Needful Things - Stephen King [64]
"Yes!" she shouted furiously. "Yes, I fell down! Yes, I'm okay!
Turn on the goddam light!"
"Did you hurt yourself-" 'Just turn on the goddam LIGHT!" she screamed at him, and rubbed a hand across the front of her coat. It came away covered with cold goo. She was now so angry she could see her own pulse as bright points of light before her eyes and angriest of all at herself, for being scared. Even for a second.
Yark! Yark! Yark!
The goddam mutt in the next yard was going ape. Christ, she hated dogs, especially the mouthy ones.
Pete's shape retreated to the top of the kitchen steps. The door opened, his hand snaked inside, and then the floodlight came on, bathing the rear yard with bright light.
Wilma looked down at herself and saw a wide swath of dark brown across the front of her new fall coat. She wiped furiously at her face, held out her hand, and saw it had also turned brown. She could feel a slow, syrupy trickle running down the middle of her back.
"Mud!" She was stupefied with disbelief-so much so that she was unaware she had spoken aloud. Who could have done this to her? Who would have dared?
"What did you say, honey?" Pete asked. He had been coming toward her; now he stopped a prudent distance away. Wilma's face was working in a way Pete jerzyck found extremely alarming: it was as if a nest of baby snakes had hatched just beneath her skin.
"Mud!" she screamed, holding her hands out toward him at him. Flecks of brown flew from her fingertips. "Mud, I say!
Mud!"
Pete looked past her, finally understanding. His mouth dropped open. Wilma whirled in the direction of his gaze. The floodlight mounted above the kitchen door lit the clotheslines and the garden with merciless clarity, revealing everything that needed to be revealed.
The sheets which she had hung out clean were now drooping from their pins in dispirited, soggy clots. They were not just spattered with mud; they were coated with it, plated with it.
Wilma looked at the garden and saw deep divots where the mud had been scooped out. She saw a beaten track in the grass where the mudslinger had gone back and forth, first loading up, then walking to the lines, then throwing, then going back to reload.
"God damn it!" she screamed.
"Wilma come on in the house, honey, and I'll Pete groped, then looked relieved as an idea actually dawned. "I'll make us some tea."
"Fuck the tea!" Wilma howled at the top, the very tippy-top, of her vocal range, and from next door the Haverhills' mutt went for broke, yarkyarkyark, oh she hated dogs, it was going to drive her crazy, fucking loudmouth dog!
Her rage overflowed and she charged the sheets, clawed at them, began pulling them down. Her fingers caught over the first line and it snapped like a guitar string. The sheets hung from it dropped in a sodden, meaty swoop. Fists clenched, eyes squinched like a child doing a tantrum, Wilma took a single large, froggy leap and landed on top of one. It made a weary flooosh sound and billowed up, splattering gobbets of mud on her nylons. It was the final touch.
She opened her mouth and shrieked her rage. Oh, she would find who had done this. Yes-indeedy-doodad. You better believe it. And when she did-"is everything all right over there, Mrs. jerzyck?" it was Mrs. Haverhill's voice, wavering with alarm.
"Yes goddammit, we're drinking Sterno and watching Lawrence Welk, can't you shut that mutt of yours up?" Wilma screamed.
She backed off the muddy sheet, panting, her hair hanging all around her flushed face. She swiped at it savagely. Fucking dog was going to drive her crazy. Fucking loudmouth doHer thoughts broke off with an almost audible snap.
Dogs.
Fucking loudmouth dogs.
Who lived almost right around the corner from here, on Ford Street?
Correction: What crazy lady with a fucking loudmouth dog named Raider lived right around the corner from here?
Why, Nettle Cobb, that was who.
The dog had barked all spring, those high-pitched puppy yaps that really got under your skin, and finally Wilma had called Nettle and told her that if she couldn't get