Doctor Sleep

beneath the seat when he decided she was spendingway too much time in the crapper. He raised it, meaning to threaten the geezer and make her stop whatever it was she was doing, but all at once his hand felt as if it had been plunged into freezing water. The gun put on weight: five pounds, ten pounds, what felt like twenty-five. Twenty-five at least. And while he was struggling to raise it, his right foot came off the F-150’s gas pedal andhis left hand turned the wheel so that the truck veered off the road and rolled along the soft shoulder—gently, slowing—with the right-side wheels tilting toward the ditch.
    “What are you doing to me?”
    “What you deserve. Daddy .”
    The truck bumped a downed birch tree, snapped it in two, and stopped. The girl and the geezer were seatbelted in, but Crow had forgotten his. He jolted forward intothe steering wheel, honking the horn. When he looked down, he saw the geezer’s automatic turning in his fist. Very slowly turning toward him. This shouldn’tbe happening. The dope was supposed to stop it. Hell, the dope had stopped it. But something had changed in that bathroom. Whoever was behind those eyes now was cold fucking sober.
    And horribly strong.
    Rose! Rose, I need you!
    “I don’t thinkshe can hear,” the voice that wasn’t Abra’s said. “You may have some talents, you son of a bitch, but I don’t think you have much in the way of telepathy. I think when you want to talk to your girlfriend, you use the phone.”
    Exerting all his strength, Crow began to turn the Glock back toward the girl. Now it seemed to weigh fifty pounds. The tendons of his neck stood out like cables. Drops ofperspiration beaded on his forehead. One ran into his eye, stinging, and Crow blinked it away.
    “I’ll . . . shoot . . . your friend,” he said.
    “No,” the person inside Abra said. “I won’t let you.”
    But Crow could see she was straining now, and that gave him hope. He put everything he had into pointing the muzzle at Rip Van Winkle’s midsection, and had almost gotten there when the gun startedto rotate back again. Now he could hear the little bitch panting. Hell, he was, too. They sounded like marathoners approaching the end of a race side by side.
    A car went by, not slowing. Neither of them noticed. They were looking at each other.
    Crow brought his left hand down to join his right on the gun. Now it turned a little more easily. He was beating her, by God. But his eyes! Jesus!
    “Billy!” Abra shouted. “Billy, little help here!”
    Billy snorted. His eyes opened. “Wha—”
    For a moment Crow was distracted. The force he was exerting slackened, and the gun immediately began to turn back toward him. His hands were cold, cold. Those metal rings were pressing into his eyes, threatening to turn them to jelly.
    The gun went off for the first time when it was between them, blowinga hole in the dashboard just above the radio. Billy jerkedawake, arms flailing to either side like a man pulling himself out of a nightmare. One of them struck Abra’s temple, the other Crow’s chest. The cab of the truck was filled with blue haze and the smell of burnt gunpowder.
    “What was that? What the hell was tha—”
    Crow snarled, “No, you bitch! No!”
    He swung the gun back toward Abra, andas he did it, he felt her control slip. It was the blow to the head. Crow could see dismay and terror in her eyes, and was savagely glad.
    Have to kill her. Can’t give her another chance. But not a headshot. In the gut. Then I’ll suck the stea—
    Billy slammed his shoulder into Crow’s side. The gun jerked up and went off again, this time putting a hole in the roof just above Abra’s head. BeforeCrow could bring it down again, huge hands laid themselves over his. He had time to realize that his adversary had only been tapping a fraction of the force at its command. Panic had unlocked a great, perhaps even unknowable, reserve. This time when the gun turned toward him, Crow’s wrists snapped like bundles of twigs. For a moment he saw a single black eye staring up at him, and there was timefor half a thought:
    ( Rose I love y )
    There was a brilliant flash of white, then darkness. Four seconds later, there was nothing left of Crow Daddy but his clothes.
    7
    Steamhead Steve, Baba the Red, Bent Dick, and Greedy G were playing a desultory game of canasta in the Bounder that Greedy and Dirty Phil shared when the shrieks began. All four of them had been on edge—the whole True