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    Cujo
    Cujo
    Cujo
    Ebook443 pages8 hours

    Cujo

    By Stephen King

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    The #1 New York Times bestseller, Cujo “hits the jugular” (The New York Times) with the story of a friendly Saint Bernard that is bitten by a bat. Get ready to meet the most hideous menace ever to terrorize the town of Castle Rock, Maine.

    Outside a peaceful town in central Maine, a monster is waiting. Cujo is a two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard, the best friend Brett Camber has ever had. One day, Cujo chases a rabbit into a cave inhabited by sick bats and emerges as something new altogether.

    Meanwhile, Vic and Donna Trenton, and their young son Tad, move to Maine. They are seeking peace and quiet, but life in this small town is not what it seems. As Tad tries to fend off the terror that comes to him at night from his bedroom closet, and as Vic and Donna face their own nightmare of a marriage on the rocks, there is no way they can know that a monster, infinitely sinister, waits in the daylight.

    What happens to Cujo, how he becomes a horrifying vortex inescapably drawing in all the people around him, makes for one of the most heart-stopping novels Stephen King has ever written. “A genuine page-turner that grabs you and holds you and won’t let go” (Chattanooga Times), Cujo will forever change how you view man’s best friend.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScribner
    Release dateJan 1, 2016
    ISBN9781501141126
    Author

    Stephen King

    Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch (May 2025), the short story collection You Like It Darker (a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King. 

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    Reviews for Cujo

    3.5/5

    2,892 ratings64 reviews

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    • 3/5
      A good story for an audio book, without extravagant descriptive intricacies that get lost in audio narration, yet not entirely brainless and somewhat original plot. The main issue I have with audiobooks in general (and this one in particular) is a gross mismatch between a narrating voice and a dialogue been narrated. I understand that this is a necessary evil in audiobooks (and the reason I am not a big fan of the format in general) but here it was particularly pronounced, as it is one thing to narrate regular dialogue and completely another to impersonate crying, sobbing, shrieking, wailing and other near death experiences so common to the horror genre. A two year old wailing for his mom in an old woman's voice just adds a whole other level of freakishness to the story.
    • 4/5
      Bad Dog! Worse owner.
    • 4/5
      I first read this when I was 13, and I think it was even more terrifying 21 years later. Totally gripping with a slow-burning first 100 pages or so to help you really root for the characters. Considering King wrote this when he was in the middle of his drugs/drink problem, it's really rather good (and proves what a master he is at writing damn good stories).
    • 3/5
      The way I'd rate thriller/horror books are on the scale of how much it creeps me out and how easily it makes me jump at the slightest sound (because I'm twisted that way, yet am a complete wimp with horror movies).
      This is, ashamedly, my first Stephen King novel, and what better way to start off than to pick a book involving a cute, cuddly Saint Benard that goes on a rabies & gore-filled rampage? Perfect.
      It took almost half of the book for the 'action' to start, and when it did, boy could you literally 'see' what was going on in the scenes. Very descriptive.
      I felt anxious and a bit impatient, I admit, as the story switched between the different characters' perspective/stories, especially when one of them is currently in deep shit.
      The last 20-or-so pages were tough to read, as you can't help but feel for them. It had also been a bit sad to read some situations in Cujo's perspective, especially when he had been bitten and was confused about the changes in him; how he would've died for his family, yet he seemed to be having these horrible thoughts about wanting to hurt the people he loved. My heart cried out to Cujo. =(
      All in all, it was quite a good read, and it successfully made me almost jump out of my skin a couple of times; no thanks to how every time I was reading a particular intense scene, sounds would just pop out outta nowhere and added to the intensity of the read, hah.
    • 3/5
      I am pretty sure I read this book back in the 1980's. I did not recall the details. That was why originally I rated it two stars. After finishing it this time, I'll move the rating up by one: now three stars. None of the adult characters were enjoyable. That is my biggest complaint.
    • 4/5
      Whether it be cars, dogs, or aliens, or just plain terror, this is classic King.
    • 4/5
      A very tense story about every dog owners nightmare!
    • 5/5
      Slam-bang, bare bones horror tale from the best in the business. Scary and touching with an ending that divides fans to this day. A masterpiece.
    • 4/5
      Stephen King's books are weird for me. I can't face picking them up and starting them but when I do I enjoy them. This was a very likeable book and as usual I found myself spurring the characters on in my head willing them to survive. I guess that says a lot.
    • 5/5
      A blast from my teenage past from a favorite author. Incredible story, vintage Stephen King, dogs! This has it all. My only question is why did I wait so long to rediscover this novel?
    • 5/5
      What a page turner! Loved it! I like most of Stephen King's earlier work, always keeps you on the edge of your seat.
    • 1/5
      This is literally,the worst book I have ever read, and hear me out. It is the worst book that I have ever read, finished, and didn't like. Some books I set down after the first chapter, some don't make it that far.It does have redeeming qualities, like it is well written, the characters are brutally real, the situation is believable, but when it was all said and done, what the heck was the point? The dog went rabid, killed a few people, then a little boy dies of heat stroke.IT was kind of a let down. Everyone needed to die an make it miserable, or everyone needed to live (secondary characters excluded) and happy endings all around.If there was a point, I missed it.
    • 3/5
      Definitely less exciting and "supernatural" than most Stephen King books, but great writing as usual.
    • 4/5
      I like an author to make me FEEL for characters and I didn't get that here
    • 4/5
      If you live in a country where they drive on the left it important to remember that in America the cars are left hand drive. The set piece of the novel takes place in a car and I imagined it back to front and then couldn't correct it in my mind's eye.
    • 4/5
      Finally got through this book. It was a very good read. I did enjoy the book. Stephen King is a master at understanding human nature.

      As most may know, Cujo is a story about a rather large St. Bernard that goes through a series of rabid events. It is also a story of all the people that come in and out of Cujo's life after he was bitten with the rabies. This was the first time I ever read the book, I only knew the story from the movie adaptation of this book.

      It is interesting to see the turn of events happen to all these people in the circumstances where they meet the dog and each other. The story itself is quite boring if one were to look at it from an external point of view. Some mundane things and some not so mundane things happen. On the mundane are things like Vic and Roger's exploits with AD-Worx and how they are trying to save the company by saving thier largest account, Sharp Cereal Corporation. Charity's abusive relationship with her husband Joe Camber and what she worries about with her son's relationship. Some of the not so mundane would be Donna Trenton (Vic's wife) tumultuous relationship with the vagabond poet/tennis player, Steve Kemp. Even Steve Kemp's adolescent attitude towards getting dumped was interesting to read. (Are there really 21 year old people that behave with that type of petty jealousy?) And of course, Tad's (Donna's and Vic's son) nightly horror ritual with the monster in his closet and his Dad's "Monster Words" that help keep the monster at bay.

      Cujo's fate was sealed the minute he decided to chase that rabbit down the hole. Afterwards, it just become a rabid experience for the dog throughout the rest of the book.

      What I found facinating about the book is how Stephen King has the ability to put himself in Donna Trenton's position when she took her car to get it repaired at Joe Camber's place. Stephen King gave wonderful first person descriptions of just about all the characters in this story. Even some of the minor charaters like the mailman and the town sherriff were brilliantly described. This is what makes the story. He is able to write about the characters in the first person and still tie all the circumstantial experiences that led to the end of the story.

      By the time she (Donna Trenton) got there, Cujo just took his second victim -- Joe Camber himself. Joe's family, Charity and Brett, took an extended trip to visit Charity's sister in Connecticut. Donna's husband Vic was with Roger in Boston working to save Ad-Worx. And Donna was all alone at the end of a Dead end road in rural Maine, wanting to get her car repaired, but was being held hostage by a rabid 200 lbs. St. Bernard. The way Stephen King gets inside Donna's mind as she thinks things through is amazing. He also gets into the dying Tad's mind as well and describes the horror from the small boy's point of view. Oh, did I forget to mention that there was a heat wave in the middle of summer here in Maine? 3 Days, little or no food. Nothing to drink. Inside a very hot, broken down Pinto. One can die of the heat inside the car, or step outside for a momentary breeze -- before Cujo tears your throat out! I'd say that has the makings for one of those days where your only choices ended up being a no-win situation.

      The suspense was great! The psychology was great. Stephen King's writing proved to me that reading this book was way better than the movie. As a matter of fact, half the movie should have been about what people were thinking and it wasn't. The movie did not do the book justice. I even shed a tear at the end of the story as Mr. King wrapped everything up. It was a sad story at the end, with Stephen King giving the reader a glimmer of hope for the future of the two main characters, Vic and Donna Trenton. I highly recommend this read. I would rate it PG-17 in today's world. It is intriguing. It is scary at points. But most of all, it is a human nature story.

      Flyinfox
    • 4/5
      Great book. Classic Stephen King. I read the ebook version and it had a lot of typos which pulled me out of the story at times, but King's story itself was great.
    • 4/5
      It was a pretty good book. In the beginning, it was really confusing with all of the stories going on but at the end I saw how it all came together
    • 5/5
      This stands out to me as possibly King's most harrowing novel built on the things of real life. (I'd still name The Shining and Salem's Lot as his scariest, but I don't think any King book left me more shaken.) There are small hints of the supernatural, but in essence the horror is caused by a lovable St Bernard dog, Cujo, becoming infected with rabies. That might sound prosaic, and the film made of this novel is mediocre and its ending a cop-out. Nor can any film put you into the head of Cujo the way a novel can. I don't think King ever wrote scenes of greater horror and suspense than the one in this book where a mother and her young son are trapped in a car in the baking sun menaced by the 200-pound monster that was once their beloved pet. And unlike some of King's later door-stopper books, at 320 pages this one is a well-paced taut page-turner.
    • 3/5
      Cujo - 200 pounds and leaping at your jugular ! Yikes! I liked the way this book was connected to the Dead Zone! And I liked the parts that were from the dog's point of view! I felt so bad for Vic, poor guy. Overall, a decent summer read!
    • 3/5
      I am (re)reading Stephen King's works in chronological order and this re-read was up next for me. I originally read the book when it was first published in 1981 making me 13yo. It made a big impression on me at the time and I was quite shocked it ended the way it did. The change in the movie ending infuriated me. Re-reading it all these years later, I don't find it anywhere near as good as what King had written to this point, though better than Firestarter. Cujo is a short book compared to the other's but longer than Carrie. I had thought this was going to be pure realistic horror but had forgotten about the boogieman element. King goes about playing this realistic, frighteningly possible story of a rabid dog wandering in a rural backwoods area while adding in just a touch of the paranormal which we could believe is imagination on the part of the participants but King won't let us off that easily. Cujo has a small cast of characters and King does something different here for the first time (disregarding the Bachman books) by spending a lot of time on character development of the main handful of major players. There is not even any threat until well over 100 pages in which is 1/3 of the book. King also chooses to write from the dog's point of view occasionally; this is a tricky thing to do and pull off well. But The King does it! Cujo's thoughts come much less frequently than any others, and his passages are always short lending great credibility and success to Cujo never becoming personified. He is always an animal, even though the reader is party to his brief canine thoughts. A good quick read. Classic King, but I'd call this a turning point from his work to date so far, more of a psychological thriller than horror; but still horror in a more real sense than in actually being scary or creepy.Now as I'm reading through the books, I'm also looking for the connections to the previous books in the big Stephen King Universe and this one is easy. Taking place in Castle Rock, right after the events of The Dead Zone, our new family moves into the house owned by the killer in DZ. This killer (I won't say who it is) and the case which forms the first half of DZ are referred to frequently in Cujo. Finally, Sheriff Bannerman from DZ is a character in both books. I didn't pick up on anything else.
    • 3/5
      Not normally a big horror fan but I remember reading this as a kid and enjoying it. Went back a couple fo months ago and re-read it. Stephen King did a great job. Took a nice Saint Bernard and made it into a horror monster. Good suspense, scenes that actually scare you as a reader, if you are into horror, there is a reason King is so popular, he writes very well!
    • 5/5
      I liked This book a lot. Since the events of the book only take place over a few days, a lot of it is just small details you might not think about if the story was weeks long. In this book, A woman and her child are trapped in a car by a rabid dog. Nobody knows they are missing for the 3 or so days that they are trapped.It all builds up until the final showdown, after the death of a character introduced in the Dead Zone, to a rather unhappy ending. I suggest that people read this book for themselves. It is a little slow at first, but it gets really fast paced about 1/2 way in. It is one of Stephen King's better stories, in my opinion, I never wanted to set it down while I was reading it.
    • 4/5
      I love this King book. I had previously watched the movie version before I had read the book, which I normally stay away from doing. When I read the book, I was pleasantly surprised. King captures many important perspectives, including the dog, Cujo. It was engaging how the rabies infection changed the mindset of the dog, and being able to read about this from the viewpoint of the dog was very englightening. I would recommend this book to any and everyone.
    • 4/5
      I really liked this story. I had always put this book off because I didn't like the movie at all and figured the book wouldn't be that much better, but actually the book was really good. All the events unfolded seamlessly and it was damn near impossible to put down.
    • 4/5
      A very book,very graphic, detailed with a twist at the end like all of Mr.Kings books, very good read.
    • 2/5
      this book is about a boy and his mom get stuck in their car.there was a ficious dog outside that was trying to get in the car and eat them. they were terrorfied.they dog went to sleep so the mom went out of the car to go inside the house to call 911. cujo the dog got up and she left the door open. she relized tha t and ran back outside and hit the dod with a two by four and went back inside the car a nd locked all the doors.eventually the cops shaow up and the dog gets killed and everyone is ok.
    • 5/5
      When I finished Cujo It was dark in the house and my girlfriiend was asleep. I remember being very concerned about the possibility of a large dog coming through the window. A great book and I loved that there was nothing explicitly supernatural in it.
    • 4/5
      It's been too long since I have read Stephen King. This was right up there with Misery as far as King's use of suspense and twisted psychology. I loved that he mixed the supernatural closet with the completely real and tangible disease that Cujo deals with. I immensely enjoyed this book. The various threads came together nicely, the characters were deep, and it was heart-wrenching.
    • 5/5
      I picked up this book with great trepidation. I had seen, and been bored silly by, the movie and wasn't expecting great things from the book. Once again, I was very pleasantly surprised. As with many Stephen King novels, the book is infinitely better than the movie. Despite having seen the film, and therefore knowing the storyline, this book still managed to give me a few thrills. Who am I kidding? I was on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading and found this book impossible to put down. Definitely a must read for horror and thriller fans.

    Book preview

    Cujo - Stephen King

    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 hear 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 hand, the razor he used to kill himself in the other… so shhh, children… shhh… 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 him 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 closet! 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 good house could hurt him. Tad nodded and agreed that it was so, 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 shoulders, how the teddybear had looked like a cocked head, and how the bathroom light, reflecting from Teddy’s glass eyes, had 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 far back 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 it 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, Tad. 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 watched 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 the ladies! In all the movies they catch the ladies and carry them off and eat them! Oh please oh please oh please—

    But they were gone.

    So Tad Trenton, four years old, lay in his bed, all wires and stiff Erector Set braces. He lay with the covers pulled up to his chin and one arm crushing Teddy against his chest, and there was Luke Skywalker on one wall; there was a chipmunk standing on a blender on another wall, grinning cheerily (IF LIFE HANDS YOU LEMONS, MAKE LEMONADE! the cheeky, grinning chipmunk was saying); there was the whole motley Sesame Street crew on a third: Big Bird, Ernie, Oscar, Grover. Good totems; good magic. But oh the wind outside, screaming over the roof and skating down black gutters! He would sleep no more this night.

    But little by little the wires unsnarled themselves and stiff Erector Set muscles relaxed. His mind began to drift.…

    And then a new screaming, this one closer than the night-wind outside, brought him back to staring wakefulness again.

    The hinges on the closet door.

    Creeeeeeeeeeeee—

    That thin sound, so high that perhaps only dogs and small boys awake in the night could have heard it. His closet door swung open slowly and steadily, a dead mouth opening on darkness inch by inch and foot by foot.

    The monster was in that darkness. It crouched where it had crouched before. It grinned at him, and its huge shoulders bulked above its cocked head, and its eyes glowed amber, alive with stupid cunning. I told you they’d go away, Tad, it whispered. They always do, in the end. And then I can come back. I like to come back. I like you, Tad. I’ll come back every night now, I think, and every night I’ll come a little closer to your bed… and a little closer… until one night, before you can scream for them, you’ll hear something growling, something growling right beside you, Tad, it’ll be me, and I’ll pounce, and then I’ll eat you and you’ll be in me.

    Tad stared at the creature in his closet with drugged, horrified fascination. There was something that… was almost familiar. Something he almost knew. And that was the worst, that almost knowing. Because—

    Because I’m crazy, Tad. I’m here. I’ve been here all along. My name was Frank Dodd once, and I killed the ladies and maybe I ate them, too. I’ve been here all along, I stick around, I keep my ear to the ground. I’m the monster, Tad, the old monster, and I’ll have you soon, Tad. Feel me getting closer… and closer.…

    Perhaps the thing in the closet spoke to him in its own hissing breath, or perhaps its voice was the wind’s voice. Either way, neither way, it didn’t matter. He listened to its words, drugged with terror, near fainting (but oh so wide awake); he looked upon its shadowed, snarling face, which he almost knew. He would sleep no more tonight; perhaps he would never sleep again.

    But sometime later, sometime between the striking of half past midnight and the hour of one, perhaps because he was small, Tad drifted away again. Thin sleep in which hulking, furred creatures with white teeth chased him deepened into dreamless slumber.

    The wind held long conversations with the gutters. A rind of white spring moon rose in the sky. Somewhere far away, in some still meadow of night or along some pine-edged corridor of forest, a dog barked furiously and then fell silent.

    And in Tad Trenton’s closet, something with amber eyes held watch.

    Did you put the blankets back? Donna asked her husband the next morning. She was standing at the stove, cooking bacon. Tad was in the other room, watching The New Zoo Revue and eating a bowl of Twinkles. Twinkles was a Sharp cereal, and the Trentons got all their Sharp cereals free.

    Hmmm? Vic asked. He was buried deep in the sports pages. A transplanted New Yorker, he had so far successfully resisted Red Sox fever. But he was masochistically pleased to see that the Mets were off to another superlatively cruddy start.

    The blankets. In Tad’s closet. They were back in there. The chair was back in there, too, and the door was open again. She brought the bacon, draining on a paper towel and still sizzling, to the table. Did you put them back on his chair?

    Not me, Vic said, turning a page. It smells like a mothball convention back there.

    "That’s funny. He must have put them back."

    He put the paper aside and looked up at her. What are you talking about, Donna?

    You remember the bad dream last night—

    Not apt to forget. I thought the kid was dying. Having a convulsion or something.

    She nodded. He thought the blankets were some kind of— She shrugged.

    Boogeyman, Vic said, grinning.

    I guess so. And you gave him his teddybear and put those blankets in the back of the closet. But they were back on the chair when I went in to make his bed. She laughed. I looked in, and for just a second there I thought—

    "Now I know where he gets it, Vic said, picking up the newspaper again. He cocked a friendly eye at her. Three hot dogs, my ass."

    Later, after Vic had shot off to work. Donna asked Tad why he had put the chair back in the closet with the blankets on it if they had scared him in the night.

    Tad looked up at her, and his normally animated, lively face seemed pale and watchful—too old. His Star Wars coloring book was open in front of him. He had been doing a picture from the interstellar cantina, using his green Crayola to color Greedo.

    I didn’t, he said.

    "But Tad, if you didn’t, and Daddy didn’t, and I didn’t—"

    The monster did it, Tad said. The monster in my closet.

    He bent to his picture again.

    She stood looking at him, troubled, a little frightened. He was a bright boy, and perhaps too imaginative. This was not such good news. She would have to talk to Vic about it tonight. She would have to have a long talk with him about it.

    Tad, remember what your father said, she told him now. There aren’t any such things as monsters.

    Not in the daytime, anyway, he said, and smiled at her so openly, so beautifully, that she was charmed out of her fears. She ruffled his hair and kissed his cheek.

    She meant to talk to Vic, and then Steve Kemp came while Tad was at nursery school, and she forgot, and Tad screamed that night too, screamed that it was in his closet, the monster, the monster!

    The closet door hung ajar, blankets on the chair. This time Vic took them up to the third floor and stacked them in the closet up there.

    Locked it up, Tadder, Vic said, kissing his son. You’re all set now. Go back to sleep and have a good dream.

    But Tad did not sleep for a long time, and before he did the closet door swung clear of its latch with a sly little snicking sound, the dead mouth opened on the dead dark—the dead dark where something furry and sharp-toothed and -clawed waited, something that smelled of sour blood and dark doom.

    Hello, Tad, it whispered in its rotting voice, and the moon peered in Tad’s window like the white and slitted eye of a dead man.

    The oldest living person in Castle Rock that late spring was Evelyn Chalmers, known as Aunt Evvie by the town’s older residents, known as that old loudmouth bitch by George Meara, who had to deliver her mail—which mostly consisted of catalogues and offers from the Reader’s Digest and prayer folders from the Crusade of the Eternal Christ—and listen to her endless monologues. The only thing that old loudmouth bitch is any good at is telling the weather, George had been known to allow when in his cups and in the company of his cronies down at the Mellow Tiger. It was one stupid name for a bar, but since it was the only one Castle Rock could boast, it looked like they were pretty much stuck with it.

    There was general agreement with George’s opinion. As the oldest resident of Castle Rock, Aunt Evvie had held the Boston Post cane for the last two years, ever since Arnold Heebert, who had been one hundred and one and so far gone in senility that talking to him held all the intellectual challenge of talking to an empty catfood can, had doddered off the back patio of the Castle Acres Nursing Home and broken his neck exactly twenty-five minutes after whizzing in his pants for the last time.

    Aunt Evvie was nowhere near as senile as Arnie Heebert had been, and nowhere near as old, but at ninety-three she was old enough, and, as she was fond of bawling at a resigned (and often hung-over) George Meara when he delivered the mail, she hadn’t been stupid enough to lose her home the way Heebert had done.

    But she was good at the weather. The town consensus—among the older people, who cared about such things—was that Aunt Evvie was never wrong about three things: the week when the first hay-cutting would happen in the summertime, how good (or how bad) the blueberries would be, and what the weather would be like.

    One day early that June she shuffled out to the mailbox at the end of the driveway, leaning heavily on her Boston Post cane (which would go to Vin Marchant when the loudmouthed old bitch popped off, George Meara thought, and good riddance to you, Evvie) and smoking a Herbert Tareyton. She bellowed a greeting at Meara—her deafness had apparently convinced her that everyone else in the world had gone deaf in sympathy—and then shouted that they were going to have the hottest summer in thirty years. Hot early and hot late, Evvie bellowed leather-lunged into the drowsy eleven-o’clock quiet, and hot in the middle.

    That so? George asked.

    What?

    I said, ‘Is that so?’ That was the other thing about Aunt Evvie; she got you shouting right along with her. A man could pop a blood vessel.

    I should hope to smile and kiss a pig if it ain’t! Aunt Evvie screamed. The ash of her cigarette fell on the shoulder of George Meara’s uniform blouse, freshly dry-cleaned and just put on clean this morning; he brushed it off resignedly. Aunt Evvie leaned in the window of his car, all the better to bellow in his ear. Her breath smelled like sour cucumbers.

    Fieldmice has all gone outta the root cellars! Tommy Neadeau seen deer out by Moosuntic Pond rubbin velvet off’n their antlers ere the first robin showed up! Grass under the snow when she melted! Green grass, Meara!

    That so, Evvie? George replied, since some reply seemed necessary. He was getting a headache.

    What?

    THAT SO, AUNT EVVIE? George Meara screamed. Saliva flew from his lips.

    Oh, ayuh! Aunt Evvie howled back contentedly. And I seen heat lightnin last night late! Bad sign, Meara! Early heat’s a bad sign! Be people die of the heat this summer! It’s gonna be a bad un!

    I got to go, Aunt Evvie! George yelled. Got a Special Delivery for Stringer Beaulieu!

    Aunt Evvie Chalmers threw her head back and cackled at the spring sky. She cackled until she was fit to choke and more cigarette ashes rolled down the front of her housedress. She spat the last quarter inch of cigarette out of her mouth, and it lay smoldering in the driveway by one of her old-lady shoes—a shoe as black as a stove and as tight as a corset; a shoe for the ages.

    You got a Special Delivery for Frenchy Beaulieu? Why, he couldn’t read the name on his own tombstone!

    I got to go, Aunt Evvie! George said hastily, and threw his car in gear.

    Frenchy Beaulieu is a stark natural-born fool if God ever made one! Aunt Evvie hollered, but by then she was hollering into George Meara’s dust; he had made good his escape.

    She stood there by her mailbox for a minute, watching him go. There was no personal mail for her; these days there rarely was. Most of the people she knew who had been able to write were now dead. She would follow soon enough, she suspected. The oncoming summer gave her a bad feeling, a scary feeling. She could speak of the mice leaving the root cellars early, or of heat lightning in a spring sky, but she could not speak of the heat she sensed somewhere just over the horizon, crouched like a scrawny yet powerful beast with mangy fur and red, smoldering eyes; she could not speak of her dreams, which were hot and shadowless and thirsty; she could not speak of the morning when tears had come for no reason, tears that did not relieve but stung the eyes like August-mad sweat instead. She smelled lunacy in a wind that had not arrived.

    George Meara, you’re an old fart, Aunt Evvie said, giving the word a juicy Maine resonance which built it into something that was both cataclysmic and ludicrous: faaaaaat.

    She began working her way back to the house, leaning on her Boston Post cane, which had been given her at a Town Hall ceremony for no more than the stupid accomplishment of growing old successfully. No wonder, she thought, the goddamned paper had gone broke.

    She paused on her stoop, looking at a sky which was still spring-pure and pastel soft. Oh, but she sensed it coming: something hot. Something foul.

    A year before that summer, when Vic Trenton’s old Jaguar developed a distressing clunking sound somewhere inside the rear left wheel, it had been George Meara who recommended that he take it up to Joe Camber’s Garage on the outskirts of Castle Rock. He’s got a funny way of doing things for around here, George told Vic that day as Vic stood by his mailbox. Tells you what the job’s gonna cost, then he does the job, and then he charges you what he said it was gonna cost. Funny way to do business, huh? And he drove away, leaving Vic to wonder if the mailman had been serious or if he (Vic) had just been on the receiving end of some obscure Yankee joke.

    But he had called Camber, and one day in July (a much cooler July than the one which would follow a year later), he and Donna and Tad had driven out to Camber’s place together. It really was far out; twice Vic had to stop and ask directions, and it was then that he began to call those farthest reaches of the township East Galoshes Corners.

    He pulled into the Camber dooryard, the back wheel clunking louder than ever. Tad, then three, was sitting on Donna Trenton’s lap, laughing up at her; a ride in Daddy’s no-top always put him in a fine mood, and Donna was feeling pretty fine herself.

    A boy of eight or nine was standing in the yard, hitting an old baseball with an even older baseball bat. The ball would travel through the air, strike the side of the barn, which Vic assumed was also Mr. Camber’s garage, and then roll most of the way back.

    Hi, the boy said. Are you Mr. Trenton?

    That’s right, Vic said.

    I’ll get my dad, the boy said, and went into the barn.

    The three Trentons got out, and Vic walked around to the back of his Jag and squatted by the bad wheel, not feeling very confident. Perhaps he should have tried to nurse the car into Portland after all. The situation out here didn’t look very promising; Camber didn’t even have a sign hung out.

    His meditations were broken by Donna, calling his name nervously. And then: "Oh my God, Vic—"

    He got up quickly and saw a huge dog emerging from the barn. For one absurd moment he wondered if it really was a dog, or maybe some strange and ugly species of pony. Then, as the dog padded out of the shadows of the barn’s mouth, he saw its sad eyes and realized it was a Saint Bernard.

    Donna had impulsively snatched up Tad and retreated toward the hood of the Jag, but Tad was struggling impatiently in her arms, trying to get down.

    "Want to see the doggy, Mom… want to see the doggy!"

    Donna cast a nervous glance at Vic, who shrugged, also uneasy. Then the boy came back and ruffled the dog’s head as he approached Vic. The dog wagged a tail that was absolutely huge, and Tad redoubled his struggles.

    You can let him down, ma’am, the boy said politely. Cujo likes kids. He won’t hurt him. And then, to Vic: My dad’s coming right out. He’s washing his hands.

    All right, Vic said. That’s one hell of a big dog, son. Are you sure he’s safe?

    He’s safe, the boy agreed, but Vic found himself moving up beside his wife as his son, incredibly small, toddled toward the dog. Cujo stood with his head cocked, that great brush of a tail waving slowly back and forth.

    Vic— Donna began.

    It’s all right, Vic said, thinking, I hope. The dog looked big enough to swallow the Tadder in a single bite.

    Tad stopped for a moment, apparently doubtful. He and the dog looked at each other.

    Doggy? Tad said.

    Cujo, Camber’s boy said, walking over to Tad. His name’s Cujo.

    Cujo, Tad said, and the dog came to him and began to lick his face in great, goodnatured, slobbery swipes that had Tad giggling and trying to fend him off. He turned back to his mother and father, laughing the way he did when one of them was tickling him. He took a step toward them and his feet tangled in each other. He fell down, and suddenly the dog was moving toward him, over him, and Vic, who had his arm around Donna’s waist, felt his wife’s gasp as well as heard it. He started to move forward… and then stopped.

    Cujo’s teeth had clamped on the back of Tad’s Spider-Man T-shirt. He pulled the boy up—for a moment Tad looked like a kitten in its mother’s mouth—and set the boy on his feet.

    Tad ran back to his mother and father. Like the doggy! Mom! Dad! I like the doggy!

    Camber’s boy was watching this with mild amusement, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans.

    Sure, it’s a great dog, Vic said. He was amused, but his heart was still beating fast. For just one moment there he had really believed that the dog was going to bite off Tad’s head like a lollipop. It’s a Saint Bernard, Tad, he said.

    Saint… Bennart! Tad cried, and ran back toward Cujo, who was now sitting outside the mouth of the barn like a small mountain. "Cujo! Coooojo!"

    Donna tensed beside Vic again. Oh, Vic, do you think—

    But now Tad was with Cujo again, first hugging him extravagantly and then looking closely at his face. With Cujo sitting down (his tail thumping on the gravel, his tongue lolling out pinkly), Tad could almost look into the dog’s eyes by standing on tiptoe.

    I think they’re fine, Vic said.

    Tad had now put one of his small hands into Cujo’s mouth and was peering in like the world’s smallest dentist. That gave Vic another uneasy moment, but then Tad was running back to them again. Doggy’s got teeth, he told Vic.

    Yes, Vic said. Lots of teeth.

    He turned to the boy, meaning to ask him where he had come up with that name, but then Joe Camber was coming out of the barn, wiping his hands on a piece of waste so he could shake without getting Vic greasy.

    Vic was pleasantly surprised to find that Camber knew exactly what he was doing. He listened carefully to the clunking sound as he and Vic drove down to the house at the bottom of the hill and then back up to Camber’s place.

    Wheel bearing’s going, Camber said briefly. You’re lucky it ain’t froze up on you already.

    Can you fix it? Vic asked.

    Oh, ayuh. Fix it right now if you don’t mind hangin around for a couple of hours.

    That’d be all right, I guess, Vic said. He looked toward Tad and the dog. Tad had gotten the baseball Camber’s son had been hitting. He would throw it as far as he could (which wasn’t very far), and the Cambers’ Saint Bernard would obediently get it and bring it back to Tad. The ball was looking decidedly slobbery. Your dog is keeping my son amused.

    Cujo likes kids, Camber agreed. You want to drive your car into the barn, Mr. Trenton?

    The doctor will see you now, Vic thought, amused, and drove the Jag in. As it turned out, the job only took an hour and a half and Camber’s price was so reasonable it was startling.

    And Tad ran through that cool, overcast afternoon, calling the dog’s name over and over again: Cujo… Coojo… heeere, Cujo.… Just before they left, Camber’s boy, whose name was Brett, actually lifted Tad onto Cujo’s back and held him around the waist while Cujo padded obediently up and down the gravel dooryard twice. As it passed Vic, the dog caught his eye… and Vic would have sworn it was laughing.

    Just three days after George Meara’s bellowed conversation with Aunt Evvie Chalmers, a little girl who was exactly Tad Trenton’s age stood up from her place at the breakfast table—said breakfast table being in the breakfast nook of a tidy little house in Iowa City, Iowa—and announced: Oh, Mamma, I don’t feel so good. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

    Her mother looked around, not exactly surprised. Two days before, Marcy’s bigger brother had been sent from school with a raging case of stomach flu. Brock was all right now, but he had spent a lousy twenty-four hours, his body enthusiastically throwing off ballast from both ends.

    Are you sure, honey? Marcy’s mother said.

    Oh, I— Marcy moaned loudly and lurched toward the downstairs hall, her hands laced over her stomach. Her mother followed her, saw Marcy buttonhook into the bathroom, and thought, Oh, boy, here we go again. If I don’t catch this it’ll be a miracle.

    She heard the retching sounds begin and turned into the bathroom her mind already occupied with the details; clear liquids, bed rest, the chamber-pot, some books; Brock could take the portable TV up to her room when he got back from school and—

    She looked, and these thoughts were driven from her mind with the force of a roundhouse slap.

    The toilet bowl where her four-year-old daughter had vomited was full of blood; blood splattered the white procelain lip of the bowl; blood beaded the tiles.

    Oh, Mommy, I don’t feel good—

    Her daughter turned, her daughter turned, turned, and there was blood all over her mouth, it was down her chin, it was matting her blue sailor dress, blood, oh dear God dear Jesus Joseph and Mary so much blood—

    Mommy—

    And her daughter did it again, a huge bloody mess flying from her mouth to patter down everywhere like sinister rain, and then Marcy’s mother gathered her up and ran with her, ran for the phone in the kitchen to dial the emergency unit.

    Cujo knew he was too old to chase rabbits.

    He wasn’t old; no, not even for a dog. But at five, he was well past his puppyhood, when even a butterfly had been enough to set off an arduous chase through the woods and meadows behind the house and barn. He was five, and if he had been a human, he would have been entering the youngest stage of middle age.

    But it was the sixteenth of June, a beautiful early morning, the dew still on the grass. The heat Aunt Evvie had predicted to George Meara had indeed arrived—it was the warmest early June in years—and by two that afternoon Cujo would be lying in the dusty dooryard (or in the barn, if THE MAN would let him in, which he sometimes did when he was drinking, which was most of the time these days), panting under the hot sun. But that was later.

    And the rabbit, which was large, brown, and plump, didn’t have the slightest idea Cujo was there, down near the end of the north field, a mile from the house. The wind was blowing the wrong way for Br’er Rabbit.

    Cujo worked toward the rabbit, out for sport rather than meat. The rabbit munched happily away at new clover that would be baked and brown under the relentless sun a month later. If he had only covered half the original distance between himself and the rabbit when the rabbit saw him and bolted, Cujo would have let it go. But he had actually got to within fifteen yards of it when the rabbit’s head and ears came up. For a moment the rabbit did not move at all; it was a frozen rabbit sculpture with black walleyes bulging comically. Then it was off.

    Barking furiously, Cujo gave chase. The rabbit was very small and Cujo was very big, but the possibility of the thing put an extra ration of energy in Cujo’s legs. He actually got close enough to paw at the rabbit. The rabbit zigged. Cujo came around more ponderously, his claws digging black meadow dirt, losing some ground at first, making it up quickly. Birds took wing at his heavy, chopping bark; if it is possible for a dog to grin, Cujo was grinning then. The rabbit zagged, then made straight across the north field. Cujo pelted after it, already suspecting this was one race he wasn’t going to win.

    But he tried hard, and he was gaining on the rabbit again when it dropped into a small hole in the side of a small and easy hill. The hole was overgrown by long grasses, and Cujo didn’t hesitate. He lowered his big tawny body into a kind of furry projectile and let his forward motion carry him in… where he promptly stuck like a cork in a bottle.

    Joe Camber had owned Seven Oaks Farm out at the end of Town Road No. 3 for seventeen years, but he had no idea this hole was here. He surely would have discovered it if farming was his business, but it wasn’t. There was no livestock in the big red barn; it was his garage and auto-body shop. His son Brett rambled the fields and woods behind the home place frequently, but he had never noticed the hole either, although on several occasions he had nearly put his foot in it, which might have earned him a broken ankle. On clear days the hole could pass for a shadow; on cloudy days, overgrown with grass as it was, it disappeared altogether.

    John Mousam, the farm’s previous owner, had known about the hole but had never thought to mention it to Joe Camber when Joe bought the place in 1963. He might have mentioned it, as a caution, when Joe and his wife, Charity, had their son in 1970, but by then the cancer had carried old John off.

    It was just as well Brett had never found it. There’s nothing in the world quite so interesting to a boy as a hole in the ground, and this one opened on a small natural limestone cave. It was about twenty feet deep at its deepest, and it would have been quite possible for a small squirty boy to eel his way in, slide to the bottom, and then find it impossible to get out. It had happened to other small animals in the past. The cave’s limestone surface made a good slide but a bad climb, and its bottom was littered with bones: a

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