Doctor Sleep (The Shining #2)(45)

“I see my wife.” The faintest of whispers.

“Do you?”

“She says . . .”

There was no more, just a final blue pulse behind Dan’s eyes and a final exhalation from the man on the bed. Dan opened his eyes, listened to the wind, and waited for the last thing. It came a few seconds later: a dull red mist that rose from Charlie’s nose, mouth, and eyes. This was what an old nurse in Tampa—one who had about the same twinkle as Billy Freeman—called “the gasp.” She said she had seen it many times.

Dan saw it every time.

It rose and hung above the old man’s body. Then it faded.

Dan slid up the right sleeve of Charlie’s pajamas, and felt for a pulse. It was just a formality.

5

Azzie usually left before it was over, but not tonight. He was standing on the counterpane beside Charlie’s hip, staring at the door. Dan turned, expecting to see Claudette or Jan, but no one was there.

Except there was.

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Are you the little girl who writes on my blackboard sometimes?”

No response. But someone was there, all right.

“Is your name Abra?”

Faint, almost inaudible because of the wind, there came a ripple of piano notes. Dan might have believed it was his imagination (he could not always tell the difference between that and the shining) if not for Azzie, whose ears twitched and whose eyes never left the empty doorway. Someone was there, watching.

“Are you Abra?”

There was another ripple of notes, then silence again. Except this time it was absence. Whatever her name was, she was gone. Azzie stretched, leaped down from the bed, and left without a look back.

Dan sat where he was a little longer, listening to the wind. Then he lowered the bed, pulled the sheet up over Charlie’s face, and went back to the nurses’ station to tell them there had been a death on the floor.

6

When his part of the paperwork was complete, Dan walked down to the snack alcove. There was a time he would have gone there on the run, fists already clenched, but those days were gone. Now he walked, taking long slow breaths to calm his heart and mind. There was a saying in AA, “Think before you drink,” but what Casey K. told him during their once-a-week tête-à-têtes was to think before he did anything. You didn’t get sober to be stupid, Danny. Keep it in mind the next time you start listening to that itty-bitty shitty committee inside your head.

But those goddam fingermarks.

Carling was rocked back in his chair, now eating Junior Mints. He had swapped Popular Mechanics for a photo mag with the latest bad-boy sitcom star on the cover.

“Mr. Hayes has passed on,” Dan said mildly.

“Sorry to hear it.” Not looking up from the magazine. “But that is what they’re here for, isn’t i—”

Dan lifted one foot, hooked it behind one of the tilted front legs of Carling’s chair, and yanked. The chair spun away and Carling landed on the floor. The box of Junior Mints flew out of his hand. He stared up at Dan unbelievingly.

“Have I got your attention?”

“You sonofa—” Carling started to get up. Dan put his foot on the man’s chest and pushed him back against the wall.

“I see I have. Good. It would be better right now if you didn’t get up. Just sit there and listen to me.” Dan bent forward and clasped his knees with his hands. Tight, because all those hands wanted to do right now was hit. And hit. And hit. His temples were throbbing. Slow, he told himself. Don’t let it get the better of you.

But it was hard.

“The next time I see your fingermarks on a patient, I’ll photograph them and go to Mrs. Clausen and you’ll be out on the street no matter who you know. And once you’re no longer a part of this institution, I’ll find you and beat the living shit out of you.”

Carling got to his feet, using the wall to support his back and keeping a close eye on Dan as he did it. He was taller, and outweighed Dan by a hundred pounds at least. He balled his fists. “I’d like to see you try. How about now?”

“Sure, but not here,” Dan said. “Too many people trying to sleep, and we’ve got a dead man down the hall. One with your marks on him.”

“I didn’t do nothing but go to take his pulse. You know how easy they bruise when they got the leukemia.”

“I do,” Dan agreed, “but you hurt him on purpose. I don’t know why, but I know you did.”

There was a flicker in Carling’s muddy eyes. Not shame; Dan didn’t think the man was capable of feeling that. Just unease at being seen through. And fear of being caught. “Big man. Doctor Sleeeep. Think your shit don’t stink?”

“Come on, Fred, let’s go outside. More than happy to.” And this was true. There was a second Dan inside. He wasn’t as close to the surface anymore, but he was still there and still the same ugly, irrational sonofabitch he’d always been. Out of the corner of his eye Dan could see Claudette and Jan standing halfway down the hall, their eyes wide and their arms around each other.

Carling thought it over. Yes, he was bigger, and yes, he had more reach. But he was also out of shape—too many overstuffed burritos, too many beers, much shorter wind than he’d had in his twenties—and there was something worrisome in the skinny guy’s face. He’d seen it before, back in his Road Saints days. Some guys had lousy circuit breakers in their heads. They tripped easy, and once they did, those guys would burn on until they burned out. He had taken Torrance for some mousy little geek who wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful, but he saw that he’d been wrong about that. His secret identity wasn’t Doctor Sleep, it was Doctor Crazy.