Doctor Sleep: A Novel

Rosie-girl, make it stop. It hurts —”
    Before she could answer—and really, what could she have said?—he was fading again until there was nothing left of him but a sketch of bones and his staring, floating eyes. They were the worst.
    Rose tried to contact him with her mind and comfort him that way, but there was nothing to hold onto. Where Grampa Flick had always been—often grumpy, sometimes sweet—there was now only a roaring windstorm of broken images. Rose withdrew from him, shaken. Again she thought, This can’t be happening .
    “Maybe we should put him out of his miz’y,” Big Mo said. She was digging her fingernails into Annie’s forearm, but Annie didn’t seem to feel it. “Give him a shot, or something. You got something in your bag, don’t you, Nut? You must.”
    “What good would it do?” Walnut’s voice was hoarse. “Maybe earlier, but it’s going too fast now. He’s got no system for any drug to circulate in. If I gave him a hypo in the arm, we’d see it soaking into the bed five seconds later. Best to just let it happen. It won’t be long.”
    Nor was it. Rose counted four more full cycles. On the fifth, even his bones disappeared. For a moment the eyeballs remained, staring first at her and then rolling to look at Crow Daddy. They hung above the pillow, which was still indented by the weight of his head and stained with Wildroot Cream-Oil hair tonic, of which he seemed to have an endless supply. She thought she remembered Greedy G telling her once that he bought it on eBay. eBay, for fuck’s sweet sake!
    Then, slowly, the eyes disappeared, too. Except of course they weren’t really gone; Rose knew she’d be seeing them in her dreams later tonight. So would the others in attendance at Grampa Flick’s deathbed. If they got any sleep at all.
    They waited, none of them entirely convinced that the old man wouldn’t appear before them again like the ghost of Hamlet’s father or Jacob Marley or some other, but there was only the shape of his disappeared head, the stains left by his hair tonic, and the deflated pee- and shit-stained boxers he had been wearing.
    Mo burst into wild sobs and buried her head in Apron Annie’s generous bosom. Those waiting outside heard, and one voice (Rose would never know whose) began to speak. Another joined in, then a third and a fourth. Soon they were all chanting under the stars, and Rose felt a wild chill go zigzagging up her back. She reached out, found Crow’s hand, and squeezed it.
    Annie joined in. Mo next, her words muffled. Nut. Then Crow. Rose the Hat took a deep breath and added her voice to theirs.
    Lodsam hanti, we are the chosen ones.
    Cahanna risone hanti, we are the fortunate ones.
    Sabbatha hanti, sabbatha hanti, sabbatha hanti.
    We are the True Knot, and we endure.
    5
    Later, Crow joined her in her EarthCruiser. “You really won’t be going east, will you?”
    “No. You’ll be in charge.”
    “What do we do now?”
    “Mourn him, of course. Unfortunately, we can only give him two days.”
    The traditional period was seven: no fucking, no idle talk, no steam. Just meditation. Then a circle of farewell where everyone would step forward and say one memory of Grampa Jonas Flick and give up one object they had from him, or that they associated with him (Rose had already picked hers, a ring with a Celtic design Grampa had given her when this part of America had still been Indian country and she had been known as the Irish Rose). There was never a body when a member of the True died, so the objects of remembrance had to serve the purpose. Those things were wrapped in white linen and buried.
    “So my group leaves when? Wednesday night or Thursday morning?”
    “Wednesday night.” Rose wanted the girl as soon as possible. “Drive straight through. And you’re positive they’ll hold the knockout stuff at the mail drop in Sturbridge?”
    “Yes. Set your mind at ease on that.”
    My mind won’t be at ease until I can look at that little bitch lying in the room right across from mine, drugged to the gills, handcuffed, and full of tasty, suckable steam .
    “Who are you taking? Name them off.”
    “Me, Nut, Jimmy Numbers, if you can spare him—”
    “I can spare him. Who else?”
    “Snakebite Andi. If we need to put someone to sleep, she can get it done. And the Chink. Him for sure. He’s the best locator we’ve got now that Grampa’s gone. Other than you, that is.”
    “By all means take him, but you won’t need a