Hedge animals come to life
The hedge animals—a topiary menagerie of lions, a dog, a rabbit, and a buffalo—are among the Overlook Hotel's most distinctive features, clipped into lifelike shapes by the grounds crew each season. For most of the autumn, they remain inert, harmless curiosities buried under snow. But as the winter deepens and the hotel's malevolent influence intensifies, the hedges cross the line from static decoration to active, predatory threats, becoming one of the most direct physical dangers the Torrance family and Dick Hallorann face.
First Manifestation: Jack's Hallucination
The first sign that something is wrong with the hedges occurs on November 7, the day the first serious snow begins to fall. Jack Torrance goes down to the playground to trim the topiary, a routine task. After finishing the rabbit, he walks toward the playground, then turns back to survey his work. He notices that the rabbit, which he had just trimmed standing on its hind legs, is now down on all fours, cropping grass. The dog, which had been sitting up, is now crouched, head tilted, its mouth seeming to snarl. The lions have drawn closer together, and one lion's tail now juts over the path, blocking it. Jack is seized by a cold, creeping terror. He covers his eyes, and when he looks again, the animals have moved further: the dog is now in a running posture, haunches flexed, one front leg forward; the lions have advanced to the fence, their muzzles touching the boards. The buffalo has circled to the right, head lowered, hedge horns pointing at him. Jack backs up, his heart thudding, his breath rasping. He claps his hands over his eyes, clutching at his hair and temples, and when he finally forces himself to look again, the animals are back in their original positions, frozen and harmless. He dismisses the episode as a hallucination brought on by strain and exhaustion, but the experience leaves him shaken and deeply unsettled.
Second Attack: Danny's Flight from the Playground
Three weeks later, on November 29, Danny Torrance ventures alone to the playground. After a terrifying encounter in a snow-blocked concrete tunnel, he emerges to find the hedge animals stirring. The snow has fallen off the hedge dog, revealing it sitting up as if begging. Then the head of one of the hedge lions emerges from the snow, snarling, and it is closer to the playground gate than it should be. Danny begins to walk away, concentrating on his snowshoes, but the animals pursue him. The three lions bunch together, the dog ranges to the left to block his retreat. They are all staring at him. The nearest lion is only twenty feet behind, breasting through the snow like a dog paddling in a pond, its head down, shoulders bunched, tail up. Danny falls, struggles to his feet, and runs clumsily in his snowshoes. The lion closes to within five feet, its mouth open, haunches tensed. As Danny reaches the porch steps, he hears a hard crunch of snow behind him as something leaps. He falls on the steps, scrambling up on hands and knees. A slashing sound tears through the air, and he feels sudden pain in his leg. His snowpants are ripped open, and his calf is scratched, as if by branches. He collapses on the porch, sobbing, and is found by his parents. The hedge animals have retreated to their original positions, now just snow-cowled humps.
Third Confrontation: Hallorann's Battle with the Hedge Lion
On the night of December 2, Dick Hallorann, racing to the Overlook on a snowmobile after receiving Danny's telepathic plea for help, encounters the hedge animals in their most aggressive form. As he rounds a curve on the road to the hotel, his headlamp picks out a hedge lion in the road ahead, its haunches wound tight to spring. It leaps at him, and Hallorann screams, twisting the handlebars hard. The lion's claws rake across his face, neck, and shoulders, tearing open his ski mask. He is hurled from the snowmobile. The lion strikes him in the small of the back, sending him flying ten feet through the air. It rakes across the front of his parka, shredding it. Hallorann struggles to his feet and reaches for the gas can strapped to the snowmobile. The lion bats him across the head, and he falls, bleeding. He manages to unscrew the gas cap and splash the lion with gasoline. The lion hisses and spits but charges again. Hallorann lights his Zippo lighter, sets his own gasoline-soaked hand on fire, and drives his blazing arm into the lion's side. The creature erupts in flames, writhing and bellowing, and collapses into a burning pyre. Hallorann extinguishes his own arm in the snow and presses on toward the hotel.
Final Destruction: The Hedge Animals' Death
When Hallorann finally reaches the Overlook's front steps, the remaining hedge animals—the other lions, the dog, the rabbit, the buffalo—are clustered at the base of the steps, guarding the way in and out. The lions prowl; the dog stands with its front paws on the first step. Hallorann opens the throttle wide and the snowmobile rockets forward. The hedge shepherd shies away, leaving an opening. Hallorann yanks the steering gear, kicks the snowmobile around in a semicircle, and runs up the steps. The dog growls behind him, ripping at the shoulder of his parka, but he reaches the porch and is safe—the animals are too large to fit into the narrow corridor Jack has shoveled through the snow. Later, as the Overlook burns, Danny looks back and sees the hedge creatures in their original positions, but denuded, blackened, seared. Their dead branches are a stark interlacing network in the fireglow, their small leaves scattered around their feet like fallen petals. Danny screams in hysterical triumph: "They're dead! They're dead!" The hedge animals, once the hotel's most potent physical weapon, are finally destroyed along with the building that animated them.
