'OK.'
The third man, who hadn't shot yet, stood in front of the door,
leveled his weapon slightly above the knob, and pulled both
triggers. A jagged hole appeared in the door, and light rayed
through. The third man reached through the hole and grasped the
deadbolt on the other side. There was a pistol shot, then two more.
None of the three flinched.
There was a snap as the deadbolt gave, and then the third man
kicked the door open. Standing in the wide sitting room in front of
the picture window, which now showed a view only of darkness,
was a man of about 35 wearing only jockey shorts. He held a pistol
in each hand and as the murderers walked in he began to fire at
them, spraying bullets wildly. Slugs peeled splinters from the door
frame, dug furrows in the rug, dusted plaster down from the
ceiling. He fired five times, and the closest he came to any of his
assassins was a bullet that twitched the pants of the second man at
the left knee.
They raised their shotguns with almost military precision.
The man in the sitting room screamed, threw both guns on the
floor, and ran for the bedroom. The triple blast caught him just
outside the door and a wet fan of blood, brains, and bits of flesh
splashed across the cherrystriped wallpaper. He fell through the
open bedroom doorway, half in and half out.
'Watch the door,' the first man said, and dropped his smoking
shotgun to the rug. He reached into his coat pocket, brought out a
bone-handled switchblade, and thumbed the chrome button. He
approached the dead man, who was lying in the doorway on his
side. He squatted beside the corpse and yanked down the front of
the man's jockey shorts.
Down the hall the door to one of the other suites opened and a
pallid face peered out. The third man raised his shotgun and the
face jerked back in. The door slammed. A bolt rattled frantically.
The first man rejoined them.
'All right,' he said. 'Down the stairs and out the back door. Let's
go.'
They were outside and climbing into the parked car three minutes
later. They left the Overlook behind them, standing gilded in
mountain moonlight, white as bone under high stars. The hotel
would stand long after the three of them were as dead as the three
they had left behind.
The Overlook was at home with the dead.
The Blue Air Compressor
Stephen King
first appeared in
Onan, 1971
The house was tall, with an incredible slope of shingled roof. As he
walked up toward it from the shore road, Gerald Nately thought it
was almost a country in itself, geography in microcosm. The roof
dipped and rose at varying angles above the main building and two
strangely-angled wings; a widow's walk skirted a mushroom-
