"You know," she said, "I don't think we've seen five cars since we came through Sidewinder. And one of them was the hotel limousine."
Jack nodded. "It goes right to Stapleton Airport in Denver. There's already some icy patches up beyond the hotel, Watson says, and they're forecasting more snow for tomorrow up higher. Anybody going through the mountains now wants to be on one of the main roads, just in case. That goddam Ullman better still be up there. I guess he will be."
"You're sure the larder is fully stocked?" she asked, still thinking of the Donners.
"He said so. He wanted Hallorann to go over it with you. Hallorann's the cook."
"Oh," she said faintly, looking at the speedometer. It had dropped from fifteen to ten miles an hour.
"There's the top," Jack said, pointing three hundred yards ahead. "There's a scenic turnout and you can see the Overlook from there. I'm going to pull off the road and give the bug a chance to rest." He craned over his shoulder at Danny, who was sitting on a pile of blankets. "What do you think, doc? We might see some deer. Or caribou."
"Sure, Dad."
The VW labored up and up. The speedometer dropped to just above the five-milean-hour hashmark and was beginning to hitch when Jack pulled off the road
("What's that sign, Mommy?" "SCENIC TURNOUT," she read dutifully.)
and stepped on the emergency brake and let the VW run in neutral.
"Come on," he said, and got out.
They walked to the guardrail together.
"That's it," Jack said, and pointed at eleven o'clock.
For Wendy, it was discovering truth in a cliche: her breath was taken away. For a moment she was unable to breathe at all; the view had knocked the wind from her. They were standing near the top of one peak. Across from them-who knew how far?-an even taller mountain reared into the sky, its jagged tip only a silhouette that was now nimbused by the sun, which was beginning its decline. The whole valley floor was spread out below them, the slopes that they had climbed in the laboring bug falling away with such dizzying suddenness that she knew to look down there for too long would bring on nausea and eventual vomiting. The imagination seemed to spring to full life in the clear air, beyond the rein of reason, and to look was to helplessly see one's self plunging down and down and down, sky and slopes changing places in slow cartwheels, the scream drifting from your mouth like a lazy balloon as your hair and your dress billowed out...
She jerked her gaze away from the drop almost by force and followed Jack's finger. She could see the highway clinging to the side of this cathedral spire, switching back on itself but always tending northwest, still climbing but at a more gentle angle. Further up, seemingly set directly into the slope itself, she saw the grimly clinging pines give way to a wide square of green lawn and standing in the middle of it, overlooking all this, the hotel. The Overlook. Seeing it, she found breath and voice again.
"Oh, Jack, it's gorgeous!"
"Yes, it is," he said. "Unman says he thinks it's the single most beautiful location in America. I don't care much for him, but I think he might be... Danny! Danny, are you all right?"
She looked around for him and her sudden fear for him blotted out everything else, stupendous or not. She darted toward him. He was holding onto the guardrail and looking up at the hotel, his face a pasty gray color. His eyes had the blank look of someone on the verge of fainting.
She knelt beside him and put steadying hands on his shoulders. "Danny, what's-"
Jack was beside her. "You okay, doc?" He gave Danny a brisk little shake and his eyes cleared.
"I'm okay, Daddy. I'm fine."
"What was it, Danny?" she asked. "Were you dizzy, honey?"
"No, I was just... thinking. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." He looked at his parents, kneeling in front of him, and offered them a small puzzled smile. "Maybe it was the sun. The sun got in my eyes."
"We'll get you up to the hotel and give you a drink of water," Daddy said.
"Okay."
And in the bug, which moved upward more surely on the gentler grade, he kept looking out between them as the road unwound, affording occasional glimpses of the Overlook Ho:. tel, its massive bank of westward-looking windows reflecting back the sun. It was the place he had seen in the midst of the blizzard, the dark and booming place where some hideously familiar figure sought him down long corridors carpeted with jungle. The place Tony had warned him against. It was here. It was here. Whatever Redrum was, it was here.
Chapter 9. Checking It Out