The Shining (The Shining #1)(86)

Jack was silent.

"Danny said it just right. The place seemed good for you. You were away from all the pressures that made you so unhappy at Stovington. You were your own boss, working with your hands so you could save your brain-all of your brain- for your evenings writing. Then... I don't know just when... the place began to seem bad for you. Spending all that time down in the cellar, sifting through those old papers, all that old history. Talking in your sleep-"

"In my sleep?" Jack asked. His face wore a cautious, startled expression. "I talk in my sleep?"

"Most of it is slurry. Once I got up to use the bathroom and you were saying, 'To hell with it, bring in the slots at least, no one will know, no one will ever know. ' Another time you woke me right up, practically yelling, `Unmask, unmask, unmask. "'

"Jesus Christ," he said, and rubbed a hand over his face. He looked ill.

"All your old drinking habits, too. Chewing Excedrin. Wiping your mouth all the time. Cranky in the morning. And you haven't been able to finish the play yet, have you?"

"No. Not yet, but it's only a matter of time. I've been thinking about something else... a new project-"

"This hotel. The project Al Shockley called you about. The one he wanted you to drop."

"How do you know about that?" Jack barked. "Were you listening in? You-"

"No," she said. "I couldn't have listened in if I'd wanted to, and you'd know that if you were thinking straight. Danny and I were downstairs that night. The switchboard is shut down. Our phone upstairs was the only one in the hotel that was working, because it's patched directly into the outside line. You told me so yourself."

"Then how could you know what Al told me?"

"Danny told me. Danny knew. The same way he sometimes knows when things are misplaced, or when people are thinking about divorce."

"The doctor said-"

She shook her head impatiently. "The doctor was full of shit and we both know it. We've known it all the time. Remember when Danny said he wanted to see the firetrucks? That was no hunch. He was just a baby. He knows things. And now I'm afraid..." She looked at the bruises on Danny's neck.

"Did you really know Uncle Al had called me, Danny?"

Danny nodded. "He was really mad, Daddy. Because you called Mr. Ullman and Mr. Ullman called him. Uncle AI didn't want you to write anything about the hotel."

"Jesus," Jack said again. "The bruises, Danny. Who tried to strangle you?"

Danny's face went dark. "Her," he said. "The woman in that room. In 217. The dead lady." His lips began to tremble again, and he seized the teacup and drank.

Jack and Wendy exchanged a scared look over his bowed head.

"Do you know anything about this?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "Not about this, no."

"Danny?" He raised the boy's frightened face. "Try, son. We're right here."

"I knew it was bad here," Danny said in a low voice. "Ever since we were in Boulder. Because Tony gave me dreams about it."

"What dreams?"

"I can't remember everything. He showed me the Overlook at night, with a skull and crossbones on the front. And there was pounding. Something... I don't remember what... chasing after me. A monster. Tony showed me about redrum."

"What's that, doc?" Wendy asked.

He shook his head. "I don't know."

"Rum, like yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum?" Jack asked.

Danny shook his head again. "I don't know. Then we got here, and Mr. Hallorann talked to me in his car. Because he has the shine, too."

"Shine?"

"It's..." Danny made a sweeping, all-encompassing gesture with his hands. "It's being able to understand things. To know things. Sometimes you see things. Like me knowing Uncle Al called. And Mr. Hallorann knowing you call me doc. Mr. Hallorann, he was peeling potatoes in the Army when he knew his brother got killed in a train crash. And when he called home it was true."

"Holy God," Jack whispered. "You're not making this up, are you, Dan?"

Danny shook his head violently. "No, I swear to God." Then, with a touch of pride he added: "Mr. Hallorann said I had the best shine of anyone he ever met. We could talk back and forth to each other without hardly opening our mouths."

His parents looked at each other again, frankly stunned.

"Mr. Hallorann got me alone because he was worried," Danny went on. "He said this was a bad place for people who shine. He said he'd seen things. I saw something, too; Right after I talked to him. When Mr. Ullman was taking us around."

"What was it?" Jack asked.

"In the Presidential Sweet. On the wall by the door going into the bedroom. A whole lot of blood and some other stuff. Gushy stuff. I think... that the gushy stuff must have been brains."

"Oh my God," Jack said.

Wendy was now very pale, her lips nearly gray.

"This place," Jack said. "Some pretty bad types owned it awhile back. Organization people from Las Vegas."

"Crooks?" Danny asked.

"Yeah, crooks." He looked at Wendy. "In 1966 a big-time hood named Vito Gienelli got killed up there, along with his two bodyguards. There was a picture in the newspaper. Danny just described the picture."