The Shining

The elevator cables disappeared and the bottom of the car came into view in the small window. A second later Jack turned the key hard. There was a grating, screeching sound as the elevator car came to an instant standstill. For a moment the declutched motor in the basement whined even louder, and then its circuit breaker cut in and the Overlook went unearthly still. The night wind outside seemed very loud by comparison. Jack looked stupidly at the gray metal elevator door. There were three splotches of blood below the keyhole from his lacerated knuckles.

He turned back to Wendy and Da

“It… Wendy, it's my job.”

She said clearly: “Fuck your job”

He turned back to the elevator, worked his fingers into the crack that ran down the right side of the door, and got it to open a little way. Then he was able to get his whole weight on it and threw the door open.

The car had stopped halfway, its floor at Jack's chest level. Warm light still spilled out of it, contrasting with the oily darkness of the shaft below.

He looked in for what seemed a long time.

“It's empty,” he said then. “A short circuit, like I said.” He hooked his fingers into the slot behind the door and began to pull it closed… then her hand was on his shoulder, surprisingly strong, yanking him away.

“Wendy!” he shouted. But she had already caught the car's bottom edge and pulled herself up enough so she could look in. Then, with a convulsive heave of her shoulder and belly muscles, she tried to boost herself all the way up. For a moment the issue was in doubt. Her feet tottered over the blackness of the shaft and one pink slipper fell from her foot and slipped out of sight.

“Mommy!” Da

Then she was up, her cheeks flushed, her forehead as pale and shining as a spirit lamp. “What about this, Jack? Is this a short circuit?” She threw something and suddenly the hall was full of drifting confetti, red and white and blue and yellow. “Is this?” A green party streamer, faded to a pale pastel color with age.

“And this?”

She tossed it out and it came to rest on the blue-black jungle carpet, a black silk cat's-eye mask, dusted with sequins at the temples.

“Does that look like a short circuit to you, Jack?” she screamed at him.

Jack stepped slowly away from it, shaking his head mechanically back and forth. The cat's-eye mask stared up blankly at the ceiling from the confettistrewn hallway carpet.

37. The Ballroom

It was the first of December.

Da

(The elephants are, anyway.)

He was not sure about other places and so avoided them on general principle.

He looked at the clock inside the glass dome. It was under glass because all its wheels and cogs and springs were showing. A chrome or steel track ran around the outside of these works, and directly below the clockface there was a small axis bar with a pair of meshing cogs at either end. The hands of the clock stood at quarter past XI, and although he didn't know Roman numerals he could guess by the configuration of the hands at what time the clock had stopped. The clock stood on a velvet base. In front of it, slightly distorted by the curve of the dome, was a carefully carved silver key.

He supposed that the clock was one of the things he wasn't supposed to touch, like the decorative fire-tools in their brass-bound cabinet by the lobby fireplace or the tall china highboy at the back of the dining room.

A sense of injustice and a feeling of angry rebellion suddenly rose in him and

(never mind what t' m not supposed to touch, just never mind. touched me, hasn't it? played with me, hasn't it?)

It had. And it hadn't been particularly careful not to break him, either.

Da

Da

(And the Red Death held sway over all.)

He frowned, and then shook the thought away. It was a thought with no meaning or reference for him.

He reached his index finger out again and pushed the minute band up to the hour, curious about what might happen. It obviously wasn't a cuckoo clock, but that steel rail bad to have some purpose.

There was a small, ratcheting series of clicks, and then the clock began to tinkle Strauss's “Blue Danube Waltz.” A punched roll of cloth no more than two inches in width began to unwind. A small series of brass strikers rose and fell. From behind the clockface two figures glided into view along the steel track, ballet dancers, on the left a girl in a fluffy skirt and white stockings, on the right a boy in a black leotard and ballet slippers. Their hands were held in arches over their beads. They came together in the middle, in front of VI.

Da

Da

A moment later and things began to run backward. The boy whirled back over the axis bar. He flipped the girl into an upright position. They seemed to nod knowingly at each other as their hands arched back over their heads. They retreated the way they had come, disappearing just as “The Blue Danube” finished. The clock began to strike a count of silver chimes.

(Midnight! Stroke of midnight!)

(Hooray for masks!)

Da