Doctor Sleep (The Shining, #2)(132)

He took the bundle to the front of the truck and buried it beneath a drift of old leaves. Then he grabbed a piece of the downed birch the F-150 had struck and dragged it over the burial site. It was hard work with Abra’s arms, but he managed.

He found he couldn’t just step into the cab; he had to pull himself up by the steering wheel. And once he was finally behind the wheel, her feet barely reached the pedals. Fuck.

Billy gave a galumphing snore, and Dan threw another elbow. Billy opened his eyes and looked around. “Where are we? Did that guy drug me?” Then: “I think I have to go back to sleep.”

At some point during the final life-or-death struggle for the gun, Crow’s unopened bottle of Fanta had fallen to the floor. Dan bent over, grabbed it, then paused with Abra’s hand on the cap, remembering what happens to soda when it takes a hard thump. From somewhere, Abra spoke to him

(oh dear)

and she was smiling, but it wasn’t the angry smile. Dan thought that was good.


10

You can’t let me go to sleep, the voice coming from Dan’s mouth said, so John took the Fox Run exit and parked in the lot farthest from Kohl’s. There he and Dave walked Dan’s body up and down, one on each side. He was like a drunk at the end of a hard night—every now and then his head sagged to his chest before snapping back up again. Both men took a turn at asking what had happened, what was happening now, and where it was happening, but Abra only shook Dan’s head. “The Crow shot me in my hand before he let me go in the bathroom. The rest is all fuzzy. Now shh, I have to concentrate.”

On the third wide circle of John’s Suburban, Dan’s mouth broke into a grin, and a very Abra-like giggle issued from him. Dave looked a question at John across the body of their shambling, stumbling charge. John shrugged and shook his head.

“Oh, dear,” Abra said. “Soda.”


11

Dan tilted the soda and removed the cap. A high-pressure spray of orange pop hit Billy full in the face. He coughed and spluttered, for the time being wide awake.

“Jesus, kid! Why’d you do that?”

“It worked, didn’t it?” Dan handed him the still-fizzing soda. “Put the rest inside you. I’m sorry, but you can’t go back to sleep, no matter how much you want to.”

While Billy tilted the bottle and chugged soda, Dan leaned over and found the seat adjustment lever. He pulled it with one hand and yanked on the steering wheel with the other. The seat jolted forward. It caused Billy to spill Fanta down his chin (and to utter a phrase not generally used by adults around young girls from New Hampshire), but now Abra’s feet could reach the pedals. Barely. Dan put the truck in reverse and backed up slowly, angling toward the road as he went. When they were on the pavement, he breathed a sigh of relief. Getting stuck in a ditch beside a little-used Vermont highway would not have advanced their cause much.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Billy asked.

“Yes. Been doing it for years . . . although there was a little lag time when the state of Florida took away my license. I was in another state at the time, but there’s a little thing called reciprocity. The bane of traveling drunks all across this great country of ours.”

“You’re Dan.”

“Guilty as charged,” he said, peering over the top of the steering wheel. He wished he had a book to sit on, but since he didn’t, he would just have to do the best he could. He dropped the transmission into drive and got rolling.

“How’d you get inside her?”

“Don’t ask.”

The Crow had said something (or only thought it, Dan didn’t know which) about camp roads, and about four miles up Route 108, they came to a lane with a rustic wooden sign nailed to a pine tree: BOB AND DOT’S HAPPY PLACE. If that wasn’t a camp road, nothing was. Dan turned in, Abra’s arms glad for the power steering, and flicked on the high beams. A quarter of a mile up, the lane was barred by a heavy chain with another sign hanging from it, this one less rustic: NO TRESPASSING. The chain was good. It meant Bob and Dot hadn’t decided on a getaway weekend at their happy place, and a quarter of a mile from the highway was enough to assure them of some privacy. There was another bonus: a culvert with water trickling out of it.

He killed the lights and engine, then turned to Billy. “See that culvert? Go wash the soda off your face. Splash up good. You need to be as wide awake as you can get.”

“I’m awake,” Billy said.

“Not enough. Try to keep your shirt dry. And when you’re done, comb your hair. You’re going to have to meet the public.”

“Where are we?”

“Vermont.”

“Where’s the guy who hijacked me?”

“Dead.”

“Good goddam riddance!” Billy exclaimed. Then, after a moment’s thought: “How about the body? Where’s that?”

An excellent question, but not one Dan wanted to answer. What he wanted was for this to be over. It was exhausting, and disorienting in a thousand ways. “Gone. That’s really all you need to know.”

“But—”

“Not now. Wash your face, then walk up and down this road a few times. Swing your arms, take deep breaths, and get as clear as you can.”

“I’ve got one bitch of a headache.”