Chapter 8 8

It's not going to happen, Jesse told himself.No way, just relax. She kept saying this to herself, until at that moment, the left side of the bed blocked her view, and she couldn't see the upper body of the wild dog.The dog's tail began to wag more violently, and then it made a sound she could recognize—the sound of a dog drinking from a pool on a hot day.It's just not quite the same voice, it's more rude.Somehow, rather than the sound of drinking water, it was more like the sound of licking.Jessie stared at the swiftly wagging tail, her brain suddenly showing a scene blocked by the angle of the bed: the burdock-stained, weary and wary, homeless stray dog ​​was being pulled from her husband's sparse His blood was licking in his hair.

"No!" She lifted her butt off the bed and swept her legs to the left. "Get off of him! Get away from me!" She kicked out, one of her heels brushing against the protruding knuckle of the dog's spine. The dog immediately straightened up and lifted its nose and mouth.Its eyes are so wide open, revealing two thin white circles.Its teeth are bared, and in the fading afternoon sun, the cobweb-like threads of saliva drawn between its upper and lower front teeth look like strands of gold.It lunged forward at her bare feet, and Jessie shrieked and drew back her legs, feeling the dog's hot snort on her skin, but her toes held.She tucked her legs under her body again, a movement she didn't realize, didn't hear the angry cry from her strained shoulder muscles, didn't feel her knuckles turning reluctantly in the bonefield.

The dog looked at her for a while longer, then continued to bark, threatening her with his eyes. Ma'am, let's come to an agreement.That look said, you do your thing, I do mine, that is understanding.Sound like it?It better be so, because if you get in my way, I'll ruin you.Besides, he's dead—you and I both know that.Why am I starving and letting him be wasted?You will do the same, I wonder if you understand now?I trust, however, that you will come to agree with me on this matter more quickly than you think. "Get out!" she screamed.Now, sitting on her heels, with her arms outstretched, she looked more like Fay Rae, a sacrificial jungle altar, than ever.Her posture—head held high, chest outstretched, shoulders pulled back so far that the corners of them were stretched white, two deep triangular grooves in the dimples of her neck—was the girl. The glamorous poses that are so popular in magazines, but without the provocative lip curls.The expression on her face was that of a woman on the edge of the line between sanity and madness.

"Get out of here!" The dog continued to look up at her, growled for a while, and then, when it was sure it would not be kicked again, ignored her and lowered its head again, this time without the snorting or licking.Jesse heard a loud smack instead.It reminded Jesse of the sound of brother Will kissing Grandma's cheek passionately when they went to see Grandma Joan. The barking went on for a few seconds, but now it was oddly muffled, as if someone had put a pillowcase over the dog's head.Her new sitting position brought her hair almost to the bottom of the headboard above her head.From here she could see Gerald's fat feet and his right arm and right hand.One foot was bouncing back and forth, as if Jerrod was doing a rock-and-roll dance to the beat of some rock track—say, Ryan Max's "Another Summer."

From this new vantage point she could see the dogs better.Now the dog's body is in view all the way to the beginning of the neck.If the dog looked up, she could see his head too.However, it did not raise its head. The wild dog lowered its head, its hind legs stiffened.Suddenly there was a thick tearing sound - a sneezing sound, like someone with a bad cold trying to clear their throat.She moaned, "Stop... Hey, please stop, can't you stop?" The dog ignored it.It once sat up straight and begged for leftovers from people. At that time, it opened its mouth and smiled in its eyes.But, like its former name, those days are long gone and hard to find.This is now, the way it is - survival is not a matter of being polite and apologetic.It has not eaten for two days.Here's the food, though there's still an owner who doesn't want him to eat it (there's been some owners who laughed and patted him on the head when he did all his little tricks, calling him a good dog, Give it some food crumbs. Those days are gone).This owner's feet are small and soft, not hard and hurtful.Her voice showed that there was nothing she could do.

The ex-prince's snarl turned into a gasp at the door, and Jesse watched as Gerald's body began to swing with his feet.At first it just swayed back and forth, and then it actually started to slide, as if whether he was dead or alive, he was completely intoxicated by the music. Do it, Gerald the Disco!Jesse was thinking wildly.Never mind that much - kill that dog! If the carpet was still on the floor, it would be impossible for the dogs to move him.However, the week after Labor Day, Jesse made arrangements to wax the floors.Their janitor, Bill Dun, brought in two men from the floor repair shop.They worked very hard.They hoped that the next time Mr. and Mrs. happened to stop by, they would appreciate their masterpiece, so they rolled up the rug and put it in the hall closet.The wild dog could easily move disco dancing Gerald on the slippery floor.Like John Travalta in "Saturday Night Fever," the dog's only real trouble is keeping his feet from slipping.In this regard, its long, dirty claws help.Its gums dug into Gerald's floppy upper arm and receded, its claws digging into the smooth floor wax, leaving jagged marks.

I'm not watching this scene, you know.These don't really happen.Only a short while ago, we were listening to Ryan Max singing.Jerrod, with the volume down for a long time, came to tell me he was going to watch football in Honoro this Saturday.I remember him stroking his right earlobe as he talked, how could he just die with a dog dragging his arm across the bedroom floor? The hair on Gerald's forehead was disheveled—perhaps the result of the dog licking the blood there.But his glasses were still firmly in place.She could see his eyes, half-open and glazed, the balls in their puffy sockets gazing at the fading shadows of the sun on the ceiling.His face was still covered with ugly red or purple rashes, as if even death could not take away his anger at her capricious change of mind.

"Let him go," she said to the dog.But at this moment her voice was limp, without strength, and the dog didn't even move its ears, and didn't stop moving at all.It just kept dragging the thing with the messy hairline between the forehead and the rash on the skin.This thing doesn't look like Disco Gerald anymore - not at all.Now it was Dead Jerrod, gliding across the bedroom floor with the dog's teeth gripping his flabby bicep. A flake of scraped skin hung from the dog's mouth, and Jessie tried to tell herself that it looked like wallpaper, but the wallpaper didn't have—at least as far as she knew—the scars from moles and vaccinations.Now she could see Gerald's fleshy pink belly, the only marking on it was a small-gauge bullet eye, which was his navel.His cock dangled in the nest of black pubic hair.His hips slid smoothly and unhindered across the hardwood floor, making a low noise.

Suddenly, the suffocating atmosphere of terror was pierced by a burst of anger. The anger was so strong that it was like a bolt of lightning flashed through his chest.She doesn't just acknowledge this new emotion, she happily accepts it.Anger might not help her out of this nightmare situation, but she realized that anger could be used to dissolve the growing illusion of shock. "You beast!" she said in a low, trembling voice, "you with your tail between your legs. Sneaky beast!" Although Jessie couldn't reach anything on Gerald's side of the bedside shelf, she found that by turning her left wrist in the handcuffs, she could point her hand in the direction of her shoulder and move her fingers a short distance on her side. .She couldn't turn her head enough to see what she was touching—they were just out of the corner of what people called her eyes, but that didn't matter.She knew exactly what was on the shelf.She flicked her fingers back and forth, brushing tubes of cosmetics with her fingertips, pushing some to the back of the shelf, knocking over some.Some knocked-over cosmetics landed on the bedspread, others bounced off the bed or her left buttock and onto the floor.Nothing even came close to what she was looking for.Her fingers gripped a jar of Neve cream, and for a moment she let herself think that maybe this stuff could help.But it was just a sample jar, too small and too light, even if it wasn't plastic but made of glass, it wouldn't hurt the dog. She put it back on the shelf and continued her blind search.

As far as she could reach, her searching fingers touched a round-edged glass object, the largest thing she had ever touched.For a moment she didn't remember what it was, then she did.The beer mug hanging on the wall is just a memento of Jerrod's fraternity visit.What she touched was another one, an ashtray.She didn't recognize right away that it belonged on Gerald's side of the shelf, next to his glass of ice water.Someone—perhaps Mrs. Dale, the sweeper, or Gerald himself—moved it to her side.Maybe it moved while sweeping the head of the bed, maybe to make room for something else.In any case, it doesn't matter what the reason is.It's here, and that's enough for the moment.

Jessie put his fingers around its round sides and found its two recesses—where the cigarettes were.She grabbed the ashtray, pulled her hand back as far as she could, then stretched it forward again, and as luck would have it, as soon as the chains of the handcuffs tightened, she snapped her wrists down like a first-rate pitcher.It's all purely impulsive behavior.She searched for, found, and threw the projectile before she had time to assess whether the throw would fail.She thought about how a woman like her, who got a D in throwing in two years of college gym class, could hit a dog with an ashtray?Her throwing hand was handcuffed to the bedpost again. However, she did hit the dog.The ashtray flipped once mid-flight, briefly revealing the alumni motto of the alumni association—Dedication, Development, Courage—inscribed in Latin along a torch.Then it started to roll over again, but it didn't turn completely over before it hit the dog's tense, thin shoulder. The dog let out a bark of surprise and pain, and Jessie felt a strong yet simple sense of triumph.Her mouth was opened wide in what might have been a grin, but was actually a scream.She roared with extreme excitement, arched her back and straightened her legs at the same time, her cartilage was pulled, and the joints that had long lost their flexibility were almost pulled out of their joints, yet again she was unaware of the pain in her shoulder.She's going to feel pain later—every movement she makes, pulling, twisting—but now, with the ecstasy of her success distracting her, she feels that if she doesn't express her success in some way Get super excited and she'll explode.She drummed her feet on the coverlet, swaying from side to side, sweaty hair whipping her cheeks and temples, the tendons in her throat sticking out like thick wires. "Ha!" she cried, "I...hit...you...! Haha!" When the ashtray hit the dog, it jumped backwards.The ashtray twisted violently as it fell and smashed to the ground.Hearing the change in the shrew master's voice, its ears perked up.Instead of fear, it now hears tones of triumph.Soon she'll be out of bed and start kicking it with those weird feet.That kind of kicking is not soft, but tough.The dog knows that if it stays here, it will be hurt again like before, and it must run away. It turned its head and saw clearly that the escape route was still clear, but at the same time, the alluring aroma of fresh flesh attacked it again, the dog's stomach convulsed, it was so hungry that it was sour, the matter was urgent.Whimpering restlessly, stuck at two opposing commands, the smell of urine from both—a smell that suggested disease and weakness rather than strength and confidence—added to his frustration and confusion, and he began to bark again . Jess cringed at the obnoxious hiss—she'd cover her ears if she could.The dog sensed another change in the house—something changed in the scent of the fierce master.Her adrenal smell, though fresh, was fading.The dog was beginning to sense that perhaps the blow to his shoulder didn't mean another blow would follow.In any case, the blow hurt it rather than startled it.The dog took a tentative step towards the arm that was lowered towards it—the pile of flesh and blood exuding a strong and seductive smell.The dog watches its fierce master as it moves.Its initial estimate that she was either invulnerable or helpless, or both, might be wrong, and it had to be very careful. Jessie was lying on the bed, now faintly aware of the throbbing pain in her shoulder, and even more aware that her throat was really hurt now.Most clearly aware that the dog is still here.In her first impulse of victory she had thought that the dog must flee, and that seemed a certainty, but somehow the dog held the ground.Worse, it went on again, yes, cautiously, but it went on again.Somewhere inside she felt a green venomous swell bursting—the stuff had a bitter taste, as nasty as hemlock.She feared that if that poison sac burst, she would suffocate to death with the rage of her own frustration. "Get out, idiot," she barked at the dog at the top of her lungs. "Get out, or I'll kill you. I don't know how, but I promise to God, I'm going to kill you." The dog stopped again and looked at her with a deeply disturbed look. "By the way, you'd better listen to me," Jessie said. "Better like this, because I'm telling the truth, every word is the truth." Then her voice rose again, into a yell , though her overstretched throat began to lose her voice, some words came out as whispers. "I'm going to kill you, I swear I'm going to kill you, so get out!" The dog that was Catherine Sutlin's prince looked at his fierce master and then at his meat; he looked at his meat and then at his master.The next time he saw the meat from his master, he made a decision that Catherine's dad would call a compromise.It crawled forward while rolling its eyes to stare at Jesse.It grabbed a gnawed piece of tendon, fat, and cartilage that had once been Jerrod Burlingame's right bicep.The dog barked and tugged backward, and Gerald's arm was raised, his limp fingers seemingly pointing at the Mercedes in the driveway outside the east window. "Stop!" Jesse screamed.Now, her voice moved more frequently into the high register, where the screams turned into gasping falsetto whispers. "Aren't you finished? Please leave him alone!" The wild dogs ignored it.It shook its head quickly, as it used to do when playing a game with Katherine Sutlin with a rubber toy, however, this was no game, the dingo was tearing, tearing the flesh from the bone, curd-like Foam flew from its chin.Gerald's manicured fingers wildly danced back and forth in the air, and now he looked like a conductor, urging his players to speed up the sound. Jessie heard that rough throat clearing sound again, and she suddenly felt like throwing up. No!Jesse!It was Ruth's voice, full of panic.No!You can't do that!The smell of vomit will draw the dog towards you... lure him to you! Jesse struggled to hold back the lump in his throat, his face distorted in tension.There was another tearing sound, and before she could close her eyes, she caught a glimpse of the dog—its front paws tensed again, and it seemed to be standing on the end of a dark rubber band, the color It's the can washer kind.She tried to cover her face with her hands, forgetting for a moment in her frustration that she was in handcuffs.Her hands were at least two feet apart, and the cuffs clattered.Jesse groaned.The voice crossed from frustration to despair, and it sounded like giving up trying. She heard that warm tearing sound again.Then there was a blissful smack of lips, and the sound died down, and Jessie didn't open his eyes. The wild dog started to recede towards the entrance of the hall, its eyes never leaving the shrew master on the bed.It held a large, shiny chunk of Jerold Burlingame in its jaw.If the owner of the bed intends to take this piece of meat back, he will fight for it now.A dog doesn't think - at least not in the human sense of the word - but its complex network of instincts provides it with an effective substitute for thinking, and it knows what it does - its act of robbery —formed a sin.But it has been hungry for a long time.It was abandoned in the woods by a man who went home blowing "Born Free."He was starving now, and would fight that shrew master if he tried to take his supper away. It took one last look at her, saw that she was not about to move out of bed, and turned away.It held the piece of meat firmly under its claws, dragged it to the entrance to the hall, and settled down.A gust of wind blew the door open, and then slammed the door shut.The wild dog glanced in that direction, making sure in his unthinking dog fashion that he could push the door open with his muzzle and get away quickly if need be.Having attended to this last business, he resumed his meal.