Doctor Sleep: A Novel

rube diseases fifty or a hundred years ago doesn’t mean we have it now. For all we know, this could be part of a natural process.”
    “Are you telling me there’s anything natural about that ?” She pointed to Grampa Flick.
    “A single case doesn’t make an epidemic,” Nut said, “and it could be something else. But if this happens again, we’ll have to put whoever it happens to in complete quarantine.”
    “Would it help?”
    He hesitated a long time. “I don’t know. Maybe we do have it, all of us. Maybe it’s like an alarm clock set to go off or dynamite on a timer. According to the latest scientific thinking, that’s sort of how rubes age. They go along and go along, pretty much the same, and then something turns off in their genes. The wrinkles start showing up and all at once they need canes to walk with.”
    Crow had been watching Grampa. “There he goes. Fuck .”
    Grampa Flick’s skin was turning milky. Then translucent. As it moved toward complete transparency, Rose could see his liver, the shriveled gray-black bags of his lungs, the pulsing red knot of his heart. She could see his veins and arteries like the highways and turnpikes on her in-dash GPS. She could see the optic nerves that connected his eyes to his brain. They looked like ghostly strings.
    Then he came back. His eyes moved, caught Rosie’s, held them. He reached out and took her unhurt hand. Her first impulse was to pull away—if he had what Nut said he had, he was contagious—but what the hell. If Nut was right, they had all been exposed.
    “Rose,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me.”
    “I won’t.” She sat down beside him on the bed, her fingers entwined in his. “Crow?”
    “Yes, Rose.”
    “The package you had sent to Sturbridge—they’ll hold it, won’t they?”
    “Sure.”
    “All right, we’ll see this through. But we can’t afford to wait too long. The little girl is a lot more dangerous than I thought.” She sighed. “Why do problems always come in bunches?”
    “Did she do that to your hand, somehow?”
    That was a question she didn’t want to answer directly. “I won’t be able to go with you, because she knows me now.” Also, she thought but didn’t say, because if this is what Walnut thinks it is, the rest will need me here to play Mother Courage. “But we have to have her. It’s more important than ever.”
    “Because?”
    “If she’s had the measles, she’ll have the rube immunity to catching it again. That might make her steam useful in all sorts of ways.”
    “The kids get vaccinated against all that crap now,” Crow said.
    Rose nodded. “That could work, too.”
    Grampa Flick once more began to cycle. It was hard to watch, but Rose made herself to do it. When she could no longer see the old fellow’s organs through his fragile skin, she looked at Crow and held up her bruised and scraped hand.
    “Also . . . she needs to be taught a lesson.”
    2
    When Dan woke up in his turret room on Monday, the schedule had once more been wiped from his blackboard and replaced with a message from Abra. At the top was a smiley-face. All the teeth were showing, which gave it a gleeful look.
    She came! I was ready and I hurt her!
    I REALLY DID!!
    She deserves it, so HOORAY!!!
    I need to talk to you, not this way or ’Net.
    Same place as before 3PM
    Dan lay back on his bed, covered his eyes, and went looking for her. He found her walking to school with three of her friends, which struck him as dangerous in itself. For the friends as well as for Abra. He hoped Billy was there and on the job. He also hoped Billy would be discreet and not get tagged by some zealous Neighborhood Watch type as a suspicious character.
    ( I can come John and I don’t leave until tomorrow but it has to be fast and we have to be careful   )
    ( yes okay good   )
    3
    Dan was once more seated on a bench outside the ivy-covered Anniston Library when Abra emerged, dressed for school in a red jumper and snazzy red sneakers. She held a knapsack by one strap. To Dan she looked as if she’d grown an inch since the last time he’d seen her.
    She waved. “Hi, Uncle Dan!”
    “Hello, Abra. How was school?”
    “Great! I got an A on my biology report!”
    “Sit down a minute and tell me about it.”
    She crossed to the bench, so filled with grace and energy she almost seemed to dance. Eyes bright, color high: a healthy after-school teenager with all systems showing green. Everything about her said