The Overlook boiler explosion

The Overlook Hotel's boiler, a copper-jacketed, patched relic that Watson had warned "creeps" and would "blow long before" its rated pressure, became the instrument of the hotel's destruction. Throughout the winter, Jack Torrance had been responsible for checking the pressure gauge twice daily and dumping the valve to prevent a buildup. But on the night of December 2, possessed by the hotel's malevolent will and hunting his son through the third-floor corridors, Jack forgot his duty. The pressure needle climbed past two hundred and ten pounds per square inch, then past two-twenty, as the boiler groaned and hissed, its patches leaking steam. The hotel's controlling force, wearing Jack's face, had been moments away from claiming Danny's power when the boy screamed the truth: "The boiler! It hasn't been dumped since this morning! It's going up! It's going to explode!" The realization struck the thing with grotesque terror. Dropping the roque mallet, it shambled away, crying "Oh no, that can't be allowed!" and fled to the basement, where it seized the red-hot valve wheel with its bare hands, searing the flesh, and spun it open. A giant roar of escaping steam bellowed out, and the pressure needle began to swing back. The thing capered in triumph, waving its flaming hands, shrieking "I WIN! NOT TOO LATE!" — but the words turned into a shriek swallowed by a shattering roar as the boiler exploded.

The Explosion and the Hotel's Destruction

The blast came as a flat, all-pervasive note — WHUMMMMMM — followed by a warm pulse of air that hurled Hallorann, Wendy, and Danny from the porch into the snow. Inside, the Overlook's windows shattered. The glass dome over the ballroom clock cracked and fell; the clock stopped ticking forever. In Room 217, the bathtub split in two, releasing a flood of greenish, noxious water. The Presidential Suite's wallpaper burst into flames. The batwing doors of the Colorado Lounge snapped their hinges and fell. Beyond the basement arch, the great piles of old papers caught fire with a blowtorch hiss; boiling water rolled over the flames but did not quench them. The furnace exploded, shattering the basement's roofbeams, which crashed down like dinosaur bones. The gas jet feeding the furnace rose in a bellowing pylon of flame through the riven lobby floor, and the carpeting on the stairs caught fire, racing upward. A fusillade of explosions ripped through the place; the dining room's two-hundred-pound crystal chandelier fell, knocking tables every which way. Flame belched from all five chimneys. The thing that had worn Jack Torrance's face dissolved, its consciousness crumbling into emptiness, its party over.

The Aftermath and the Hedge Animals' Death

As the three survivors struggled through the snow, the hedge animals — which had been animated by the hotel's power — recoiled from the destruction. The hedge dog flattened its ears and tucked its tail; the hedge rabbit battered itself crazily against the chainlink fence, its branches cracking like breaking bones. When Hallorann looked back from the equipment shed, he saw the Overlook as a flaming pyre, its upper stories blazing, its white paint blackening and peeling. From the window of the Presidential Suite, he thought he saw a huge dark shape issue — a manta-like form that the wind tore and shredded like old dark paper, gone as if it had never been. The roof caved in: first the west wing, then the east, then the central roof, sending a spiraling gout of sparks and flaming debris into the howling winter night. A bundle of flaming shingles and hot flashing was wafted through the open equipment shed door, and after a while the shed began to burn too.

The Rescue and the End of the Darkness

Hallorann, Wendy, and Danny escaped on the snowmobile, the fire lighting their way. The hedge creatures, now denuded, blackened, and seared, stood dead in their original positions, their small leaves scattered around their feet like fallen petals. Danny screamed in hysterical triumph, "They're dead! They're dead!" The three rode twenty miles toward Sidewinder before meeting a rescue party — led by Dr. Edmonds — that had come up the mountain with extra clothes, brandy, and snowmobiles. The long darkness was over. The Overlook Hotel, which had held sway for nearly three-quarters of a century, was reduced to a burning shell, its malevolent force extinguished by the very mechanism Jack Torrance had been hired to tend.