as he turned the corner from Morehead onto Eliot, he'd seen--

  Just ahead was a rest area. Dan pulled in and walked toward the sound of running water. It was the Saco, of course; it ran through two dozen little New Hampshire towns between North Conway and Crawford Notch, connecting them like beads on a string.

  I saw a hat blowing up the gutter. A battered old tophat like a magician might wear. Or an actor in an old musical comedy. Only it wasn't really there, because when I closed my eyes and counted to five, it was gone.

  "Okay, it was a shining," he told the running water. "But that doesn't necessarily make it the hat Abra saw."

  Only he couldn't believe that, because later that night he'd dreamed of Deenie. She had been dead, her face hanging off her skull like dough on a stick. Dead and wearing the blanket Dan had stolen from a bum's shopping cart. Stay away from the woman in the hat, Honeybear. That was what she'd said. And something else . . . what?

  She's the Queen Bitch of Castle Hell.

  "You don't remember that," he told the running water. "Nobody remembers dreams twelve years later."

  But he did. And now he remembered the rest of what the dead woman from Wilmington had said: If you mess with her, she'll eat you alive.

  11

  He let himself into his turret room shortly after six, carrying a tray of food from the caf. He looked first at the blackboard, and smiled at what was printed there:

  Thank you for believing me.

  As if I had any choice, hon.

  He erased Abra's message, then sat down at his desk with his dinner. After leaving the rest area, his thoughts had turned back to Dick Hallorann. He supposed it was natural enough; when someone finally asked you to teach them, you went to your own teacher to find out how to do it. Dan had fallen out of touch with Dick during the drinking years (mostly out of shame), but he thought it might just be possible to find out what had happened to the old fellow. Possibly even to get in touch, if Dick was still alive. And hey, lots of people lived into their nineties, if they took care of themselves. Abra's great-gramma, for instance--she had to be really getting up there.

  I need some answers, Dick, and you're the only person I know who might have a few. So do me a favor, my friend, and still be alive.

  He fired up his computer and opened
Firefox. He knew that Dick had spent his winters cooking at a series of Florida resort hotels, but he couldn't remember the names or even which coast they had been on. Probably both--Naples one year, Palm Beach the next, Sarasota or Key West the year after that. There was always work for a man who could tickle palates, especially rich palates, and Dick had been able to tickle them like nobody's business. Dan had an idea that his best shot might be the quirky spelling of Dick's last name--not Halloran but Hallorann. He typed Richard Hallorann and Florida into the search box, then punched ENTER. He got back thousands of hits, but he was pretty sure the one he wanted was third from the top, and a soft sigh of disappointment escaped him. He clicked the link, and an article from The Miami Herald appeared. No question. When the age as well as the name appeared in the headline, you knew exactly what you were looking at.

  Noted South Beach Chef Richard "Dick" Hallorann, 81.

  There was a photo. It was small, but Dan would have recognized that cheerful, knowing face anywhere. Had he died alone? Dan doubted it. The man had been too gregarious . . . and too fond of women. His deathbed had probably been well attended, but the two people he'd saved that winter in Colorado hadn't been there. Wendy Torrance had a valid excuse: she'd predeceased him. Her son, however . . .

  Had he been in some dive, full of whiskey and playing truck-driving songs on the jukebox, when Dick passed on? Maybe in jail for the night on a drunk-and-disorderly?

  Cause of death had been a heart attack. He scrolled back up and checked the date: January 19, 1999. The man who had saved Dan's life and the life of his mother had been dead almost fifteen years. There would be no help from that quarter.

  From behind him, he heard the soft squeak of chalk on slate. He sat where he was for a moment, with his cooling food and his laptop before him. Then, slowly, he turned around.

  The chalk was still on the ledge at the bottom of the blackboard, but a picture was appearing, anyway. It was crude but recognizable. It was a baseball glove. When it was done, her chalk--invisible, but still making that low squeaking sound--drew a question mark in the glove's pocket.

  "I need to think about it," he said, but before he could do so, the intercom buzzed, paging Doctor Sleep.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE VOICES OF OUR DEAD FRIENDS