Then the drift on the porch blotted the view out. A moment later they were skirting the west side of the hotel. It was still light enough to see without the snowmobile's headlight. Both upper stories were flaming now, and pennants of flame shot out the windows. The gleaming white paint had begun to blacken and peel. The shutters which had covered the Presidential Suite's picture windowshutters Jack had carefully fastened as per instructions in mid-October-now hung in flaming brands, exposing the wide and shattered darkness behind them, like a toothless mouth yawing in a final, silent deathrattle.
Wendy had pressed her face against Hallorann's back to cut out the wind, and Danny had likewise pressed his face against his mother's back, and so it was only Hallorann who saw the final thing, and he never spoke of it. From the window of the Presidential Suite he thought he saw a huge dark shape issue, blotting out the snowfield behind it. For a moment it assumed the shape of a huge, obscene manta, and then the wind seemed to catch it, to tear it and shred it like old dark paper. It fragmented, was caught in a whirling eddy of smoke, and a moment later it was gone as if it had never been. But in those few seconds as it whirled blackly, dancing like negative motes of light, he remembered something from his childhood... fifty years ago, or snore. He and his brother had come upon a huge nest of ground wasps just north of their farm. It had been tucked into a hollow between the earth and an old lightning-blasted tree. His brother had had a big old niggerchaser in the band of his hat, saved all the way from the Fourth of July. He had lighted it and tossed it at the nest. It had exploded with a loud bang, and an angry, rising hum-almost a low shriek-had risen from the blasted nest. They had run away as if demons had been at their beels. In a way, Hallorann supposed that demons had been. And looking back over his shoulder, as he was now, he had on that day seen a large dark cloud of hornets rising in the hot air, swirling together, breaking apart, looking for whatever enemy had done this to their home so that they-the single group intelligence-could sting it to death.
Then the thing in the sky was gone and it might only have been smoke or a great flapping swatch of wallpaper after all, and there was only the Overlook, a flaming pyre in the roaring throat of the night.
There was a key to the equipment shed's padlock on his key ring, but Hallorann saw there would be no need to use it.
The door was ajar, the padlock hanging open on its hasp.
"I can't go in there," Danny whispered.
"That's okay. You stay with your mom. There used to be a pile of old horseblankets. Probably all moth-eaten by now, but better than freezin to death. Missus Torrance, you still with us?"
"I don't know," the wan voice answered. "I think so."
"Good. I'll be just a second."
"Come back as quick as you can," Danny whispered. "Please."
Hallorann nodded. He had trained the headlamp on the door and now he floundered through the snow, casting a long shadow in front of himself. He pushed the equipment shed door open and stepped in. The horseblankets were still in the corner, by the rogue set. He picked up four of themthey smelled musty and old and the moths certainly had been having a free lunch-and then he paused.
One of the rogue mallets was gone.
(Was that what he hit me with?)
Well, it didn't matter what he'd been hit with, did it? Still, his fingers went to the side of his face and began to explore the huge lump there. Six hundred dollars' worth of dental work undone at a single blow. And after all
(maybe he didn't hit me with one of those. Maybe one got lost. Or stolen. Or took for a souvenir. After all)
it didn't really matter. No one was going to be playing rogue here next summer. Or any summer in the foreseeable future.
No, it didn't really matter, except that looking at the racked mallets with the single missing member had a kind of fascination. He found himself thinking of the hard wooden whack! of the mallet head striking the round wooden ball. A nice summery sound. Watching it skitter across the
(bone. blood.)
gravel. It conjured up images of
(bone. blood.)
iced tea, porch swings, ladies in white straw hats, the hum of mosquitoes, and
(bad little boys who don't play by the rules.)
all that stuff. Sure. Nice game. Out of style now, but... nice.
"Dick?" The voice was thin, frantic, and, he thought, rather unpleasant. "Are you all right, Dick? Come out now. Please!"
("Come on out now nigguh de massa callin youall.")
His hand closed tightly around one of the mallet handles, liking its feel.
(pare the rod, spoil the child.)
His eyes went blank in the flickering, fire-shot darkness. Really, it would be doing them both a favor. She was messed up... in pain... and most of it
(all of it)
was that damn boy's fault. Sure. He had left his own daddy in there to burn. When you thought of it, it was damn close to murder. Patricide was what they called it. Pretty goddam low:
"Mr. Hallorann?" Her voice was low, weak, querulous. He didn't much like the sound of it.
"Dick!" The boy was sobbing now, in terror.
Hallorann drew the mallet from the rack and turned toward the flood of white light from the snowmobile headlamp. His feet scratched unevenly over the boards of the equipment shed, like the feet of a clockwork toy that has been wound up and set in motion.