You Like It Darker

In 2020, 40 years after the events of Cujo, one of its main characters, 72-year-old widower Vic Trenton, temporarily moves into his friend Greg Ackerman’s lavish home on Rattlesnake Key on Florida’s Gulf Coast. While walking, he meets his neighbor, Allie Bell, a widow who pushes around a pram containing matching pairs of shorts and shirts that read “BAD” and “BADDER” and acts as if her twin sons, Jacob and Joseph, are in the pram. Greg described Allie as “crazy,” but Vic plays along, acknowledging the boys as if they are there.

Rattlesnake Key is named for its infestation of rattlesnakes, which the local community started controlling only after the Bell twins died. It’s the first summer of the COVID-19 pandemic, and most residents are out of town; Allie is Vic’s only neighbor. As Vic told Greg, Allie’s behavior doesn’t bother him because he and his late wife, Donna, had similar experiences after their son, Tad, died. Vic came to Rattlesnake Key as a response to his grief over Donna’s recent death. In light of losing his own family, Vic understands how Allie feels. Later that night, however, he starts to hear the squeaking of her pram, which frightens him.

Allie visits Vic, bringing homemade cookies. When he acknowledges the twins, Allie admits that she knows the boys aren’t really there but notes that “sometimes they are” (334). Vic remembers that Donna used to say the same thing about Tad. Allie shows Vic the pole she uses to ward off snakes during her walks. When Vic invites her into the house, he becomes aware of her heart problems, which make it difficult for her to move around. They bond over her cookies.

Vic meets Greg’s industrious caretaker, Peter Ito, who confirms that rattlesnakes killed the Bell twins when they wandered toward the beach after discovering their backyard gate unlocked. That night, Vic dreams of the twins pushing the pram to his house, their bodies covered in snake bites, and hears the squeaking again. The next day, while walking, Vic finds buzzards eating Allie’s corpse. After checking her body, he chases the birds away and calls 911. Talking to the police and the paramedics, Vic learns that Allie died of a heart attack.

To distract himself, Vic recalls his relationship with Donna. They divorced in the aftermath of Tad’s death, especially because Vic refused to acknowledge all reminders of the event. A few years after their divorce, during a rocky time in his career, Vic encountered Donna at a bar. They remarried several months later. In 2010, after Donna retired from work, she learned that she had cancer. It went into remission for nine years but returned. Donna preferred to remain in hospice care rather than in the hospital. On the night she died, Donna saw Tad in her room and urged him to breathe. She had a conversation with Tad, which Vic witnessed. Many years earlier, after Tad died, Vic heard Tad’s voice coming from the closet.

Vic puts the pram in Allie’s garage while the police inspect her house for clues about her death. They suggest involving semi-retired officer Andy Pelley, also called Super Gramp, to help with the investigation. Vic goes for a walk to clear his mind and briefly hears the squeaking noise. On edge and exhausted, he takes a sleeping pill. When he wakes up the following morning, he finds the pram parked outside Greg’s house, containing the shirts and shorts. He takes a picture of it for the police and then returns it to Allie’s garage again. Along the way, he touches the shirts in it and experiences a vivid vision of the day Jacob and Joseph died while crossing the undergrowth. They imagined themselves as jungle explorers, ignoring the rattling noise until they fell into a dip full of snakes. Joseph died in the dip, while Jacob died trying to run back to the house to retrieve his parents.

Vic realizes that his vision resulted from a psychic connection to the shirts. Upon reaching Allie’s garage, he supposes that the twins’ ghosts unlocked the door and took the pram to Greg’s house. He calls one of the police officers, Zane, from Allie’s phone. Zane reassures him, saying that someone played a prank on him. He reminds Vic that Pelley will investigate the house. Vic helps by looking through the garage, where he finds some of the twins’ belongings hidden away.

Vic suspects the twins’ ghosts have attached to him as a new parent. Later, he sees the pram draped with burial suits in Greg’s bathroom. Rattlesnakes fill his bathtub. They later disappear, but the pram moves to the courtyard. Vic tries to leave Florida, but the only available flight is in three days. He’s about to go to a hotel when Pelley arrives to discuss Allie. When Vic asks about the snake hunt, Pelley explains that in the 1980s the community chased most of the rattlesnakes to the beach and burned them, but some escaped to a nearby whirlpool.

Pelley notices Allie’s snake pole in Vic’s garage. He asks Vic to recall his relationship with Allie. The questions turn antagonistic, and Pelley asks Vic to stay in Rattlesnake Key for the inquest. Pelley found a note naming Vic the sole beneficiary of Allie’s will, which made him a suspect. Though Allie claimed not to have any relatives, Pelley insinuates that Vic coerced her into writing a new will and then killed her. Pelley is skeptical of Vic’s claims regarding the pram.

Vic walks to the swing bridge to chat with the bridge operator, Jim. They discuss Allie’s grief, the snake hunt, and their experiences of sensing loved ones after they died. After Vic passes Allie’s house, he hears the pram following him to Greg’s house. He tries to snap a picture of the twins and record them but captures only shadows. Vic suspects that Allie purposely tried to pass on her haunting to him, bequeathing her house to Vic so that he could live with the twins’ ghosts. He calls Allie’s lawyer, who assures him that no one is likely to contest her will.

Vic has a brief vision of the boys in their strollers, all grown up except for their heads, which snake venom has bloated. Zane tells Vic he’ll have to plan a burial for Allie. Resigned to the twins’ presence, Vic pushes the pram around. He finds the snake pole in his courtyard and wonders if Tad’s ghost put it there. He asks Tad’s ghost for help and then admits he can’t hold onto his grief.

Pelley visits to discuss Allie’s inheritance again, citing the pram’s presence as incriminating evidence. Vic denies involvement in her death. After Pelley leaves, Vic notices that someone used the snake pole to try to scratch the word “pram” into the gazebo deck. This gives Vic the idea to take the pram on a walk, indulging the twin ghosts’ wishes. He continually talks to them while guiding the pram to the beach. Jacob worries about where Vic is taking them. Vic finds the whirlpool, smelling the snake hunt’s stench. Twin rattlesnakes attack as he tries to push the pram in. He fights them, using the pole, and tosses the pram into the whirlpool. The ghost boys disappear. Vic sees a man waving at him and waves back, crying. The man disappears. Vic calls Zane to report that the pram was stolen.

Vic arranges Allie’s burial and inherits her estate. He sells her house and keeps $500,000, donating the rest to a food bank. Vic visits the twins’ death site and their bedroom. Three years later, home in Newburyport, he learns that real estate developers plan to reclaim the sunken Duma Key, which will likely cause the pram to resurface. He fears that the twins may return to haunt him.