Doctor Sleep

Lookout. The other pointed east, downhill. This one read TO BLUEBELL CAMPGROUND.
    Dan started along that path. For a little while Billy could see him through the glowing yellow leaves of the aspens, walking slowly and painfully, his head down to watchhis footing. Then he was gone.
    “Take care of my boy,” Billy said. He wasn’t sure if he was talking to God or Abra, and guessed it didn’t matter; both were probably too busy to bother with the likes of him this afternoon.
    He went back to his truck, and from the bed pulled out a little girl with staring china blue eyes and stiff blond curls. Not much weight; she was probably hollow inside. “Howyou doin, Abra? Hope you didn’t get bumped around too much.”
    She was wearing a Colorado Rockies tee and blue shorts. Her feet were bare, and why not? This little girl—actually a mannequin purchased at a moribund children’s clothing shop in Martenville—had never walked a single step. But she had bendable knees, and Billy was able to place her in the truck’s passenger seat with no trouble. He buckledher seatbelt, started to close the door, then tried the neck. It also bent, although only a little. He stepped away to examine the effect. It wasn’t bad. She seemed to be looking at something in her lap. Or maybe praying for strength in the coming battle. Not bad at all.
    Unless they had binoculars, of course.
    He got back in the truck and waited, giving Dan time. Also hoping he wasn’t passedout somewhere along the path that led to the Bluebell Campground.
    At quarter to five, Billy started the truck and headed back the way he had come.
    5
    Dan maintained a steady walking pace in spite of the growing heat in his midsection. It felt as though there were a rat on fire in there, one that kept chewing at him even as it burned. If the path had been going up instead of down, he never wouldhave made it.
    At ten to five, he came around a bend and stopped. Not far ahead, the aspens gave way to a green and manicured expanse of lawn sloping down to a pair of tennis courts. Beyond the courts he could see the RV parking area and a long log building: Overlook Lodge.Beyond that, the terrain climbed again. Where the Overlook had once stood, a tall platform reared gantrylike against thebright sky. Roof O’ the World. Looking at it, the same thought that had occurred to Rose the Hat
    ( gallows )
    crossed Dan’s mind. Standing at the railing, facing south toward the parking lot for day visitors, was a single silhouetted figure. A woman’s figure. The tophat was tilted on her head.
    ( Abra are you there )
    ( I’m here Dan )
    Calm, by the sound. Calm was just the way he wanted it.
    ( are they hearing you )
    That brought a vague ticklish sensation: her smile. The angry one.
    ( if they’re not they’re deaf )
    That was good enough.
    ( you have to come to me now but remember if I tell you to go YOU GO )
    She didn’t answer, and before he could tell her again, she was there.
    6
    The Stones and John Dalton watched helplessly as Abra slid sideways until she was lying with her head on the boards ofthe stoop and her legs splayed out on the steps below her. Hoppy spilled from one relaxing hand. She didn’t look as if she were sleeping, nor even in a faint. That was the ugly sprawl of deep unconsciousness or death. Lucy lunged forward. Dave and John held her back.
    She fought them. “Let me go! I have to help her!”
    “You can’t,” John said. “Only Dan can help her now. They have to help each other.”
    She stared at him with wild eyes. “Is she even breathing? Can you tell?”
    “She’s breathing,” Dave said, but he sounded unsure even to himself.
    7
    When Abra joined him, the pain eased for the first time since Boston. That didn’t comfort Dan much, because now Abra was suffering, too. He could see it in her face, but he could also see the wonder in her eyes as she looked around at the room in whichshe found herself. There were bunk beds, knotty-pine walls, and a rug embroidered with western sage and cactus. Both the rug and the lower bunk were littered with cheap toys. On a small desk in the corner was a scattering of books and a jigsaw puzzle with large pieces. In the room’s far corner, a radiator clanked and hissed.
    Abra walked to the desk and picked up one of the books. On the cover,a small child on a trike was being chased by a little dog. The title was Reading Fun with Dick and Jane .
    Dan joined her, wearing a bemused smile. “The little girl on the cover is