Cujo

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Cujo

Stephen King

THE VIKING PRESS

NEW YORK

This book is for my brother, David,

who held my hand crossing West Broad Street,

and who taught me how to make skyhooks

out of old coathangers. The trick was so

damned good I just never stopped.

I love you, David.

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or

Mt walking dully along ...

-W. H. AUDEN, "Musee des Beaux Arts"

Old Blue died and he died so hard

He shook the ground in my back yard.

I dug his grave with a silver spade

And I lowered him down with a golden chain.

Every link you know I did call his name,

I called, "Here, Blue, you good dog, you.

-FOLK SONG

"Nope, nothing wrong here.

-THE SHARP CEREAL PROFESSOR

ONCE UPON A TIME,

not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock,

Maine. He killed. a waitress named Alma Frechette in 1970; a

woman named Pauline Toothaker and a junior high school student

named Cheryl Moody in 1971; a pretty girl named Carol

Dunbarger in 1974; a teacher named Etta Ringgold in the fall of

1975; finally, a grade-schooler named Mary Kate Hendrasen in the

early winter of that same year.

He was not werewolf, vampire, ghoul, or unnameable creature

from the enchanted forest or from the snowy wastes; he was only a

cop named Frank Dodd with mental and sexual problems. A good

man named John Smith uncovered his name by a kind of magic,

but before he could be captured - perhaps it was just as well -

Frank Dodd killed himself.

There was some shock, of course, but mostly there was rejoicing in

that small town, rejoicing because the monster which had haunted

so many dreams was dead, dead at last. A town's nightmares were

buried in Frank Dodd's grave.

Yet even in this enlightened age, when so many parents are aware

of the psychological damage they may do to their children, surely

there was one parent somewhere in Castle Rock - or perhaps one

grandmother - who quieted the kids by telling them that Frank

Dodd would get them if they didn't watch out, if they weren't good.

And surely a hush fell as children looked toward their dark

windows and thought of Frank Dodd in his shiny black vinyl

raincoat, Frank Dodd who had choked ... and choked ... and

choked.

He's out there, I can bear the grandmother whispering as the wind

whistles down the chimney pipe and snuffles around the old pot lid

crammed in the stove hole. He's out there, and if you're not good,

it may be his face you see looking in your bedroom window after

everyone in the house is asleep except you; it may be his smiling

face you see peeking at you from the closet in the middle of the

night, the STOP sign he held up when he crossed the little children

in one band, the razor he used to kill himself in the other ... so

shbb, children ... shhhh ... shhhh

But for most, the ending was the ending. There were nightmares to

be sure, and children who lay wakeful to be sure, and the empty

Dodd house (for his mother had a stroke shortly afterwards and

died) quickly gained a reputation as a haunted house and was

avoided; but these were passing phenomena - the perhaps

unavoidable side effects of a chain of senseless murders.

But time passed. Five years of time.

The monster was gone, the monster was dead. Frank Dodd

moldered inside his coffin.

Except that the monster never dies. Werewolf, vampire, ghoul,

unnameable creature from the wastes. The monster never dies.

It came to Castle Rock again in the summer of 1980.

Tad Trenton, four years old, awoke one morning not long after

midnight in May of that year, needing to go to the bathroom. He

got out of bed and walked half asleep toward the white light

thrown in a wedge through the half-open door, already lowering

his pajama pants. He urinated forever, flushed, and went back to

bed. He pulled the covers up, and that was when he saw the

creature in his closet.

Low to the ground it was, with huge shoulders bulking above its

cocked head, its eyes amber-glowing, pits - a thing that might have

been half man, half wolf. And its eyes rolled to follow him as he

sat up, his scrotum crawling, his hair standing on end, his breath a

thin winter-whistle in his throat: mad eyes that laughed, eyes that

promised horrible death and the music of screams that went

unheard; something in the closet.

He heard its purring growl; he smelled its sweet carrion breath.

Tad Trenton clapped his hands to his eyes, hitched in breath, and

screamed.

A muttered exclamation in another room - his father.

A scared cry of 'What was that?' from the same room - his mother.

Their footfalls, running. As they came in, he peered through his

fingers and saw it there in the closet, snarling, promising

dreadfully that they might come, but they would surely go, and that

when they did...

The light went on. Vic and Donna Trenton came to his bed,

exchanging a look of concern over his chalky face and his staring

eyes, and his mother said - no, snapped, 'I told you three hot dogs

was too many, Vic!'

And then his daddy was on the bed, Daddy's arm around his back,

asking what was wrong.

Tad dared to look into the mouth of his closet again.

The monster was gone. Instead of whatever hungry beast he had

seen, there were two uneven piles of blankets, winter bedclothes

which Donna had not yet gotten around to taking up to the cut-off

third floor. These were stacked on the chair which Tad used to

stand on when he needed something from the high closet shelf.

Instead of the shaggy, triangular head, cocked sideways in a kind

of predatory questioning gesture, he saw his teddybear on the taller

of the two piles of blankets. Instead of pitted and baleful amber

eyes, there were the friendly brown glass balls from which his

Teddy observed the world.

'What's wrong, Tadder?' his daddy asked him again.

'There was a monster!' Tad cried. 'In my closed' And he burst into

tears.

His mommy sat with him; they held him between them, soothed

him as best they could. There followed the ritual of parents. They

explained there were no monsters; that he had just-had a bad

dream. His mommy explained how shadows could sometimes look

like the bad things they sometimes showed on TV or in the comic

books, and Daddy told him everything was all right, fine, that

nothing in their goo house could hurt him. Tad nodded and agreed

that it was m although he knew it was not.

His father explained to him how, in the dark, the two uneven piles

of blankets had looked like hunched shoulder, how the teddybear

had looked like a cocked head, and wow the bathroom light,

reflecting from Teddy's glass eyes, ha made them seem like the

eyes of a real live animal.

'Now look,' he said. 'Watch me close, Tadder.'

Tad watched.

His father took the two piles of blankets and put them fa rback in

Tad's closet. Tad could hear the coathangers jingling softly, talking

about Daddy in their coathanger language That was funny, and he

smiled a little. Mommy caught his smile and smiled back, relieved.

His daddy came out of the closet, took Teddy, and put him in Tad's

arms.

'And last but not least, Daddy said with a flourish and a bow that

made both Tad and Mommy giggle, 'ze chair.'

He closed the closet door firmly and then put the chair against the

door. When he came back to Tad's bed he was still smiling, but his

eyes were serious.

'Okay, Tad?'

'Yes,' Tad said, and then forced himself to say it. 'But was there,

Daddy. I saw it. Really.'

'Your mind saw something, Tad, 'Daddy said, and his big warm

hand stroked Tad's hair. 'But you didn't see a monster in your

closet, not a real one. There are no monsters, Ta

Only in stories, and in your mind.'

He looked from his father to his mother and back again -their big,

well-loved faces.

'Really?'

'Really,' his mommy said. 'Now I want you to get up and go pee,

big guy.'

'I did. That's what woke me up.'

'Well,' she said, because parents never believed you 'humor me

then, what do you say?'

So he went in and she witched while he did four drops and she

smiled and said, 'See? You did have to go.'

Resigned, Tad nodded. Went back to bed. Was tucked in. Accepted

kisses.

And as his mother and father went back to the door the fear settled

on him again like a cold coat full of mist. Like a shroud stinking of

hopeless death. Oh please, he thought, but there was no more, just

that: Oh please oh please oh please.

Perhaps his father caught his thought, because Vic turned back,

one hand on the light switch, and repeated: 'No monsters, Tad.'

'No, Daddy,' Tad said, because in that instant his father's eyes

seemed shadowed and far, as if he needed to be convinced. 'No

monsters.' Except for the one in my closet.

The light snapped off.

'Good night, Tad.' His mother's voice trailed back to him lightly,

softly, and in his mind he cried out, Be careful, Mommy, they eat

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摘要：

CujoStephenKingTHEVIKINGPRESSNEWYORKThisbookisformybrother,David,whoheldmyhandcrossingWestBroadStreet,andwhotaughtmehowtomakeskyhooksoutofoldcoathangers.ThetrickwassodamnedgoodIjustneverstopped.Iloveyou,David.Aboutsufferingtheywereneverwrong,TheOldMasters:howwelltheyunderstoodItshumanposition;howitt...

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Cujo

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