Gerald's Game - Stephen King [11]
What finally got her going again was a barking dog. It was an exceedingly ugly bark, bottomheavy but breaking to shrill bits in its upper registers. Each time the animal let go with it, it sounded as if it were puking up a throatful of sharp splinters. She had heard that bark before, although it might be better — quite a bit better, actually — if she managed not to remember when, or where, or what had been happening at the time.
But at least it got her moving — left foot, right foot, hayfoot, strawfoot — and suddenly it occurred to her that she could see through the fog better if she opened her eyes, so she did. It wasn't some spooky Twilight Zone hallway she saw but the master bedroom of their summer house on the north end of Kashwakamak Lake — the area that was known as Notch Bay. She guessed the reason she had felt cold was that she was wearing nothing but a pair of bikini panties, and her neck and shoulders hurt because she was handcuffed to the bedposts and her bottom had slid down the bed when she fainted. No tilted corridor; no foggy damp. Only the dog was real, still barking its fool head off. It now sounded quite close to the house. If Gerald heard that —
The thought of Gerald made her twitch, and the twitch sent complex spiral-sparkles of feeling through her cramped biceps and triceps. These tingles faded away to nothing at her elbows, and Jessie realized with soupy, just-waking-up dismay that her forearms were mostly without feeling and her hands might as well have been gloves stuffed with congealed mashed potatoes.
This is going to hurt, she thought, and then everything came back to her . . . especially the image of Gerald doing his header off the side of the bed. Her husband was on the floor, either dead or unconscious, and she was lying up here on the bed, thinking about what a drag it was that her lower arms and hands had gone to sleep. How selfish and self-centered could you get?
If he's dead, it's his own damned fault, the no-bullshit voice said. It tried to add a few other home truths as well, but Jessie gagged it. In her still-not-quite-conscious state she had a clearer sightline into the deeper archives of her memory banks, and she suddenly realized whose voice - slightly nasal, clipped, always on the verge of a sarcasm-tinged laugh — that was. It belonged to her college roommate, Ruth Neary. Now that Jessie knew, she found she wasn't a bit surprised. Ruth had always been extremely generous with pieces of her mind, and her advice had often scandalized her nineteen-year-old wet-behind-the-ears roommate from Falmouth Foreside . . . which had undoubtedly been the idea, or part of it; Ruth's heart had always been in the right place, and Jessie had never doubted that Ruth actually believed sixty per cent of the things she said and had actually done forty per cent of the things she claimed to have done. When it came to things sexual, the percentage was probably even higher. Ruth Neary, the first woman Jessie had ever known who absolutely refused to shave her legs and her armpits; Ruth, who had once filled an unpleasant floor-counsellor's pillowcase with strawberry-scented foam douche; Ruth, who on general principles went to every student rally and attended every experimental student play. If all else fails, tootsie, some good-looking guy will probably take hit clothes off, she had told an amazed but fascinated Jessie after coming back from a student effort entitled 'The Son of Noah's Parrot'. I mean, it doesn't always happen, but it usually does — I think that's really what student-written-and-produced plays are for — so guys and girls can take off their clothes and make out in public.
She hadn't thought of Ruth in years and now Ruth was inside her head, handing out little nuggets of wisdom just as she had in days of yore. Well, why not? Who was more qualified to advise the mentally confused and emotionally disturbed than Ruth Neary, who had gone on from the University of New Hampshire