Doctor Sleep: A Novel

voice. “Come out, Abra. Time’s up. We have to roll.”
    That frightened her, and she found a little extra strength. The wheel began to move, pulling him deeper into the umbilicus that connected them. It was the strangest sensation Dan had ever had in his life, exhilarating even in the horror of the situation.
    Somewhere, distant, he heard Abra say, “Just give me another minute, I have to change my tampon!”
    The roof of John’s Suburban was sliding away. Turning away. There was darkness, the sense of being in a tunnel, and he had time to think, If I get lost in here, I’ll never be able to get back. I’ll wind up in a mental hospital somewhere, labeled a hopeless catatonic.
    But then the world was sliding back into place, only it wasn’t the same place. The Suburban was gone. He was in a smelly bathroom with dingy blue tiles on the floor and a sign beside the washbasin reading SORRY COLD WATER ONLY. He was sitting on the toilet.
    Before he could even think about getting up, the door bammed open hard enough to crack some of the old tiles, and a man strode in. He looked about thirty-five, his hair dead black and combed away from his forehead, his face angular but handsome in a rough-hewn, bony way. In one hand he held a pistol.
    “Change your tampon, sure,” he said. “Where’d you have it, Goldilocks, in your pants pocket? Must have been, because your backpack’s a long way from here.”
    ( tell him I said not to call me that )
    Dan said, “I told you not to call me that.”
    Crow paused, looking at the girl sitting on the toilet seat, swaying a little from side to side. Swaying because of the dope. Sure. But what about the way she sounded? Was that because of the dope?
    “What happened to your voice? You don’t sound like yourself.”
    Dan tried to shrug the girl’s shoulders and only succeeded in twitching one of them. Crow grabbed Abra’s arm and yanked Dan to Abra’s feet. It hurt, and he cried out.
    Somewhere—miles from here—a faint voice shouted, What’s going on? What do I do?
    “Drive,” he told John as Crow pulled him out the door. “Just drive.”
    “Oh, I’ll drive, all right,” Crow said, and muscled Abra into the truck next to the snoring Billy Freeman. Then he grabbed a sheaf of her hair, wound it in his fist, and pulled. Dan screamed with Abra’s voice, knowing it wasn’t quite her voice. Almost, but not quite. Crow heard the difference, but didn’t know what it was. The hat woman would have; it was the hat woman who had unwittingly shown Abra this mindswap trick.
    “But before we get rolling, we’re going to have an understanding. No more lies, that’s the understanding. The next time you lie to your Daddy, this old geezer snoring beside me is dead meat. I won’t use the dope, either. I’ll pull in at a camp road and put a bullet in his belly. That way it takes awhile. You’ll get to listen to him scream. Do you understand?”
    “Yes,” Dan whispered.
    “Little girl, I fucking hope so, because I don’t chew my cabbage twice.”
    Crow slammed the door and walked quickly around to the driver’s side. Dan closed Abra’s eyes. He was thinking about the spoons at the birthday party. About opening and shutting drawers—that, too. Abra was too physically weak to grapple with the man now getting behind the wheel and starting the engine, but part of her was strong. If he could find that part . . . the part that had moved the spoons and opened drawers and played air-music . . . the part that had written on his blackboard from miles away . . . if he could find it and then take control of it . . .
    As Abra had visualized a female warrior’s lance and a stallion, Dan now visualized a bank of switches on a control room wall. Some worked her hands, some her legs, some the shrug of her shoulders. Others, though, were more important. He should be able to pull them; he had at least some of the same circuits.
    The truck was moving, first reversing, then turning. A moment later they were back on the road.
    “That’s right,” Crow said grimly. “Go to sleep. What the hell did you think you were going to do back there? Jump in the toilet and flush yourself away to . . .”
    His words faded, because here were the switches Dan was looking for. The special switches, the ones with the red handles. He didn’t know if they were really there, and actually connected to Abra’s powers, or if this was just some mental game of solitaire he was playing. He only knew that he had to