Doctor Sleep

literally knocked Rose off her feet, and she had a moment to be savagely glad. She struggled for something to defend herself with. There wasn’t much time.
    6
    Rose’s body lay sprawled halfway between the showers and theOverlook Lodge, but her mind was in New Hampshire, swarming through the girl’s head. There was no daydream horsewoman with a stallion and lance this time, oh no. This time it was just one surprised little chickadee and old Rosie, and Rosie wanted revenge. She would kill the girl only as a last resort, she was much too valuable for that, but Rose could give her a taste of what was coming. A tasteof what Rose’s friends had already suffered. There were plenty of soft, vulnerable places in the minds of rubes, and she knew them all very w—
    (GET AWAY YOU BITCH LEAVE ME ALONE OR I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!)
    It was like having a flash-bang go off behind her eyes. Rose jerked and cried out. Big Mo, who had been reaching down to touch her, recoiled in surprise. Rose didn’t notice, didn’t even seeher. She kept underestimating the girl’s power. She tried to keep her footing in the girl’s head, but the little bitch was actually pushing her out. It was incredible and infuriating and terrifying, but it was true.Worse, she could feel her physical hands rising toward her face. If Mo and Short Eddie hadn’t restrained her, the little girl might have made Rose claw her own eyes out.
    For the timebeing, at least, she had to give up and leave. But before she did, she saw something through the girl’s eyes that flooded her with relief. It was Crow Daddy, and in one hand he was holding a needle.
    7
    Abra used all the psychic force she could muster, more than she had used on the day she had gone hunting for Brad Trevor, more than she had ever used in her life, and it was still barely enough.Just when she started to think she wouldn’t be able to get the hat woman out of her head, the world began to revolve again. She was making it revolve, but it was so hard—like pushing a great stone wheel. The sky and the faces staring down at her slid away. There was a moment of darkness when she was
    ( between )
    nowhere, and then her own front hall slid back into view. But she was no longer alone.A man was standing in the kitchen doorway.
    No, not a man. A Crow .
    “Hello, Abra,” he said, smiling, and leaped at her. Still mentally reeling from her encounter with Rose, Abra made no attempt to push him away with her mind. She simply turned and ran.
    8
    In their moments of highest stress, Dan Torrance and Crow Daddy were very much alike, although neither would ever know it. The same claritycame over Crow’s vision, the same sense that all of this was happening in beautiful slow motion. He saw the pink rubberbracelet on Abra’s left wrist and had time to think breast cancer awareness . He saw the girl’s backpack slew to the left as she whirled to her right and knew it was full of books. He even had time to admire her hair as it flew out behind her in a bright sheaf.
    He caught herat the door as she was trying to turn the thumb lock. When he put his left arm around her throat and yanked her back, he felt her first efforts—confused, weak—to push him away with her mind.
    Not the whole hypo, it might kill her, she can’t weigh more than a hundred and fifteen pounds max .
    Crow injected her just south of the collarbone as she twisted and struggled. He needn’t have worried aboutlosing control and shooting the whole dose into her, because her left arm came up and thumped against his right hand, knocking the hypo free. It fell to the floor and rolled. But providence favors True above rubes, it had always been that way and was now. He got just enough into her. He felt her little handhold on his mind first slip, then fall away. Her hands did the same. She stared at him withshocked, floating eyes.
    Crow patted her shoulder. “We’re going for a ride, Abra. You’re going to meet exciting new people.”
    Incredibly, she managed a smile. A rather frightening one for a girl so young that with her hair piled up under a cap, she could still have passed for a boy. “Those monsters you call your friends are all dead. Theyyy . . .”
    The last word was only an unwinding slur as hereyes rolled up and her knees came unhinged. Crow was tempted to let her drop—it would serve her too right—but restrained the impulse and caught her under the arms instead. She was valuable property, after all.
    True property.
    9
    He had