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 slightly - 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 terribly, 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 that 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 bell 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 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 be 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'restepping out. But not until you get to that fucking mike and call thisin. Hold your guts in and get on your big Pat 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 driver's 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 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.
