Doctor Sleep: A Novel

typed in the four-letter password, launched Firefox, and googled the Bluebell Campground. They had a website that wasn’t terribly informative, probably because the owners didn’t care that much about attracting visitors; the place was your basic front. But there were photos of the property, and these Dan studied with the fascination people reserve for recently discovered old family albums.
    The Overlook was long gone, but he recognized the terrain. Once, just before the first of the snowstorms that closed them in for the winter, he and his mother and father had stood together on the hotel’s broad front porch (seeming even broader with the lawn gliders and wicker furniture in storage), looking down the long, smooth slope of the front lawn. At the bottom, where the deer and the antelope often came out to play, there was now a long rustic building called the Overlook Lodge. Here, the caption said, visitors could dine, play bingo, and dance to live music on Friday and Saturday nights. On Sundays there were church services, overseen by a rotating cadre of Sidewinder’s men and women of the cloth.
    Until the snow came, my father mowed that lawn and trimmed the topiary that used to be there . He said he’d trimmed lots of ladies’ topiaries in his time. I didn’t get the joke, but it used to make Mom laugh.
    “Some joke,” he said, low.
    He saw rows of sparkling RV hookups, lux mod cons that supplied LP gas as well as electricity. There were men’s and women’s shower buildings big enough to service mega-truckstops like Little America or Pedro’s South of the Border. There was a playground for the wee folks. (Dan wondered if the kiddies who played there ever saw or sensed unsettling things, as Danny “Doc” Torrance once had in the Overlook’s playground.) There was a softball field, a shuffleboard area, a couple of tennis courts, even bocce.
    No roque, though—not that. Not anymore.
    Halfway up the slope—where the Overlook’s hedge animals had once congregated—there was a row of clean white satellite dishes. At the crest of the hill, where the hotel itself had stood, was a wooden platform with a long flight of steps leading up to it. This site, now owned and administered by the State of Colorado, was identified as Roof O’ the World. Visitors to the Bluebell Campground were welcome to use it, or to hike the trails beyond, free of charge. The trails are recommended only for the more experienced hiker, the caption read, but Roof O’ the World is for everyone. The views are spectacular!
    Dan was sure they were. Certainly they had been spectacular from the dining room and ballroom of the Overlook . . . at least until the steadily mounting snow blocked off the windows. To the west were the highest peaks of the Rocky Mountains, sawing at the sky like spears. To the east, you could see all the way to Boulder. Hell, all the way to Denver and Arvada on rare days when the pollution wasn’t too bad.
    The state had taken that particular piece of land, and Dan wasn’t surprised. Who would have wanted to build there? The ground was rotten, and he doubted if you had to be telepathic to sense it. But the True had gotten as close as it could, and Dan had an idea that their wandering guests—the normal ones—rarely came back for a second visit, or recommended the Bluebell to their friends. An evil place would call evil creatures, John had said. If so, the converse would also be true: it would tend to repel good ones.
    “Dan?” Dave called. “Bus is leaving.”
    “I need another minute!”
    He closed his eyes and propped the heel of his palm against his forehead.
    ( Abra )
    His voice awoke her at once.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
    BITCHGIRL
    1
    It was dark outside the Crown Motel, dawn still an hour or more away, when the door of unit 24 opened and a girl stepped out. Heavy fog had moved in, and the world was hardly there at all. The girl was wearing black pants and a white shirt. She had put her hair up in pigtails, and the face they framed looked very young. She breathed deeply, the coolness and the hanging moisture in the air doing wonders for her lingering headache but not much for her unhappy heart. Momo was dead.
    Yet, if Uncle Dan was right, not really dead; just somewhere else. Perhaps a ghostie person; perhaps not. In any case, it wasn’t a thing she could spend time thinking about. Later, perhaps, she would meditate on these matters.
    Dan had asked if Billy was asleep. Yes, she had told him, still fast