Pet Sematary(34)

"No... hospital," Norma whispered.

"Yes, hospital," Louis said. "Five days' observation, medication, then home with your feet up, Norma my girl. And if you say anything else, I'll make you eat all these apples. Cores and all."

She smiled wanly, then closed her eyes again.

Louis opened his bag, rummaged, found the Isodil, and shook one of the pills, so tiny it easily would have fit on the moon of one fingernail, into the palm of his hand. He recapped the bottle and pinched the pill between his fingers.

"Norma, can you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Want you to open your mouth. You did your trick, now you get your treat. I'm going to put a pill under your tongue. Just a small one. I want you to hold it there until it dissolves. It's going to taste a little bitter but never mind that. All right?"

She opened her mouth. Stale denture breath wafted out, and Louis felt a moment of aching sorrow for her, lying here on her kitchen floor in a litter of apples and Halloween candy. It occurred to him that once she had been seventeen, her br**sts eyed with great interest by the young men of the neighborhood, all her teeth her own, and the heart under her shirtwaist a tough little pony-engine.

She settled her tongue over the pill and grimaced a little. The pill tasted a little bitter, all right. It always did. But she was no Victor Pascow, beyond help and beyond reach. He thought Norma was going to live to fight another day.

Her hand groped in the air, and Jud took it gently.

Louis got up then, found the overturned bowl, and began to pick up the treats.

The woman, who introduced herself as Mrs. Buddinger from down the road, helped him and then said she thought she had better go back to the car. Her two boys were frightened.

"Thank you for your help, Mrs. Buddinger," Louis said.

"I didn't do anything," she said flatly. "But I'll go down on my knees tonight and thank God you were here, Dr. Creed."

Louis waved a hand, embarrassed.

"That goes for me, too," Jud said. His eyes found Louis's and held them. They were steady. He was in control again. His brief moment of confusion and fear had passed. "I owe you one, Louis."

"Get off it," Louis said and tipped a finger toward Mrs. Buddinger as she left.

She smiled and waved back. Louis found an apple and began to eat it. The Spy was so sweet that Louis's taste buds cramped momentarily... but that was not a totally unpleasurable sensation. Won one tonight, Lou, he thought and worked on the apple with relish. He was ravenous.

"I do though," Jud said. "When you need a favor, Louis, you see me first."

"All right," Louis said, "I'll do that."

The ambulance from Bangor MedCu arrived twenty minutes later. As Louis stood outside watching the orderlies load Norma into the back, he saw Rachel looking out the living room window. He waved to her. She lifted a hand in return.

He and Jud stood together and watched the ambulance pull away, lights flashing, siren silent.

"Guess I'll go on up to the hospital now," Jud said.

"They won't let you see her tonight, Jud. They'll want to run an EKG on her and then put her in intensive care. No visitors for the first twelve hours."

"Is she going to be okay, Louis? Really okay?"

Louis shrugged. "No one can guarantee that. It was a heart attack. For whatever it's worth, I think she's going to be fine. Maybe better than ever, once she gets on some medication."
Chapter 8

"Ayuh," Jud said, lighting a Chesterfield.

Louis smiled and glanced at his watch. He was amazed to see it was only ten minutes to eight. It seemed that a great deal more time had gone by.

"Jud, I want to go get Ellie so she can finish her trick-or-treating."

"Yeah, course you do." This came out as Cossy'do. "Tell her to get all the treats she can, Louis."

"I will," Louis promised.

Ellie was still in her witch costume when Louis got home. Rachel had tried to persuade her into her nightie, but Ellie had resisted, holding out for the possibility that the game, suspended because of heart attack, might yet be played out. When Louis told her to put her coat back on, Ellie whooped and clapped.

"It's going to be awfully late for her, Louis."

"We'll take the car," he said. "Come on, Rachel. She's been looking forward to this for a month."

"Well... " She smiled. Ellie saw it and shouted again. She ran for the coat closet. "Is Norma all right?"

"I think so." He felt good. Tired but good. "It was a small one. She's going to have to be careful, but when you're seventy-five you have to recognize that your pole-vaulting days are done anyway."

"It's lucky you were there. Almost God's providence."

"I'll settle for luck." He grinned as Ellie came back. "You ready, Witch Hazel?"

"I'm ready," she said. "Come on-come on-come on!"

On the way home with half a bag of candy an hour later (Ellie protested when Louis finally called a halt, but not too much; she was tired), his daughter startled him by saying: "Did I make Missus Crandall have the heart attack, Daddy? When I wouldn't take the apple with the bruise on it?"

Louis looked at her, startled, wondering where children got such funny, half-superstitious ideas. Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Loves me, loves me not. Daddy's stomach, Daddy's head, smile at midnight, Daddy's dead.