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Please let my daughter be all right. If something has to happen . . . something bad . . . let it happen to the
half brother I never knew. Not to her.
“It’ll be okay,” Dave said.
She nodded. “Of course it will. Of course it will.”
They watched the girl on the stoop. Lucy understood that if she did call to Abra, she wouldn’t
answer. Abra was gone.
2
Billy and Dan reached the turnoff to the True’s Colorado base of operations at twenty to four,
Mountain Time, which put them comfortably ahead of schedule. There was a wooden ranch-style arch
over the paved road with WELCOME TO THE BLUEBELL CAMPGROUND! STAY AWHILE,
PARTNER! carved into it. The sign beside the road was a lot less welcoming: CLOSED UNTIL
FURTHER NOTICE.
Billy drove past without slowing, but his eyes were busy. “Don’t see nobody. Not even on the
lawns, although I suppose they coulda stashed someone in that welcome-hut doohickey. Jesus, Danny,
you look just awful.”
“Lucky for me the Mr. America competition isn’t until later this year,” Dan said. “One mile up,
maybe a little less. The sign says Scenic Turnout and Picnic Area.”
“What if they posted someone there?”
“They haven’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because neither Abra nor her uncle Billy could possibly know about it, never having been here.
And the True doesn’t know about me.”
“You better hope they don’t.”
“Abra says everyone’s where they’re supposed to be. She’s been checking. Now be quiet a minute,
Billy. I need to think.”
It was Hallorann he wanted to think about. For several years following their haunted winter at the
Overlook, Danny Torrance and Dick Hallorann had talked a lot. Sometimes face-to-face, more often
mind-to-mind. Danny loved his mother, but there were things she didn’t—couldn’t—understand.
About the lockboxes, for instance. The ones where you put the dangerous things that the shining
sometimes attracted. Not that the lockbox thing always worked. On several occasions he had tried to
make one for the drinking, but that effort had been an abject failure (perhaps because he had wanted it
to be a failure). Mrs. Massey, though . . . and Horace Derwent . . .
There was a third lockbox in storage now, but it wasn’t as good as the ones he’d made as a kid.
Because he wasn’t as strong? Because what it held was different from the revenants that had been
unwise enough to seek him out? Both? He didn’t know. He only knew that it was leaky. When he
opened it, what was inside might kill him. But—
“What do you mean?” Billy asked.
“Huh?” Dan looked around. One hand was pressed to his stomach. It hurt very badly now.
“You just said, ‘There isn’t any choice.’ What did you mean?”
“Never mind.” They had reached the picnic area, and Billy was turning in. Up ahead was a clearing
with picnic benches and barbecue pits. To Dan, it looked like Cloud Gap without the river. “Just . . .
if things go wrong, get in your truck and drive like hell.”
“You think that would help?”
Dan didn’t reply. His gut was burning, burning.