Cujo (43 page)

The drone was very close now. And then a car was turning into the driveway. A car with blue sides and a white roof and lights on the top.

•  •  •

The one thing George Bannerman had been least prepared to see when he turned into Joe Camber's dooryard was the Pinto belonging to the missing woman. He was not a stupid man, and while he would have been impatient with Andy Masen's point-to-point kind of logic (he had dealt with the horror of Frank Dodd and understood that sometimes there
was
no logic), he arrived at his own mostly solid conclusions in much the same way, if on a more subconscious level. And he agreed with Masen's belief that it was highly unlikely the Trenton woman and her son would be here. But the car was here, anyway.

Bannerman grabbed for the mike hung under his dashboard and then decided to check the car first. From this angle, directly behind the Pinto, it was impossible to see if anyone was in there or not. The backs of the bucket seats were a bit too high, and both Tad and Donna had slumped down in their sleep.

Bannerman got out of the cruiser and slammed the door behind him. Before he had gotten two steps, he saw that the entire driver's side window was a buckled mass of shatter-shot cracks. His heart began to beat harder, and his hand went to the butt of his .38 Police Special.

•  •  •

Cujo stared out at
THE MAN
from the blue car with rising hate. It was this
MAN
who had caused all his pain; he felt sure of it.
THE MAN
had caused the pain in his joints and the high, rotten singing in his head; it was
THE MAN'S
fault that the drift of old leaves here beneath the porch now smelled putrescent; it was
THE MAN'S
fault that he could not look at water without whining and shrinking away and wanting to kill it in spite of his great thirst.

A growl began somewhere deep in his heavy chest as his legs coiled beneath him. He could smell
THE MAN
, his oil of sweat and excitement, the heavy meat set against his bones. The growl deepened, then rose to a great and shattering cry of fury. He sprang out from beneath the porch and charged at this awful
MAN
who had caused his pain.

•  •  •

During that first crucial moment, Bannerman didn't even hear Cujo's low, rising growl. He had approached the Pinto closely enough to see a mass of hair lying against the driver's side window. His first thought was that the woman must have been shot to death, but where was the bullet hole? The glass looked as if it had been bludgeoned, not shot.

Then he saw the head move. Not much—only slight—but it
had
moved. The woman was alive. He stepped forward . . . and that was when Cujo's roar, followed by a volley of snarling barks came. His first thought

(Rusty?)

was of his Irish setter, but he'd had Rusty put down four years ago, not long after the Frank Dodd thing. And Rusty had never sounded like this, and for a second crucial moment, Bannerman was frozen in his tracks with a terrible, atavistic horror.

He turned then, pulling his gun, and caught just a blurred glimpse of a dog—an incredibly big dog—launching itself into the air at him. It struck him chest-high, driving him against the Pinto's hatchback. He grunted. His right hand was driven up and his wrist struck the chrome guttering of the hatchback hard. His gun went flying. It whirled over the top of the car, butt-for-barrel and butt-for-barrel, to land in the high weeds on the other side of the driveway.

The dog was
biting
him, and as Bannerman saw the first flowers of blood open on the front of his light blue shirt, he suddenly understood everything. They'd come here, their car had seized up . . . and the dog had been here. The dog hadn't been in Masen's neat little point-to-point analysis.

Bannerman grappled with it, trying to get his hands under the dog's muzzle and bring it up and out of his belly. There was a sudden deep and numbing pain down there. His shirt was in tatters down there. Blood was pouring over his pants in a freshet. He lurched forward and the dog drove him back
with frightening force, drove him back against the Pinto with a thud that rocked the little car on its springs.

He found himself trying to remember if he and his wife had made love last night.

Crazy thing to be thinking. Crazy—

The dog bored in again. Bannerman tried to dodge away but the dog anticipated him, it was
grinning
at him, and suddenly there was more pain than he had ever felt in his life. It galvanized him. Screaming, he got both hands under the dog's muzzle again and yanked it up. For a moment, staring into those dark, crazed eyes, a swoony kind of horror came over him and he thought:
Hello, Frank. It's you, isn't it? Was hell too hot for you?

Then Cujo was snapping at his fingers, tearing them, laying them open. Bannerman forgot about Frank Dodd. He forgot about everything but trying to save his life. He tried to get to his knee up, between him and the dog, and found he couldn't. When he tried to raise his knee, the pain in his lower belly flared to a sheeting agony.

What's he done to me down there? Oh my God, what's he done? Vicky, Vicky—

Then the driver's side door of the Pinto opened. It was the woman. He had looked at the family portrait Steve Kemp had stepped on and had seen a pretty, neatly coiffed woman, the sort you look at twice on the street, the second look being mildly speculative. You saw a woman like that and you thought that her husband was lucky to have her in the kip.

This woman was a ruin. The dog had been at her as well. Her belly was streaked with dried blood. One leg of her jeans had been chewed away, and there was a sopping bandage just over her knee. But her face was the worst; it was like a hideous baked apple. Her forehead had blistered and peeled. Her lips were cracked and suppurating. Her eyes were sunken in deep purple pouches of flesh.

The dog left Bannerman in a flash and advanced on the woman, stiff-legged and growling. She retreated into the car and slammed the door.

(cruiser now got to call in got to call this in)

He turned and ran back to the cruiser. The dog chased him but he outran it. He slammed the door, grabbed the mike, and called for help, Code 3, officer needs assistance. Help came. The dog was shot. They were all saved.

All of this happened in just three seconds, and only in George Bannerman's mind. As he turned to go back to his police cruiser, his legs gave out and spilled him into the driveway.

(oh Vicky what's he done to me down there?)

The world was all dazzling sun. It was hard to see. Bannerman scrambled, clawed at the gravel, and finally made it to his knees. He looked down at himself and saw a thick gray rope of intestine hanging out of his tattered shirt. His pants were soaked with blood to both knees.

Enough. The dog had done enough to him down there.

Hold your guts in, Bannerman. If you're stepping out, you're stepping out. But not until you get to that fucking mike and call this in. Hold your guts in and get on your big flat feet—

(the kid jesus her kid is her kid in there?)

That made him think of his own daughter, Katrina, who would be going into the seventh grade this year. She was getting breasts now. Becoming quite the little lady. Piano lessons. Wanted a horse. There had been a day when, if she had crossed from the school to the library alone, Dodd would have had her instead of Mary Kate Hendrasen. When—

(move your ass)

Bannerman got to his feet. Everything was sunshine and brightness and all his insides seemed to want to slip out of the hole the dog had torn in him. The car. The police radio. Behind him, the dog was distracted; he was throwing himself crazily against the Pinto's buckled side door again and again, barking and snarling.

Bannerman staggered toward the cruiser. His face was as white as pie dough. His lips were blue gray. It was the biggest dog he had ever seen, and it had gutted him.
Gutted
him, for Christ's sake, and why was everything so hot and so bright?

His intestines were slipping through his fingers.

He reached the car door. He could hear the radio under the dash, crackling out its message.
Should have called in first. That's procedure. You never argue with procedure, but if I'd believed that, I never would have called Smith in the Dodd case. Vicky, Katrina, I'm sorry—

The boy. He had to get help for the boy.

He almost fell and grabbed the edge of the door for support.

And then he heard the dog coming for him and he began to scream again. He tried to hurry. If he could only get the door shut . . . oh, God, if only he could close the door before the dog got to him again . . .
oh, God
 . . .

(oh GOD)

•  •  •

Tad was screaming again, screaming and clawing at his face, whipping his head from side to side as Cujo thudded against the door, making it rock.

“Tad, don't! Don't . . . honey, please don't!”

“Want Daddy . . . want Daddy . . . want Daddy . . .”

Suddenly it stopped.

Holding Tad against her breasts, Donna turned her head in time to see Cujo strike the man as he tried to swing into his car. The force of it knocked his hand loose from the door.

After that she couldn't watch. She wished she could block her ears somehow as well, from the sounds of Cujo finishing with whoever it had been.

He hid,
she thought hysterically.
He heard the car coming and he
hid.

The porch door. Now was the time to go for the porch door while Cujo was . . . occupied.

She put her hand on the doorhandle, yanked it, and shoved. Nothing happened. The door wouldn't open. Cujo had finally buckled the frame enough to seal it shut.

“Tad,” she whispered feverishly. “Tad, change places with me,
quick.
Tad?
Tad?
”

Tad was shivering all over. His eyes had rolled up again.

“Ducks,” he said gutturally. “Go see the ducks. Monster Words. Daddy. Ah . . . ahhh . . .
ahhhhhhhh
—”

He was convulsing again. His arms flopped bonelessly. She began to shake him, crying his name over and over again, trying to keep his mouth open, trying to keep the airway open. There was a monstrous buzzing in her head and ahe began to be afraid that she was going to faint. This was hell, they were in hell. The morning sun streamed into the car, creating the greenhouse effect, dry and remorseless.

At last Tad quieted. His eyes had closed again. His breathing was very rapid and shallow. When she put her fingers on his wrist she found a runaway pulse, weak, thready, and irregular.

She looked outside. Cujo had hold of the man's arm and
was shaking it the way a puppy will shake a rag toy. Every now and then he would pounce on the limp body. The blood . . . there was so much blood.

As if aware he was being observed, Cujo looked up, his muzzle dripping. He looked at her with an expression (could a dog
have
an expression? she wondered madly) that seemed to convey both sternness and pity . . . and again Donna had the feeling that they had come to know each other intimately, and that there could be no stopping or resting for either of them until they had explored this terrible relationship to some ultimate conclusion.

It pounced on the man in the blood-spattered blue shirt and the khaki pants again. The dead man's head lolled on his neck. She looked away, her empty stomach sour with hot acid. Her torn leg ached and throbbed. She had torn the wound there open yet again.

Tad . . . how was he now?

He's terrible,
her mind answered inexorably.
So what are you going to do? You're his mother, what are you going to do?

What
could
she do? Would it help Tad if she went out there and got herself killed?

The policeman. Someone had sent the policeman up here. And when he didn't come back—

“Please,” she croaked. “Soon, please.”

It was eight o'clock now, and outside it was still relatively cool—77 degrees. By noon, the recorded temperature at the Portland Jetport would be 102, a new record for that date.

•  •  •

Townsend and Andy Masen arrived at the State Police barracks in Scarborough at 8:30
A.M.
Masen let Townsend run with the ball. This was his bailiwick, not Masen's, and there was not a thing wrong with Andy's ears.

The duty officer told them that Steven Kemp was on his way back to Maine. There had been no problem about that, but Kemp still wasn't talking. His van had been given a thorough going-over by Massachusetts lab technicians and forensic experts. Nothing had turned up which might indicate a woman and a boy had been held in the back, but they had found a nice little pharmacy in the van's wheel well—marijuana, some cocaine in an Anacin bottle, three amyl nitrate
poppers, and two speedy combinations of the type known as Black Beauties. It gave them a handy hook to hang Mr. Kemp on for the time being.

“That Pinto,” Andy said to Townsend, bringing them each a cup of coffee. “Where's that fucking Pinto of hers?”

Townsend shook his head.

“Has Bannerman called anything in?”

“Nope.”

“Well, give him a shout. Tell him I want him down here when they bring Kemp in. It's his jurisdiction, and I guess he's got to be the questioning officer, technically, at least.”

Townsend came back five minutes later looking puzzled. “I can't get him, Mr. Masen. Their dispatcher's tried him and says he must not be in his car.”

“Christ, he's probably having coffee down at the Cozy Corner. Well, fuck him. He's out of it.” Andy Masen lit a fresh Pall Mall, coughed, and then grinned at Townsend. “Think we can handle this Kemp without him?”