Doctor Sleep

wasn’t, Mrs. Gaylesworthy was shot to death in her kitchen and the good and lovely boy disappeared. His body had long since rotted away beneath the gone-to-seed back field of an abandoned farm, but when Rose the Hat opened the valve on the silver canister, his essence—his steam —escaped in a cloud of sparkling silver mist. It rose to a heightof about three feet above the canister, and spread out in a plane. The True stood looking up at it with expectant faces. Most were trembling. Several were actually weeping.
    “Take nourishment and endure,” Rose said, and raised her hands until her spread fingers were just below the flat plane of mist. She beckoned. The mist immediately began to sink, taking on anumbrella shape as it descendedtoward those waiting below. When it enveloped their heads, they began to breathe deeply. This went on for five minutes, during which several of them hyperventilated and swooned to the ground.
    Rose felt herself swelling physically and sharpening mentally. Every fragrant odor of this spring night declared itself. She knew that the faint lines around her eyes and mouth were disappearing. The whitestrands in her hair were turning dark again. Later tonight, Crow would come to her camper, and in her bed they would burn like torches.
    They inhaled Richard Gaylesworthy until he was gone—really and truly gone. The white mist thinned and then disappeared. Those who had fainted sat up and looked around, smiling. Grampa Flick grabbed Petty the Chink, Barry’s wife, and did a nimble little jig withher.
    “Let go of me, you old donkey!” she snapped, but she was laughing.
    Snakebite Andi and Silent Sarey were kissing deeply, Andi’s hands plunged into Sarey’s mouse-colored hair.
    Rose leaped down from the picnic table and turned to Crow. He made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, grinning back at her.
    Everything’s cool, that grin said, and so it was. For now. But in spite of her euphoria,Rose thought of the canisters in her safe. Now there were thirty-eight empties instead of thirty-seven. Their backs were a step closer to the wall.
    5
    The True rolled out the next morning just after first light. They took Route 12 to I-64, the fourteen RVs in a nose-to-tail caravan. When they reached the interstate they would spread out so they weren’t quite so obviously together, staying in touchby radio in case trouble arose.
    Or if opportunity knocked.
    Ernie and Maureen Salkowicz, fresh from a wonderful night’s sleep, agreed those RV folks were just about the best they’d ever had. Not only did they pay cash and bus up their sites neat as a pin, someone left an apple bread pudding on the top step of their trailer, with a sweet thank-you note on top. With any luck, the Salkowiczes toldeach other as they ate their gift dessert for breakfast, they’d come back next year.
    “Do you know what?” Maureen said. “I dreamed that lady on the insurance commercials—Flo—sold you a big insurance policy. Wasn’t that a crazy dream?”
    Ernie grunted and splooshed more whipped cream onto his bread pudding.
    “Did you dream, honey?”
    “Nope.”
    But his eyes slid away from hers as he said it.
    6
    TheTrue Knot’s luck turned for the better on a hot July day in Iowa. Rose was leading the caravan, as she always did, and just west of Adair, the sonar in her head gave a ping. Not a head-blaster by any means, but moderately loud. She hopped on the CB at once to Barry the Chink, who was about as Asian as Tom Cruise.
    “Barry, did you feel that? Come back.”
    “Yuh.” Barry was not the garrulous type.
    “Who’s Grampa Flick riding with today?”
    Before Barry could answer, there was a double break on the CB and Apron Annie said, “He’s with me and Long Paul, sweetie. Is it . . . is it a good one?” Annie sounded anxious, and Rose could understand that. Richard Gaylesworthy had been a very good one, but six weeks was a long time between meals, and he was beginning to wear off.
    “Is the old feller compos, Annie?”
    Before she could answer, a raspy voice came back, “I’m fine,woman.” And for a guy who sometimes couldn’t remember his own name, Grampa Flick did sound pretty much okay. Testy, sure, but testy was a lot better than befuddled.
    A second ping hit her, this one not as strong. As if to underline a point that needed no underlining, Grampa said, “We’re going the wrong fuckin way.”
    Rose didn’tbother answering, just clicked another double break on her mike.