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 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