Rattlesnakes – United States

A sequel to King’s 1981 novel Cujo, in which a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance — with major strings attached.

RATTLESNAKES

July–August 2020

I wasn’t surprised when I saw the elderly woman pushing the double stroller with the empty seats; I had been forewarned. This was on Rattlesnake Road, which winds the four-mile length of Rattlesnake Key on the Florida Gulf Coast. Houses and condos to the south; a few McMansions at the north end.

There’s a blind curve half a mile from Greg Ackerman’s McMansion, where I was staying that summer, bouncing around like the last pea in an oversized can. Tangled undergrowth higher than my head (and I’m six-four) f lanked the road, seeming to press in and make what was narrow to begin with even narrower. The curve was marked on either side by fluorescent green plastic kids, each bearing the warning SLOW! CHILDREN AT PLAY. I was walking, and at the age of seventy-two, in the simmering heat of a July morning, I was going plenty slow. My plan was to walk to the swing gate which divides the private part of the road from the part the county maintains, then go back to Greg’s house. I was already wondering if I’d bitten o more than I could chew.

I hadn’t been entirely sure Greg wasn’t putting me on about Mrs. Bell, but here she was, and pushing her oversized stroller toward me. One of the wheels had a squeak and could have used some oil. She was wearing baggy shorts, sandals with knee-length socks, and a big blue sunhat. She stopped, and I remembered Greg asking me if her problem—that’s what he called it— would give me a problem. I said it wouldn’t, but now I wondered.

“Hello. I think you must be Mrs. Bell. My name is Vic Trenton. I’m staying at Greg’s house for awhile.”

“A friend of Greg’s? How nice! An old friend?”