Jack attacks Wendy with roque mallet

Jack Torrance, now fully possessed by the Overlook Hotel, attacks his wife Wendy with a roque mallet in the lobby, beating her severely before she stabs him in self-defense. This event marks the violent climax of the hotel's campaign to destroy the Torrance family, transforming Jack from a struggling father into a murderous instrument of the Overlook's will. The assault shatters any remaining hope of reconciliation and forces Wendy to fight for her life and her son's survival.

Background and Possession

Earlier that day, Jack had been locked in the pantry by Wendy and Danny after he tried to strangle her in the Colorado Lounge. The hotel, speaking through the ghost of Delbert Grady, freed him, leaving a roque mallet, a martini glass, and a bottle of gin on the kitchen chopping block as a grim invitation. Jack accepted, drinking heavily and arming himself with the mallet. The hotel's influence had been building for weeks, exploiting Jack's alcoholism, his violent temper, and his desperate need for the job. By the time he emerged from the pantry, he was no longer himself but a vessel for the Overlook's malevolent intelligence, which saw Wendy and Danny as obstacles to its goal of absorbing Danny's psychic power.

The Assault in the Lobby

Wendy, having left the bedroom to check on Jack, was descending the stairs when the ballroom clock struck twelve and the lights blazed on, accompanied by a shrieking brass flourish and the cry "Unmask! Unmask!" The sounds faded, and she turned to find Jack coming for her, his eyes lit with a vacant, murderous glow and a quivering, joyless grin on his face. He held the roque mallet in one hand. "Thought you'd lock me in? Is that what you thought you'd do?" he said, swinging the mallet. Wendy tripped over a hassock and fell to the lobby rug. Jack whispered, "You bitch. I know what you are," and brought the mallet down with whistling, deadly velocity, burying it in her soft stomach. She screamed, submerged in an ocean of pain, and dimly saw the mallet rebound. He meant to beat her to death. "Now. Now, by Christ," he said, grinning. "I guess you'll take your medicine now." He kicked the hassock out of his way and swung again. Wendy rolled to her left, and the mallet hit the floor, jarring his hold. As he stooped to pick it up, she ran for the stairs, her breath sobbing back into her. Her stomach was a bruise of throbbing pain. Jack followed, saying, "You stinking bitch, I guess you'll get what's coming to you." The mallet whistled through the air and struck her right side below the breasts, breaking two ribs. She fell forward on the steps, agony ripping through her as she struck on the wounded side. She rolled over, and the mallet whizzed past her face, missing by a naked inch and striking the deep pile of the stair carpeting with a muffled thud. The knife she had been carrying was jarred from her hand and lay glittering on the fourth stair riser. Jack repeated, "Bitch," and brought the mallet down again. She shoved herself upward, and it landed just below her kneecap, setting her lower leg on fire. Blood trickled down her calf. The mallet came down again, and she jerked her head away; it smashed into the stair riser in the hollow between her neck and shoulder, scraping flesh from her ear. He brought the mallet down once more, and this time she rolled toward him, down the stairs, inside the arc of his swing. A shriek escaped her as her broken ribs thumped and grated. She struck his shins with her body while he was off-balance, and he fell backward with a yell of anger and surprise, his feet jigging to keep their purchase on the stair riser. He thumped to the floor, the mallet flying from his hand. He sat up, staring at her with shocked eyes, and said, "I'll kill you for that."

Wendy's Counterattack

Jack rolled over and stretched out for the handle of the mallet. Wendy forced herself to her feet, her left leg sending bolt after bolt of pain all the way up to her hip. Her face was ashy pale but set. She leaped onto his back as his hand closed over the shaft of the roque mallet. "Oh dear God!" she screamed to the Overlook's shadowy lobby, and buried the kitchen knife in his lower back up to the handle. He stiffened beneath her and then shrieked—an awful sound that seemed to make the very boards and windows and doors of the hotel scream. It went on and on while he remained board-stiff beneath her weight. The back of his red-and-black-checked flannel shirt grew darker, sodden with spreading blood. Then he collapsed forward on his face, bucking her off on her hurt side, making her groan. She lay breathing harshly for a time, unable to move, an excruciating throb of pain from one end to the other. Every time she inhaled, something stabbed viciously at her, and her neck was wet with blood from her grazed ear. There was only the sound of her struggle to breathe, the wind, and the ticking clock in the ballroom.

Aftermath and Renewed Threat

Wendy forced herself to her feet and hobbled across to the stairway, clinging to the newel post, waves of faintness washing over her. She began to climb, using her unhurt leg and pulling with her arms on the banister. She was on the ninth riser, almost halfway up, when Jack's voice came from behind and below her. He said thickly, "You bitch. You killed me." Terror as black as midnight swept through her. She looked over her shoulder and saw Jack getting slowly to his feet. His back was bowed over, and she could see the handle of the kitchen knife sticking out of it. His eyes seemed to have contracted, almost to have lost themselves in the pale, sagging folds of the skin around them. He was grasping the roque mallet loosely in his left hand, the end of it bloody, a scrap of her pink terrycloth robe stuck almost in the center. "I'll give you your medicine," he whispered, and began to stagger toward the stairs. Whimpering with fear, she pulled herself upward again, her side shrieking in protest. Jack's panting, agonized gasps grew closer as he mounted the stairs behind her. The attack set in motion the final, desperate chase through the hotel, leading to Danny's confrontation with his possessed father on the third floor and the eventual destruction of the Overlook.