The Shining (The Shining #1)(137)

"I see you can hardly have taken care of the business we discussed, sir. The correction of your wife and son."

"They're the ones who locked me in. Pull the bolt, for God's sake!"

"You let them lock you in?" Grady's voice registered wellbred surprise. "Oh, dear. A woman half your size and a little boy? Hardly sets you off as being of top managerial timber, does it?"

A pulse began to beat in the clockspring of veins at Jack's right temple. "Let me out, Grady. I'll take care of them."

"Will you indeed, sir? I wonder." Well-bred surprise was replaced by well-bred regret. "I'm pained to say that I doubt it. I-and others-have really come to believe that your heart is not in this, sir. That you haven't the... the belly for it"

"I do!" Jack shouted. "I do, I swear it!"

"You would bring us your son?"

"Yes! Yes!"

"Your wife would object to that very strongly, Mr. Torrance. And she appears to be... somewhat stronger than we had imagined. Somewhat more resourceful. She certainly seems to have gotten the better of you."

Grady tittered.

"Perhaps, Mr. Torrance, we should have been dealing with her all along."

"I'll bring him, I swear it," Jack said. His face was against the door now. He was sweating. "She won't object. I swear she won't. She won't be able to."

"You would have to kill her, I fear," Grady said coldly.

"I'll do what I have to do. Just let me out."

"You'll give your word on it, sir?" Grady persisted.

"My word, my promise, my sacred vow, whatever in hell you want. If you-"

There was a flat snap as the bolt was drawn back. The door shivered open a quarter of an inch. Jack's words and breath halted. For a moment he felt that death itself was outside that door.

The feeling passed.

He whispered: "Thank you, Grady. I swear you won't regret it. I swear you won't."

There was no answer. He became aware that all sounds had stopped except for the cold swooping of the wind outside.

He pushed the pantry door open; the hinges squealed faintly.

The kitchen was empty. Grady was gone. Everything was still and frozen beneath the cold white glare of the fluorescent bars. His eyes caught on the large chopping block where the three of them had eaten their meals.

Standing on top of it was a martini glass, a fifth of gin, and a plastic dish filled with olives.

Leaning against it was one of the roque mallets from the equipment shed.

He looked at it for a long time.

Then a voice much deeper and much more powerful than Grady's, spoke from somewhere, everywhere... from inside him.

(Keep your promise, Mr. Torrance.)

"I will," he said. He heard the fawning servility in his own voice but was unable to control it. "I will."

He walked to the chopping block and put his hand on the handle of the mallet.

He hefted it.

Swung it.

It hissed viciously through the air.

Jack Torrance began to smile.

Chapter 49. Hallorann, Going up the Country

It was quarter of two in the afternoon and according to the snow-clotted signs and the Hertz Buick's odometer, he was less than three miles from Estes Park when he finally went off the road.

In the hills, the snow was falling faster and more furiously than Hallorann had ever seen (which was, perhaps, not to say a great deal, since Hallorann had seen as little snow as he could manage in his lifetime), and the wind was blowing a capricious gale-now from the west, now backing around to the north, sending clouds of powdery snow across his field of vision, making him coldly aware again and again that if he missed a turn he might well plunge two hundred feet off the road, the Electra cartwheeling ass over teapot as it went down. Making it worse was his own amateur status as a winter driver. It scared him to have the yellow center line buried under swirling, drifting snow, and it scared him when the heavy gusts of wind came unimpeded through the notches in the hills and actually made the heavy Buick slew around. It scared him that the road information signs were mostly masked with snow and you could flip a coin as to whether the road was going to break right or left up ahead in the white drive-in movie screen he seemed to be driving through. He was scared, all right. He had driven in a cold sweat since climbing into the hills west of Boulder and Lyons, handling the accelerator and brake as if they were Ming vases. Between rock 'n' roll tunes on the radio, the disc jockey constantly adjured motorists to stay off the main highways and under no conditions to go into the mountains, because many roads were impassable and all of them were dangerous. Scores of minor accidents had been reported, and two serious ones: a party of skiers in a VW microbus and a family that had been bound for Albuquerque through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The combined score on both was four dead and five wounded. "So stay off those roads and get into the good music here at KTLK," the jock concluded cheerily, and then compounded Hallorann's misery by playing "Seasons in the Sun." "We had joy, we had fun, we had-" Terry Jacks gibbered happily, and Hallorann snapped the radio off viciously, knowing he would have it back on in five minutes. No matter how bad it was, it was better than riding alone through this white madness.

(Admit it. Dis heap black boy has got at least one long stripe of yaller... and it runs rant up his ebberlubbin back!)