Pet Sematary(33)

"Hoooo-hoooo," the Halloween ghosts in the kitchen chanted. "Hooo-hooo." And then suddenly the h-sound was gone arid the cry rose louder, genuinely frightening: "oooo-000000-"

And then one of the ghosts began to scream.

"Daddy!" Ellie's voice was wild and tight with alarm. "Daddy! Missus Crandall fell down!"

"Ah, Jesus," Jud almost moaned.

Ellie came running out onto the porch, her black dress flapping. She clutched her broom in one hand. Her green face, now pulled long in dismay, looked like the face of a pygmy wino in the last stages of alcohol poisoning. The two little ghosts followed her, crying.

Jud lunged through the door, amazingly spry for a man of over eighty. No, more than spry. Again, almost lithe. He was calling his wife's name.

Louis bent and put his hands on Ellie's shoulders. "Stay right here on the porch, Ellie. Understand?"

"Daddy, I'm scared," she whispered.

The two ghosts barrelled past them and ran down the walk, candy bags rattling, screaming their mother's name.

Louis ran down the front hall and into the kitchen, ignoring Ellie, who was calling for him to come back.

Norma lay on the hilly linoleum by the table in a litter of apples and small Snickers bars. Apparently she had caught the bowl with her hand going down and had overturned it. It lay nearby like a small Pyrex flying saucer. Jud was chafing one of her wrists, and he looked up at Louis with a strained face.

"Help me, Louis," he said. "Help Norma. She's dying, I think."

"Move to one side," Louis said. He kneeled and came down on a Spy, crushing it.

He felt juice bleed through the knee of his old cords, and the cidery smell of apple suddenly filled the kitchen.

Here it is, Pascow all over again, Louis thought and then shoved the thought out of his mind so fast that it might have been on wheels.

He felt for her pulse and got something that was weak, thready, and rapid-not really a beat but only simple spasms. Extreme arrhythmia, well on the way to full cardiac arrest. You and Elvis Presley, Norma, he thought.

He opened her dress, exposing a creamy yellow silk slip. Moving with his own rhythm now, he turned her head to one side and began administering CPR.

"Jud, listen to me," he said. Heel of the left hand one third of the way up the breastbone-four centimeters above the xyphoid process. Right hand gripping the left wrist, bracing, lending pressure. Keep it firm, but let's take it easy on the old ribs-no need to panic yet. And for Christ's sake, don't collapse the old lungs.

"I'm here," Jud said.

"Take Ellie," he said. "Go across the street. Carefully-don't get hit by a car.

Tell Rachel what's happened. Tell her I want my bag. Not the one in the study, but the one on the high shelf in the upstairs bathroom. She'll know the one.

Tell her to call Bangor MedCu and to send an ambulance."

"Bucksport's closer," Jud said.

"Bangor's faster. Go. Don't you call; let Rachel do that. I need that bag." And once she knows the situation here, Louis thought, I don't think she'll bring it over.

Jud went. Louis heard the screen door bang. He was alone with Norma Crandall and the smell of apples. From the living room came the steady tick of the seven-day clock.

Norma suddenly uttered a long, snoring breath. Her eyelids fluttered. And Louis was suddenly doused with a cold, horrid certainty.

She's going to open her eyes... oh Christ she's going to open her eyes and start talking about the Pet Sematary.

But she only looked at Louis with a muddled sort of recognition, and then her eyes closed again. Louis was ashamed of himself and this stupid fear that was so unlike him. At the same time he felt hope and relief. There had been some pain in her eyes but not agony. His first guess was that this had not been a grave seizure.

Louis was breathing hard now and sweating. No one but TV paramedics could make CPR look easy. A good steady closedchest massage popped a lot of calories, and the webbing between his arms and shoulders would ache tomorrow.

"Can I do anything?"

He looked around. A woman dressed in slacks and a brown sweater stood hesitantly in the doorway, one hand clutched into a fist between her br**sts. The mother of the ghosts, Louis thought.

"No," he said, and then: "Yes. Wet a cloth, please. Wring it out. Put it on her forehead."

She moved to do it. Louis looked down, Norma's eyes were open again.

"Louis, I fell down," she whispered. "Think I fainted."

"You've had some sort of coronary event," Louis said. "Doesn't look too serious.

Now relax and don't talk, Norma."

He rested for a moment and then took her pulse again. The beat was too fast. She was Morse-coding: her heart would beat regularly, then run briefly in a series of beats that was almost but not quite fibrillation, and then begin to beat regularly again. Beat-beat-beat, WHACK-WHACK-WHACK, beat-beat-beat-beat-beat. It was not good, but it was marginally better than cardiac arrhythmia.

The woman came over with the cloth and put it on Norma's forehead. She stepped away uncertainly. Jud came back in with Louis's bag.

"Louis?"

"She's going to be fine," Louis said, looking at Jud but actually speaking to Norma. "MedCu coming?"

"Your wife is calling them," Jud said. "I didn't stay around."