Category: Writers Block
Ghost Dog
Prologue.
Before.
Once upon a time, not so long ago, a monster came to the small town of Castle Rock, Maine, and killed six people. It was not vampire, werewolf, ghoul, or beast from the cold wastes. It was merely a psychotic man named Frank Dodd, whose Mother had made him what he was.
A good man named John Smith discovered his name through a kind of magic, which allowed him to pick up impressions from whatever he touched, but before Frank Dodd could be taken, he killed himself in the bathroom of his Mother's house.
The monster was gone. The monster was dead, and the people of Castle rock could rest peacefully, or could they?
The monster returned in the summer of 1980. Once again, it was not vampire, werewolf, ghoul, or beast from the cold wastes. This time, it was a 200 pound St. Bernard named Cujo, who had been bitten by a rabid bat. Circumstances contrived to hide his illness from his owners, and finally, he went on a rampage, killing four people, including his owner, Joe Camber, Garry Pervier, the old drunk who lived down the rode from him, Sheriff "Big George Bannerman," and a four year old boy named Tadd Trenton. The only survivor, Tadd Trenton's Mother Donna, managed to once again put an end to the monster, but the monster never dies. It only rests a while, regaining its strength, preparing for its next chance.
During the years following Cujo's rampage, the old Camber place was abandoned, and gained a reputation as a haunted house. Many a child in Castle Rock lay awake at night, wondering if what he, or she heard outside his, or her window might be the restless spirit of Cujo, back for blood, and meaner than ever, but during the day they knew that such things just didn't happen. After all, science had proven that the dead don't come back, or do they?
The monster returned again in the fall of 1990, this time through the camera of an eleven year old boy named Kevin Dellevan. Once again, it took the form of a dog, this time, a black, no-breed dog, walking slowly along an old picket fence. As more, and more pictures were taken with the camera, the dog appeared to come closer, and closer to the photographer.
Castle Rock's sharpest trader, Pop Merril, stole the camera, intending to cash in on the "super natural" power it was exhibiting, but no matter how often he tried, he couldn't sell it, although he had an entire list of people he knew as "his Mad Hatters," who he believed, at least until he came into possession of Kevin's Sun 660 camera, would buy anything that even remotely smacked of the super natural. On the last day of Pop's life, he decided, a little late in the game, to destroy the camera, but it took control of him, and used him to free the monster within.
Kevin Dellevan, warned in dreams of a creepy, little two dimensional town called Poleroidsville, "Pop's dog broke his leash, and he's a mean un. He tore up three, or four people at the Trenton farm in Camberville before he came here," was able to banish the monster, but it once again attempted to return, this time hidden inside Kevin Dellevan's new word processor, "The dog is loose again. It is not sleeping. It is not lazy. It's coming for you, Kevin. It's very hungry, and it's very angry!" but the machine was returned, and the Dellevan family fled Castle Rock.
Once again, the monster had been bested, but nothing is forever. Late the next year, a woman, sent to the old Camber place by a man who wasn't really a man at all, saw what she thought was Cujo, lurking in the abandoned barn Joe Camber had used as an automobile repair garage.
After Seventeen years of silence, during which some people, mainly the younger ones, forgot about Cujo's bloody killing rampage, the monster once again returned, and this time, it wasn't just people from "Town" who encountered it..
Interesting, interesting. And cliff-hangers are always nice.
Not my kind of read, but it's crumbs of intriguing.
One of Stephen King's cheesier story arcs. I liked 'Nona' from one of the shortstory collections (Skeleton Crew?) which took place in Castle Rock.
I knew this would be either really good or really stupid. Thanks for making it the former. Is this a aanfic? You definitely know your Steven King. Hmmm. I didn't read the one about the dog, but I did read the one about the camera.