Its features were a mask of black shadow and powdered snow,
its haunches wound tight to spring. And it did spring, snow
billowing around its pistoning rear legs in a silent burst of
crystal glitter.
Hallorann screamed and twisted the handlebars hard right,
ducking low at the same time. Scratching, ripping pain
scrawled itself across his face, his neck, his shoulders. The
ski mask was torn open down the back. He was hurled from the
snowmobile. He hit the snow, plowed through it, rolled over.
He could feel it coming for him. In his nostrils there was a
bitter smell of green leaves and holly. A huge hedge paw
batted him in the small of the back and he flew ten feet
through the air, splayed out like a rag doll. He saw the
snowmobile, riderless, strike the embankment and rear up, its
headlamp searching the sky. It fell over with a thump and
stalled.
Then the hedge lion was on him. There was a crackling,
rustling sound. Something raked across the front of the parka,
shredding it. It might have been stiff twigs, but Hallorann
knew it was claws.
"You're not there!" Hallorann screamed at the circling,
snarling hedge lion. "You're not there at all!" He struggled
to his feet and made it halfway to the snowmobile before the
lion lunged, batting him across the head with a needletipped
paw. Hallorann saw silent, exploding lights.
"Not there," he said again, but it was a fading mutter. His
knees unhinged and dropped him into the snow. He crawled for
the snowmobile, the right side of his face a scarf of blood.
The lion struck him again, rolling him onto his back like a
turtle. It roared playfully.
Hallorann struggled to reach the snowmobile. What he needed
was there. And then the lion was on him again, ripping and
clawing.
WENDY AND JACK
Wendy risked another glance over her shoulder. Jack was on
the sixth riser, clinging to the banister much as she was
doing herself. He was still grinning, and dark blood oozed
slowly through the grin and slipped down the line of his jaw.
He bared his teeth at her.
"I'm going to bash your brains in. Bash them right to fuck
in." He struggled up another riser.
Panic spurred her, and the ache in her side diminished a
little. She pulled herself up as fast as she could regardless
of the pain, yanking convulsively at the banister. She reached
the top and threw a glance behind her.
He seemed to be gaining strength rather than losing it. He
was only four risers from the top, measuring the distance with
the rogue mallet in his left hand as he pulled himself up with
his right.
"Right behind you," he panted through his bloody grin, as if
reading her mind. "Right behind you now, bitch. With your
medicine."
She fled stumblingly down the main corridor, hands pressed to
her side.
The door to one of the rooms jerked open and a man with a
green ghoulmask on popped out. "Great party, isn't it?" He
screamed into her face, and pulled the waxed string of a party-
favor. There was an echoing bang and suddenly crepe streamers
were drifting all around her. The man in the ghoulmask cackled
and slammed back into his room. She fell forward onto the
carpet, full-length. Her right side seemed to explode with
pain, and she fought off the blackness of unconsciousness
desperately. Dimly she could hear the elevator running again,
and beneath her splayed fingers she could see that the carpet
pattern appeared to move, swaying and twining sinuously.
The mallet slammed down behind her and she threw herself
forward, sobbing. Over her shoulder she saw Jack stumble
forward, overbalance, and bring the mallet down just before he
crashed to the carpet, expelling a bright splash of blood onto
the nap.
The mallet head struck her squarely between the shoulder
blades and for a moment the agony was so great that she could
only writhe, hands opening and clenching. Something inside her
had snapped-she had heard it clearly, and for a few moments
she was aware only in a muted, muffled way, as if she were
merely observing these things through a cloudy wrapping of
gauze.
Then full consciousness came back, terror and pain with it.
Jack was trying to get up so he could finish the job.
Wendy tried to stand and found it was impossible. Electric
bolts seemed to course up and down her back at the effort. She
began to crawl along in a sidestroke motion. Jack was crawling
after her, using the roque mallet as a crutch or a cane.
She reached the comer and pulled herself around it, using her
hands to yank at the angle of the wall. Her terror
deepened-she would not have believed that possible, but it
was. It was a hundred times worse not to be able to see him or
know how close he was getting. She tore out fistfuls of the
carpet napping pulling herself along, and she was halfway down
this short hall before she noticed the bedroom door was
standing wide open.
(Danny! O Jesus)
She forced herself to her knees and then clawed her way to
her feet, fingers slipping over the silk wallpaper. Her nails
pulled little strips of it loose. She ignored the pain and
halfwalked, half-shambled through the doorway as Jack came
around the far corner and began to lunge his way down toward
the open door, leaning on the roque mallet.
She caught the edge of the dresser, held herself up against
it, and grabbed the doorframe.
Jack shouted at her: "Don't you shut that door! Goddam you,
don't you dare shut it!"
She slammed it closed and shot the bolt. Her left hand pawed
wildly at the junk on the dresser, knocking loose coins onto
the floor where they rolled in every direction. Her hand
seized the key ring just as the mallet whistled down against
the door, making it tremble in its frame. She got the key into
the lock on the second stab and twisted it to the right. At
the sound of the tumblers falling, Jack screamed. The mallet
came down against the door in a volley of booming blows that
made her flinch and step back. How could he be doing that with
a knife in his back? Where was he finding the strength? She
wanted to shriek Why aren't you dead? at the locked door.
Instead she turned around. She and Danny would have to go
into the attached bathroom and lock that door, too, in case
Jack actually could break through the bedroom door. The
thought of escaping down the dumb-waiter shaft crossed her
mind in a wild burst, and then she rejected it. Danny was
small enough to fit into it, but she would be unable to
control the rope pull. He might go crashing all the way to the
bottom.
The bathroom it would have to be. And if Jack broke through
into there-
But she wouldn't allow herself to think of it.
"Danny, honey, you'll have to wake up n-"
But the bed was empty.
When he had begun to sleep more soundly, she had thrown the
blankets and one of the quilts over him. Now they were thrown
back.
"I'll get you!" Jack howled. "I'll get. both of you!" Every
other word was punctuated with a blow from the roque hammer,
yet Wendy ignored both. All of her attention was focused on
that empty bed.
"Come out here! Unlock this goddam door!"
"Danny?" she whispered.
Of course... when Jack had attacked her. It had come through
to him, as violent emotions always seemed to. Perhaps he'd
even seen the whole thing in a nightmare. He was hiding.
She fell clumsily to her knees, enduring another bolt of pain
from her swollen and bleeding leg, and looked under the bed.
Nothing there but dustballs and Jack's bedroom slippers.
Jack screamed her name, and this time when he swung the
mallet, a long splinter of wood jumped from the door and
clattered off the hardwood planking. The next blow brought a
sickening, splintering crack, the sound of dry kindling under
a hatchet. The bloody mallet head, now splintered and gouged
in its own right, bashed through the new hole in the door, was
withdrawn, and came down again, sending wooden shrapnel flying
across the room.
Wendy pulled herself to her feet again using the foot of the
bed, and hobbled across the room to the closet. Her broken
ribs stabbed at her, making her groan.
"Danny?"
She brushed the hung garments aside frantically; some of them
slipped their hangers and ballooned gracelessly to the floor.
He was not in the closet.
She hobbled toward the bathroom and as she reached the door
she glanced back over her shoulder. The mallet crashed through
again, widening the hole, and then a hand appeared, groping
for the bolt. She saw with horror that she had left Jack's key
ring dangling from the lock.
The hand yanked the bolt back, and as it did so it struck the
bunched keys. They jingled merrily. The hand clutched them
victoriously.
With a sob, she pushed her way into the bathroom and slammed
the door just as the bedroom door burst open and Jack charged
through, bellowing.
Wendy ran the bolt and twisted the spring lock, looking
around desperately. The bathroom was empty. Danny wasn't here,
either. And as she caught sight of her own bloodsmeared,
horrified face in the medicine cabinet mirror, she was glad.
She had never believed that children should be witness to the
little quarrels of their parents. And perhaps the thing that
was now raving through the bedroom, overturning things and
smashing them, would finally collapse before it could go after
her son. Perhaps, she thought, it might be possible for her to
inflict even more damage on it... kill it, perhaps.
Her eyes skated quickly over the bathroom's machine-produced
porcelain surfaces, looking for anything that might serve as a
weapon. There was a bar of soap, but even wrapped in a towel
she didn't think it would be lethal enough. Everything else
was bolted down. God, was there nothing she could do?
Beyond the door, the animal sounds of destruction went on and
on, accompanied by thick shouts that they would "take their
medicine" and "pay for what they'd done to him." He would
"show them who's boss," They were "worthless puppies," the
both of them.
There was a thump as her record player was overturned, a
hollow crash as the secondhand TV's picture tube was smashed,
the tinkle of windowglass followed by a cold draft under the
bathroom door. A dull thud as the mattresses were ripped from
the twin beds where they had slept together, hip to hip.
Boomings as Jack struck the walls indiscriminately with the
mallet.
There was nothing of the real Jack in that howling,
maundering, petulant voice, though. It alternately whined in
tones of selfpity and rose in lurid screams; it reminded her
chillingly of the screams that sometimes rose in the
geriatrics ward of the hospital where she had worked summers
as a high school kid. Senile dementia. Jack wasn't out there
anymore. She was hearing the lunatic, raving voice of the
Overlook itself.
The mallet smashed into the bathroom door, knocking out a
huge chunk of the thin paneling. Half of a crazed and working
face stared in at her. The mouth and cheeks and throat were
lathered in blood, the single eye she could see was tiny and
piggish and glittering.
"Nowhere left to run, you cunt," it panted at her through its
grin. The mallet descended again, knocking wood splinters into
the tub and against the reflecting surface of the medicine
cabinet
(!! The medicine cabinet!!)
A desperate whining noise began to escape her as she whirled,
pain temporarily forgotten, and threw the mirror door of the
cabinet back. She began to paw through its contents. Behind
her that hoarse voice bellowed: "Here I come now! Here I come
now, you pig!" It was demolishing the door in a machinelike
frenzy.
Bottles and jars fell before her madly searching fingerscough
syrup, Vaseline, Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo, hydrogen
peroxide, benzocaine-they fell into the sink and shattered.
Her hand closed over the dispenser of double-edged razor
blades just as she heard the hand again, fumbling for the bolt
and the spring lock.
She slipped one of the razor blades out, fumbling at it, her
breath coming in harsh little gasps. She had cut the ball of
her thumb. She whirled around and slashed at the hand, which
had turned the lock and was now fumbling for the bolt.
Jack screamed. The hand was jerked back.
Panting, holding the razor blade between her thumb and index
finger, she waited for him to try again. He did, and she
slashed. He screamed again, trying to grab her hand, and she
slashed at him again. The razor blade turned in her hand,
cutting her again, and dropped to the tile floor by the
toilet.
Wendy slipped another blade out of the dispenser and waited.
Movement in the other room-
(?? going away??)
And a sound coming through the bedroom window. A motor. A
high, insectile buzzing sound.
A roar of anger from Jack and then-yes, yes, she was sure of
it-he was leaving the caretaker's apartment, plowing through
the wreckage and out into the hall.
(?? Someone coming a ranger Dick Hallorann??)
"Oh God," she muttered brokenly through a mouth that seemed
filled with broken sticks and old sawdust. "Oh God, oh
please."
She had to leave now, had to go find her son so they could
face the rest of this nightmare side by side. She reached out
and fumbled at the bolt. Her arm seemed to stretch for miles.
At last she got it to come free. She pushed the door open,
staggered out, and was suddenly overcome by the horrible
certainty that Jack had only pretended to leave, that he was
lying in wait for her:
Wendy looked around. The room was empty, the living room too.
Jumbled, broken stuff everywhere.
The closet? Empty.
Then the soft shades of gray began to wash over her and she
fell down on the mattress Jack had ripped from the bed,
semiconscious.
HALLORANN LAID LOW
Hallorann reached the overturned snowmobile just as, a mile
and a half away, Wendy was pulling herself around the corner
and into the short hallway leading to the caretaker's
apartment.
It wasn't the snowmobile he wanted but the gascan held onto
the back by a pair of elastic straps. His hands, still clad in
Howard Cottrell's blue mittens, seized the top strap and
pulled it free as the hedge lion roared behind him-a sound
that seemed to be more in his head than outside of it. A hard,
brambly slap to his left leg, making the knee sing with pain
as it was driven in a way the joint had never been expected to
bend. A groan escaped Hallorann's clenched teeth. It would
come for the kill any time now, tired of playing with him.
He fumbled for the second strap. Sticky blood ran in his
eyes.
(Roar! Slap!)
That one raked across his buttocks, almost tumbling him over
and away from the snowmobile again. He held on-no
exaggeration-for dear life.
Then he had freed the second strap. He clutched the gascan to
him as the lion struck again, rolling him over on his back. He
saw it again, only a shadow in the darkness and falling snow,
as nightmarish as a moving gargoyle. Hallorann twisted at the
can's cap as the moving shadow stalked him, kicking up
snowpuffs. As it moved in again the cap spun free, releasing
the pungent smell of the gasoline.
Hallorann gained his knees and as it came at him, lowslung
and incredibly quick, he splashed it with the gas.
There was a hissing, spitting sound and it drew back.
"Gas!" Hallorann cried, his voice shrill and breaking. "Gonna
burn you, baby! Dig on it awhile!"
The lion came at him again, still spitting angrily. Hallorann
splashed it again but this time the lion didn't give. It
charged ahead. Hallorann sensed rather than saw its head
angling at his face and he threw himself backward, partially
avoiding it. Yet the lion still hit his upper rib cage a
glancing blow, and a flare of pain struck there. Gas gurgled
out of the can, which he still held, and doused his right hand
and arm, cold as death.
Now he lay on his back in a snow angel, to the right of the
snowmobile by about ten paces. The hissing lion was a bulking
presence to his left, closing in again. Hallorann thought he
could see its tail twitching.
He yanked Cottrell's mitten off his right hand, tasting
sodden wool and gasoline. He ripped up the hem of the parka
and jammed his hand into his pants pocket. Down in there,
along with his keys and his change, was a very battered old
Zippo lighter. He had bought it in Germany in 1954. Once the
hinge had broken and he had returned it to the Zippo factory
and they had repaired it without charge, just as advertised.
A nightmare flood of thoughts flooding through his mind in a
split second.
(Dear Zippo my lighter was swallowed by a crocodile dropped
front an airplane lost in the Pacific trench saved me from a
Kraut bullet in the Battle of the Bulge dear Zippo if this
fucker doesn't go that lion is going to rip my head off)
The lighter was out. He clicked the hood back. The lion,
rushing at him, a growl like ripping cloth, his finger
flicking the striker wheel, spark, flame,
(my hand)
his gasoline-soaked hand suddenly ablaze, the flames running
up the sleeve of the parka, no pain, no pain yet, the lion
shying from the torch suddenly blazing in front of it, a
hideous flickering hedge sculpture with eyes and a mouth,
shying away, too late.
Wincing at the pain, Hallorann drove his blazing arm into its
stiff and scratchy side.
In an instant the whole creature was in flames, a prancing,
writhing pyre on the snow. It bellowed in rage and pain,
seeming to chase its flaming tail as it zigzagged away from
Hallorann.
He thrust his own arm deep into the snow, killing the flames,
unable to take his eyes from the hedge lion's death agonies
for a moment. Then, gasping, he got to his feet. The arm of
Durkin's parka was sooty but unburned, and that also described
his hand. Thirty yards downhill from where he stood, the hedge
lion had turned into a fireball. Sparks flew at the sky and
were viciously snatched away by the wind. For a moment its
ribs and skull were etched in orange flame and then it seemed
to collapse, disintegrate, and fall into separate burning
piles.
(Never mind it. Get moving.)
He picked up the gascan and struggled over to the snowmobile.
His consciousness seemed to be flickering in and out, offering
him cuttings and snippets of home movies but never the whole
picture. In one of these he was aware of yanking the
snowmobile back onto its tread and then sitting on it, out of
breath and incapable of moving for a few moments. In another,
he was reattaching the gascan, which was still half-full. His
bead was thumping horribly from the gasfumes (and in reaction
to his battle with the hedge lion, he supposed), and he saw by
the steaming hole in the snow beside him that he had vomited,
but he was unable to remember when.
The snowmobile, the engine still warm, fired immediately. He
twisted the throttle unevenly and started forward with a
series of neck-snapping jerks that made his head ache even
more fiercely. At first the snowmobile wove drunkenly from
side to side, but by half-standing to get his face above the
windscreen and into the sharp, needling blast of the wind, he
drove some of the stupor out of himself. He opened the
throttle wider.
(Where are the rest of the hedge animals?)
He didn't know, but at least he wouldn't be caught unaware
again.
The Overlook loomed in front of him, the lighted first-floor
windows throwing long yellow rectangles onto the snow. The
gate at the foot of the drive was locked and he dismounted
after a wary look around, praying he hadn't lost his keys when
he pulled his lighter out of his pocket... no, they were
there. He picked through them in the bright light thrown by
the snowmobile headlamp. He found the right one and unsnapped
the padlock, letting it drop into the snow. At first he didn't
think he was going to be able to move the gate anyway; he
pawed frantically at the snow surrounding it, disregarding the
throbbing agony in his head and the fear that one of the other
lions might be creeping up behind him. He managed to pull it a
foot and a half away from the gatepost, squeezed into the gap,
and pushed. He got it to move another two feet, enough room
for the snowmobile, and threaded it through.
He became aware of movement ahead of him in the dark. The
hedge animals, all of them, were clustered at the base of the
Overlook's steps, guarding the way in, the way out. The lions
prowled. The dog stood with its front paws on the first step.
Hallorann opened the throttle wide and the snowmobile leaped
forward, puffing snow up behind it. In the caretaker's
apartment, Jack Torrance's head jerked around at the high,
wasplike buzz of the approaching engine, and suddenly began to
move laboriously toward the hallway again. The bitch wasn't
important now. The bitch could wait. Now it was this dirty
nigger's turn. This dirty, interfering nigger with his nose in
where it didn't belong. First him and then his son. He would
show them. He would show them that... that he... that he was
of managerial timber!
Outside, the snowmobile rocketed along faster and faster. The
hotel seemed to surge toward it. Snow flew in Hallorann's
face. The headlamp's oncoming glare spotlighted the hedge
shepherd's face, its blank and socketless eyes.
Then it shrank away, leaving an opening. Hallorann yanked at
the snowmobile's steering gear with all his remaining
strength, and it kicked around in a sharp semicircle, throwing
up clouds of snow, threatening to tip over. The rear end
struck the foot of the porch steps and rebounded. Hallorann
was off in a flash and running up the steps. He stumbled,
fell, picked himself up. The dog was growling-again in his
head-close behind him. Something ripped at the shoulder of the
parka and then he was on the porch, standing in the narrow
corridor Jack had shoveled through the snow, and safe. They
were too big to fit in here.
He reached the big double doors which gave on the lobby and
dug for his keys again. While he was getting them he tried the
knob and it turned freely. He pushed his way in.
"Danny!" he cried hoarsely. "Danny, where are you?"
Silence came back.
His eyes traveled across the lobby to the foot of the wide
stairs and a harsh gasp escaped him. The rug was splashed and
matted with blood. There was a scrap of pink terrycloth robe.
The trail of blood led up the stairs. The banister was also
splashed with it.
"Oh Jesus," he muttered, and raised his voice again.
"Danny! DANNY!"
The hotel's silence seemed to mock him with echoes which were
almost there, sly and oblique.
(Danny? Who's Danny? Anybody here know a Danny? Danny, Danny,
who's got the Danny? Anybody for a game of spin the Danny? Pin
the tail on the Danny? Get out of here, black boy. No one here
knows Danny from Adam.)
Jesus, had he come through everything just to be too late?
Had it been done?
He ran up the stairs two at a time and stood at the top of
the first floor. The blood led down toward the caretaker's
apartment. Horror crept softly into his veins and into his
brain as he began to walk toward the short hall. The hedge
animals had been bad, but this was worse. In his heart he was
already sure of what he was going to find when he got down
there.
He was in no hurry to see it.
Jack had been hiding in the elevator when Hallorann came up
the stairs. Now he crept up behind the figure in the
snowcoated parka, a bloodand gore-streaked phantom with a
smile upon its face. The roque mallet was lifted as high as
the ugly, ripping pain in his back
(?? did the bitch stick me can't remember??)
would allow.
"Black boy," he whispered. "I'll teach you to go sticking
your nose in other people's business."
Hallorann heard the whisper and began to turn, to duck, and
the roque mallet whistled down. The hood of the parka matted
the blow, but not enough. A rocket exploded in his head,
leaving a contrail of stars... and then nothing.
He staggered against the silk wallpaper and Jack hit him
again, the roque mallet slicing sideways this time, shattering
Hallorann's cheekbone and most of the teeth on the left side
of his jaw. He went down limply.
"Now," Jack whispered. "Now, by Christ" Where was Danny? He
had business with his trespassing son.
Three minutes later the elevator door banged open on the
shadowed third floor. Jack Torrance was in it alone. The car
had stopped only halfway into the doorway and he had to boost
himself up onto the hall floor, wriggling painfully like a
crippled thing. He dragged the splintered roque mallet after
him. Outside the eaves, the wind howled and roared. Jack's
eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. There was blood and
confetti in his hair.
His son was up here, up here somewhere. He could feel it.
Left to his own devices, he might do anything: scribble on the
expensive silk wallpaper with his crayons, deface the
furnishings, break the windows. He was a liar and a cheat and
he would have to be chastised... harshly.
Jack Torrance struggled to his feet.
"Danny?" he called. "Danny, come here a minute, will you?
You've done something wrong and I want you to come f and take
your medicine like a man. Danny? Danny!"
TONY
(Danny...)
(Dannneee...)
Darkness and hallways. He was wandering through darkness and
hallways that were like those which lay within the body of the
hotel but were somehow different. The silkpapered walls
stretched up and up, and even when he craned his neck, Danny
could not see the ceiling. It was lost in dimness. All the
doors were locked, and they also rose up to dimness. Below the
peepholes (in these giant doors they were the size of
gunsights), tiny skulls and crossbones had been bolted to each
door instead of room numbers.
And somewhere, Tony was calling him.
(Dannneee...)
There was a pounding noise, one be knew well, and hoarse
shouts, faint with distance. He could not make out word for
word, but he knew the text well enough by now. He had heard it
before, in dreams and awake.
He paused, a little boy not yet three years out of diapers,
and tried to decide where he was, where he might be. There was
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