Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2)(141)

Rose could have stopped them, but why bother? Let them discover what life was like in America on their own, with no True Knot to protect them in camp or watch their backs while they were on the road. Especially when I tell Toady Slim to kill their credit cards and empty their rich bank accounts, she thought.

Toady was no Jimmy Numbers, but he could still take care of it, and at the touch of a button. And he’d be there to do it. Toady would stick. So would all the good ones . . . or almost all the good ones. Dirty Phil, Apron Annie, and Diesel Doug were no longer on their way back. They had taken a vote and decided to head south instead. Deez had told them Rose was no longer to be trusted, and besides, it was long past time to cut the Knot.

Good luck with that, darling boy, she thought, clenching and unclenching her fists.

Splitting the True was a terrible idea, but thinning the herd was a good one. So let the weaklings run and the sicklings die. When the bitchgirl was also dead and they had swallowed her steam (Rose had no more illusions of keeping her prisoner), the twenty-five or so who were left would be stronger than ever. She mourned Crow, and knew she had no one who could step into his shoes, but Token Charlie would do the best he could. So would Harpman Sam . . . Bent Dick . . . Fat Fannie and Long Paul . . . Greedy G, not the brightest bulb, but loyal and unquestioning.

Besides, with the others gone, the steam she still had in storage would go farther and make them stronger. They would need to be strong.

Come to me, little bitchgirl, Rose thought. See how strong you are when there are two dozen against you. See how you like it when it’s just you against the True. We’ll eat your steam and lap up your blood. But first, we’ll drink your screams.

Rose stared up into the darkness, hearing the fading voices of the runners, the faithless ones.

At the door came a soft, timid knock. Rose lay silent for a moment or two, considering, then swung her legs out of bed.

“Come.”

She was na**d but made no attempt to cover herself when Silent Sarey crept in, shapeless inside one of her flannel nightgowns, her mouse-colored bangs covering her brows and almost hanging in her eyes. As always, Sarey seemed hardly there even when she was.

“I’m sad, Loze.”

“I know you are. I’m sad, too.”

She wasn’t—she was furious—but it sounded good.

“I miss Andi.”

Andi, yes—rube name Andrea Steiner, whose father had f**ked the humanity out of her long before the True Knot had found her. Rose remembered watching her that day in the movie theater, and how, later, she had fought her way through the Turning with sheer guts and willpower. Snakebite Andi would have stuck. Snake would have walked through fire, if Rose said the True Knot needed her to.

She held out her arms. Sarey scurried to her and laid her head against Rose’s breast.

“Wivvout her I lunt to die.”

“No, honey, I don’t think so.” Rose pulled the little thing into bed and hugged her tight. She was nothing but a rack of bones held together by scant meat. “Tell me what you really want.”

Beneath the shaggy bangs, two eyes gleamed, feral. “Levenge.”

Rose kissed one cheek, then the other, then the thin dry lips. She drew back a little and said, “Yes. And you’ll have it. Open your mouth, Sarey.”

Sarey obediently did so. Their lips came together again. Rose the Hat, still full of steam, breathed down Silent Sarey’s throat.

15

The walls of Concetta’s study were papered with memos, fragments of poems, and correspondence that would never be answered. Dan typed in the four-letter password, launched Firefox, and googled the Bluebell Campground. They had a website that wasn’t terribly informative, probably because the owners didn’t care that much about attracting visitors; the place was your basic front. But there were photos of the property, and these Dan studied with the fascination people reserve for recently discovered old family albums.

The Overlook was long gone, but he recognized the terrain. Once, just before the first of the snowstorms that closed them in for the winter, he and his mother and father had stood together on the hotel’s broad front porch (seeming even broader with the lawn gliders and wicker furniture in storage), looking down the long, smooth slope of the front lawn. At the bottom, where the deer and the antelope often came out to play, there was now a long rustic building called the Overlook Lodge. Here, the caption said, visitors could dine, play bingo, and dance to live music on Friday and Saturday nights. On Sundays there were church services, overseen by a rotating cadre of Sidewinder’s men and women of the cloth.

Until the snow came, my father mowed that lawn and trimmed the topiary that used to be there. He said he’d trimmed lots of ladies’ topiaries in his time. I didn’t get the joke, but it used to make Mom laugh.

“Some joke,” he said, low.

He saw rows of sparkling RV hookups, lux mod cons that supplied LP gas as well as electricity. There were men’s and women’s shower buildings big enough to service mega-truckstops like Little America or Pedro’s South of the Border. There was a playground for the wee folks. (Dan wondered if the kiddies who played there ever saw or sensed unsettling things, as Danny “Doc” Torrance once had in the Overlook’s playground.) There was a softball field, a shuffleboard area, a couple of tennis courts, even bocce.

No roque, though—not that. Not anymore.