The Shining (The Shining #1)(44)
"Sure."
She plugged in the night light, which showed Snoopy lying fast asleep on top of his doghouse. He had never wanted a night light until they moved into the Overlook, and then he had specifically requested one. She turned off the lamp and the overhead and looked back at them, the small white circle of Danny's face, and Jack's above it. She hesitated a moment
(and then I went through the mirror)
and then left them quietly.
"You sleepy?" Jack asked, brushing Danny's hair off his forehead.
"Yeah."
"Want a drink of water?"
"No..."
There was silence for five minutes. Danny was still beneath his hand. Thinking the boy had dropped off, he was about to get up and leave quietly when Danny said from the brink of sleep:
"Roque.,'
Jack turned back, all zero at the bone.
"Danny-?"
"You'd never hurt Mommy, would you, Daddy?"
"No."
"Or me?"
"No."
Silence again, spinning out.
"Daddy?"
"What?"
"Tony came and told me about roque."
"Did he, doc? What did he say?"
"I don't remember much. Except he said it was in innings. Like baseball. Isn't that funny?"
"Yes." Jack's heart was thudding dully in his chest. How could the boy possibly know a thing like that? Roque was played by innings, not like baseball but like cricket.
"Daddy...?" He was almost asleep now.
"What?"
"What's redrum?"
"Red drum? Sounds like something an Indian might take on the warpath."
Silence.
"Hey, doc?"
But Danny was alseep, breathing in long, slow strokes. Jack sat looking down at him for a moment, and a rush of love pushed through him like tidal water. Why had he yelled at the boy like that? It was perfectly normal for him to stutter a little. He had been coming out of a daze or some weird kind of trance, and stuttering was perfectly normal under those circumstances. Perfectly. And he hadn't said timer at all. It had been something else, nonsense, gibberish.
How had he known roque was played in innings? Had someone told him? Ullman? Hallorann?
He looked down at his hands. They were made into tight, clenched fists of tension
(god how i need a drink)
and the nails were digging into his palms like tiny brands. Slowly he forced them to open.
"I love you, Danny," he whispered. "God knows I do."
He left the room. He had lost his temper again, only a little, but enough to make him feel sick and afraid. A drink would blunt that feeling, oh yes. It would blunt that
(Something about the timer)
and everything else. There was no mistake about those words at all. None. Each had come out clear as a bell. He paused in the hallway, looking back, and automatically wiped his lips with his handkerchief.
* * *
Their shapes were only dark silhouettes in the glow of the night light. Wendy, wearing only panties, went to his bed and tucked him in again; he had kicked the covers back. Jack stood in the doorway, watching as she put her inner wrist against his forehead.
"Is he feverish?"
"No." She kissed his cheek.
"Thank God you made that appointment," he said as she came back to the doorway. "You think that guy knows his stuff?"
"The checker said he was very good. That's all I know."
"If there's something wrong, I'm going to send you and him to your mother's, Wendy."
"No."
"I know," he said, putting an arm around her, "how you feel."
"You don't know how I feel at all about her."
"Wendy, there's no place else I can send you. You know that."
"If you came-"
"Without this job we're done," he said simply. "You know that."
Her silhouette nodded slowly. She knew it.
"When I had that interview with Ullman, I thought he was just blowing off his bazoo. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe I really shouldn't have tried this with you two along. Forty miles from nowhere."
"I love you," she said. "And Danny loves you even more, if that's possible. He would have been heartbroken, Jack. He will be, if you send us away."
"Don't make it sound that way."
"If the doctor says there's something wrong, I'll look for a job in Sidewinder," she said. "If I can't get one in Sidewinder, Danny and I will go to Boulder. I can't go to my mother, Jack. Not on those terms. Don't ask me. I... I just can't."
"I guess I know that. Cheer up. Maybe it's nothing."
"Maybe."
"The appointment's at two?"
"Yes."
"Let's leave the bedroom door open, Wendy."
"I want to. But I think he'll sleep through now."
But he didn't.
* * *
Boom... boom... boomboomBOOMBOOM-
He fled the heavy, crashing, echoing sounds through twisting, mazelike corridors, his bare feet whispering over a deep-pile jungle of blue and black. Each time he heard the roque mallet smash into the wall somewhere behind him he wanted to scream aloud. But he mustn't. He mustn't. A scream would give him away and then