front door—these things had awakened him to his pain again. His pain and his dull, ceaseless fury. Now he stood behind Joe in the dark doorway. His head was lowered. His eyes were nearly scarlet. His thick, tawny fur was matted with gore and drying mud. Foam drizzled from his mouth in a lather, and his teeth showed constantly because his tongue was beginning to swell.
Joe had found the Castle Rock section of the book. He got the C’s and ran a shaking finger down to CASTLE ROCK MUNICIPAL SERVICES in a boxed-off section halfway down one column. There was the number for the sheriff’s office. He reached up a finger to begin dialing, and that was when Cujo began to growl deep in his chest.
All the nerves seemed to run out of Joe Camber’s body. The telephone book slithered from his fingers and thudded against the wall again. He turned slowly toward that growling sound. He saw Cujo standing in the cellar doorway.
“Nice doggy,” he whispered huskily, and spit ran down his chin.
He made helpless water in his pants, and the sharp, ammoniac reek of it struck Cujo’s nose like a keen slap. He sprang. Joe lurched to one side on legs that felt like stilts and the dog struck the wall hard enough to punch through the wallpaper and knock out plaster dust in a white, gritty puff. Now the dog wasn’t growling; a series of heavy, grinding sounds escaped him, sounds more savage than any barks.
Joe backed toward the rear door. His feet tangled in one of the kitchen chairs. He pinwheeled his arms madly for balance, and might have gotten it back, but before that could happen Cujo bore down on him, a bloodstreaked killing machine with strings of foam flying backward from his jaws. There was a green, swampy stench about him.
“Oh m’God lay off’n me!” Joe Camber shrieked.
He remembered Gary. He covered his throat with one hand and tried to grapple with Cujo with the other. Cujo backed off momentarily, snapping, his muzzle wrinkled back in a great humorless grin that showed teeth like a row of slightly yellowed fence spikes. Then he came again.
And this time he came for Joe Camber’s balls.
“Hey kiddo, you want to come grocery shopping with me? And have lunch at Mario’s?”
Tad got up. “Yeah! Good!”
“Come on, then.”
She had her bag over her shoulder and she was wearing jeans and a faded blue shirt. Tad thought she was looking very pretty. He was relieved to see there was no sign of her tears, because when she cried, he cried. He knew it was a baby thing to do, but he couldn’t help it.
He was halfway to the car and she was slipping behind the wheel when he remembered that her Pinto was all screwed up.
“Mommy?”
“What? Get in.”
But he hung back a little, afraid. “What if the car goes kerflooey?”
“Ker—?” She was looking at him, puzzled, and then he saw by her exasperated expression that she had forgotten all about the car being screwed up. He had reminded her, and now she was unhappy again. Was it the Pinto’s fault, or was it his? He didn’t know, but the guilty feeling inside said it was his. Then her face smoothed out and she gave him a crooked little smile that he knew well enough to feel it was his special smile, the one she saved just for him. He felt better.
“We’re just going into town, Tadder. If Mom’s old blue Pinto packs it in, we’ll just have to blow two bucks on Castle Rock’s one and only taxi getting back home. Right?”
“Oh. Okay.” He got in and managed to pull the door shut. She watched him closely, ready to move at an instant, and Tad supposed she was thinking about last Christmas, when he had shut the door on his foot and had to wear an Ace bandage for about a month. But he had been just a baby then, and now he was four years old. Now he was a big boy. He knew that was true because his dad had told him. He smiled at his mother to show her the door had been no problem, and she smiled back.
“Did it latch tight?”
“Tight,” Tad agreed, so she opened it and slammed it again, because moms didn’t believe you unless you told them something bad, like you spilled the bag of sugar reaching for the peanut butter or broke a window while trying to throw a rock all the