Doctor Sleep

was plenty big.
    “Dan? How will we know where—”
    “Be quiet.” Dan bent his head until his browtouched 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 withhim. 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 metalthat 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 bagand 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 adeep 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?”
    “Buriedthat 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 earth-covered shape emerged. It reminded him of thecarvings on sarcophagi he had seen in National Geographic .
    The smell of decay was now very strong.
    Dan stepped away and hyperventilated, ending with the deepest breath he could manage. Then he dropped into the end of the shallow grave, where both of Brad Trevor’s sneakers now protruded in a V. He knee-walked up to about where he thought the boy’s waist must be, then held up a hand for the penlight.John handed it over and turned away. He was sobbing audibly.
    Dan clamped the slim flashlight between his lips and beganbrushing away more dirt. A child’s t-shirt came into view, clinging to a sunken chest. Then hands. The fingers, now little more than bones wrapped in yellow skin, were clasped over