Doctor Sleep: A Novel

the chest and went over backwards, grunting, as fine droplets of blood blew out through the back of his shirt.
    Andi Steiner was the last one standing. She turned, saw Dave Stone frozen there, looking dazed, and charged at him with her hypodermic needle clutched in her fist like a dagger. Her ponytail swung like a pendulum. She was screaming. To Dan, everything seemed to have slowed down and gained clarity. He had time to see that the plastic protector-sleeve was still on the end of the needle and had time to think, What kind of clowns are these guys? The answer, of course, was that they weren’t clowns at all. They were hunters completely unused to resistance from their prey. But of course children were their usual targets, and unsuspecting ones, at that.
    Dave only stared at the howling harpy coming toward him. Perhaps his gun was empty; more likely that one burst had been his limit. Dan raised his own gun but didn’t shoot. The chances of missing the tattooed lady and hitting Abra’s father were just too great.
    That was when John ran out of the woods and slammed into Dave’s back, shoving him forward into the charging woman. Her screams (fury? dismay?) were driven out of her in a gust of violently expelled air. They both tumbled over. The needle flew. As Tattoo Woman went scrabbling for it on her hands and knees, John brought the stock of Billy’s deer rifle down on the side of her head. It was a full-force, adrenaline-fueled blow. There was a crunch as her jaw broke. Her features twisted to the left, one eye bulging from its socket in a startled glare. She sprawled and rolled over on her back. Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth. Her hands clenched and opened, clenched and opened.
    John dropped the rifle and turned to Dan, stricken. “I didn’t mean to hit her that hard! Christ, I was just so scared !”
    “Look at the one with the frizzy hair,” Dan said. He got up on legs that felt too long and not all there. “Look at him, John.”
    John looked. Walnut lay in a pool of blood, one hand clutching his torn neck. He was cycling rapidly. His clothes fell in, then puffed out. The blood flowing through his fingers disappeared, then reappeared again. The fingers themselves were doing the same. The man had become an insane X-ray.
    John stepped back with his hands plastered over his mouth and nose. Dan still had that sense of slowness and perfect clarity. There was time to see Tattoo Woman’s blood and a snarl of her blond hair on the stock of the Remington pump also appearing and disappearing. It made him think of how her ponytail had pendulumed back and forth when she
    ( Dan where’s the Crow WHERE’S THE CROW??? )
    ran at Abra’s father. She had told them that Barry was cycling. Now Dan understood what she meant.
    “The one in the fishing shirt is doing it, too,” Dave Stone said. His voice was only slightly shaky, and Dan guessed he knew where some of his daughter’s steel had come from. But he didn’t have time to think about that now. Abra was telling him they hadn’t gotten the whole crew.
    He sprinted to the Winnebago. The door was still open. He ran up the steps, threw himself on the carpeted floor, and managed to bang his head hard enough on the post under the eating table to send bright specks shooting across his field of vision. Never happens that way in the movies, he thought, and rolled over, expecting to be shot or stomped or injected by the one who had stayed behind to provide the rearguard. The one Abra called the crow. They weren’t totally stupid and complacent after all, it seemed.
    The Winnebago was empty.
    Appeared empty.
    Dan got to his feet and hurried through the kitchenette. He passed a foldout bed, rumpled from frequent occupancy. Part of his mind registered the fact that the RV smelled like the wrath of God in spite of the air-conditioner that was still running. There was a closet, but the door stood open on its track and he saw nothing inside but clothes. He bent, looking for feet. No feet. He went on to the rear of the Winnebago and stood beside the bathroom door.
    He thought more movie shit, and pulled it open, crouching as he did it. The Winnebago’s can was empty, and he wasn’t surprised. If anyone had tried hiding in there, he’d be dead by now. The smell alone would have killed him.
    ( maybe someone did die in here maybe this Crow )
    Abra came back at once, full of panic, broadcasting so powerfully that she scattered his own thoughts.
    ( no Barry’s