The Shining

“Masks off, then,” it whispered. “No more interruptions.”

The mallet rose for the final time. A ticking sound filled Da

“Anything else to say?” it inquired. “Are you sure you wouldn't like to run? A game of tag, perhaps? All we have is time, you know. An eternity of time. Or shall we end it? Might as well. After all, we're missing the party.”

It gri

And it came to him. What his father had forgotten.

Sudden triumph filled his face; the thing saw it and hesitated, puzzled.

“The boiler!” Da

An expression of grotesque terror and dawning realization swept across the broken features of the thing in front of him. The mallet dropped from its fisted hands and bounced harmlessly on the black and blue rug.

“The boiler!” it cried. “Oh no! That can't be allowed! Certainly not! No! You goddamned little pup! Certainly not! Oh, oh, oh-”

“It is!” Da

“No, oh no, it mustn't, it can't, you dirty little boy, I'll make you take your medicine, I'll make you take every drop, oh no, oh no-”

It suddenly turned tail and began to shamble away. For a moment its shadow bobbed on the wall, waxing and waning. It trailed cries behind itself like wornout party streamers.

Moments later the elevator crashed into life.

Suddenly the shining was on him

(mommy mr. hallora

like a fierce and glaring sunrise and he ran. One foot kicked the bloody, misshapen roque mallet aside. He didn't notice.

Crying, he ran for the stairs.

They bad to get out.

56. The Explosion

Hallora

“Da

She swept him into a hug, groaning with joy as well as her pain.

(Da

Da

(Dick-we have to go-run-the place-it's going to)

Picture of the Overlook, flames leaping out of its roof. Bricks raining down on the snow. Clang of firebells… not that any fire truck would be able to get up here much before the end of March. Most of all what came through in Da

“All right,” Hallora

“All right?” Wendy asked. She looked from Hallora

“We have to go,” Hallora

“I'm not dressed… my clothes…”

Da

“Your husband?”

“He's not Jack,” she muttered. “Jack's dead. This place killed hire. This damned place.” She struck at the wall with her fist and cried out at the pain in her cut fingers. “It's the boiler, isn't it?”

“Yes, ma'am. Da

“Good.” The word was uttered with dead finality. “I don't know if I can get down those stairs again. My ribs… he broke my ribs. And something in my back. It hurts.”

“You'll make it,” Hallora

Then Da

“Da

“It's too late,” he said. His eyes stared at them with a desperate kind of madness. He looked at Dick and suddenly Hallora

“Oh my God,” Hallora

He clapped an arm around Wendy and picked her up. He clapped his other arm around Da

Wendy shrieked in pain as he squeezed the bad ribs, as something in her back ground together, but Hallora

Suddenly the shine was on him, and he understood what Da

He ran faster, bolting headlong across the lobby toward the double doors.

It hurried across the basement and into the feeble yellow glow of the furnace room's only light. It was slobbering with fear. It had been so close, so close to having the boy and the boy's remarkable power. It could not lose now. It must not happen. It would dump the boiler and then chastise the boy harshly.

“Mustn't happen!” it cried. “Oh no, mustn't happen!”

It stumbled across the floor to the boiler, which glowed a dull red halfway up its long tubular body. It was huffing and rattling and hissing off plumes of steam in a hundred directions, like a monster calliope. The pressure needle stood at the far end of the dial.

“No, it won't be allowed!” the manager/caretaker cried.

It laid its Jack Torrance hands on the valve, unmindful of the burning smell which arose or the searing of the flesh as the red-hot wheel sank in, as if into a mudrut.

The wheel gave, and with a triumphant scream, the thing spun it wide open. A giant roar of escaping steam bellowed out of the boiler, a dozen dragons hissing in concert. But before the steam obscured the pressure needle entirely, the needle had visibly begun to swing back.

“I WIN!” it cried. It capered obscenely in the hot, rising mist, waving its flaming hands over its head. “NOT TOO LATE! I WIN! NOT TOO LATE! NOT TOO LATE! NOT-”

Words turned into a shriek of triumph, and the shriek was swallowed in a shattering roar as the Overlook's boiler exploded.

Hallora