way under the sashes and doorsills of the old Victorian he now called home. In his dream, he could hear it moaning around the hotel where he had spent one winter as a little boy. In his dream, he was that little boy.
He’s on the second floor of the Overlook. Mommy is sleeping and Daddy’s in the basement, looking at old papers. He’s doing RESEARCH. The RESEARCH is for the book he’s going to write. Danny isn’t supposed to be up here, and he’s not supposed to have the passkey that’s clutched in one hand, but he hasn’t been able to stay away. Right now he’s staring at a firehose that’s bolted to the wall. It’s folded over and over on itself, and it looks like a snake with a brass head. A sleeping snake. Of course it’s not a snake—that’s canvas he’s looking at, not scales—but it sure does look like a snake.
Sometimes it is a snake.
“Go on,” he whispers to it in this dream. He’s trembling with terror, but something drives him on. And why? Because he’s doing his own RESEARCH, that’s why. “Go on, bite me! You can’t, can you? Because you’re just a stupid HOSE!”
The nozzle of the stupid hose stirs, and all at once, instead of looking at it sideways, Danny is looking into its bore. Or maybe into its mouth. A single clear drop appears below the black hole, elongating. In it he can see his own wide eyes reflected back at him.
A drop of water or a drop of poison?
Is it a snake or a hose?
Who can say, my dear Redrum, Redrum my dear? Who can say?
It buzzes at him, and terror jumps up his throat from his rapidly beating heart. Rattlesnakes buzz like that.
Now the nozzle of the hose-snake rolls away from the stack of canvas it’s lying on and drops to the carpet with a dull thud. It buzzes again and he knows he should step back before it can rush forward and bite him, but he’s frozen he can’t move and it’s buzzing—
“Wake up, Danny!” Tony calls from somewhere. “Wake up, wake up!”
But he can wake up no more than he can move, this is the Overlook, they are snowed in, and things are different now. Hoses become snakes, dead women open their eyes, and his father . . . oh dear God WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE BECAUSE MY FATHER IS GOING CRAZY.
The rattlesnake buzzes. It buzzes. It
2
Dan heard the wind howling, but not outside the Overlook. No, outside the turret of Rivington House. He heard snow rattle against the north-facing window. It sounded like sand. And he heard the intercom giving off its low buzz.
He threw back the comforters and swung his legs out, wincing as his warm toes met the cold floor. He crossed the room, almost prancing on the balls of his feet. He turned on the desk lamp and blew out his breath. No visible vapor, but even with the space heater’s element coils glowing a dull red, the room temperature tonight had to be in the mid-forties.
Buzz.
He pushed TALK on the intercom and said, “I’m here. Who’s there?”
“Claudette. I think you’ve got one, doc.”
“Mrs. Winnick?” He was pretty sure it was her, and that would mean putting on his parka, because Vera Winnick was in Rivington Two, and the walkway between here and there would be colder than a witch’s belt buckle. Or a well-digger’s tit. Or whatever the saying was. Vera had been hanging by a thread for a week now, comatose, in and out of Cheyne-Stokes respiration, and this was exactly the sort of night the frail ones picked to go out on. Usually at 4 a.m. He checked his watch. Only 3:20, but that was close enough for government work.
Claudette Albertson surprised him. “No, it’s Mr. Hayes, right down here on the first floor with us.”
“Are you sure?” Dan had played a game of checkers with Charlie Hayes just that afternoon, and for a man with acute myelogenous leukemia, he’d seemed as lively as a cricket.
“Nope, but Azzie’s in there. And you know what you say.”
What he said was Azzie was never wrong, and he had almost six years’ worth of experience on which to base that conclusion. Azreel wandered freely around the three buildings that made up the Rivington complex, spending most of his afternoons curled up on a sofa in the rec room, although it wasn’t unusual to see him draped across one of the card tables—with