The last time he dreamed of this place, Jack dreamed it in flames. The windows screamed as they shattered, repulsed and kicked outward by orange, lapping tongues. He could hear the wailing of the wallpaper, ripping upward, clawing in on itself with gripping, charred tendrils for fingers. The face melted away, revealing the next ugly layer underneath, again again again, rebirth, renewal, decay, until finally, finally all that remained were its remains, stamped out as ash beneath the heavy cigarette of Wendy Torrance's long, pale fingers. She wants to forget it ever happened. The voice floated back to him as the world shifted, and what was snow became flies. The flies that sung the song of death and destruction. They filled his own features, obscuring his eyes, crawling around the shape of his lips, and he moved for them with all the force of the fire, peeling away his flesh until all that he knew of himself was a scared boy who would not do to forget the face of his father.
Now, it stood. It stood, as it once had all those years ago — in another life, in another time. Jack knew it, breathing in the heavy scent of familiarity; it wasn't his to have, the memories were his — weren't his, but they came to him, all the same. He was Dan; he wasn't Dan. The truth he'd known long before he knew himself. (And had he known himself? Was he given the option? Or was it Dan all along, his own blood and bone like ribbons around a maypole?) He glanced around the way he couldn't in life; the way he forbade himself to do upon seeing its presence here, in this life, in his time. Here, but not — present, but not: he knew these halls like he knew his own (you will remember what your father forgot) face. Another frame of distance, an echo that he heard, because here, one heard everything. The Overlook had no secrets; it would show you all, if you should stop counting, open your eyes, and see.
"I know you're here." She was here, because he was here. He couldn't shake it. Even here, away from his body and stuck in the middle of a world that was-but-wasn't, he knew. He was clouded there, by the outside forces, by the man who called himself Ringmaster. Here, everything was clear again. Here, he could be Dan; he could be Jack; he could be Tony — he was what he needed to be, Shining and resolute. "I see your taste in friends hasn't improved."
He was standing in the foyer. The receptionists desk was empty, save for the place card that read Welcome home, Danny. It made his tongue turn sour, but on he walked. Jack knew if he kept walking, if he kept going, he'd find that roque mallet, propped neat and ready (COME HERE, PUP! COME HERE AND TAKE IT LIKE A MAN!) for whatever it was she had in mind. Whatever it was she had prepared in his mind. How many times would they do this dance? How many times and in how many lives? He had a friend once, the reincarnate of Eddie Dean — here, gone, here again. Ka, my man, it's a motherfuckin' wheel.
"You may want to see to him, though," there it sat, the handle of the mallet watching him just outside the closed doors of the elevator. That's right, doc, just the elevator. Ghosts. Yes, he heard them here; he heard it all here. The doors of this world were open and flooding. It was dangerous, in this place, this spectral version of the mind. She knew it; she had to have known it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be here. Otherwise, he wouldn't be here. Stupid stupid stupid. He should never have come, never have visited this goddamn circus. Goddamn circus, goddamn clowns. The handle of the mallet felt heavy, bloody, and weighed into his good hand with memory. He winced, stepping back from the elevator and onto the carpet. (Fire ash snow REDRUM, MY DEAR doc come out and take your fucking)
Breathe. Dan in his head, in his blood, in his being. He did. He did breathe. In his nose and out his clenched teeth. He steadied himself, Jack Kendall's eyes and no one else's peering around the foyer of the hotel again. Louder, with more brass than he'd had stepping right up! to the ticket booth. !!You want me? Come out, bitch, come and get me!! "I think he's tryin' to steal your look."