Characters in Doctor Sleep

… Abra Rafaella Stone seemed to have nothing wrong with her. She wasn’t running a fever, she wasn’t showing a rash, and ultrasound had ruled out pyloric stenosis.

… He and his best friend, Al, especially liked the song “Big Balls.” They’d sit on Brad’s bed and sing it together and laugh and laugh.

And according to my mother, he was quite the party boy in those days. Once I knew that Abra and Billy were safe, I ran some numbers in my head. They seemed to add up, but I felt if anyone knew for sure, it would be Alessandra Anderson’s mother.”

RIVINGTON HOUSE. “Hello?” “It’s Claudette Albertson, Danny. Can you come?” He ran a mental inventory of the hospice guests currently on his blackboard. “Amanda Ricker? Or Jeff Kellogg?” It turned out to be neither. “If you can come, you better do it right away,” Claudette said. “While he’s still conscious.”

“Who’s been in, then?” Thinking she might mean Gina Weems or Andrea Bottstein, the two nurses working the three-to-eleven in Riv One tonight. Or possibly Poul Larson, a slow-moving but decent orderly whom Dan thought of as the anti–Fred Carling, had stopped by for a natter. “As I said, many.

The only member of the True who’s actually young is Andrea Steiner, now known as Snakebite Andi . . . and even she’s not as young as she looks. A tottery, grumpy old lady of eighty suddenly becomes sixty again.

The damage was minor, and hey, we got a terrific party out of it.” (Andrew Gould) Rose read it twice, then looked up, eyes bright. “Good catch, Jimmy.” He grinned. “Thanks. I’ll leave you guys to it, then.” “Take Nut with you, he needs to check on Grampa.

… Andrew Sittenfeld of the Geological Survey Center says the shaking felt by Richland Court residents might have been a surge of water through the sewer system, or possibly a military plane breaking the sound barrier.

… He was terrified of Andy Hallorann, and called him—only in his own mind, to speak it aloud would have earned him a smack across the chops—the Black Grampa.

… a beautiful little Hispanic girl named Angel Barbera, who had disappeared from her Kansas City home at the age of seven and had already been gone for nine years.

… Apron Annie or Dirty Phil (rube names Anne Lamont and Phil Caputo) might appear to grow twenty years older overnight.

… “Azreel’s the fucking cat,” she said. “A raggedy-ass stray that wandered in off the street and got adopted by guests who have now all gone to the Great Who Knows.

… His wife, Baba the Red, ditches those uncomfortable continence pants, puts on her rhinestone-studded Ariat boots, and says she wants to go out line dancing.

… The man edging into middle age was Barry Smith. Although one hundred percent Caucasian, he was known in this same family as Barry the Chink, because of his slightly upturned eyes.

I guess it’s still technically your day off, but do you want to pay a house call?” “On who? Mr. Cameron or Mr. Murray?” “Cameron. Azzie’s been visiting with him since just after dinner.” Ben Cameron was in Rivington One. Second floor. An eighty-three-year-old retired accountant with congestive heart failure.

… Steamhead Steve, Baba the Red, Bent Dick, and Greedy G were playing a desultory game of canasta in the Bounder that Greedy and Dirty Phil shared when the shrieks began.

… Nor did she have a birthmark, like Bethany Stevens, or a cocked eye like Norman McGinley, or a stutter like Ginny Whitlaw, or a horrible name like poor picked-on Pence Effersham.

… “I would have been here an hour earlier if I’d found someone to come in and take care of Betty.” Betty was her elderly, ailing boxer.

“Billy Freeman. Town maintenance crew. The Riv’s my baby.” Dan took the offered hand. “Dan Torrance.”

… Black-Eyed Susie loses her hitching limp. Diesel Doug goes from half blind with cataracts to sharp-eyed, his bald spot magically gone.

The chain was good. It meant Bob and Dot hadn’t decided on a getaway weekend at their happy place, and a quarter of a mile from the highway was enough to assure them of some privacy. There was another bonus: a culvert with water trickling out of it.

… she had made out with Bobby Flannagan—just a little, no sucking face or anything gross like that—one day after school.

… she had written the names Boyd, Steve, Cam, and Pete at least twenty times each. Collectively they were ’Round Here, her favorite boy band.

“Something?” Crow asked. “We’ll talk later,” Rose said, and went back to work. The light of a dozen flashlights had turned a piece of ground behind the ethanol plant into a makeshift operating theater. Brad Trevor whispered, “Please kill me.” Rose the Hat gave him a comforting smile. “Soon.”

… And he sees the apartment where Carling lives—lived—with his little dog, whose name is Brownie. Brownie ain’t much, just a mutt, but he’s smart.

“Goddam right! Casey Kingsley, he’s the boss, bought it at an auction last year. It’s a corker. Pulls like a sonofabitch. The instrument panel’s from a Suburban, too. The seats I put in myself.” The shine was fading now, but Dan got one last thing. “From a GTO Judge.”

“If you want proof, there it is,” he said. Although the Geological Survey Center in Wrentham, MA, reports there were no temblors in New England last Tuesday afternoon, Matt and Cassie Renfrew took the opportunity to throw an “earthquake party,” which most of the street’s residents attended.

… Dan had played a game of checkers with Charlie Hayes just that afternoon, and for a man with acute myelogenous leukemia, he’d seemed as lively as a cricket.

… Dan had asked Claudette Albertson not long after starting work at the hospice. They were in the smoking area at the time, practicing their nasty habit. Claudette, a cheerful African American RN with the shoulders of an NFL left tackle, threw back her head and laughed.

… asking Coach Rennie if she could be excused from gym and go to the library instead. “I’ve got a stomachache,” she said, …

… My name is Concetta Reynolds, and I live on the third floor of a condominium at Two nineteen Marlborough Street. I seem to have broken my hip. Can you send an ambulance?

(don’t forget to set your alarm) “Hoo-hoo, Danny,” Cora Willingham said. Dan looked at them. “Did I discard, or is it still my turn?” Mr. Braddock rolled his eyes at Cora; Cora rolled hers right back. “And my daughters think I’m the one losing my marbles,” she said.

… Here was Cynthia Abelard, DOB June 9, 2005. After a moment’s thought, Abra realized DOB stood for date of birth. So Cynthia would be eight now. If she was still alive, that is. She had been missing since 2009.

… Dane Borland, a retiree who lives at the end of the street, pointed out a crack running the width of his newly asphalted driveway. “If you want proof, there it is,” he said.

There was no chance of her falling down; her parents were there at once. They carried her inside together. “I’m okay,” Abra said. “You can put me down.” They did, carefully. David Stone stood close, ready to catch her at the slightest knee-buckle, but Abra stood steady in the kitchen.

A bare woman lay sprawled on her back beside him. Dan looked down and saw that he was also alfresco. Her name is . . . Dolores? No. Debbie? That’s closer, but not quite— Deenie. Her name was Deenie.

A leathery old gent of seventy is able to put away his cane; the skin-tumors on his arms and face disappear. Black-Eyed Susie loses her hitching limp. Diesel Doug goes from half blind with cataracts to sharp-eyed, his bald spot magically gone. All at once, hey presto, he’s forty-five again.

… Don Torrance wasn’t an orderly like me, but close. He was a male nurse. He walked with a cane toward the end of his life, because he was in a car accident that messed up his leg. And one night, at the dinner table, he used that cane on his …

The chain was good. It meant Bob and Dot hadn’t decided on a getaway weekend at their happy place, and a quarter of a mile from the highway was enough to assure them of some privacy. There was another bonus: a culvert with water trickling out of it.

When the campground was open to the public, the Lodge served as a restaurant that put on two meals a day, breakfast and dinner. The food was prepared by Short Eddie and Big Mo (rube names Ed and Maureen Higgins).

… DEAD FRIENDS 1 At a hundred and two, Eleanor Ouellette was the oldest resident of Rivington House in that fall of 2013, old enough so her last name had never been Americanized. She answered not to Wil-LET but to a much more elegant French pronunciation: Oooh-LAY. Dan sometimes called her …

The shine wasn’t gone after all, it seemed; it was hardly even hiding. You were holding her hand when she passed. Her name was Ellen.

The real doctor.” “Emerson, but when I phoned his service, the woman told me not to be silly. Everything’s socked in from Berlin to Manchester. She said that except for the ones on the turnpikes, even the plows are waiting for daylight.” “All right,” Dan said. “I’m on my way.”

… when Emil Kemmer had been reminiscing (not very discreetly) about a few of his more interesting cases, Dan had confessed that ever since childhood, he had suffered from what he called double dreaming.

Collectively they were ’Round Here, her favorite boy band. So hot, especially Cam. Her best friend, Emma Deane, thought so, too. Those blue eyes, that careless tumble of blond hair. Maybe I could help. His parents would be sad, but at least they’d know. “Shut up, Abba-Doo. Shut up, Abba-Doo-Doo-For-Brains.”

… Ernie and Maureen Salkowicz, fresh from a wonderful night’s sleep, agreed those RV folks were just about the best they’d ever had.

… The Saturday noon AA meeting in Frazier was one of the oldest in New Hampshire, dating back to 1946, and had been founded by Fat Bob D., …

… So would Harpman Sam . . . Bent Dick . . . Fat Fannie and Long Paul . . . Greedy G, not the brightest bulb, but loyal and unquestioning.

Maureen said. “I dreamed that lady on the insurance commercials—Flo—sold you a big insurance policy. Wasn’t that a crazy dream?” Ernie grunted and splooshed more whipped cream onto his bread pudding. “Did you dream, honey?” “Nope.” But his eyes slid away from hers as he said it.

… Like Frankie Listrone at school. He gives kids Indian burns and Dutch rubs. If he can’t make you cry, he stops. If he can, he never stops.

… Frankie P., the Lunch Bunch oldtimer who was chairing the meeting, asked if someone wanted to do the Chip Club.

… Fred Carling was plopped down in one of these, munching peanut butter crackers and reading an old issue of Popular Mechanics. Carling was one of three orderlies on the midnight-to-eight shift.

“Frederika Bimmel. She’s at Merrimack Valley Hospital. I’m supposed to have a consult with her oncologist and her parents.”

… “I hit a man with my car when I was coming home drunk from a party,” Gemma said. “This was back in Somerville. I left him lying by the side of the road.

“Who’s been in, then?” Thinking she might mean Gina Weems or Andrea Bottstein, the two nurses working the three-to-eleven in Riv One tonight. Or possibly Poul Larson, a slow-moving but decent orderly whom Dan thought of as the anti–Fred Carling, had stopped by for a natter. “As I said, many.

Il cane. Ginata. Il cane si rotolava sull’erba. Barking and rolling in the grass. Funny Ginata!

… Nor did she have a birthmark, like Bethany Stevens, or a cocked eye like Norman McGinley, or a stutter like Ginny Whitlaw, or a horrible name like poor picked-on Pence Effersham.

… He called John Dalton, and John called an internal medicine specialist named Greg Fellerton. Fellerton wasn’t in the Program, but he owed Johnny D. a favor.

… At one of those games, Greedy G (rube name Greta Moore) won five hundred dollars. She gloated over that for months, …

“Right, right, you’re Uncle Dan. We’ll be fine as long as my mother’s best friend doesn’t come along. Her name’s Gretchen Silverlake. I think she knows our whole family tree, and there isn’t very much of it.” Oh, great, Dan thought. The nosy best friend. “It’s okay,” Abra said.

… Hands-Off Hans, who had been electrocuted by a falling powerline in an Arkansas windstorm not long after World War II ended, …

… “He’ll pull through,” Harpman Sam said. “Tougher’n a boiled owl, that’s Grampa Flick.” But he put his arm around Baba the Russian, who looked devastated, and hugged her tight against him for a moment.

… Heavy Mary was with him. Tommy woke her up, thrashing. She thought it was a bad dream and gave him an elbow . . . only by then there was nothing left to poke but his pajamas.

… the Victorian home where the famous Helen Rivington had once lived and written thrilling romance novels under the pulsating name of Jeannette Montparsse.

Rose shook her head, smiling. “No. And that’s okay. Some experiences absolutely cannot be topped. Besides, my man will be back today.” “What’s his name?” “He answers to Henry Rothman, but that’s just for the rubes. His True name is Crow Daddy.” “Do you love him? You do, don’t you?”

… At the nurses’ station, Claudette was charting meds while Janice Barker watched a small TV with the sound turned down low.

RIVINGTON HOUSE. “Hello?” “It’s Claudette Albertson, Danny. Can you come?” He ran a mental inventory of the hospice guests currently on his blackboard. “Amanda Ricker? Or Jeff Kellogg?” It turned out to be neither. “If you can come, you better do it right away,” Claudette said. “While he’s still conscious.”

Dan said nothing, and passed on only a single thought: (?) “They don’t believe me about anything!” she burst out. “It’s so unfair! I didn’t know there was going to be booze at Jennifer’s stupid party, and I didn’t have any! Still, she grounds me for two fucking weeks!” (?

… She IM’ed with Jessica for awhile, but then Jessica went to the mall in North Conway to have dinner at Panda Garden with her parents, …

… As Jimmy Numbers had once said, “We’re a cash-and-carry outfit. We pay cash and the rubes carry us.” Jimmy was the True’s accountant.

… Dr. John Dalton was a fellow Dan Torrance would have recognized, although not by last name. To Dan he was just Doctor John, who made the coffee at the Thursday night Big Book meeting in North Conway.

… Grampa Jonas Flick and give up one object they had from him, or that they associated with him (Rose had already picked hers, a ring with a Celtic design Grampa had given her …

No grainy newsprint job, but a high-res school portrait of a girl in a red dress with puffed sleeves. Her braided hair was chestnut brown, her smile wide and confident. “Julianne Cross,” Jimmy said. He tapped the touchpad again and a redhead with a mischievous grin popped up. “Emma Deane.”

Julie Vandover said it was almost always your mom who gave you the lowdown, but the only lowdown Abra had gotten lately was on how important it was for her to get the trash out on Thursday mornings before the bus came.

… not long after World War II ended, or Katie Patches, who had drowned, or Tommy the Truck—but those were exceptions. Usually the ones who fell were taken down by their own carelessness. So she had always believed. Now she saw she had been as foolish as rube children clinging to …

… Abra had heard that was what Lennie O’Meara’s parents did after Lennie fell out of a tree and hit his head on a rock and died.

If you do OD her instead of just putting her to sleep, I’ll see you’re the first True to be sent into exile since Little Big Horn.”

… Apron Annie said, “He’s with me and Long Paul, sweetie. Is it . . . is it a good one?”

… “Hey there, Doctor Sleep,” Loretta Ames said. “I thought I saw you come in. I guess it’s still technically your day off, but do you want to pay a house call?”

… Lucia Stone knew she could never tell him how awful it had really been. What a stinking revelation it had been.

… Maggie M. cried when she told (“shared,” in AA parlance) how she had again been denied joint custody of her two children.

“Your first earthquake! Isn’t that neat?” “Yes,” Abra said, not sounding very thrilled. “Neat.” He looked out the living room window and saw people standing on their stoops and lawns. His good friend Matt Renfrew was among them. “I’m gonna go across the street and talk to Matt, hon.

When the campground was open to the public, the Lodge served as a restaurant that put on two meals a day, breakfast and dinner. The food was prepared by Short Eddie and Big Mo (rube names Ed and Maureen Higgins).

… Ernie and Maureen Salkowicz, fresh from a wonderful night’s sleep, agreed those RV folks were just about the best they’d ever had.

Here was Merton Askew, DOB September 4, 1998. He had disappeared in 2010. Here, halfway down the page, was a beautiful little Hispanic girl named Angel Barbera, who had disappeared from her Kansas City home at the age of seven and had already been gone for nine years.

He said he thought he better get home and help his ma take in the clothes. “Is it gonna rain?” Micah Johnson, the coach, asked. They’d all come to trust him on such things. “Dunno,” Brad said listlessly. “You feel okay, son? You look a little peaked.”

… Mr. Braddock was staring at Dan with that look of monumental but slightly puzzled irritation which only the very old and borderline senile can bring off successfully.

… Mr. Deane tried to chat Abra up when he came home from work, but quit and dove into the latest issue of The Economist when Abra answered in monosyllables …

… Mr. Kozy sat, eyes shut. “You like to mess with young girls?” Andi asked him. “You would if you could, wouldn’t you? If you could run fast enough to catch them, anyway.”

“I’m glad.” Buzz. The intercom. He went over and hit TALK. “Hey there, Doctor Sleep,” Loretta Ames said. “I thought I saw you come in. I guess it’s still technically your day off, but do you want to pay a house call?” “On who? Mr. Cameron or Mr. Murray?” “Cameron.

Is Momo your” ( grandmother) ( great-grandmother) “Besides,” Abra said, “we’re not really lying about you being my uncle. In science last year, Mr. Staley told us that all humans share the same genetic plan. He said that the things that make us different are very small things.

Mr. Deane tried to chat Abra up when he came home from work, but quit and dove into the latest issue of The Economist when Abra answered in monosyllables and Mrs. Deane gave him a warning look.

Once the boy begged his mother to play the Pick Six lottery because he swore he knew the winning numbers. Mrs. Gaylesworthy refused—they were good Baptists—but later she was sorry. Not all six of the numbers Richard wrote down on the kitchen note-minder board came up, but five did.

She looked at Dan with curiosity, but not untoward curiosity. “Hi, Mrs. Gerard. This is my uncle Dan. I had Mrs. Gerard for Language Arts last year.” “Pleased to meet you, ma’am. Dan Torrance.” Mrs. Gerard took his offered hand and gave it a single no-nonsense pump.

… Mrs. Kozy dropped her ice cream. Then her knees unhinged and she sat on it. “Ah, fuck,” Andi said. “I didn’t mean there. Get up.” Mrs. Kozy got up with the squashed ice cream sandwich sticking to the back of her dress.

… Finding out that Mrs. Moran, her beloved sixth-grade teacher, was having AN AFFAIR had been the biggest mind-blower so far, …

It was sort of like being in one of those love-and-horror supernatural novels, the kind Mrs. Robinson in the school library sniffily called “tweenager porn.” In those books the girls dallied with werewolves, vampires—even zombies—but hardly ever became those things.

We only read one play, Romeo and Juliet, but Ms. Franklin gave us a printout with a whole list of famous lines from his other plays. Things like ‘To be or not to be’ and ‘It was Greek to me.’ Did you know those were from Shakespeare? I didn’t.

… “Are you talking about Norman Lloyd?” “You tell me.” “Normie’s got Gaucher’s disease. It’s a lipid disorder. Hereditary and very rare.

… Nor did she have a birthmark, like Bethany Stevens, or a cocked eye like Norman McGinley, or a stutter like Ginny Whitlaw, …

… Patty Noyes came over with the coffeepot and poured Dan a cup, unasked. “How are you, handsome?” Dan grinned at her.

… Pauline Robertson thinks the sun shines out of your asshole. I know because I sing with her in the church choir.

… The Little twins (Pea and Pod) might snap back from twenty-two to twelve (or almost), the age at which they Turned, but their Turning was long ago.

Not bad. She had lucked out in the freckles department. Nor did she have a birthmark, like Bethany Stevens, or a cocked eye like Norman McGinley, or a stutter like Ginny Whitlaw, or a horrible name like poor picked-on Pence Effersham.

… she had written the names Boyd, Steve, Cam, and Pete at least twenty times each. Collectively they were ’Round Here, her favorite boy band.

… Walnut, whose rube driver’s license and various rube credit cards identified him as Peter Wallis of Little Rock, Arkansas, was the True’s sawbones.

The white mist thinned and then disappeared. Those who had fainted sat up and looked around, smiling. Grampa Flick grabbed Petty the Chink, Barry’s wife, and did a nimble little jig with her. “Let go of me, you old donkey!” she snapped, but she was laughing.

… Apron Annie or Dirty Phil (rube names Anne Lamont and Phil Caputo) might appear to grow twenty years older overnight.

… The Little twins (Pea and Pod) might snap back from twenty-two to twelve (or almost), the age at which they Turned, but their Turning was long ago.

… Or possibly Poul Larson, a slow-moving but decent orderly whom Dan thought of as the anti–Fred Carling, had stopped by for a natter.

Leaving the marks of his fingers. (Hey Tommy what part of get the fuck out don’t you understand?) (Randy don’t he’s just a baby) Then it was gone. But that second voice, weak and remonstrating, had been Deenie’s, and he understood that Randy was her older brother. It made sense.

… There was laughter when Randy M. told how he had thrown up all over the cop who arrested him on his last DUI, …

It’s for you!” A few seconds later, Rebecca Clausen was on the line. “Hi, Becka, it’s Dan Torrance.” “If it’s about Mrs. Ouellette, I had an email this morning from—” “That’s not it. I need to ask for some time off.” “Doctor Sleep wants time off? I don’t believe it.

Dave saw an ad in one of those freebie newspapers, auditioned the guy, and hired him. His name is Reggie Pelletier, but he styles himself The Great Mysterio. Let’s see how long he can hold their attention once they’ve all had a good close look at the fancy trike.

… there had been a boy from Enid, Oklahoma, named Richard Gaylesworthy. I swear that child can read my mind, his mother sometimes said.

… Ron Stimson, one of four docs who made regular day-rounds at the hospice, once told Dan that Eleanor was proof that living was sometimes stronger than dying.

Her name was Rose O’Hara, but the nomadic family she traveled with called her Rose the Hat. The man edging into middle age was Barry Smith. Although one hundred percent Caucasian, he was known in this same family as Barry the Chink, because of his slightly upturned eyes.

… “Sarah something.” “Olson. We talked a little about moving in together, then she got a great job down at Mass General. We email sometimes.”

… she and Sarah Carter had been a couple for the last ten years, and devoted to each other. In some ways, Andi had seemed more like Silent Sarey’s daughter than her lover.

Steamhead Steve’s crooked back straightens. His wife, Baba the Red, ditches those uncomfortable continence pants, puts on her rhinestone-studded Ariat boots, and says she wants to go out line dancing. Given time to observe such changes, people would wonder and people would talk.

… she had written the names Boyd, Steve, Cam, and Pete at least twenty times each. Collectively they were ’Round Here, her favorite boy band.

“Where did the bunny go?” little Susie Soong-Bartlett asked. “Into your dreams, darlin,” Mysterio said. “It’ll hop there tonight. Now who wants a magic scarf ?” There were cries of I do, I do from boys and girls alike. Mysterio produced them from his fists and passed them out.

This time it was the Little twins, Pea and Pod. Sweet Terri Pickford was with them, no doubt looking nervously through the back window for any sign of Rose. Big Mo had asked to go along—begged to go along—but they had turned her down because Mo was carrying the disease.

… Especially when I tell Toady Slim to kill their credit cards and empty their rich bank accounts, she thought. Toady was no Jimmy Numbers, but he could still take care of it, …

… Token Charlie and Baba the Russian were sitting on the lower step of Token Charlie’s Bounder, sharing a joint and looking up at the moon.

He carried the baby—Tommy, his name was Tommy—into the bedroom. The kid saw his mother and immediately began wriggling. “Mama! Mama! Mama!” When Dan set him down, Tommy trotted to the mattress and crawled up beside her. Although sleeping, Deenie put her arm around him and hugged him to her.

… They go back to when Tommy the Truck was Tommy the Wagon. Almost ninety years. She was the one who took care of him after he Turned.

… Trevor K., who opened the meeting, stood and asked—as he always did—for help cleaning up the kitchen and putting away the chairs.

… Vera Winnick was in Rivington Two, and the walkway between here and there would be colder than a witch’s belt buckle.

… I was talking to Vicky Fenton—you know the Fentons, on Pond Street? That’s just a block over and she said they didn’t feel anything.

‘Help Wannie, Momo! Wannie fall down!’ I didn’t know who Wannie was, but Lucy did—Wanda Judkins, the lady across the street.” “She’s Abra’s favorite neighbor,” David said, “because she makes cookies and usually brings one over for Abra with her name written on it. Sometimes in raisins, sometimes in frosting.

… Yolanda V. did the Chip Club, giving out two whites (twenty-four hours) and a purple (five months—commonly referred to as the Barney Chip).

… “Oh God, here comes Yvonne Stroud. She’s in my class.” Dan pulled his hand back in a hurry. He saw a plump, brown-haired girl about Abra’s age coming up the sidewalk.