Cujo Read online

  Never mind all that. Mind this instead: Just the fact, just the public announcement in the trades that Ad Worx had lost the Sharp account--just that would probably cause shares to bob up another point and a half to two points. And when a new ad campaign actually began, investors would take it as a sign that the old woes were finally behind the company, and the stock might creep up another point.

  Of course, Vic thought, stirring Sweet 'n Low into his coffee, that was only theory. And even if the theory turned out to be true, both he and Roger believed that a short-run gain for Sharp would be more than offset if a new ad campaign, hastily thrown together by people who didn't know the Sharp Company as he and Roger did, or the competitive cereal market in general, didn't do the job.

  And suddenly that new slant, that fresh angle, popped into his mind. It came unbidden and unexpected. His coffee cup paused halfway to his mouth and his eyes widened. In his mind he saw two men--perhaps him and Roger, perhaps old man Sharp and his ageing kid--filling in a grave, Their spades were flying. A lantern flickered fitfully in the windy night. Rain was drizzling down. These corporate sextons threw an occasional furtive glance behind them. It was a burial by night, a covert act performed in the darkness. They were burying the Sharp Cereal Professor in secret, and that was wrong.

  "Wrong," he muttered aloud.

  Sure it was. Because if they buried him in the dead of night, he could never say what he had to say: that he was sorry.

  He took his Pentel pen from his inner coat pocket, took a napkin from the holder, and wrote swiftly across it:

  The Sharp Cereal Professor needs to apologize.

  He looked at it. The letters were getting larger, fuzzing as the ink sank into the napkin. Below that first sentence he added:

  Decent burial.

  And below that:

  DAYLIGHT burial.

  He still wasn't sure what it meant; it was more metaphor than sense, but that was how his best ideas came to him. And there was something there. He felt sure of it.

  Cujo lay on the floor of the garage, in semi-gloom. It was hot in here but it was even worse outside . . . and the daylight outside was too bright. It never had been before; in fact, he had never even really noticed the quality of the light before. But he was noticing now. Cujo's head hurt. His muscles hurt. The bright light made his eyes hurt. He was hot And his muzzle still ached where he had been scratched.

  Ached and festered.

  THE MAN was gone somewhere. Not long after he left, THE BOY and THE WOMAN had gone somewhere, leaving him alone. THE BOY had put a big dish of food out for Cujo, and Cujo had eaten a little bit. The food made him feel worse instead of better, and he left the rest of it alone.

  Now there was the growl of a truck turning into the driveway. Cujo got up and went to the barn door, knowing already it was a stranger. He knew the sound of both THE MAN'S truck and the family car. He stood in the doorway, head poking out into the bright glare that hurt his eyes. The truck backed up the driveway and then stopped. Two men got down from the cab and came around to the back. One of them ran up the truck's sliding back door. The rattling, banging noise hurt Cujo's ears. He whined and retreated back into the comforting gloom.

  The truck was from Portland Machine. Three hours ago, Charity Camber and her still-dazzled son had gone into Portland Machine's main office on Brighton Avenue and she had written a personal check for a new Jorgen chainfall--wholesale had turned out to be exactly $1,241.71, tax included. Before going to Portland Machine she had gone into the State Liquor Store on Congress Street to fill out a lottery claim form. Brett, forbidden absolutely to come inside with her, stood on the sidewalk with his hands in his pockets.

  The clerk told Charity she would get a Lottery Commission check in the mail. How long? Two weeks at the very outside. It would come minus a deduction of roughly eight hundred dollars for taxes. This sum was based on her declaration of Joe's yearly income.

  The deduction for taxes before the fact did not anger Charity at all. Up until the moment when the clerk had checked her number against his sheet, she had been holding her breath, still unable to believe this had really happened to her. Then the clerk had nodded, congratulated her, and even called the manager out of his office to meet her. None of that mattered. What mattered was that now she could breathe again, and the ticket was no longer her responsibility. It had returned to the bowels of the Lottery Commission. Her Check Would Be in the Mail--wonderful, mystical, talismanic phrase.

  And still she felt a small pang as she watched the dog-eared ticket, limp with her own nervous perspiration, clipped to the form she had filled out and then stored away. Lady Luck had singled her out. For the first time in her life, maybe for the only time, that heavy muslin drape of the everyday had been twitched a little, showing her a bright and shining world beyond. She was a practical woman, and in her heart she knew that she hated her husband more than a little, and feared him more than a little, but that they would grow old together, and he would die, leaving her with his debts and--this she would not admit for sure even in her secret heart, but now she feared it!--perhaps with his spoilt son.

  If her name had been plucked from the big drum in the twice-yearly Super Drawing, if she had won ten times the five thousand dollars she had won, she might have entertained notions of pushing aside that dull muslin curtain, taking her son by the hand, and leading them both out into whatever was beyond Town Road No. 3 and Camber's Garage, Foreign Cars Our Specialty, and Castle Rock. She might have taken Brett to Connecticut with the express purpose of asking her sister how much a small apartment in Stratford would cost.

  But it had only been a twitch of the curtain. That was all. She had seen Lady Luck for a bare, brief moment, as wonderful, puzzling, and inexplicable as a bright fairy dancing under mushrooms in the dewy light of dawn . . . seen once, never again. So she felt a pang when the ticket disappeared from her view, even though it had robbed her sleep. She understood that she would buy a lottery ticket a week for the rest of her life and never win more than two dollars all at once.

  Never mind. You don't count teeth in a gifthorse. Not if you were smart.

  They went out to Portland Machine and she had written the check, reminding herself to stop at the bank on their way home and transfer enough money from savings to checking so that the check wouldn't bounce. She and Joe had a little over four thousand dollars in their savings account after fifteen years. Just about enough to cover three quarters of their outstanding debts, if you excluded the mortgage on the farm. She had no right to exclude that, of course, but she always did. She could not bring herself to think about the mortgage except payment by payment. But they could dent the savings all they wanted to now, and then deposit the Lottery Commission check in that account when it came. All they would be losing was two weeks' interest.

  The man from Portland Machine, Lewis Belasco, said he would have the chainfall delivered that very afternoon, and he was as good as his word.

  Joe Magruder and Ronnie DuBay got the chainfall on the truck's pneumatic Step-Loader, and it whooshed gently down to the dirt driveway on a sigh of air.

  "Pretty big order for ole Joe Camber," Ronnie said.

  Magruder nodded. "Put it in the barn, his wife said. That's his garage. Better get a good hold, Ronnie. This is a heavy whore."

  Joe Magruder got his hold, Ronnie got his, and, puffing and grunting, the two of them half walked it, half carried it into the barn.

  "Let's set it down a minute," Ronnie managed. "I can't see where the hell I'm goin. Let's get used to the dark before we go ass over cowcatcher."

  They set-the chainfall down with a thump. After the bright afternoon glare outside, Joe was mostly blinded. He could only make out the vague shapes of things--a car up on jacks, a workbench, a sense of beams going up to a loft.

  "This thing ought--" Ronnie began, and then stopped abruptly.

  Coming out of the darkness from beyond the front end of the jacked-up car was a low, guttural growling. Ronnie felt the sweat he had worke
d up suddenly turn clammy. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred.

  "Holy crow, you hear that?" Magruder whispered. Ronnie could see Joe now. Joe's eyes were big and scared-looking.

  "I hear it."

  It was a sound as low as a powerful outboard engine idling. Ronnie knew it took a big dog to make a sound like that. And when a big dog did, it more often than not meant business. He hadn't seen a BEWARE OF DOG sign when they drove up, but sometimes these bumpkins from the boonies didn't bother with one. He knew one thing. He hoped to God that the dog making that sound was chained up.

  "Joe? You ever been out here before?"

  "Once. It's a Saint Bernard. Big as a fucking house. He didn't do that before." Joe gulped. Ronnie heard something in his throat click. "Oh, God. Lookit there, Ronnie."

  Ronnie's eyes had come partway to adjusting, and his half-sight lent what he was seeing a spectral, almost supernatural cast. He knew you never showed a mean dog your fear--they could smell it coming off you--but he began to shudder helplessly anyway. He couldn't help it. The dog was a monster. It was standing deep in the barn, beyond the jacked-up car. It was a Saint Bernard for sure; there was no mistaking the heavy coat, tawny even in the shadows, the breadth of shoulder. Its head was down. Its eyes glared at them with steady, sunken animosity.

  It wasn't on a chain.

  "Back up slow," Joe said. "Don't run, for Christ's sake." They began to back up, and as they did, the dog began to walk slowly forward. It was a stiff walk; not really a walk at all, Ronnie thought. It was a stalk. That dog wasn't fucking around. Its engine was running and it was ready to go. Its head remained low. That growl never changed pitch. It took a step forward for every step they took back.

  For Joe Magruder the worst moment came when they backed into the bright sunlight again. It dazzled him, blinded him. He could no longer see the dog. If it came for him now--

  Reaching behind him, he felt the side of the truck. That was enough to break his nerve. He bolted for the cab.

  On the other side, Ronnie DuBay did the same. He reached the passenger door and fumbled at the latch for an endless moment. He clawed at it. He could still hear that low growling, so much like an idling Evinrude 80 hp motor. The door wouldn't open. He waited for the dog to pull a chunk of his ass off. At last his thumb found the button, the door opened, and he scrambled into the cab, panting.

  He looked in the rearview mirror bolted outside his window and saw the dog standing in the open barn door, motionless. He looked over at Joe, who was sitting behind the wheel and grinning at him sheepishly. Ronnie offered his own shaky grin in return.

  "Just a dog," Ronnie said.

  "Yeah. Bark's worse'n his bite."

  "Right. Let's go back in there and screw around with that chainfall some more."

  "Fuck you," Joe said.

  "And the horse you rode in on."

  They laughed together. Ronnie passed him a smoke.

  "What do you say we get going?"

  "I'm your guy," Joe said, and started the truck.

  Halfway back to Portland, Ronnie said, almost to himself: "That dog's going bad."

  Joe was driving with his elbow cocked out the window. He glanced over at Ronnie. "I was scared, and I don't mind saying so. One of those little dogs gives me shit in a situation like that, with nobody home, I'd just as soon kick it in the balls, you know? I mean, if people don't chain up a dog that bites, they deserve what they get, you know? That thing . . . did you see it? I bet that motherhumper went two hundred pounds."

  "Maybe I ought to give Joe Camber a call," Ronnie said. "Tell him what happened. Might save him gettin his arm chewed off. What do you think?"

  "What's Joe Camber done for you lately?" Joe Magruder asked with a grin.

  Ronnie nodded thoughtfully. "He don't blow me like you do, that's true."

  "Last blowjob I had was from your wife. Wasn't half bad, either."

  "Get bent, you fairy."

  They laughed together. Nobody called Joe Camber. When they got back to Portland Machine, it was near knocking-off time. Screwing-around time. They took fifteen minutes writing the trip up. Belasco came out back and asked them if Camber had been there to take delivery. Ronnie DuBay said sure. Belasco, who was a prick of the highest order, went away. Joe Magruder told Ronnie to have a nice weekend and a happy fucking Fourth. Ronnie said he planned to get in the bag and stay that way until Sunday night. They clocked out.

  Neither of them thought about Cujo again until they read about him in the paper.

  Vic spent most of that afternoon before the long weekend going over the details of the trip with Roger. Roger was so careful about details that he was almost paranoid. He had made the plane and hotel reservations through an agency. Their flight to Boston would leave Portland Jetport at 7:10 A.M. Monday. Vic said he would pick Roger up in the Jag at 5:30. He thought that was unnecessarily early, but he knew Roger and Roger's little tics. They talked generally about the trip, consciously avoiding specifics. Vic kept his coffee-break ideas to himself and the napkin stowed safely away in his sport-jacket pocket. Roger would be more receptive when they were away.

  Vic thought about leaving early and decided to go back and check the afternoon mail first. Lisa, their secretary, had already left for the day, getting a jump on the holiday weekend. Hell, you couldn't get a secretary to stay until the stroke of five any more, holiday weekend or not. As far as Vic was concerned, it was just another sign of the continuing decay of Western Civ. Probably at this very moment Lisa, who was beautiful, just twenty-one, and almost totally breastless, was entering the Interstate flow of traffic, bound south to Old Orchard or the Hamptons, dressed in tight jeans and a nothing halter. Get down, disco Lisa, Vic thought, and grinned a little.

  There was a single unopened letter on his desk blotter.

  He picked it up curiously, noting first the word PERSONAL printed below the address, and second the fact that his address had been printed in solid caps.

  He held it, turning it over in his hands, feeling a vague thread of disquiet slip into what was a general mood of tired well-being. Far back in his mind, hardly even acknowledged, was a sudden urge to rip the letter into halves, fourths, eighths, and then toss the pieces into the wastebasket.

  Instead, he tore it open and pulled out a single sheet of paper.

  More block letters.

  The simple message--six sentences--hit him like a straight shot just below the heart. He did not so much sit in his chair as collapse into it. A little grunt escaped him, the sound of a man who has suddenly lost all his wind. His mind roared with nothing but white noise for a length of time he didn't--couldn't--understand or comprehend. If Roger had come in just then, he likely would have thought Vic was having a heart attack. In a way, he was. His face was paper-white. His mouth hung open. Bluish half-moons had appeared under his eyes.

  He read the message again.

  And then again.

  At first his eyes were drawn to the first interrogative: WHAT'S THAT MOLE JUST ABOVE HER PUBIC HAIR LOOK LIKE TO YOU?

  It's a mistake, he thought confusedly. No one knows about that but me . . . well, her mother. And her father. Then, hurt, he felt the first splinters of jealousy: Even her bikini covers that . . . her little bikini. . . . .

  He ran a hand through his hair. He put the letter down and ran both hands through his hair. That punched, gasping feeling was still there in his chest. The feeling that his heart was pumping air instead of blood. He felt fright and pain and confusion. But of the three, the dominant feeling, the overriding emotion, was terrible fright.

  The letter glared up at him and shouted: I ENJOYED FUCKING THE SHIT OUT OF HER.

  Now it was this line his eyes fixed upon, not wanting to leave. He could hear the drone of a plane in the sky outside, leaving the Jetport, heading up, heading out, making for points unknown, and he thought, I ENJOYED FUCKING THE SHIT OUT OF HER. Crude, that's crude. Yes sir and yes ma'am, yes indeedy. It was the hack of a blunt knife. FUCKING THE SHIT OUT OF HER, wh
at an image that made. Nothing fancy about it. It was like getting a splash in the eyes from a squirt-gun loaded up with battery acid.

  He tried hard to think coherently and

  (I ENJOYED)

  just couldn't

  (FUCKING THE SHIT OUT OF HER)

  do it.

  Now his eyes went to the last line and that was the one he read over and over again, as if trying to cram the sense of it somehow into his brain. That huge feeling of fright kept getting in the way.

  DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS?

  Yes. All of a sudden he had all kinds of questions. The only thing was, he didn't seem to want answers to any of them.

  A new thought crossed his mind. What if Roger hadn't gone home? Often he poked his head into Vic's office before leaving if there was a light on. He might be even more likely to do so tonight, with the trip pending. The thought made Vic feel panicky, and an absurd memory surfaced: all those times he had spent masturbating in the bathroom as a teenager, unable to help himself but terribly afraid everyone must know exactly what he was up to in there. If Roger came in, he would see something was wrong. He didn't want that. He got up and went to the window, which looked down six stories to the parking lot which served the building. Roger's bright-yellow Honda Civic was gone from its space. He had gone home.

  Pulled out of himself, Vic listened. The offices of Ad Worx were totally silent. There was that resonating quiet that seems the sole property of business quarters after hours. There was not even the sound of old Mr. Steigmeyer, the custodian, rattling around. He would have to sign out in the lobby. He would have to--

  Now there was a sound. At first he didn't know what it was. It came to him in a moment. It was whimpering. The sound of an animal with a smashed foot. Still looking out the window, he saw the cars left in the parking lot double, then treble, through a film of tears.

  Why couldn't he get mad? Why did he have to be so fucking scared?