What mattered was they were never getting out. He was safe. That was what he thought then. Of course, he also thought he would never take a drink, not after seeing what it had done to his father. Sometimes we just get it wrong. RATTLESNAKE 1 Her name was Andrea Steiner, and she liked movies but she didnt like men. This wasnt surprising, since her father had raped her for the first time when she was eight. He had gone on raping her for that same number of years. Then she had put a stop to it, first popping his balls, one after the other, with one of her mothers knitting needles, and then putting that same needle, red and dripping, in her rapistsires left eyesocket. The balls had been easy, because he was sleeping, but the pain had been enough to wake him in spite of her special talent. She was a big girl, though, and he was drunk. She had been able to hold him down with her body just long enough to administer the coup de grce. Now she had years eight times four, she was a wanderer on the face of America, and an exactor had replaced the peanut farmer in the White House. The new fellow had an actors unlikely black hair and an actors charming, untrustworthy smile. Andi had seen one of his movies on TV. In it, the man who would be president played a guy who lost his legs when a train ran over them. She liked the idea of a man without legs; a man without legs couldnt chase you down and rape you. Movies, they were the thing. Movies took you away. You could count on popcorn and happy endings. You got a man to go with you, that way it was a date and he paid. This movie was a good one, with fighting and kissing and loud music. It was called Raiders of the Lost Ark. Her current date had his hand under her skirt, high up on her bare thigh, but that was all right; a hand wasnt a prick. She had met him in a bar. She met most of the men she went on dates with in bars. He bought her a drink, but a free drink wasnt a date; it was just a pickup. Whats this about? hed asked her, running the tip of his finger over her upper left arm. She was wearing a sleeveless blouse, so the tattoo showed. She liked the tattoo to show when she was out looking for a date. She wanted men to see it. They thought it was kinky. She had gotten it in San Diego the year after she killed her father. Its a snake, she said. A rattler. Dont you see the fangs? Of course he did. They were big fangs, out of all proportion to the head. A drop of poison hung from one. He was a businessman type in an expensive suit, with lots of combedback presidential hair and the afternoon off from whatever paperpushing crap he did for work. His hair was mostly white instead of black and he looked about sixty. Close to twice her age. But that didnt matter to men. He wouldnt have cared if she was sixteen instead of thirtytwo. Or eight. She remembered something her father had said once If theyre old enough to pee, theyre old enough for me. Of course I see them, the man who was now sitting beside her had said, but what does it mean? Maybe youll find out, Andi replied. She touched her upper lip with her tongue. I have another tattoo. Somewhere else. Can I see it? Maybe. Do you like movies? He had frowned. What do you mean? You want to date me, dont you? He knew what that meantor what it was supposed to mean. There were other girls in this place, and when they spoke of dates, they meant one thing. But it was not what Andi meant. Sure. Youre cute. Then take me on a date. A real date. Raiders of the Lost Ark is playing at the Rialto. I was thinking more of that little hotel two blocks down, darlin. A room with a wetbar and a balcony, how does that sound? She had put her lips close to his ear and let her breasts press against his arm. Maybe later. Take me to the movies first. Pay my way and buy me popcorn. The dark makes me amorous. And here they were, with Harrison Ford on the screen, big as a skyscraper and snapping a bullwhip in the desert dust. The old guy with the presidential hair had his hand under her skirt but she had a tub of popcorn placed firmly on her lap, making sure he could get most of the way down the third base line but not quite to home plate. He was trying to go higher, which was annoying because she wanted to see the end of the movie and find out what was in the Lost Ark. So . . . 2 At 2 p.m. on a weekday, the movie theater was almost deserted, but three people sat two rows back from Andi Steiner and her date. Two men, one quite old and one appearing on the edge of middle age (but appearances could be deceiving), flanked a woman of startling beauty. Her cheekbones were high, her eyes were gray, her complexion creamy. Her masses of black hair were tied back with a broad velvet ribbon. Usually she wore a hatan old and battered tophatbut she had left it in her motorhome this day. You didnt wear a tall topper in a movie theater. Her name was Rose OHara, but the nomadic family she traveled with called her Rose the Hat. The man edging into middle age was Barry Smith. Although one hundred percent Caucasian, he was known in this same family as Barry the Chink, because of his slightly upturned eyes. Now watch this, he said. Its interesting. The movies interesting, the old manGrampa Flickgrunted. But that was just his usual contrariness. He was also watching the couple two rows down. It better be interesting, Rose said, because the womans not all that steamy. A little, but There she goes, there she goes, Barry said as Andi leaned over and put her lips to her dates ear. Barry was grinning, the box of gummy bears in his hand forgotten. Ive watched her do it three times and I still get a kick out of it. 3 Mr. Businessmans ear was filled with a thatch of wiry white hairs and clotted with wax the color of shit, but Andi didnt let that stop her; she wanted to blow this town and her finances were at a dangerously low ebb. Arent you tired? she whispered in the disgusting ear. Dont you want to go to sleep? The mans head immediately dropped onto his chest and he began to snore. Andi reached under her skirt, plucked up the relaxing hand, and placed it on the armrest. Then she reached into Mr. Businessmans expensivelooking suitcoat and began to rummage. His wallet was in the inside left pocket. That was good. She wouldnt have to make him get up off his fat ass. Once they were asleep, moving them could be tricky. She opened the wallet, tossed the credit cards on the floor, and looked for a few moments at the picturesMr. Businessman with a bunch of other overweight Mr. Businessmen on the golf course; Mr. Businessman with his wife; a much younger Mr. Businessman standing in front of a Christmas tree with his son and two daughters. The daughters were wearing Santa hats and matching dresses. He probably hadnt been raping them, but it was not out of the question. Men would rape when they could get away with it, this she had learned. At her fathers knee, so to speak. There was over two hundred dollars in the bill compartment. She had been hoping for even morethe bar where she had met him catered to a better class of whore than those out by the airportbut it wasnt bad for a Thursday matinee, and there were always men who wanted to take a goodlooking girl to the movies, where a little heavy petting would only be the appetizer. Or so they hoped. 4 Okay, Rose murmured, and started to get up. Im convinced. Lets give it a shot. But Barry put a hand on her arm, restraining her. No, wait. Watch. This is the best part. 5 Andi leaned close to the disgusting ear again and whispered, Sleep deeper. As deep as you can. The pain you feel will only be a dream. She opened her purse and took out a pearlhandled knife. It was small, but the blade was razorsharp. What will the pain be? Only a dream, Mr. Businessman muttered into the knot of his tie. Thats right, sweetie. She put an arm around him and quickly slashed double Vs into his right cheeka cheek so fat it would soon be a jowl. She took a moment to admire her work in the chancy light of the projectors colored dreambeam. Then the blood sheeted down. He would wake up with his face on fire, the right arm of his expensive suitcoat drenched, and in need of an emergency room. And how will you explain it to your wife? Youll think of something, Im sure. But unless you have plastic surgery, youll see my marks every time you look in the mirror. And every time you go looking for a little strange in one of the bars, youll remember how you got bitten by a rattlesnake. One in a blue skirt and a white sleeveless blouse. She tucked the two fifties and five twenties into her purse, clicked it shut, and was about to get up when a hand fell on her shoulder and a woman murmured in her ear. Hello, dear. You can see the rest of the movie another time. Right now youre coming with us. Andi tried to turn, but hands seized her head. The terrible thing about them was that they were inside. After thatuntil she found herself in Roses EarthCruiser in a goingtoseed campground on the outskirts of this Midwestern cityall was darkness. 6 When she woke up, Rose gave her a cup of tea and talked to her for a long time. Andi heard everything, but most of her attention was taken up by the woman who had abducted her. She was a presence, and that was putting it mildly. Rose the Hat was six feet tall, with long legs in tapered white slacks and high breasts inside a tshirt branded with the UNICEF logo and motto Whatever It Takes To Save a Child. Her face was that of a calm queen, serene and untroubled. Her hair, now unbound, tumbled halfway down her back. The scuffed tophat cocked on her head was jarring, but otherwise she was the most beautiful woman Andi Steiner had ever seen. Do you understand what Ive been telling you? Im giving you an opportunity here, Andi, and you should not take it lightly. Its been twenty years or more since weve offered anyone what Im offering you. And if I say no? What then? Do you kill me? And take this . . . What had she called it? This steam? Rose smiled. Her lips were rich and coral pink. Andi, who considered herself asexual, nonetheless wondered what that lipstick would taste like. You dont have enough steam to bother with, dear, and what you do have would be far from yummy. It would taste the way the meat from a tough old cow tastes to a rube. To a what? Never mind, just listen. We wont kill you. What well do if you say no is to wipe out all memory of this little conversation. You will find yourself on the side of the road outside some nothing townTopeka, maybe, or Fargowith no money, no identification, and no memory of how you got there. The last thing youll remember is going into that movie theater with the man you robbed and mutilated. He deserved to be mutilated! Andi spat out. Rose stood on her tiptoes and stretched, her fingers touching the roof of the RV. Thats your business, honeydoll, Im not your psychiatrist. She wasnt wearing a bra; Andi could see the shifting punctuation marks of her nipples against her shirt. But heres something to consider well take your talent as well as your money and your no doubt bogus identification. The next time you suggest that a man go to sleep in a darkened movie theater, hell turn to you and ask what the fuck youre talking about. Andi felt a cold trickle of fear. You cant do that. But she remembered the terribly strong hands that had reached inside her brain and felt quite sure this woman could. She might need a little help from her friends, the ones in the RVs and motorhomes gathered around this one like piglets at a sows teats, but oh yesshe could. Rose ignored this. How old are you, dear? Twentyeight. She had been shading her age since hitting the big threeoh. Rose looked at her, smiling, saying nothing. Andi met those beautiful gray eyes for five seconds, then had to drop her gaze. But what her eyes fell upon when she did were those smooth breasts, unharnessed but with no sign of a sag. And when she looked up again, her eyes only got as far as the womans lips. Those coralpink lips. Youre thirtytwo, Rose said. Oh, it only shows a littlebecause youve led a hard life. A life on the run. But youre still pretty. Stay with us, live with us, and ten years from now you really will be twentyeight. Thats impossible. Rose smiled. A hundred years from now, youll look and feel thirtyfive. Until you take steam, that is. Then youll be twentyeight again, only youll feel ten years younger. And youll take steam often. Live long, stay young, and eat well those are the things Im offering. How do they sound? Too good to be true, Andi said. Like those ads about how you can get life insurance for ten dollars. She wasnt entirely wrong. Rose hadnt told any lies (at least not yet), but there were things she wasnt saying. Like how steam was sometimes in short supply. Like how not everyone lived through the Turning. Rose judged this one might, and Walnut, the Trues jackleg doctor, had cautiously concurred, but nothing was sure. And you and your friends call yourself? Theyre not my friends, theyre my family. Were the True Knot. Rose laced her fingers together and held them in front of Andis face. And whats tied can never be untied. You need to understand that. Andi, who already knew that a girl who has been raped can never be unraped, understood perfectly. Do I really have any other choice? Rose shrugged. Only bad ones, dear. But its better if you want it. It will make the Turning easier. Does it hurt? This Turning? Rose smiled and told the first outright lie. Not at all. 7 A summer night on the outskirts of a Midwestern city. Somewhere people were watching Harrison Ford snap his bullwhip; somewhere the Actor President was no doubt smiling his untrustworthy smile; here, in this campground, Andi Steiner was lying on a discountstore lawn recliner, bathed in the headlights of Roses EarthCruiser and someone elses Winnebago. Rose had explained to her that, while the True Knot owned several campgrounds, this wasnt one of them. But their advance man was able to fourwall places like this, businesses tottering on the edge of insolvency. America was suffering a recession, but for the True, money was not a problem. Who is this advance man? Andi had asked. Oh, hes a very winning fellow, Rose had said, smiling. Able to charm the birdies down from the trees. Youll meet him soon. Is he your special guy? Rose had laughed at that and caressed Andis cheek. The touch of her fingers caused a hot little worm of excitement in Andis stomach. Crazy, but there it was. Youve got a twinkle, dont you? I think youll be fine. Maybe, but as she lay here, Andi was no longer excited, only scared. News stories slipped through her mind, ones about bodies found in ditches, bodies found in wooded clearings, bodies found at the bottom of dry wells. Women and girls. Almost always women and girls. It wasnt Rose who scared hernot exactlyand there were other women here, but there were also men. Rose knelt beside her. The glare of the headlights should have turned her face into a harsh and ugly landscape of blacks and whites, but the opposite was true it only made her more beautiful. Once again she caressed Andis cheek. No fear, she said. No fear. She turned to one of the other women, a pallidly pretty creature Rose called Silent Sarey, and nodded. Sarey nodded back and went into Roses monster RV. The others, meanwhile, began to form a circle around the lawn recliner. Andi didnt like that. There was something sacrificial about it. No fear. Soon youll be one of us, Andi. One with us. Unless, Rose thought, you cycle out. In which case, well just burn your clothes in the incinerator behind the comfort stations and move on tomorrow. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But she hoped that wouldnt happen. She liked this one, and a sleeper talent would come in handy. Sarey returned with a steel canister that looked like a thermos bottle. She handed it to Rose, who removed the red cap. Beneath was a nozzle and a valve. To Andi the canister looked like an unlabeled can of bug spray. She thought about bolting up from the recliner and running for it, then remembered the movie theater. The hands that had reached inside her head, holding her in place. Grampa Flick? Rose asked. Will you lead us? Happy to. It was the old man from the theater. Tonight he was wearing baggy pink Bermuda shorts, white socks that climbed all the way up his scrawny shins to his knees, and Jesus sandals. To Andi he looked like Grandpa Walton after two years in a concentration camp. He raised his hands, and the rest raised theirs with him. Linked that way and silhouetted in the crisscrossing headlight beams, they looked like a chain of weird paperdolls. We are the True Knot, he said. The voice coming from that sunken chest no longer trembled; it was the deep and resonant voice of a much younger and stronger man. We are the True Knot, they responded. What is tied may never be untied. Here is a woman, Grampa Flick said. Would she join us? Would she tie her life to our life and be one with us? Say yes, Rose said. YYes, Andi managed. Her heart was no longer beating; it was thrumming like a wire. Rose turned the valve on her canister. There was a small, rueful sigh, and a puff of silver mist escaped. Instead of dissipating on the light evening breeze, it hung just above the canister until Rose leaned forward, pursed those fascinating coral lips, and blew gently. The puff of mistlooking a bit like a comicstrip dialogue balloon without any words in itdrifted until it hovered above Andis upturned face and wide eyes. We are the True Knot, and we endure, Grampa Flick proclaimed. Sabbatha hanti, the others responded. The mist began to descend, very slowly. We are the chosen ones. Lodsam hanti, they responded. Breathe deep, Rose said, and kissed Andi softly on the cheek. Ill see you on the other side. Maybe. We are the fortunate ones. Cahanna risone hanti. Then, all together We are the True Knot, and we . . . But Andi lost track of it there. The silvery stuff settled over her face and it was cold, cold. When she inhaled, it came to some sort of tenebrous life and began screaming inside her. A child made of mistwhether boy or girl she didnt knowwas struggling to get away but someone was cutting. Rose was cutting, while the others stood close around her (in a knot), shining down a dozen flashlights, illuminating a slowmotion murder. Andi tried to bolt up from the recliner, but she had no body to bolt with. Her body was gone. Where it had been was only pain in the shape of a human being. The pain of the childs dying, and of her own. Embrace it. The thought was like a cool cloth pressed on the burning wound that was her body. Thats the only way through. I cant, Ive been running from this pain my whole life. Perhaps so, but youre all out of running room. Embrace it. Swallow it. Take steam or die. 8 The True stood with hands upraised, chanting the old words sabbatha hanti, lodsam hanti, cahanna risone hanti. They watched as Andi Steiners blouse flattened where her breasts had been, as her skirt puffed shut like a closing mouth. They watched as her face turned to milkglass. Her eyes remained, though, floating like tiny balloons on gauzy strings of nerve. But theyre going to go, too, Walnut thought. Shes not strong enough. I thought maybe she was, but I was wrong. She may come back a time or two, but then shell cycle out. Nothing left but her clothes. He tried to recall his own Turning, and could only remember that the moon had been full and there had been a bonfire instead of headlights. A bonfire, the whicker of horses . . . and the pain. Could you actually remember pain? He didnt think so. You knew there was such a thing, and that you had suffered it, but that wasnt the same. Andis face swam back into existence like the face of a ghost above a mediums table. The front of her blouse plumped up in curves; her skirt swelled as her hips and thighs returned to the world. She shrieked in agony. We are the True Knot and we endure, they chanted in the crisscrossing beams of the RVs. Sabbatha hanti. We are the chosen ones, lodsam hanti. We are the fortunate ones, cahanna risone hanti. They would go on until it was over. One way or the other, it wouldnt take long. Andi began to disappear again. Her flesh became cloudy glass through which the True could see her skeleton and the bone grin of her skull. A few silver fillings gleamed in that grin. Her disembodied eyes rolled wildly in sockets that were no longer there. She was still screaming, but now the sound was thin and echoing, as if it came from far down a distant hall. 9 Rose thought shed give up, that was what they did when the pain became too much, but this was one tough babe. She came swirling back into existence, screaming all the way. Her newly arrived hands seized Roses with mad strength and bore down. Rose leaned forward, hardly noticing the pain. I know what you want, honeydoll. Come back and you can have it. She lowered her mouth to Andis, caressing Andis upper lip with her tongue until the lip turned to mist. But the eyes stayed, fixed on Roses. Sabbatha hanti, they chanted. Lodsam hanti. Cahanna risone hanti. Andi came back, growing a face around her staring, painfilled eyes. Her body followed. For a moment Rose could see the bones of her arms, the bones in the fingers clutching hers, then they were once more dressed in flesh. Rose kissed her again. Even in her pain Andi responded, and Rose breathed her own essence down the younger womans throat. I want this one. And what I want, I get. Andi began to fade again, but Rose could feel her fighting it. Getting on top of it. Feeding herself with the screaming lifeforce she had breathed down her throat and into her lungs instead of trying to push it away. Taking steam for the first time. 10 The newest member of the True Knot spent that night in Rose OHaras bed, and for the first time in her life found something in sex besides horror and pain. Her throat was raw from the screaming shed done on the lawn recliner, but she screamed again as this new sensationpleasure to match the pain of her Turningtook her body and once more seemed to render it transparent. Scream all you want, Rose said, looking up from between her thighs. Theyve heard plenty of them. The good as well as the bad. Is sex like this for everybody? If so, what she had missed! What her bastard father had stolen from her! And people thought she was a thief ? Its like this for us, when weve taken steam, Rose said. Thats all you need to know. She lowered her head and it began again. 11 Not long before midnight, Token Charlie and Baba the Russian were sitting on the lower step of Token Charlies Bounder, sharing a joint and looking up at the moon. From Roses EarthCruiser came more screams. Charlie and Baba turned to each other and grinned. Someone is likin it, Baba remarked. Whats not to like? Charlie said. 12 Andi woke in the days first early light with her head pillowed on Roses breasts. She felt entirely different; she felt no different at all. She lifted her head and saw Rose looking at her with those remarkable gray eyes. You saved me, Andi said. You brought me back. I couldnt have done it alone. You wanted to come. In more ways than one, honeydoll. What we did after . . . we cant do it again, can we? Rose shook her head, smiling. No. And thats okay. Some experiences absolutely cannot be topped. Besides, my man will be back today. Whats his name? He answers to Henry Rothman, but thats just for the rubes. His True name is Crow Daddy. Do you love him? You do, dont you? Rose smiled, drew Andi closer, kissed her. But she did not answer. Rose? Yes? Am I . . . am I still human? To this Rose gave the same answer Dick Hallorann had once given young Danny Torrance, and in the same cold tone of voice Do you care? Andi decided she didnt. She decided she was home. MAMA 1 There was a muddle of bad dreamssomeone swinging a hammer and chasing him down endless halls, an elevator that ran by itself, hedges in the shapes of animals that came to life and closed in on himand finally one clear thought I wish I were dead. Dan Torrance opened his eyes. Sunlight shot through them and into his aching head, threatening to set his brains on fire. The hangover to end all hangovers. His face was throbbing. His nostrils were clogged shut except for a tiny pinhole in the left one that allowed in a thread of air. Left one? No, it was the right. He could breathe through his mouth, but it was foul with the taste of whiskey and cigarettes. His stomach was a ball of lead, full of all the wrong things. Morningafter junkbelly, some old drinking buddy or other had called that woeful sensation. Loud snoring from beside him. Dan turned his head that way, although his neck screamed in protest and another bolt of agony shot him through the temple. He opened his eyes again, but just a little; no more of that blazing sun, please. Not yet. He was lying on a bare mattress on a bare floor. A bare woman lay sprawled on her back beside him. Dan looked down and saw that he was also alfresco. Her name is . . . Dolores? No. Debbie? Thats closer, but not quite Deenie. Her name was Deenie. He had met her in a bar called the Milky Way, and it had all been quite hilarious until . . . He couldnt remember, and one look at his handsboth swollen, the knuckles of the right scuffed and scabbedmade him decide he didnt want to remember. And what did it matter? The basic scenario never changed. He got drunk, someone said the wrong thing, chaos and barcarnage followed. There was a dangerous dog inside his head. Sober, he could keep it on a leash. When he drank, the leash disappeared. Sooner or later Ill kill someone. For all he knew, he had last night. Hey Deenie, squeeze my weenie. Had he actually said that? He was terribly afraid he had. Some of it was coming back to him now, and even some was too much. Playing eightball. Trying to put a little extra spin on the cue and scratching it right off the table, the little chalksmudged sonofabitch bouncing and rolling all the way to the jukebox that was playingwhat else?country music. He seemed to remember Joe Diffie. Why had he scratched so outrageously? Because he was drunk, and because Deenie was standing behind him, Deenie had been squeezing his weenie just below the line of the table and he was showing off for her. All in good fun. But then the guy in the Case cap and the fancy silk cowboy shirt had laughed, and that was his mistake. Chaos and barcarnage. Dan touched his mouth and felt plump sausages where normal lips had been when he left that checkcashing joint yesterday afternoon with a little over five hundred bucks in his front pants pocket. At least all my teeth seem to be His stomach gave a liquid lurch. He burped up a mouthful of sour gunk that tasted of whiskey and swallowed it back. It burned going down. He rolled off the mattress onto his knees, staggered to his feet, then swayed as the room began to do a gentle tango. He was hungover, his head was bursting, his gut was filled with whatever cheap food hed put in it last night to tamp down the booze . . . but he was also still drunk. He hooked his underpants off the floor and left the bedroom with them clutched in his hand, not quite limping but definitely favoring his left leg. He had a vague memoryone he hoped would never sharpenof the Case cowboy throwing a chair. That was when he and Deeniesqueezemyweenie had left, not quite running but laughing like loons. Another lurch from his unhappy gut. This time it was accompanied by a clench that felt like a hand in a slick rubber glove. That released all the puke triggers the vinegar smell of hardcooked eggs in a big glass jar, the taste of barbecueflavored pork rinds, the sight of french fries drowning in a ketchup nosebleed. All the crap hed crammed into his mouth last night between shots. He was going to spew, but the images just kept on coming, revolving on some nightmare gameshow prize wheel. What have we got for our next contestant, Johnny? Well, Bob, its a great big platter of GREASY SARDINES! The bathroom was directly across a short stub of hall. The door was open, the toilet seat up. Dan lunged, fell on his knees, and spewed a great flood of brownishyellow stuff on top of a floating turd. He looked away, groped for the flush, found it, pushed it. Water cascaded, but there was no accompanying sound of draining water. He looked back and saw something alarming the turd, probably his own, rising toward the peesplashed rim of the toilet bowl on a sea of halfdigested barsnacks. Just before the toilet could overspill, making this mornings banal horrors complete, something cleared its throat in the pipe and the whole mess flushed away. Dan threw up again, then sat on his heels with his back against the bathroom wall and his throbbing head lowered, waiting for the tank to refill so he could flush a second time. No more. I swear it. No more booze, no more bars, no more fights. Promising himself this for the hundredth time. Or the thousandth. One thing was certain he had to get out of this town or he might be in trouble. Serious trouble was not out of the question. Johnny, what have we got for todays grand prize winner? Bob, its TWO YEARS IN STATE FOR ASSAULT AND BATTERY! And . . . the studio audience goes wild. The toilet tank had quieted its noisy refill. He reached for the handle to flush away The Morning After, Part Two, then paused, regarding the black hole of his shortterm memory. Did he know his name? Yes! Daniel Anthony Torrance. Did he know the name of the chick snoring on the mattress in the other room? Yes! Deenie. He didnt recall her last name, but it was likely she had never told him. Did he know the current presidents name? To Dans horror, he didnt, not at first. The guy had a funky Elvis haircut and played the saxquite badly. But the name . . . ? Do you even know where you are? Cleveland? Charleston? It was one or the other. As he flushed the toilet, the presidents name arrived in his head with splendid clarity. And Dan wasnt in either Cleveland or Charleston. He was in Wilmington, North Carolina. He worked as an orderly at Grace of Mary Hospital. Or had. It was time to move on. If he got to some other place, some good place, he might be able to quit the drinking and start over. He got up and looked in the mirror. The damage wasnt as bad as hed feared. Nose swelled but not actually brokenat least he didnt think so. Crusts of dried blood above his puffy upper lip. There was a bruise on his right cheekbone (the Case cowboy must have been a lefty) with the bloody imprint of a ring sitting in the middle of it. Another bruise, a big one, was spreading in the cup of his left shoulder. That, he seemed to remember, had been from a pool cue. He looked in the medicine cabinet. Amid tubes of makeup and cluttered bottles of overthecounter medicine, he found three prescription bottles. The first was Diflucan, commonly prescribed for yeast infections. It made him glad he was circumcised. The second was Darvon Comp 65. He opened it, saw half a dozen capsules, and put three in his pocket for later reference. The last scrip was for Fioricet, and the bottlethankfullywas almost full. He swallowed three with cold water. Bending over the basin made his headache worse than ever, but he thought he would soon get relief. Fioricet, intended for migraine and tension headaches, was a guaranteed hangover killer. Well . . . almost guaranteed. He started to close the cabinet, then took another look. He moved some of the crap around. No birth control ring. Maybe it was in her purse. He hoped so, because he hadnt been carrying a rubber. If hed fucked herand although he couldnt remember for sure, he probably hadhed ridden in bareback. He put on his underwear and shuffled back to the bedroom, standing in the doorway for a moment and looking at the woman who had brought him home last night. Arms and legs splayed, everything showing.


Last night she had looked like the goddess of the Western world in her thighhigh leather skirt and cork sandals, her cropped top and hoop earrings. This morning he saw the sagging white dough of a growing boozegut, and the second chin starting to appear under the first. He saw something worse she wasnt a woman, after all. Probably not jailbait (please God not jailbait), but surely no more than twenty and maybe still in her late teens. On one wall, chillingly childish, was a poster of KISS with Gene Simmons spewing fire. On another was a cute kitten with startled eyes, dangling from a tree branch. HANG IN THERE, BABY, this poster advised. He needed to get out of here. Their clothes were tangled together at the foot of the mattress. He separated his tshirt from her panties, yanked it over his head, then stepped into his jeans. He froze with the zipper halfway up, realizing that his left front pocket was much flatter than it had been when he left the checkcashing joint the previous afternoon. No. It cant be. His head, which had begun to feel the teeniest bit better, started to throb again as his heartbeat picked up speed, and when he shoved his hand into the pocket, it brought up nothing but a tendollar bill and two toothpicks, one of which poked under his index fingernail and into the sensitive meat beneath. He hardly noticed. We didnt drink up five hundred dollars. No way we did. Wed be dead if we drank up that much. His wallet was still at home in his hip pocket. He pulled it out, hoping against hope, but no joy. He must have transferred the ten he usually kept there to his front pocket at some point. The front pocket made it tougher for barroom dips, which now seemed like quite the joke. He looked at the snoring, splayed girlwoman on the mattress and started for her, meaning to shake her awake and ask her what shed done with his fucking money. Choke her awake, if that was what it took. But if shed stolen from him, why had she brought him home? And hadnt there been something else? Some other adventure after they left the Milky Way? Now that his head was clearing, he had a memoryhazy, but probably validof them taking a cab to the train station. I know a guy who hangs out there, honey. Had she really said that, or was it only his imagination? She said it, all right. Im in Wilmington, Bill Clintons the president, and we went to the train station. Where there was indeed a guy. The kind who likes to do his deals in the mens room, especially when the customer has a slightly rearranged face. When he asked who teed off on me, I told him I told him he should mind his beeswax, Dan muttered. When the two of them went in, Dan had been meaning to buy a gram to keep his date happy, no more than that, and only if it wasnt half Manitol. Coke might be Deenies thing but it wasnt his. Rich mans Anacin, hed heard it called, and he was far from rich. But then someone had come out of one of the stalls. A business type with a briefcase banging his knee. And when Mr. Businessman went to wash his hands at one of the basins, Dan had seen flies crawling all over his face. Deathflies. Mr. Businessman was a dead man walking and didnt know it. So instead of going small, he was pretty sure hed gone big. Maybe hed changed his mind at the last moment, though. It was possible; he could remember so little. I remember the flies, though. Yes. He remembered those. Booze tamped down the shining, knocked it unconscious, but he wasnt sure the flies were even a part of the shining. They came when they would, drunk or sober. He thought again I need to get out of here. He thought again I wish I were dead. 2 Deenie made a soft snorting sound and turned away from the merciless morning light. Except for the mattress on the floor, the room was devoid of furniture; there wasnt even a thriftshop bureau. The closet stood open, and Dan could see the majority of Deenies meager wardrobe heaped in two plastic laundry baskets. The few items on hangers looked like barhopping clothes. He could see a red tshirt with SEXY GIRL printed in spangles on the front, and a denim skirt with a fashionably frayed hem. There were two pairs of sneakers, two pairs of flats, and one pair of strappy highheel fuckme shoes. No cork sandals, though. No sign of his own beatup Reeboks, for that matter. Dan couldnt remember them kicking off their shoes when they came in, but if they had, theyd be in the living room, which he could remembervaguely. Her purse might be there, too. He might have given her whatever remained of his cash for safekeeping. It was unlikely but not impossible. He walked his throbbing head down the short hall to what he assumed was the apartments only other room. On the far side was a kitchenette, the amenities consisting of a hotplate and a bar refrigerator tucked under the counter. In the living area was a sofa hemorrhaging stuffing and propped up at one end with a couple of bricks. It faced a big TV with a crack running down the middle of the glass. The crack had been mended with a strip of packing tape that now dangled by one corner. A couple of flies were stuck to the tape, one still struggling feebly. Dan eyed it with morbid fascination, reflecting (not for the first time) that the hungover eye had a weird ability to find the ugliest things in any given landscape. There was a coffee table in front of the sofa. On it was an ashtray filled with butts, a baggie filled with white powder, and a People magazine with more blow scattered across it. Beside it, completing the picture, was a dollar bill, still partly rolled up. He didnt know how much they had snorted, but judging by how much still remained, he could kiss his five hundred dollars goodbye. Fuck. I dont even like coke. And how did I snort it, anyway? I can hardly breathe. He hadnt. She had snorted it. He had rubbed it on his gums. It was all starting to come back to him. He would have preferred it stay away, but too late. The deathflies in the restroom, crawling in and out of Mr. Businessmans mouth and over the wet surfaces of his eyes. Mr. Dealerman asking what Dan was looking at. Dan telling him it was nothing, it didnt matter, lets see what youve got. It turned out Mr. Dealerman had plenty. They usually did. Next came the ride back to her place in another taxi, Deenie already snorting from the back of her hand, too greedyor too needyto wait. The two of them trying to sing Mr. Roboto. He spied her sandals and his Reeboks right inside the door, and here were more golden memories. She hadnt kicked the sandals off, only dropped them from her feet, because by then hed had his hands planted firmly on her ass and she had her legs wrapped around his waist. Her neck smelled of perfume, her breath of barbecueflavored pork rinds. They had been gobbling them by the handful before moving on to the pool table. Dan put on his sneakers, then walked across to the kitchenette, thinking there might be instant coffee in the single cupboard. He didnt find coffee, but he did see her purse, lying on the floor. He thought he could remember her tossing it at the sofa and laughing when it missed. Half the crap had spilled out, including a red imitation leather wallet. He scooped everything back inside and took it over to the kitchenette. Although he knew damned well that his money was now living in the pocket of Mr. Dealermans designer jeans, part of him insisted that there must be some left, if only because he needed some to be left. Ten dollars was enough for three drinks or two sixpacks, but it was going to take more than that today. He fished out her wallet and opened it. There were some picturesa couple of Deenie with some guy who looked too much like her not to be a relative, a couple of Deenie holding a baby, one of Deenie in a prom dress next to a bucktoothed kid in a gruesome blue tux. The bill compartment was bulging. This gave him hope until he pulled it open and saw a swatch of food stamps. There was also some currency two twenties and three tens. Thats my money. Whats left of it, anyway. He knew better. He never would have given some shitfaced pickup his weeks pay for safekeeping. It was hers. Yes, but hadnt the coke been her idea? Wasnt she the reason he was broke as well as hungover this morning? No. Youre hungover because youre a drunk. Youre broke because you saw the deathflies. It might be true, but if she hadnt insisted they go to the train station and score, he never would have seen the deathflies. She might need that seventy bucks for groceries. Right. A jar of peanut butter and a jar of strawberry jam. Also a loaf of bread to spread it on. She had food stamps for the rest. Or rent. She might need it for that. If she needed rent money, she could peddle the TV. Maybe her dealer would take it, crack and all. Seventy dollars wouldnt go very far on a months rent, anyway, he reasoned, even for a dump like this one. Thats not yours, doc. It was his mothers voice, the last one he needed to hear when he was savagely hungover and in desperate need of a drink. Fuck you, Ma. His voice was low but sincere. He took the money, stuffed it in his pocket, put the billfold back in the purse, and turned around. A kid was standing there. He looked about eighteen months old. He was wearing an Atlanta Braves tshirt. It came down to his knees, but the diaper underneath showed anyway, because it was loaded and hanging just above his ankles. Dans heart took an enormous leap in his chest and his head gave a sudden terrific whammo, as if Thor had swung his hammer in there. For a moment he was absolutely sure he was going to stroke out, have a heart attack, or both. Then he drew in a deep breath and exhaled. Where did you come from, little hero? Mama, the kid said. Which in a way made perfect senseDan, too, had come from his mamabut it didnt help. A terrible deduction was trying to form itself in his thumping head, but he didnt want anything to do with it. He saw you take the money. Maybe so, but that wasnt the deduction. If the kid saw him take it, so what? He wasnt even two. Kids that young accepted everything adults did. If he saw his mama walking on the ceiling with fire shooting from her fingertips, hed accept that. Whats your name, hero? His voice was throbbing in time with his heart, which still hadnt settled down. Mama. Really? The other kids are gonna have fun with that when you get to high school. Did you come from next door? Or down the hall? Please say yes. Because heres the deduction if this kid is Deenies, then she went out barhopping and left him locked in this shitty apartment. Alone. Mama! Then the kid spied the coke on the coffee table and trotted toward it with the sodden crotch of his diaper swinging. Canny! No, thats not candy, Dan said, although of course it was nose candy. Paying no attention, the kid reached for the white powder with one hand. As he did, Dan saw bruises on his upper arm. The kind left by a squeezing hand. He grabbed the kid around the waist and between the legs. As he swung him up and away from the table (the sodden diaper squeezing pee through his fingers to patter on the floor), Dans head filled with an image that was brief but excruciatingly clear the Deenie lookalike in the wallet photo, picking the kid up and shaking him. Leaving the marks of his fingers. (Hey Tommy what part of get the fuck out dont you understand?) (Randy dont hes just a baby) Then it was gone. But that second voice, weak and remonstrating, had been Deenies, and he understood that Randy was her older brother. It made sense. Not every abuser was the boyfriend. Sometimes it was the brother. Sometimes the uncle. Sometimes (come out you worthless pup come out and take your medicine) it was even dear old Dad. He carried the babyTommy, his name was Tommyinto the bedroom. The kid saw his mother and immediately began wriggling. Mama! Mama! Mama! When Dan set him down, Tommy trotted to the mattress and crawled up beside her. Although sleeping, Deenie put her arm around him and hugged him to her. The Braves shirt pulled up, and Dan saw more bruises on the kids legs. The brothers name is Randy. I could find him. This thought was as cold and clear as lake ice in January. If he handled the picture from the wallet and concentrated, ignoring the pounding of his head, he probably could find the big brother. He had done such things before. I could leave a few bruises of my own. Tell him the next time Ill kill him. Only there wasnt going to be a next time. Wilmington was done. He was never going to see Deenie or this desperate little apartment again. He was never going to think of last night or this morning again. This time it was Dick Halloranns voice. No, honey. Maybe you can put the things from the Overlook away in lockboxes, but not memories. Never those. Theyre the real ghosts. He stood in the doorway, looking at Deenie and her bruised boy. The kid had gone back to sleep, and in the morning sun, the two of them looked almost angelic. Shes no angel. Maybe she didnt leave the bruises, but she went out partying and left him alone. If you hadnt been there when he woke up and walked into the living room . . . Canny, the kid had said, reaching for the blow. Not good. Something needed to be done. Maybe, but not by me. Id look good showing up at DHS to complain about child neglect with this face, wouldnt I? Reeking of booze and puke. Just an upstanding citizen doing his civic duty. You can put her money back, Wendy said. You can do that much. He almost did. Really. He took it out of his pocket and had it right there in his hand. He even strolled it over to her purse, and the walk must have done him good, because he had an idea. Take the coke, if youve got to take something. You can sell whats left for a hundred bucks. Maybe even two hundred, if it hasnt been stomped on too much. Only, if his potential buyer turned out to be a narcit would be just his luckhed wind up in jail. Where he might also find himself nailed for whatever stupid shit had gone down in the Milky Way. The cash was way safer. Seventy bucks in all. Ill split it, he decided. Forty for her and thirty for me. Only, thirty wouldnt do him much good. And there were the food stampsa wad big enough to choke a horse. She could feed the kid with those. He picked up the coke and the dusty People magazine and put them on the kitchenette counter, safely out of the kids reach. There was a scrubbie in the sink, and he used it on the coffee table, cleaning up the leftover shake. Telling himself that if she came stumbling out while he was doing it, he would give her back her goddam money. Telling himself that if she went on snoozing, she deserved whatever she got. Deenie didnt come out. She went on snoozing. Dan finished cleaning up, tossed the scrubbie back in the sink, and thought briefly about leaving a note. But what would it say? Take better care of your kid, and by the way, I took your cash? Okay, no note. He left with the money in his left front pocket, being careful not to slam the door on his way out. He told himself he was being considerate. 3 Around noonhis hangover headache a thing of the past thanks to Deenies Fioricet and a Darvon chaserhe approached an establishment called Goldens Discount Liquors  Import Beers. This was in the old part of town, where the establishments were brick, the sidewalks were largely empty, and the pawnshops (each displaying an admirable selection of straight razors) were many. His intention was to buy a very large bottle of very cheap whiskey, but what he saw out front changed his mind. It was a shopping cart loaded with a bums crazy assortment of possessions. The bum in question was inside, haranguing the clerk. There was a blanket, rolled up and tied with twine, on top of the cart. Dan could see a couple of stains, but on the whole it didnt look bad. He took it and walked briskly away with it under his arm. After stealing seventy dollars from a single mother with a substance abuse problem, taking a bums magic carpet seemed like small shit indeed. Which might have been why he felt smaller than ever. I am the Incredible Shrinking Man, he thought, hurrying around the corner with his new prize. Steal a few more things and I will vanish entirely from sight. He was listening for the outraged caws of the bumthe crazier they were, the louder they cawedbut there was nothing. One more corner and he could congratulate himself on a clean getaway. Dan turned it. 4 That evening found him sitting at the mouth of a large stormdrain on the slope beneath the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge. He had a room, but there was the small matter of stackedup back rent, which he had absolutely promised to pay as of 5 p.m. yesterday. Nor was that all. If he returned to his room, he might be invited to visit a certain fortresslike municipal building on Bess Street, to answer questions about a certain bar altercation. On the whole, it seemed safer to stay away. There was a downtown shelter called Hope House (which the winos of course called Hopeless House), but Dan had no intention of going there. You could sleep free, but if you had a bottle theyd take it away. Wilmington was full of bythenight flops and cheap motels where nobody gave a shit what you drank, snorted, or injected, but why would you waste good drinking money on a bed and a roof when the weather was warm and dry? He could worry about beds and roofs when he headed north. Not to mention getting his few possessions out of the room on Burney Street without his landladys notice. The moon was rising over the river. The blanket was spread out behind him. Soon he would lie down on it, pull it around him in a cocoon, and sleep. He was just high enough to be happy. The takeoff and the climbout had been rough, but now all that lowaltitude turbulence was behind him. He supposed he wasnt leading what straight America would call an exemplary life, but for the time being, all was fine. He had a bottle of Old Sun (purchased at a liquor store a prudent distance from Goldens Discount) and half a hero sandwich for breakfast tomorrow. The future was cloudy, but tonight the moon was bright. All was as it should be. (Canny) Suddenly the kid was with him. Tommy. Right here with him. Reaching for the blow. Bruises on his arm. Blue eyes. (Canny) He saw this with an excruciating clarity that had nothing to do with the shining. And more. Deenie lying on her back, snoring. The red imitation leather wallet. The wad of food stamps with U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE printed on them. The money. The seventy dollars. Which he had taken. Think about the moon. Think about how serene it looks rising over the water. For awhile he did, but then he saw Deenie on her back, the red imitation leather wallet, the wad of food stamps, the pitiful crumple of cash (much of it now gone). Most clearly of all he saw the kid reaching for the blow with a hand that looked like a starfish. Blue eyes. Bruised arm. Canny, he said. Mama, he said. Dan had learned the trick of measuring out his drinks; that way the booze lasted longer, the high was mellower, and the next days headache lighter and more manageable. Sometimes, though, the measuring thing went wrong. Shit happened. Like at the Milky Way. That had been more or less an accident, but tonight, finishing the bottle in four long swallows, was on purpose. Your mind was a blackboard. Booze was the eraser. He lay down and pulled the stolen blanket around him. He waited for unconsciousness, and it came, but Tommy came first. Atlanta Braves shirt. Sagging diaper. Blue eyes, bruised arm, starfish hand. Canny. Mama. I will never speak of this, he told himself. Not to anyone. As the moon rose over Wilmington, North Carolina, Dan Torrance lapsed into unconsciousness. There were dreams of the Overlook, but he would not remember them upon waking. What he remembered upon waking were the blue eyes, the bruised arm, the reaching hand. He managed to get his possessions and went north, first to upstate New York, then to Massachusetts. Two years passed. Sometimes he helped people, mostly old people. He had a way of doing that. On too many drunk nights, the kid would be the last thing he thought of and the first thing that came to mind on the hungover morningsafter. It was the kid he always thought of when he told himself he was going to quit the drinking. Maybe next week; next month for sure. The kid. The eyes. The arm. The reaching starfish hand. Canny. Mama. PART ONE ABRA CHAPTER ONE WELCOME TO TEENYTOWN 1 After Wilmington, the daily drinking stopped. Hed go a week, sometimes two, without anything stronger than diet soda. Hed wake up without a hangover, which was good. Hed wake up thirsty and miserablewantingwhich wasnt. Then there would come a night. Or a weekend. Sometimes it was a Budweiser ad on TV that set him offfreshfaced young people with nary a beergut among them, having cold ones after a vigorous volleyball game. Sometimes it was seeing a couple of nicelooking women having afterwork drinks outside some pleasant little caf, the kind of place with a French name and lots of hanging plants. The drinks were almost always the kind that came with little umbrellas. Sometimes it was a song on the radio. Once it was Styx, singing Mr. Roboto. When he was dry, he was completely dry. When he drank, he got drunk. If he woke up next to a woman, he thought of Deenie and the kid in the Braves tshirt. He thought of the seventy dollars. He even thought of the stolen blanket, which he had left in the stormdrain. Maybe it was still there. If so, it would be moldy now. Sometimes he got drunk and missed work. Theyd keep him on for awhilehe was good at what he didbut then would come a day. When it did, he would say thank you very much and board a bus. Wilmington became Albany and Albany became Utica. Utica became New Paltz. New Paltz gave way to Sturbridge, where he got drunk at an outdoor folk concert and woke up the next day in jail with a broken wrist. Next up was Weston, after that came a nursing home on Marthas Vineyard, and boy, that gig didnt last long. On his third day the head nurse smelled booze on his breath and it was seeya, wouldnt want to beya. Once he crossed the path of the True Knot without realizing it. Not in the top part of his mind, anyway, although lower downin the part that shonethere was something. A smell, fading and unpleasant, like the smell of burned rubber on a stretch of turnpike where there has been a bad accident not long before. From Marthas Vineyard he took MassLines to Newburyport. There he found work in a dontgivemuchofashit veterans home, the kind of place where old soldiers were sometimes left in wheelchairs outside empty consulting rooms until their peebags overflowed onto the floor. A lousy place for patients, a better one for frequent fuckups like himself, although Dan and a few others did as well by the old soldiers as they could. He even helped a couple get over when their time came. That job lasted awhile, long enough for the Saxophone President to turn the White House keys over to the Cowboy President. Dan had a few wet nights in Newburyport, but always with the next day off, so it was okay. After one of these minisprees, he woke up thinking at least I left the food stamps. That brought on the old psychotic gameshow duo. Sorry, Deenie, you lose, but nobody leaves emptyhanded. What have we got for her, Johnny? Well, Bob, Deenie didnt win any money, but shes leaving with our new home game, several grams of cocaine, and a great big wad of FOOD STAMPS! What Dan got was a whole month without booze. He did it, he guessed, as a weird kind of penance. It occurred to him more than once that if hed had Deenies address, he would have sent her that crappy seventy bucks long ago. He would have sent her twice that much if it could have ended the memories of the kid in the Braves tshirt and the reaching starfish hand. But he didnt have the address, so he stayed sober instead. Scourging himself with whips. Dry ones. Then one night he passed a drinking establishment called the Fishermans Rest and through the window spied a goodlooking blonde sitting alone at the bar. She was wearing a tartan skirt that ended at midthigh and she looked lonely and he went in and it turned out she was newly divorced and wow, that was a shame, maybe shed like some company, and three days later he woke up with that same old black hole in his memory. He went to the veterans center where he had been mopping floors and changing lightbulbs, hoping for a break, but no dice. Dontgivemuchofashit wasnt quite the same as dontgiveanyshit; close but no cigar. Leaving with the few items that had been in his locker, he recalled an old Bobcat Goldthwait line My job was still there, but somebody else was doing it. So he boarded another bus, this one headed for New Hampshire, and before he got on, he bought a glass container of intoxicating liquid. He sat all the way in back in the Drunk Seat, the one by the toilet. Experience had taught him that if you intended to spend a bus trip getting smashed, that was the seat to take. He reached into the brown paper sack, loosened the cap on the glass container of intoxicating liquid, and smelled the brown smell. That smell could talk, although it only had one thing to say Hello, old friend. He thought Canny. He thought Mama. He thought of Tommy going to school by now. Always assuming good old Uncle Randy hadnt killed him. He thought, The only one who can put on the brakes is you. This thought had come to him many times before, but now it was followed by a new one. You dont have to live this way if you dont want to. You can, of course . . . but you dont have to. That voice was so strange, so unlike any of his usual mental dialogues, that he thought at first he must be picking it up from someone elsehe could do that, but he rarely got uninvited transmissions anymore. He had learned to shut them off. Nevertheless he looked up the aisle, almost positive he would see someone looking back at him. No one was. Everyone was sleeping, talking with their seatmates, or staring out at the gray New England day. You dont have to live this way if you dont want to. If only that were true. Nevertheless, he tightened the cap on the bottle and put it on the seat beside him. Twice he picked it up. The first time he put it down. The second time he reached into the bag and unscrewed the cap again, but as he did, the bus pulled into the New Hampshire welcome area just across the state line. Dan filed into the Burger King with the rest of the passengers, pausing only long enough to toss the paper bag into one of the trash containers. Stenciled on the side of the tall green can were the words IF YOU NO LONGER NEED IT, LEAVE IT HERE. Wouldnt that be nice, Dan thought, hearing the clink as it landed. Oh God, wouldnt that be nice. 2 An hour and a half later, the bus passed a sign reading WELCOME TO FRAZIER, WHERE THERES A REASON FOR EVERY SEASON! And, below that, HOME OF TEENYTOWN! The bus stopped at the Frazier Community Center to take on passengers, and from the empty seat next to Dan, where the bottle had rested for the first part of the trip, Tony spoke up. Here was a voice Dan recognized, although Tony hadnt spoken so clearly in years. (this is the place) As good as any, Dan thought. He grabbed his duffel from the overhead rack and got off. He stood on the sidewalk and watched the bus pull away. To the west, the White Mountains sawed at the horizon. In all his wanderings he had avoided mountains, especially the jagged monsters that broke the country in two. Now he thought, Ive come back to the high country after all. I guess I always knew I would. But these mountains were gentler than the ones that still sometimes haunted his dreams, and he thought he could live with them, at least for a little while. If he could stop thinking about the kid in the Braves tshirt, that is. If he could stop using the booze. There came a time when you realized that moving on was pointless. That you took yourself with you wherever you went. A snow flurry, fine as wedding lace, danced across the air. He could see that the shops lining the wide main street catered mostly to the skiers whod come in December and the summer people whod come in June. There would probably be leafpeepers in September and October, too, but this was what passed for spring in northern New England, an edgy eight weeks chromeplated with cold and damp. Frazier apparently hadnt figured out a reason for this season yet, because the main dragCranmore Avenuewas all but deserted. Dan slung the duffel over his shoulder and strolled slowly north. He stopped outside a wroughtiron fence to look at a rambling Victorian home flanked on both sides by newer brick buildings. These were connected to the Victorian by covered walkways. There was a turret at the top of the mansion on the left side, but none on the right, giving the place a queerly unbalanced look that Dan sort of liked. It was as if the big old girl were saying Yeah, part of me fell off. What the fuck. Someday itll happen to you. He started to smile. Then the smile died. Tony was in the window of the turret room, looking down at him. He saw Dan looking up and waved. The same solemn wave Dan remembered from his childhood, when Tony had come often. Dan closed his eyes, then opened them. Tony was gone. Had never been there in the first place, how could he have been? The window was boarded up. The sign on the lawn, gold letters on a green background the same shade as the house itself, read HELEN RIVINGTON HOUSE. They have a cat in there, he thought. A gray cat named Audrey. This turned out to be partly right and partly wrong. There was a cat, and it was gray, but it was a neutered tom and its name wasnt Audrey. Dan looked at the sign for a long timelong enough for the clouds to part and send down a biblical beamand then he walked on. Although the sun was now bright enough to twinkle the chrome of the few slantparked cars in front of Olympia Sports and the Fresh Day Spa, the snow still swirled, making Dan think of something his mother had said during similar spring weather, long ago, when they had lived in Vermont The devils beating his wife. 3 A block or two up from the hospice, Dan stopped again. Across the street from the town municipal building was the Frazier town common. There was an acre or two of lawn, just beginning to show green, a bandstand, a softball field, a paved basketball halfcourt, picnic tables, even a putting green. All very nice, but what interested him was a sign reading VISIT TEENYTOWN FRAZIERS SMALL WONDER AND RIDE THE TEENYTOWN RAILWAY! It didnt take a genius to see that Teenytown was a teeny replica of Cranmore Avenue. There was the Methodist church he had passed, its steeple rising all of seven feet into the air; there was the Music Box Theater; Spondulicks Ice Cream; Mountain Books; Shirts  Stuff; the Frazier Gallery, Fine Prints Our Specialty. There was also a perfect waisthigh miniature of the singleturreted Helen Rivington House, although the two flanking brick buildings had been omitted. Perhaps, Dan thought, because they were buttugly, especially compared to the centerpiece. Beyond Teenytown was a miniature train with TEENYTOWN RAILWAY painted on passenger cars that were surely too small to hold anyone larger than toddler size. Smoke was puffing from the stack of a bright red locomotive about the size of a Honda Gold Wing motorcycle. He could hear the rumble of a diesel engine. Printed on the side of the loco, in oldfashioned gold flake letters, was THE HELEN RIVINGTON. Town patroness, Dan supposed. Somewhere in Frazier there was probably a street named after her, too. He stood where he was for a bit, although the sun had gone back in and the day had grown cold enough for him to see his breath. As a kid hed always wanted an electric train set and had never had one. Yonder in Teenytown was a jumbo version kids of all ages could love.


He shifted his duffel bag to his other shoulder and crossed the street. Hearing Tony againand seeing himwas unsettling, but right now he was glad hed stopped here. Maybe this really was the place hed been looking for, the one where hed finally find a way to right his dangerously tipped life. You take yourself with you, wherever you go. He pushed the thought into a mental closet. It was a thing he was good at. There was all sorts of stuff in that closet. 4 A cowling surrounded the locomotive on both sides, but he spied a footstool standing beneath one low eave of the Teenytown Station, carried it over, and stood on it. The drivers cockpit contained two sheepskincovered bucket seats. It looked to Dan as if they had been scavenged from an old Detroit muscle car. The cockpit and controls also looked like modified Detroit stock, with the exception of an oldfashioned Zshaped shifter jutting up from the floor. There was no shift pattern; the original knob had been replaced with a grinning skull wearing a bandanna faded from red to pallid pink by years of gripping hands. The top half of the steering wheel had been cut off, so that what remained looked like the steering yoke of a light plane. Painted in black on the dashboard, fading but legible, was TOP SPEED 40 DO NOT EXCEED. Like it? The voice came from directly behind him. Dan wheeled around, almost falling off the stool. A big weathered hand gripped his forearm, steadying him. It was a guy who looked to be in his late fifties or early sixties, wearing a padded denim jacket and a redchecked hunting cap with the earflaps down. In his free hand was a toolkit with PROPERTY OF FRAZIER MUNICIPAL DEPT Dymotaped across the top. Hey, sorry, Dan said, stepping off the stool. I didnt mean to Sall right. People stop to look all the time. Usually modeltrain buffs. Its like a dream come true for em. We keep em away in the summer when the place is jumpin and the Riv runs every hour or so, but this time of year theres no we, just me. And I dont mind. He stuck out his hand. Billy Freeman. Town maintenance crew. The Rivs my baby. Dan took the offered hand. Dan Torrance. Billy Freeman eyed the duffel. Just got off the bus, I magine. Or are you ridin your thumb? Bus, Dan said. What does this thing have for an engine? Well now, thats interesting. Probably never heard of the Chevrolet Veraneio, didja? He hadnt, but knew anyway. Because Freeman knew. Dan didnt think hed had such a clear shine in years. It brought a ghost of delight that went back to earliest childhood, before he had discovered how dangerous the shining could be. Brazilian Suburban, wasnt it? Turbodiesel. Freemans bushy eyebrows shot up and he grinned. Goddam right! Casey Kingsley, hes the boss, bought it at an auction last year. Its a corker. Pulls like a sonofabitch. The instrument panels from a Suburban, too. The seats I put in myself. The shine was fading now, but Dan got one last thing. From a GTO Judge. Freeman beamed. Thats right. Found em in a junkyard over Sunapee way. The shifters a highhat from a 1961 Mack. Ninespeed. Nice, huh? You lookin for work or just lookin? Dan blinked at the sudden change of direction. Was he looking for work? He supposed he was. The hospice hed passed on his amble up Cranmore Avenue would be the logical place to start, and he had an ideadidnt know if it was the shining or just ordinary intuitionthat theyd be hiring, but he wasnt sure he wanted to go there just yet. Seeing Tony in the turret window had been unsettling. Also, Danny, you want to be a little bit farther down the road from your last drink before you show up there askin for a job application form. Even if the only thing they got is runnin a buffer on the night shift. Dick Halloranns voice. Christ. Dan hadnt thought of Dick in a long time. Maybe not since Wilmington. With summer cominga season for which Frazier most definitely had a reasonpeople would be hiring for all sorts of things. But if he had to choose between a Chilis at the local mall and Teenytown, he definitely chose Teenytown. He opened his mouth to answer Freemans question, but Hallorann spoke up again before he could. Youre closing in on the big threeoh, honey. You could be runnin out of chances. Meanwhile, Billy Freeman was looking at him with open and artless curiosity. Yes, he said. Im looking for work. Workin in Teenytown, wouldnt last long, yknow. Once summer comes and the schools let out, Mr. Kingsley hires local. Eighteen to twentytwo, mostly. The selectmen expect it. Also, kids work cheap. He grinned, exposing holes where a couple of teeth had once resided. Still, there are worse places to make a buck. Outdoor work dont look so good today, but it wont be cold like this much longer. No, it wouldnt be. There were tarps over a lot of stuff on the common, but theyd be coming off soon, exposing the superstructure of smalltown resort summer hotdog stands, ice cream booths, a circular something that looked to Dan like a merrygoround. And there was the train, of course, the one with the teeny passenger cars and the big turbodiesel engine. If he could stay off the sauce and prove trustworthy, Freeman or the bossKingsleymight let him drive it a time or two. Hed like that. Farther down the line, when the municipal department hired the justoutofschool local kids, there was always the hospice. If he decided to stay, that was. You better stay somewhere, Hallorann saidthis was Dans day for hearing voices and seeing visions, it seemed. You better stay somewhere soon, or you wont be able to stay anywhere. He surprised himself by laughing. It sounds good to me, Mr. Freeman. It sounds really good. 5 Done any grounds maintenance? Billy Freeman asked. They were walking slowly along the flank of the train. The tops of the cars only came up to Dans chest, making him feel like a giant. I can weed, plant, and paint. I know how to run a leaf blower and a chainsaw. I can fix small engines if the problem isnt too complicated. And I can manage a riding mower without running over any little kids. The train, now . . . that I dont know about. Youd need to get cleared by Kingsley for that. Insurance and shit. Listen, have you got references? Mr. Kingsley wont hire without em. A few. Mostly janitorial and hospital orderly stuff. Mr. Freeman Just Billyll do. Your train doesnt look like it could carry passengers, Billy. Where would they sit? Billy grinned. Wait here. See if you think this is as funny as I do. I never get tired of it. Freeman went back to the locomotive and leaned in. The engine, which had been idling lazily, began to rev and send up rhythmic jets of dark smoke. There was a hydraulic whine along the whole length of The Helen Rivington. Suddenly the roofs of the passenger wagons and the yellow caboosenine cars in allbegan to rise. To Dan it looked like the tops of nine identical convertibles all going up at the same time. He bent down to look in the windows and saw hard plastic seats running down the center of each car. Six in the passenger wagons and two in the caboose. Fifty in all. When Billy came back, Dan was grinning. Your train must look very weird when its full of passengers. Oh yeah. People laugh their asses off and burn yea film, takin pitchers. Watch this. There was a steelplated step at the end of each passenger car. Billy used one, walked down the aisle, and sat. A peculiar optical illusion took hold, making him look larger than life. He waved grandly to Dan, who could imagine fifty Brobdingnagians, dwarfing the train upon which they rode, pulling grandly out of Teenytown Station. As Billy Freeman rose and stepped back down, Dan applauded. Ill bet you sell about a billion postcards between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Bet your ass. Billy rummaged in his coat pocket, brought out a battered pack of Duke cigarettesa cutrate brand Dan knew well, sold in bus stations and convenience stores all over Americaand held it out. Dan took one. Billy lit them up. I better enjoy it while I can, Billy said, looking at his cigarette. Smokingll be banned here before too many more years. Frazier Womens Clubs already talkin about it. Bunch of old biddies if you ask me, but you know what they saythe hand that rocks the fuckin cradle rules the fuckin world. He jetted smoke from his nostrils. Not that most of them have rocked a cradle since Nixon was president. Or needed a Tampax, for that matter. Might not be the worst thing, Dan said. Kids copy what they see in their elders. He thought of his father. The only thing Jack Torrance had liked better than a drink, his mother had once said, not long before she died, was a dozen drinks. Of course what Wendy had liked was her cigarettes, and they had killed her. Once upon a time Dan had promised himself hed never get going with that habit, either. He had come to believe that life was a series of ironic ambushes. Billy Freeman looked at him, one eye squinted mostly shut. I get feelins about people sometimes, and I got one about you. He pronounced got as gut, in the New England fashion. Had it even before you turned around and I saw your face. I think you might be the right guy for the spring cleanin Im lookin at between now and the end of May. Thats how it feels to me, and I trust my feelins. Probly crazy. Dan didnt think it was crazy at all, and now he understood why he had heard Billy Freemans thoughts so clearly, and without even trying. He remembered something Dick Hallorann had told him onceDick, who had been his first adult friend. Lots of people have got a little of what I call the shining, but mostly its just a twinklethe kind of thing that lets em know what the DJs going to play next on the radio or that the phones gonna ring pretty soon. Billy Freeman had that little twinkle. That gleam. I guess this Cary Kingsley would be the one to talk to, huh? Casey, not Cary. But yeah, hes the man. Hes run municipal services in this town for twentyfive years. When would be a good time? Right about now, I shd think. Billy pointed. Yonder pile of bricks across the streets the Frazier Municipal Building and town offices. Mr. Kingsleys in the basement, end of the hall. Youll know youre there when you hear disco music comin down through the ceiling. Theres a ladies aerobics class in the gym every Tuesday and Thursday. All right, Dan said, thats just what Im going to do. Got your references? Yes. Dan patted the duffel, which he had leaned against Teenytown Station. And you didnt write them yourself, nor nothin? Danny smiled. No, theyre straight goods. Then go get im, tiger. Okay. One other thing, Billy said as Dan started away. Hes death on drinkin. If youre a drinkin man and he asts you, my advice is . . . lie. Dan nodded and raised his hand to show he understood. That was a lie he had told before. 6 Judging by his veincongested nose, Casey Kingsley had not always been death on drinkin. He was a big man who didnt so much inhabit his small, cluttered office as wear it. Right now he was rocked back in the chair behind his desk, going through Dans references, which were neatly kept in a blue folder. The back of Kingsleys head almost touched the downstroke of a plain wooden cross hanging on the wall beside a framed photo of his family. In the picture, a younger, slimmer Kingsley posed with his wife and three bathingsuited kiddos on a beach somewhere. Through the ceiling, only slightly muted, came the sound of the Village People singing YMCA, accompanied by the enthusiastic stomp of many feet. Dan imagined a gigantic centipede. One that had recently been to the local hairdresser and was wearing a bright red leotard about nine yards long. Uhhuh, Kingsley said. Uhhuh . . . yeah . . . right, right, right . . . There was a glass jar filled with hard candies on the corner of his desk. Without looking up from Dans thin sheaf of references, he took off the top, fished one out, and popped it into his mouth. Help yourself, he said. No, thank you, Dan said. A queer thought came to him. Once upon a time, his father had probably sat in a room like this, being interviewed for the position of caretaker at the Overlook Hotel. What had he been thinking? That he really needed a job? That it was his last chance? Maybe. Probably. But of course, Jack Torrance had had hostages to fortune. Dan did not. He could drift on for awhile if this didnt work out. Or try his luck at the hospice. But . . . he liked the town common. He liked the train, which made adults of ordinary size look like Goliaths. He liked Teenytown, which was absurd and cheerful and somehow brave in its selfimportant smalltownAmerica way. And he liked Billy Freeman, who had a pinch of the shining and probably didnt even know it. Above them, YMCA was replaced by I Will Survive. As if he had just been waiting for a new tune, Kingsley slipped Dans references back into the folders pocket and passed them across the desk. Hes going to turn me down. But after a day of accurate intuitions, this one was off the mark. These look fine, but it strikes me that youd be a lot more comfortable working at Central New Hampshire Hospital or the hospice here in town. You might even qualify for Home HelpersI see youve got a few medical and first aid qualifications. Know your way around a defibrillator, according to these. Heard of Home Helpers? Yes. And I thought about the hospice. Then I saw the town common, and Teenytown, and the train. Kingsley grunted. Probably wouldnt mind taking a turn at the controls, would you? Dan lied without hesitation. No, sir, I dont think Id care for that. To admit hed like to sit in the scavenged GTO drivers seat and lay his hands on that cutdown steering wheel would almost certainly lead to a discussion of his drivers license, then to a further discussion of how hed lost it, and then to an invitation to leave Mr. Casey Kingsleys office forthwith. Im more of a rakeandlawnmower guy. More of a shortterm employment guy, too, from the looks of this paperwork. Ill settle someplace soon. Ive worked most of the wanderlust out of my system, I think. He wondered if that sounded as bullshitty to Kingsley as it did to him. Short terms about all I can offer you, Kingsley said. Once the schools are out for the summer Billy told me. If I decide to stay once summer comes, Ill try the hospice. In fact, I might put in an early application, unless youd rather I dont do that. I dont care either way. Kingsley looked at him curiously. Dying people dont bother you? Your mother died there, Danny thought. The shine wasnt gone after all, it seemed; it was hardly even hiding. You were holding her hand when she passed. Her name was Ellen. No, he said. Then, with no reason why, he added Were all dying. The worlds just a hospice with fresh air. A philosopher, yet. Well, Mr. Torrance, I think Im going to take you on. I trust Billys judgmenthe rarely makes a mistake about people. Just dont show up late, dont show up drunk, and dont show up with red eyes and smelling of weed. If you do any of those things, down the road youll go, because the Rivington House wont have a thing to do with youIll make sure of it. Are we clear on that? Dan felt a throb of resentment (officious prick) but suppressed it. This was Kingsleys playing field and Kingsleys ball. Crystal. You can start tomorrow, if that suits. There are plenty of rooming houses in town. Ill make a call or two if you want. Can you stand paying ninety a week until your first paycheck comes in? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Kingsley. Kingsley waved a hand. In the meantime, Id recommend the Red Roof Inn. My exbrotherinlaw runs it, hell give you a rate. We good? We are. It had all happened with remarkable speed, the way the last few pieces drop into a complicated thousandpiece jigsaw puzzle. Dan told himself not to trust the feeling. Kingsley rose. He was a big man and it was a slow process. Dan also got to his feet, and when Kingsley stuck his ham of a hand over the cluttered desk, Dan shook it. Now from overhead came the sound of KC and the Sunshine Band telling the world thats the way they liked it, ohho, uhhuh. I hate that boogiedown shit, Kingsley said. No, Danny thought. You dont. It reminds you of your daughter, the one who doesnt come around much anymore. Because she still hasnt forgiven you. You all right? Kingsley asked. You look a little pale. Just tired. It was a long bus ride. The shining was back, and strong. The question was, why now? 7 Three days into the job, ones Dan spent painting the bandstand and blowing last falls dead leaves off the common, Kingsley ambled across Cranmore Avenue and told him he had a room on Eliot Street, if he wanted it. Private bathroom part of the deal, tub and shower. Eightyfive a week. Dan wanted it. Go on over on your lunch break, Kingsley said. Ask for Mrs. Robertson. He pointed a finger that was showing the first gnarls of arthritis. And dont you fuck up, Sunny Jim, because shes an old pal of mine. Remember that I vouched for you on some pretty thin paper and Billy Freemans intuition. Dan said he wouldnt fuck up, but the extra sincerity he tried to inject into his voice sounded phony to his own ears. He was thinking of his father again, reduced to begging jobs from a wealthy old friend after losing his teaching position in Vermont. It was strange to feel sympathy for a man who had almost killed you, but the sympathy was there. Had people felt it necessary to tell his father not to fuck up? Probably. And Jack Torrance had fucked up anyway. Spectacularly. Five stars. Drinking was undoubtedly a part of it, but when you were down, some guys just seemed to feel an urge to walk up your back and plant a foot on your neck instead of helping you to stand. It was lousy, but so much of human nature was. Of course when you were running with the bottom dogs, what you mostly saw were paws, claws, and assholes. And see if Billy can find some boots thatll fit you. Hes squirreled away about a dozen pairs in the equipment shed, although the last time I looked, only half of them matched. The day was sunny, the air balmy. Dan, who was working in jeans and a Utica Blue Sox tshirt, looked up at the nearly cloudless sky and then back at Casey Kingsley. Yeah, I know how it looks, but this is mountain country, pal. NOAA claims were going to have a noreaster, and itll drop maybe a foot. Wont last longpoor mans fertilizer is what New Hampshire folks call April snowbut theres also gonna be galeforce winds. So they say. I hope you can use a snowblower as well as a leaf blower. He paused. I also hope your backs okay, because you and Billyll be picking up plenty of dead limbs tomorrow. Might be cutting up some fallen trees, too. You okay with a chainsaw? Yes, sir, Dan said. Good. 8 Dan and Mrs. Robertson came to amicable terms; she even offered him an egg salad sandwich and a cup of coffee in the communal kitchen. He took her up on it, expecting all the usual questions about what had brought him to Frazier and where he had been before. Refreshingly, there were none. Instead she asked him if he had time to help her close the shutters on the downstairs windows in case they really did get what she called a cap o wind. Dan agreed. There werent many mottoes he lived by, but one was always get in good with the landlady; you never know when you might have to ask her for a rent extension. Back on the common, Billy was waiting with a list of chores. The day before, the two of them had taken the tarps off all the kiddie rides. That afternoon they put them back on, and shuttered the various booths and concessions. The days final job was backing the Riv into her shed. Then they sat in folding chairs beside the Teenytown station, smoking. Tell you what, Danno, Billy said, Im one tired hired man. Youre not the only one. But he felt okay, muscles limber and tingling. Hed forgotten how good outdoors work could be when you werent also working off a hangover. The sky had scummed over with clouds. Billy looked up at them and sighed. I hope to God it dont snow n blow as hard as the radio says, but it probably will. I found you some boots. They dont look like much, but at least they match. Dan took the boots with him when he walked across town to his new accommodations. By then the wind was picking up and the day was growing dark. That morning, Frazier had felt on the edge of summer. This evening the air held the facefreezing dampness of coming snow. The side streets were deserted and the houses buttoned up. Dan turned the corner from Morehead Street onto Eliot and paused. Blowing down the sidewalk, attended by a skeletal scutter of last years autumn leaves, was a battered tophat, such as a magician might wear. Or maybe an actor in an old musical comedy, he thought. Looking at it made him feel cold in his bones, because it wasnt there. Not really. He closed his eyes, slowcounted to five with the strengthening wind flapping the legs of his jeans around his shins, then opened them again. The leaves were still there, but the tophat was gone. It had just been the shining, producing one of its vivid, unsettling, and usually senseless visions. It was always stronger when hed been sober for a little while, but never as strong as it had been since coming to Frazier. It was as if the air here were different, somehow. More conducive to those strange transmissions from Planet Elsewhere. Special. The way the Overlook was special. No, he said. No, I dont believe that. A few drinks and it all goes away, Danny. Do you believe that? Unfortunately, he did. 9 Mrs. Robertsons was a rambling old Colonial, and Dans thirdfloor room had a view of the mountains to the west. That was a panorama he could have done without. His recollections of the Overlook had faded to hazy gray over the years, but as he unpacked his few things, a memory surfaced . . . and it was a kind of surfacing, like some nasty organic artifact (the decayed body of a small animal, say) floating to the surface of a deep lake. It was dusk when the first real snow came. We stood on the porch of that big old empty hotel, my dad in the middle, my mom on one side, me on the other. He had his arms around us. It was okay then. He wasnt drinking then. At first the snow fell in perfectly straight lines, but then the wind picked up and it started to blow sideways, drifting against the sides of the porch and coating those He tried to block it off, but it got through. those hedge animals. The ones that sometimes moved around when you werent looking. He turned away from the window, his arms rashed out in gooseflesh. Hed gotten a sandwich from the Red Apple store and had planned to eat it while he started the John Sandford paperback hed also picked up at the Red Apple, but after a few bites he rewrapped the sandwich and put it on the windowsill, where it would stay cold. He might eat the rest later, although he didnt think hed be staying up much past nine tonight; if he got a hundred pages into the book, hed be doing well. Outside, the wind continued to rise. Every now and then it gave a bloodcurdling scream around the eaves that made him look up from his book. Around eight thirty, the snow began. It was heavy and wet, quickly coating his window and blocking his view of the mountains. In a way, that was worse. The snow had blocked the windows in the Overlook, too. First just on the first floor . . . then on the second . . . and finally on the third. Then they had been entombed with the lively dead. My father thought theyd make him the manager. All he had to do was show his loyalty. By giving them his son. His only begotten son, Dan muttered, then looked around as if someone else had spoken . . . and indeed, he did not feel alone. Not quite alone. The wind shrieked down the side of the building again, and he shuddered. Not too late to go back down to the Red Apple. Grab a bottle of something. Put all these unpleasant thoughts to bed. No. He was going to read his book. Lucas Davenport was on the case, and he was going to read his book. He closed it at quarter past nine and got into another roominghouse bed. I wont sleep, he thought. Not with the wind screaming like that. But he did. 10 He was sitting at the mouth of the stormdrain, looking down a scrubgrass slope at the Cape Fear River and the bridge that spanned it. The night was clear and the moon was full. There was no wind, no snow. And the Overlook was gone. Even if it hadnt burned to the ground during the tenure of the Peanut Farmer President, it would have been over a thousand miles from here. So why was he so frightened? Because he wasnt alone, that was why. There was someone behind him. Want some advice, Honeybear? The voice was liquid, wavering. Dan felt a chill go rushing down his back. His legs were colder still, prickled out in starpoints of gooseflesh. He could see those white bumps because he was wearing shorts. Of course he was wearing shorts. His brain might be that of a grown man, but it was currently sitting on top of a fiveyearolds body. Honeybear. Who? But he knew. He had told Deenie his name, but she didnt use it, just called him Honeybear instead. You dont remember that, and besides, this is just a dream. Of course it was. He was in Frazier, New Hampshire, sleeping while a spring snowstorm howled outside Mrs. Robertsons rooming house. Still, it seemed wiser not to turn around. And saferthat, too. No advice, he said, looking out at the river and the full moon. Ive been advised by experts. The bars and barbershops are full of them. Stay away from the woman in the hat, Honeybear. What hat? he could have asked, but really, why bother? He knew the hat she was talking about, because he had seen it blowing down the sidewalk. Black as sin on the outside, lined with white silk on the inside. Shes the Queen Bitch of Castle Hell. If you mess with her, shell eat you alive. He turned his head. He couldnt help it. Deenie was sitting behind him in the stormdrain with the bums blanket wrapped around her naked shoulders. Her hair was plastered to her cheeks. Her face was bloated and dripping. Her eyes were cloudy. She was dead, probably years in her grave. Youre not real, Dan tried to say, but no words came out. He was five again, Danny was five, the Overlook was ashes and bones, but here was a dead woman, one he had stolen from. Its all right, she said. Bubbling voice coming from a swollen throat. I sold the coke. Stepped on it first with a little sugar and got two hundred. She grinned, and water spilled through her teeth. I liked you, Honeybear. Thats why I came to warn you. Stay away from the woman in the hat. False face, Dan said . . . but it was Dannys voice, the high, frail, chanting voice of a child. False face, not there, not real. He closed his eyes as he had often closed them when he had seen terrible things in the Overlook. The woman began to scream, but he wouldnt open his eyes. The screaming went on, rising and falling, and he realized it was the scream of the wind. He wasnt in Colorado and he wasnt in North Carolina. He was in New Hampshire. Hed had a bad dream, but the dream was over. 11 According to his Timex, it was two in the morning. The room was cold, but his arms and chest were slimy with sweat. Want some advice, Honeybear? No, he said. Not from you. Shes dead. There was no way he could know that, but he did. Deeniewho had looked like the goddess of the Western world in her thighhigh leather skirt and cork sandalswas dead. He even knew how she had done it. Took pills, pinned up her hair, climbed into a bathtub filled with warm water, went to sleep, slid under, drowned. The roar of the wind was dreadfully familiar, loaded with hollow threat. Winds blew everywhere, but it only sounded like this in the high country. It was as if some angry god were pounding the world with an air mallet. I used to call his booze the Bad Stuff, Dan thought. Only sometimes its the Good Stuff. When you wake up from a nightmare that you know is at least fifty percent shining, its the Very Good Stuff. One drink would send him back to sleep. Three would guarantee not just sleep but dreamless sleep. Sleep was natures doctor, and right now Dan Torrance felt sick and in need of strong medicine. Nothings open. You lucked out there. Well. Maybe. He turned on his side, and something rolled against his back when he did. No, not something. Someone. Someone had gotten into bed with him. Deenie had gotten into bed with him. Only it felt too small to be Deenie. It felt more like a He scrambled out of bed, landed awkwardly on the floor, and looked over his shoulder. It was Deenies little boy, Tommy. The right side of his skull was caved in. Bone splinters protruded through bloodstained fair hair. Gray scaly muckbrainswas drying on one cheek. He couldnt be alive with such a hellacious wound, but he was. He reached out to Dan with one starfish hand. Canny, he said. The screaming began again, only this time it wasnt Deenie and it wasnt the wind. This time it was him. 12 When he woke for the second timereal waking, this timehe wasnt screaming at all, only making a kind of low growling deep in his chest. He sat up, gasping, the bedclothes puddled around his waist. There was no one else in his bed, but the dream hadnt yet dissolved, and looking wasnt enough. He threw back the bedclothes, and that still wasnt enough. He ran his hands down the bottom sheet, feeling for fugitive warmth, or a dent that might have been made by small hips and buttocks. Nothing. Of course not. So then he looked under the bed and saw only his borrowed boots. The wind was blowing less strongly now. The storm wasnt over, but it was winding down. He went to the bathroom, then whirled and looked back, as if expecting to surprise someone. There was just the bed, with the covers now lying on the floor at the foot. He turned on the light over the sink, splashed his face with cold water, and sat down on the closed lid of the commode, taking long breaths, one after the other. He thought about getting up and grabbing a cigarette from the pack lying beside his book on the rooms one small table, but his legs felt rubbery and he wasnt sure theyd hold him. Not yet, anyway. So he sat. He could see the bed and the bed was empty. The whole room was empty. No problem there. Only . . . it didnt feel empty. Not yet. When it did, he supposed he would go back to bed. But not to sleep. For this night, sleep was done. 13 Seven years before, working as an orderly in a Tulsa hospice, Dan had made friends with an elderly psychiatrist who was suffering from terminal liver cancer. One day, when Emil Kemmer had been reminiscing (not very discreetly) about a few of his more interesting cases, Dan had confessed that ever since childhood, he had suffered from what he called double dreaming. Was Kemmer familiar with the phenomenon? Was there a name for it? Kemmer had been a large man in his primethe old blackandwhite wedding photo he kept on his bedside table attested to thatbut cancer is the ultimate diet program, and on the day of this conversation, his weight had been approximately the same as his age, which was ninetyone. His mind had still been sharp, however, and now, sitting on the closed toilet and listening to the dying storm outside, Dan remembered the old mans sly smile. Usually, he had said in his heavy German accent, I am paid for my diagnoses, Daniel. Dan had grinned. Guess Im out of luck, then. Perhaps not. Kemmer studied Dan. His eyes were bright blue. Although he knew it was outrageously unfair, Dan couldnt help imagining those eyes under a WaffenSS coalscuttle helmet. Theres a rumor in this deathhouse that you are a kid with a talent for helping people die. Is this true? Sometimes, Dan said cautiously. Not always. The truth was almost always. When the time comes, will you help me? If I can, of course. Good. Kemmer sat up, a laboriously painful process, but when Dan moved to help, Kemmer had waved him away. What you call double dreaming is well known to psychiatrists, and of particular interest to Jungians, who call it false awakening.