Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2)(132)

“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.”

Dan wasn’t surprised. “When you come back, the girl is probably going to be the girl again, which means you’ll have to drive. If you feel sober enough to be plausible, go to the next town that has a motel and check in. You’re traveling with your granddaughter, got it?”

“Yeah,” Billy said. “My granddaughter. Abby Freeman.”

“Once you’re in, call me on my cell.”

“Because you’ll be wherever . . . wherever the rest of you is.”

“Right.”

“This is f**ked to the sky, buddy.”

“Yes,” Dan said. “It certainly is. Our job now is to unf*ck it.”

“Okay. What is the next town?”

“No idea. I don’t want you having an accident, Billy. If you can’t get clear enough to drive twenty or thirty miles and then check into a motel without having the guy on the counter call the cops, you and Abra will have to spend the night in the cab of this truck. It won’t be comfortable, but it should be safe.”

Billy opened the passenger-side door. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll be able to pass for sober. Done it before.” He gave the girl behind the steering wheel a wink. “I work for Casey Kingsley. Death on drinkin, remember?”

Dan watched him go to the culvert and kneel there, then closed Abra’s eyes.

In a parking lot outside the Fox Run Mall, Abra closed Dan’s.

(Abra)

(I’m here)

(are you awake)

(yes sort of)

(we need to turn the wheel again can you help me)

This time, she could.

12

“Let go of me, you guys,” Dan said. His voice was his own again. “I’m all right. I think.”

John and Dave let go, ready to grab him again if he staggered, but he didn’t. What he did was touch himself: hair, face, chest, legs. Then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.” He looked around. “Which is where?”

“Fox Run Mall,” John said. “Sixty miles or so from Boston.”