#utkd

"She stared at the dog and imagined she could hear its thoughts. Simple thoughts. The same simple pattern, repeated over and over in spite of the whirling boil of its sickness and delirium. Kill THE WOMAN. Kill THE BOY. Kill THE WOMAN. Kill - "  Cujo, Stephen King.

Once upon a time there was a mongrel of a man. His name was Frank Dodd. He lived and killed in Castle Rock. Find him posted to #The Psycho Path.

Welcome to Castle Rock, summer of 1980. For SK’s Constant Readers, Castle Rock is like coming home – if home was a sinister, secretive, epicentre of carnage and sorrow. But we wouldn’t have it any other way. The Rock is home to a plethora of haunting characters running the gamut of good and evil, and the place Johnny Smith (The Dead Zone) ended Frank Dodd’s reign of devastation perpetrated throughout this tightknit community. It is also where we first glimpse the gossamer of SK’s web floating into focus and the labyrinth that would become my King Dome.

Cujo is the story of ordinary folk confronted with an extraordinary run of rotten luck. From young Brett Camber’s Saint Bernard chasing a rabbit into a cave and being slashed on his muzzle by a bat; to Brett’s mother opportunistically separating him from his abusive father, but also his now rabid dog; to the failing Pinto sedan that Donna Trenton and her son Tad, drove into the Camber’s property that blistering summer’s day, only to have it conk out on arrival. "How could so many events have conspired together?"

Society is obsessed with insight into a killer and SK has done unique job of giving us the canine perspective, without satire or devaluing Cujo’s instinct, “He wanted to drink the water; kill the water; bathe in the water; piss and shit in the water; cover it over with dirt; savage it; make it bleed.”

There is a poignant story of betrayal and desperation subtly mirrored between the middle class Trenton’s and the working class Camber’s that SK unravels here, but let’s face it - rabid jaws of fury are going to butcher that heart. We want Dog versus Man! “'Nice boy -' To Cujo, the words coming from THE MAN meant nothing. They where meaningless sounds, like the wind. What mattered was the smell coming from THE MAN. It was hot, rank and pungent. It was the smell of fear.”

The claustrophobia of that Pinto and the psychology employed by Donna Trenton are spot on. Her fear gave rise to much terror and paralysed her - all the times they could have made their escape kill you inside. But it’s her ordinariness, her normality that resonates so maddeningly. She is a mum dropping her car off at the mechanic, not a super-hero, not a retired covert-operative, not Buffy. “Tad buried his face against her breasts just as Cujo struck the windshield again. Foam smeared against the glass as he tried to bite his way through. Those muddled, bleary eyes stared into Donna's. I'm going to pull you to pieces, they said. You and the boy both. Just as soon as I can find a way to get into this tin can, I'll eat you alive; I'll be swallowing pieces of you, while you're still screaming.”

Kudos to the film for a mostly faithful adaption - Dee Wallace and Danny Pintauro are utterly convincing, as is Cujo. However, trust the King over any cinematic production, to gut you senseless at the end. The master of horror succeeds brutally, where Hollywood fears to tread.

Cujo, the book, is a tragedy of errors. Cujo, the dog, is legend. We all know someone who has named their Chihuahua, Cujo.

A Different Season blows through next, Under The King Dome.

"Just as soon as I can find a way to get into this tin can, I'll eat you alive; I'll be swallowing pieces of you, while you're screaming."  CUJO.

“An ecstasy of superstitious terror seized him. It was coming. The corn on the far side of the clearing suddenly darkened, as if a gigantic shadow had blotted it out. Coming. He Who Walked Behind The Rows.” Children Of The Corn - NIGHT SHIFT, Stephen King.

A short story collection offers the illicit allure of a one-night stand as opposed to the long-term relationship you develop with a novel. The short story promises to beat you, eat you and have you on your heels before numbers are exchanged or hearts are engaged. They leave you provoked, tense, diverted and if they’re good (very, very good) they leave you wanting move. If they’re bad, they evaporate.

SK traverses the spectrum of horror in Night Shift (a collection of 20 short stories) from the supernatural - Jerusalem's Lot gets all legacy on ‘Salem’s Lot; to the physical - The Ledge unnerves you at every corner; and of course emotional terror - The Woman in the Room will challenge your humanity.

Revisiting Quitters, Inc. knocked the wind out of me. This is the one story that lingered because it faced down that demon - addiction. It cut me then and took a whole slice out of me now. In the two decades since my last read, the intimidation has not strayed and on more than one occasion I have looked over my shoulder while lighting the social pariah. Light me up or butt me out.

The Mangler came back like a lover’s touch. A Speed Ironer and Folder, operating in an industrial laundry has its own idea of what (or who) needs pressing. Whilst reading, the synapses pulled the memories from my brain as if I had inhaled a freshly laundered shirt of a past lover, the words intoxicating all over again. This is how I like my horror - preternatural, maniacal and malevolent. "As if the machine had tasted blood and found it liked it."

Curiously, The Ledge gives me the genuine creeps, more than any other offering here. To ensure the safety of the woman he loves, Stan Norris must traverse the outside ledge of a penthouse apartment, forty-three stories up. I’m not afraid of heights, but my body would betray me in an instant. I could taste the grit of the stone walls and my calf muscles were knots of barbwire. “Startled, I jerked back to the very edge of balance. My hands lost the wall and pin-wheeled crazily for balance. I think that if one of them had hit the stone face of the building, I would have been gone. But after what seemed an eternity, gravity decided to let me return to the wall instead of sending me down to the pavement forty-three stories below.” If you’ve become jaded with the horror genre, I dare you.

Sometimes They Come Back is written in such a relatable way, you immediately identify with Jim Norman and how a sane, intelligent man genuinely deals with the reincarnation of bullies. Murder becomes viable.

Trucks is pure, wicked fun and parallels the theme of the inanimate getting it on. Payback’s a gas!

The cut and dry take from Night Shift is the older I get, the more mundane my horror becomes. What once placed the fear of God in me, lived under the bed as detailed in The Boogeyman. Tragically for all of us, it will end up on top of the bed like The Woman in the Room.

This Constant Reader is in the Zone. My final offering for #UTKD 2013 is Dead.