The Shining (The Shining, #1)

by Stephen King

Now Wendy began to notice the silence of the place. It had fallen over the hotel like a heavy blanket muffling everything but the faint pulse of the afternoon wind outside.

But grown-ups were always in a turmoil, every possible action muddied over by thoughts of the consequences, by self-doubt, by self-image, by feelings of love and responsibility. Every possible choice seemed to have drawbacks, and sometimes he didn’t understand why the drawbacks were drawbacks. It was very hard.

He stopped by the hedge-clipper, but made no move to pick it up. Yes, there was something different. In the topiary. And it was so simple, so easy to see, that he just wasn’t picking it up. Come on, he scolded himself, you just trimmed the fucking rabbit, so what’s the (that’s it) His breath stopped in his throat. The rabbit was down on all fours, cropping grass. Its belly was against the ground. But not ten minutes ago it had been up on its hind legs, of course it had been, he had trimmed its ears… and its belly.

But when you were a heavy drinker you called it the DTs—good old Ray Milland in Lost Weekend, seeing the bugs coming out of the walls. What did you call it when you were cold sober? The question was meant to be rhetorical, but his mind answered it (you call it insanity)

“I’m very tired,” he said, and now it seemed okay to talk out loud. It didn’t seem crazy at all. “I’ve been under a strain. The wasps… the play… Al calling me like that. But it’s all right.”

The Overlook faced it as it had for nearly three-quarters of a century, its darkened windows now bearded with snow, indifferent to the fact that it was now cut off from the world. Or possibly it was pleased with the prospect. Inside its shell the three of them went about their early evening routine, like microbes trapped in the intestine of a monster.