Doctor Sleep by Stephen King Page B

He took the money, stuffed it in his pocket, put the billfold back in the purse, and turned around.
    A kid was standing there.
    He looked about eighteen months old. He was wearing an Atlanta Braves t-shirt. It came down to his knees, but the diaper underneath showed anyway, because it was loaded and hanging just above his ankles. Dan’s heart took an enormous leap in his chestand his head gave a sudden terrific whammo, as if Thor had swung his hammer in there. For a moment he was absolutely sure he was going to stroke out, have a heart attack, or both.
    Then he drew in a deep breath and exhaled. “Where did you come from, little hero?”
    â€œMama,” the kid said.
    Which in a way made perfect sense—Dan, too, had come from his mama—but it didn’t help. A terrible deduction was trying to form itself in his thumping head, but he didn’t want anything to do with it.
    He saw you take the money .
    Maybe so, but that wasn’t the deduction. If the kid saw him take it, so what? He wasn’t even two. Kids that young accepted everything adults did. If he saw his mama walking on the ceiling with fire shooting from her fingertips, he’d accept that.
    â€œWhat’s your name, hero?” His voice was throbbing in time with his heart, which still hadn’t settled down.
    â€œMama.”
    Really? The other kids are gonna have fun with that when you get to high school .
    â€œDid you come from next door? Or down the hall?”
    Please say yes. Because here’s the deduction: if this kid is Deenie’s, then she went out barhopping and left him locked in this shitty apartment. Alone.
    â€œMama!”
    Then the kid spied the coke on the coffee table and trotted toward it with the sodden crotch of his diaper swinging.
    â€œCanny!”
    â€œNo, that’s not candy,” Dan said, although of course it was: nose candy.
    Paying no attention, the kid reached for the white powder with one hand. As he did, Dan saw bruises on his upper arm. The kind left by a squeezing hand.
    He grabbed the kid around the waist and between the legs. As he swung him up and away from the table (the sodden diaper squeezing pee through his fingers to patter on the floor), Dan’s head filled withan image that was brief but excruciatingly clear: the Deenie look-alike in the wallet photo, picking the kid up and shaking him. 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. Not every abuser was the boyfriend. Sometimes it was the brother. Sometimes the uncle. Sometimes
    ( come out you worthless pup come out and take your medicine )
    it was even dear old Dad.
    He carried the baby—Tommy, his name was Tommy—into the bedroom. The kid saw his mother and immediately began wriggling. “Mama! Mama! Ma ma!”
    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. The Braves shirt pulled up, and Dan saw more bruises on the kid’s legs.
    The brother’s name is Randy. I could find him .
    This thought was as cold and clear as lake ice in January. If he handled the picture from the wallet and concentrated, ignoring the pounding of his head, he probably could find the big brother. He had done such things before.
    I could leave a few bruises of my own. Tell him the next time I’ll kill him .
    Only there wasn’t going to be a next time. Wilmington was done. He was never going to see Deenie or this desperate little apartment again. He was never going to think of last night or this morning again.
    This time it was Dick Hallorann’s voice. No, honey . Maybe you can put the things from the Overlook away in lockboxes, but not memories.