In the Tall Grass

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Also included in the eBook edition of the story are the opening chapter of Doctor Sleep, King’s sequel to The Shining and the beginning of Hill’s forthcoming book NOS4R2. The opening of Doctor Sleep features Wendy and Danny Torrance living in Florida three years after the events at the Overlook Hotel. Whilst Wendy is physically disfigured by the explosive end to proceedings, Danny is suffering below the surface. The chapter features the terrifying woman from Room 217 and hints at much larger dangers to come for poor young Danny. The chapter fits almost seamlessly into the narrative from The Shining and almost fits as an epilogue. It is well known that Doctor Sleep will feature an older Danny Torrance and it will be fascinating to see how King builds such a damaged little boy into a fully grown adult.

Imagine being a fly on the wall for the father/son conversation such a collaboration requires. There are a few things that happen in the story where I was like: "Okay, whose idea was that?! Fess up!" I guess part of the fun is in trying to guess, and perhaps never knowing. These guys work good together though, and I'm looking forward to many more collaborations (fingers crossed). He had crossed a few dozen feet of the dirt parking lot and then hesitated by what looked like a first-generation Prius. It was filmed with a pale coat of road dust, almost completely obscuring the windshield. Cal hunched slightly, shielded his eyes with one hand, and squinted through the side window at something in the passenger seat. Frowning to himself for a moment, and then flinching, as if from a horsefly. He did not scream. He made a kind of doglike bark, a woofing grunt, and wrenched her hard to one side, trying to yank her off her feet. His forearms were sunburnt and peeling. Close up she could see his nose was peeling too, badly, the bridge of his nose sizzling with sunburn. He grimaced, showing teeth stained pink and green. Ma Cool hadn’t owned a watch in years, but was good at telling time by the sun. She squinted at it now, measuring the distance between the reddening ball and the field of grass, which seemed to stretch to the horizon. I bet all of Kansas looked that way before the people came and spoiled it all, she thought.

by Denise Fleming

Ah, Christ, now she was fading again. He was so scared that the truth popped out with absolutely no trouble at all, and at top volume. Or vicey-versa,” Mr. DeMuth said—also with a sigh. (Sometimes married couples are also Irish Twins.)

Just when Cal was beginning to think they hadn’t, after all, heard anything—it wouldn’t be the first time they had imagined something together—the cry came again. KID, STAND STILL!” Shouting so loud and so hard it hurt his vocal cords. It was like being at a Metallica concert, only without the music. “I DON’T CARE HOW SCARED YOU ARE, STAND STILL! LET US COME TO YOU!”

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He left her on the margin of the highway and turned into the dirt lot of the Redeemer. A scattering of dust-filmed cars was parked here, windshields beetle bright in the glare of the sun. That all but one of these cars appeared to have been there for days—even weeks—was another anomaly that would not strike them until later.

Now the kid was on Cal’s right, and he sounded quite a lot deeper in the grass than before. How could that be? He sounded close enough to grab. In the few that I've read of Stephen King, I have become his fan, though each of his stories have a few elements(at least)that I could have done without. Take for instance The Ritual of Chüd in It. Still, disturbing as it is, it can be neglected in terms of the brilliance (and also the length) of the rest of the tale. But I finished this one last night. And I'm still nauseated. Seriously.

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That moment [in the short story] takes the reader to a place they’ve probably never been before—a very primal, basic place. The film is really about that: What is it to be human? What is our relationship to nature? When we’re broken down to our most basic components, is there more to us than just flesh? Are we more than just grass growing out of the ground?” He took another step forward—he couldn’t help himself—leaning in to see. His palms were raised before him, in a kind of go-no-further gesture, but he could not feel them beginning to blister from whatever was radiating from the stone. Tobin!” the woman started to call, but then her voice choked. As if she didn’t have the spit for talk.