Stephen King - The Shining

“Down here you got your fish. Brain food, right, doe?”

“Is it, Mom?”

“If Mr. Hallorann says so, honey.” She smiled.

Danny wrinkled his nose. “I don't like fish.”

“You're dead wrong,” Hallorann said. “You just never had any fish that liked you. This fish here will like you fine. Five pounds of rainbow trout, ten pounds of turbot, fifteen cans of tuna fish-”

“Oh yeah, I like tuna.”

“and five pounds of the sweetest-tasting sole that ever swam in the sea. My boy, when next spring rolls around, you're gonna thank old…” He snapped his fingers as if he had forgotten something. “What's my name, now? I guess it just slipped my mind.”

“Mr. Hallorann,” Danny said, grinning. “Dick, to your friends.”

“That's right! And you bein a friend, you make it Dick.”

As he led them into the far corner, Jack and Wendy exchanged a puzzled glance, both of them trying to remember if Hallorann had told them his first name.

“And this here I put in special,” Hallorann said. “Hope you folks enjoy it.”

“Oh really, you shouldn't have,” Wendy said, touched. It was a twenty-pound turkey wrapped in a wide scarlet ribbon with a bow on top.

“You got to have your turkey on Thanksgiving, Wendy,” Hallorann said gravely. “I believe there's a capon back here somewhere for Christmas. Doubtless you'll stumble on it. Let's come on out of here now before we all catch the peenumonia. Right, doc?”

“Right!”

There were more wonders in the cold-pantry. A hundred boxes of dried milk (Hallorann advised her gravely to buy fresh milk for the boy in Sidewinder as long as it was feasible), five twelve-pound bags of sugar, a gallon jug of blackstrap molasses, cereals, glass jugs of rice, macaroni, spaghetti; ranked cans of fruit and fruit salad; a bushel of fresh apples that scented the whole room with autumn; dried raisins, prunes, and apricots (“You got to be regular if you want to be happy,” Hallorann said, and pealed laughter at the coldpantry ceiling, where one old-fashioned light globe hung down on an iron chain); a deep bin filled with potatoes; and smaller caches of tomatoes, onions, turnips, squashes, and cabbages.

“My word,” Wendy said as they came out. But seeing all that fresh food after her thirty-dollar-a-week grocery budget so stunned her that she was unable to say just what her word was.

“I'm runnin a bit late,” Hallorann said, checking his watch, “so I'll just let you go through the cabinets and the fridges as you get settled in. There's cheeses, canned milk, sweetened condensed milk, yeast, bakin soda, a whole bagful of those Table Talk pies, a few bunches of bananas that ain't even near to ripe yet-”

“Stop,” she said, holding up a hand and laughing. “I'll never remember it all. It's super. And I promise to leave the place clean.”

“That's all I ask.” He turned to Jack. “Did Mr. Ullman give you the rundown on the rats in his belfry?”

Jack grinned. “He said there were possibly some in the attic, and Mr. Watson said there might be some more down in the basement. There must be two tons of paper down there, but I didn't see any shredded, as if they'd been using it to make nests.”

“That Watson,” Hallorann said, shaking his head in mock sorrow. “Ain't he the foulest-talking man you ever ran on?”

“He's quite a character,” Jack agreed. His own father had been the foulesttalking man Jack had ever run on.

“It's sort of a pity,” Hallorann said, leading them back toward the wide swinging doors that gave on the Overlook dining room. “There was money in that family, long ago. It was Watson's granddad or great-granddad-I can't remember which-that built this place.”

“So I was told,” Jack said.

“What happened?” Wendy asked.

“Well, they couldn't make it go,” Hallorann said. “Watson will tell you the whole story-twice a day, if you let him. The old man got a bee in his bonnet about the place. He let it drag him down, I guess. He had two boys and one of them was killed in a riding accident on the grounds while the hotel was still abuilding. That would have been 1908 or '09. The old man's wife died of the flu, and then it was just the old man and his youngest son. They ended up getting took back on as caretakers in the same hotel the old man had built.”

“It is sort of a pity,” Wendy said.

“What happened to him? The old man?” Jack asked.

“He plugged his finger into a light socket by mistake and that was the end of him,” Hallorann said. “Sometime in the early thirties before the Depression closed this place down for ten years.

“Anyway, Jack, I'd appreciate it if you and your wife would keep an eye out for rats in the kitchen, as well. If you should see them… traps, not poison.”

Jack blinked. “Of course. Who'd want to put rat poison in the kitchen?”

Hallorann laughed derisively. “Mr. Ullman, that's who. That was his bright idea last fall. I put it to him, I said: `What if we all get up here next May, Mr. Ullman, and I serve the traditional opening night dinner'-which just happens to be salmon in a very nice sauce-'and everybody gits sick and the doctor comes and says to you, “Ullman, what have you been doing up here? You've got eighty of the richest folks in America suffering from rat poisoning!” “'

Jack threw his head back and bellowed laughter. “What did Ullman say?”

Hallorann tucked his tongue into his cheek as if feeling for a bit of food in there. “He said: `Get some traps, Hallorann. ' “

This time they all laughed, even Danny, although he was not completely sure what the joke was, except it had something to do with Mr. Ullman, who didn't know everything after all.

The four of them passed through the dining room, empty and silent now, with its fabulous western exposure on the snow-dusted peaks. Each of the white linen tablecloths had been covered with a sheet of tough clear plastic. The rug, now rolled up for the season, stood in one corner like a sentinel on guard duty.

Across the wide room was a double set of batwing doors, and over them an oldfashioned sign lettered in gilt script: The Colorado Lounge.

Following his gaze, Hallorann said, “If you're a drinkin man, I hope you brought your own supplies. That place is picked clean. Employee's party last night, you know. Every maid and bellhop in the place is goin around with a headache today, me included.”

“I don't drink,” Jack said shortly. They went back to the lobby.

It had cleared greatly during the half hour they'd spent in the kitchen. The long main room was beginning to take on the quiet, deserted look that Jack supposed they would become familiar with soon enough. The high-backed chairs were empty. The nuns who had been sitting by the fire were gone, and the fire itself was down to a bed of comfortably glowing coals. Wendy glanced out into the parking lot and saw that all but a dozen cars had disappeared.

She found herself wishing they could get back in the VW and go back to Boulder… or anywhere else.

Jack was looking around for Ullman, but he wasn't in the lobby.

A young maid with her ash-blond hair pinned up on her neck came over. “Your luggage is out on the porch, Dick.”

“Thank you, Sally.” He gave her a peck on the forehead. “You have yourself a good winter. Getting married, I hear.”

He turned to the Torrances as she strolled away, backside twitching pertly. “I've got to hurry along if I'm going to make that plane. I want to wish you all the best. Know you'll have it.”

“Thanks,” Jack said. “You've been very kind.”

“I'll take good care of your kitchen,” Wendy promised again. “Enjoy Florida.”

“I always do,” Hallorann said. He put his hands on his knees and bent down to Danny. “Last chance, guy. Want to come to Florida?”