Doctor Sleep: A Novel

stuffed rabbit, on her lap. The strain of what they were doing had regressed her to a younger Abra, at least on the emotional side.
    With the line between them wide open, she caught this.
    ( don’t worry about me I’m all right )
    ( good because you have a call to make )
    ( yes okay are you all right )
    ( fine )
    She knew better but didn’t ask, and that was just the way he wanted it.
    ( have you got the )
    She made a picture.
    ( not yet it’s Sunday stores not open )
    Another picture, one that made him smile. A Walmart . . . except the sign out front read ABRA’S SUPERSTORE.
    ( they wouldn’t sell us what we need we’ll find one that will )
    ( okay I guess )
    ( you know what to say to her? )
    ( yes )
    ( she’ll try to suck you into a long conversation try to snoop don’t let her )
    ( I won’t )
    ( let me hear from you after so I won’t worry )
    Of course he would worry plenty.
    ( I will I love you Uncle Dan )
    ( love you too )
    He made a kiss. Abra made one back: big red cartoon lips. He could almost feel them on his cheek. Then she was gone.
    Billy was staring at him. “You were just talkin to her, weren’t you?”
    “Indeed I was. Eyes on the road, Billy.”
    “Yeah, yeah. You sound like my ex-wife.”
    Billy put on his blinker, switched to the passing lane, and rolled past a huge and lumbering Fleetwood Pace Arrow motorhome. Dan stared at it, wondering who was inside and if they were looking out the tinted windows.
    “I want to make another hundred or so miles before we quit for the night,” Billy said. “Way I got tomorrow figured, that should give us an hour to do your errand and still put us in the high country about the time you and Abra set for the showdown. But we’ll want to get on the road before daybreak.”
    “Fine. You understand how this will go?”
    “I get how it’s supposed to go.” Billy glanced at him. “You better hope that if they have binoculars, they don’t use them. Do you think we might come back alive? Tell me the truth. If the answer’s no, I’m gonna order me the biggest steak dinner you ever saw when we stop for the night. MasterCard can chase my relatives for the last credit card bill, and guess what? I ain’t got any relatives. Unless you count the ex, and if I was on fire she wouldn’t piss on me to put me out.”
    “We’ll come back,” Dan said, but it sounded pale. He felt too sick to put up much of a front.
    “Yeah? Well, maybe I’ll have that steak dinner, anyway. What about you?”
    “I think I could manage a little soup. As long as it’s clear.” The thought of eating anything too thick to read a newspaper through—tomato bisque, cream of mushroom—made his stomach cringe.
    “Okay. Why don’t you close your eyes again?”
    Dan knew he couldn’t sleep deeply, no matter how tired and sick he felt—not while Abra was dealing with the ancient horror that looked like a woman—but he managed a doze. It was thin but rich enough to grow more dreams, first of the Overlook (today’s version featured the elevator that ran by itself in the middle of the night), then of his niece. This time Abra had been strangled with a length of electrical cord. She stared at Dan with bulging, accusing eyes. It was all too easy to read what was in them. You said you’d help me. You said you’d save me. Where were you?
    8
    Abra kept putting off the thing she had to do until she realized her mother would soon be pestering her to go to bed. She wasn’t going to school in the morning, but it was still going to be a big day. And, perhaps, a very long night.
    Putting things off only makes them worse, cara mia.
    That was the gospel according to Momo. Abra looked toward her window, wishing she could see her great-grandma there instead of Rose. That would be good.
    “Momes, I’m so scared,” she said. But after two long and steadying breaths, she picked up her iPhone and dialed the Overlook Lodge at Bluebell Campground. A man answered, and when Abra said she wanted to talk to Rose, he asked who she was.
    “You know who I am,” she said. And—with what she hoped was irritating inquisitiveness: “Are you sick yet, mister?”
    The man on the other end (it was Toady Slim) didn’t answer that, but she heard him murmur to someone. A moment later, Rose was on, her composure once more firmly in place.
    “Hello, dear. Where are you?”
    “On my way,” Abra said.
    “Are you really? That’s nice, dear. So I don’t suppose that I’d find this call came from a New