Rescue of the Torrances

The rescue of the Torrances forms the novel's final, desperate movement, a convergence of three separate trajectories—Danny's psychic endurance, Wendy's physical survival, and Dick Hallorann's cross-country journey—that together break the Overlook's grip on the family and culminate in the hotel's destruction.

Hallorann's Journey and Arrival

Hallorann, working as a cook at the Red Arrow Lodge in Maine, had promised Danny that if trouble came, the boy should "give a call" and he would "come on the run." When Danny's telepathic scream—"OH DICK OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE COME!!!"—struck him with the force of a psychic gunshot, Hallorann immediately fabricated a story about a wounded son to secure three days off from his manager, Queems. He flew from Miami to Denver through a blizzard that made the plane's landing a near-disaster, then drove a rented Buick Electra through worsening mountain snow until a plow driver named Howard Cottrell pulled him from a skid and directed him to Larry Durkin's Conoco station in Sidewinder for a snowmobile. Durkin, though reluctant to rent to a stranger heading to the notorious Overlook, relented when Hallorann mentioned Cottrell's name, and even traded his own fur-lined parka for Hallorann's inadequate overcoat. On the final approach to the hotel, a hedge lion sprang at Hallorann from the road, clawing his face and neck; he fought it off by dousing it with gasoline from the snowmobile's spare can and igniting it with his Zippo lighter, burning his own hand in the process. He reached the hotel's front porch, where the hedge animals could not follow, and entered the lobby to find blood on the stairs and a scrap of Wendy's pink robe.

Wendy's Last Stand and Danny's Confrontation

Wendy, having stabbed Jack with a kitchen knife and locked herself in the bathroom, heard the snowmobile's engine and realized help had arrived. She emerged from the wrecked apartment to find Hallorann unconscious in the hallway, his jaw broken and face swollen from Jack's attack with the roque mallet. She shook him awake, and together they heard Jack's voice from the third floor, hunting Danny. Danny, meanwhile, had confronted the thing wearing his father's face in the west-wing corridor. When the creature raised the mallet to strike, Danny shouted that the boiler—which Jack had not checked since morning—was about to explode. The revelation shattered the hotel's hold on Jack's body; the thing shrieked "Mustn't happen!" and fled toward the basement, leaving Danny free to run.

The Escape and the Explosion

Hallorann, carrying Wendy and Danny, burst through the lobby doors just as the boiler exploded. The blast threw them from the porch into the snow. The Overlook's windows shattered, its roof caved in, and flames erupted from every floor. The hedge animals, which had been advancing, recoiled and burned, their branches cracking like bones. Hallorann retrieved the snowmobile, wrapped Wendy and Danny in horse blankets from the equipment shed, and drove them down the mountain road. The snow had stopped, and a crescent moon appeared. Fifteen minutes later, they met a rescue party—led by Dr. Edmonds—coming up from Sidewinder with extra clothes, brandy, and medical supplies.

Aftermath and Recovery

The long darkness was over. Wendy, with a shattered vertebra, broken ribs, and internal injuries, spent months in a back brace but survived. Danny, though physically unharmed, bore the psychological scars of the ordeal, including recurring nightmares of explosions, hedges, and the thing that had worn his father's face. Hallorann visited them that summer at the Red Arrow Lodge in Maine, where Wendy had accepted a job offer from Al Shockley and planned to move to Maryland with Danny. On the dock, Danny wept for his father, and Hallorann held him, telling him that the world was hard but that he must "keep your love alive and see that you get on." Danny caught a fish—a rainbow trout—and the three of them sat together in the afternoon sun, the nightmare finally behind them.