Authors: Stephen King
This was averted by a girl of perhaps eleven, who was sitting to Mommy's left. The girl had a Porta-Carry on her lap. Inside was a large blacksnake, its scales glowing with luxuriant good health. The little girl shot out one jeans-clad leg with the unearthly reflexes of the very young and stomped on the trailing end of Eric's leash. Eric did one complete snap-roll. The little girl reeled the Pom in. She was by far the calmest person in the waiting room.
“What if that little fucker gave me the rabies?”
Mommy was screaming as she advanced across the room toward Mrs. Alden. Blood twinkled between the fingers clapped to her arm. Peter's head turned toward her as she passed, and Anderson pulled him back, heading toward the door. Fuck the little sign in Mrs. Alden's cubbyhole reading
IT IS CUSTOMARY TO PAY CASH FOR PROFESSIONAL SERVICES UNLESS OTHER ARRANGEMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE IN ADVANCE
. She wanted to get out of here and drive the speed limit all the way home and have a drink. Cutty. A double. On second thought, make that a triple.
From her left came a long, low, virulent hissing sound. Anderson turned in that direction and saw a cat that might have stepped out of a Halloween decoration. Black except for a single dab of white at the end of its tail, it had backed up as far as its carrying cage would allow. Its back was humped up; its fur stood straight up in hackles; its green eyes, fixed unwaveringly on Peter, glowed fantastically. Its pink mouth was jointed wide, ringed with teeth.
“Get your dog out, lady,” the woman with the cat said in a voice cold as a cocking trigger. “Blacky don't like im.”
Anderson wanted to tell her she didn't care if Blacky farted or blew a tin whistle, but she would not think of this obscure but somehow exquisitely apt expression until laterâshe rarely did in hot situations. Her characters always knew exactly the right things to say, and she
rarely had to deliberate over themâthey came easily and naturally. This was almost never the case in real life.
“Hold your water,” was the best she could do, and she spoke in such a craven mutter that she doubted if Blacky's owner had the slightest idea what she had said, or maybe even that she had said anything at all. She really
was
pulling Peter now, using the leash to yank the dog along in a way she hated to see a dog pulled whenever she observed it being done on the street. Peter was making coughing noises in his throat and his tongue was a saliva-dripping runner hanging askew from one side of his mouth. He stared at a boxer whose right foreleg was in a cast. A big man in a blue mechanic's coverall was holding the boxer's rope leash with both hands; had, in fact, taken a double-twist of the hayrope around one big grease-stained fist and was still having trouble holding his dog, which could have killed Peter as quickly and efficiently as Peter himself could have the Pomeranian. The boxer was pulling mightily in spite of its broken leg, and Anderson had more faith in the mechanic's grip than she did the hayrope leash, which appeared to be fraying.
It seemed to Anderson that she fumbled for the knob of the outer door with her free hand for a hundred years. It was like having a nightmare where your hands are full and your pants start, slowly and inexorably, to slip down.
Peter did this. Somehow.
She turned the knob, then took one final hasty glance around the waiting room. It had become an absurd little no-man's-land. Mommy was demanding first aid of Mrs. Alden (and apparently really did need some; blood was now coursing down her arm in freshets, spotting her yellow slacks and white institutional shoes); Blacky the cat was still hissing; even Dr. Etheridge's gerbils were going mad in the complicated maze of plastic tubes and towers on the far shelf that made up their home; Eric the Crazed Pomeranian stood at the end of his leash barking at Peter in a strangled voice. Peter was snarling back.
Anderson's eye fell on the little girl's blacksnake and saw that it had reared up like a cobra inside its Porta-Carry and was also looking at Peter, its fangless mouth yawning, its narrow pink tongue shuttling at the air in stiff little jabs.
Blacksnakes don't do that, I never saw a blacksnake do that in my life.
Now in something very close to real horror, Anderson fled, dragging Peter after her.
Pete began to calm down almost as soon as the door sighed shut behind them. He stopped coughing and dragging on the leash and began to walk at Anderson's side, glancing at her occasionally in that way that said
I don't like this leash and I'm
never
going to like it, but okay, okay, if it's what you want.
By the time they were both in the cab of the pickup, Peter was entirely his old self again.
Anderson was not.
Her hands were shaking so badly that she had to try three times before she could get the ignition key into its slot. Then she popped the clutch and stalled the engine. The Chevy pickup gave a mighty jerk and Peter tumbled off the seat onto the floor. He gave Anderson a reproachful beagle look (although all dogs are capable of reproachful looks, only beagles seem to have mastered that long-suffering stare).
Where did you say you got your license, Bobbi?
that expression seemed to ask.
Sears and Roebuck?
Then he climbed up on the seat again. Anderson was already finding it hard to believe that only five minutes ago Peter had been growling and snarling, a bad-tempered dog she had never encountered before, apparently ready to bite anything that moved,
and that expression, that . . .
But her mind snapped shut on that before it could go any further.
She got the engine going again and then headed out of the parking lot. As she passed the side of the buildingâ
AUGUSTA VETERINARY CLINIC,
the neat sign readâshe rolled her window down. A few barks and yaps. Nothing out of the ordinary.
It had stopped.
And that wasn't all that had stopped, she thought. Although she couldn't be completely sure, she thought her period was over, too. If so, good riddance to bad rubbish.
To coin a phrase.
Bobbi didn't want to waitâor couldn'tâto get back before having the drink she had promised herself. Just outside the Augusta city limits was a roadhouse that went by the charming name of the Big Lost Weekend Bar and Grille (Whopper Spareribs Our Specialty; The Nashville Kitty-Cats This Fri and Sad).
Anderson pulled in between an old station wagon and a John Deere tractor with a dirty harrow on the back with its blades kicked up. Further down was a big old Buick with a horse-trailer behind. Anderson had kept away from that on purpose.
“Stay,” Anderson said, and Peter, now curled up on the seat, gave her a look as if to say,
Why would I want to go anywhere with you? So you can choke me some more with that stupid leash?
The Big Lost Weekend was dark and nearly deserted on a Wednesday afternoon, its dance floor a cavern which glimmered faintly. The place reeked of sour beer. The bartender
cum
counterman strolled down and said, “Howdy, purty lady. The chili's on special. Alsoâ”
“I'd like Cutty Sark,” Anderson said. “Double. Water back.”
“You always drink like a man?”
“Usually from a glass,” Anderson said, a quip which made no sense at all, but she felt very tired . . . and harrowed to the bone. She went into the ladies' to change her pad and did slip one of the minis from her purse into the crotch of her panties as a precaution . . . but precaution was all it was, and that was a relief. It seemed that the cardinal had flown off for another month.
She returned to her stool in a better humor than she had left it, and felt better still when she had gotten half the drink inside her.
“Say, I sure didn't mean to offend you,” the bartender said. “It gets lonely in here, afternoons. When a stranger comes in, my lip gets runny.”
“My fault,” Anderson said. “I haven't been having the best day of my life.”
She finished the drink and sighed.
“You want another one, miss?”
I think I liked “purty lady” better,
Anderson thought, and shook her head. “I'll take a glass of milk, though. Otherwise I'll have acid indigestion all afternoon.”
The bartender brought her the milk. Anderson sipped it and thought about what had happened at the vet's. The answer was quick and simple: she didn't know.
But I'll tell you what happened when you brought him in,
she thought.
Not a thing.
Her mind seized on this. The waiting room had been almost as crowded when she brought Peter in as it had been when she dragged him back out, only there had been no bedlam scene the first time. The place had not been quietâanimals of different types and species, many of them ancient and instinctive antagonists, do not make for a library atmosphere when brought togetherâbut it had been normal. Now, with the booze working in her, she recalled the man in the mechanic's coverall leading the boxer in. The boxer had looked at Peter. Peter had looked mildly back. No big deal.
So?
So drink your milk and get on home and forget it.
Okay. And what about that thing in the woods? Do I forget that, too?
Instead of an answer, her grandfather's voice came:
By the way, Bobbi, what's that thing doing to
you?
Have you thought about that?
She hadn't.
Now that she had, she was tempted to order another drink . . . except another, even a single, would make her drunk, and did she really want to be sitting in this huge barn in the early afternoon, getting drunk alone, waiting for the inevitable someone (maybe the bartender himself) to cruise up and ask what a pretty place like this was doing around a girl like her?
She left a five on the counter and the bartender saluted her. On her way out she saw a pay phone. The phonebook was dirty and dog-eared and smelled of used bourbon, but at least it was still there. Anderson deposited twenty cents, crooked the handset between shoulder and ear while she hunted through the V's in the Yellow Pages, then called Etheridge's clinic. Mrs. Alden sounded quite composed. In the background she could hear one dog barking. One.
“I didn't want you to think I stiffed you,” she said, “and I'll mail your leash back tomorrow.”
“Not at all, Ms. Anderson,” she said. “After all the years you've done business with us, you're the last person we'd worry about when it comes to deadbeats. As for leashes, we've got a closetful.”
“Things seemed a little crazy there for a while.”
“Boy, were they ever! We had to call Medix for Mrs. Perkins. I didn't think it was badâshe'll have needed stitches, of course, but lots of people who need stitches get to the doctor under their own power.” She lowered her voice a little, offering Anderson a confidence that she probably wouldn't have offered a man. “Thank God it was her own dog that bit her. She's the sort of woman who starts shouting lawsuit at the drop of a hat.”
“Any idea what might have caused it?”
“Noâneither does Dr. Etheridge. The heat after the rain, maybe. Dr. Etheridge said he heard of something like it once at a convention. A vet from California said that all the animals in her clinic had what she called âa savage spell' just before the last big quake out there.”
“Is that so?”
“There was an earthquake in Maine last year,” Mrs. Alden said. “I hope there won't be another one. That nuclear plant at Wiscasset is too close for comfort.”
Just ask Gard,
Bobbi thought. She said thanks again and hung up.
Anderson went back to the truck. Peter was sleeping. He opened his eyes when Anderson got in, then closed them again. His muzzle lay on his paws. The gray on that muzzle was fading away. No question about it; no question at all.
And by the way, Bobbi, what's that thing doing to
you?
Shut up, Granddad.
She drove home. And after fortifying herself with a second Scotchâa weak oneâshe went into the bathroom and stood close to the mirror, first examining her face and then running her fingers through her hair, lifting it and then letting it drop.
The gray was still thereâall of it that had so far come in, as far as she could tell.
She never would have thought she would be glad to see gray hair, but she was. Sort of.
By early evening, dark clouds had begun to build up in the west, and by dark it had commenced thundering. The rains were going to return, it seemed, at least for a one-night stand. Anderson knew she wouldn't get Peter outside that night to do more than the most pressing doggy business; since his puppyhood, the beagle had been utterly terrified of thunderstorms.
Anderson sat in her rocker by the window, and if someone had been there she supposed it would have looked like she was reading, but what she was really doing was grinding: grinding grimly away at the thesis
Range War and Civil War.
It was as dry as dust, but she thought it was going to be extremely useful when she finally got around to the new one . . . which should be fairly soon now.
Each time the thunder rolled, Peter edged a little closer to the rocker and Anderson, seeming almost to grin shamefacedly.
Yeah, it's not going to hurt me, I know, I know, but I'll just get a little closer to you, okay? And if there comes a real blast, I'll just about crowd you out of that fucking rocker, what do you say? You don't mind, do you, Bobbi?
The storm held off until nine o'clock, and by then Anderson was pretty sure they were going to have a good oneâwhat Havenites called “a real Jeezer.” She went into the kitchen, rummaged in the walk-in closet that served as her pantry, and found her Coleman gas lantern on a high shelf. Peter followed directly behind her, tail between his legs, shamefaced grin on his face. Anderson almost fell over him coming out of the closet with the lantern.