A kid on a snowmobile, barrelassing up a road hed never traveled before at better than thirty miles an hour. Night. His headlight off. There had been a heavy chain strung between two posts with a NO TRESPASSING sign hung from the middle. They said that in all probability the kid never saw it. The moon might have gone behind a cloud. The chain had decapitated him. Reading the story Jack had been almost glad, and now, looking down at this machine, the feeling recurred. (If it wasnt for Danny, I would take great pleasure in grabbing one of those mallets, opening the cowling, and just pounding until) He let his pentup breath escape him in a long slow sigh. Wendy was right. Come hell, high water, or the welfare line, Wendy was right. Pounding this machine to death would be the height of folly, no matter how pleasant an aspect that folly made. It would almost be tantamount to pounding his own son to death. Fucking Luddite, he said aloud. He went to the back of the machine and unscrewed the gascap. He found a dipstick on one of the shelves that ran at chestheight around the walls and slipped it in. The last eighth of an inch came out wet. Not very much, but enough to see if the damn thing would run. Later he could siphon more from the Volks and the hotel truck. He screwed the cap back on and opened the cowling. No sparkplugs, no battery. He went to the shelf again and began to poke along it, pushing aside screwdrivers and adjustable wrenches, a onelung carburetor that had been taken out of an old lawnmower, plastic boxes of screws and nails and bolts of varying sizes. The shelf was thick and dark with old grease, and the years accumulation of dust had stuck to it like fur. He didnt like touching it. He found a small, oilstained box with the abbreviation Skid. laconically marked on it in pencil. He shook it and something rattled inside. Plugs. He held one of them up to the light, trying to estimate the gap without hunting around for the gapping tool. Fuck it, he thought resentfully, and dropped the plug back into the box. If the gaps wrong, thats just too damn bad. Tough fucking titty. There was a stool behind the door. He dragged it over, sat down, and installed the four sparkplugs, then fitted the small rubber caps over each. That done, he let his fingers play briefly over the magneto. They laughed when I sat down at the piano. Back to the shelves. This time he couldnt find what he wanted, a small battery. A three or fourcell. There were socket wrenches, a case filled with drills and drillbits, bags of lawn fertilizer and Vigoro for the flower beds, but no snowmobile battery. It didnt bother him in the slightest. In fact, it made him feel glad. He was relieved. I did my best, Captain, but I could not get through. Thats fine, son. Im going to put you in for the Silver Star and the Purple Snowmobile. Youre a credit to your regiment. Thank you, sir. I did try. He began to whistle Red River Valley uptempo as he poked along the last two or three feet of shelf. The notes came out in little puffs of white smoke. He had made a complete circuit of the shed and the thing wasnt there. Maybe somebody had lifted it. Maybe Watson had. He laughed aloud. The old office bootleg trick. A few paperclips, a couple of reams of paper, nobody will miss this tablecloth or this Golden Regal place setting  and what about this fine snowmobile battery? Yes, that might come in handy. Toss it in the sack. Whitecollar crime, baby. Everybody has sticky fingers. Underthejacket discount, we used to call it when we were kids. He walked back to the snowmobile and gave the side of it a good healthy kick as he went by. Well, that was the end of it. He would just have to tell Wendy sorry, baby, but There was a box sitting in the corner by the door. The stool had been right over it. Written on the top, in pencil, was the abbreviation Skid. He looked at it, the smile drying up on his lips. Look, sir, its the cavalry. Looks like your smoke signals must have worked after all. It wasnt fair. Goddammit, it just wasnt fair. Somethingluck, fate, providencehad been trying to save him. Some other luck, white luck. And at the last moment bad old Jack Torrance luck had stepped back in. The lousy run of cards wasnt over yet. Resentment, a gray, sullen wave of it, pushed up his throat. His hands had clenched into fists again. (Not fair, goddammit, not fair!) Why couldnt he have looked someplace else? Anyplace! Why hadnt he had a crick in his neck or an itch in his nose or the need to blink? Just one of those little things. He never would have seen it. Well, he hadnt. That was all. It was a hallucination, no different from what had happened yesterday outside that room on the second floor or the goddam hedge menagerie. A momentary strain, that was all. Fancy, I thought I saw a snowmobile battery in that corner. Nothing there now. Combat fatigue, I guess, sir. Sorry. Keep your pecker up, son. It happens to all of us sooner or later. He yanked the door open almost hard enough to snap the hinges and pulled his snowshoes inside. They were clotted with snow and he slapped them down hard enough on the floor to raise a cloud of it. He put his left foot on the left shoe  and paused. Danny was out there, by the milk platform. Trying to make a snowman, by the looks. Not much luck; the snow was too cold to stick together. Still, he was giving it the old college try, out there in the flashing morning, a speck of a bundledup boy above the brilliant snow and below the brilliant sky. Wearing his hat turned around backward like Carlton Fisk. (What in the name of God were you thinking of?) The answer came back with no pause. (Me. I was thinking of me.) He suddenly remembered lying in bed the night before, lying there and suddenly he had been contemplating the murder of his wife. In that instant, kneeling there, everything came clear to him. It was not just Danny the Overlook was working on. It was working on him, too. It wasnt Danny who was the weak link, it was him. He was the vulnerable one, the one who could be bent and twisted until something snapped. (until i let go and sleep  and when i do that if i do that) He looked up at the banks of windows and the sun threw back an almost blinding glare from their manypaned surfaces but he looked anyway. For the first time he noticed how much they seemed like eyes. They reflected away the sun and held their own darkness within. It was not Danny they were looking at. It was him. In those few seconds he understood everything. There was a certain blackandwhite picture he remembered seeing as a child, in catechism class. The nun had presented it to them on an easel and called it a miracle of God. The class had looked at it blankly, seeing nothing but a jumble of whites and blacks, senseless and patternless. Then one of the children in the third row had gasped, Its Jesus! and that child had gone home with a brandnew Testament and also a calendar because he had been first. The others stared even harder, Jacky Torrance among them. One by one the other kids had given a similar gasp, one little girl transported in nearecstasy, crying out shrilly I see Him! I see Him! She had also been rewarded with a Testament. At last everyone had seen the face of Jesus in the jumble of blacks and whites except Jacky. He strained harder and harder, scared now, part of him cynically thinking that everyone else was simply putting on to please Sister Beatrice, part of him secretly convinced that he wasnt seeing it because God had decided he was the worst sinner in the class. Dont you see it, Jacky? Sister Beatrice had asked him in her sad, sweet manner. I see your tits, he had thought in vicious desperation. He began to shake his head, then faked excitement and said Yes, I do! Wow! It is Jesus! And everyone in class had laughed and applauded him, making him feel triumphant, ashamed, and scared. Later, when everyone else had tumbled their way up from the church basement and out onto the street he had lingered behind, looking at the meaningless blackandwhite jumble that Sister Beatrice had left on the easel. He hated it. They had all made it up the way he had, even Sister herself. It was a big fake. Shitfirehellfireshitfire, he had whispered under his breath, and as he turned to go he had seen the face of Jesus from the corner of his eye, sad and wise. He turned back, his heart in his throat. Everything had suddenly clicked into place and he had stared at the picture with fearful wonder, unable to believe he had missed it. The eyes, the zigzag of shadow across the careworn brow, the fine nose, the compassionate lips. Looking at Jacky Torrance. What had only been a meaningless sprawl had suddenly been transformed into a stark blackandwhite etching of the face of ChristOurLord. Fearful wonder became terror. He had cussed in front of a picture of Jesus. He would be damned. He would be in hell with the sinners. The face of Christ had been in the picture all along. All along. Now, kneeling in the sun and watching his son playing in the shadow of the hotel, he knew that it was all true. The hotel wanted Danny, maybe all of them but Danny for sure. The hedges had really walked. There was a dead woman in 217, a woman that was perhaps only a spirit and harmless under most circumstances, but a woman who was now an active danger. Like some malevolent clockwork toy she had been wound up and set in motion by Dannys own odd mind  and his own. Had it been Watson who had told him a man had dropped dead of a stroke one day on the roque court? Or had it been Ullman? It didnt matter. There had been an assassination on the third floor. How many old quarrels, suicides, strokes? How many murders? Was Grady lurking somewhere in the west wing with his ax, just waiting for Danny to start him up so he could come back out of the woodwork? The puffed circle of bruises around Dannys neck. The twinkling, halfseen bottles in the deserted lounge. The radio. The dreams. The scrapbook he had found in the cellar. (Medoc, are you here? Ive been sleepwalking again, my dear ) He got up suddenly, thrusting the snowshoes back out the door. He was shaking all over. He slammed the door and picked up the box with the battery in it. It slipped through his shaking fingers (oh christ what if i cracked it) and thumped over on its side. He pulled the flaps of the carton open and yanked the battery out, heedless of the acid that might be leaking through the batterys casing if it had cracked. But it hadnt. It was whole. A little sigh escaped his lips. Cradling it, he took it over to the SkiDoo and put it on its platform near the front of the engine. He found a small adjustable wrench on one of the shelves and attached the battery cables quickly and with no trouble. The battery was live; no need to use the charger on it. There had been a crackle of electricity and a small odor of ozone when he slipped the positive cable onto its terminal. The job done, he stood away, wiping his hands nervously on his faded denim jacket. There. It should work. No reason why not. No reason at all except that it was part of the Overlook and the Overlook really didnt want them out of here. Not at all. The Overlook was having one hell of a good time. There was a little boy to terrorize, a man and his woman to set one against the other, and if it played its cards right they could end up flitting through the Overlooks halls like insubstantial shades in a Shirley Jackson novel, whatever walked in Hill House walked alone, but you wouldnt be alone in the Overlook, oh no, there would be plenty of company here. But there was really no reason why the snowmobile shouldnt start. Except of course (Except he still didnt really want to go.) yes, except for that. He stood looking at the SkiDoo, his breath puffing out in frozen little plumes. He wanted it to be the way it had been. When he had come in here hed had no doubts. Going down would be the wrong decision, he had known that then. Wendy was only scared of the boogeyman summoned up by a single hysterical little boy. Now, suddenly, he could see her side. It was like his play, his damnable play. He no longer knew which side he was on, or how things should come out. Once you saw the face of a god in those jumbled blacks and whites, it was everybody out of the poolyou could never unsee it. Others might laugh and say its nothing, just a lot of splotches with no meaning, give me a good old Craftmaster paintbythenumbers any day, but you would always see the face of ChristOurLord looking out at you. You had seen it in one gestalt leap, the conscious and unconscious melding in that one shocking moment of understanding. You would always see it. You were damned to always see it. (Ive been sleepwalking again, my dear ) It had been all right until he had seen Danny playing in the snow. It was Dannys fault. Everything had been Dannys fault. He was the one with the shining, or whatever it was. It wasnt a shining, it was a curse. If he and Wendy had been here alone, they could have passed the winter quite nicely. No pain, no strain on the brain. (Dont want to leave. ?Cant?) The Overlook didnt want them to go and he didnt want them to go either. Not even Danny. Maybe he was a part of it, now. Perhaps the Overlook, large and rambling Samuel Johnson that it was, had picked him to be its Boswell. You say the new caretaker writes? Very good, sign him on. Time we told our side. Lets get rid of the woman and his snotnosed kid first, however. We dont want him to be distracted. We dont He was standing by the snowmobiles cockpit, his head starting to ache again. What did it come down to? Go or stay. Very simple. Keep it simple. Shall we go or shall we stay? If we go, how long will it be before you find the local hole in Sidewinder? a voice inside him asked. The dark place with the lousy color TV that unshaven and unemployed men spend the day watching game shows on? Where the piss in the mens room smells two thousand years old and theres always a sodden Camel butt unraveling in the toilet bowl? Where the beer is thirty cents a glass and you cut it with salt and the jukebox is loaded with seventy country oldies? How long? Oh Christ, he was so afraid it wouldnt be long at all. I cant win, he said, very softly. That was it. It was like trying to play solitaire with one of the aces missing from the deck. Abruptly he leaned over the SkiDoos motor compartment and yanked off the magneto. It came off with sickening ease. He looked at it for a moment, then went to the equipment sheds back door and opened it. From here the view of the mountains was unobstructed, picturepostcard beautiful in the twinkling brightness of morning. An unbroken field of snow rose to the first pines about a mile distant. He flung the magneto as far out into the snow as he could. It went much farther than it should have. There was a light puff of snow when it fell. The light breeze carried the snow granules away to fresh resting places. Disperse there, I say. Theres nothing to see. Its all over. Disperse. He felt at peace. He stood in the doorway for a long time, breathing the good mountain air, and then he closed it firmly and went back out the other door to tell Wendy they would be staying. On the way, he stopped and had a snowball fight with Danny. CHAPTER THIRTYFOUR THE HEDGES It was November 29, three days after Thanksgiving. The last week had been a good one, the Thanksgiving dinner the best theyd ever had as a family. Wendy had cooked Dick Halloranns turkey to a turn and they had all eaten to bursting without even coming close to demolishing the jolly bird. Jack had groaned that they would be eating turkey for the rest of the wintercreamed turkey, turkey sandwiches, turkey and noodles, turkey surprise. No, Wendy told him with a little smile. Only until Christmas. Then we have the capon. Jack and Danny groaned together. The bruises on Dannys neck had faded, and their fears seemed to have faded with them. On Thanksgiving afternoon Wendy had been pulling Danny around on his sled while Jack worked on the play, which was now almost done. Are you still afraid, doc? she had asked, not knowing how to put the question less baldly. Yes, he answered simply. But now I stay in the safe places. Your daddy says that sooner or later the forest rangers will wonder why were not checking in on the CB radio. Theyll come to see if anything is wrong. We might go down then. You and I. And let your daddy finish the winter. He has good reasons for wanting to. In a way, doc  I know this is hard for you to understand  our backs are against the wall. Yes, he had answered noncommittally. On this sparkling afternoon the two of them were upstairs, and Danny knew that they had been making love. They were dozing now. They were happy, he knew. His mother was still a little bit afraid, but his fathers attitude was strange. It was a feeling that he had done something that was very hard and had done it right. But Danny could not seem to see exactly what the something was. His father was guarding that carefully, even in his own mind. Was it possible, Danny wondered, to be glad you had done something and still be so ashamed of that something that you tried not to think of it? The question was a disturbing one. He didnt think such a thing was possible  in a normal mind. His hardest probings at his father had only brought him a dim picture of something like an octopus, whirling up into the hard blue sky. And on both occasions that he had concentrated hard enough to get this, Daddy had suddenly been staring at him in a sharp and frightening way, as if he knew what Danny was doing. Now he was in the lobby, getting ready to go out. He went out a lot, taking his sled or wearing his snowshoes. He liked to get out of the hotel. When he was out in the sunshine, it seemed like a weight had slipped from his shoulders. He pulled a chair over, stood on it, and got his parka and snow pants out of the ballroom closet, and then sat down on the chair to put them on. His boots were in the boot box and he pulled them on, his tongue creeping out into the corner of his mouth in concentration as he laced them and tied the rawhide into careful granny knots. He pulled on his mittens and his ski mask and was ready. He tramped out through the kitchen to the back door, then paused. He was tired of playing out back, and at this time of day the hotels shadow would be cast over his play area. He didnt even like being in the Overlooks shadow. He decided he would put on his snowshoes and go down to the playground instead. Dick Hallorann had told him to stay away from the topiary, but the thought of the hedge animals did not bother him much. They were buried under snowdrifts now, nothing showing but a vague hump that was the rabbits head and the lions tails. Sticking out of the snow the way they were, the tails looked more absurd than frightening. Danny opened the back door and got his snowshoes from the milk platform. Five minutes later he was strapping them to his feet on the front porch. His daddy had told him that he (Danny) had the hang of using the snowshoesthe lazy, shuffling stride, the twist of ankle that shook the powdery snow from the lacings just before the boot came back downand all that remained was for him to build up the necessary muscles in his thighs and calves and ankles. Danny found that his ankles got tired the fastest. Snowshoeing was almost as hard on your ankles as skating, because you had to keep clearing the lacings. Every five minutes or so he had to stop with his legs spread and the snowshoes flat on the snow to rest them. But he didnt have to rest on his way down to the playground because it was all downhill. Less than ten minutes after he struggled up and over the monstrous snowdune that had drifted in on the Overlooks front porch he was standing with his mittened hand on the playground slide. He wasnt even breathing hard. The playground seemed much nicer in the deep snow than it ever had during the autumn. It looked like a fairyland sculpture. The swing chains had been frozen in strange positions, the seats of the big kids swings resting flush against the snow. The jungle gym was an ice cave guarded by dripping icicle teeth. Only the chimneys of the playOverlook stuck up over the snow (wish the other one was buried that way only not with us in it) and the tops of the cement rings protruded in two places like Eskimo igloos. Danny tramped over there, squatted, and began to dig. Before long he had uncovered the dark mouth of one of them and he slipped into the cold tunnel. In his mind he was Patrick McGoohan, the Secret Agent Man (they had shown the reruns of that program twice on the Burlington TV channel and his daddy never missed them; he would skip a party to stay home and watch Secret Agent or The Avengers, and Danny had always watched with him), on the run from KGB agents in the mountains of Switzerland. There had been avalanches in the area and the notorious KGB agent Slobbo had killed his girlfriend with a poison dart, but somewhere near was the Russian antigravity machine. Perhaps at the end of this very tunnel. He drew his automatic and went along the concrete tunnel, his eyes wide and alert, his breath pluming out. The far end of the concrete ring was solidly blocked with snow. He tried digging through it and was amazed (and a little uneasy) to see how solid it was, almost like ice from the cold and the constant weight of more snow on top of it. His makebelieve game collapsed around him and he was suddenly aware that he felt closed in and extremely nervous in this tight ring of cement. He could hear his breathing; it sounded dank and quick and hollow. He was under the snow, and hardly any light filtered down the hole he had dug to get in here. Suddenly he wanted to be out in the sunlight more than anything, suddenly he remembered his daddy and mommy were sleeping and didnt know where he was, that if the hole he dug caved in he would be trapped, and the Overlook didnt like him. Danny got turned around with some difficulty and crawled back along the length of the concrete ring, his snowshoes clacking woodenly together behind him, his palms crackling in last falls dead aspen leaves beneath him. He had just reached the end and the cold spill of light coming down from above when the snow did give in, a minor fall, but enough to powder his face and clog the opening he had wriggled down through and leave him in darkness. For a moment his brain froze in utter panic and he could not think. Then, as if from far off, he heard his daddy telling him that he must never play at the Stovington dump, because sometimes stupid people hauled old refrigerators off to the dump without removing the doors and if you got in one and the door happened to shut on you, there was no way to get out. You would die in the darkness. (You wouldnt want a thing like that to happen to you, would you, doc?) (No, Daddy.) But it had happened, his frenzied mind told him, it had happened, he was in the dark, he was closed in, and it was as cold as a refrigerator. And (something is in here with me.) His breath stopped in a gasp. An almost drowsy terror stole through his veins. Yes. Yes. There was something in here with him, some awful thing the Overlook had saved for just such a chance as this. Maybe a huge spider that had burrowed down under the dead leaves, or a rat  or maybe the corpse of some little kid that had died here on the playground. Had that ever happened? Yes, he thought maybe it had. He thought of the woman in the tub. The blood and brains on the wall of the Presidential Sweet. Of some little kid, its head split open from a fall from the monkey bars or a swing, crawling after him in the dark, grinning, looking for one final playmate in its endless playground. Forever. In a moment he would hear it coming. At the far end of the concrete ring, Danny heard the stealthy crackle of dead leaves as something came for him on its hands and knees. At any moment he would feel its cold hand close over his ankle That thought broke his paralysis. He was digging at the loose fall of snow that choked the end of the concrete ring, throwing it back between his legs in powdery bursts like a dog digging for a bone. Blue light filtered down from above and Danny thrust himself up at it like a diver coming out of deep water. He scraped his back on the lip of the concrete ring. One of his snowshoes twisted behind the other. Snow spilled down inside his ski mask and into the collar of his parka. He dug at the snow, clawed at it. It seemed to be trying to hold him, to suck him back down, back into the concrete ring where that unseen, leafcrackling thing was, and keep him there. Forever. Then he was out, his face was turned up to the sun, and he was crawling through the snow, crawling away from the halfburied cement ring, gasping harshly, his face almost comically white with powdered snowa living frightmask. He hobbled over to the jungle gym and sat down to readjust his snowshoes and get his breath. As he set them to rights and tightened the straps again, he never took his eyes from the hole at the end of the concrete ring. He waited to see if something would come out. Nothing did, and after three or four minutes, Dannys breathing began to slow down. Whatever it was, it couldnt stand the sunlight. It was cooped up down there, maybe only able to come out when it was dark  or when both ends of its circular prison were plugged with snow. (but im safe now im safe ill just go back because now im) Something thumped softly behind him. He turned around, toward the hotel, and looked. But even before he looked (Can you see the Indians in this picture?) he knew what he would see, because he knew what that soft thumping sound had been. It was the sound of a large clump of snow falling, the way it sounded when it slid off the roof of the hotel and fell to the ground. (Can you see?) Yes. He could. The snow had fallen off the hedge dog. When he came down it had only been a harmless lump of snow outside the playground. Now it stood revealed, an incongruous splash of green in all the eyewatering whiteness. It was sitting up, as if to beg a sweet or a scrap. But this time he wouldnt go crazy, he wouldnt blow his cool. Because at least he wasnt trapped in some dark old hole. He was in the sunlight. And it was just a dog. Its pretty warm out today, he thought hopefully. Maybe the sun just melted enough snow off that old dog so the rest fell off in a bunch. Maybe thats all it is. (Dont go near that place  steer right clear.) His snowshoe bindings were as tight as they were ever going to be. He stood up and stared back at the concrete ring, almost completely submerged in the snow, and what he saw at the end he had exited from froze his heart. There was a circular patch of darkness at the end of it, a fold of shadow that marked the hole hed dug to get down inside. Now, in spite of the snowdazzle, he thought he could see something there. Something moving. A hand. The waving hand of some desperately unhappy child, waving hand, pleading hand, drowning hand. (Save me O please save me If you cant save me at least come play with me  Forever. And Forever. And Forever.) No, Danny whispered huskily. The word fell dry and bare from his mouth, which was stripped of moisture. He could feel his mind wavering now, trying to go away the way it had when the woman in the room had  no, better not think of that. He grasped at the strings of reality and held them tightly. He had to get out of here. Concentrate on that. Be cool. Be like the Secret Agent Man. Would Patrick McGoohan be crying and peeing in his pants like a little baby? Would his daddy? That calmed him somewhat. From behind him, that soft flump sound of falling snow came again. He turned around and the head of one of the hedge lions was sticking out of the snow now, snarling at him. It was closer than it should have been, almost up to the gate of the playground. Terror tried to rise up and he quelled it. He was the Secret Agent Man, and he would escape. He began to walk out of the playground, taking the same roundabout course his father had taken on the day that the snow flew. He concentrated on operating the snowshoes. Slow, flat strides. Dont lift your foot too high or youll lose your balance. Twist your ankle and spill the snow off the crisscrossed lacings. It seemed so slow. He reached the corner of the playground. The snow was drifted high here and he was able to step over the fence. He got halfway over and then almost fell flat when the snowshoe on his behind foot caught on one of the fence posts. He leaned on the outside edge of gravity, pinwheeling his arms, remembering how hard it was to get up once you fell down. From his right, that soft sound again, falling clumps of snow. He looked over and saw the other two lions, clear of snow now down to their forepaws, side by side, about sixty paces away. The green indentations that were their eyes were fixed on him. The dog had turned its head. (It only happens when youre not looking.) Oh! Hey His snowshoes had crossed and he plunged forward into the snow, arms waving uselessly. More snow got inside his hood and down his neck and into the tops of his boots. He struggled out of the snow and tried to get the snowshoes under him, heart hammering crazily now (Secret Agent Man remember youre the Secret Agent) and overbalanced backward. For a moment he lay there looking at the sky, thinking it would be simpler to just give up. Then he thought of the thing in the concrete tunnel and knew he could not. He gained his feet and stared over at the topiary. All three lions were bunched together now, not forty feet away. The dog had ranged off to their left, as if to block Dannys retreat. They were bare of snow except for powdery ruffs around their necks and muzzles. They were all staring at him. His breath was racing now, and the panic was like a rat behind his forehead, twisting and gnawing. He fought the panic and he fought the snowshoes. (Daddys voice No, dont fight them, doc. Walk on them like they were your own feet. Walk with them.) (Yes, Daddy.) He began to walk again, trying to regain the easy rhythm he had practiced with his daddy. Little by little it began to come, but with the rhythm came an awareness of just how tired he was, how much his fear had exhausted him. The tendons of his thighs and calves and ankles were hot and trembly. Ahead he could see the Overlook, mockingly distant, seeming to stare at him with its many windows, as if this were some sort of contest in which it was mildly interested. Danny looked back over his shoulder and his hurried breathing caught for a moment and then hurried on even faster. The nearest lion was now only twenty feet behind, breasting through the snow like a dog paddling in a pond. The two others were to its right and left, pacing it. They were like an Army platoon on patrol, the dog, still off to their left, the scout. The closest lion had its head down. The shoulders bunched powerfully above its neck. The tail was up, as if in the instant before he had turned to look it had been swishing back and forth, back and forth. He thought it looked like a great big house cat that was having a good time playing with a mouse before killing it. (falling) No, if he fell he was dead. They would never let him get up. They would pounce. He pinwheeled his arms madly and lunged ahead, his center of gravity dancing just beyond his nose. He caught it and hurried on, snapping glances back over his shoulder. The air whistled in and out of his dry throat like hot glass. The world closed down to the dazzling snow, the green hedges, and the whispery sound of his snowshoes. And something else. A soft, muffled padding sound. He tried to hurry faster and couldnt. He was walking over the buried driveway now, a small boy with his face almost buried in the shadow of his parka hood. The afternoon was still and bright.


When he looked back again, the point lion was only five feet behind. It was grinning. Its mouth was open, its haunches tensed down like a clockspring. Behind it and the others he could see the rabbit, its head now sticking out of the snow, bright green, as if it had turned its horrid blank face to watch the end of the stalk. Now, on the Overlooks front lawn between the circular drive and the porch, he let the panic loose and began to run clumsily in the snowshoes, not daring to look back now, tilting farther and farther forward, his arms out ahead of him like a blind man feeling for obstacles. His hood fell back, revealing his complexion, pastewhite giving way to hectic red blotches on his cheeks, his eyes bulging with terror. The porch was very close now. Behind him he heard the sudden hard crunch of snow as something leaped. He fell on the porch steps, screaming without sound, and scrambled up them on his hands and knees, snowshoes clattering and askew behind him. There was a slashing sound in the air and sudden pain in his leg. The ripping sound of cloth. Something else that might havemust havebeen in his mind. Bellowing, angry roar. Smell of blood and evergreen. He fell fulllength on the porch, sobbing hoarsely, the rich, metallic taste of copper in his mouth. His heart was thundering in his chest. There was a small trickle of blood coming from his nose. He had no idea how long he lay there before the lobby doors flew open and Jack ran out, wearing just his jeans and a pair of slippers. Wendy was behind him. Danny! she screamed. Doc! Danny, for Christs sake! Whats wrong? What happened? Daddy was helping him up. Below the knee his snowpants were ripped open. Inside, his woollen ski sock had been ripped open and his calf had been shallowly scratched  as if he had tried to push his way through a closely grown evergreen hedge and the branches had clawed him. He looked over his shoulder. Far down the lawn, past the putting green, were a number of vague, snowcowled humps. The hedge animals. Between them and the playground. Between them and the road. His legs gave way. Jack caught him. He began to cry. CHAPTER THIRTYFIVE THE LOBBY He had told them everything except what had happened to him when the snow had blocked the end of the concrete ring. He couldnt bring himself to repeat that. And he didnt know the right words to express the creeping, lassitudinous sense of terror he had felt when he heard the dead aspen leaves begin to crackle furtively down there in the cold darkness. But he told them about the soft sound of snow falling in clumps. About the lion with its head and its bunched shoulders working its way up and out of the snow to chase him. He even told them about how the rabbit had turned its head to watch near the end. The three of them were in the lobby. Jack had built a roaring blaze in the fireplace. Danny was bundled up in a blanket on the small sofa where once, a millon years ago, three nuns had sat laughing like girls while they waited for the line at the desk to thin out. He was sipping hot noodle soup from a mug. Wendy sat beside him, stroking his hair. Jack had sat on the floor, his face seeming to grow more and more still, more and more set as Danny told his story. Twice he pulled his handkerchief out of his back pocket and rubbed his sorelooking lips with it. Then they chased me, he finished. Jack got up and went over to the window, his back to them. He looked at his mommy. They chased me all the way up to the porch. He was struggling to keep his voice calm, because if he stayed calm maybe they would believe him. Mr. Stenger hadnt stayed calm. He had started to cry and hadnt been able to stop so THE MEN IN THE WHITE COATS had come to take him away because if you couldnt stop crying it meant you had LOST YOUR MARBLES and when would you be back? NO ONE KNOWS. His parka and snowpants and the clotted snowshoes lay on the rug just inside the big double doors. (I wont cry I wont let myself cry) And he thought he could do that, but he couldnt stop shaking. He looked into the fire and waited for Daddy to say something. High yellow flames danced on the dark stone hearth. A pine knot exploded with a bang and sparks rushed up the flue. Danny, come over here. Jack turned around. His face still had that pinched, deathly look. Danny didnt like to look at it. Jack I just want the boy over here for a minute. Danny slipped off the sofa and came over beside his daddy. Good boy. Now what do you see? Danny had known what he would see even before he got to the window. Below the clutter of boot tracks, sled tracks, and snowshoe tracks that marked their usual exercise area, the snowfield that covered the Overlooks lawns sloped down to the topiary and the playground beyond. It was marred by two sets of tracks, one of them in a straight line from the porch to the playground, the other a long, looping line coming back up. Only my tracks, Daddy. But What about the hedges, Danny? Dannys lips began to tremble. He was going to cry. What if he couldnt stop? (i wont cry I Wont Cry Wont Wont WONT) All covered with snow, he whispered. But, Daddy What? I couldnt hear you! Jack, youre crossexamining him! Cant you see hes upset, hes Shut up! Well, Danny? They scratched me, Daddy. My leg You must have cut your leg on the crust of the snow. Then Wendy was between them, her face pale and angry. What are you trying to make him do? she asked him. Confess to murder? Whats wrong with you? The strangeness in his eyes seemed to break then. Im trying to help him find the difference between something real and something that was only a hallucination, thats all. He squatted by Danny so they were on an eyetoeye level, and then hugged him tight. Danny, it didnt really happen. Okay? It was like one of those trances you have sometimes. Thats all. Daddy? What, Dan? I didnt cut my leg on the crust. There isnt any crust. Its all powdery snow. It wont even stick together to make snowballs. Remember we tried to have a snowball fight and couldnt? He felt his father stiffen against him. The porch step, then. Danny pulled away. Suddenly he had it. It had flashed into his mind all at once, the way things sometimes did, the way it had about the woman wanting to be in that gray mans pants. He stared at his father with widening eyes. You know Im telling the truth, he whispered, shocked. Danny Jacks face, tightening. You know because you saw The sound of Jacks open palm striking Dannys face was flat, not dramatic at all. The boys head rocked back, the palm print reddening on his cheek like a brand. Wendy made a moaning noise. For a moment they were still, the three of them, and then Jack grabbed for his son and said, Danny, Im sorry, you okay, doc? You hit him, you bastard! Wendy cried. You dirty bastard! She grabbed his other arm and for a moment Danny was pulled between them. Oh please stop pulling me! he screamed at them, and there was such agony in his voice that they both let go of him, and then the tears had to come and he collapsed, weeping, between the sofa and the window, his parents staring at him helplessly, the way children might stare at a toy broken in a furious tussle over to whom it belonged. In the fireplace another pine knot exploded like a hand grenade, making them all jump. Wendy gave him baby aspirin and Jack slipped him, unprotesting, between the sheets of his cot. He was asleep in no time with his thumb in his mouth. I dont like that, she said. Its a regression. Jack didnt reply. She looked at him softly, without anger, without a smile, either. You want me to apologize for calling you a bastard? All right, I apologize. Im sorry. You still shouldnt have hit him. I know, he muttered. I know that. I dont know what the hell came over me. You promised youd never hit him again. He looked at her furiously, and then the fury collapsed. Suddenly, with pity and horror, she saw what Jack would look like as an old man. She had never seen him look that way before. (?what way?) Defeated, she answered herself. He looks beaten. He said I always thought I could keep my promises. She went to him and put her hands on his arm. All right, its over. And when the ranger comes to check us, well tell him we all want to go down. All right? All right, Jack said, and at that moment, at least, he meant it. The same way he had always meant it on those mornings after, looking at his pale and haggard face in the bathroom mirror. Im going to stop, going to cut it off flat. But morning gave way to afternoon, and in the afternoons he felt a little better. And afternoon gave way to night. As some great twentiethcentury thinker had said, night must fall. He found himself wishing that Wendy would ask him about the hedges, would ask him what Danny meant when he said You know because you sawIf she did, he would tell her everything. Everything. The hedges, the woman in the room, even about the fire hose that seemed to have switched positions. But where did confession stop? Could he tell her hed thrown the magneto away, that they could all be down in Sidewinder right now if he hadnt done that? What she said was, Do you want tea? Yes. A cup of tea would be good. She went to the door and paused there, rubbing her forearms through her sweater. Its my fault as much as yours, she said. What were we doing while he was going through that  dream, or whatever it was? Wendy We were sleeping, she said. Sleeping like a couple of teenage kids with their itch nicely scratched. Stop it, he said. Its over. No, Wendy answered, and gave him a strange, restless smile. Its not over. She went out to make tea, leaving him to keep watch over their son. CHAPTER THIRTYSIX THE ELEVATOR Jack awoke from a thin and uneasy sleep where huge and illdefined shapes chased him through endless snowfields to what he first thought was another dream darkness, and in it, a sudden mechanical jumble of noisesclicks and clanks, hummings, rattlings, snaps and whooshes. Then Wendy sat up beside him and he knew it was no dream. Whats that? Her hand, cold marble, gripped his wrist. He restrained an urge to shake it offhow in the hell was he supposed to know what it was? The illuminated clock on his nightstand said it was five minutes to twelve. The humming sound again. Loud and steady, varying the slightest bit. Followed by a clank as the humming ceased. A rattling bang. A thump. Then the humming resumed. It was the elevator. Danny was sitting up. Daddy? Daddy? His voice was sleepy and scared. Right here, doc, Jack said. Come on over and jump in. Your moms awake, too. The bedclothes rustled as Danny got on the bed between them. Its the elevator, he whispered. Thats right, Jack said. Just the elevator. What do you mean, just? Wendy demanded. There was an iceskim of hysteria on her voice. Its the middle of the night. Whos running it? Hummmmmmm. Clickclank. Above them now. The rattle of the gate accordioning back, the bump of the doors opening and closing. Then the hum of the motor and the cables again. Danny began to whimper. Jack swung his feet out of bed and onto the floor. Its probably a short. Ill check. Dont you dare go out of this room! Dont be stupid, he said, pulling on his robe. Its my job. She was out of bed herself a moment later, pulling Danny with her. Well go, too. Wendy Whats wrong? Danny asked somberly. Whats wrong, Daddy? Instead of answering he turned away, his face angry and set. He belted his robe around him at the door, opened it, and stepped out into the dark hall. Wendy hesitated for a moment, and it was actually Danny who began to move first. She caught up quickly, and they went out together. Jack hadnt bothered with the lights. She fumbled for the switch that lit the four spaced overheads in the hallway that led to the main corridor. Up ahead, Jack was already turning the corner. This time Danny found the switch plate and flicked all three switches up. The hallway leading down to the stairs and the elevator shaft came alight. Jack was standing at the elevator station, which was flanked by benches and cigarette urns. He was standing motionless in front of the closed elevator door. In his faded tartan bathrobe and brown leather slippers with the rundown heels, his hair all in sleep corkscrews and Alfalfa cowlicks, he looked to her like an absurd twentiethcentury Hamlet, an indecisive figure so mesmerized by onrushing tragedy that he was helpless to divert its course or alter it in any way. (jesus stop thinking so crazy) Dannys hand had tightened painfully on her own. He was looking up at her intently, his face strained and anxious. He had been catching the drift of her thoughts, she realized. Just how much or how little of them he was getting was impossible to say, but she flushed, feeling much the same as if he had caught her in a masturbatory act. Come on, she said, and they went down the hall to Jack. The hummings and clankings and thumpings were louder here, terrifying in a disconnected, benumbed way. Jack was staring at the closed door with feverish intensity. Through the diamondshaped window in the center of the elevator door she thought she could make out the cables, thrumming slightly. The elevator clanked to a stop below them, at lobby level. They heard the doors thump open. And  (party) Why had she thought party? The word had simply jumped into her head for no reason at all. The silence in the Overlook was complete and intense except for the weird noises coming up the elevator shaft. (must have been quite a party) (???WHAT PARTY???) For just a moment her mind had filled with an image so real that it seemed to be a memory  not just any memory but one of those you treasure, one of those you keep for very special occasions and rarely mention aloud. Lights  hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Lights and colors, the pop of champagne corks, a fortypiece orchestra playing Glenn Millers In the Mood. But Glenn Miller had gone down in his bomber before she was born, how could she have a memory of Glenn Miller? She looked down at Danny and saw his head had cocked to one side, as if he was hearing something she couldnt hear. His face was very pale. Thump. The door had slid shut down there. A humming whine as the elevator began to rise. She saw the engine housing on top of the car first through the diamondshaped window, then the interior of the car, seen through the farther diamond shapes made by the brass gate. Warm yellow light from the cars overhead. It was empty. The car was empty. It was empty but (on the night of the party they must have crowded in by the dozens, crowded the car way beyond its safety limit but of course it had been new then and all of them wearing masks) (????WHAT MASKS????) The car stopped above them, on the third floor. She looked at Danny. His face was all eyes. His mouth was pressed into a frightened, bloodless slit. Above them, the brass gate rattled back. The elevator door thumped open, it thumped open because it was time, the time had come, it was time to say (Good night  good night  yes, it was lovely  no, i really cant stay for the unmasking  early to bed, early to rise  oh, was that Sheila?  the monk?  isnt that witty, Sheila coming as a monk?  yes, good night  good) Thump. Gears clashed. The motor engaged. The car began to whine back down. Jack, she whispered. What is it? Whats wrong with it? A short circuit, he said. His face was like wood. I told you, it was a short circuit. I keep hearing voices in my head! she cried. What is it? Whats wrong? I feel like Im going crazy! What voices? He looked at her with deadly blandness. She turned to Danny. Did you? Danny nodded slowly. Yes. And music. Like from a long time ago. In my head. The elevator car stopped again. The hotel was silent, creaking, deserted. Outside, the wind whined around the eaves in the darkness. Maybe you are both crazy, Jack said conversationally. I dont hear a goddamned thing except that elevator having a case of the electrical hiccups. If you two want to have duet hysterics, fine. But count me out. The elevator was coming down again. Jack stepped to the right, where a glassfronted box was mounted on the wall at chest height. He smashed his bare fist against it. Glass tinkled inward. Blood dripped from two of his knuckles. He reached in and took out a key with a long, smooth barrel. Jack, no. Dont. I am going to do my job. Now leave me alone, Wendy! She tried to grab his arm. He pushed her backward. Her feet tangled in the hem of her robe and she fell to the carpet with an ungainly thump. Danny cried out shrilly and fell on his knees beside her. Jack turned back to the elevator and thrust the key into the socket. The elevator cables disappeared and the bottom of the car came into view in the small window. A second later Jack turned the key hard. There was a grating, screeching sound as the elevator car came to an instant standstill. For a moment the declutched motor in the basement whined even louder, and then its circuit breaker cut in and the Overlook went unearthly still. The night wind outside seemed very loud by comparison. Jack looked stupidly at the gray metal elevator door. There was three splotches of blood below the keyhole from his lacerated knuckles. He turned back to Wendy and Danny for a moment. She was sitting up, and Danny had his arm around her. They were both staring at him carefully, as if he was a stranger they had never seen before, possibly a dangerous one. He opened his mouth, not sure what was going to come out. It  Wendy, its my job. She said clearly Fuck your job. He turned back to the elevator, worked his fingers into the crack that ran down the right side of the door, and got it to open a little way. Then he was able to get his whole weight on it and threw the door open. The car had stopped halfway, its floor at Jacks chest level. Warm light still spilled out on it, contrasting with the oily darkness of the shaft below. He looked in for what seemed a long time. Its empty, he said then. A short circuit, like I said. He hooked his fingers into the slot behind the door and began to pull it closed  then her hand was on his shoulder, surprisingly strong, yanking him away. Wendy! he shouted. But she had already caught the cars bottom edge and pulled herself up enough so she could look in. Then, with a convulsive heave of her shoulder and belly muscles, she tried to boost herself all the way up. For a moment the issue was in doubt. Her feet tottered over the blackness of the shaft and one pink slipper fell from her foot and slipped out of sight. Mommy! Danny screamed. Then she was up, her cheeks flushed, her forehead as pale and shining as a spirit lamp. What about this, Jack? Is this a short circuit? She threw something and suddenly the hall was full of drifting confetti, red and white and blue and yellow. Is this? A green party streamer, faded to a pale pastel color with age. And this? She tossed it out and it came to rest on the blueblack jungle carpet, a black silk catseye mask, dusted with sequins at the temples. Does that look like a short circuit to you, Jack? she screamed at him. Jack stepped slowly away from it, shaking his head mechanically back and forth. The catseye mask stared up blankly at the ceiling from the confettistrewn hallway carpet. CHAPTER THIRTYSEVEN THE BALLROOM It was the first of December. Danny was in the eastwing ballroom, standing on an overstuffed, highbacked wing chair, looking at the clock under glass. It stood in the center of the ballrooms high, ornamental mantelpiece, flanked by two large ivory elephants. He almost expected the elephants would begin to move and try to gore him with their tusks as he stood there, but they were moveless. They were safe. Since the night of the elevator he had come to divide all things at the Overlook into two categories. The elevator, the basement, the playground, Room 217, and the Presidential Suite (it was Suite, not Sweet; he had seen the correct spelling in an account book Daddy had been reading at supper last night and had memorized it carefully)those places were unsafe. Their quarters, the lobby, and the porch were safe. Apparently the ballroom was, too. (The elephants are, anyway.) He was not sure about other places and so avoided them on general principle. He looked at the clock inside the glass dome. It was under glass because all its wheels and cogs and springs were showing. A chrome or steel track ran around the outside of these works, and directly below the clockface there was a small axis bar with a pair of meshing cogs at either end. The hands of the clock stood at quarter past XI, and although he didnt know Roman numerals he could guess by the configuration of the hands at what time the clock had stopped. The clock stood on a velvet base. In front of it, slightly distorted by the curve of the dome, was a carefully carved silver key. He supposed that the clock was one of the things he wasnt supposed to touch, like the decorative firetools in their brassbound cabinet by the lobby fireplace or the tall china highboy at the back of the dining room. A sense of injustice and a feeling of angry rebellion suddenly rose in him and (never mind what im not supposed to touch, just never mind. touched me, hasnt it? played with me, hasnt it?) It had. And it hadnt been particularly careful not to break him, either. Danny put his hands out, grasped the glass dome, and lifted it aside. He let one finger play over the works for a moment, the pad of his index finger denting against the cogs, running smoothly over the wheels. He picked up the silver key. For an adult it would have been uncomfortably small, but it fitted his own fingers perfectly. He placed it in the keyhole at the center of the clockface. It went firmly home with a tiny click, more felt than heard. It wound to the right, of course clockwise. Danny turned the key until it would turn no more and then removed it. The clock began to tick. Cogs turned. A large balance wheel rocked back and forth in semicircles. The hands were moving. If you kept your head perfectly motionless and your eyes wide open, you could see the minute hand inching along toward its meeting some fortyfive minutes from now with the hour hand. At XII. (And the Red Death held sway over all.) He frowned, and then shook the thought away. It was a thought with no meaning or reference for him. He reached his index finger out again and pushed the minute hand up to the hour, curious about what might happen. It obviously wasnt a cuckoo clock, but that steel rail had to have some purpose. There was a small, ratcheting series of clicks, and then the clock began to tinkle Strausss Blue Danube Waltz. A punched roll of cloth no more than two inches in width began to unwind. A small series of brass strikers rose and fell. From behind the clockface two figures glided into view along the steel track, ballet dancers, on the left a girl in a fluffy skirt and white stockings, on the right a boy in a black leotard and ballet slippers. Their hands were held in arches over their heads. They came together in the middle, in front of VI. Danny espied tiny grooves in their sides, just below their armpits. The axis bar slipped into these grooves and he heard another small click. The cogs at either end of the bar began to turn. The Blue Danube tinkled. The dancers arms came down around each other. The boy flipped the girl up over his head and then whirled over the bar. They were now lying prone, the boys head buried beneath the girls short ballet skirt, the girls face pressed against the center of the boys leotard. They writhed in a mechanical frenzy. Dannys nose wrinkled. They were kissing peepees. That made him feel sick. A moment later and things began to run backward. The boy whirled back over the axis bar. He flipped the girl into an upright position. They seemed to nod knowingly at each other as their hands arched back over their heads. They retreated the way they had come, disappearing just as The Blue Danube finished. The clock began to strike a count of silver chimes. (Midnight! Stroke of midnight!) (Hooray for masks!) Danny whirled on the chair, almost falling down. The ballroom was empty. Beyond the double cathedral window he could see fresh snow beginning to sift down. The huge ballroom rug (rolled up for dancing, of course), a rich tangle of red and gold embroidery, lay undisturbed on the floor. Spaced around it were small, intimate tables for two, the spidery chairs that went with each upended with legs pointing at the ceiling. The whole place was empty. But it wasnt really empty. Because here in the Overlook things just went on and on. Here in the Overlook all times were one. There was an endless night in August of 1945, with laughter and drinks and a chosen shining few going up and coming down in the elevator, drinking champagne and popping party favors in each others faces. It was a notyetlight morning in June some twenty years later and the organization hitters endlessly pumped shotgun shells into the torn and bleeding bodies of three men who went through their agony endlessly. In a room on the second floor a woman lolled in her tub and waited for visitors. In the Overlook all things had a sort of life. It was as if the whole place had been wound up with a silver key. The clock was running. The clock was running. He was that key, Danny thought sadly. Tony had warned him and he had just let things go on. (Im just five!) he cried to some halffelt presence in the room. (Doesnt it make any difference that Im just five?) There was no answer. He turned reluctantly back to the clock. He had been putting it off, hoping that something would happen to help him avoid trying to call Tony again, that a ranger would come, or a helicopter, or the rescue team; they always came in time on his TV programs, the people were saved. On TV the rangers and the SWAT squad and the paramedics were a friendly white force counterbalancing the confused evil that he perceived in the world; when people got in trouble they were helped out of it, they were fixed up. They did not have to help themselves out of trouble. (Please?) There was no answer. No answer, and if Tony came would it be the same nightmare? The booming, the hoarse and petulant voice, the blueblack rug like snakes? Redrum? But what else? (Please oh please) No answer. With a trembling sigh, he looked at the clockface. Cogs turned and meshed with other cogs. The balance wheel rocked hypnotically back and forth. And if you held your head perfectly still, you could see the minute hand creeping inexorably down from XII to V. If you held your head perfectly still you could see that The clockface was gone. In its place was a round black hole. It led down into forever. It began to swell. The clock was gone. The room behind it. Danny tottered and then fell into the darkness that had been hiding behind the clockface all along. The small boy in the chair suddenly collapsed and lay in it at a crooked, unnatural angle, his head thrown back, his eyes staring sightlessly at the high ballroom ceiling. Down and down and down and down to the hallway, crouched in the hallway, and he had made a wrong turn, trying to get back to the stairs he had made a wrong turn and now AND NOW he saw he was in the short deadend corridor that led only to the Presidential Suite and the booming sound was coming closer, the roque mallet whistling savagely through the air, the head of it embedding itself into the wall, cutting the silk paper, letting out small puffs of plaster dust. (Goddammit, come out here! Take your) But there was another figure in the hallway. Slouched nonchalantly against the wall just behind him. Like a ghost. No, not a ghost, but all dressed in white. Dressed in whites. (Ill find you, you goddam little whoremastering RUNT!) Danny cringed back from the sound. Coming up the main thirdfloor hall now. Soon the owner of that voice would round the corner. (Come here! Come here, you little shit!) The figure dressed in white straightened up a little, removed a cigarette from the corner of his mouth, and plucked a shred of tobacco from his full lower lip. It was Hallorann, Danny saw. Dressed in his cooks whites instead of the blue suit he had been wearing on closing day. If there is trouble, Hallorann said, you give a call. A big loud holler like the one that knocked me back a few minutes ago. I might hear you even way down in Florida. And if I do, Ill come on the run. Ill come on the run. Ill come on the (Come now, then! Come now, come NOW! Oh Dick I need you we all need) run. Sorry, but I got to run. Sorry, Danny ole kid ole doc, but I got to run. Its sure been fun, you son of a gun, but I got to hurry, I got to run. (No!) But as he watched, Dick Hallorann turned, put his cigarette back into the corner of his mouth, and stepped nonchalantly through the wall. Leaving him alone. And that was when the shadowfigure turned the corner, huge in the hallways gloom, only the reflected red of its eyes clear. (There you are! Now Ive got you, you fuck! Now Ill teach you!) It lurched toward him in a horrible, shambling run, the roque mallet swinging up and up and up. Danny scrambled backward, screaming, and suddenly he was through the wall and falling, tumbling over and over, down the hole, down the rabbit hole and into a land full of sick wonders. Tony was far below him, also falling. (I cant come anymore, Danny  he wont let me near you  none of them will let me near you  get Dick  get Dick ) Tony! he screamed. But Tony was gone and suddenly he was in a dark room. But not entirely dark. Muted light spilling from somewhere. It was Mommy and Daddys bedroom. He could see Daddys desk. But the room was a dreadful shambles. He had been in this room before. Mommys record player overturned on the floor. Her records scattered on the rug. The mattress half off the bed. Pictures ripped from the walls. His cot lying on its side like a dead dog, the Violent Violet Volkswagen crushed to purple shards of plastic. The light was coming from the bathroom door, halfopen. Just beyond it a hand dangled limply, blood dripping from the tips of the fingers. And in the medicine cabinet mirror, the word REDRUM flashing off and on. Suddenly a huge clock in a glass bowl materialized in front of it. There were no hands or numbers on the clockface, only a date written in red DECEMBER 2. And then, eyes widening in horror, he saw the word REDRUM reflecting dimly from the glass dome, now reflected twice. And he saw that it spelled MURDER. Danny Torrance screamed in wretched terror. The date was gone from the clockface. The clockface itself was gone, replaced by a circular black hole that swelled and swelled like a dilating iris. It blotted out everything and he fell forward, beginning to fall, falling, he was falling off the chair. For a moment he lay on the ballroom floor, breathing hard. REDRUM. MURDER. REDRUM. MURDER. (The Red Death held sway over all!) (Unmask! Unmask!) And behind each glittering, lovely mask, the asyet unseen face of the shape that chased him down these dark hallways, its red eyes widening, blank and homicidal. Oh, he was afraid of what face might come to light when the time for unmasking came around at last. (DICK!) he screamed with all his might. His head seemed to shiver with the force of it. (!!! OH DICK OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COME !!!) Above him the clock he had wound with the silver key continued to mark off the seconds and minutes and hours. PART FIVE MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH CHAPTER THIRTYEIGHT FLORIDA Mrs. Halloranns third son, Dick, dressed in his cooks whites, a Lucky Strike parked in the corner of his mouth, backed his reclaimed Cadillac limo out of its space behind the OneA Wholesale Vegetable Mart and drove slowly around the building. Masterton, part owner now but still walking with the patented shuffle he had adopted back before World War II, was pushing a bin of lettuces into the high, dark building.


Hallorann pushed the button that lowered the passenger side window and hollered Those avocados is too damn high, you cheapskate! Masterton looked back over his shoulder, grinned widely enough to expose all three gold teeth, and yelled back, And I know exactly where you can put em, my good buddy. Remarks like that I keep track of, bro. Masterton gave him the finger. Hallorann returned the compliment. Get your cukes, did you? Masterton asked. I did. You come back early tomorrow, I gonna give you some of the nicest new potatoes you ever seen. I send the boy, Hallorann said. You comin up tonight? You supplyin the juice, bro? Thats a big tenfour. I be there. You keep that thing off the top end goin home, you hear me? Every cop between here an St. Pete knows your name. You know all about it, huh? Hallorann asked, grinning. I know more than youll ever learn, my man. Listen to this sassy nigger. Would you listen? Go on, get outta here fore I start throwin these lettuces. Go on an throw em. Ill take anything for free. Masterton made as if to throw one. Hallorann ducked, rolled up the window, and drove on. He was feeling fine. For the last half hour or so he had been smelling oranges, but he didnt find that queer. For the last half hour he had been in a fruit and vegetable market. It was 430 P.M., EST, the first day of December, Old Man Winter settling his frostbitten rump firmly onto most of the country, but down here the men wore openthroated shortsleeve shirts and the women were in light summer dresses and shorts. On top of the First Bank of Florida building, a digital thermometer bordered with huge grapefruits was flashing 79 over and over. Thank God for Florida, Hallorann thought, mosquitoes and all. In the back of the limo were two dozen avocados, a crate of cucumbers, ditto oranges, ditto grapefruit. Three shopping sacks filled with Bermuda onions, the sweetest vegetable a loving God ever created, some pretty good sweet peas, which would be served with the entree and come back uneaten nine times out of ten, and a single blue Hubbard squash that was strictly for personal consumption. Hallorann stopped in the turn lane at the Vermont Street light, and when the green arrow showed he pulled out onto State Highway 219, pushing up to forty and holding it there until the town began to trickle away into an exurban sprawl of gas stations, Burger Kings, and McDonalds. It was a small order today, he could have sent Baedecker after it, but Baedecker had been chafing for his chance to buy the meat, and besides, Hallorann never missed a chance to bang it back and forth with Frank Masterton if he could help it. Masterton might show up tonight to watch some TV and drink Halloranns Bushmills, or he might not. Either way was all right. But seeing him mattered. Every time it mattered now, because they werent young anymore. In the last few days it seemed he was thinking of that very fact a great deal. Not so young anymore, when you got up near sixty years old (ortell the truth and save a liepast it) you had to start thinking about stepping out. You could go anytime. And that had been on his mind this week, not in a heavy way but as a fact. Dying was a part of living. You had to keep tuning in to that if you expected to be a whole person. And if the fact of your own death was hard to understand, at least it wasnt impossible to accept. Why this should have been on his mind he could not have said, but his other reason for getting this small order himself was so he could step upstairs to the small office over Franks Bar and Grill. There was a lawyer up there now (the dentist who had been there last year had apparently gone broke), a young black fellow named McIver. Hallorann had stepped in and told this McIver that he wanted to make a will, and could McIver help him out? Well, McIver asked, how soon do you want the document? Yesterday, said Hallorann, and threw his head back and laughed. Have you got anything complicated in mind? was McIvers next question. Hallorann did not. He had his Cadillac, his bank accountsome nine thousand dollarsa piddling checking account, and a closet of clothes. He wanted it all to go to his sister. And if your sister predeceases you? McIver asked. Never mind, Hallorann said. If that happens, Ill make a new will. The document had been completed and signed in less than three hoursfast work for a shysterand now resided in Halloranns breast pocket, folded into a stiff blue envelope with the word WILL on the outside in Old English letters. He could not have said why he had chosen this warm sunny day when he felt so well to do something he had been putting off for years, but the impulse had come on him and he hadnt said no. He was used to following his hunches. He was pretty well out of town now. He cranked the limo up to an illegal sixty and let it ride there in the lefthand lane, sucking up most of the Petersburgbound traffic. He knew from experience that the limo would still ride as solid as iron at ninety, and even at a hundred and twenty it didnt seem to lighten up much. But his screamin days were long gone. The thought of putting the limo up to a hundred and twenty on a straight stretch only scared him. He was getting old. (Jesus, those oranges smell strong. Wonder if they gone over?) Bugs splattered against the window. He dialed the radio to a Miami soul station and got the soft, wailing voice of Al Green. What a beautiful time we had together, Now its getting late and we must leave each other  He unrolled the window, pitched his cigarette butt out, then rolled it farther down to clear out the smell of the oranges. He tapped his fingers against the wheel and hummed along under his breath. Hooked over the rearview mirror, his St. Christophers medal swung gently back and forth. And suddenly the smell of oranges intensified and he knew it was coming, something was coming at him. He saw his own eyes in the rearview, widening, surprised. And then it came all at once, came in a huge blast that drove out everything else the music, the road ahead, his own absent awareness of himself as a unique human creature. It was as if someone had put a psychic gun to his head and shot him with a .45 caliber scream. (!!! OH DICK OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COME !!!) The limo had just drawn even with a Pinto station wagon driven by a man in workmans clothes. The workman saw the limo drifting into his lane and laid on the horn. When the Cadillac continued to drift he snapped a look at the driver and saw a big black man bolt upright behind the wheel, his eyes looking vaguely upward. Later the workman told his wife that he knew it was just one of those niggery hairdos they were all wearing these days, but at the time it had looked just as if every hair on that coons head was standing on end. He thought the black man was having a heart attack. The workman braked hard, dropping back into a luckily empty space behind him. The rear end of the Cadillac pulled ahead of him, still cutting in, and the workman stared with bemused horror as the long, rocketshaped rear taillights cut into his lane no more than a quarter of an inch in front of his bumper. The workman cut to the left, still laying on his horn, and roared around the drunkenly weaving limousine. He invited the driver of the limo to perform an illegal sex act on himself. To engage in oral congress with various rodents and birds. He articulated his own proposal that all persons of Negro blood return to their native continent. He expressed his sincere belief in the position the limo drivers soul would occupy in the afterlife. He finished by saying that he believed he had met the limodrivers mother in a New Orleans house of prostitution. Then he was ahead and out of danger and suddenly aware that he had wet his pants. In Halloranns mind the thought kept repeating (COME DICK PLEASE COME DICK PLEASE) but it began to fade off the way a radio station will as you approach the limits of its broadcasting area. He became fuzzily aware that his car was tooling along the soft shoulder at better than fifty miles an hour. He guided it back onto the road, feeling the rear end fishtail for a moment before regaining the composition surface. There was an AW Root Beer stand just ahead. Hallorann signaled and turned in, his heart thudding painfully in his chest, his face a sickly gray color. He pulled into a parking slot, took his handkerchief out of his pocket, and mopped his forehead with it. (Lord God!) May I help you? The voice startled him again, even though it wasnt the voice of God but that of a cute little carhop, standing by his open window with an order pad. Yeah, baby, a root beer float. Two scoops of vanilla, okay? Yes, sir. She walked away, hips rolling nicely beneath her red nylon uniform. Hallorann leaned back against the leather seat and closed his eyes. There was nothing left to pick up. The last of it had faded out between pulling in here and giving the waitress his order. All that was left was a sick, thudding headache, as if his brain had been twisted and wrung out and hung up to dry. Like the headache hed gotten from letting that boy Danny shine at him up there at Ullmans Folly. But this had been much louder. Then the boy had only been playing a game with him. This had been pure panic, each word screamed aloud in his head. He looked down at his arms. Hot sunshine lay on them but they had still goosebumped. He had told the boy to call him if he needed help, he remembered that. And now the boy was calling. He suddenly wondered how he could have left that boy up there at all, shining the way he did. There was bound to be trouble, maybe bad trouble. He suddenly keyed the limo, put it in reverse, and pulled back onto the highway, peeling rubber. The waitress with the rolling hips stood in the AW stands archway, a tray with a root beer float on it in her hands. What is it with you, a fire? she shouted, but Hallorann was gone. The manager was a man named Queems, and when Hallorann came in Queems was conversing with his bookie. He wanted the fourhorse at Rockaway. No, no parlay, no quinella, no exacta, no goddam futura. Just the little old four, six hundred dollars on the nose. And the Jets on Sunday. What did he mean, the Jets were playing the Bills? Didnt he know who the Jets were playing? Five hundred, sevenpoint spread. When Queems hung up, looking putout, Hallorann understood how a man could make fifty grand a year running this little spa and still wear suits with shiny seats. He regarded Hallorann with an eye that was still bloodshot from too many glances into last nights Bourbon bottle. Problems, Dick? Yes, sir, Mr. Queems, I guess so. I need three days off. There was a package of Kents in the breast pocket of Queemss sheer yellow shirt. He reached one out of the pocket without removing the pack, tweezing it out, and bit down morosely on the patented Micronite filter. He lit it with his desktop Cricket. So do I, he said. But whats on your mind? I need three days, Hallorann repeated. Its my boy. Queemss eyes dropped to Halloranns left hand, which was ringless. I been divorced since 1964, Hallorann said patiently. Dick, you know what the weekend situation is. Were full. To the gunnels. Even the cheap seats. Were even filled up in the Florida Room on Sunday night. So take my watch, my wallet, my pension fund. Hell, you can even take my wife if you can stand the sharp edges. But please dont ask me for time off. What is he, sick? Yes, sir, Hallorann said, still trying to visualize himself twisting a cheap cloth hat and rolling his eyeballs. He shot. Shot! Queems said. He put his Kent down in an ashtray which bore the emblem of Ole Miss, of which he was a business admin graduate. Yes, sir, Hallorann said somberly. Hunting accident? No, sir, Hallorann said, and let his voice drop to a lower, huskier note. Jana, shes been livin with this truck driver. A white man. He shot my boy. Hes in a hospital in Denver, Colorado. Critical condition. How in hell did you find out? I thought you were buying vegetables. Yes, sir, I was. He had stopped at the Western Union office just before coming here to reserve an Avis car at Stapleton Airport. Before leaving he had swiped a Western Union flimsy. Now he took the folded and crumpled blank form from his pocket and flashed it before Queemss bloodshot eyes. He put it back in his pocket and, allowing his voice to drop another notch, said Jana sent it. It was waitin in my letter box when I got back just now. Jesus. Jesus Christ, Queems said. There was a peculiar tight expression of concern on his face, one Hallorann was familiar with. It was as close to an expression of sympathy as a white man who thought of himself as good with the coloreds could get when the object was a black man or his mythical black son. Yeah, okay, you get going, Queems said. Baedecker can take over for three days, I guess. The potboy can help out. Hallorann nodded, letting his face get longer still, but the thought of the potboy helping out Baedecker made him grin inside. Even on a good day Hallorann doubted if the potboy could hit the urinal on the first squirt. I want to rebate back this weeks pay, Hallorann said. The whole thing. I know what a bind this puttin you in, Mr. Queems, sir. Queemss expression got tighter still; it looked as if he might have a fishbone caught in his throat. We can talk about that later. You go on and pack. Ill talk to Baedecker. Want me to make you a plane reservation? No, sir, Ill do it. All right. Queems stood up, leaned sincerely forward, and inhaled a raft of ascending smoke from his Kent. He coughed heartily, his thin white face turning red. Hallorann struggled hard to keep his somber expression. I hope everything turns out, Dick. Call when you get word. Ill do that. They shook hands over the desk. Hallorann made himself get down to the ground floor and across to the hired helps compound before bursting into rich, headshaking laughter. He was still grinning and mopping his streaming eyes with his handkerchief when the smell of oranges came, thick and gagging, and the bolt followed it, striking him in the head, sending him back against the pink stucco wall in a drunken stagger. (!!! PLEASE COME DICK PLEASE COME COME QUICK !!!) He recovered a little at a time and at last felt capable of climbing the outside stairs to his apartment. He kept the latchkey under the rushplaited doormat, and when he reached down to get it, something fell out of his inner pocket and fell to the secondfloor decking with a flat thump. His mind was still so much on the voice that had shivered through his head that for a moment he could only look at the blue envelope blankly, not knowing what it was. Then he turned it over and the word WILL stared up at him in the black spidery letters. (Oh my God is it like that?) He didnt know. But it could be. All week long the thought of his own ending had been on his mind like a  well, like a (Go on, say it) like a premonition. Death? For a moment his whole life seemed to flash before him, not in a historical sense, no topography of the ups and downs that Mrs. Halloranns third son, Dick, had lived through, but his life as it was now. Martin Luther King had told them not long before the bullet took him down to his martyrs grave that he had been to the mountain. Dick could not claim that. No mountain, but he had reached a sunny plateau after years of struggle. He had good friends. He had all the references he would ever need to get a job anywhere. When he wanted fuck, why, he could find a friendly one with no questions asked and no big shitty struggle about what it all meant. He had come to terms with his blacknesshappy terms. He was up past sixty and thank God, he was cruising. Was he going to chance the end of thatthe end of himfor three white people he didnt even know? But that was a lie, wasnt it? He knew the boy. They had shared each other the way good friends cant even after forty years of it. He knew the boy and the boy knew him, because they each had a kind of searchlight in their heads, something they hadnt asked for, something that had just been given. (Naw, you got a flashlight, he the one with the searchlight.) And sometimes that light, that shine, seemed like a pretty nice thing. You could pick the horses, or like the boy had said, you could tell your daddy where his trunk was when it turned up missing. But that was only dressing, the sauce on the salad, and down below there was as much bitter vetch in that salad as there was cool cucumber. You could taste pain and death and tears. And now the boy was stuck in that place, and he would go. For the boy. Because, speaking to the boy, they had only been different colors when they used their mouths. So he would go. He would do what he could, because if he didnt, the boy was going to die right inside his head. But because he was human he could not help a bitter wish that the cup had never been passed his way. (She had started to get out and come after him.) He had been dumping a change of clothes into an overnight bag when the thought came to him, freezing him with the power of the memory as it always did when he thought of it. He tried to think of it as seldom as possible. The maid, Delores Vickery her name was, had been hysterical. Had said some things to the other chambermaids, and worse still, to some of the guests. When the word got back to Ullman, as the silly quiff should have known it would do, he had fired her out of hand. She had come to Hallorann in tears, not about being fired, but about the thing she had seen in that secondfloor room. She had gone into 217 to change the towels, she said, and there had been that Mrs. Massey, lying dead in the tub. That, of course, was impossible. Mrs. Massey had been discreetly taken away the day before and was even then winging her way back to New Yorkin the shipping hold instead of the first class shed been accustomed to. Hallorann hadnt liked Delores much, but he had gone up to look that evening. The maid was an olivecomplected girl of twentythree who waited tables near the end of the season when things slowed down. She had a small shining, Hallorann judged, really not more than a twinkle; a mousylooking man and his escort, wearing a faded cloth coat, would come in for dinner and Delores would trade one of her tables for theirs. The mousy little man would leave a picture of Alexander Hamilton under his plate, bad enough for the girl who had made the trade, but worse, Delores would crow over it. She was lazy, a goofoff in an operation run by a man who allowed no goofoffs. She would sit in a linen closet, reading a confession magazine and smoking, but whenever Ullman went on one of his unscheduled prowls (and woe to the girl he caught resting her feet) he found her working industriously, her magazine hidden under the sheets on a high shelf, her ashtray tucked safely into her uniform pocket. Yeah, Hallorann thought, shed been a goofoff and a sloven and the other girls had resented her, but Delores had had that little twinkle. It had always greased the skids for her. But what she had seen in 217 had scared her badly enough so she was more than glad to pick up the walking papers Ullman had issued her and go. Why had she come to him? A shine knows a shine, Hallorann thought, grinning at the pun. So he had gone up that night and had let himself into the room, which was to be reoccupied the next day. He had used the office passkey to get in, and if Ullman had caught him with that key, he would have joined Delores Vickery on the unemployment line. The shower curtain around the tub had been drawn. He had pushed it back, but even before he did hed had a premonition of what he was going to see. Mrs. Massey, swollen and purple, lay soggily in the tub, which was halffull of water. He had stood looking down at her, a pulse beating thickly in his throat. There had been other things at the Overlook a bad dream that recurred at irregular intervalssome sort of costume party and he was catering it in the Overlooks ballroom, and at the shout to unmask, everybody exposed faces that were those of rotting insectsand there had been the hedge animals. Twice, maybe three times, he had (or thought he had) seen them move, ever so slightly. That dog would seem to change from his sittingup posture to a slightly crouched one, and the lions seemed to move forward, as if menacing the little tykes on the playground. Last year in May Ullman had sent him up to the attic to look for the ornate set of firetools that now stood beside the lobby fireplace. While he had been up there the three lightbulbs strung overhead had gone out and he had lost his way back to the trapdoor. He had stumbled around for an unknown length of time, closer and closer to panic, barking his shins on boxes and bumping into things, with a stronger and stronger feeling that something was stalking him in the dark. Some great and frightening creature that had just oozed out of the woodwork when the lights went out. And when he had literally stumbled over the trapdoors ringbolt he had hurried down as fast as he could, leaving the trap open, sooty and disheveled, with a feeling of disaster barely averted. Later Ullman had come down to the kitchen personally, to inform him he had left the attic trapdoor open and the lights burning up there. Did Hallorann think the guests wanted to go up there and play treasure hunt? Did he think electricity was free? And he suspectedno, was nearly positivethat several of the guests had seen or heard things, too. In the three years he had been there, the Presidential Suite had been booked nineteen times. Six of the guests who had put up there had left the hotel early, some of them looking markedly ill. Other guests had left other rooms with the same abruptness. One night in August of 1974, near dusk, a man who had won the Bronze and Silver Stars in Korea (that man now sat on the boards of three major corporations and was said to have personally pinkslipped a famous TV news anchorman) unaccountably went into a fit of screaming hysterics on the putting green. And there had been dozens of children during Halloranns association with the Overlook who simply refused to go into the playground. One child had had a convulsion while playing in the concrete rings, but Hallorann didnt know if that could be attributed to the Overlooks deadly siren song or notword had gone around among the help that the child, the only daughter of a handsome movie actor, was a medically controlled epileptic who had simply forgotten her medicine that day. And so, staring down at the corpse of Mrs. Massey, he had been frightened but not completely terrified. It was not completely unexpected. Terror came when she opened her eyes to disclose blank silver pupils and began to grin at him. Horror came when (she had started to get out and come after him.) He had fled, heart racing, and had not felt safe even with the door shut and locked behind him. In fact, he admitted to himself now as he zipped the flight bag shut, he had never felt safe anywhere in the Overlook again. And now the boycalling, screaming for help. He looked at his watch. It was 530 P.M. He went to the apartments door, remembered it would be heavy winter now in Colorado, especially up in the mountains, and went back to his closet. He pulled his long, sheepskinlined overcoat out of its polyurethane drycleaning bag and put it over his arm. It was the only winter garment he owned. He turned off all the lights and looked around. Had he forgotten anything? Yes. One thing. He took the will out of his breast pocket and slipped it into the margin of the dressing table mirror. With luck he would be back to get it. Sure, with luck. He left the apartment, locked the door behind him, put the key under the rush mat, and ran down the outside steps to his converted Cadillac. Halfway to Miami International, comfortably away from the switchboard where Queems or Queemss toadies were known to listen in, Hallorann stopped at a shopping center Laundromat and called United Air Lines. Flights to Denver? There was one due out at 636 P.M. Could the gentleman make that? Hallorann looked at his watch, which showed 602, and said he could. What about vacancies on the flight? Just let me check. A clunking sound in his ear followed by saccharine Montavani, which was supposed to make being on hold more pleasant. It didnt. Hallorann danced from one foot to the other, alternating glances between his watch and a young girl with a sleeping baby in a hammock on her back unloading a coinop Maytag. She was afraid she was going to get home later than she planned and the roast would burn and her husbandMark? Mike? Matt?would be mad. A minute passed. Two. He had just about made up his mind to drive ahead and take his chances when the cannedsounding voice of the flight reservations clerk came back on. There was an empty seat, a cancellation. It was in first class. Did that make any difference? No. He wanted it. Would that be cash or credit card? Cash, baby, cash. Ive got to fly. And the name was? Hallorann, two ls, two ns. Catch you later. He hung up and hurried toward the door. The girls simple thought, worry for the roast, broadcast at him over and over until he thought he would go mad. Sometimes it was like that, for no reason at all you would catch a thought, completely isolated, completely pure and clear  and usually completely useless. He almost made it. He had the limo cranked up to eighty and the airport was actually in sight when one of Floridas Finest pulled him over. Hallorann unrolled the electric window and opened his mouth at the cop, who was flipping up pages in his citation book. I know, the cop said comfortingly. Its a funeral in Cleveland. Your father. Its a wedding in Seattle. Your sister. A fire in San Jose that wiped out your gramps candy store. Some really fine Cambodian Red just waiting in a terminal locker in New York City. I love this piece of road just outside the airport. Even as a kid, story hour was my favorite part of school. Listen, officer, my son is The only part of the story I can never figure out until the end, the officer said, finding the right page in his citation book, is the driverslicense number of the offending motoriststoryteller and his registration information. So be a nice guy. Let me peek. Hallorann looked into the cops calm blue eyes, debated telling his mysonisincriticalcondition story anyway, and decided that would make things worse. This Smokey was no Queems. He dug out his wallet. Wonderful, the cop said. Would you take them out for me, please? I just have to see how its all going to come out in the end. Silently, Hallorann took out his drivers license and his Florida registration and gave them to the traffic cop. Thats very good. Thats so good you win a present. What? Hallorann asked hopefully. When I finish writing down these numbers, Im going to let you blow up a little balloon for me. Oh, Jeeeesus! Hallorann moaned. Officer, my flight Shhh, the traffic cop said. Dont be naughty. Hallorann closed his eyes. He got to the United desk at 649, hoping against hope that the flight had been delayed. He didnt even have to ask. The departure monitor over the incoming passengers desk told the story. Flight 901 for Denver, due out at 636 EST, had left at 640. Nine minutes before. Oh shit, Dick Hallorann said. And suddenly the smell of oranges, heavy and cloying; he had just time to reach the mens room before it came, deafening, terrified (!!! COME PLEASE COME DICK PLEASE PLEASE COME !!!) CHAPTER THIRTYNINE ON THE STAIRS One of the things they had sold to swell their liquid assets a little before moving from Vermont to Colorado was Jacks collection of two hundred old rock n roll and RB albums; they had gone at the yard sale for a dollar apiece. One of these albums, Dannys personal favorite, had been an Eddie Cochran doublerecord set with four pages of boundin liner notes by Lenny Kaye. Wendy had often been struck by Dannys fascination for this one particular album by a manboy who had lived fast and died young  had died, in fact, when she herself had only been ten years old. Now, at quarter past seven (mountain time), as Dick Hallorann was telling Queems about his exwifes white boyfriend, she came upon Danny sitting halfway up the stairs between the lobby and the first floor, tossing a red rubber ball from hand to hand and singing one of the songs from that album. His voice was low and tuneless. So I climb onetwo flight three flight four, Danny sang, five flight six flight seven flight more  when I get to the top, Im too tired to rock  She came around him, sat down on one of the stair risers, and saw that his lower lip had swelled to twice its size and that there was dried blood on his chin. Her heart took a frightened leap in her chest, but she managed to speak neutrally. What happened, doc? she asked, although she was sure she knew. Jack had hit him. Well, of course. That came next, didnt it? The wheels of progress; sooner or later they took you back to where you started from. I called Tony, Danny said. In the ballroom. I guess I fell off the chair. It doesnt hurt anymore. Just feels  like my lips too big. Is that what really happened? she asked, looking at him, troubled. Daddy didnt do it, he answered. Not today. She gazed at him, feeling eerie. The ball traveled from one hand to the other. He had read her mind. Her son had read her mind. What  what did Tony tell you, Danny? It doesnt matter. His face was calm, his voice chillingly indifferent. Danny She gripped his shoulder, harder than she had intended. But he didnt wince, or even try to shake her off. (Oh we are wrecking this boy. Its not just Jack, its me too, and maybe its not even just us, Jacks father, my mother, are they here too? Sure, why not? The place is lousy with ghosts anyway, why not a couple more? Oh Lord in heaven hes like one of those suitcases they show on TV, run over, dropped from planes, going through factory crushers. Or a Timex watch. Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Oh Danny Im so sorry) It doesnt matter, he said again. The ball went from hand to hand. Tony cant come anymore. They wont let him. Hes licked. Who wont? The people in the hotel, he said. He looked at her then, and his eyes werent indifferent at all. They were deep and scared. And the  the things in the hotel. Theres all kinds of them. The hotel is stuffed with them. You can see I dont want to see, he said low, and then looked back at the rubber ball, arcing from hand to hand. But I can hear them sometimes, late at night. Theyre like the wind, all sighing together. In the attic. The basement. The rooms. All over. I thought it was my fault, because of the way I am. The key. The little silver key. Danny, dont  dont upset yourself this way. But its him too, Danny said. Its Daddy. And its you. It wants all of us. Its tricking Daddy, its fooling him, trying to make him think it wants him the most. It wants me the most, but it will take all of us. If only that snowmobile They wouldnt let him, Danny said in that same low voice. They made him throw part of it away into the snow. Far away. I dreamed it. And he knows that woman really is in 217. He looked at her with his dark, frightened eyes. It doesnt matter whether you believe me or not. She slipped an arm around him. I believe you. Danny, tell me the truth. Is Jack  is he going to try to hurt us? Theyll try to make him, Danny said. Ive been calling for Mr. Hallorann. He said if I ever needed him to just call. And I have been. But its awful hard. It makes me tired. And the worst part is I dont know if hes hearing me or not. I dont think he can call back because its too far for him. And I dont know if its too far for me or not. Tomorrow What about tomorrow? He shook his head. Nothing. Where is he now? she asked. Your daddy? Hes in the basement. I dont think hell be up tonight. She stood up suddenly. Wait right here for me.