Doctor Sleep (30 page)

“No, go right ahead. You've been sitting on your ass long enough.
When are you going to give up the smokes, Billy? You know the doctor said they contributed to your little gut problem.”

“I've cut down to almost nothing,” Billy said, but with a telltale downward shift in his gaze. Dan could have found out just how much Billy had cut down—he probably wouldn't even need to touch the guy in order to get that much info—but he didn't. One day in the summer just past, he'd seen a kid wearing a t-shirt with an octagonal road sign printed on it. Instead of STOP, the sign said TMI. When Danny asked him what it meant, the kid had given him a sympathetic smile he probably reserved strictly for gentlemen of a fortyish persuasion. “Too much information,” he'd said. Dan thanked him, thinking:
Story of my life, young fellow
.

Everyone had secrets. This he had known from earliest childhood. Decent people deserved to keep theirs, and Billy Freeman was decency personified.

“Want to go for a coffee, Danno? You got time? Won't take me ten minutes to put this bitch to bed.”

Dan touched the side of the engine lovingly. “Sure, but watch your mouth. This is no bitch, this is a la—”

That was when his head exploded.

When he came back to himself, he was sprawled on the bench where Billy had been smoking. Billy was sitting beside him, looking worried. Hell, looking scared half to death. He had his phone in one hand, with his finger poised over the buttons.

“Put it away,” Dan said. The words came out in a dusty croak. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I'm okay.”

“You sure? Jesus Christ, I thought you was havin a stroke. I thought it for sure.”

That's what it felt like
.

For the first time in years Dan thought of Dick Hallorann, the Overlook Hotel's chef extraordinaire back in the day. Dick had
known almost at once that Jack Torrance's little boy shared his own talent. Dan wondered now if Dick might still be alive. Almost certainly not; he'd been pushing sixty back then.

“Who's Tony?” Billy asked.

“Huh?”

“You said ‘Please, Tony, please.' Who's Tony?”

“A guy I used to know back in my drinking days.” As an improvisation it wasn't much, but it was the first thing to come into his still-dazed mind. “A good friend.”

Billy looked at the lighted rectangle of his cell a few seconds longer, then slowly folded the phone and put it away. “You know, I don't believe that for a minute. I think you had one of your flashes. Like on the day you found out about my . . .” He tapped his stomach.

“Well . . .”

Billy raised a hand. “Say nummore. As long as you're okay, that is. And as long as it isn't somethin bad about me. Because I'd want to know if it was. I don't s'pose that's true of everyone, but it is with me.”

“Nothing about you.” Dan stood up and was pleased to discover his legs held him just fine. “But I'm going to take a raincheck on that coffee, if you don't mind.”

“Not a bit. You need to go back to your place and lie down. You're still pale. Whatever it was, it hit you hard.” Billy glanced at the
Riv
. “Glad it didn't happen while you were up there in the peak-seat, rolling along at forty.”

“Tell me about it,” Dan said.

He crossed Cranmore Avenue to the Rivington House side, meaning to take Billy's advice and lie down, but instead of turning in at the gate giving on the big old Victorian's flower-bordered walk, he decided to stroll a little while. He was getting his wind back now—getting
himself
back—and the night air was sweet. Besides, he needed to consider what had just happened, and very carefully.

Whatever it was, it hit you hard
.

That made him think again of Dick Hallorann, and of all the things he had never told Casey Kingsley. Nor would he. The harm he had done to Deenie—and to her son, he supposed, simply by doing nothing—was lodged deep inside, like an impacted wisdom tooth, and there it would stay. But at five, Danny Torrance had been the one harmed—along with his mother, of course—and his father had not been the only culprit. About that Dick
had
done something. If not, Dan and his mother would have died in the Overlook. Those old things were still painful to think about, still bright with the childish primary colors of fear and horror. He would have preferred never to think of them again, but now he had to. Because . . . well . . .

Because everything that goes around comes around
.
Maybe it's luck or maybe it's fate, but either way, it comes back around. What was it Dick said that day he gave me the lockbox? When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear. Not that I'm equipped to teach anyone anything, except maybe that if you don't take a drink, you won't get drunk.

He'd reached the end of the block; now he turned around and headed back. He had the sidewalk entirely to himself. It was eerie how fast Frazier emptied out once the summer was over, and that made him think of the way the Overlook had emptied out. How quickly the little Torrance family had had the place entirely to themselves.

Except for the ghosts, of course.
They
never left.

Hallorann had told Danny he was headed to Denver, and from there he'd fly south to Florida. He had asked if Danny would like to help him down to the Overlook's parking lot with his bags, and Danny had carried one to the cook's rental car. Just a little thing, hardly more than a briefcase, but he'd needed to use both hands to tote it. When the bags were safely stowed in the trunk and they were
sitting in the car, Hallorann had put a name to the thing in Danny Torrance's head, the thing his parents only half believed in.

You got a knack. Me, I've always called it the shining. That's what my grandmother called it, too
.
Get you kinda lonely, thinkin you were the only one?

Yes, he had been lonely, and yes, he had believed he was the only one. Hallorann had disabused him of that notion. In the years since, Dan had run across a lot of people who had, in the cook's words, “a little bit of shine to them.” Billy, for one.

But never anyone like the girl who had screamed into his head tonight. It had felt like that cry might tear him apart.

Had
he
been that strong? He thought he had been, or almost. On closing day at the Overlook, Hallorann had told the troubled little boy sitting beside him to . . . what had he said?

He said to give him a blast.

Dan had arrived back at Rivington House and was standing outside the gate. The first leaves had begun to fall, and an evening breeze whisked them around his feet.

And when I asked him what I should think about, he told me anything. “Just think it
hard
,” he said. So I did, but at the last second I softened it, at least a little. If I hadn't, I think I might have killed him. He jerked back—no, he
slammed
back—and bit his lip. I remember the blood. He called me a pistol. And later, he asked about Tony. My invisible friend
.
So I told him.

Tony was back, it seemed, but he was no longer Dan's friend. Now he was the friend of a little girl named Abra. She was in trouble just as Dan had been, but grown men who sought out little girls attracted attention and suspicion. He had a good life here in Frazier, and he felt it was one he deserved after all the lost years.

But . . .

But when he needed Dick—at the Overlook, and later, in Florida, when Mrs. Massey had come back—Dick had come. In AA, people called that kind of thing a Twelfth Step call. Because when the pupil was ready, the teacher would appear.

On several occasions, Dan had gone with Casey Kingsley and
some other guys in the Program to pay Twelfth Step calls on men who were over their heads in drugs or booze. Sometimes it was friends or bosses who asked for this service; more often it was relatives who had exhausted every other resource and were at their wits' end. They'd had a few successes over the years, but most visits ended with slammed doors or an invitation for Casey and his friends to stick their sanctimonious, quasireligious bullshit up their asses. One fellow, a meth-addled veteran of George Bush's splendid Iraq adventure, had actually waved a pistol at them. Heading back from the Chocorua hole-in-the-wall shack where the vet was denned up with his terrified wife, Dan had said, “
That
was a waste of time.”

“It would be if we did it for them,” Casey said, “but we don't. We do it for us. You like the life you're living, Danny-boy?” It wasn't the first time he had asked this question, and it wouldn't be the last.

“Yes.” No hesitation on that score. Maybe he wasn't the president of General Motors or doing nude love scenes with Kate Winslet, but in Dan's mind, he had it all.

“Think you earned it?”

“No,” Dan said, smiling. “Not really. Can't earn this.”

“So what was it that got you back to a place where you like getting up in the morning? Was it luck or grace?”

He'd believed that Casey wanted him to say it was grace, but during the sober years he had learned the sometimes uncomfortable habit of honesty. “I don't know.”

“That's okay, because when your back's against the wall, there's no difference.”

“Abra, Abra, Abra,” he said as he walked up the path to Rivington House. “What have you gotten yourself into, girl? And what are you getting
me
into?”

He was thinking he'd have to try to get in touch with her by using the shining, which was never completely reliable, but when
he stepped into his turret room, he saw that wouldn't be necessary. Written neatly on his blackboard was this:

[email protected]

He puzzled over her screen name for a few seconds, then got it and laughed. “Good one, kid, good one.”

He powered up his laptop. A moment later, he was looking at a blank email form. He typed in her address and then sat watching the blinking cursor. How old was she? As far as he could calculate by their few previous communications, somewhere between a wise twelve and a slightly naïve sixteen. Probably closer to the former. And here he was, a man old enough to have salt speckles in his stubble if he skipped shaving. Here he was, getting ready to start compu-chatting with her.
To Catch a Predator,
anyone?

Maybe it's nothing
.
It could be; she's just a kid, after all.

Yes, but one who was damn scared. Plus, he was curious about her. Had been for some time. The same way, he supposed, that Hallorann had been curious about him.

I could use a little bit of grace right now. And a whole lot of luck
.

In the SUBJECT box at the top of the email form, Dan wrote
Hello Abra
. He dropped the cursor, took a deep breath, and typed four words:
Tell me what's wrong
.

On the following Saturday afternoon, Dan was sitting in bright sunshine on one of the benches outside the ivy-covered stone building that housed the Anniston Public Library. He had a copy of the
Union Leader
open in front of him, and there were words on the page, but he had no idea what they said. He was too nervous.

Promptly at two o'clock, a girl in jeans rode up on her bike and lodged it in the rack at the foot of the lawn. She gave him a wave and a big smile.

So. Abra. As in Cadabra.

She was tall for her age, most of that height in her legs. Masses of curly blond hair were held back in a thick ponytail that looked ready to rebel and spray everywhere. The day was a bit chilly, and she was wearing a light jacket with ANNISTON CYCLONES screen-printed on the back. She grabbed a couple of books that were bungee-corded to the rear bumper of her bike, then ran up to him, still with that open smile. Pretty but not beautiful. Except for her wide-set blue eyes.
They
were beautiful.

“Uncle Dan! Gee, it's good to see you!” And she gave him a hearty smack on the cheek. That hadn't been in the script. Her confidence in his basic okayness was terrifying.

“Good to see you, too, Abra. Sit down.”

He had told her they would have to be careful, and Abra—a child of her culture—understood at once. They had agreed that the best thing would be to meet in the open, and there were few places in Anniston more open than the front lawn of the library, which was situated near the middle of the small downtown district.

She was looking at him with frank interest, perhaps even hunger. He could feel something like tiny fingers patting lightly at the inside of his head.

(
where's Tony?
)

Dan touched a finger to his temple.

Abra smiled, and that completed her beauty, turned her into a girl who would break hearts in another four or five years.

(
HI TONY!
)

That was loud enough to make him wince, and he thought again of how Dick Hallorann had recoiled behind the wheel of his rental car, his eyes going momentarily blank.

(
we need to talk out loud
)

(
okay yes
)

“I'm your father's cousin, okay? Not really an uncle, but that's what you call me.”

“Right, right, you're Uncle Dan. We'll be fine as long as my mother's best friend doesn't come along. Her name's Gretchen
Silverlake. I think she knows our whole family tree, and there isn't very much of it.”

Oh, great,
Dan thought.
The nosy best friend
.

“It's okay,” Abra said. “Her older son's on the football team, and she never misses a Cyclones game. Almost
everyone
goes to the game, so stop worrying that someone will think you're—”

She finished the sentence with a mental picture—a cartoon, really. It blossomed in an instant, crude but clear. A little girl in a dark alley was being menaced by a hulking man in a trenchcoat. The little girl's knees were knocking together, and just before the picture faded, Dan saw a word balloon form over her head:
Eeek, a freak!