Pet Sematary(159)

Then a branch snapped under one of his canted feet. It made a dry, dusty sound like a track starter's gun. It brought him back to exactly where he was and what he was doing. Terror leaped into him and he turned around in a clumsy circle, arms held out for balance, his tongue and throat oily with fright, his face bearing the dismayed grimace of a man who wakes up only to find he has sleepwalked his way onto a high skyscraper ledge.

She's dead and I think that maybe Louis has killed her, Louis has gone mad, utterly mad, but-But there was something worse than madness here-something much, much worse. It was as if there was a magnet somewhere out in those woods and he could feel it pulling at something in his brain. Pulling him toward that place where Louis was taking Rachel.

Come on, walk the path... walk the path and see where It goes. We got stuff to show you out here, Steverino, stuff they never told you about in the Atheists' Society back in Lake Forest.

And then, perhaps simply because it had enough for one day to feed on and lost interest in him, the call of the place in his mind simply ceased. Steve took two plunging, drunken steps back down the side of the deadfall. Then more branches let go with a grinding rattle and his left foot plunged into the tangled deadwood; harsh sharp splinters pulled off his sneaker and then tore into his flesh as he yanked free. He fell forward into the Pet Sematary, barely missing a piece of orange crate that could easily have punched into his stomach.

He got to his feet, staring around, bewildered, wondering what had happened to him... or if anything had happened to him. Already it had begun to seem like a dream.

Then, from the deep woods behind the deadfall, woods so deep that the light looked green and tarnished even on the brightest days, a low, chuckling laugh arose. The sound was huge. Steve could not even begin to imagine what sort of creature could have made such a sound.

He ran, one shoe off and one shoe on, trying to shriek but unable. He was still running when he reached Louis's house, and still trying to shriek when he finally got his bike started and slued out onto Route 15. He very nearly sideswiped an arriving fire engine from Brewer. Inside his Bell helmet, his hair was standing on end.

By the time he got back to his apartment in Orono, he could not precisely remember having gone to Ludlow at all. He called in sick at the infirmary, took a pill, and went to bed.

Steve Masterton never really remembered that day... except in deep dreams, those that come in the small hours of the morning. And in these dreams he would sense that something huge had shrugged by him-something which had reached out to touch him... and had then withdrawn its inhuman hand at the very last second.

Something with great yellow eyes which gleamed like foglamps.

Steve sometimes awoke shrieking from these dreams, his eyes wide and bulging, and he would think: You think you are screaming, but it's only the sound of the loons, down south, in Prospect. The sound carries. It's funny.

But he did not know, could not remember, what such a thought might mean. The following year he took a job halfway across the country, in St. Louis.

In the time between his last sight of Louis Creed and his departure for the Midwest, Steve never went into the town of Ludlow again.

EPILOGUE

The police came late that afternoon. They asked questions but voiced no suspicions. The ashes were still hot; they had not yet been raked. Louis answered their questions. They seemed satisfied. They spoke outside and he wore a hat. That was good. If they had seen his gray hair, they might have asked more questions. That would have been bad. He wore his gardening gloves, and that was good too. His hands were bloody and ruined.

He played solitaire that night until long after midnight.

He was just dealing a fresh hand when he heard the back door open.

What you buy is what you own, and sooner or later what you own will come back to you, Louis Creed thought.

He did not turn around but only looked at his cards as the slow, gritting footsteps approached. He saw the queen of spades. He put his hand on it.

The steps ended directly behind him.

Silence.

A cold hand fell on Louis's shoulder. Rachel's voice was grating, full of dirt.

"Darling," it said.

February 1979-December 1982

Chapter 3

His eyes barely registered the circles of graves-the beaten tin squares, the bits of board and slate. His gaze was fixed on the bizarre sight at the far side of the circular clearing. It was fixed on Louis, who was climbing a deadfall, seemingly in outright defiance of gravity. He mounted the steep fall step by step, his eyes straight ahead, like a man who has been mesmerized or who is sleepwalking. In his arms was the white thing that Steve had seen from the tail of his eye. This close, its configuration was undeniable-it was a body. One foot, clad in a black shoe with a low heel, protruded. And Steve knew with a sudden and sickening certainty that Louis was carrying Rachel's body.

Louis's hair had gone white.

"Louis!" Steve screamed.

Louis didn't hesitate, didn't pause. He reached the top of the deadfall and began down the far side.

He'll fall, Steve thought incoherently. He's been damned lucky, incredibly lucky, but pretty soon he's going to fall and if his leg's the only thing he breaks-But Louis did not fall. He reached the other side of the deadfall, was temporarily out of Steve's sight, and then reappeared as he walked toward the woods again.

"Louis!" Steve yelled again.

This time Louis stopped and turned back.