Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2)(115)

After fifteen refreshing minutes, she stepped out, dried off, wrapped herself in a fluffy bath sheet, and headed back to her RV, carrying her clothes. Short Eddie and Big Mo were cleaning up the open-air barbecue area following another excellent lunch. Not their fault that nobody felt much like eating, with two more of the True showing those goddamned red spots. They waved to her. Rose was raising her own hand in return when a bundle of dy***ite went off in her head. She went sprawling, her pants and shirt spilling from her hand. Her bath sheet unraveled.

Rose barely noticed. Something had happened to the raiding party. Something bad. She was digging for her cell in the pocket of her crumpled jeans as soon as her head began to clear. Never in her life had she wished so strongly (and so bitterly) that Crow Daddy was capable of long-distance telepathy, but—with a few exceptions, like herself—that gift seemed reserved for rube steamheads like the girl in New Hampshire.

Eddie and Mo were running toward her. Behind them came Long Paul, Silent Sarey, Token Charlie, and Harpman Sam. Rose hit speed dial on her phone. A thousand miles away, Crow’s gave just half a ring.

“Hello, you’ve reached Henry Rothman. I can’t talk to you right now, but if you leave your number and a brief message—”

Fucking voice mail. Which meant his phone was either turned off or getting no service. Rose was betting the latter. Naked and on her knees in the dirt, her heels digging into the backs of her thighs, Rose smacked the center of her forehead with the hand not holding her cell.

Crow, where are you? What are you doing? What’s happening?

15

The man in the chinos and t-shirt fired his weird pistol at Dan. There was a chuff of compressed air, and suddenly a dart was sticking out of Hoppy’s back. Dan raised the Glock from the ruins of the picnic basket and fired again. Chinos Guy took it in the chest and went over backwards, grunting, as fine droplets of blood blew out through the back of his shirt.

Andi Steiner was the last one standing. She turned, saw Dave Stone frozen there, looking dazed, and charged at him with her hypodermic needle clutched in her fist like a dagger. Her ponytail swung like a pendulum. She was screaming. To Dan, everything seemed to have slowed down and gained clarity. He had time to see that the plastic protector-sleeve was still on the end of the needle and had time to think, What kind of clowns are these guys? The answer, of course, was that they weren’t clowns at all. They were hunters completely unused to resistance from their prey. But of course children were their usual targets, and unsuspecting ones, at that.

Dave only stared at the howling harpy coming toward him. Perhaps his gun was empty; more likely that one burst had been his limit. Dan raised his own gun but didn’t shoot. The chances of missing the tattooed lady and hitting Abra’s father were just too great.

That was when John ran out of the woods and slammed into Dave’s back, shoving him forward into the charging woman. Her screams (fury? dismay?) were driven out of her in a gust of violently expelled air. They both tumbled over. The needle flew. As Tattoo Woman went scrabbling for it on her hands and knees, John brought the stock of Billy’s deer rifle down on the side of her head. It was a full-force, adrenaline-fueled blow. There was a crunch as her jaw broke. Her features twisted to the left, one eye bulging from its socket in a startled glare. She sprawled and rolled over on her back. Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth. Her hands clenched and opened, clenched and opened.

John dropped the rifle and turned to Dan, stricken. “I didn’t mean to hit her that hard! Christ, I was just so scared!”

“Look at the one with the frizzy hair,” Dan said. He got up on legs that felt too long and not all there. “Look at him, John.”

John looked. Walnut lay in a pool of blood, one hand clutching his torn neck. He was cycling rapidly. His clothes fell in, then puffed out. The blood flowing through his fingers disappeared, then reappeared again. The fingers themselves were doing the same. The man had become an insane X-ray.

John stepped back with his hands plastered over his mouth and nose. Dan still had that sense of slowness and perfect clarity. There was time to see Tattoo Woman’s blood and a snarl of her blond hair on the stock of the Remington pump also appearing and disappearing. It made him think of how her ponytail had pendulumed back and forth when she

(Dan where’s the Crow WHERE’S THE CROW???)

ran at Abra’s father. She had told them that Barry was cycling. Now Dan understood what she meant.

“The one in the fishing shirt is doing it, too,” Dave Stone said. His voice was only slightly shaky, and Dan guessed he knew where some of his daughter’s steel had come from. But he didn’t have time to think about that now. Abra was telling him they hadn’t gotten the whole crew.

He sprinted to the Winnebago. The door was still open. He ran up the steps, threw himself on the carpeted floor, and managed to bang his head hard enough on the post under the eating table to send bright specks shooting across his field of vision. Never happens that way in the movies, he thought, and rolled over, expecting to be shot or stomped or injected by the one who had stayed behind to provide the rearguard. The one Abra called the crow. They weren’t totally stupid and complacent after all, it seemed.

The Winnebago was empty.

Appeared empty.

Dan got to his feet and hurried through the kitchenette. He passed a foldout bed, rumpled from frequent occupancy. Part of his mind registered the fact that the RV smelled like the wrath of God in spite of the air-conditioner that was still running. There was a closet, but the door stood open on its track and he saw nothing inside but clothes. He bent, looking for feet. No feet. He went on to the rear of the Winnebago and stood beside the bathroom door.