the old monster comes from the shadows, rabid and snarling. He goes for the woman first and the man tries to save her—
(no, he would have gotten his gun or brained it with a wrench or something and where’s the car? There was a car here before they all went off on a family trip—do you hear me FAMILY TRIP—took the car left the truck)
Then why had no one come to feed the dog?
That was the logic of the thing, part of what frightened her. Why hadn’t anyone come to feed the dog? Because if you were going to be away for a day or for a couple of days, you made an arrangement with somebody. They fed your dog for you, and then when they were gone, you feed their cat for them, or their fish, or their parakeet, or whatever. So where—
And the dog kept going back into the barn.
Was it eating in there?
That’s the answer, her mind told her, relieved. He didn’t have anyone to feed the dog, so he poured it a tray of food. Gaines Meal, or something.
But then she stuck upon what Joe Camber himself had stuck upon earlier on that long, long day. A big dog would gobble it all at once and then go hungry. Surely it would be better to get a friend to feed the dog if you were going to be gone. On the other hand, maybe they had been held up. Maybe there really had been a family reunion, and Camber had gotten drunk and passed out. Maybe this, maybe that, maybe anything.
Is the dog eating in the barn?
(what is it eating in there? Gaines Meal? or people?)
She spat the last of the cucumber into her cupped hand and felt her stomach roll, wanting to send up what she had already eaten. She set her will upon keeping it down, and because she could be very determined when she wanted to, she did keep it down. They had left the dog some food and had gone off in the car. You didn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that. The rest of it was nothing but a bad case of the willies.
But that image of death kept trying to creep back in. The dominant image was the bloody sawdust, sawdust which had gone the dark color of natural-casing franks.
Stop. Think about the mail, if you have to think about anything. Think about tomorrow. Think about being safe.
There was a soft, scuffling, scratching noise on her side of the car.
She didn’t want to look but was helpless to stop herself. Her head began to turn as if forced by invisible yet powerful hands. She could hear the low creak of the tendons in her neck. Cujo was there, looking in at her. His face was less than six inches from her own. Only the Saf-T-Glas of the driver’s side window separated them. Those red, bleary eyes stared into hers. The dog’s muzzle looked as if it had been badly lathered with shaving cream that had been left to dry.
Cujo was grinning at her.
She felt a scream building in her chest, coming up in her throat like iron, because she could feel the dog thinking at her, telling her I’m going to get you, babe. I’m going to get you, kiddo. Think about the mailman all you want to. I’ll kill him too if I have to, the way I killed all three of the Cambers, the way I’m going to kill you and your son. You might as well get used to the idea. You might as well—
The scream, coming up her throat. It was a live thing struggling to get out, and everything was coming on her at once: Tad having to pee, she had unrolled his window four inches and held him up so he could do it out the window, watching all the time for the dog, and for a long time he hadn’t been able to go and her arms had begun to ache; then the dream, then the images of death, and now this—
The dog was grinning in at her; he was grinning in at her, Cujo was his name, and his bite was death.
The scream had to come
(but Tad’s) or she would go mad.
(sleeping)
She locked her jaws against the scream the way she had locked her throat against the urge to vomit a few moments ago. She struggled with it, she fought it. And at last her heart began to slow down