Chapter 8 6

Gary saw the dog rushing towards him, turned and fled.Every bite, every scratch, means death.He fled to the porch, to the safety of the house behind the porch.But he had had too many drinks, too many winter days by the fire, too many summer nights in lawn chairs.He could hear Cujo approaching behind him, and then for a frightening brief moment, when he heard nothing, he knew, Cujo pounced. Just as one of his feet was on the crumbling first step of the porch, the St. Bernard's two hundred pounds hit him like a locomotive, knocking him down with a howling gust of wind. on the ground.The dog lunged at the back of his neck, and Gary got up panting. The dog was on top of him, and the hair on his lower abdomen was almost smothering him. It had easily thrown him on his back.Gary screamed.

Cujo bit him high on the shoulder, his powerful forepaws clawing at Gary's bare skin, picking out tendons that looked like snapped wires.It continued howling.The blood was coming out, and Gary felt it run warmly down his upper arm.He turned around and slammed his fists at the dog in succession, which helped a little.Gary got up on hands and feet and crawled forward three steps.Cujo pounced again. Gary kicked the dog.Cujo wobbled to one side, then leaned straight in again, howling and swooping, foam running down its jaws, and Gary could smell his mouth, rotten and fetid and yellow.Gary slammed with his left fist, hitting the bone of Cujo's jaw with perfect precision.The vibration of the heavy blow was transmitted along his arm to his shoulder, and the deeply bitten wound on his shoulder was burning with pain.

Cujo backed away again. Gary looked at the dog, his hairless chest jerking up and down, his face turning gray, the tear in his shoulder full of blood that spattered onto the peeling porch steps. "Come on me, you bastard," he said. "Come on, come on, I can't even fart," he screamed, "Did you hear that? I can't even fart!" But Cujo took another step back. Those words still don't make much sense.But the smell of terror had left the man, and Cujo wasn't sure if he was going to strike again.It was wounded, so tragically wounded, and the world became such a patchwork of feelings and impressions—

Gary staggered to his feet.He backed up the last two steps of the porch, his shoulders feeling like a barrel of gasoline poured under his skin.His consciousness yelled at him: "Rabies, I have rabies." Never mind, one at a time, his shotgun is in the hall closet.Thank you for the love of Christ, Brett Camber left today and was not on the mountain.It's all because of God's mercy. He found the screen door handle and pulled the door open.With his eyes fixed on Cujo, he stepped back into the door and closed it.He felt a great relief, the elasticity in his legs.For a moment the world swims away, but he sticks out his tongue and bites hard, pulling himself back again.Now he didn't have time to be as ecstatic as the little girl, if he wanted to, he could do it after the dog died.But God, it was out there, and he figured he'd have to fight his way out to get out.

As soon as he turned and walked down the dark hallway to the closet, Cujo crashed through the bottom half of the screen door and rushed in, his muzzle turned up from front of his teeth in what appeared to be a contemptuous grin, a series of lifeless A yelp burst from its chest. Gary screamed again, and he turned quickly, catching Cujo with both hands as he lunged.He was knocked from one side of the hall to the other. Gary gasped and struggled to get his footing, and for a moment it was as if they were waltzing, and then Gary (he was fifty pounds lighter) collapsed.He vaguely felt Cujo's nose protruding under his collar, vaguely felt Cujo's nose was hot and dry.He struggled to raise his hand, thinking of poking his thumb into Cujo's eyes as Cujo bit his throat to slit it open.Amidst his screams, Cujo brutally attacked him again.He felt the warm blood splash all over his face and thought, dear God, it's me!His hands lightly hit Cujo's upper body, nothing happened, and they fell.

Vaguely, he could smell the aroma of honeysuckle, which was disgusting and cloying. "What are you looking at?" Brett turned a little in the direction of his mother's voice, but not all the way, not wanting to miss the stretch of scenery along the way for a moment. The bus had been on the road for almost an hour, and they had crossed the Million Dollar Bridge into South Portland (Bright stared at the two slag cakes and rusted drums in the harbor with two puzzled, curious eyes. freighter) into the southbound Toll Expressway, which is now heading for the New Hampshire border.

"Everything," Bright said. "What are you looking at, Mom?" She thought, your shadow in the glass—very blurry, I'm just looking at you. But she replied, "Of course, the world, I think, I see the world unfolding before us." "Mom, I wish we could drive all the way to California in this car and we'd see everything in the geography books." She laughed and stroked his head, "You're too tired from looking at the scenery, Brett." "No, no, I won't." Probably not, she thought.Suddenly she was depressed and felt old.When she called Holly Saturday morning to ask if they could come, Holly was happy, and her joy made Charity feel young.Oddly enough, the joy of her own son, who was almost visibly excited, made her feel old, yet

What kind of person will he become?Looking at his ghostly face that seemed to be superimposed into the changing scenery along the way by some kind of photography technique, she asked herself.He was smart, smarter than she, much smarter than Jo.He was supposed to go to college, but she knew that when he was in high school, Joe would pressure him to sign up for crafts and car maintenance classes so he could help him better at the garage.Ten years ago he wouldn't have had the chance to do it, because the instructors wouldn't have let a kid as bright as Brett just do a trades class, but in today's kind of school there are stage electives and the teachers are yelling In the era of "doing your own thing", she was very worried that this kind of thing would happen.

It scares her.She used to be able to tell herself that she was still far away from school, so she was still very far away from middle school, the real school.Primary school was just a time of play for a boy like Brett who was prone to slipping out of class.But in middle school, many irreversible choices are about to begin, and many doors will be locked smoothly, and the slight clicking sound can only be heard in dreams a few years later. She hugged her elbows tightly and shivered slightly, not even kidding herself that it was because the Greyhound air conditioner was turned on too high. Bright is only four years away from high school.

She trembled again, and suddenly found herself wishing maliciously that she had never had the money, or that she had lost the ticket.They only had an hour away from Jo, but it was the first time she and him were apart since they were married in 1966. She hadn't realized that the prospect could arise so suddenly, so dizzyingly, so painfully.Looking at such a picture: the girl and the boy were released from the imprisonment of the castle...but there was still a feeling that weighed heavily on their hearts. There was a big hook nailed to their backs, and at the other end of the hook was a The invisible heavy rubber belt, before you go far, the situation will change, you will be pulled back with a snap, and it will be another fourteen years.

A whining sound came from her throat. "Did you say something, Mom?" "No, just cleared my throat." She trembled for the third time, and this time she had goosebumps on her arms.She remembered a poem she had learned in middle school English class (she had thought about taking college courses, but her father was furious at the idea—did she think they were rich?— Her mother also chuckles pityingly).It was a poem by Dylan Thomas, and she couldn't remember the whole thing, but roughly remembered that it was about migration in the destruction of love. At the time that line had only amused and confused her, but she thought she could understand it now.If not love, what else would you call that invisible heavy rubber band?Was she still trying to lie to herself that, even now, she didn't in some way love the man she married?Was she with him just out of duty, or just for the kids (what a painful joke. It would be for the kids if she left him)?Had he never made her happy in bed?Couldn't he be gentle with her sometimes, even in the most unexpected moments (like at the bus station just now)? However... however... Brett looked out the window, dazed, and asked, "Do you think Cujo will be all right, Mom?" He was still looking out the window, without turning around. "I'm sure it'll be fine," she said absently. She found herself pondering the details of the divorce for the first time—how to support herself and her son, how they would get through this unthinkable (almost unimaginable) situation, what would happen to him if she and Brett didn't come home from their trip. Wouldn't come after them like he had vaguely threatened in Portland?Will Brett be brought back by some decent or dirty means? She began to list various possibilities in her mind, weighing them, and she suddenly discovered that a little consideration for the future is not a bad thing after all.pain?It's possible, and likely, useful. The Greyhound crossed the state line, entered New Hampshire, and headed south. The Delta 727 climbed steeply, turned over Castle Rock—at times like this, Vic always tried unsuccessfully to find his home near Castle Lake and 117—and headed east for the coast. go back.It was a twenty-minute flight to Luobao Airport. Donna and Ted were eighteen thousand feet below.He felt a sudden depression, mingled with a dark premonition that something was going to go wrong, they were even madly hoping for something to go wrong.When your house collapses, you have to rebuild a new house, you can't use Erma glue to glue the old house together again. A flight attendant came by.He and Roger were in first class ("Enjoy it while you can, old chap," Roger had said when he booked last Wednesday, "Not everyone can beg in first class."), in the cabin. There were four or five other passengers, most of them reading newspapers like Roger. "What do you want, please?" she asked Roger, with a very professional smile on her face, as if the daily monotony of life - getting up at 5:30 in the morning and then flying up and down from Bangor , to Portland, to Boston, to New York—it always made her feel overjoyed. Roger shook his head absently, and she turned to Vic again with that holy smile, "What do you want, sir? Donuts? Orange juice?" "Could you make me a quick drink?" Vic asked, and Roger's head snapped up from the paper. The stewardess was still smiling. It was no news to her that the passenger asked for a drink before nine o'clock in the morning. "I can make a drink soon," she said. "But hurry up, Boston is coming soon." "I will as soon as possible." Vic solemnly agreed.So she left them and went to the kitchen, where the smiling stewardess looked so splendid in her dark blue striped uniform. "What's wrong with you?" Roger asked. "What do you mean, what's wrong with me?" "You know what I mean. Usually you don't drink before five o'clock in the evening, and you don't drink at all until noon." "I'm just going to sail out to sea." "What ship?" "The RMS Titanic." Roger frowned. "This joke is in bad taste, don't you think so?" Yes, in fact it is.It should be nice to someone like Rogge...But this morning, with repression still wrapped around him like a fetid blanket, he couldn't think of anything better to say.He didn't get angry, just managed a rather bleak smile.But Roger still just frowned at him. "Roger," said Vic, "I've got an idea about the Vitality thing. It's going to keep old Mr. Sharp and the 'kids' at it like a bitch, and it probably does, whether you like it or not. Makes sense." Roger looked relieved.It was a way of working between them that often worked: Vic came up with the rough concept, Rosian the concept and implemented it.When it comes to kneading concepts into various media, or when they're doing concept presentations, they're always working together like this. "How to do it?" "Give me a moment," Vic said, "probably tonight, when we'll hoist it on the flagpole—" "—You can see who took off his pants." Roger helped him finish with a grimace.He opened the paper and began to read the financial section again. "Okay, so I'll find out tonight. Sharp went up another eight points last week, you know?" "Very good." Vic muttered to himself. Outside the window, the fog has receded and the sky is very clear. Kennybang Beach, Ogun Quak Beach and York Beach constitute a natural panorama postcard - the dark blue is the sea, the khaki yellow is the sandy beach, and Burmese is in the distance. The low hills of Yinzhou, the open grasslands, and the endless dense fir forest belt stretching westward.gorgeous!But the infinite beauty only made him more depressed. If I want to cry, I must go to the toilet and cry.he thought stubbornly.Six sentences on a piece of cheap paper could make him like this, and it was a fragile world, as fragile as an Easter egg painted brilliantly on the outside but empty inside.Just last week he'd wondered if he'd taken Ted and run away, and now he wondered if Ted and Donna would be home when he and Roger got back.Is it possible that Donna ran away with Ted, perhaps to her mother's house in the Poconos? Of course it is possible.She may feel that ten days of separation is not enough, not enough for him, not enough for her, maybe six months of separation is better.Now she has Ted.According to the principle of legal division of property, she can occupy a few more points, isn't it? And possible.A voice crept into his head quietly.Maybe she knew where Kemp was, maybe she decided to go find him and try it out with him for a while, and they would reminisce about the happy past together.Now I have a really crazy idea in my head, he told himself uncomfortably. This thought refuses to go away. When the plane landed at Logan Airport, he drank the last drop of Tangerine, which made his stomach sour.He knew that this feeling would haunt him all morning with Donna, and with Steve Kemp, and that even after he ate a big bowl of cocoa bears, it would creep back—but The depression eased a little, and maybe, it was worth it. Maybe. Joe Campbell looked bewildered at the piece of garage floor under the clamps of the big vise.He pushed his green felt hat to his forehead, looked there for a moment, put his fingers in his mouth, and blew a whistle. "Cujo, hey, boy! Come on, Cujo!" He whistled again, stooped, and put his hands to his knees.The dog would come back, he didn't doubt it, Cujo never went far.But how should he handle this? Cujo shit on the garage floor. It never occurred to him that the dog would do that, nor had he ever done it when he was a puppy.As a child he had pissed a few times around, as puppies sometimes do; he had bitten the seat cushion of a chair once or twice.But nothing like today has ever happened.He had wondered if other dogs had done it, too, but that was quickly disproved because, as far as he knew, Cujo was the largest dog in Castle Rock.Big dogs eat more and pull more.No poodles, no beagle dogs.Or a dog like the Heinz Fifty-Seven can make such a big mess.Joe wondered if Cujo had sniffed that Charity and Bright were going out for a while.If so, maybe that's a way for it to express itself. The dog was his payment for a car repair job in 1975.The customer was a one-eyed man named Ray Crowell, just north, near Freiburg.Crowell usually worked in the woods, but he was known to know dogs well—he was good at raising and training dogs.He could have made a decent living in what was called "dog herding" in rural New England.But he has a bad temper, he is always sullen, which drives away many customers. "My truck needs a new engine," Crowell told Joe that spring. "Okay." Joe. "I have a motor on hand, but I can't pay for the labor. I lost all my money." They stood in Joe's garage, arguing.Brett was five years old, and he was loitering in the yard while his mother hung the laundry. "That's too bad, Ray," said Joe, "but I don't do it for nothing, and this isn't a charity." "Mrs. Beasley just had a baby," Ray said.Mrs. Beasley was a fine St. Burnett bitch. "It's purebred, you do this job for me, and I'll give you that little one. What do you think? But you gotta do it first, I can't move lumber without a truck." "I don't need a dog," said Joe, "especially a dog that big. A damned St. Bernard is a eating machine." "You don't need a dog," Ray said, glancing at Brett, who was sitting on the grass watching his mother, "but your son might like one." Joe's mouth opened and closed again.He and Charity didn't need a watchdog.But since Bright, they haven't had another child.It had been so long since Brett was born that sometimes, looking at the child, Jo had the question: Is he alone?It could be, and maybe Ray Crowell is right that Brett's birthday is coming up and he can get him a puppy. "I'll think about it," he said. "Okay, but don't think about it too long," said Ray, a little annoyed, "I could still go to North Conway and find Vin Callahan, he's as good at your craft as you, Campbell, maybe better than you. " "Maybe," said Joe, calm enough not to be surprised by Ray Crowell's temper. That same week, the manager of a supermarket came to see Joe in a Thunderbird.The car's derailleur is broken, just a minor problem, just drain the fluid well, refill it, tighten the conveyor belt, and you're pretty much done. But when he was repairing, the manager named Donovan was making a fuss and talking about it.This Thunderbird is great, it was built in 1960 and it's almost like new.Near the end of the job, Joe heard Donovan say that his wife wished he had sold the car.Joe had an idea. "I want to buy a dog for my son," he said as he lowered the Thunderbird from the jack. "Oh, is it?" Donovan asked politely. "Yes, a Holy Book Nate dog, it's still a puppy, but it will eat a lot when it grows up. Now I'm wondering if we two can make a deal. If you will promise a discount Sell ​​me dry dog ​​food like Gaines groats. Ruston-Prinner or whatever you sell and I can guarantee I'll give you a fix every time you drive over in your Thunderbird For a moment, no labor fee." Donovan was very happy, and the two of them shook hands and the deal was concluded.Joe called Ray Crowell and said he was ready to take a deal on the puppy if Crowell still agreed.Crowell agreed.On Brett's birthday that year, Jo stuffed a writhing puppy into his son's arms, which stunned both Brett and Charity. "Thank you, Daddy, thank you, thank you!" Brett cried, hugging Daddy, kissing him all over the cheek. "Good boy," said Joe, "but you've got to take care of him, Brett. It's yours, not mine. If I catch him shitting and pissing around, I'll take him to the back of the barn as a treat." The wild dog killed it with one shot." "I will, Dad...I promise." He was always trying to keep his word, and he did it pretty well, and the few times he didn't, Charity and Joe would clean up the dog's mess in silence.Later, Joe found out that it was impossible to stand by and do nothing with Cujo, and when he grew up (and he grew up so damn fast, he quickly became the eating machine that Joe envisioned), he was completely the Camber family. a member.It has grown into a faithful and good dog. Cujo quickly picked up all the good habits of living at home...but now?Joe spun around, hands tucked into his trousers, frowning.There was no sign of Cujo around. He went out and whistled again.The damned dog was probably cooling off in the creek below.Joe wouldn't scold it, and it was eighty-five degrees in the shade now.But that nasty dog ​​will be back soon, and when he does, Joe will put his nose in that stinking thing and let him smell enough, too.If Cujo did it because he couldn't find someone to look after him, Joe would feel bad about punishing him, but you can't let a dog get away with— A new question came to Joe's mind, and he patted his forehead with the palm of his hand. Who's going to feed Cujo when he and Gary are gone? His first thought was to fill the hog trough behind the barn with Gaines meal—there was about a long ton of that stuff in the cellar under their house.But if it rains, will they get soaked?If he'd piled them inside the house, Cujo would probably have shitted on the door when he got in.Also, when it came to food, Cujo was a ravenous creature with a huge appetite, and would eat half of it one day, half the next, and run around hungry until Joe came back. "Shit," he murmured. The dog didn't come.He probably knew that Joe would see the mess and got scared.As a dog, Cujo is a smart dog, knowing (or guessing) such consequences is not beyond his intelligence. Joe found a shovel and scooped the mess away, then splashed some industrial cleaner he had left on hand to wipe the stain off, and finally got a bucket of water from the faucet in the back of the garage and gave the place a good wash clean up. When he was done, Joe produced a small spiral-bound notebook containing his work schedule.He found that Rich's International Harvester was done--lifting the motor out with a chain hoist was as easy as picking up a brooch.He had no trouble putting off the transmission job, and the teacher was as predictably articulate.There are five or six other jobs, all small jobs. He went into the house (he had never bothered to install a phone in the garage, he had told Charity that they would charge you a premium for that extra cord) and started calling I have to leave town for a few days.He should be back in time so they don't have to drive a long way with the problem to get someone else to fix it, and if anyone's fan drive wheel or radiator hose goes bad and the car is terribly hot, it's okay Remove the place to soak urine. After the phone call, he went into the barn again.The last thing to do before leaving is an oil change and ring work.The owner of the car agreed to pick up the car before noon, and Joe had to work.He thought how quiet the house was when Charity and Brett were gone...and Cujo was gone.Usually, the big St. Bernard dog would be hunkered down in the shadows behind the big sliding garage door, panting, watching Joe work.Sometimes Joe would talk to him, and Cujo always seemed to be listening. Abandoned, he thought rather angrily, by all three of them.Taking one look at where Cujo had shitted, he shook his head in disgust and bewilderment.He thought again about how to feed the dog, but his mind was empty.Well, give old Pellville a call later, maybe he can think of someone—some kid—who could come up the hill to feed Cujo one of these days. He nodded, turned the radio to Norwegian WOXO, and turned the volume up.He wasn't listening, except when the news or the results of the ball game were on.It's work time, especially when everyone's away, and he has to work.The telephone in the house rang one or twenty times, but he didn't hear it. In the morning, Ted played with his toy truck in his room.During his four years on earth, he has collected more than thirty pickup trucks, which is a large number.Among them were the seventy-nine-cent plastic cars that his father bought from the drugstore where Vic always went to pick up Time magazine on Wednesday nights (you had to be careful with those seventy-nine-cent cars , since they are made in Taiwan and break easily).At the head of the line of small machines is a big yellow Tonga bulldozer that reaches his knees. He has all sorts of "people" that he can fit into the cab of his truck.Some were round-faced guys he'd picked up from school toys, others were soldiers.Quite a few of what he calls "Star Wars people," including Luke, Han Solo, the Imperial villain (aka Darth Vader), a Bespin warrior, and Ted's absolute favorite Gray Much, Gredo always drives the Tonga bulldozer. Sometimes he plays Dangerous Grand Duke with a truck, sometimes it's Martin and the Bear, sometimes it's the cops and the illegal brewers (his parents took him to a Norwegian open-air theater to see a double movie - White Lightning and White Line Hot, the two Ted was very impressed by that movie), and sometimes he played a game he had come up with called Ten Truck Rush. But the one he's playing the most -- and the one he's playing now -- isn't named.It involved digging the trucks and "people" out of his two toy boxes one by one, arranging the trucks in parallel lines diagonally across his shed, and putting the "people" in as if they were parked diagonally. On a street that only Ted can see.Then he would drive the trucks very slowly one by one to the base of the other wall, one behind the other, still at an oblique angle to the base of the wall, and then switch sides.Sometimes he would play tirelessly for more than an hour, rowing ten or fifteen times. The game made a deep impression on both Vic and Donna.Watching Ted go through that same, almost ritualistic layout over and over again can be annoying at times.They'd all asked him what they found attractive about this arrangement, but Ted couldn't find the right words to explain it.Dangerous Archdukes, Cops and Bootleggers, and Ten Truck Raids are all simple hit-and-destroy games.The nameless game was peaceful, serene, and orderly.If his vocabulary is big enough, he might tell his parents that it's his way of saying "Em," and that opens the door to meditation and introspection. As he's playing the game now, he's thinking, something's gone wrong. His eyes automatically—unconsciously—turned to the wardrobe door, but the problem wasn't there.The door is tightly locked, and it has not been opened since "The Devil's Word".No, the problem is elsewhere. He couldn't say exactly what was wrong, and he wasn't sure if he really wanted to know.Like Brett Campbell, he could clearly read the flow of the parent river on which he floated.Just recently he had felt black eddies in that river, sandbars, traps hidden perhaps just below the surface; he felt there were rapids, waterfalls, anything. There is a problem between his mother and father. The problem was in the way they looked at each other, in the way they talked to each other, in their faces, under his cheeks, in their thoughts. He moved the two lines of trucks parked at an angle one after the other to one side of the room and went upstairs.He went to the window.I've been playing this game without a name for a while, and my knees are starting to hurt. In the courtyard below, my mother was hanging clothes.She had called a man half an hour earlier who could fix the Pinto, but he wasn't there.She waited a long time, hoping to hear someone say "Hello," and then hung up the phone heavily, almost mad, and Mom had never been that mad over a little thing like this before. He watched silently as Mother had hung up the last two sheets, she looked at them... her shoulders sagged a little, and then she went to the apple tree beyond the double clothesline and stood there, Tad from Her posture—her legs outstretched, her head down, her shoulders twitching slightly—showed that she was crying.He watched her for a moment, then moved away from the window and returned to his truck.He felt a hollow in his stomach, and he missed his father, missed him so much, but it made it harder for him. He slowly pushed the trucks across the room, one after the other, back to the slanted row again.The screen door slammed, and he paused, thinking, She'll call him.But she didn't. Footsteps crossed the kitchen, and her chair creaked in the large bedroom as she sat down.But the TV is not on.He thought she was just sitting there, just... sitting... and he pushed the thoughts out of his head hastily, trying to get them out of his head. He finished the car queue.Gredo, his best, sat in the bulldozer, looking blankly out of his round black eyes as he looked at Ted's closet.His eyes were wide open, as if he had seen something there, as if something frightening had set his eyes wide open, something really dangerous, something terrible, something what is coming— Tad looked uneasily at the closet, which was tightly locked. He is tired of this game.He put the truck back in the toy box and slammed it shut, hoping she'd know he was ready to go downstairs and watch Smoke on Channel Eight.He stood up and walked towards the door, stopped again, and looked at the "devil's words" in a blink of an eye, fascinated: "Demon, stay away from this house! It's none of your business here. " He memorized them.He liked to read them, to memorize them, to see his father's handwriting: "All night, nothing could touch Tad, or hurt him. It's none of your business here. " With a sudden, powerful impulse, he pulled the pins that held the paper to the wall.Carefully, almost reverently, he removed the "Devil's Words."He folded the paper and carefully put it in the back pocket of his jeans.He feels better now than at any other time of the day.Then he ran downstairs to see "Marcoll Dillon and Firsts." The last man arrived at ten minutes to twelve and took his car.He paid in cash, and Joe slipped the money into a greasy old wallet, reminding herself and Gary to withdraw another five hundred from the Norwegian Savings Bank before they left. The thought of leaving brought him back to the question of who would feed Cujo.He got into the Ford and went down the hill to Gary Pellville's house.He parked the car in the driveway, walked up to the porch steps, and the hello had risen to his throat, where it was gone.He stepped back and bent over the steps. There was blood on the steps. He touched it with his fingers, and the blood was gelatinous, but not completely dry.He stood up again, a little apprehensive, but not to the point of being distraught.Gary was probably drunk and fell with a glass in his hand.But then he saw the gaping opening in the rusty lower floor of the screen door, and he got really worried. "Gary?" no answer.He found himself wondering if someone with a grudge had come to old Gary?Or had some tourist come to ask for directions, and Gary told him in a daze that he could fly up and mate with the moon? He went up the steps.There was a lot of blood splattered on the porch floor, and more blood. "Gary?" he called again, suddenly longing for the weight of his right shoulder on his shotgun.But if anyone had punched Gary so that his nose was bloody and the last few old teeth popped out, he'd be gone.Because besides Joe's rusty Ford LTD car in the yard, there is Gary's 66 white Chrysler hardtop.Nobody walks to Town Road 3—Gary Pellville's house is seven miles from town, and two miles from the maple sugar road that leads back to Route 117. More likely he cut himself, Joe thought, but God, I wish he had cut his hands instead of his throat. Joe opened the screen door, its hinges creaking. "Gary?" Still no answer.There was a sickly sweet smell in the air that made him uncomfortable, and he thought it must be the scent of honeysuckle.There was a staircase to the left of him leading to the second floor, a hall directly in front of him, a corridor at the end of the hall leading to the kitchen, and a corridor in the middle of the hall on the right, which led to the bedroom. There was an east head on the floor in the middle of the hall, but it was too dark for Joe to see.它看起来好像是一个撞翻了的茶几之类的东西……但乔知道，加利家的前厅并没有放什么家具，一直就没有。下雨的时候，加利把草坪伤搬进来靠在厅边上．但已经有两个星期没有下雨了。而且，那些草坪椅现在就在加利的克莱斯勒车旁，紧靠金银花丛的老地方。 但这气味并非来自金银花。它来自血。一大摊血。那个东西也不是翻倒的茶几…… 乔快步走到那个形状前。他的心在哈哈地跳，他在它旁边跪下，一种短促的尖声从他身上发了出来。突然间屋里的空气变得非常热，非常窒息，像有人正在把他往死里扼。他离开加利，一只手捂在嘴上，有人谋杀了加利，有人—— 他强迫自己向回看。加利躺在自己的血泊里，他的一双瞎眼瞪向天花板，他的喉咙开了，不只是开了，仁慈的上帝，它看起来像是被嚼开了。 这一次他的咽喉没有再做任何挣扎，他只是让每一样东西随着一连串绝望、窒息的声音出来。几近疯狂之中，乔意识的后背带着一种孩子气似的怨恨转向沙绿蒂。沙绿蒂旅行去了，而他却不能。他不能，因为某个疯了的混蛋对可怜的老加利·佩尔维尔骇人听闻地下了毒手—— ——他必须报告警方。不管其他事怎么样，不管老加利的眼睛怎样在黑暗中瞪着天花板，不管他的血的气味怎样地和金银花让人恶心的甜味混在一起，他要报告警方。 他站起身来，挪动双腿摇摇晃晃地跑向厨房。他在喉咙深处呜咽着，自己却不知道。电话就在厨房的墙上，他必须打电话给州警察署，班那曼长官，或其他什么人—— 他在门口停住了，眼睛开始睁大、最后几乎要从脑袋里面进出来。有一只大狗小山一般蹲在通向厨房的走道口……从那座山的大小他已经知道了那是谁家的狗。 “库乔。”他低声说，“噢，我的天，库乔疯了！” 他听见后面有一种声音，迅速转过身去，他的头发缠结着从脖子后飞扬起来，但后面空空如也……只有加利，那个几天前的晚上还说乔不可能赶库乔去咬一个叫着的黑鬼的加利，那个喉咙口被撕开一直撕到后脊梁骨的加利。 冒险是没有意义的。他突然转身沿着走道冲出去，他有一脚踩到了加利的血里，其后的一个很长很长的瞬间里地滑了一下，在身后留了一个长长的血脚印。他的喉咙又呜咽了，但当他关上重重的内门时，他感觉好了一点。 他又转过身，向里看，只要库乔在那儿，他随时准备把厨房门口的门关死。他的意识又一次在游走，他又一次渴望右肩头有那种背有猎枪的沉重感。 库乔不在厨房里，除了窗帘偶尔在窗外吹进的微风中轻轻地摆动，屋里一片寂静。有一些陈年的伏特加酒瓶子，散发着酸臭的气味，但比那种……其它的气味好一些。 阳光照在退了色的油麻毡上形成一种奇怪的图案。电话还挂在老地方，它原本白色的塑料盒，现在已经在老光棍不知多少顿饭的油的浸渍下变得灰暗，很久以前老酒鬼跌倒时留下的裂痕还在它表面。 乔进来，把门在身后关紧。他经过两扇开着的窗时向外看了看，后院的阴影里除了加利以前用过的两辆锈迹斑斑的破车躺在那儿，就再也没有其它东西了。但他还是关上了窗。 他走向电话。在这间闷热的厨房里，他的汗几乎在向下倾泻。电话簿由一根草绳拴着就挂在一边。穿草绳的眼是加利一年前用乔的钻孔机打上去的，老醉鬼当时还醉熏熏地说他连屁都不会放一个。 他拿起电话簿，但它又掉了下去，砰地打在墙上。他的手感觉非常沉重，嘴里有一种呕吐后混浊、污秽的味道，他又拿起电话薄，重重地翻开，重得几乎要扯下书皮。本来他可以拨0或555－1212，但震惊之中，他已经把这些都忘了。 乔的呼吸声、急促沉重的心跳声和翻动电话号码本簿时发出的哗哗声，淹没了他身后一种轻微的响声——库乔用鼻子顶开地窖的门时发出的轻轻的响声。 咬死了加利·佩尔维尔后，它就下了地窖。厨房里的光线太强烈、太眩目，把白热的痛苦如同坚硬的钢片一般插向它正在腐败的脑子。地窖的门微开着，它摇晃着下了台阶，进入那一片天赐的黑凉世界。它躺在加利的老军用床脚箱旁，几乎要睡着了。窗外来的微风几乎要把地窖的门关上了，但还没有锁住。 乔的呜咽声、干呕声、哈哈地跑过厅，又砰地关掉前门的声音——把它再一次从痛苦中打醒。它痛苦，沉闷，无休无止地暴怒。现在它站在乔身后门口的黑暗中，头低着，眼睛近乎血红，黄褐色的厚毛上缠结着血块和未干的淤泥。 乔在书中查到了罗克堡。他找到C开头的文字，他的一只手颤抖着顺着页面滑到某一栏中用小框框出的罗克堡市政服务，也就是行政司法长官办公室。他伸出一只手指开始拨号。正在这时，库乔胸中深深地发出一声嗥叫。 乔·坎伯身体里的所有神经几乎都要跳了出来，电话簿从他手里滑下来，又砰地一声打在墙上，他慢慢转向那个噙叫的声音。他看见库乔站在地窖的门口。 “好狗子。”他沙哑着嗓子低低地说，唾沫顺着他的两颊流下来，尿浸湿了他的裤子。刺鼻的氨臭冲击着库乔的鼻子，像是狠狠地打了它一个嘴巴。它扑了起来。乔像踩着高跷一样斜避向一旁，狗狠狠地撞在墙上，墙纸撞破了，泥灰“噗”地飞溅出来，形成一片白色的沙气，库乔没有嗥叫，一连串沉重。刺耳的声音从它胸中发出来，这声音比任何叫声都更凶残。 乔退向后门，一把厨房倚在他脚下绊了一下，他发疯般晃着双臂要保持平衡，但库乔已经打上来沉沉地把他压在身下。这个一身血纹的杀人机器，一串串的白沫从它嘴里向后飞着，一种新鲜、湿软的恶臭包围着它。 “噢，上帝，它压到了我身上！”乔·坎伯发出惊叫。 他想起了加利。他用一只手盖住咽喉，挣扎着用另一只手抓向库乔。库乔向后退了片刻，它的眼里冒着火花，鼻吻向后翻着，又露出那种凶狠、没有一丝幽默感的咧嘴，它露出的牙齿，像是一排泛着黄色的刚硬的篱笆尖。然后它又扑了过来。 这一次，它扑向了乔·坎伯的睾丸。