The Shining (The Shining, #1)

by Stephen King

Sometimes— (Danny with his arm in a cast) —he does things he’s sorry for later.

He saw only that his wife hated him and he felt staggered by it, all alone. He felt awful. This was what oncoming death felt like.

The remembering did that, it was a total thing that made that night two years ago seem like two hours ago. There was no lag. It brought the shame and revulsion back, the sense of having no worth at all, and that feeling always made him want to have a drink, and the wanting of a drink brought still blacker despair—would

The greatest terror of Danny’s life was DIVORCE, a word that always appeared in his mind as a sign painted in red letters which were covered with hissing, poisonous snakes.

Daddy’s constant craving to go into a dark place and watch a color TV and eat peanuts out of a bowl and do the Bad Thing until his brain would be quiet and leave him alone.

He looked up and there was Tony, far up the street, standing by a stop sign and waving.

the bathroom, harsh white light and a word flickering on and off in the medicine cabinet mirror like a red eye, REDRUM, REDRUM, REDRUM—

That had been the best year, the best bed.

She had never dreamed there could be so much pain in a life when there was nothing physically wrong.

Come out here and take your medicine! I’ll find you! I’ll find you!

“Only the handle’s a little shorter and the head has two sides. One side is hard rubber and the other side is wood.”

(Come out, you little shit!)

She found herself wishing they could get back in the VW and go back to Boulder…or anywhere else.

“You shine on, boy. Harder than anyone I ever met in my life. And I’m sixty years old this January.”

That was in Room 217, and I want you to promise me you won’t go in there, Danny. Not all winter. Steer right clear.”

With the two of them around she sometimes felt like an outsider, a bit player who had accidentally wandered back onstage while the main action was taking place.

there was only one other thing on the third floor that bothered Danny, and he could not have said why. It was the fire extinguisher on the wall just before they turned the corner and went back to the elevator, which stood open and waiting like a mouthful of gold teeth.

For a moment Danny felt more lonely than he ever had in his life.

blue chambray workshirt,

But he had been an emotional alcoholic just as surely as he had been a physical one—the two of them were no doubt tied together somewhere deep inside him, where you’d just as soon not look.

“And become autistic?” Wendy asked. She had read about autism. The word itself frightened her; it sounded like dread and white silence.

(The Red Death held sway over all!)

Actually the story was about Bluebeard’s wife, a pretty lady that had corn-colored hair like Mommy.

“We’ll stay. And everything will be fine. Just fine.”

Inside its shell the three of them went about their early evening routine, like microbes trapped in the intestine of a monster.

Her breasts swayed like ancient cracked punching bags. There was the minute sound of breaking ice shards. She was not breathing. She was a corpse, and dead long years.

when the years-damp, bloated, fish-smelling hands closed softly around his throat and he was turned implacably around to stare into that dead and purple face.

“Now. Now by Christ. I guess you’ll take your medicine now. Goddam puppy. Whelp. Come on and take your medicine.”

Because a real artist must suffer. Because each man kills the thing he loves. Because they’ll always be conspiring against you, trying to hold you back and drag you down.

“You set me up an even twenty martinis. An even twenty, just like that, kazang. One for every month I’ve been on the wagon and one to grow on.

“The woman in that room. In 217. The dead lady.”

“It was for your own good,” Jack said, backing up. “I set it ahead for your own good.

Danny’s nose wrinkled. They were kissing peepees. That made him feel sick.

Here in the Overlook all times were one.

And then, eyes widening in horror, he saw the word REDRUM reflecting dimly from the glass dome, now reflected twice. And he saw that it spelled MURDER.

His eyes were tiny and red. He was dressed in some sort of silvery, spangled costume. A dog costume, Danny realized. Protruding from the rump of this strange creation was a long and floppy tail with a puff on the end. A zipper ran up the back of the costume to the neck.

“You’ll pay for this!” he howled. “Goddam you two, you’ll pay! You’ll take your goddam medicine for this, I promise you! You—”

it panted at her through its grin.