The Shining (The Shining #1)(132)

(If only we could all be out of here. Or if it was a dream I was having, back in Stovington. If only.)

The bolt was stuck.

Wendy pulled at it as hard as she could, but it wouldn't move. She couldn't retract the goddam bolt. It was stupid and unfair... she had opened it with no trouble at all when she had gone in to get the can of soup. Now it wouldn't move, and what was she going to do? They couldn't put him in the walk-in refrigerator; he would freeze or smother to death. But if they left him out and he woke up...

Jack stirred again on the floor.

"I'll take care of it," he muttered. "I understand"

"He's waking up, Mommyl" Danny warned.

Sobbing now, she yanked at the bolt with both hands.

"Danny?" There was something softly menacing, if still blurry, in Jack's voice. "That you, ole doc?"

"Just go to sleep, Daddy," Danny said nervously. "It's bedtime, you know."

He looked up at his mother, still struggling with the bolt, and saw what was wrong immediately. She had forgotten to rotate the bolt before trying to withdraw it. The little catch was stuck in its notch.

"Here," he said low, and brushed her trembling hands aside; his own were shaking almost as badly. He knocked the catch loose with the heel of his hand and the bolt drew back easily.

"Quick," he said. He looked down. Jack's eyes bad fluttered open again and this time Daddy was looking directly at him, his gaze strangely flat and speculative.

"You copied it," Daddy told him. "I know you did, But it's here somewhere. And I'll find it. That I promise you. IT find it..." His words slurred off again.

Wendy pushed the pantry door open with her knee, hardly noticing the pungent odor of dried fruit that wafted out. She picked up Jack's feet again and dragged him in. She was gasping harshly now, at the limit of her strength. As she yanked the chain pull that turned on the light, Jack's eyes fluttered open again.

"What are you doing? Wendy? What are you doing?"

She stepped over him.

He was quick; amazingly quick. One hand lashed out and she had to sidestep and nearly fall out the door to avoid his grasp. Still, he had caught a handful of her bathrobe and there was a heavy purring noise as it ripped., He was up on his hands and knees now, his hair hanging in his eyes, like some heavy animal. A large dog... or a lion.

"Damn you both, I know what you want. But you're not going to get it. This hotel... it's mine. It's me they want. Mel Mel"

"The door, Dannyl" she screamed. "Shut the door!"

He pushed the heavy wooden door shut with a slam, just as lack leaped. The door latched and Jack thudded uselessly against it.

Danny's small hands groped at the bolt. Wendy was too far away to help; the issue of whether he would be locked in or free was going to be decided in two seconds. Danny missed his grip, found it again, and shot the bolt across just as the latch began to jiggle madly up and down below it. Then it stayed up and there was a series of thuds as Jack slammed his shoulder against the door. The bolt, a quarter inch of steel in diameter, showed no signs of loosening. Wendy let her breath out slowly.

"Let me out of here!" Jack raged. "Let me out! Danny, doggone it, this is your father and I want to get out! Now do what I tell youl"

Danny's hand moved automatically toward the bolt. Wendy caught it and pressed it between her br**sts.

"You mind your daddy, Dannyl You do what I sayl You do it or I'll give you a hiding you'll never forget. Open this door or FU bash your f**king brains in!"

Danny looked at her, pale as window glass.

They could hear his breath tearing in and out behind the half inch of solid oak.

"Wendy, you let me outl Let me out right now! You cheap pickle-plated coldcunt bitch! You let me out! I mean it! Let me out of here and I'll let it go! If you don't, I'll mess you up! I mean it! I'll mess you up so bad your own mother would pass you on the street! Now open this door!"

Danny moaned. Wendy looked at him and saw he was going to faint in a moment.

"Come on, doc," she said, surprised at the calmness of her own voices "It's not your daddy talking, remember. It's the hotel."

"Come hack here and let me out right NOW!" Jack screamed. There was a scraping, breaking sound as he attacked the inside of the door with his fingernails.

"It's the hotel," Danny said. "It's the hotel. I remember." But he looked back over his shoulder and his face was crumpled and terrified.

Chapter 47-48

47. Danny

It was three in the afternoon of a long, long day.

They were sitting on the big bed in their quarters. Danny was turning the purple VW model with the monster sticking out of the sun roof over and over in his hands, compulsively.

They had heard Daddy's batterings at the door all the way across the lobby, the batterings and his voice, hoarse and petulantly angry in a weak-king sort of a way, vomiting promises of punishment, vomiting profanity, promising both of them that they would live to regret betraying him after he had slaved his guts out for them over the years.

Danny thought they would no longer be able to hear it upstairs, but the sounds of his rage carried perfectly up the dumb-waiter shaft: Mommy's face was pale, and there were horrible brownish bruises on her neck where Daddy had tried to...