Doctor Sleep (The Shining, #2)(86)

Rose gathered all her bad temper, stuffed it in a sack, stored it at the back of her mind, and smiled gamely. “What is it?”

“Grampa Flick,” Crow said, “is no longer holding his fudge.”

“He hasn’t been able to hold it for the last twenty years,” Rose said. “He won’t wear diapers, and I can’t make him. No one can make him.”

“This is different,” Nut said. “He can barely get out of bed. Baba and Black-Eyed Susie are taking care of him as well as they can, but that camper of his smells like the wrath of God—”

“He’ll get better. We’ll feed him some steam.” But she didn’t like the look on Nut’s face. Tommy the Truck had passed two years ago, and by the way the True measured time, that might have been two weeks ago. Now Grampa Flick?

“His mind’s breaking down,” Crow said bluntly. “And . . .” He looked at Walnut.

“Petty was taking care of him this morning, and she says she thinks she saw him cycle.”

“Thinks,” Rose said. She didn’t want to believe it. “Has anyone else seen it happen? Baba? Sue?”

“No.”

She shrugged as if to say there you are. Jimmy knocked before they could discuss it farther, and this time she was glad for the interruption.

“Come in!”

Jimmy poked his head through. “Sure it’s okay?”

“Yes! Why don’t you bring the Rockettes and the UCLA marching band while you’re at it? Hell, I was only trying to get in a meditation groove after a few pleasant hours of spewing my guts.”

Crow was giving her a look of mild reproof, and maybe she deserved it—probably she deserved it, these people were only doing the True’s work as she had asked them to do it—but if Crow ever stepped up to the captain’s chair, he’d understand. Never a moment to yourself, unless you threatened them with pain of death. And in many cases, not even then.

“I got something you may want to see,” Jimmy said. “And since Crow and Nut were already here, I figured—”

“I know what you figured. What is it?”

“I went hunting around on the internet for news about those two towns you zeroed in on—Fryeburg and Anniston. Found this in the Union Leader. It’s from last Thursday’s paper. Maybe it’s nothing.”

She took the sheet. The main item was about some podunk school shutting down their football program because of budget cuts. Beneath it was a shorter item, which Jimmy had circled.

“POCKET EARTHQUAKE” REPORTED IN ANNISTON

How small can an earthquake be? Pretty small, if the people of Richland Court, a short Anniston street that dead-ends at the Saco River, are to be believed. Late Tuesday afternoon, several residents of the street reported a tremor that rattled windows, shook floors, and sent glassware tumbling from shelves. Dane Borland, a retiree who lives at the end of the street, pointed out a crack running the width of his newly asphalted driveway. “If you want proof, there it is,” he said.

Although the Geological Survey Center in Wrentham, MA, reports there were no temblors in New England last Tuesday afternoon, Matt and Cassie Renfrew took the opportunity to throw an “earthquake party,” which most of the street’s residents attended.

Andrew Sittenfeld of the Geological Survey Center says the shaking felt by Richland Court residents might have been a surge of water through the sewer system, or possibly a military plane breaking the sound barrier. When these suggestions were made to Mr. Renfrew, he laughed cheerfully. “We know what we felt,” he said. “It was an earthquake. And there’s really no downside. The damage was minor, and hey, we got a terrific party out of it.”

(Andrew Gould)

Rose read it twice, then looked up, eyes bright. “Good catch, Jimmy.”

He grinned. “Thanks. I’ll leave you guys to it, then.”

“Take Nut with you, he needs to check on Grampa. Crow, you stay a minute.”

When they were gone, he closed the door. “You think the girl caused that shake in New Hampshire?”

“I do. Not a hundred percent certain, but at least eighty. And having a place to focus on—not just a town but a street—will make things a hell of a lot easier for me tonight, when I go looking for her.”

“If you can stick a come-along worm in her head, Rosie, we may not even need to knock her out.”

She smiled, thinking again that Crow had no idea how special this one was. Later she would think, Neither did I. I only thought I did. “There’s no law against hoping, I suppose. But once we have her, we’ll need something a little more sophisticated than a Mickey Finn, even if it’s a high-tech one. We’ll need some wonder drug that’ll keep her nice and cooperative until she decides it’s in her best interest to cooperate on her own.”

“Will you be coming with us when we go to grab her?”

Rose had assumed so, but now she hesitated, thinking of Grampa Flick. “I’m not sure.”

He didn’t ask questions—which she appreciated—and turned to the door. “I’ll see that you’re not disturbed again.”

“Good. And you make sure Walnut gives Grampa a complete exam—I mean from * to appetite. If he really is cycling, I want to know tomorrow, when I come out of purdah.” She opened the compartment under the floor and brought out one of the canisters. “And give him what’s left in this.”