he felt utterly tranquilized already, he had accepted the shot to be polite. He picked up the cellophane the orderly had stripped from the syrette and examined the word UPJOHN printed on it carefully. “We ran an advertising campaign for these guys once,” he told the orderly.
“That so?” the orderly asked cautiously. He was a fairly young man and he felt that he might throw up sometime soon. He had never seen such a mess in his life.
One of the police cars was standing by to take Vic to Northern Cumberland Hospital in Bridgton.
“Can you wait a minute?” he asked.
The two cops nodded. They were also staring at Vic Trenton in a very cautious way, as if whatever he had might be catching.
He opened both doors of the Pinto. He had to tug long and hard at Donna’s; the dog had dented it in a way he wouldn’t have believed. Her purse was in there. Her shirt The shirt had a jagged tear in it, as if maybe the dog had taken a chomp out of it. There were some empty Slim Jim wrappers on the dashboard and Tad’s Thermos bottle, smelling of sour milk. Tad’s Snoopy lunchbox. His heart gave a heavy, horrid wrench at the sight of that, and he wouldn’t allow himself to think of what that meant in terms of the future—if there was any future after this terrible hot day. He found one of Tad’s sneakers.
Tadder, he thought. Oh Tadder.
The strength went out of his legs and he sat down heavily on the passenger seat, looking between his legs at the strip of chrome at the bottom of the doorframe. Why? Why had something like this been allowed to happen? How could so many events have conspired together?
His head was suddenly throbbing violently. His nose closed with tears and his sinuses began to pound. He snorted the tears back and passed a hand over his face. It occurred to him that, counting Tad, Cujo had been responsible for the deaths of at least three people, more than that if the Cambers were discovered to be among his victims. Did the cop he had covered with the blanket have a wife and children? Probably.
If I’d gotten here even an hour earlier. If I hadn’t gone to sleep—
His mind cried: I was so sure it was Kemp! So sure!
If I’d gotten here just fifteen minutes earlier, would that have been enough? If I hadn’t talked to Roger so long, would Tad be alive now? When did he die? Did it really happen at all? And how am I supposed to deal with it for the rest of my life without going mad? What’s going to happen to Donna?
Another police car pulled up. One of the cops got out of it and conferred with one of the cops waiting for Vic. The latter stepped forward and said quietly, “I think we ought to go, Mr. Trenton. Quentin here says there are reporters on the way. You don’t want to talk to any reporters just now.”
“No,” Vic agreed, and started to get up. As he did, he saw a bit of yellow at the very bottom of his field of vision. A bit of paper poking out from under Tad’s seat. He pulled it out and saw it was the Monster Words he had written to ease Tad’s mind at bedtime. The sheet was crumpled and ripped in two places and badly stained with sweat; along the deep creases it was nearly transparent.
Monsters, stay out of this room!
You have no business here.
No monsters under Tad’s bed!
You can’t fit under there.
No monsters hiding In Tad’s closet!
It’s too small in there.
No monsters outside of Tad’s window!
You can’t hold on out there.
No vampires, no werewolves, no things that bite.
You have no business here.
Nothing will touch Tad, or hurt Tad, all this n!—
He could read no more. He crumpled the sheet of paper up and threw it at the dead dog’s body. The paper was a sentimental lie, its sentiments as inconstant as the color in that stupid runny-dyed cereal. It was all a lie. The world was full of monsters, and they were all allowed to bite the innocent and the unwary.
He let himself be led to the police car. They drove him away, as George Bannerman and Tad Trenton and Donna Trenton had been driven away before him. After a while, a veterinarian came in a panel truck. She looked at the dead dog, then donned long rubber gloves and brought