8456893456983

“Nothing about you.” Dan stood up and was pleased to discover his legs held him just fine. “But
I’m going to take a raincheck on that coffee, if you don’t mind.”
“Not a bit. You need to go back to your place and lie down. You’re still pale. Whatever it was, it
hit you hard.” Billy glanced at the Riv. “Glad it didn’t happen while you were up there in the peakseat,
rolling along at forty.”
“Tell me about it,” Dan said.
3
He crossed Cranmore Avenue to the Rivington House side, meaning to take Billy’s advice and lie
down, but instead of turning in at the gate giving on the big old Victorian’s flower-bordered walk, he
decided to stroll a little while. He was getting his wind back now—getting himself back—and the
night air was sweet. Besides, he needed to consider what had just happened, and very carefully.
Whatever it was, it hit you hard.
That made him think again of Dick Hallorann, and of all the things he had never told Casey
Kingsley. Nor would he. The harm he had done to Deenie—and to her son, he supposed, simply by
doing nothing—was lodged deep inside, like an impacted wisdom tooth, and there it would stay. But
at five, Danny Torrance had been the one harmed—along with his mother, of course—and his father
had not been the only culprit. About that Dick had done something. If not, Dan and his mother would
have died in the Overlook. Those old things were still painful to think about, still bright with the
childish primary colors of fear and horror. He would have preferred never to think of them again, but
now he had to. Because . . . well . . .
Because everything that goes around comes around. Maybe it’s luck or maybe it’s fate, but either way, it
comes back around. What was it Dick said that day he gave me the lockbox? When the pupil is ready, the
teacher will appear. Not that I’m equipped to teach anyone anything, except maybe that if you don’t take a
drink, you won’t get drunk.
He’d reached the end of the block; now he turned around and headed back. He had the sidewalk
entirely to himself. It was eerie how fast Frazier emptied out once the summer was over, and that
made him think of the way the Overlook had emptied out. How quickly the little Torrance family had
had the place entirely to themselves.
Except for the ghosts, of course. They never left.
4
Hallorann had told Danny he was headed to Denver, and from there he’d fly south to Florida. He had
asked if Danny would like to help him down to the Overlook’s parking lot with his bags, and Danny
had carried one to the cook’s rental car. Just a little thing, hardly more than a briefcase, but he’d
needed to use both hands to tote it. When the bags were safely stowed in the trunk and they were
sitting in the car, Hallorann had put a name to the thing in Danny Torrance’s head, the thing his
parents only half believed in.
You got a knack. Me, I’ve always called it the shining. That’s what my grandmother called it, too. Get you
kinda lonely, thinkin you were the only one?
Yes, he had been lonely, and yes, he had believed he was the only one. Hallorann had disabused him
of that notion. In the years since, Dan had run across a lot of people who had, in the cook’s words, “a
little bit of shine to them.” Billy, for one.
But never anyone like the girl who had screamed into his head tonight. It had felt like that cry