The Shining

Snowbound

November 8, 2022

FEAR stands for everything and recover

-Old AA saying

Charles Reynolds thought: piece of shit car.

"Come on, come on," Charles Reynolds muttered under his breath. He turned his car off and twisted his car key to get the engine to sputter back to life again.

The snow was coming in, hard. The family was warned by the surprise storm just an hour before they started to see the snowy white flakes. They were traveling across the country, almost to their home in Utah. If they didn't get moving, they were going to be stuck in the snow and their frozen bodies wouldn't be found until the following May.

Darla looked to the backseat where her son was reading a book, distracted by the words that bounced off the page and created its own world in his young mind. Anthony was twelve years old, and was fluent in two languages. English, and American Sign Language. Born deaf, both Charlie and Darla learned how to sign so they could talk to their son.

Darla turned to her husband of fifteen years and knew the challenges they've been having with their car recently. They were traveling through Colorado, and had contemplated getting their car checked out before driving through the Sierra mountains, or after. They opted for after, and now they were facing the consequences. She asked, "do you think we will be able to make it through to Sidewinder?"

Charlie gnawed on his lower lip and shook his head. He looked to his wife and said, "I think there's a hotel around here. Maybe they have some sort of mechanical shop nearby."

"What's the hotel?" Darla asked, taking her iPhone out of her pocket and opening up safari to try to find directions to civilization.

"The Overlook Hotel."

Darla had not heard of that hotel before, because she grew up on the west side of the country. Charlie remembered his parents talking about the hotel in his youth, but they didn't know of the terrible tragedies that had occurred there.

"Man, it's really starting to come down," Darla stated, referring to the snow that was falling from the sky.

Charlie chuckled softly and said, "we should probably hurry. I don't want us to get stranded out here like the Donner Party."

Darla managed to find the address and gave Charlie directions once the car miraculously shocked back to life. She turned back and got Anthony's attention before she signed to him, "hey, Sport, we are stopping at a hotel for the night."

"Okay," Anthony signed back and got back to reading.

The Reynolds were moving to a new city to get a fresh start. There was an emptiness lingering in the air, and that the seat behind Darla used to be the home of a bright pink car seat. Destined to grow up beautiful and strong, just like her mother, was Sally. Her laugh twinkled like little bells, and she brought sunshine into every room.

It's almost been a year since the fire, a night that the Reynolds' will never forget. Sally never made it out of the fire, and Darla could still vividly remember trying desperately to fight against the firefighters who blocked her from entering the house. The roar of the flames were too loud for anyone to hear the four-year-old's cries for help. The family watched in horror as their house collapsed on itself, silencing everything but the roar of the flame in the dark of the night.

On that day, Sally Reynolds became the girl who would never grow up.

Darla felt a knot in her stomach as the car bounced down the mountain, bringing her back to reality. The western roads were full of dangerous switchbacks, lined with steep drops. The closest city, Sidewinder, was 75-miles further west. Hidden beneath the snow and ice was Crater Lake. She gazed out the window and she finally caught a glimpse of the Overlook through the flakes of snow that blew down at an alarming rate. It was a beautiful, magnificent hotel. She could see the dim yellow lights illuminated from rooms from the road. Watching. Waiting. They got closer and closer, but the sun was going down.