One of his hands had fallen off his chest, and Danny replaced it gently, with love. Are you sure, Mommy? Yes. Its the best thing, Danny. Its like putting him in jail. Only for a while. Okay, then. Are you sure you can do it? Yes. But it was a near thing, at that. Danny had been cradling his fathers head when they went over the doorsills, but his hands slipped in Jacks greasy hair as they went into the kitchen. The back of his head struck the tiles, and Jack began to moan and stir. You got to use smoke, Jack muttered quickly. Now run and get me that gascan. Wendy and Danny exchanged tight, fearful glances. Help me, she said in a low voice. For a moment Danny stood as if paralyzed by his fathers face, and then he moved jerkily to her side and helped her hold the left leg. They dragged him across the kitchen floor in a nightmare kind of slow motion, the only sounds the faint, insectile buzz of the fluorescent lights and their own labored breathing. When they reached the pantry, Wendy put Jacks feet down and turned to fumble with the bolt. Danny looked down at Jack, who was lying limp and relaxed again. The shirttail had pulled out of the back of his pants as they dragged him and Danny wondered if Daddy was too drunk to be cold. It seemed wrong to lock him in the pantry like a wild animal, but he had seen what he tried to do to Mommy. Even upstairs he had known Daddy was going to do that. He had heard them arguing in his head. (If only we could all be out of here. Or if it was a dream I was having, back in Stovington. If only.) The bolt was stuck. Wendy pulled at it as hard as she could, but it wouldnt move. She couldnt retract the goddam bolt. It was stupid and unfair  she had opened it with no trouble at all when she had gone in to get the can of soup. Now it wouldnt move, and what was she going to do? They couldnt put him in the walkin refrigerator; he would freeze or smother to death. But if they left him out and he woke up  Jack stirred again on the floor. Ill take care of it, he muttered. I understand. Hes waking up, Mommy! Danny warned. Sobbing now, she yanked at the bolt with both hands. Danny? There was something softly menacing, if still blurry, in Jacks voice. That you, ole doc? Just go to sleep, Daddy, Danny said nervously. Its bedtime, you know. He looked up at his mother, still struggling with the bolt, and saw what was wrong immediately. She had forgotten to rotate the bolt before trying to withdraw it. The little catch was stuck in its notch. Here, he said low, and brushed her trembling hands aside; his own were shaking almost as badly. He knocked the catch loose with the heel of his hand and the bolt drew back easily. Quick, he said. He looked down. Jacks eyes had fluttered open again and this time Daddy was looking directly at him, his gaze strangely flat and speculative. You copied it, Daddy told him. I know you did. But its here somewhere. And Ill find it. That I promise you. Ill find it  His words slurred off again. Wendy pushed the pantry door open with her knee, hardly noticing the pungent odor of dried fruit that wafted out. She picked up Jacks feet again and dragged him in. She was gasping harshly now, at the limit of her strength. As she yanked the chain pull that turned on the light, Jacks eyes fluttered open again. What are you doing? Wendy? What are you doing? She stepped over him. He was quick; amazingly quick. One hand lashed out and she had to sidestep and nearly fall out the door to avoid his grasp. Still, he had caught a handful of her bathrobe and there was a heavy purring noise as it ripped. He was up on his hands and knees now, his hair hanging in his eyes, like some heavy animal. A large dog  or a lion. Damn you both. I know what you want. But youre not going to get it. This hotel  its mine. Its me they want. Me! Me! The door, Danny! she screamed. Shut the door! He pushed the heavy wooden door shut with a slam, just as Jack leaped. The door latched and Jack thudded uselessly against it. Dannys small hands groped at the bolt. Wendy was too far away to help; the issue of whether he would be locked in or free was going to be decided in two seconds. Danny missed his grip, found it again, and shot the bolt across just as the latch began to jiggle madly up and down below it. Then it stayed up and there was a series of thuds as Jack slammed his shoulder against the door. The bolt, a quarter inch of steel in diameter, showed no signs of loosening. Wendy let her breath out slowly. Let me out of here! Jack raged. Let me out! Danny, doggone it, this is your father and I want to get out! Now do what I tell you! Dannys hand moved automatically toward the bolt. Wendy caught it and pressed it between her breasts. You mind your daddy, Danny! You do what I say! You do it or Ill give you a hiding youll never forget. Open this door or Ill bash your fucking brains in! Danny looked at her, pale as window glass. They could hear his breath tearing in and out behind the half inch of solid oak. Wendy, you let me out! Let me out right now! You cheap nickelplated coldcunt bitch! You let me out! I mean it! Let me out of here and Ill let it go! If you dont, Ill mess you up! I mean it! Ill mess you up so bad your own mother would pass you on the street! Now open this door! Danny moaned. Wendy looked at him and saw he was going to faint in a moment. Come on, doc, she said, surprised at the calmness of her own voice. Its not your daddy talking, remember. Its the hotel. Come back here and let me out right NOW! Jack screamed. There was a scraping, breaking sound as he attacked the inside of the door with his fingernails. Its the hotel, Danny said. Its the hotel. I remember. But he looked back over his shoulder and his face was crumpled and terrified. CHAPTER FORTYSEVEN DANNY It was three in the afternoon of a long, long day. They were sitting on the big bed in their quarters. Danny was turning the purple VW model with the monster sticking out of the sunroof over and over in his hands, compulsively. They had heard Daddys batterings at the door all the way across the lobby, the batterings and his voice, hoarse and petulantly angry in a weakking sort of a way, vomiting promises of punishment, vomiting profanity, promising both of them that they would live to regret betraying him after he had slaved his guts out for them over the years. Danny thought they would no longer be able to hear it upstairs, but the sounds of his rage carried perfectly up the dumbwaiter shaft. Mommys face was pale, and there were horrible brownish bruises on her neck where Daddy had tried to  He turned the model over and over in his hands, Daddys prize for having learned his reading lessons. ( where Daddy had tried to hug her too tight.) Mommy put some of her music on the little record player, scratchy and full of horns and flutes. She smiled at him tiredly. He tried to smile back and failed. Even with the volume turned up loud he thought he could still hear Daddy screaming at them and battering the pantry door like an animal in a zoo cage. What if Daddy had to go to the bathroom? What would he do then? Danny began to cry. Wendy turned the volume down on the record player at once, held him, rocked him on her lap. Danny, love, it will be all right. It will. If Mr. Hallorann didnt get your message, someone else will. As soon as the storm is over. No one could get up here until then anyway. Mr. Hallorann or anyone else. But when the storm is over, everything will be fine again. Well leave here. And do you know what well do next spring? The three of us? Danny shook his head against her breasts. He didnt know. It seemed there could never be spring again. Well go fishing. Well rent a boat and go fishing, just like we did last year on Chatterton Lake. You and me and your daddy. And maybe youll catch a bass for our supper. And maybe we wont catch anything, but were sure to have a good time. I love you, Mommy, he said, and hugged her. Oh, Danny, I love you, too. Outside, the wind whooped and screamed. Around fourthirty, just as the daylight began to fail, the screams ceased. They had both been dozing uneasily, Wendy still holding Danny in her arms, and she didnt wake. But Danny did. Somehow the silence was worse, more ominous than the screams and the blows against the strong pantry door. Was Daddy asleep again? Or dead? Or what? (Did he get out?) Fifteen minutes later the silence was broken by a hard, grating, metallic rattle. There was a heavy grinding, then a mechanical humming. Wendy came awake with a cry. The elevator was running again. They listened to it, wideeyed, hugging each other. It went from floor to floor, the grate rattling back, the brass door slamming open. There was laughter, drunken shouts, occasional screams, and the sounds of breakage. The Overlook was coming to life around them. CHAPTER FORTYEIGHT JACK He sat on the floor of the pantry with his legs out in front of him, a box of Triscuit crackers between them, looking at the door. He was eating the crackers one by one, not tasting them, only eating them because he had to eat something. When he got out of here, he was going to need his strength. All of it. At this precise instant, he thought he had never felt quite so miserable in his entire life. His mind and body together made up a largewrit scripture of pain. His head ached terribly, the sick throb of a hangover. The attendant symptoms were there, too his mouth tasted like a manure rake had taken a swing through it, his ears rang, his heart had an extraheavy, thudding beat, like a tomtom. In addition, both shoulders ached fiercely from throwing himself against the door and his throat felt raw and peeled from useless shouting. He had cut his right hand on the doorlatch. And when he got out of here, he was going to kick some ass. He munched the Triscuits one by one, refusing to give in to his wretched stomach, which wanted to vomit up everything. He thought of the Excedrin in his pocket and decided to wait until his stomach had quieted a bit. No sense swallowing a painkiller if you were going to throw it right back up. Have to use your brain. The celebrated Jack Torrance brain. Arent you the fellow who once was going to live by his wits? Jack Torrance, bestselling author. Jack Torrance, acclaimed playwright and winner of the New York Critics Circle Award. John Torrance, man of letters, esteemed thinker, winner of the Pulitzer Prize at seventy for his trenchant book of memoirs, My Life in the Twentieth Century. All any of that shit boiled down to was living by your wits. Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are. He put another Triscuit into his mouth and crunched it up. What it really came down to, he supposed, was their lack of trust in him. Their failure to believe that he knew what was best for them and how to get it. His wife had tried to usurp him, first by fair (sort of) means, then by foul. When her little hints and whining objections had been overturned by his own wellreasoned arguments, she had turned his boy against him, tried to kill him with a bottle, and then had locked him, of all places, in the goddamned fucking pantry. Still, a small interior voice nagged him. (Yes but where did the liquor come from? Isnt that really the central point? You know what happens when you drink, you know it from bitter experience. When you drink, you lose your wits.) He hurled the box of Triscuits across the small room. They struck a shelf of canned goods and fell to the floor. He looked at the box, wiped his lips with his hand, and then looked at his watch. It was almost sixthirty. He had been in here for hours. His wife had locked him in here and hed been here for fucking hours. He could begin to sympathize with his father. The thing hed never asked himself, Jack realized now, was exactly what had driven his daddy to drink in the first place. And really  when you came right down to what his old students had been pleased to call the nittygritty  hadnt it been the woman he was married to? A milksop sponge of a woman, always dragging silently around the house with an expression of doomed martyrdom on her face? A ball and chain around Daddys ankle? No, not ball and chain. She had never actively tried to make Daddy a prisoner, the way Wendy had done to him. For Jacks father it must have been more like the fate of McTeague the dentist at the end of Frank Norriss great novel handcuffed to a dead man in the wasteland. Yes, that was better. Mentally and spiritually dead, his mother had been handcuffed to his father by matrimony. Still, Daddy had tried to do right as he dragged her rotting corpse through life. He had tried to bring the four children up to know right from wrong, to understand discipline, and above all, to respect their father. Well, they had been ingrates, all of them, himself included. And now he was paying the price; his own son had turned out to be an ingrate, too. But there was hope. He would get out of here somehow. He would chastise them both, and harshly. He would set Danny an example, so that the day might come when Danny was grown, a day when Danny would know what to do better than he himself had known. He remembered the Sunday dinner when his father had caned his mother at the table  how horrified he and the others had been. Now he could see how necessary that had been, how his father had only been feigning drunkenness, how his wits had been sharp and alive underneath all along, watching for the slightest sign of disrespect. Jack crawled after the Triscuits and began to eat them again, sitting by the door she had so treacherously bolted. He wondered exactly what his father had seen and how he had caught her out by his playacting. Had she been sneering at him behind her hand? Sticking her tongue out? Making obscene finger gestures? Or only looking at him insolently and arrogantly, convinced that he was too stupidly drunk to see? Whatever it had been, he had caught her at it, and he had chastised her sharply. And now, twenty years later, he could finally appreciate Daddys wisdom. Of course you could say Daddy had been foolish to marry such a woman, to have handcuffed himself to that corpse in the first place  and a disrespectful corpse at that. But when the young marry in haste they must repent in leisure, and perhaps Daddys daddy had married the same type of woman, so that unconsciously Jacks daddy had also married one, as Jack himself had. Except that his wife, instead of being satisfied with the passive role of having wrecked one career and crippled another, had opted for the poisonously active task of trying to destroy his last and best chance to become a member of the Overlooks staff, and possibly to rise  all the way to the position of manager, in time. She was trying to deny him Danny, and Danny was his ticket of admission. That was foolish, of coursewhy would they want the son when they could have the father?but employers often had foolish ideas and that was the condition that had been made. He wasnt going to be able to reason with her, he could see that now. He had tried to reason with her in the Colorado Lounge, and she had refused to listen, had hit him over the head with a bottle for his pains. But there would be another time, and soon. He would get out of here. He suddenly held his breath and cocked his head. Somewhere a piano was playing boogiewoogie and people were laughing and clapping along. The sound was muffled through the heavy wooden door, but audible. The song was Therell Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight. His hands curled helplessly into fists; he had to restrain himself from battering at the door with them. The party had begun again. The liquor would be flowing freely. Somewhere, dancing with someone else, would be the girl who had felt so maddeningly nude under her white silk gown. Youll pay for this! he howled. Goddam you two, youll pay! Youll take your goddam medicine for this, I promise you! You Here, here, now, a mild voice said just outside the door. No need to shout, old fellow. I can hear you perfectly well. Jack lurched to his feet. Grady? Is that you? Yes, sir. Indeed it is. You appear to have been locked in. Let me out, Grady. Quickly. I see you can hardly have taken care of the business we discussed, sir. The correction of your wife and son. Theyre the ones who locked me in. Pull the bolt, for Gods sake! You let them lock you in? Gradys voice registered wellbred surprise. Oh, dear. A woman half your size and a little boy? Hardly sets you off as being of top managerial timber, does it? A pulse began to beat in the clockspring of veins at Jacks right temple. Let me out, Grady. Ill take care of them. Will you indeed, sir? I wonder. Wellbred surprise was replaced by wellbred regret. Im pained to say that I doubt it. Iand othershave really come to believe that your heart is not in this, sir. That you havent the  the belly for it. I do! Jack shouted. I do, I swear it! You would bring us your son? Yes! Yes! Your wife would object to that very strongly, Mr. Torrance. And she appears to be  somewhat stronger than we had imagined. Somewhat more resourceful. She certainly seems to have gotten the better of you. Grady tittered. Perhaps, Mr. Torrance, we should have been dealing with her all along. Ill bring him, I swear it, Jack said. His face was against the door now. He was sweating. She wont object. I swear she wont. She wont be able to. You would have to kill her, I fear, Grady said coldly. Ill do what I have to do. Just let me out. Youll give your word on it, sir? Grady persisted. My word, my promise, my sacred vow, whatever in hell you want. If you There was a flat snap as the bolt was drawn back. The door shivered open a quarter of an inch. Jacks words and breath halted. For a moment he felt that death itself was outside that door. The feeling passed. He whispered Thank you, Grady. I swear you wont regret it. I swear you wont. There was no answer. He became aware that all sounds had stopped except for the cold swooping of the wind outside. He pushed the pantry door open; the hinges squealed faintly. The kitchen was empty. Grady was gone. Everything was still and frozen beneath the cold white glare of the fluorescent bars. His eyes caught on the large chopping block where the three of them had eaten their meals. Standing on top of it was a martini glass, a fifth of gin, and a plastic dish filled with olives. Leaning against it was one of the roque mallets from the equipment shed. He looked at it for a long time. Then a voice, much deeper and much more powerful than Gradys, spoke from somewhere, everywhere  from inside him. (Keep your promise, Mr. Torrance.) I will, he said. He heard the fawning servility in his own voice but was unable to control it. I will. He walked to the chopping block and put his hand on the handle of the mallet. He hefted it. Swung it. It hissed viciously through the air. Jack Torrance began to smile. CHAPTER FORTYNINE HALLORANN, GOING UP THE COUNTRY It was quarter of two in the afternoon and according to the snowclotted signs and the Hertz Buicks odometer, he was less than three miles from Estes Park when he finally went off the road. In the hills, the snow was falling faster and more furiously than Hallorann had ever seen (which was, perhaps, not to say a great deal, since Hallorann had seen as little snow as he could manage in his lifetime), and the wind was blowing a capricious galenow from the west, now backing around to the north, sending clouds of powdery snow across his field of vision, making him coldly aware again and again that if he missed a turn he might well plunge two hundred feet off the road, the Electra cartwheeling ass over teapot as it went down. Making it worse was his own amateur status as a winter driver. It scared him to have the yellow center line buried under swirling, drifting snow, and it scared him when the heavy gusts of wind came unimpeded through the notches in the hills and actually made the heavy Buick slew around. It scared him that the road information signs were mostly masked with snow and you could flip a coin as to whether the road was going to break right or left up ahead in the white drivein movie screen he seemed to be driving through. He was scared, all right. He had driven in a cold sweat since climbing into the hills west of Boulder and Lyons, handling the accelerator and brake as if they were Ming vases. Between rock n roll tunes on the radio, the disc jockey constantly adjured motorists to stay off the main highways and under no conditions to go into the mountains, because many roads were impassable and all of them were dangerous. Scores of minor accidents had been reported, and two serious ones a party of skiers in a VW microbus and a family that had been bound for Albuquerque through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The combined score on both was four dead and five wounded. So stay off those roads and get into the good music here at KTLK, the jock concluded cheerily, and then compounded Halloranns misery by playing Seasons in the Sun. We had joy, we had fun, we had Terry Jacks gibbered happily, and Hallorann snapped the radio off viciously, knowing he would have it back on in five minutes. No matter how bad it was, it was better than riding alone through this white madness. (Admit it. Dis heah black boy has got at least one long stripe of yaller  and it runs raht up his ebberlubbin back!) It wasnt even funny. He would have backed off before he even cleared Boulder if it hadnt been for his compulsion that the boy was in terrible trouble. Even now a small voice in the back of his skullmore the voice of reason than of cowardice, he thoughtwas telling him to hole up in an Estes Park motel for the night and wait for the plows to at least expose the center stripe again. That voice kept reminding him of the jets shaky landing at Stapleton, of that sinking feeling that it was going to come in nosefirst, delivering its passengers to the gates of hell rather than at Gate 39, Concourse B. But reason would not stand against the compulsion. It had to be today. The snowstorm was his own bad luck. He would have to cope with it. He was afraid that if he didnt, he might have something much worse to cope with in his dreams. The wind gusted again, this time from the northeast, a little English on the ball if you please, and he was again cut off from the vague shapes of the hills and even from the embankments on either side of the road. He was driving through white null. And then the high sodium lights of the snowplow loomed out of the soup, bearing down, and to his horror he saw that instead of being to one side, the Buicks nose was pointed directly between those headlamps. The plow was being none too choosy about keeping its own side of the road, and Hallorann had allowed the Buick to drift. The grinding roar of the plows diesel engine intruded over the bellow of the wind, and then the sound of its airhorn, hard, long, almost deafening. Halloranns testicles turned into two small wrinkled sacs filled with shaved ice. His guts seemed to have been transformed into a large mass of Silly Putty. Color was materializing out of the white now, snowclotted orange. He could see the high cab, even the gesticulating figure of the driver behind the single long wiper blade. He could see the V shape of the plows wing blades, spewing more snow up onto the roads lefthand embankment like pallid, smoking exhaust. WHAAAAAAAAA! the airhorn bellowed indignantly. He squeezed the accelerator like the breast of a muchloved woman and the Buick scooted forward and toward the right. There was no embankment over here; the plows headed up instead of down had only to push the snow directly over the drop. (The drop, ah yes, the drop) The wingblades on Halloranns left, fully four feet higher than the Electras roof, flirted by with no more than an inch or two to spare. Until the plow had actually cleared him, Hallorann had thought a crash inevitable. A prayer which was half an inarticulate apology to the boy flitted through his mind like a torn rag. Then the plow was past, its revolving blue lights glinting and flashing in Halloranns rearview mirror. He jockeyed the Buicks steering wheel back to the left, but nothing doing. The scoot had turned into a skid, and the Buick was floating dreamily toward the lip of the drop, spuming snow from under its mudguards. He flicked the wheel back the other way, in the skids direction, and the cars front and rear began to swap places. Panicked now, he pumped the brake hard, and then felt a hard bump. In front of him the road was gone  he was looking into a bottomless chasm of swirling snow and vague greenishgray pines far away and far below. (Im going holy mother of Jesus Im going off) And that was where the car stopped, canting forward at a thirtydegree angle, the left fender jammed against a guardrail, the rear wheels nearly off the ground. When Hallorann tried reverse, the wheels only spun helplessly. His heart was doing a Gene Krupa drumroll. He got outvery carefully he got outand went around to the Buicks back deck. He was standing there, looking at the back wheels helplessly, when a cheerful voice behind him said Hello there, fella. You must be shit right out of your mind. He turned around and saw the plow forty yards farther down the road, obscured in the blowing snow except for the raftered dark brown streak of its exhaust and the revolving blue lights on top. The driver was standing just behind him, dressed in a long sheepskin coat and a slicker over it. A blueandwhite pinstriped engineers cap was perched on his head, and Hallorann could hardly believe it was staying on in the teeth of the wind. (Glue. It sureGod must be glue.) Hi, he said. Can you pull me back onto the road? Oh, I guess I could, the plow driver said. What the hell you doing way up here, mister? Good way to kill your ass. Urgent business. Nothin is that urgent, the plow driver said slowly and kindly, as if speaking to a mental defective. If youda hit that post a leetle mite harder, nobody woulda got you out till All Fools Day. Dont come from these parts, do you? No. And I wouldnt be here unless my business was as urgent as I say. That so? The driver shifted his stance companionably as if they were having a desultory chat on the back steps instead of standing in a blizzard halfway between hoot and holler, with Halloranns car balanced three hundred feet above the tops of the trees below. Where you headed? Estes? No, a place called the Overlook Hotel, Hallorann said. Its a little way above Sidewinder But the driver was shaking his head dolefully. I guess I know well enough where that is, he said. Mister, youll never get up to the old Overlook. Roads between Estes Park and Sidewinder is bloody damn hell. Its driftin in right behind us no matter how hard we push. I come through drifts a few miles back that was damn near six feet through the middle. And even if you could make Sidewinder, why, the roads closed from there all the way across to Buckland, Utah. Nope. He shook his head. Never make it, mister. Never make it at all. I have to try, Hallorann said, calling on his last reserves of patience to keep his voice normal. Theres a boy up there Boy? Naw. The Overlook closes down at the last end of September. No percentage keepin it open longer. Too many shitstorms like this. Hes the son of the caretaker. Hes in trouble. How would you know that? His patience snapped. For Christs sake are you going to stand there and flap yjaw at me the rest of the day? I know, I know! Now are you going to pull me back on the road or not? Kind of testy, arent you? the driver observed, not particularly perturbed. Sure, get back in there. I got a chain behind the seat. Hallorann got back behind the wheel, beginning to shake with delayed reaction now. His hands were numbed almost clear through. He had forgotten to bring gloves. The plow backed up to the rear of the Buick, and he saw the driver get out with a long coil of chain. Hallorann opened the door and shouted What can I do to help? Stay out of the way, is all, the driver shouted back. This aint gonna take a blink. Which was true. A shudder ran through the Buicks frame as the chain pulled tight, and a second later it was back on the road, pointed more or less toward Estes Park. The plow driver walked up beside the window and knocked on the safety glass. Hallorann rolled down the window. Thanks, he said. Im sorry I shouted at you. I been shouted at before, the driver said with a grin. I guess youre sorta strung up. You take these. A pair of bulky blue mittens dropped into Halloranns lap. Youll need em when you go off the road again, I guess. Cold out. You wear em unless you want to spend the rest of your life pickin your nose with a crochetin hook. And you send em back. My wife knitted em and Im partial to em. Name and address is sewed right into the linin. Im Howard Cottrell, by the way. You just send em back when you dont need em anymore. And I dont want to have to go payin no postage due, mind. All right, Hallorann said. Thanks. One hell of a lot. You be careful. Id take you myself, but Im busy as a cat in a mess of guitar strings. Thats okay. Thanks again. He started to roll up the window, but Cottrell stopped him. When you get to Sidewinderif you get to Sidewinderyou go to Durkins Conoco. Its right next to the librey. Cant miss it. You ask for Larry Durkin. Tell him Howie Cottrell sent you and you want to rent one of his snowmobiles. You mention my name and show those mittens, youll get the cut rate. Thanks again, Hallorann said. Cottrell nodded. Its funny. Aint no way you could know someones in trouble up there at the Overlook  the phones out, sure as hell. But I believe you. Sometimes I get feelins. Hallorann nodded. Sometimes I do, too. Yeah. I know you do. But you take care. I will. Cottrell disappeared into the blowing dimness with a final wave, his engineer cap still mounted perkily on his head. Hallorann got going again, the chains flailing at the snowcover on the road, finally digging in enough to start the Buick moving. Behind him, Howard Cottrell gave a final goodluck blast on his plows airhorn, although it was really unnecessary; Hallorann could feel him wishing him good luck. Thats two shines in one day, he thought, and that ought to be some kind of good omen. But he distrusted omens, good or bad. And meeting two people with the shine in one day (when he usually didnt run across more than four or five in the course of a year) might not mean anything. That feeling of finality, a feeling (like things are all wrapped up) he could not completely define was still very much with him. It was The Buick wanted to skid sideways around a tight curve and Hallorann jockeyed it carefully, hardly daring to breathe. He turned on the radio again and it was Aretha, and Aretha was just fine. Hed share his Hertz Buick with her any day. Another gust of wind struck the car, making it rock and slip around. Hallorann cursed it and hunched more closely over the wheel. Aretha finished her song and then the jock was on again, telling him that driving today was a good way to get killed. Hallorann snapped the radio off. He did make it to Sidewinder, although he was four and a half hours on the road between Estes Park and there. By the time he got to the Upland Highway it was full dark, but the snowstorm showed no sign of abating. Twice hed had to stop in front of drifts that were as high as his cars hood and wait for the plows to come along and knock holes in them. At one of the drifts the plow had come up on his side of the road and there had been another close call. The driver had merely swung around his car, not getting out to chew the fat, but he did deliver one of the two finger gestures that all Americans above the age of ten recognize, and it was not the peace sign. It seemed that as he drew closer to the Overlook, his need to hurry became more and more compulsive.


He found himself glancing at his wristwatch almost constantly. The hands seemed to be flying along. Ten minutes after he had turned onto the Upland, he passed two signs. The whooping wind had cleared both of their snow pack so he was able to read them. SIDEWINDER 10, the first said. The second ROAD CLOSED 12 MILES AHEAD DURING WINTER MONTHS. Larry Durkin, Hallorann muttered to himself. His dark face was strained and tense in the muted green glow of the dashboard instruments. It was ten after six. The Conoco by the library. Larry And that was when it struck him full force, the smell of oranges and the thoughtforce, heavy and hateful, murderous (GET OUT OF HERE YOU DIRTY NIGGER THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS YOU NIGGER TURN AROUND TURN AROUND OR WELL KILL YOU HANG YOU UP FROM A TREE LIMB YOU FUCKING JUNGLEBUNNY COON AND THEN BURN THE BODY THATS WHAT WE DO WITH NIGGERS SO TURN AROUND RIGHT NOW) Hallorann screamed in the close confines of the car. The message did not come to him in words but in a series of rebuslike images that were slammed into his head with terrific force. He took his hands from the steering wheel to blot the pictures out. Then the car smashed broadside into one of the embankments, rebounded, slewed halfway around, and came to a stop. The rear wheels spun uselessly. Hallorann snapped the gearshift into park, and then covered his face with his hands. He did not precisely cry; what escaped him was an uneven huhhuhhuh sound. His chest heaved. He knew that if that blast had taken him on a stretch of road with a dropoff on one side or the other, he might well be dead now. Maybe that had been the idea. And it might hit him again, at any time. He would have to protect against it. He was surrounded by a red force of immense power that might have been memory. He was drowning in instinct. He took his hands away from his face and opened his eyes cautiously. Nothing. If there was something trying to scare him again, it wasnt getting through. He was closed off. Had that happened to the boy? Dear God, had that happened to the little boy? And of all the images, the one that bothered him the most was that dull whacking sound, like a hammer splatting into thick cheese. What did that mean? (Jesus, not that little boy. Jesus, please.) He dropped the gearshift lever into low range and fed the engine gas a little at a time. The wheels spun, caught, spun, and caught again. The Buick began to move, its headlights cutting weakly through the swirling snow. He looked at his watch. Almost sixthirty now. And he was beginning to feel that was very late indeed. CHAPTER FIFTY REDRUM Wendy Torrance stood indecisive in the middle of the bedroom, looking at her son, who had fallen fast asleep. Half an hour ago the sounds had ceased. All of them, all at once. The elevator, the party, the sound of room doors opening and closing. Instead of easing her mind it made the tension that had been building in her even worse; it was like a malefic hush before the storms final brutal push. But Danny had dozed off almost at once; first into a light, twitching doze, and in the last ten minutes or so a heavier sleep. Even looking directly at him she could barely see the slow rise and fall of his narrow chest. She wondered when he had last gotten a full nights sleep, one without tormenting dreams or long periods of dark wakefulness, listening to revels that had only become audibleand visibleto her in the last couple of days, as the Overlooks grip on the three of them tightened. (Real psychic phenomena or group hypnosis?) She didnt know, and didnt think it mattered. What had been happening was just as deadly either way. She looked at Danny and thought (God grant he lie still) that if he was undisturbed, he might sleep the rest of the night through. Whatever talent he had, he was still a small boy and he needed his rest. It was Jack she had begun to worry about. She grimaced with sudden pain, took her hand away from her mouth, and saw she had torn off one of her fingernails. And her nails were one thing shed always tried to keep nice. They werent long enough to be called hooks, but still nicely shaped and (and what are you worrying about your fingernails for?) She laughed a little, but it was a shaky sound, without amusement. First Jack had stopped howling and battering at the door. Then the party had begun again (or did it ever stop? did it sometimes just drift into a slightly different angle of time where they werent meant to hear it?) counterpointed by the crashing, banging elevator. Then that had stopped. In that new silence, as Danny had been falling asleep, she had fancied she heard low, conspiratorial voices coming from the kitchen almost directly below them. At first she had dismissed it as the wind, which could mimic many different human vocal ranges, from a papery deathbed whisper around the doors and window frames to a fullout scream around the eaves  the sound of a woman fleeing a murderer in a cheap melodrama. Yet, sitting stiffly beside Danny, the idea that it was indeed voices became more and more convincing. Jack and someone else, discussing his escape from the pantry. Discussing the murder of his wife and son. It would be nothing new inside these walls, murder had been done here before. She had gone to the heating vent and had placed her ear against it, but at that exact moment the furnace had come on, and any sound was lost in the rush of warm air coming up from the basement. When the furnace had kicked off again, five minutes ago, the place was completely silent except for the wind, the gritty spatter of snow against the building, and the occasional groan of a board. She looked down at her ripped fingernail. Small beads of blood were oozing up from beneath it. (Jacks gotten out.) (Dont talk nonsense.) (Yes, hes out. Hes gotten a knife from the kitchen or maybe the meat cleaver. Hes on his way up here right now, walking along the sides of the risers so the stairs wont creak.) (! Youre insane !) Her lips were trembling, and for a moment it seemed that she must have cried the words out loud. But the silence held. She felt watched. She whirled around and stared at the nightblackened window, and a hideous white face with circles of darkness for eyes was gibbering in at her, the face of a monstrous lunatic that had been hiding in these groaning walls all along It was only a pattern of frost on the outside of the glass. She let her breath out in a long, susurrating whisper of fear, and it seemed to her that she heard, quite clearly this time, amused titters from somewhere. (Youre jumping at shadows. Its bad enough without that. By tomorrow morning, youll be ready for the rubber room.) There was only one way to allay those fears and she knew what it was. She would have to go down and make sure Jack was still in the pantry. Very simple. Go downstairs. Have a peek. Come back up. Oh, by the way, stop and grab the tray on the registration counter. The omelet would be a washout, but the soup could be reheated on the hotplate by Jacks typewriter. (Oh yes and dont get killed if hes down there with a knife.) She walked to the dresser, trying to shake off the mantle of fear that lay on her. Scattered across the dressers top was a pile of change, a stack of gasoline chits for the hotel truck, the two pipes Jack brought with him everywhere but rarely smoked  and his key ring. She picked it up, held it in her hand for a moment, and then put it back down. The idea of locking the bedroom door behind her had occurred, but it just didnt appeal. Danny was asleep. Vague thoughts of fire passed through her mind, and something else nibbled more strongly, but she let it go. Wendy crossed the room, stood indecisively by the door for a moment, then took the knife from the pocket of her robe and curled her right hand around the wooden haft. She pulled the door open. The short corridor leading to their quarters was bare. The electric wall flambeaux all shone brightly at their regular intervals, showing off the rugs blue background and sinuous, weaving pattern. (See? No boogies here.) (No, of course not. They want you out. They want you to do something silly and womanish, and that is exactly what you are doing.) She hesitated again, miserably caught, not wanting to leave Danny and the safety of the apartment and at the same time needing badly to reassure herself that Jack was still  safely packed away. (Of course he is.) (But the voices) (There were no voices. It was your imagination. It was the wind.) It wasnt the wind. The sound of her own voice made her jump. But the deadly certainty in it made her go forward. The knife swung by her side, catching angles of light and throwing them on the silk wallpaper. Her slippers whispered against the carpets nap. Her nerves were singing like wires. She reached the corner of the main corridor and peered around, her mind stiffened for whatever she might see there. There was nothing to see. After a moments hesitation she rounded the corner and began down the main corridor. Each step toward the shadowy stairwell increased her dread and made her aware that she was leaving her sleeping son behind, alone and unprotected. The sound of her slippers against the carpet seemed louder and louder in her ears; twice she looked back over her shoulder to convince herself that someone wasnt creeping up behind her. She reached the stairwell and put her hand on the cold newel post at the top of the railing. There were nineteen wide steps down to the lobby. She had counted them enough times to know. Nineteen carpeted stair risers and nary a Jack crouching on any one of them. Of course not. Jack was locked in the pantry behind a hefty steel bolt and a thick wooden door. But the lobby was dark and oh so full of shadows. Her pulse thudded steadily and deeply in her throat. Ahead and slightly to the left, the brass yaw of the elevator stood mockingly open, inviting her to step in and take the ride of her life. (No thank you) The inside of the car had been draped with pink and white crepe streamers. Confetti had burst from two tubular party favors. Lying in the rear left corner was an empty bottle of champagne. She sensed movement above her and wheeled to look up the nineteen steps leading to the dark secondfloor landing and saw nothing; yet there was a disturbing corneroftheeye sensation that things (things) had leaped back into the deeper darkness of the hallway up there just before her eyes could register them. She looked down the stairs again. Her right hand was sweating against the wooden handle of the knife; she switched it to her left, wiped her right palm against the pink terrycloth of her robe, and switched the knife back. Almost unaware that her mind had given her body the command to go forward, she began down the stairs, left foot then right, left foot then right, her free hand trailing lightly on the banister. (Wheres the party? Dont let me scare you away, you bunch of moldy sheets! Not one scared woman with a knife! Lets have a little music around here! Lets heave a little life!) Ten steps down, a dozen, a bakers dozen. The light from the firstfloor hall filtered a dull yellow down here, and she remembered that she would have to turn on the lobby lights either beside the entrance to the dining room or inside the managers office. Yet there was light coming from somewhere else, white and muted. The fluorescents, of course. In the kitchen. She paused on the thirteenth step, trying to remember if she had turned them off or left them on when she and Danny left. She simply couldnt remember. Below her, in the lobby, highbacked chairs hulked in pools of shadow. The glass in the lobby doors was pressed white with a uniform blanket of drifted snow. Brass studs in the sofa cushions gleamed faintly like cats eyes. There were a hundred places to hide. Her legs stilted with fear, she continued down. Now seventeen, now eighteen, now nineteen. (Lobby level, madam. Step out carefully.) The ballroom doors were thrown wide, only blackness spilling out. From within came a steady ticking, like a bomb. She stiffened, then remembered the clock on the mantel, the clock under glass. Jack or Danny must have wound it  or maybe it had wound itself up, like everything else in the Overlook. She turned toward the reception desk, meaning to go through the gate and the managers office and into the kitchen. Gleaming dull silver, she could see the intended lunch tray. Then the clock began to strike, little tinkling notes. Wendy stiffened, her tongue rising to the roof of her mouth. Then she relaxed. It was striking eight, that was all. Eight oclock  five, six, seven  She counted the strokes. It suddenly seemed wrong to move again until the clock had stilled.  eight  nine  (??Nine??)  ten  eleven  Suddenly, belatedly, it came to her. She turned back clumsily for the stairs, knowing already she was too late. But how could she have known? Twelve. All the lights in the ballroom went on. There was a huge, shrieking flourish of brass. Wendy screamed aloud, the sound of her cry insignificant against the blare issuing from those brazen lungs. Unmask! the cry echoed. Unmask! Unmask! Then they faded, as if down a long corridor of time, leaving her alone again. No, not alone. She turned and he was coming for her. It was Jack and yet not Jack. His eyes were lit with a vacant, murderous glow; his familiar mouth now wore a quivering, joyless grin. He had the roque mallet in one hand. Thought youd lock me in? Is that what you thought youd do? The mallet whistled through the air. She stepped backward, tripped over a hassock, fell to the lobby rug. Jack You bitch, he whispered. I know what you are. The mallet came down again with whistling, deadly velocity and buried itself in her soft stomach. She screamed, suddenly submerged in an ocean of pain. Dimly she saw the mallet rebound. It came to her with sudden numbing reality that he meant to beat her to death with the mallet he held in his hands. She tried to cry out to him again, to beg him to stop for Dannys sake, but her breath had been knocked loose. She could only force out a weak whimper, hardly a sound at all. Now. Now, by Christ, he said, grinning. He kicked the hassock out of his way. I guess youll take your medicine now. The mallet whickered down. Wendy rolled to her left, her robe tangling above her knees. Jacks hold on the mallet was jarred loose when it hit the floor. He had to stoop and pick it up, and while he did she ran for the stairs, the breath at last sobbing back into her. Her stomach was a bruise of throbbing pain. Bitch, he said through his grin, and began to come after her. You stinking bitch, I guess youll get whats coming to you. I guess you will. She heard the mallet whistle through the air and then agony exploded on her right side as the mallethead took her just below the line of her breasts, breaking two ribs. She fell forward on the steps and new agony ripped her as she struck on the wounded side. Yet instinct made her roll over, roll away, and the mallet whizzed past the side of her face, missing by a naked inch. It struck the deep pile of the stair carpeting with a muffled thud. That was when she saw the knife, which had been jarred out of her hand by her fall. It lay glittering on the fourth stair riser. Bitch, he repeated. The mallet came down. She shoved herself upward and it landed just below her kneecap. Her lower leg was suddenly on fire. Blood began to trickle down her calf. And then the mallet was coming down again. She jerked her head away from it and it smashed into the stair riser in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, scraping away the flesh from her ear. He brought the mallet down again and this time she rolled toward him, down the stairs, inside the arc of his swing. A shriek escaped her as her broken ribs thumped and grated. She struck his shins with her body while he was off balance and he fell backward with a yell of anger and surprise, his feet jigging to keep their purchase on the stair riser. Then he thumped to the floor, the mallet flying from his hand. He sat up, staring at her for a moment with shocked eyes. Ill kill you for that, he said. He rolled over and stretched out for the handle of the mallet. Wendy forced herself to her feet. Her left leg sent bolt after bolt of pain all the way up to her hip. Her face was ashy pale but set. She leaped onto his back as his hand closed over the shaft of the roque mallet. Oh dear God! she screamed to the Overlooks shadowy lobby, and buried the kitchen knife in his lower back up to the handle. He stiffened beneath her and then shrieked. She thought she had never heard such an awful sound in her whole life; it was as if the very boards and windows and doors of the hotel had screamed. It seemed to go on and on while he remained boardstiff beneath her weight. They were like a parlor charade of horse and rider. Except that the back of his redandblackchecked flannel shirt was growing darker, sodden, with spreading blood. Then he collapsed forward on his face, bucking her off on her hurt side, making her groan. She lay breathing harshly for a time, unable to move. She was an excruciating throb of pain from one end to the other. Every time she inhaled, something stabbed viciously at her, and her neck was wet with blood from her grazed ear. There was only the sound of her struggle to breathe, the wind, and the ticking clock in the ballroom. At last she forced herself to her feet and hobbled across to the stairway. When she got there she clung to the newel post, head down, waves of faintness washing over her. When it had passed a little, she began to climb, using her unhurt leg and pulling with her arms on the banister. Once she looked up, expecting to see Danny there, but the stairway was empty. (Thank God he slept through it thank God thank God) Six steps up she had to rest, her head down, her blond hair coiled on and over the banister. Air whistled painfully through her throat, as if it had grown barbs. Her right side was a swollen, hot mass. (Come on Wendy come on old girl get a locked door behind you and then look at the damage thirteen more to go not so bad. And when you get to the upstairs corridor you can crawl. I give my permission.) She drew in as much breath as her broken ribs would allow and halfpulled, halffell up another riser. And another. She was on the ninth, almost halfway up, when Jacks voice came from behind and below her. He said thickly You bitch. You killed me. Terror as black as midnight swept through her. She looked over her shoulder and saw Jack getting slowly to his feet. His back was bowed over, and she could see the handle of the kitchen knife sticking out of it. His eyes seemed to have contracted, almost to have lost themselves in the pale, sagging folds of the skin around them. He was grasping the roque mallet loosely in his left hand. The end of it was bloody. A scrap of her pink terrycloth robe stuck almost in the center. Ill give you your medicine, he whispered, and began to stagger toward the stairs. Whimpering with fear, she began to pull herself upward again. Ten steps, a dozen, a bakers dozen. But still the firstfloor hallway looked as far above her as an unattainable mountain peak. She was panting now, her side shrieking in protest. Her hair swung wildly back and forth in front of her face. Sweat stung her eyes. The ticking of the domed clock in the ballroom seemed to fill her ears, and counterpointing it, Jacks panting, agonized gasps as he began to mount the stairs. CHAPTER FIFTYONE HALLORANN ARRIVES Larry Durkin was a tall and skinny man with a morose face overtopped with a luxuriant mane of red hair. Hallorann had caught him just as he was leaving the Conoco station, the morose face buried deeply inside an Armyissue parka. He was reluctant to do any more business that stormy day no matter how far Hallorann had come, and even more reluctant to rent one of his two snowmobiles out to this wildeyed black man who insisted on going up to the old Overlook. Among people who had spent most of their lives in the little town of Sidewinder, the hotel had a smelly reputation. Murder had been done up there. A bunch of hoods had run the place for a while, and cutthroat businessmen had run it for a while, too. And things had been done up at the old Overlook that never made the papers, because money has a way of talking. But the people in Sidewinder had a pretty good idea. Most of the hotels chambermaids came from here, and chambermaids see a lot. But when Hallorann mentioned Howard Cottrells name and showed Durkin the tag inside one of the blue mittens, the gas station owner thawed. Sent you here, did he? Durkin asked, unlocking one of the garage bays and leading Hallorann inside. Good to know the old rips got some sense left. I thought he was plumb out of it. He flicked a switch and a bank of very old and very dirty fluorescents buzzed wearily into life. Now what in the tarnal creation would you want up at that place, fella? Halloranns nerve had begun to crack. The last few miles into Sidewinder had been very bad. Once a gust of wind that must have been tooling along at better than sixty miles an hour had floated the Buick all the way around in a 360 turn. And there were still miles to travel with God alone knew what at the other end of them. He was terrified for the boy. Now it was almost ten minutes to seven and he had this whole song and dance to go through again. Somebody is in trouble up there, he said very carefully. The son of the caretaker. Who? Torrances boy? Now what kind of trouble could he be in? I dont know, Hallorann muttered. He felt sick with the time this was taking. He was speaking with a country man, and he knew that all country men feel a similar need to approach their business obliquely, to smell around its corners and sides before plunging into the middle of dealing. But there was no time, because now he was one scared nigger and if this went on much longer he just might decide to cut and run. Look, he said. Please. I need to go up there and I have to have a snowmobile to get there. Ill pay your price, but for Gods sake let me get on with my business! All right, Durkin said, unperturbed. If Howard sent you, thats good enough. You take this Arctic Cat. Ill put five gallons of gas in the can. Tanks full. Shell get you up and back down, I guess. Thank you, Hallorann said, not quite steadily. Ill take twenty dollars. That includes the ethyl. Hallorann fumbled a twenty out of his wallet and handed it over. Durkin tucked it into one of his shirt pockets with hardly a look. Guess maybe we better trade jackets, too, Durkin said, pulling off his parka. That overcoat of yours aint gonna be worth nothin tonight. You trade me back when you return the snowsled. Oh, hey, I couldnt Dont fuss with me, Durkin interrupted, still mildly. I aint sending you out to freeze. I only got to walk down two blocks and Im at my own supper table. Give it over. Slightly dazed, Hallorann traded his overcoat for Durkins furlined parka. Overhead the fluorescents buzzed faintly, reminding him of the lights in the Overlooks kitchen. Torrances boy, Durkin said, and shook his head. Goodlookin little tyke, aint he? He n his dad was in here a lot before the snow really flew. Drivin the hotel truck, mostly. Looked to me like the two of em was just about as tight as they could get. Thats one little boy that loves his daddy. Hope hes all right. So do I. Hallorann zipped the parka and tied the hood. Lemme help you push that out, Durkin said. They rolled the snowmobile across the oilstained concrete and toward the garage bay. You ever drove one of these before? No. Well, theres nothing to it. The instructions are pasted there on the dashboard, but all there really is, is stop and go. Your throttles here, just like a motorcycle throttle. Brake on the other side. Lean with it on the turns. This baby will do seventy on hardpack, but on this powder youll get no more than fifty and thats pushing it. Now they were in the service stations snowfilled front lot, and Durkin had raised his voice to make himself heard over the battering of the wind. Stay on the road! he shouted at Halloranns ear. Keep your eye on the guardrail posts and the signs and youll be all right, I guess. If you get off the road, youre going to be dead. Understand? Hallorann nodded. Wait a minute! Durkin told him, and ran back into the garage bay. While he was gone, Hallorann turned the key in the ignition and pumped the throttle a little. The snowmobile coughed into brash, choppy life. Durkin came back with a redandblack ski mask. Put this on under your hood! he shouted. Hallorann dragged it on. It was a tight fit, but it cut the last of the numbing wind off from his cheeks and forehead and chin. Durkin leaned close to make himself heard. I guess you must know about things the same way Howie does sometimes, he said. It dont matter, except that place has got a bad reputation around here. Ill give you a rifle if you want it. I dont think it would do any good, Hallorann shouted back. Youre the boss. But if you get that boy, you bring him to Sixteen Peach Lane. The wifell have some soup on. Okay. Thanks for everything. You watch out! Durkin yelled. Stay on the road! Hallorann nodded and twisted the throttle slowly. The snowmobile purred forward, the headlamp cutting a clean cone of light through the thickly falling snow. He saw Durkins upraised hand in the rearview mirror, and raised his own in return. Then he nudged the handlebars to the left and was traveling up Main Street, the snowmobile coursing smoothly through the white light thrown by the streetlamps. The speedometer stood at thirty miles an hour. It was ten past seven. At the Overlook, Wendy and Danny were sleeping and Jack Torrance was discussing matters of life and death with the previous caretaker. Five blocks up Main, the streetlamps ended. For half a mile there were small houses, all buttoned tightly up against the storm, and then only windhowling darkness. In the black again with no light but the thin spear of the snowmobiles headlamp, terror closed in on him again, a childlike fear, dismal and disheartening. He had never felt so alone. For several minutes, as the few lights of Sidewinder dwindled away and disappeared in the rearview, the urge to turn around and go back was almost insurmountable. He reflected that for all of Durkins concern for Jack Torrances boy, he had not offered to take the other snowmobile and come with him. (That place has got a bad reputation around here.) Clenching his teeth, he turned the throttle higher and watched the needle on the speedometer climb past forty and settle at fortyfive. He seemed to be going horribly fast and yet he was afraid it wasnt fast enough. At this speed it would take him almost an hour to get to the Overlook. But at a higher speed he might not get there at all. He kept his eyes glued to the passing guardrails and the dimesized reflectors mounted on top of each one. Many of them were buried under drifts. Twice he saw curve signs dangerously late and felt the snowmobile riding up the drifts that masked the dropoff before turning back onto where the road was in the summertime. The odometer counted off the miles at a maddeningly slow clipfive, ten, finally fifteen. Even behind the knitted ski mask his face was beginning to stiffen up and his legs were growing numb. (Guess Id give a hundred bucks for a pair of ski pants.) As each mile turned over, his terror grewas if the place had a poison atmosphere that thickened as you neared it. Had it ever been like this before? He had never really liked the Overlook, and there had been others who shared his feeling, but it had never been like this. He could feel the voice that had almost wrecked him outside of Sidewinder still trying to get in, to get past his defenses to the soft meat inside. If it had been strong twentyfive miles back, how much stronger would it be now? He couldnt keep it out entirely. Some of it was slipping through, flooding his brain with sinister subliminal images. More and more he got the image of a badly hurt woman in a bathroom, holding her hands up uselessly to ward off a blow, and he felt more and more that the woman must be (Jesus, watch out!) The embankment was looming up ahead of him like a freight train. Woolgathering, he had missed a turn sign. He jerked the snowmobiles steering gear hard right and it swung around, tilting as it did so. From underneath came the harsh grating sound of the snowtread on rock. He thought the snowmobile was going to dump him, and it did totter on the knifeedge of balance before halfdriving, halfskidding back down to the more or less level surface of the snowburied road. Then the dropoff was ahead of him, the headlamp showing an abrupt end to the snowcover and darkness beyond that. He turned the snowmobile the other way, a pulse beating sickly in his throat. (Keep it on the road Dicky old chum.) He forced himself to turn the throttle up another notch. Now the speedometer needle was pegged just below fifty. The wind howled and roared. The headlamp probed the dark. An unknown length of time later, he came around a driftbanked curve and saw a glimmering flash of light ahead. Just a glimpse, and then it was blotted out by a rising fold of land. The glimpse was so brief he was persuading himself it had been wishful thinking when another turn brought it in view again, slightly closer, for another few seconds. There was no question of its reality this time; he had seen it from just this angle too many times before. It was the Overlook. There were lights on on the first floor and lobby levels, it looked like. Some of his terrorthe part that had to do with driving off the road or wrecking the snowmobile on an unseen curvemelted entirely away. The snowmobile swept surely into the first half of an Scurve that he now remembered confidently foot for foot, and that was when the headlamp picked out the (oh dear jesus god what is it) in the road ahead of him. Limned in stark blacks and whites, Hallorann first thought it was some hideously huge timberwolf that had been driven down from the high country by the storm. Then, as he closed on it, he recognized it and horror closed his throat. Not a wolf but a lion. A hedge lion. Its features were a mask of black shadow and powdered snow, its haunches wound tight to spring. And it did spring, snow billowing around its pistoning rear legs in a silent burst of crystal glitter. Hallorann screamed and twisted the handlebars hard right, ducking low at the same time. Scratching, ripping pain scrawled itself across his face, his neck, his shoulders. The ski mask was torn open down the back. He was hurled from the snowmobile. He hit the snow, plowed through it, rolled over. He could feel it coming for him. In his nostrils there was a bitter smell of green leaves and holly. A huge hedge paw batted him in the small of the back and he flew ten feet through the air, splayed out like a rag doll. He saw the snowmobile, riderless, strike the embankment and rear up, its headlamp searching the sky. It fell over with a thump and stalled. Then the hedge lion was on him. There was a crackling, rustling sound. Something raked across the front of the parka, shredding it. It might have been stiff twigs, but Hallorann knew it was claws. Youre not there! Hallorann screamed at the circling, snarling hedge lion. Youre not there at all! He struggled to his feet and made it halfway to the snowmobile before the lion lunged, batting him across the head with a needletipped paw. Hallorann saw silent, exploding lights. Not there, he said again, but it was a fading mutter. His knees unhinged and dropped him into the snow. He crawled for the snowmobile, the right side of his face a scarf of blood. The lion struck him again, rolling him onto his back like a turtle. It roared playfully. Hallorann struggled to reach the snowmobile.


What he needed was there. And then the lion was on him again, ripping and clawing. CHAPTER FIFTYTWO WENDY AND JACK Wendy risked another glance over her shoulder. Jack was on the sixth riser, clinging to the banister much as she was doing herself. He was still grinning, and dark blood oozed slowly through the grin and slipped down the line of his jaw. He bared his teeth at her. Im going to bash your brains in. Bash them right to fuck in. He struggled up another riser. Panic spurred her, and the ache in her side diminished a little. She pulled herself up as fast as she could regardless of the pain, yanking convulsively at the banister. She reached the top and threw a glance behind her. He seemed to be gaining strength rather than losing it. He was only four risers from the top, measuring the distance with the roque mallet in his left hand as he pulled himself up with his right. Right behind you, he panted through his bloody grin, as if reading her mind. Right behind you now, bitch. With your medicine. She fled stumblingly down the main corridor, hands pressed to her side. The door to one of the rooms jerked open and a man with a green ghoulmask on popped out. Great party, isnt it? he screamed into her face, and pulled the waxed string of a party favor. There was an echoing bang and suddenly crepe streamers were drifting all around her. The man in the ghoulmask cackled and slammed back into his room. She fell forward onto the carpet, fulllength. Her right side seemed to explode with pain, and she fought off the blackness of unconsciousness desperately. Dimly she could hear the elevator running again, and beneath her splayed fingers she could see that the carpet pattern appeared to move, swaying and twining sinuously. The mallet slammed down behind her and she threw herself forward, sobbing. Over her shoulder she saw Jack stumble forward, overbalance, and bring the mallet down just before he crashed to the carpet, expelling a bright splash of blood onto the nap. The mallet head struck her squarely between the shoulder blades and for a moment the agony was so great that she could only writhe, hands opening and clenching. Something inside her had snappedshe had heard it clearly, and for a few moments she was aware only in a muted, muffled way, as if she were merely observing these things through a cloudy wrapping of gauze. Then full consciousness came back, terror and pain with it. Jack was trying to get up so he could finish the job. Wendy tried to stand and found it was impossible. Electric bolts seemed to course up and down her back at the effort. She began to crawl along in a sidestroke motion. Jack was crawling after her, using the roque mallet as a crutch or a cane. She reached the corner and pulled herself around it, using her hands to yank at the angle of the wall. Her terror deepenedshe would not have believed that possible, but it was. It was a hundred times worse not to be able to see him or know how close he was getting. She tore out fistfuls of the carpet napping pulling herself along, and she was halfway down this short hall before she noticed the bedroom door was standing wide open. (Danny! O Jesus) She forced herself to her knees and then clawed her way to her feet, fingers slipping over the silk wallpaper. Her nails pulled little strips of it loose. She ignored the pain and halfwalked, halfshambled through the doorway as Jack came around the far corner and began to lunge his way down toward the open door, leaning on the roque mallet. She caught the edge of the dresser, held herself up against it, and grabbed the doorframe. Jack shouted at her Dont you shut that door! Goddam you, dont you dare shut it! She slammed it closed and shot the bolt. Her left hand pawed wildly at the junk on the dresser, knocking loose coins onto the floor where they rolled in every direction. Her hand seized the key ring just as the mallet whistled down against the door, making it tremble in its frame. She got the key into the lock on the second stab and twisted it to the right. At the sound of the tumblers falling, Jack screamed. The mallet came down against the door in a volley of booming blows that made her flinch and step back. How could he be doing that with a knife in his back? Where was he finding the strength? She wanted to shriek Why arent you dead? at the locked door. Instead she turned around. She and Danny would have to go into the attached bathroom and lock that door, too, in case Jack actually could break through the bedroom door. The thought of escaping down the dumbwaiter shaft crossed her mind in a wild burst, and then she rejected it. Danny was small enough to fit into it, but she would be unable to control the rope pull. He might go crashing all the way to the bottom. The bathroom it would have to be. And if Jack broke through into there But she wouldnt allow herself to think of it. Danny, honey, youll have to wake up n But the bed was empty. When he had begun to sleep more soundly, she had thrown the blankets and one of the quilts over him. Now they were thrown back. Ill get you! Jack howled. Ill get both of you! Every other word was punctuated with a blow from the roque hammer, yet Wendy ignored both. All of her attention was focused on that empty bed. Come out here! Unlock this goddam door! Danny? she whispered. Of course  when Jack had attacked her. It had come through to him, as violent emotions always seemed to. Perhaps hed even seen the whole thing in a nightmare. He was hiding. She fell clumsily to her knees, enduring another bolt of pain from her swollen and bleeding leg, and looked under the bed. Nothing there but dustballs and Jacks bedroom slippers. Jack screamed her name, and this time when he swung the mallet, a long splinter of wood jumped from the door and clattered off the hardwood planking, The next blow brought a sickening, splintering crack, the sound of dry kindling under a hatchet. The bloody mallet head, now splintered and gouged in its own right, bashed through the new hole in the door, was withdrawn, and came down again, sending wooden shrapnel flying across the room. Wendy pulled herself to her feet again using the foot of the bed, and hobbled across the room to the closet. Her broken ribs stabbed at her, making her groan. Danny? She brushed the hung garments aside frantically; some of them slipped their hangers and ballooned gracelessly to the floor. He was not in the closet. She hobbled toward the bathroom and as she reached the door she glanced back over her shoulder. The mallet crashed through again, widening the hole, and then a hand appeared, groping for the bolt. She saw with horror that she had left Jacks key ring dangling from the lock. The hand yanked the bolt back, and as it did so it struck the bunched keys. They jingled merrily. The hand clutched them victoriously. With a sob, she pushed her way into the bathroom and slammed the door just as the bedroom door burst open and Jack charged through, bellowing. Wendy ran the bolt and twisted the spring lock, looking around desperately. The bathroom was empty. Danny wasnt here, either. And as she caught sight of her own bloodsmeared, horrified face in the medicine cabinet mirror, she was glad. She had never believed that children should be witness to the little quarrels of their parents. And perhaps the thing that was now raving through the bedroom, overturning things and smashing them, would finally collapse before it could go after her son. Perhaps, she thought, it might be possible for her to inflict even more damage on it  kill it, perhaps. Her eyes skated quickly over the bathrooms machineproduced porcelain surfaces, looking for anything that might serve as a weapon. There was a bar of soap, but even wrapped in a towel she didnt think it would be lethal enough. Everything else was bolted down. God, was there nothing she could do? Beyond the door, the animal sounds of destruction went on and on, accompanied by thick shouts that they would take their medicine and pay for what theyd done to him. He would show them whos boss. They were worthless puppies, the both of them. There was a thump as her record player was overturned, a hollow crash as the secondhand TVs picture tube was smashed, the tinkle of window glass followed by a cold draft under the bathroom door. A dull thud as the mattresses were ripped from the twin beds where they had slept together, hip to hip. Boomings as Jack struck the walls indiscriminately with the mallet. There was nothing of the real Jack in that howling, maundering, petulant voice, though. It alternately whined in tones of selfpity and rose in lurid screams; it reminded her chillingly of the screams that sometimes rose in the geriatrics ward of the hospital where she had worked summers as a high school kid. Senile dementia. Jack wasnt out there anymore. She was hearing the lunatic, raving voice of the Overlook itself. The mallet smashed into the bathroom door, knocking out a huge chunk of the thin paneling. Half of a crazed and working face stared in at her. The mouth and cheeks and throat were lathered in blood, the single eye she could see was tiny and piggish and glittering. Nowhere left to run, you cunt, it panted at her through its grin. The mallet descended again, knocking wood splinters into the tub and against the reflecting surface of the medicine cabinet (!! The medicine cabinet !!) A desperate whining noise began to escape her as she whirled, pain temporarily forgotten, and threw the mirror door of the cabinet back. She began to paw through its contents. Behind her that hoarse voice bellowed Here I come now! Here I come now, you pig! It was demolishing the door in a machinelike frenzy. Bottles and jars fell before her madly searching fingerscough syrup, Vaseline, Clairol Herbal Essences shampoo, hydrogen peroxide, benzocainethey fell into the sink and shattered. Her hand closed over the dispenser of doubleedged razor blades just as she heard the hand again, fumbling for the bolt and the spring lock. She slipped one of the razor blades out, fumbling at it, her breath coming in harsh little gasps. She had cut the ball of her thumb. She whirled around and slashed at the hand, which had turned the lock and was now fumbling for the bolt. Jack screamed. The hand was jerked back. Panting, holding the razor blade between her thumb and index finger, she waited for him to try again. He did, and she slashed. He screamed again, trying to grab her hand, and she slashed at him again. The razor blade turned in her hand, cutting her again, and dropped to the the floor by the toilet. Wendy slipped another blade out of the dispenser and waited. Movement in the other room (?? going away ??) And a sound coming through the bedroom window. A motor. A high, insectile buzzing sound. A roar of anger from Jack and thenyes, yes, she was sure of ithe was leaving the caretakers apartment, plowing through the wreckage and out into the hall. (?? Someone coming a ranger Dick Hallorann ??) Oh God, she muttered brokenly through a mouth that seemed filled with broken sticks and old sawdust. Oh God, oh please. She had to leave now, had to go find her son so they could face the rest of this nightmare side by side. She reached out and fumbled at the bolt. Her arm seemed to stretch for miles. At last she got it to come free. She pushed the door open, staggered out, and was suddenly overcome by the horrible certainty that Jack had only pretended to leave, that he was lying in wait for her. Wendy looked around. The room was empty, the living room, too. Jumbled, broken stuff everywhere. The closet? Empty. Then the soft shades of gray began to wash over her and she fell down on the mattress Jack had ripped from the bed, semiconscious. CHAPTER FIFTYTHREE HALLORANN LAID LOW Hallorann reached the overturned snowmobile just as, a mile and a half away, Wendy was pulling herself around the corner and into the short hallway leading to the caretakers apartment. It wasnt the snowmobile he wanted but the gascan held on to the back by a pair of elastic straps. His hands, still clad in Howard Cottrells blue mittens, seized the top strap and pulled it free as the hedge lion roared behind hima sound that seemed to be more in his head than outside of it. A hard, brambly slap to his left leg, making the knee sing with pain as it was driven in a way the joint had never been expected to bend. A groan escaped Halloranns clenched teeth. It would come for the kill any time now, tired of playing with him. He fumbled for the second strap. Sticky blood ran in his eyes. (Roar! Slap!) That one raked across his buttocks, almost tumbling him over and away from the snowmobile again. He held onno exaggerationfor dear life. Then he had freed the second strap. He clutched the gascan to him as the lion struck again, rolling him over on his back. He saw it again, only a shadow in the darkness and falling snow, as nightmarish as a moving gargoyle. Hallorann twisted at the cans cap as the moving shadow stalked him, kicking up snowpuffs. As it moved in again the cap spun free, releasing the pungent smell of the gasoline. Hallorann gained his knees and as it came at him, lowslung and incredibly quick, he splashed it with the gas. There was a hissing, spitting sound and it drew back. Gas! Hallorann cried, his voice shrill and breaking. Gonna burn you, baby! Dig on it awhile! The lion came at him again, still spitting angrily. Hallorann splashed it again but this time the lion didnt give. It charged ahead. Hallorann sensed rather than saw its head angling at his face and he threw himself backward, partially avoiding it. Yet the lion still hit his upper rib cage a glancing blow, and a flare of pain struck there. Gas gurgled out of the can, which he still held, and doused his right hand and arm, cold as death. Now he lay on his back in a snow angel, to the right of the snowmobile by about ten paces. The hissing lion was a bulking presence to his left, closing in again. Hallorann thought he could see its tail twitching. He yanked Cottrells mitten off his right hand, tasting sodden wool and gasoline. He ripped up the hem of the parka and jammed his hand into his pants pocket. Down in there, along with his keys and his change, was a very battered old Zippo lighter. He had bought it in Germany in 1954. Once the hinge had broken and he had returned it to the Zippo factory and they had repaired it without charge, just as advertised. A nightmare flood of thoughts flooding through his mind in a split second. (Dear Zippo my lighter was swallowed by a crocodile dropped from an airplane lost in the Pacific trench saved me from a Kraut bullet in the Battle of the Bulge dear Zippo if this fucker doesnt go that lion is going to rip my head off) The lighter was out. He clicked the hood back. The lion, rushing at him, a growl like ripping cloth, his finger flicking the striker wheel, spark, flame, (my hand) his gasolinesoaked hand suddenly ablaze, the flames running up the sleeve of the parka, no pain, no pain yet, the lion shying from the torch suddenly blazing in front of it, a hideous flickering hedge sculpture with eyes and a mouth, shying away, too late. Wincing at the pain, Hallorann drove his blazing arm into its stiff and scratchy side. In an instant the whole creature was in flames, a prancing, writhing pyre on the snow. It bellowed in rage and pain, seeming to chase its flaming tail as it zigzagged away from Hallorann. He thrust his own arm deep into the snow, killing the flames, unable to take his eyes from the hedge lions death agonies for a moment. Then, gasping, he got to his feet. The arm of Durkins parka was sooty but unburned, and that also described his hand. Thirty yards downhill from where he stood, the hedge lion had turned into a fireball. Sparks flew at the sky and were viciously snatched away by the wind. For a moment its ribs and skull were etched in orange flame and then it seemed to collapse, disintegrate, and fall into separate burning piles. (Never mind it. Get moving.) He picked up the gascan and struggled over to the snowmobile. His consciousness seemed to be flickering in and out, offering him cuttings and snippets of home movies but never the whole picture. In one of these he was aware of yanking the snowmobile back onto its tread and then sitting on it, out of breath and incapable of moving for a few moments. In another, he was reattaching the gascan, which was still halffull. His head was thumping horribly from the gas fumes (and in reaction to his battle with the hedge lion, he supposed), and he saw by the steaming hole in the snow beside him that he had vomited, but he was unable to remember when. The snowmobile, the engine still warm, fired immediately. He twisted the throttle unevenly and started forward with a series of necksnapping jerks that made his head ache even more fiercely. At first the snowmobile wove drunkenly from side to side, but by halfstanding to get his face above the windscreen and into the sharp, needling blast of the wind, he drove some of the stupor out of himself. He opened the throttle wider. (Where are the rest of the hedge animals?) He didnt know, but at least he wouldnt be caught unaware again. The Overlook loomed in front of him, the lighted firstfloor windows throwing long yellow rectangles onto the snow. The gate at the foot of the drive was locked and he dismounted after a wary look around, praying he hadnt lost his keys when he pulled his lighter out of his pocket  no, they were there. He picked through them in the bright light thrown by the snowmobile headlamp. He found the right one and unsnapped the padlock, letting it drop into the snow. At first he didnt think he was going to be able to move the gate anyway; he pawed frantically at the snow surrounding it, disregarding the throbbing agony in his head and the fear that one of the other lions might be creeping up behind him. He managed to pull it a foot and a half away from the gatepost, squeezed into the gap, and pushed. He got it to move another two feet, enough room for the snowmobile, and threaded it through. He became aware of movement ahead of him in the dark. The hedge animals, all of them, were clustered at the base of the Overlooks steps, guarding the way in, the way out. The lions prowled. The dog stood with its front paws on the first step. Hallorann opened the throttle wide and the snowmobile leaped forward, puffing snow up behind it. In the caretakers apartment, Jack Torrances head jerked around at the high, wasplike buzz of the approaching engine and suddenly began to move laboriously toward the hallway again. The bitch wasnt important now. The bitch could wait. Now it was this dirty niggers turn. This dirty, interfering nigger with his nose in where it didnt belong. First him and then his son. He would show them. He would show them that  that he  that he was of managerial timber! Outside, the snowmobile rocketed along faster and faster. The hotel seemed to surge toward it. Snow flew in Halloranns face. The headlamps oncoming glare spotlighted the hedge shepherds face, its blank and socketless eyes. Then it shrank away, leaving an opening. Hallorann yanked at the snowmobiles steering gear with all his remaining strength, and it kicked around in a sharp semicircle, throwing up clouds of snow, threatening to tip over. The rear end struck the foot of the porch steps and rebounded. Hallorann was off in a flash and running up the steps. He stumbled, fell, picked himself up. The dog was growlingagain in his headclose behind him. Something ripped at the shoulder of the parka and then he was on the porch, standing in the narrow corridor Jack had shoveled through the snow, and safe. They were too big to fit in here. He reached the big double doors which gave on the lobby and dug for his keys again. While he was getting them he tried the knob and it turned freely. He pushed his way in. Danny! he cried hoarsely. Danny, where are you? Silence came back. His eyes traveled across the lobby to the foot of the wide stairs and a harsh gasp escaped him. The rug was splashed and matted with blood. There was a scrap of pink terrycloth robe. The trail of blood led up the stairs. The banister was also splashed with it. Oh Jesus, he muttered, and raised his voice again. Danny! DANNY! The hotels silence seemed to mock him with echoes which were almost there, sly and oblique. (Danny? Whos Danny? Anybody here know a Danny? Danny, Danny, whos got the Danny? Anybody for a game of spin the Danny? Pin the tail on the Danny? Get out of here, black boy. No one here knows Danny from Adam.) Jesus, had he come through everything just to be too late? Had it been done? He ran up the stairs two at a time and stood at the top of the first floor. The blood led down toward the caretakers apartment. Horror crept softly into his veins and into his brain as he began to walk toward the short hall. The hedge animals had been bad, but this was worse. In his heart he was already sure of what he was going to find when he got down there. He was in no hurry to see it. Jack had been hiding in the elevator when Hallorann came up the stairs. Now he crept up behind the figure in the snowcoated parka, a blood and gorestreaked phantom with a smile upon its face. The roque mallet was lifted as high as the ugly, ripping pain in his back (?? did the bitch stick me cant remember ??) would allow. Black boy, he whispered. Ill teach you to go sticking your nose in other peoples business. Hallorann heard the whisper and began to turn, to duck, and the roque mallet whistled down. The hood of the parka matted the blow, but not enough. A rocket exploded in his head, leaving a contrail of stars  and then nothing. He staggered against the silk wallpaper and Jack hit him again, the roque mallet slicing sideways this time, shattering Halloranns cheekbone and most of the teeth on the left side of his jaw. He went down limply. Now, Jack whispered. Now, by Christ. Where was Danny? He had business with his trespassing son. Three minutes later the elevator door banged open on the shadowed third floor. Jack Torrance was in it alone. The car had stopped only halfway into the doorway and he had to boost himself up onto the hall floor, wriggling painfully like a crippled thing. He dragged the splintered roque mallet after him. Outside the eaves, the wind howled and roared. Jacks eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. There was blood and confetti in his hair. His son was up here, up here somewhere. He could feel it. Left to his own devices, he might do anything scribble on the expensive silk wallpaper with his crayons, deface the furnishings, break the windows. He was a liar and a cheat and he would have to be chastised  harshly. Jack Torrance struggled to his feet. Danny? he called. Danny, come here a minute, will you? Youve done something wrong and I want you to come and take your medicine like a man. Danny? Danny! CHAPTER FIFTYFOUR TONY (Danny ) (Dannneee ) Darkness and hallways. He was wandering through darkness and hallways that were like those which lay within the body of the hotel but were somehow different. The silkpapered walls stretched up and up, and even when he craned his neck, Danny could not see the ceiling. It was lost in dimness. All the doors were locked, and they also rose up to dimness. Below the peepholes (in these giant doors they were the size of gunsights), tiny skulls and crossbones had been bolted to each door instead of room numbers. And somewhere, Tony was calling him. (Dannneee ) There was a pounding noise, one he knew well, and hoarse shouts, faint with distance. He could not make out word for word, but he knew the text well enough by now. He had heard it before, in dreams and awake. He paused, a little boy not yet three years out of diapers, and tried to decide where he was, where he might be. There was fear, but it was a fear he could live with. He had been afraid every day for two months now, to a degree that ranged from dull disquiet to outright, mindbending terror. This he could live with. But he wanted to know why Tony had come, why he was making the sound of his name in this hall that was neither a part of real things nor of the dreamland where Tony sometimes showed him things. Why, where Danny. Far down the giant hallway, almost as tiny as Danny himself, was a dark figure. Tony. Where am I? he called softly to Tony. Sleeping, Tony said. Sleeping in your mommy and daddys bedroom. There was sadness in Tonys voice. Danny, Tony said. Your mother is going to be badly hurt. Perhaps killed. Mr. Hallorann, too. No! He cried it out in a distant grief, a terror that seemed damped by these dreamy, dreary surroundings. Nonetheless, death images came to him dead frog plastered to the turnpike like a grisly stamp; Daddys broken watch lying on top of a box of junk to be thrown out; gravestones with a dead person under every one; dead jay by the telephone pole; the cold junk Mommy scraped off the plates and down the dark maw of the garbage disposal. Yet he could not equate these simple symbols with the shifting complex reality of his mother; she satisfied his childish definition of eternity. She had been when he was not. She would continue to be when he was not again. He could accept the possibility of his own death, he had dealt with that since the encounter in Room 217. But not hers. Not Daddys. Not ever. He began to struggle, and the darkness and the hallway began to waver. Tonys form became chimerical, indistinct. Dont! Tony called. Dont, Danny, dont do that! Shes not going to be dead! Shes not! Then you have to help her. Danny  youre in a place deep down in your own mind. The place where I am. Im a part of you, Danny. Youre Tony. Youre not me. I want my mommy  I want my mommy  I didnt bring you here, Danny. You brought yourself. Because you knew. No Youve always known, Tony continued, and he began to walk closer. For the first time, Tony began to walk closer. Youre deep down in yourself in a place where nothing comes through. Were alone here for a little while, Danny. This is an Overlook where no one can ever come. No clocks work here. None of the keys fit them and they can never be wound up. The doors have never been opened and no one has ever stayed in the rooms. But you cant stay long. Because its coming. It  Danny whispered fearfully, and as he did so the irregular pounding noise seemed to grow closer, louder. His terror, cool and distant a moment ago, became a more immediate thing. Now the words could be made out. Hoarse, huckstering; they were uttered in a coarse imitation of his fathers voice, but it wasnt Daddy. He knew that now. He knew (You brought yourself. Because you knew.) Oh Tony, is it my daddy? Danny screamed. Is it my daddy thats coming to get me? Tony didnt answer. But Danny didnt need an answer. He knew. A long and nightmarish masquerade party went on here, and had gone on for years. Little by little a force had accrued, as secret and silent as interest in a bank account. Force, presence, shape, they were all only words and none of them mattered. It wore many masks, but it was all one. Now, somewhere, it was coming for him. It was hiding behind Daddys face, it was imitating Daddys voice, it was wearing Daddys clothes. But it was not his daddy. It was not his daddy. Ive got to help them! he cried. And now Tony stood directly in front of him, and looking at Tony was like looking into a magic mirror and seeing himself in ten years, the eyes widely spaced and very dark, the chin firm, the mouth handsomely molded. The hair was light blond like his mothers, and yet the stamp on his features was that of his father, as if Tonyas if the Daniel Anthony Torrance that would someday bewas a halfling caught between father and son, a ghost of both, a fusion. You have to try to help, Tony said. But your father  hes with the hotel now, Danny. Its where he wants to be. It wants you too, because its very greedy. Tony walked past him, into the shadows. Wait! Danny cried. What can I Hes close now, Tony said, still walking away. Youll have to run  hide  keep away from him. Keep away. Tony, I cant! But youve already started, Tony said. You will remember what your father forgot. He was gone. And from somewhere near his fathers voice came, coldly wheedling Danny? You can come out, doc. Just a little spanking, thats all. Take it like a man and it will be all over. We dont need her, doc. Just you and me, right? When we get this little  spanking  behind us, it will be just you and me. Danny ran. Behind him the things temper broke through the shambling charade of normality. Come here, you little shit! Right now! Down a long hall, panting and gasping. Around a corner. Up a flight of stairs. And as he went, the walls that had been so high and remote began to come down; the rug which had only been a blur beneath his feet took on the familiar blackandblue pattern, sinuously woven together; the doors became numbered again and behind them the parties that were all one went on and on, populated by generations of guests. The air seemed to be shimmering around him, the blows of the mallet against the walls echoing and reechoing. He seemed to be bursting through some thin placental womb from sleep to the rug outside the Presidential Suite on the third floor; lying near him in a bloody heap were the bodies of two men dressed in suits and narrow ties. They had been taken out by shotgun blasts and now they began to stir in front of him and get up. He drew in breath to scream but didnt. (!! FALSE FACES !! NOT REAL !!) They faded before his gaze like old photographs and were gone. But below him, the faint sound of the mallet against the walls went on and on, drifting up through the elevator shaft and the stairwell. The controlling force of the Overlook, in the shape of his father, blundering around on the first floor. A door opened with a thin screeing sound behind him. A decayed woman in a rotten silk gown pranced out, her yellowed and splitting fingers dressed with verdigriscaked rings. Heavybodied wasps crawled sluggishly over her face. Come in, she whispered to him, grinning with black lips. Come in and we will daance the taaaango  False face!! he hissed. Not real! She drew back from him in alarm, and in the act of drawing back she faded and was gone. Where are you? it screamed, but the voice was still only in his head. He could still hear the thing that was wearing Jacks face down on the first floor  and something else. The high, whining sound of an approaching motor. Dannys breath stopped in his throat with a little gasp. Was it just another face of the hotel, another illusion? Or was it Dick? He wantedwanted desperatelyto believe it was Dick, but he didnt dare take the chance. He retreated down the main corridor, and then took one of the offshoots, his feet whispering on the nap of the carpet. Locked doors frowned down at him as they had done in the dreams, the visions, only now he was in the world of real things, where the game was played for keeps. He turned to the right and came to a halt, his heart thudding heavily in his chest. Heat was blowing around his ankles. From the registers, of course. This must have been Daddys day to heat the west wing and (You will remember what your father forgot.) What was it? He almost knew. Something that might save him and Mommy? But Tony had said he would have to do it himself. What was it? He sank down against the wall, trying desperately to think. It was so hard  the hotel kept trying to get into his head  the image of that dark and slumped form swinging the mallet from side to side, gouging the wallpaper  sending out puffs of plaster dust. Help me, he muttered. Tony, help me. And suddenly he became aware that the hotel had grown deathly silent. The whining sound of the motor had stopped. (must not have been real) and the sounds of the party had stopped and there was only the wind, howling and whooping endlessly.