Doctor Sleep

“Crow? Come back, honeybunch.”
    “I’m here.” Prompt as always. Just waiting to be called.
    “Pull em in at the next rest area. Except for me, Barry, and Flick. We’ll take the next exit and double back.”
    “Will you need a crew?”
    “I won’t know until we get closer, but . . . I don’t think so.”
    “Okay.” A pause, then he added: “Shit.”
    Rose racked the mike and looked out at the unending acres of corn on both sides of the fourlane. Crow was disappointed, of course. They all would be. Big steamheads presented problems because they were all but immune to suggestion. That meant taking them by force. Friends or family members often tried to interfere. They could sometimes be put to sleep, but not always; a kid with big steam couldblock even Snakebite Andi’s best efforts in that regard. So sometimes people had to be killed. Not good, but the prize was always worth it: life and strength stored away in a steel canister. Stored for a rainy day. In many cases there was even a residual benefit. Steam was hereditary, and often everyone in the target’s family had at least a little.
    7
    While most of the True Knot waited in a pleasantlyshady rest area forty miles east of Council Bluffs, the RVs containing the three finders turned around, left the turnpike at Adair, and headed north. Once away from I-80 and out in the toolies, they spread apart and begin working the grid of graveled, well-maintained farm roadsthat parceled this part of Iowa into big squares. Moving in on the ping from different directions. Triangulating.
    Itgot stronger . . . a little stronger still . . . then leveled off. Good steam but not great steam. Ah, well. Beggars couldn’t be choosers.
    8
    Bradley Trevor had been given the day off from his usual farm chores to practice with the local Little League All-Star team. If his pa had refused him this, the coach probably would have led the rest of the boys in a lynch party, because Brad was the team’sbest hitter. You wouldn’t think it to look at him—he was skinny as a rake handle, and only eleven—but he was able to tag even the District’s best pitchers for singles and doubles. The meatballers he almost always took deep. Some of it was plain farmboy strength, but by no means all of it. Brad just seemed to know what pitch was coming next. It wasn’t a case of stealing signs (a possibility uponwhich some of the other District coaches had speculated darkly). He just knew . The way he knew the best location for a new stock well, or where the occasional lost cow had gotten off to, or where Ma’s engagement ring was the time she’d lost it. Look under the floormat of the Suburban, he’d said, and there it was.
    That day’s practice was an especially good one, but Brad seemed lost in the ozoneduring the debriefing afterward, and declined to take a soda from the tub filled with ice when it was offered. He said he thought he better get home and help his ma take in the clothes.
    “Is it gonna rain?” Micah Johnson, the coach, asked. They’d all come to trust him on such things.
    “Dunno,” Brad said listlessly.
    “You feel okay, son? You look a little peaked.”
    In fact, Brad didn’t feel well,had gotten up that morning headachey and a bit feverish. That wasn’t why he wanted to go home now, though; he just had a strong sense that he no longerwanted to be at the baseball field. His mind didn’t seem . . . quite his own. He wasn’t sure if he was here or only dreaming he was—how crazy was that? He scratched absently at a red spot on his forearm. “Same time tomorrow, right?”
    Coach Johnsonsaid that was the plan, and Brad walked off with his glove trailing from one hand. Usually he jogged—they all did—but today he didn’t feel like it. His head still ached, and now his legs did, too. He disappeared into the corn behind the bleachers, meaning to take a shortcut back to the farm, two miles away. When he emerged onto Town Road D, brushing silk from his hair with a slow and dreamy hand,a midsize WanderKing was idling on the gravel. Standing beside it, smiling, was Barry the Chink.
    “Well, there you are,” Barry said.
    “Who are you?”
    “A friend. Hop in. I’ll take you home.”
    “Sure,” Brad said. Feeling the way he did, a ride would be fine. He scratched at the red spot on his arm. “You’re Barry Smith. You’re a friend. I’ll hop in and you’ll take me home.”
    He stepped into the RV.The door closed. The WanderKing drove