Cujo

thank God for that

And a moment later Cujo's foam-covered, twisted face popped up outside her window, only inches away, like a horror-movie monster that has decided to give the audience the ultimate thrill by coming right out of the screen. She could see his huge, heavy teeth. And again there was that swooning, terrible feeling that the dog was looking at her, not at a woman who just happened to be trapped in her car with her little boy, but at Donna Trenton, as if he had just been hanging around, waiting for her to show up.

Cujo began to bark again, the sound incredibly loud even through the Saf-T-Glas. And suddenly it occurred to her that if she had not automatically rolled her window up as she brought the Pinto to a stop (something her father had insisted on: stop the car, roll up the windows, set the brake, take the keys, lock the car), she would now be minus her throat. Her blood would be on the wheel, the dash, the windshield. That one action, so automatic she could not even really remember performing it.

She screamed.

The dog's terrible face dropped from view.

She remembered Tad and looked around. When she saw him, a new fear invaded her, drilling like a hot needle. He had not fainted, but he was not really conscious, either. He had fallen back against the seat, his eyes dazed and blank. His face was white. His lips had gone bluish at the corners.

'Tad!' She snapped her fingers under his nose, and he blinked sluggishly at the dry sound. 'Tad!'

'Mommy,' he said thickly. 'How did the monster in my closet get out? Is it a dream? Is it my nap?'

'It's going to be all right,' she said, chilled by what he had said about his closet nonetheless. 'It's -'

She saw the dog's tail and the top of its broad back over the hood of the Pinto. It was going around to Tad's side of the car

And Tad's window wasn't shut.

She jackknifed across Tad's lap, moving with such a hard muscular spasm that she cracked her fingers on the window crank. She turned it as fast as she could, panting, feeling Tad squirming beneath her.

It was three quarters of the way up when Cujo leaped at the window. His muzzle shot in through the dosing gap and was forced upward toward the ceiling by the closing window. The sound of his snarling barks filled the small car. Tad shrieked again and wrapped his arms around his head, his forearms crossed over his eyes. He tried to dig his face into Donna's belly, reducing her leverage on the window crank in his blind efforts to get away.

'Momma! Momma! Momma! Make it stop! Make it go away!'

Something warm was running across the backs of her hands. She saw with mouting horror that it was mixed slime and blood running from the dog's mouth. Using everything that she had, she managed to force the window crank through another quarter turn . . and then Cujo pulled back. She caught just a glimpse of the Saint Bernard's features, twisted and crazy, a mad caricature of a friendly Saint Bernard's face. Then it dropped back to all fours and she could only see its back.

Now the crank turned easily. She shut the window, then wiped the backs of her hands on her jeans, uttering small cries of revulsion.

(oh Christ oh Mary Mother of God)

Tad had gone back to that dazed state of semiconsciousness again. This time when she snapped her fingers in front of his face there was no reaction.

He's going to have some complexes out of this, oh God yes. Oh sweet Tad, if only Id left you with Debbie.

She took him by the shoulders and began to shake him gently back and forth.

'Is it my nap?' he asked again.

'No' she said. He moaned -a low,' painful sound that tore at her heart. 'No, but it's all right. Tad? It's okay. That dog can't get in. The windows are shut now. It can't come in. It can't get us.'

That got through and Tad's eyes cleared a little. 'Then let's go home, Mommy. I don't want to be here.'

'Yes. Yes, we'll '

Like a great tawny projectile, Cujo leaped onto the hood of the Pinto and charged at the windshield, barking. Tad uttered another scream, his eyes bulging, his small hands digging at his cheeks, leaving angry red welts there.

'it can't get us!' Donna shouted at him. 'Do you hear me) It can't get in, Tad!'

Cujo struck the windshield with a muffled thud, bounced back, and scrabbled for purchase on the hood. He left a series of new scratches on the paint. Then he came again.

'I want to go home!' Tad screamed.

'Hug me tight, Tadder, and don't worry.'

How insane that sounded ... but what else was there to say?

Tad buried his face against her breasts just as Cujo struck the windshield again. Foam smeared against the glass as he tried to bite his way through. Those muddled, bleary eyes stared into Donna's. I'm going to pull you to pieces, they said. You and the boy both. just as soon as I find a way to get into this tin can, I'll cat you alive; I'll he swallowing pieces of you while you're still screaming.

Rabid, she thought. That dog is rabid.

With steadily mounting fear, she looked past the dog on the hood and at Joe Camber's parked truck. Had the dog bitten him?

She found the horn buttons and pressed them. The Pinto's horn blared and the dog skittered back, again almost losing its balance. 'Don't like that much, do you?' she shrieked triumphantly at it. 'Hurts your ears, doesn't it?' She jammed the horn down again.

Cujo leaped off the hood.

,Mommy, pleeease let's go home.'

She turned the key in the ignition. The motor cranked and cranked and cranked ... but the Pinto did not start. At last she turned the key off again.

'Honey, we can't go just yet. The car

'Yes! Yes! Now! Right now!'

Her head began to thud. Big, whacking pains that were in perfect sync with her heartbeat.

'Tad. Listen to me. The car doesn't want to start. It's that needle valve thing. We've got to wait until the engine cools off. It'll go then, I think. We can leave.'

All we have to do is get back out of the driveway and get pointed down the bill. Then it won't matter even if it does stall, because we can coast. If I don't chicken out and bit the brake. I should be able to make it most of the way back to the Maple Sugar Road even with the engine shut down.

or ...

She thought of the house at the bottom of the hill, the one with the honeysuckle running wild all over the east side. There were people there. She had seen cars.

People!

She began to use the horn again. Three short blasts, three long blasts, three shorts, over and over, the only Morse she remembered from her two years in the Girl Scouts. They would hear. Even if they didn't understand the message, they would come up to see who was raising bell at Joe Camber's - and why.