Doctor Sleep: A Novel

Dark returned.
    “Here,” he told John, holding out a pair of gloves. “Put these on.” Dan put on his own, untwisted the wire, and hung both pieces in one of the chainlink diamonds for later reference. “Okay, let’s go.”
    “I have to pee again.”
    “Oh, man. Hold it.”
    11
    Dan drove the Hertz Ford slowly and carefully around to the loading dock. There were plenty of potholes, some deep, all hard to see with the headlights off. The last thing in the world he wanted was to drop the Focus into one and smash an axle. Behind the plant, the surface was a mixture of bare earth and crumbling asphalt. Fifty feet away was another chainlink fence, and beyond that, endless leagues of corn. The dock area wasn’t as big as the parking lot, but it was plenty big.
    “Dan? How will we know where—”
    “Be quiet.” Dan bent his head until his brow touched the steering wheel and closed his eyes.
    ( Abra )
    Nothing. She was asleep, of course. Back in Anniston it was already Wednesday morning. John sat beside him, chewing his lips.
    ( Abra )
    A faint stirring. It could have been his imagination. Dan hoped it was more.
    ( ABRA! )
    Eyes opened in his head. There was a moment of disorientation, a kind of double vision, and then Abra was looking with him. The loading dock and the crumbled remains of the smokestacks were suddenly clearer, even though there was only starlight to see by.
    Her vision’s a hell of a lot better than mine .
    Dan got out of the car. So did John, but Dan barely noticed. He had ceded control to the girl who was now lying awake in her bed eleven hundred miles away. He felt like a human metal detector. Only it wasn’t metal that he— they —were looking for.
    ( walk over to that concrete thing )
    Dan walked to the loading dock and stood with his back to it.
    ( now start going back and forth )
    A pause as she hunted for a way to clarify what she wanted.
    ( like on CSI)
    He coursed fifty feet or so to the left, then turned right, moving out from the dock on opposing diagonals. John had gotten the spade out of the duffel bag and stood by the rental car, watching.
    ( here is where they parked their RVs )
    Dan cut back left again, walking slowly, occasionally kicking a loose brick or chunk of concrete out of his way.
    ( you’re close )
    Dan stopped. He smelled something unpleasant. A gassy whiff of decay.
    ( Abra? do you )
    ( yes oh God Dan )
    ( take it easy hon )
    ( you went too far turn around go slow )
    Dan turned on one heel, like a soldier doing a sloppy about-face. He started back toward the loading dock.
    ( left a little to your left slower )
    He went that way, now pausing after each small step. Here was that smell again, a little stronger. Suddenly the preternaturally sharp nighttime world began to blur as his eyes filled with Abra’s tears.
    ( there the baseball boy you’re standing right on top of him )
    Dan took a deep breath and wiped at his cheeks. He was shivering. Not because he was cold, but because she was. Sitting up in her bed, clutching her lumpy stuffed rabbit, and shaking like an old leaf on a dead tree.
    ( get out of here Abra )
    ( Dan are you )
    ( yes fine but you don’t need to see this )
    Suddenly that absolute clarity of vision was gone. Abra had broken the connection, and that was good.
    “Dan?” John called, low. “All right?”
    “Yes.” His voice was still clogged with Abra’s tears. “Bring that spade.”
    12
    It took them twenty minutes. Dan dug for the first ten, then passed the spade to John, who actually found Brad Trevor. He turned away from the hole, covering his mouth and nose. His words were muffled but understandable. “Okay, there’s a body. Jesus! ”
    “You didn’t smell it before?”
    “Buried that deep, and after two years? Are you saying that you did?”
    Dan didn’t reply, so John addressed the hole again, but without conviction this time. He stood for a few seconds with his back bent as if he still meant to use the spade, then straightened and drew back when Dan shone the penlight into the little excavation they had made. “I can’t,” he said. “I thought I could, but I can’t. Not with . . . that. My arms feel like rubber.”
    Dan handed him the light. John shone it into the hole, centering the beam on what had freaked him out: a dirt-clotted sneaker. Working slowly, not wanting to disturb the earthly remains of Abra’s baseball boy any more than necessary, Dan scraped dirt away from the sides of the body. Little by little, an