The Shining

So she shook Hallora

“Wake up,” she said. “Mr. Hallora

From overhead, the restless booming sounds of the mallet as Jack Torrance looked for his son.

Da

It came around the corner.

In a way, what Da

“Now, by God,” it breathed. It wiped its lips with a shaking hand. “Now you'll find out who is the boss around here. You'll see. It's not you they want. It's me. Me. Me!”

It slashed out with the scarred hammer, its double head now shapeless and splintered with countless impacts. It struck the wall, cutting a circle in the silk paper. Plaster dust puffed out. It began to grin.

“Let's see you pull any of your fancy tricks now,” it muttered. “I wasn't born yesterday, you know. Didn't just fall off the hay truck, by God. I'm going to do my fatherly duty by you, boy.”

Da

It stopped. For a moment it actually looked uncertain, as if not sure who or what it was. Then it began to walk again. The hammer whistled out, struck a door panel and made it boom hollowly.

“You're a liar,” it said. “Who else would I be? I have the two birthmarks, I have the cupped navel, even the pecker, my boy. Ask your mother.”

“You're a mask,” Da

“I'll scare you!” it howled. The mallet whistled fiercely down, smashing into the rug between Da

“Yes, they promise,” Da

Hallora

“Oh doc,” she murmured. Tears blurred her eyes.

“Son of a bitch broke my jaw,” Hallora

“Missus Torrance-”

“Shhhh,” she said.

“Where is the boy, Missus Torrance?”

“On the third floor,” she said. “With his father.”

“They lie,” Da

(it's down in the basement somewhere)

(you will remember what your father forgot)

“You… you shouldn't speak that way to your father,” it said hoarsely. The mallet trembled, came down. “You'll only make things worse for yourself. Your… your punishment. Worse.” It staggered drunkenly and stared at him with maudlin selfpity that began to turn to hate. The mallet began to rise again.

“You're not my daddy,” Da

“Liar! Liar!” The words came in a thin shriek. The mallet wavered wildly in the air.

“Go on and hit me. But you'll never get what you want from me.”

The face in front of him changed. It was hard to say how; there was no melting or merging of the features. The body trembled slightly, and then the bloody hands opened like broken claws. The mallet fell from them and thumped to the rug. That was all. But suddenly his daddy was there, looking at him in mortal agony, and a sorrow so great that Da

“Doc,” Jack Torrance said. “Run away. Quick. And remember how much I love you.”

“No,” Da

“Oh Da

“No,” Da

Hallora

“We got to get up there,” he said. “We have to help him.”

Her haunted eyes stared into his from her chalk-pale face., “It's too late,” Wendy said. “Now he can only help himself.”

A minute passed, then two. Three. And they heard it above them, screaming, not in anger or triumph now, but in mortal terror.

“Dear God,” Hallora

“I don't know,” she said.

“Has it killed him?”

“I don't know.”

The elevator clashed into life and began to descend with the screaming, raving thing pe

Da

(Mommy and Daddy can't help me and I'm alone.)

“Go away,” he said to the bloody stranger in front of him. “Go on. Get out of here.”

It bent over, exposing the knife handle in its back. Its hands closed around the mallet again, but instead of aiming at Da

Understanding rushed through Da

Then the mallet began to rise and descend, destroying the last of Jack Torrance's image. The thing in the hall danced an eerie, shuffling polka, the beat counterpointed by the hideous sound of the mallet head striking again and again. Blood splattered across the wallpaper. Shards of bone leaped into the air like broken piano keys. It was impossible to say just how long it went on. But when it turned its attention back to Da