Doctor Sleep

bra straps bit into her upper arms, the strap on the left gagging the rattlesnake so it couldn’t bite. The fingerbones clutching her shattered jaw grew a hand.
    “You fucked us,” Snakebite Andi said. Her voice was slurred. “Fucked by a bunch of rubes. I don’t believe it.”
    Dan pointed at Dave. “That rube there is thefather of the girl you came to kidnap. Just in case you’re wondering.”
    Snake managed a painful grin. Her teeth were rimmed with blood. “You think I give a tin shit? To me he’s just another swinging dick. Even the Pope of Rome’s got one, and not one of you care where you put it. Fucking men . Have to win, don’t you? Always have to w—”
    “Where’s the other one? Where’s Crow?”
    Andi coughed. Bloodbubbled from the corners of her mouth. Once she had been lost, then she had been found. In a darkened movie theater she had been found, by a goddess with a thundercloud of dark hair. Now she was dying, and she wouldn’t have changed a thing. The years between the ex-actor president and the black president had been good; that one magic night with Rose had been even better. She grinned brightly up atthe tall good-looking one. It hurt to grin, but she did it, anyway.
    “Oh, him. He’s in Reno. Fucking rube showgirls.”
    She began to disappear again. Dan heard John Dalton whisper, “Oh my God, look at that. Brain bleed. I can actually see it.”
    Dan waited to see if Tat Woman would come back. Eventually she did, with a long groan from between her clenched and bloody teeth. The cycling seemed tohurt even more than the blow that had caused it, but Dan thought he could remedy that. He pulled Tat Woman’s hand away from her shattered jaw and dug in with his fingers. He could feel her entire skull shift as he did; it was like pushing the side of a badly cracked vase held together by a few strips of tape. This time Tat Woman did more than groan. She howled and pawed weakly at Dan, who paid noattention.
    “Where’s Crow?”
    “Anniston!” Snake screamed. “He got off in Anniston! Please don’t hurt me anymore, Daddy! Please don’t, I’ll do whatever you want!”
    Dan thought of what Abra said these monsters had done to Brad Trevor in Iowa, how they had tortured him and God only knew how many others, and felt an almost ungovernable urge to tear the lower half of this murdering bitch’s face entirelyoff. To beat her bleeding, shattered skull with her own jawbone until both skull and bone disappeared.
    Then—absurdly, given the circumstances—he thought of the kid in the Braves t-shirt reaching for the left-over coke piled on the shiny magazine cover. Canny, he’d said. This woman was nothing like that kid, nothing, but telling himself so did no good. His anger was suddenly gone, leaving himfeeling sick and weak and empty.
    Don’t hurt me anymore, Daddy .
    He got up, wiping his hand on his shirt, and walked blindly toward the Riv .
    ( Abra are you there )
    ( yes )
    Not so panicky now, and that was good.
    ( you need to have your friend’s mom call the police and tell them you’re in danger Crow’s in Anniston )
    Bringing the police into a business that was, at bottom,supernatural was the lastthing Dan wanted, but at this moment he saw no choice.
    ( I’m not )
    Before she could finish, her thought was blotted out by a powerful shriek of female rage.
    (YOU LITTLE BITCH)
    Suddenly the hat woman was in Dan’s head again, this time not as part of a dream but behind his waking eyes, her image burning: a creature of terrible beauty who was now naked, her wet hair lying on her shoulders in Medusacoils. Then her mouth yawned open and the beauty was torn away. There was only a dark hole with one jutting, discolored tooth. Almost a tusk.
    (WHAT HAVE YOU DONE)
    Dan staggered and put a hand against the Riv ’s lead passenger car to hold himself up. The world inside his head was revolving. The hat woman disappeared and suddenly a crowd of concerned faces was gathered around him. They were askingif he was all right.
    He remembered Abra trying to explain how the world had revolved on the day she had discovered Brad Trevor’s picture in The Anniston Shopper ; how all at once Abra had been looking out of the hat woman’s eyes and the hat woman had been looking out of hers. Now he understood. It was happening again, and this time he was along for the ride.
    Rose was on the ground. He could seea broad swatch of evening sky overhead. The people crowding around her were no doubt her tribe