But. . . she had just about decided to make a run for the back door of the enclosed Camber porch when Cujo had come rolling and staggering out of the darkness of the barn.
Tad. Tad was the thing. She had to get him out of this. No more fucking around. He wasn't answering very coherently any more.
He seemed to he in touch only with the peaks of reality. The glazed way his eyes rolled toward her when she spoke to him, like the eyes of a fighter who has been struck and struck and struck, a fighter who has lost his coherence along with his mouthguard and is waiting only for the final flurry of punches to drop him
insensible to the canvas - those things terrified her and roused all her motherhood. Tad was the thing. If she had been alone, she would have gone for that door long ago. It was Tad who had held her back, because her mind kept circling back to the thought of the dog pulling her down, and of Tad in the car alone.
Still, until Cujo had returned fifteen minutes ago, she had been preparing herself to go for the door. She played it over and over in her mind like a home movie, did it until it seemed to one part of her mind as if it had already happened. She would shake Tad fully awake, slap him awake if she had to. Tell him he was not to leave the car and follow her - under no circumstances, no matter what happens. She would run from the car to the porch door. Try the knob. If it was unlocked, well and fine. But she was prepared for the very real possibility that it was locked. She had taken off her shirt and now sat behind the wheel in her white cotton bra, the shirt in her lap. When she went, she would go with the shirt wrapped around her hand. Far from perfect protection, but better than none at all. She would smash in the pane of glass nearest the doorknob, reach through, and let herself onto the little back porch. And if the inner door was locked, she would cope with that too. Somehow.
But Cujo had come back out, and that took away her edge.
Never mind. He'II go back in. He has before.
But will be? her mind chattered. It's all too perfect, isn't it? The Cambers are gone, and they remembered to shut off their mail like good citizens; Vic is gone, and the chances are slim that he'll call before tomorrow night, because we just Can't afford long distance every night. And if be does call, he'll call early. When he doesn't get any answer he'll assume we went out to catch some chow at Mario's or maybe a couple of ice creams at the Tastee Freeze. And he won't call later because he'll think we're asleep. He'll call tomorrow instead. Considerate Vic. Yes, it's all just too perfect Wasn't there a dog in the front of the boat in that story about the
boatman on the River Charon? The boatman's dog. just call meCujo. All out for the Valley of Death.
Go in, she silently willed the dog. Go back in the barn, damn you.
Cujo didn't move.
She licked her lips, which felt almost as puffy as Tad's looked.
She brushed his hair off his forehead and said softly, 'How you going, Tadder?'
'Shhh,' Tad muttered distractedly. 'The ducks . .
She gave him a shake. 'Tad? Honey? You okay? Talk to me!'
His eyes opened a little at a time. He looked around, a small boy who was puzzled and hot and dreadfully tired. 'Mommy? Can't we go home? I'm so hot...'
'We'll go home,' she soothed.
'When, Mom? When?' He began to cry helplessly.
Oh Tad, save your moisture, she thought. You may need it. Crazy thing to have to be thinking. But the entire situation was ridiculous to the point of lunacy, wasn't it? The idea of a small boy dying of dehydration
(stop it be is NOT dying)
less than seven miles from the nearest good-sized town was crazy.
But the situation is what it is, she reminded herself roughly. And don't you think anything else, sister. It's like a war on a miniaturized scale, so everything that looked small before looks big now. The smallest puff of air through the quarter-open windows was a zephyr. The distance to the back porch was half a mile across no-man's-land. And if you want to believe the dog is Fate, or the Ghost of Sins Remembered, or even the reincarnation of Elvis Presley, then believe it. In this curiously scaled-down
situation - this life-or-death situation -even having to go to the bathroom became a skirmish.
We're going to get out of it. No dog is going to do this to my son.
'When, Mommy?' He looked up at her, his eyes wet, his face as pale as cheese.
'Soon,' she said grimly. 'Very soon.' She brushed his hair back and held him against her. She looked out Tad's window and again her eyes fixed on that* thing lying in the high grass, that old friction-taped baseball bat.
I'd like to bash your bead in with it.
Inside the house, the phone began to ring.
She jerked her head around, suddenly wild with hope.
'Is it for us, Mommy? Is the phone for us?'
She didn't answer him. She didn't know who it was for. But, if they were lucky - and their luck was due to change soon, wasn't it? - it would be from someone with cause to be suspicious that no one was answering the phone at the Cambers'. Someone who would come out and check around.
Cujo's head had come up. His head cocked to one side, and for a moment he bore an insane resemblance to Nipper, the RCA dog with his ear to the gramophone horn. He got shakily to his feet and started toward the house and the sound of the ringing telephone.
'Maybe the doggy's going to answer the telephone,' Tad said.
'Maybe -'
With a speed and agility that was terrifying, the big dog changed direction and came at the car. The awkward stagger was gone now.
as if it had been nothing but a sly act all along. It was roaring and bellowing rather than barking. Its red eyes burned. It struck the car with a hard, dull crunch and rebounded - with stunned eyes, Donna
saw that the side of her door was actually bowed in a bit. It must be dead, she thought hysterically, bashed its sick brains in spinal fusion deep concussion must have - must have MUST HAVE
Cujo got back up. His muzzle was bloody. His eyes seemed wandering, vacuous again. Inside the house the phone rang on and on. The dog made as if to walk away, suddenly snapped viciously at its own flank as if stung, whirled, and sprang at Donna's window. It struck right in front of Donna's face with another tremendous dull thud. Blood sprayed across the Glass, and a long silver crack appeared. Tad shrieked and clapped his hands to his face, pulling his cheeks down, harrowing them with his fingernails.
The dog leaped again. Ropes of foam runnered back from his bleeding muzzle. She could see his teeth, heavy as old yellow ivory. His claws clicked on the glass. A cut between his eyes was streaming blood. His eyes were fixed on hers; dumb, dull eyes, but not without - she would have sworn it not without some knowledge. Some malign knowledge.
'Get out of here!' she screamed at it.
