Doctor Sleep (The Shining, #2)(155)

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

Unless they had binoculars, of course.

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

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


5

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

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

(gallows)

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

(Abra are you there)

(I’m here Dan)

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

(are they hearing you)

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

(if they’re not they’re deaf)

That was good enough.

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

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


6

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

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

“You can’t,” John said. “Only Dan can help her now. They have to help each other.”

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

“She’s breathing,” Dave said, but he sounded unsure even to himself.


7

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

Abra walked to the desk and picked up one of the books. On the cover, a small child on a trike was being chased by a little dog. The title was Reading Fun with Dick and Jane.

Dan joined her, wearing a bemused smile. “The little girl on the cover is Sally. Dick and Jane are her brother and sister. And the dog’s name is Jip. For a little while they were my best friends. My only friends, I guess. Except for Tony, of course.”

She put the book down and turned to him. “What is this place, Dan?”

“A memory. There used to be a hotel here, and this was my room. Now it’s a place where we can be together. You know the wheel that turns when you go into someone else?”

“Uh-huh . . .”

“This is the middle. The hub.”

“I wish we could stay here. It feels . . . safe. Except for those.” Abra pointed to the French doors with their long panes of glass. “They don’t feel the same as the rest.” She looked at him almost accusingly. “They weren’t here, were they? When you were a kid.”

“No. There weren’t any windows in my room, and the only door was the one that went into the rest of the caretaker’s apartment. I changed it. I had to. Do you know why?”

She studied him, her eyes grave. “Because that was then and this is now. Because the past is gone, even though it defines the present.”

He smiled. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“You didn’t have to say it. You thought it.”

He drew her toward those French doors that had never existed. Through the glass they could see the lawn, the tennis courts, the Overlook Lodge, and Roof O’ the World.

“I see her,” Abra breathed. “She’s up there, and she’s not looking this way, is she?”

“She better not be,” Dan said. “How bad is the pain, honey?”