Wendy lit the stove to heat a pot of tomato soup. She turned to grab a wooden spoon and gasped. Two little girls in smocked dresses stood in the doorway.
“Come play with us,” one said.
“I’m making lunch,” Wendy whispered.
“We want you to play with us,” the other girl said. They stared at Wendy. Unblinking. Evil. “Come play Monopoly Junior.”
“Why can’t the two of you play together?” Wendy asked.
“We want to play with you,” they said in unison. “Can we have a snack?”
“I’m literally making lunch!” Wendy sobbed.
Wendy stood outside Room 217. She took the passkey from her pocket and slid it in the lock. Inside, the bathroom door was ajar.
It was in there. She could feel it. She crept in.
There stood a woman: bloated stomach, sagging breasts swaying like ancient cracked punching bags, glassy-eyed, hair dry and wild, pale, lips pulled back in an ugly grimace. Wendy screamed.
It was a mirror. Self-care had fallen to the wayside since Danny was born.
Also, there was a dead body rotting in the bathtub.
The most frightening thing, vaporous and unmentioned, was that all of Wendy’s old drinking symptoms had come back. Stumbling barefoot down the Overlook’s icy front walk, impractical heels in hand, mumbling about nachos. Asking Jack if he’d still love her if she had no ears. Dancing in a miniskirt and pink cowboy boots to the refrain of “Sweet Caroline” coming through the static on the old radio in the kitchen, shouting, “So good! So good! So good!”
Wendy woke from a thin, uneasy sleep to a humming sound. Someone was running the elevator in the deserted hotel. Danny’s hand gripped hers tightly as they followed Jack out into the dark hall. The elevator was coming down. The doors opened. The car was empty.
“What’s that?” Danny asked, pointing to the elevator floor. Confetti and party streamers littered the platform; the colors faded to pale pastels with age.
“Someone should vacuum this…” Jack said.
“Yeah, someone should,” Wendy agreed.
A silence hung in the deserted hallway.
“Anyway, I’m gonna hit the hay.” Jack turned and left, Danny on his tail.
Wendy got the vacuum and cleaned up the mess from the ghost party, crunching three Unisom tablets between her teeth, relishing the dry, bitter taste that spread across her tongue. Chewing Unisom makes you fall asleep faster. She had read it somewhere. You should kill Jack. What, who said that?
All work and no play makes Wendy look like the rotting bathtub corpse. All work and no play makes Wendy look like the rotting bathtub corpse (All work and no play makes Wendy look like the rotting bathtub corpse.)
“All work and no play makes Wendy look like the rotting bathtub corpse? All work and no play makes Wendy look like the rotting bathtub corpse.”
All work and no play makes Wendy look like the rotting bathtub corpse.
Jack and Danny each took Wendy by a leg and dragged her into the pantry.
“It’s the best thing for her,” Jack said. “Like putting her in jail.”
Wendy began to stir. Jack swung the door shut, fumbling with the bolt. Breathing fast, Jack leaned against the locked door. “We’re safe out here, Doc,” he told Danny. “She won’t be able to get out.”
On the other side of the half-inch of solid oak, Wendy made a nest out of the sugar sacks and began thumbing through a magazine, humming to herself, luxuriating in the unexpected alone time.
Wendy danced in the Colorado Lounge. She had no idea how long she had been there in the ballroom. Time ceased to exist. A man pressed a frosty glass of gin in her hand. “Thank you, sir,” she said. Suddenly, she reached out and touched the man’s shoulder. “You’re Grady. You’re the caretaker.”
Grady’s face remained blankly polite. “No, you’re the caretaker, ma’am. You’ve always been the caretaker. You’ll always be the caretaker. You have to be the caretaker.”
“But you—”
“I said you have to be the caretaker! Because of maternal instinct.”
Jack hobbled into the bathroom, carrying Danny. He slammed the door behind him and turned the lock. A mallet crashed through, splintering a wide hole in the door. “Open that door!” Wendy raged. “Come out and take your medicine!” She reached through the splintered hole to turn the lock, shrieking when Jack sliced her hand with a razor blade.
Spent, Wendy retreated and fell exhausted into an armchair, the mallet thudding to the floor beside her. Minutes passed.
The bathroom lock clicked. The door cracked open. Jack and Danny peered out.
“Can you make us a snack?”