Doctor Sleep (51 page)

“I think we can crutch along without that, don't you?” Again came his dazzling grin, the kind that made you happy if you were the one who caused it to break out. Abra bet he had lots of girlfriends.

No. He just has one. The hat woman is his girlfriend. Rose. If he had another one, Rose would kill her. Probably with her teeth and fingernails
.

She trudged back to the truck and got in.

“That was very good,” Crow said. “You win the grand prize—a Coke
and
a water. So . . . what do you say to your Daddy?”

“Thank you,” Abra said listlessly. “But you're not my daddy.”

“I could be, though. I can be a very good daddy to little girls who are good to me. The ones who mind their Ps and Qs.” He drove to the machine and gave her a five-dollar bill. “Get me a Fanta if they have it. A Coke if they don't.”

“You drink sodas, like anyone else?”

He made a comical wounded face. “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?”

“Shakespeare, right?” She wiped her mouth again.
“Romeo and Juliet.”

“
Merchant of Venice,
dummocks,” Crow said . . . but with a smile. “Don't know the rest of it, I bet.”

She shook her head. A mistake. It refreshed the throbbing, which had begun to diminish.

“If you poison us, do we not die?” He tapped the needle against Mr. Freeman's leg. “Meditate on that while you get our drinks.”

He watched closely as she operated the machine. This gas stop was on the wooded outskirts of some little town, and there was always a chance she might decide to hell with the geezer and run for the trees. He thought of the gun, but left it where it was. Chasing her down would be no great task, given her current soupy condition. But she didn't even look in that direction. She slid the five-spot into the machine and got the drinks, one after the other, pausing only to drink deeply from the water. She came back and gave him his Fanta, but didn't get in. Instead she pointed farther down the side of the building.

“I need to pee.”

Crow was flummoxed. This was something he hadn't foreseen, although he should have. She had been drugged, and her body needed to purge itself of toxins. “Can't you hold it awhile?” He was thinking that a few more miles down the road, he could find a turnout and pull in. Let her go behind a bush. As long as he could see the top of her head, they'd be fine.

But she shook her head. Of course she did.

He thought it over. “Okay, listen up. You can use the ladies' toilet if the door's unlocked. If it's not, you'll have to take your leak around back. There's no way I'm letting you go inside and ask the counterboy for the key.”

“And if I have to go in back, you'll watch me, I suppose. Pervo.”

“There'll be a Dumpster or something you can squat behind. It would break my heart not to get a look at your precious little buns, but I'd try to survive. Now get in the truck.”

“But you said—”

“Get in, or I'll start calling you Goldilocks again.”

She got in, and he pulled the truck up next to the bathroom doors, not quite blocking them. “Now hold out your hand.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

Very reluctantly, she held out her hand. He took it. When she saw the needle, she tried to pull back.

“Don't worry, just a drop. We can't have you thinking bad thoughts, now can we? Or broadcasting them. This is going to happen one way or the other, so why make a production of it?”

She stopped trying to pull away. It was easier just to let it happen. There was a brief sting on the back of her hand, then he released her. “Go on, now. Make wee-wee and make it quick. As the old song says, sand is a-runnin through the hourglass back home.”

“I don't know any song like that.”

“Not surprised. You don't even know
The Merchant of Venice
from
Romeo and Juliet
.”

“You're mean.”

“I don't have to be,” he said.

She got out and just stood beside the truck for a moment, taking deep breaths.

“Abra?”

She looked at him.

“Don't try locking yourself in. You know who'd pay for that, don't you?” He patted Billy Freeman's leg.

She knew.

Her head, which had begun to clear, was fogging in again. Horrible man—horrible
thing
—behind that charming grin. And smart. He thought of everything. She tried the bathroom door and it opened. At least she wouldn't have to whizz out back in the weeds, and that was something. She went inside, shut the door, and took care of her business. Then she simply sat there on the toilet with her swimming head hung down. She thought of being in the bathroom at Emma's house, when she had foolishly believed everything was going to turn out all right. How long ago that seemed.

I have to do something
.

But she was doped up, woozy.

(
Dan
)

She sent this with all the force she could muster . . . which wasn't much. And how much time would the Crow give her? She felt
despair wash over her, undermining what little will to resist was left. All she wanted to do was button her pants, get into the truck again, and go back to sleep. Yet she tried one more time.

(
Dan! Dan, please!
)

And waited for a miracle.

What she got instead was a single brief tap of the pickup truck's horn. The message was clear:
time's up
.

You will remember what was forgotten.

In the aftermath of the Pyrrhic victory at Cloud Gap, the phrase haunted Dan, like a snatch of irritating and nonsensical music that gets in your head and won't let go, the kind you find yourself humming even as you stumble to the bathroom in the middle of the night. This one was plenty irritating, but not quite nonsensical. For some reason he associated it with Tony.

You will remember what was forgotten
.

There was no question of taking the True Knot's Winnebago back to their cars, which were parked at Teenytown Station on the Frazier town common. Even if they hadn't been afraid of being observed getting out of it or leaving forensic evidence inside it, they would have refused without needing to take a vote on the matter. It smelled of more than sickness and death; it smelled of evil. Dan had another reason. He didn't know if members of the True Knot came back as ghostie people or not, but he didn't want to find out.

So they threw the abandoned clothes and the drug paraphernalia into the Saco, where the stuff that didn't sink would float downstream to Maine, and went back as they had come, in
The Helen Rivington
.

David Stone dropped into the conductor's seat, saw that Dan was still holding Abra's stuffed rabbit, and held out his hand for it. Dan passed it over willingly enough, taking note of what Abra's father held in his other hand: his BlackBerry.

“What are you going to do with that?”

Dave looked at the woods flowing by on both sides of the narrow-gauge tracks, then back at Dan. “As soon as we get to where there's cell coverage, I'm going to call the Deanes' house. If there's no answer, I'm going to call the police. If there
is
an answer, and either Emma or her mother tells me that Abra's gone, I'm going to call the police. Assuming they haven't already.” His gaze was cool and measuring and far from friendly, but at least he was keeping his fear for his daughter—his terror, more likely—at bay, and Dan respected him for that. Also, it would make him easier to reason with.

“I hold you responsible for this, Mr. Torrance. It was your plan. Your crazy plan.”

No use pointing out that they had all signed on to the crazy plan. Or that he and John were almost as sick about Abra's continued silence as her father. Basically, the man was right.

You will remember what was forgotten
.

Was that another Overlook memory? Dan thought it was. But why now? Why here?

“Dave, she's almost
certainly
been taken.” That was John Dalton. He had moved up to the car just behind them. The last of the lowering sun came through the trees and flickered on his face. “If that's the case and you tell the police, what do you think will happen to Abra?”

God bless you,
Dan thought.
If I'd been the one to say it, I doubt if he would have listened. Because, at bottom, I'm the stranger who was conspiring with his daughter. He'll never be completely convinced that I'm not the one who got her into this mess
.

“What else can we do?” Dave asked, and then his fragile calm broke. He began to weep, and held Abra's stuffed rabbit to his face. “What am I going to tell my wife? That I was shooting people in Cloud Gap while some bogeyman was stealing our daughter?”

“First things first,” Dan said. He didn't think AA slogans like
Let go and let God
or
Take it easy
would fly with Abra's dad right now. “You
should
call the Deanes when you get cell coverage. I think you'll reach them, and they'll be fine.”

“You think this why?”

“In my last communication with Abra, I told her to have her friend's mom call the police.”

Dave blinked. “You really did? Or are you just saying that now to cover your ass?”

“I really did. Abra started to answer. She said ‘I'm not,' and then I lost her. I think she was going to tell me she wasn't at the Deanes' anymore.”

“Is she alive?” Dave grasped Dan's elbow with a hand that was dead cold. “Is my daughter still alive?”

“I haven't heard from her, but I'm sure she is.”

“Of course you'd say that,” Dave whispered. “CYA, right?”

Dan bit back a retort. If they started squabbling, any thin chance of getting Abra back would become no chance.

“It makes sense,” John said. Although he was still pale and his hands weren't quite steady, he was using his calm bedside manner voice. “Dead, she's no good to the one who's left. The one who grabbed her. Alive, she's a hostage. Also, they want her for . . . well . . .”

“They want her for her essence,” Dan said. “The steam.”

“Another thing,” John said. “What are you going to tell the cops about the men we killed? That they started cycling in and out of invisibility until they disappeared completely? And then we got rid of their . . . their leavings?”

“I can't believe I let you get me into this.” Dave was twisting the rabbit from side to side. Soon the old toy would split open and spill its stuffing. Dan wasn't sure he could bear to see that.

John said, “Listen, Dave. For your daughter's sake, you have to clear your mind. She's been in this ever since she saw that boy's picture in the
Shopper
and tried to find out about him. As soon as the one Abra calls the hat woman was aware of her, she almost had to come after her. I don't know about steam, and I know very little about what Dan calls the shining, but I know people like the ones we're dealing with don't leave witnesses. And when it comes to the Iowa boy, that's what your daughter was.”

“Call the Deanes but keep it light,” Dan said.

“Light?
Light?
” He looked like a man trying out a word in Swedish.

“Say you want to ask Abra if there's anything you should pick up at the store—bread or milk or something like that. If they say she went home, just say fine, you'll reach her there.”

“Then what?”

Dan didn't know. All he knew was that he needed to think. He needed to think about what was forgotten.

John
did
know. “Then you try to reach Billy Freeman.”

It was dusk, with the
Riv
's headlight cutting a visible cone up the aisle of the tracks, before Dave got bars on his phone. He called the Deanes', and although he was clutching the now-deformed Hoppy in a mighty grip and large beads of sweat were trickling down his face, Dan thought he did a pretty good job. Could Abby come to the phone for a minute and tell him if they needed anything at the Stop & Shop? Oh? She did? Then he'd try her at home. He listened a moment longer, said he'd be sure to do that, and ended the call. He looked at Dan, his eyes white-rimmed holes in his face.

“Mrs. Deane wanted me to find out how Abra's feeling. Apparently she went home complaining of menstrual cramps.” He hung his head. “I didn't even know she'd started having periods. Lucy never said.”

“There are things dads don't need to know,” John said. “Now try Billy.”

“I don't have his number.” He gave a single chop of a laugh—
HA
! “We're one fucked-up posse.”

Dan recited it from memory. Up ahead the trees were thinning, and he could see the glow of the streetlights along Frazier's main drag.

Dave punched in the number and listened. Listened some more, then killed the call. “Voice mail.”

The three men were silent as the
Riv
broke out of the trees and rolled the last two miles toward Teenytown. Dan tried again to reach Abra, throwing his mental voice with all the energy he could
muster, and got nothing back. The one she called the Crow had probably knocked her out somehow. The tattoo woman had been carrying a needle. Probably the Crow had another one.

You will remember what was forgotten
.

The origin of that thought arose from the very back of his mind, where he kept the lockboxes containing all the terrible memories of the Overlook Hotel and the ghosts who had infested it.

“It was the boiler.”

In the conductor's seat, Dave glanced at him. “Huh?”

“Nothing.”

The Overlook's heating system had been ancient. The steam pressure had to be dumped at regular intervals or it crept up and up to the point where the boiler could explode and send the whole hotel sky-high. In his steepening descent into dementia, Jack Torrance had forgotten this, but his young son had been warned. By Tony.