Doctor Sleep, Page 45

  "But you loved him, I guess."

  "I did." Still looking at that shambling, rundown apartment house. Not much, but Dan couldn't help wondering how different their lives might have been if they had stayed there. If the Overlook had not ensnared them. "He was good and bad and I loved both sides of him. God help me, I guess I still do."

  "You and most kids," Billy said. "You love your folks and hope for the best. What else can you do? Come on, Dan. If we're gonna do this, we have to go."

  Half an hour later, Boulder was behind them and they were climbing into the Rockies.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  GHOSTIE PEOPLE

  1

  Although sunset was approaching--in New Hampshire, at least--Abra was still on the back stoop, looking down at the river. Hoppy was sitting nearby, on the lid of the composter. Lucy and David came out and sat on either side of her. John Dalton watched them from the kitchen, holding a cold cup of coffee. His black bag was on the counter, but there was nothing in it he could use this evening.

  "You should come in and have some supper," Lucy said, knowing that Abra wouldn't--probably couldn't--until this was over. But you clung to the known. Because everything looked normal, and because the danger was over a thousand miles away, that was easier for her than for her daughter. Although Abra's complexion had previously been clear--as unblemished as when she was an infant--she now had nests of acne around the wings of her nose and an ugly cluster of pimples on her chin. Just hormones kicking in, heralding the onset of true adolescence: so Lucy would have liked to believe, because that was normal. But stress caused acne, too. Then there was the pallor of her daughter's skin and the dark circles beneath her eyes. She looked almost as ill as Dan did when Lucy had last seen him, climbing with painful slowness into Mr. Freeman's pickup truck.

  "Can't eat now, Mom. No time. I probably couldn't keep it down, anyway."

  "How soon before this happens, Abby?" David asked.

  She looked at neither of them. She looked fixedly down at the river, but Lucy knew she wasn't really looking at that, either. She was far away, in a place where none of them could help her. "Not long. You should each give me a kiss and then go inside."

  "But--" Lucy began, then saw David shake his head at her. Only once, but very firmly. She sighed, took one of Abra's hands (how cold it was), and planted a kiss on her left cheek. David put one on her right.

  Lucy: "Remember what Dan said. If things go wrong--"

  "You should go in now, guys. When it starts, I'm going to take Hoppy and put him in my lap. When you see that, you can't interrupt me. Not for anything. You could get Uncle Dan killed, and maybe Billy, too. I might fall over, like in a faint, but it won't be a faint, so don't move me and don't let Dr. John move me, either. Just let me be until it's over. I think Dan knows a place where we can be together."

  David said, "I don't understand how this can possibly work. That woman, Rose, will see there's no little girl--"

  "You need to go in now," Abra said.

  They did as she said. Lucy looked pleadingly at John; he could only shrug and shake his head. The three of them stood at the kitchen window, arms around one another, looking out at the little girl sitting on the stoop with her arms clasped around her knees. There was no danger to be seen; all was placid. But when Lucy saw Abra--her little girl--reach for Hoppy and take the old stuffed rabbit on her lap, she groaned. John squeezed her shoulder. David tightened the arm around her waist, and she gripped his hand with panicky tightness.

  Please let my daughter be all right. If something has to happen . . . something bad . . . let it happen to the half brother I never knew. Not to her.

  "It'll be okay," Dave said.

  She nodded. "Of course it will. Of course it will."

  They watched the girl on the stoop. Lucy understood that if she did call to Abra, she wouldn't answer. Abra was gone.

  2

  Billy and Dan reached the turnoff to the True's Colorado base of operations at twenty to four, Mountain Time, which put them comfortably ahead of schedule. There was a wooden ranch-style arch over the paved road with WELCOME TO THE BLUEBELL CAMPGROUND! STAY AWHILE, PARTNER! carved into it. The sign beside the road was a lot less welcoming: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

  Billy drove past without slowing, but his eyes were busy. "Don't see nobody. Not even on the lawns, although I suppose they coulda stashed someone in that welcome-hut doohickey. Jesus, Danny, you look just awful."

  "Lucky for me the Mr. America competition isn't until later this year," Dan said. "One mile up, maybe a little less. The sign says Scenic Turnout and Picnic Area."

  "What if they posted someone there?"

  "They haven't."

  "How can you be sure?"

  "Because neither Abra nor her uncle Billy could possibly know about it, never having been here. And the True doesn't know about me."

  "You better hope they don't."

  "Abra says everyone's where they're supposed to be. She's been checking. Now be quiet a minute, Billy. I need to think."

  It was Hallorann he wanted to think about. For several years following their haunted winter at the Overlook, Danny Torrance and Dick Hallorann had talked a lot. Sometimes face-to-face, more often mind-to-mind. Danny loved his mother, but there were things she didn't--couldn't--understand. About the lockboxes, for instance. The ones where you put the dangerous things that the shining sometimes attracted. Not that the lockbox thing always worked. On several occasions he had tried to make one for the drinking, but that effort had been an abject failure (perhaps because he had wanted it to be a failure). Mrs. Massey, though . . . and Horace Derwent . . .

  There was a third lockbox in storage now, but it wasn't as good as the ones he'd made as a kid. Because he wasn't as strong? Because what it held was different from the revenants that had been unwise enough to seek him out? Both? He didn't know. He only knew that it was leaky. When he opened it, what was inside might kill him. But--

  "What do you mean?" Billy asked.

  "Huh?" Dan looked around. One hand was pressed to his stomach. It hurt very badly now.

  "You just said, 'There isn't any choice.' What did you mean?"

  "Never mind." They had reached the picnic area, and Billy was turning in. Up ahead was a clearing with picnic benches and barbecue pits. To Dan, it looked like Cloud Gap without the river. "Just . . . if things go wrong, get in your truck and drive like hell."

  "You think that would help?"

  Dan didn't reply. His gut was burning, burning.

  3

  Shortly before four o'clock on that Monday afternoon in late September, Rose walked up to Roof O' the World with Silent Sarey.

  Rose was dressed in form-fitting jeans that accentuated her long and shapely legs. Although it was chilly, Silent Sarey wore only a housedress of unremarkable light blue that fluttered around stout calves clad in Jobst support stockings. Rose stopped to look at a plaque which had been bolted to a granite post at the base of the three dozen or so stairs leading up to the lookout platform. It announced that this was the site of the historic Overlook Hotel, which had burned to the ground some thirty-five years ago.

  "Very strong feelings here, Sarey."

  Sarey nodded.

  "You know there are hot springs where steam comes right out of the ground, don't you?"

  "Lup."

  "This is like that." Rose bent down to sniff at the grass and wildflowers. Below their aromas was the iron smell of ancient blood. "Strong emotions--hatred, fear, prejudice, lust. The echo of murder. Not food--too old--but refreshing, all the same. A heady bouquet."

  Sarey said nothing, but watched Rose closely.

  "And this thing." Rose waved a hand at the steep wooden stairs leading up to the platform. "Looks like a gallows, don't you think? All it needs is a trapdoor."

  Nothing from Sarey. Out loud, at least. Her thought

  (no rope)

  was clear enough.

  "That's true, my love, but one of us is going to hang here, just t
he same. Either me or the little bitch with her nose in our business. See that?" Rose pointed to a small green shed about twenty feet away.

  Sarey nodded.

  Rose was wearing a zipper pack on her belt. She opened it, rummaged, brought out a key, and handed it to the other woman. Sarey walked to the shed, grass whickering against her thick flesh-colored hose. The key fitted a padlock on the door. When she pulled the door open, late-day sunshine illuminated an enclosure not much bigger than a privy. There was a Lawn-Boy and a plastic bucket holding a hand-sickle and a rake. A spade and a pickax leaned against the back wall. There was nothing else, and nothing to hide behind.

  "Go on in," Rose said. "Let's see what you can do." And with all that steam inside you, you should be able to amaze me.

  Like other members of the True Knot, Silent Sarey had her little talent.

  She stepped into the little shed, sniffed, and said: "Dusty."

  "Never mind the dust. Let's see you do your thing. Or rather, let's not see you."

  For that was Sarey's talent. She wasn't capable of invisibility (none of them was), but she could create a kind of dimness that went very well with her unremarkable face and figure. She turned to Rose, then looked down at her shadow. She moved--not much, only half a step--and her shadow merged with the one thrown by the handle of the Lawn-Boy. Then she became perfectly still, and the shed was empty.

  Rose squeezed her eyes shut, then popped them wide open, and there was Sarey, standing beside the mower with her hands folded demurely at her waist like a shy girl hoping some boy at the party will ask her to dance. Rose looked away at the mountains, and when she looked back again the shed was empty--just a tiny storage room with nowhere to hide. In the strong sunlight there wasn't even a shadow. Except for the one thrown by the mower's handle, that was. Only . . .

  "Pull your elbow in," Rose said. "I see it. Just a little."

  Silent Sarey did as she was told and for a moment she was truly gone, at least until Rose concentrated. When she did that, Sarey was there again. But of course she knew Sarey was there. When the time came--and it wouldn't be long--the bitchgirl wouldn't.

  "Good, Sarey!" she said warmly (or as warmly as she could manage). "Perhaps I won't need you. If I do, you'll use the sickle. And think of Andi when you do. All right?"

  At the mention of Andi's name, Sarey's lips turned down in a moue of unhappiness. She stared at the sickle in the plastic bucket and nodded.

  Rose walked over and took the padlock. "I'm going to lock you in now. The bitchgirl will read the ones in the Lodge, but she won't read you. I'm sure of it. Because you're the quiet one, aren't you?"

  Sarey nodded again. She was the quiet one, always had been.

  (what about the)

  Rose smiled. "The lock? Don't you worry about that. Just worry about being still. Still and silent. Do you understand me?"

  "Lup."

  "And you understand about the sickle?" Rose would not have trusted Sarey with a gun even if the True had one.

  "Sicka. Lup."

  "If I get the better of her--and as full of steam as I am right now, that should be no problem--you'll stay right where you are until I let you out. But if you hear me shout . . . let's see . . . if you hear me shout don't make me punish you, that means I need help. I'll make sure that her back is turned. You know what happens then, don't you?"

  (I'll climb the stairs and)

  But Rose was shaking her head. "No, Sarey. You won't need to. She's never going to get near the platform up there."

  She would hate to lose the steam even more than she would hate losing the opportunity to kill the bitchgirl herself . . . after making her suffer, and at length. But she mustn't throw caution to the winds. The girl was very strong.

  "What will you listen for, Sarey?"

  "Don't make me punish lu."

  "And what will you be thinking of?"

  The eyes, half-hidden by the shaggy bangs, gleamed. "Levenge."

  "That's right. Revenge for Andi, murdered by that bitchgirl's friends. But not unless I need you, because I want to do this myself." Rose's hands clenched, her nails digging into deep, blood-crusted crescents they had already made in her palms. "But if I need you, you come. Don't hesitate or stop for anything. Don't stop until you've put that sickle blade in her neck and see the end of it come out of her fucking throat."

  Sarey's eyes gleamed. "Lup."

  "Good." Rose kissed her, then shut the door and snapped the padlock closed. She put the key in her zipper pack and leaned against the door. "Listen to me, sweetheart. If all goes well, you'll get the first steam. I promise. And it will be the best you ever had."

  Rose walked back to the lookout platform, took several long and steadying breaths, and then began to climb the steps.

  4

  Dan stood with his hands propped against one of the picnic tables, head down, eyes closed.

  "Doing it this way is crazy," Billy said. "I should stay with you."

  "You can't. You've got your own fish to fry."

  "What if you faint halfway down that path? Even if you don't, how are you going to take on the whole bunch of them? The way you look now, you couldn't go two rounds with a five-year-old."

  "I think pretty soon I'm going to feel a whole lot better. Stronger, too. Go on, Billy. You remember where to park?"

  "Far end of the lot, by the sign that says kids eat for free when the Colorado teams win."

  "Right." Dan raised his head and noted the oversize sunglasses Billy was now wearing. "Pull your cap down hard. All the way to your ears. Look young."

  "I might have a trick that'll make me look even younger. If I can still do it, that is."

  Dan barely heard this. "I need one other thing."

  He stood up straight and opened his arms. Billy hugged him, wanting to do it hard--fiercely--and not daring.

  "Abra made a good call. I never would have gotten here without you. Now take care of your business."

  "You take care of yours," Billy said. "I'm counting on you to drive the Thanksgiving run out to Cloud Gap."

  "I'd like that," Dan said. "Best model train set a boy never had."

  Billy watched him walk slowly, holding his hands against his stomach as he went, to the signpost on the far side of the clearing. There were two wooden arrows. One pointed west, toward Pawnee Lookout. The other pointed east, downhill. This one read TO BLUEBELL CAMPGROUND.

  Dan started along that path. For a little while Billy could see him through the glowing yellow leaves of the aspens, walking slowly and painfully, his head down to watch his footing. Then he was gone.

  "Take care of my boy," Billy said. He wasn't sure if he was talking to God or Abra, and guessed it didn't matter; both were probably too busy to bother with the likes of him this afternoon.

  He went back to his truck, and from the bed pulled out a little girl with staring china blue eyes and stiff blond curls. Not much weight; she was probably hollow inside. "How you doin, Abra? Hope you didn't get bumped around too much."

  She was wearing a Colorado Rockies tee and blue shorts. Her feet were bare, and why not? This little girl--actually a mannequin purchased at a moribund children's clothing shop in Martenville--had never walked a single step. But she had bendable knees, and Billy was able to place her in the truck's passenger seat with no trouble. He buckled her seatbelt, started to close the door, then tried the neck. It also bent, although only a little. He stepped away to examine the effect. It wasn't bad. She seemed to be looking at something in her lap. Or maybe praying for strength in the coming battle. Not bad at all.

  Unless they had binoculars, of course.

  He got back in the truck and waited, giving Dan time. Also hoping he wasn't passed out somewhere along the path that led to the Bluebell Campground.

  At quarter to five, Billy started the truck and headed back the way he had come.

  5

  Dan maintained a steady walking pace in spite of the growing heat in his midsection. It felt as though there were a rat on fire i
n there, one that kept chewing at him even as it burned. If the path had been going up instead of down, he never would have made it.

  At ten to five, he came around a bend and stopped. Not far ahead, the aspens gave way to a green and manicured expanse of lawn sloping down to a pair of tennis courts. Beyond the courts he could see the RV parking area and a long log building: Overlook Lodge. Beyond that, the terrain climbed again. Where the Overlook had once stood, a tall platform reared gantrylike against the bright sky. Roof O' the World. Looking at it, the same thought that had occurred to Rose the Hat

  (gallows)

  crossed Dan's mind. Standing at the railing, facing south toward the parking lot for day visitors, was a single silhouetted figure. A woman's figure. The tophat was tilted on her head.

  (Abra are you there)

  (I'm here Dan)

  Calm, by the sound. Calm was just the way he wanted it.

  (are they hearing you)

  That brought a vague ticklish sensation: her smile. The angry one.

  (if they're not they're deaf)

  That was good enough.

  (you have to come to me now but remember if I tell you to go YOU GO)

  She didn't answer, and before he could tell her again, she was there.

  6

  The Stones and John Dalton watched helplessly as Abra slid sideways until she was lying with her head on the boards of the stoop and her legs splayed out on the steps below her. Hoppy spilled from one relaxing hand. She didn't look as if she were sleeping, nor even in a faint. That was the ugly sprawl of deep unconsciousness or death. Lucy lunged forward. Dave and John held her back.

  She fought them. "Let me go! I have to help her!"

  "You can't," John said. "Only Dan can help her now. They have to help each other."

  She stared at him with wild eyes. "Is she even breathing? Can you tell?"

  "She's breathing," Dave said, but he sounded unsure even to himself.

  7

  When Abra joined him, the pain eased for the first time since Boston. That didn't comfort Dan much, because now Abra was suffering, too. He could see it in her face, but he could also see the wonder in her eyes as she looked around at the room in which she found herself. There were bunk beds, knotty-pine walls, and a rug embroidered with western sage and cactus. Both the rug and the lower bunk were littered with cheap toys. On a small desk in the corner was a scattering of books and a jigsaw puzzle with large pieces. In the room's far corner, a radiator clanked and hissed.