Doctor Sleep

  "Come on, folks," Crow said. "If he is going to die, he doesn't need to do it with an audience."

  "He'll pull through," Harpman Sam said. "Tougher'n a boiled owl, that's Grampa Flick." But he put his arm around Baba the Russian, who looked devastated, and hugged her tight against him for a moment.

  They got moving, some taking a last look back over their shoulders before going down the steps to join the others. When it was just the three of them, Rose approached the bed.

  Grampa Flick stared up at her without seeing her. His lips had pulled back from his gums. Great patches of his fine white hair had fallen out on the pillowcase, giving him the look of a distempered dog. His eyes were huge and wet and filled with pain. He was naked except for a pair of boxer shorts, and his scrawny body was stippled with red marks that looked like pimples or insect bites.

  She turned to Walnut and said, "What in hell are those?"

  "Koplik's spots," he said. "That's what they look like to me, anyway. Although Koplik's are usually just inside the mouth."

  "Talk English."

  Nut ran his hands through his thinning hair. "I think he's got the measles."

  Rose gaped in shock, then barked laughter. She didn't want to stand here listening to this shit; she wanted some aspirin for her hand, which sent out a pain-pulse with every beat of her heart. She kept thinking about how the hands of cartoon characters looked when they got whopped with a mallet. "We don't catch rube diseases!"

  "Well . . . we never used to."

  She stared at him furiously. She wanted her hat, she felt naked without it, but it was back in the EarthCruiser.

  Nut said, "I can only tell you what I see, which is red measles, also known as rubeola."

  A rube disease called rubeola. How too fucking perfect.

  "That is just . . . horseshit!"

  He flinched, and why not? She sounded strident even to herself, but . . . ah, Jesus God, measles? The oldest member of the True Knot dying of a childhood disease even children didn't catch anymore?

  "That baseball-playing kid from Iowa had a few spots on him, but I never thought . . . because yeah, it's like you say. We don't catch their diseases."

  "He was years ago!"

  "I know. All I can think is that it was in the steam, and it kind of hibernated. There are diseases that do that, you know. Lie passive, sometimes for years, then break out."

  "Maybe with rubes!" She kept coming back to that.

  Walnut only shook his head.

  "If Gramp's got it, why don't we all have it? Because those childhood diseases--chicken pox, measles, mumps--run through rube kids like shit through a goose. It doesn't make sense." Then she turned to Crow Daddy and promptly contradicted herself. "What the fuck were you thinking when you let a bunch of them in to stand around and breathe his air?"

  Crow just shrugged, his eyes never leaving the shivering old man on the bed. Crow's narrow, handsome face was pensive.

  "Things change," Nut said. "Just because we had immunity to rube diseases fifty or a hundred years ago doesn't mean we have it now. For all we know, this could be part of a natural process."

  "Are you telling me there's anything natural about that?" She pointed to Grampa Flick.

  "A single case doesn't make an epidemic," Nut said, "and it could be something else. But if this happens again, we'll have to put whoever it happens to in complete quarantine."

  "Would it help?"

  He hesitated a long time. "I don't know. Maybe we do have it, all of us. Maybe it's like an alarm clock set to go off or dynamite on a timer. According to the latest scientific thinking, that's sort of how rubes age. They go along and go along, pretty much the same, and then something turns off in their genes. The wrinkles start showing up and all at once they need canes to walk with."

  Crow had been watching Grampa. "There he goes. Fuck."

  Grampa Flick's skin was turning milky. Then translucent. As it moved toward complete transparency, Rose could see his liver, the shriveled gray-black bags of his lungs, the pulsing red knot of his heart. She could see his veins and arteries like the highways and turnpikes on her in-dash GPS. She could see the optic nerves that connected his eyes to his brain. They looked like ghostly strings.

  Then he came back. His eyes moved, caught Rosie's, held them. He reached out and took her unhurt hand. Her first impulse was to pull away--if he had what Nut said he had, he was contagious--but what the hell. If Nut was right, they had all been exposed.

  "Rose," he whispered. "Don't leave me."

  "I won't." She sat down beside him on the bed, her fingers entwined in his. "Crow?"

  "Yes, Rose."

  "The package you had sent to Sturbridge--they'll hold it, won't they?"

  "Sure."

  "All right, we'll see this through. But we can't afford to wait too long. The little girl is a lot more dangerous than I thought." She sighed. "Why do problems always come in bunches?"

  "Did she do that to your hand, somehow?"

  That was a question she didn't want to answer directly. "I won't be able to go with you, because she knows me now." Also, she thought but didn't say, because if this is what Walnut thinks it is, the rest will need me here to play Mother Courage. "But we have to have her. It's more important than ever."

  "Because?"

  "If she's had the measles, she'll have the rube immunity to catching it again. That might make her steam useful in all sorts of ways."

  "The kids get vaccinated against all that crap now," Crow said.

  Rose nodded. "That could work, too."

  Grampa Flick once more began to cycle. It was hard to watch, but Rose made herself to do it. When she could no longer see the old fellow's organs through his fragile skin, she looked at Crow and held up her bruised and scraped hand.

  "Also . . . she needs to be taught a lesson."

  2

  When Dan woke up in his turret room on Monday, the schedule had once more been wiped from his blackboard and replaced with a message from Abra. At the top was a smiley-face. All the teeth were showing, which gave it a gleeful look.

  She came! I was ready and I hurt her!

  I REALLY DID!!

  She deserves it, so HOORAY!!!

  I need to talk to you, not this way or 'Net.

  Same place as before 3PM

  Dan lay back on his bed, covered his eyes, and went looking for her. He found her walking to school with three of her friends, which struck him as dangerous in itself. For the friends as well as for Abra. He hoped Billy was there and on the job. He also hoped Billy would be discreet and not get tagged by some zealous Neighborhood Watch type as a suspicious character.

  (I can come John and I don't leave until tomorrow but it has to be fast and we have to be careful )

  (yes okay good )

  3

  Dan was once more seated on a bench outside the ivy-covered Anniston Library when Abra emerged, dressed for school in a red jumper and snazzy red sneakers. She held a knapsack by one strap. To Dan she looked as if she'd grown an inch since the last time he'd seen her.

  She waved. "Hi, Uncle Dan!"

  "Hello, Abra. How was school?"

  "Great! I got an A on my biology report!"

  "Sit down a minute and tell me about it."

  She crossed to the bench, so filled with grace and energy she almost seemed to dance. Eyes bright, color high: a healthy after-school teenager with all systems showing green. Everything about her said ready-steady-go. There was no reason for this to make Dan feel uneasy, but it did. One very good thing: a nondescript Ford pickup was parked half a block down, the old guy behind the wheel sipping a take-out coffee and reading a magazine. Appearing to read a magazine, at least.

  (Billy?)

  No answer, but he looked up from his magazine for a moment, and that was enough.

  "Okay," Dan said in a lower voice. "I want to hear exactly what happened."

  She told him about the trap she had set, and how well it had worked. Dan listened with amazement, admiration . .
. and that growing sense of unease. Her confidence in her abilities worried him. It was a kid's confidence, and the people they were dealing with weren't kids.

  "I just told you to set an alarm," he said when she had finished.

  "This was better. I don't know if I could have gone at her that way if I wasn't pretending to be Daenerys in the Game of Thrones books, but I think so. Because she killed the baseball boy and lots of others. Also because . . ." For the first time her smile faltered a little. As she was telling her story, Dan had seen what she would look like at eighteen. Now he saw what she had looked like at nine.

  "Because what?"

  "She's not human. None of them are. Maybe they were once, but not anymore." She straightened her shoulders and tossed her hair back. "But I'm stronger. She knew it, too."

  (I thought she pushed you away)

  She frowned at him, annoyed, wiped at her mouth, then caught her hand doing it and returned it to her lap. Once it was there, the other one clasped it to keep it still. There was something familiar about this gesture, but why wouldn't there be? He'd seen her do it before. Right now he had bigger things to worry about.

  (next time I'll be ready if there is a next time)

  That might be true. But if there was a next time, the woman in the hat would be ready, too.

  (I only want you to be careful )

  "I will. For sure." This, of course, was what all kids said in order to placate the adults in their lives, but it still made Dan feel better. A little, anyway. Besides, there was Billy in his F-150 with the faded red paint.

  Her eyes were dancing again. "I found lots of stuff out. That's why I needed to see you."

  "What stuff?"

  "Not where she is, I didn't get that far, but I did find . . . see, when she was in my head, I was in hers. Like swapsies, you know? It was full of drawers, like being in the world's biggest library reference room, although maybe I only saw it that way because she did. If she had been looking at computer screens in my head, I might have seen computer screens."

  "How many of her drawers did you get into?"

  "Three. Maybe four. They call themselves the True Knot. Most of them are old, and they really are like vampires. They look for kids like me. And like you were, I guess. Only they don't drink blood, they breathe in the stuff that comes out when the special kids die." She winced in disgust. "The more they hurt them before, the stronger that stuff is. They call it steam."

  "It's red, right? Red or reddish-pink?"

  He felt sure of this, but Abra frowned and shook her head. "No, white. A bright white cloud. Nothing red about it. And listen: they can store it! What they don't use they put it in these thermos bottle thingies. But they never have enough. I saw this show once, about sharks? It said they're always on the move, because they never have enough to eat. I think the True Knot is like that." She grimaced. "They're naughty, all right."

  White stuff. Not red but white. It still had to be what the old nurse had called the gasp, but a different kind. Because it came from healthy young people instead of old ones dying of almost every disease the flesh was heir to? Because they were what Abra called "the special kids?" Both?

  She was nodding. "Both, probably."

  "Okay. But the thing that matters most is that they know about you. She knows."

  "They're a little scared I might tell someone about them, but not too scared."

  "Because you're just a kid, and no one believes kids."

  "Right." She blew her bangs off her forehead. "Momo would believe me, but she's going to die. She's going to your hot spice, Dan. Hospice, I mean. You'll help her, won't you? If you're not in Iowa?"

  "All I can. Abra--are they coming for you?"

  "Maybe, but if they do it won't be because of what I know. It will be because of what I am." Her happiness was gone now that she was facing this head-on. She rubbed at her mouth again, and when she dropped her hand, her lips were parted in an angry smile. This girl has a temper, Dan thought. He could relate to that. He had a temper himself. It had gotten him in trouble more than once.

  "She won't come, though. That bitch. She knows I know her now, and I'll sense her if she gets close, because we're sort of tied together. But there are others. If they come for me, they'll hurt anyone who gets in their way."

  Abra took his hands in hers, squeezing hard. This worried Dan, but he didn't make her let go. Right now she needed to touch someone she trusted.

  "We have to stop them so they can't hurt my daddy, or my mom, or any of my friends. And so they won't kill any more kids."

  For a moment Dan caught a clear picture from her thoughts--not sent, just there in the foreground. It was a collage of photos. Children, dozens of them, under the heading HAVE YOU SEEN ME? She was wondering how many of them had been taken by the True Knot, murdered for their final psychic gasp--the obscene delicacy this bunch lived on--and left in unmarked graves.

  "You have to get that baseball glove. If I have it, I'll be able to find out where Barry the Chunk is. I know I will. And the rest of them will be where he is. If you can't kill them, at least you can report them to the police. Get me that glove, Dan, please."

  "If it's where you say it is, we'll get it. But in the meantime, Abra, you have to watch yourself."

  "I will, but I don't think she'll try sneaking into my head again." Abra's smile reemerged. In it, Dan saw the take-no-prisoners warrior woman she sometimes pretended to be--Daenerys, or whoever. "If she does, she'll be sorry."

  Dan decided to let this go. They had been together on this bench as long as he dared. Longer, really. "I've set up my own security system on your behalf. If you looked into me, I imagine you could find out what it is, but I don't want you to do that. If someone else from this Knot tries to go prospecting in your head--not the woman in the hat, but someone else--they can't find out what you don't know."

  "Oh. Okay." He could see her thinking that anyone else who tried that would be sorry, too, and this increased his sense of unease.

  "Just . . . if you get in a tight place, yell Billy with all your might. Got that?"

  ( yes the way you once called for your friend Dick)

  He jumped a little. Abra smiled. "I wasn't peeking; I just--"

  "I understand. Now tell me one thing before you go."

  "What?"

  "Did you really get an A on your bio report?"

  4

  At quarter to eight on that Monday evening, Rose got a double break on her walkie. It was Crow. "Better get over here," he said. "It's happening."

  The True was standing around Grampa's RV in a silent circle. Rose (now wearing her hat at its accustomed gravity-defying angle) cut through them, pausing to give Andi a hug, then went up the steps, rapped once, and let herself in. Nut was standing with Big Mo and Apron Annie, Grampa's two reluctant nurses. Crow was sitting on the end of the bed. He stood up when Rose came in. He was showing his age this evening. Lines bracketed his mouth, and there were a few threads of white silk in his black hair.

  We need to take steam, Rose thought. And when this is over, we will.

  Grampa Flick was cycling rapidly now: first transparent, then solid again, then transparent. But each transparency was longer, and more of him disappeared. He knew what was happening, Rose saw. His eyes were wide and terrified; his body writhed with the pain of the changes it was going through. She had always allowed herself to believe, on some deep level of her mind, in the True Knot's immortality. Yes, every fifty or a hundred years or so, someone died--like that big dumb Dutchman, Hands-Off Hans, who had been electrocuted by a falling powerline in an Arkansas windstorm not long after World War II ended, or Katie Patches, who had drowned, or Tommy the Truck--but those were exceptions. Usually the ones who fell were taken down by their own carelessness. So she had always believed. Now she saw she had been as foolish as rube children clinging to their belief in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

  He cycled back to solidity, moaning and crying and shivering. "Make it stop, Rosie-girl, make it stop. It hurts--"


  Before she could answer--and really, what could she have said?--he was fading again until there was nothing left of him but a sketch of bones and his staring, floating eyes. They were the worst.

  Rose tried to contact him with her mind and comfort him that way, but there was nothing to hold onto. Where Grampa Flick had always been--often grumpy, sometimes sweet--there was now only a roaring windstorm of broken images. Rose withdrew from him, shaken. Again she thought, This can't be happening.

  "Maybe we should put him out of his miz'y," Big Mo said. She was digging her fingernails into Annie's forearm, but Annie didn't seem to feel it. "Give him a shot, or something. You got something in your bag, don't you, Nut? You must."

  "What good would it do?" Walnut's voice was hoarse. "Maybe earlier, but it's going too fast now. He's got no system for any drug to circulate in. If I gave him a hypo in the arm, we'd see it soaking into the bed five seconds later. Best to just let it happen. It won't be long."

  Nor was it. Rose counted four more full cycles. On the fifth, even his bones disappeared. For a moment the eyeballs remained, staring first at her and then rolling to look at Crow Daddy. They hung above the pillow, which was still indented by the weight of his head and stained with Wildroot Cream-Oil hair tonic, of which he seemed to have an endless supply. She thought she remembered Greedy G telling her once that he bought it on eBay. eBay, for fuck's sweet sake!

  Then, slowly, the eyes disappeared, too. Except of course they weren't really gone; Rose knew she'd be seeing them in her dreams later tonight. So would the others in attendance at Grampa Flick's deathbed. If they got any sleep at all.

  They waited, none of them entirely convinced that the old man wouldn't appear before them again like the ghost of Hamlet's father or Jacob Marley or some other, but there was only the shape of his disappeared head, the stains left by his hair tonic, and the deflated pee-and shit-stained boxers he had been wearing.

  Mo burst into wild sobs and buried her head in Apron Annie's generous bosom. Those waiting outside heard, and one voice (Rose would never know whose) began to speak. Another joined in, then a third and a fourth. Soon they were all chanting under the stars, and Rose felt a wild chill go zigzagging up her back. She reached out, found Crow's hand, and squeezed it.