Pet Sematary - Stephen King [130]
fallen kings; it was found on cave walls in ancient Mycenae; the guildkings of Stonehenge had created it as a clock to time the universe; it appeared in the Judeo-Christian Bible as the whirlwind from which God had spoken to Job.
The spiral was the oldest sign of power in the world, mans oldest symbol of that twisty bridge which may exist between the world and the Gulf.
Louis reached Gages grave at last. The payloader was gone. The Astroturf had been removed, rolled up by some whistling workman with his mind on an after-work beer at the Fairmount Lounge, stored in an equipment shed somewhere. Where Gage lay there was a neat rectangle of bare, raked earth, perhaps five feet by three feet. The headstone had not been set up yet.
Louis kneeled. The wind blew through his hair, tumbling it. The sky was almost entirely dark now. It raced with clouds.
No one has shone a light in my face and asked me what Im doing here. No watchdog has barked. The gate was unlocked. The days of the Resurrection Men are past. If I came up here with a pick and a shovel- He came back to himself with a jerk. He was only playing a dangerous mind game with himself if he pretended that Pleasant-view stood unwatched during the night hours. Suppose he was discovered belly-deep in his sons new grave by the caretaker or the watchman? It might not get into the papers, but then again it might. He might be charged with a crime. What crime? Grave robbing? Unlikely. Malicious mischief or vandalism would be more likely. And in the paper or out of it, the word would get around. People would talk; it was a story too juicy not to be told:
Local doctor is discovered digging up his two-year-old son, recently killed in a tragic road accident. He would lose his job. Even if not, Rachel would be chilled by the wind of such tales, and Ellie might be harried by them at school until her life was a misery of chanting children. There might be the humiliation of a sanity test in exchange for dropping charges.
But I could bring Gage back to life! Gage could live again!
Did he really, actually believe that?
The fact was that he did. He had told himself time and time again, both before Gages death and after it, that Church had not really been dead, only stunned. That Church had dug his way out and come home. A kiddie story with gruesome undertones-
Winnie the Poe. Master unwittingly piles a cairn of stones over a living animal. Faithful beast digs itself out and comes home. Fine. Except it was not true. Church had been dead. The Micmac burying ground had brought it back to life.
He sat by Gages grave, trying to place all the known components in an order as rational and logical as this dark magic would allow.
Timmy Baterman, now. First, did he believe the story? And second, did it make a difference?
In spite of its convenience, he believed most of it. It was undeniable that if a place like the Micmac burying ground existed (as it did) and if people knew of it (as a few of the older Ludlowites did), then sooner or later someone would try the experiment. Human nature as Louis understood it made it more difficult to believe that it had stopped at a few pets and valuable breed animals.
All right, then-did he also believe that Timmy Baterman had been transformed into some sort of all-knowing daemon?
That was a more difficult question, and he was wary of it because he didnt want to believe it, and he had seen the results of that sort of mind-set before.
No, he did not want to believe Timmy Baterman had been a daemon, but he would not-absolutely could not-allow himself to let what he wanted cloud his judgment.
Louis thought about Hanratty, the bull. Hanratty, Jud said, had turned mean. So, in his way, had Timmy Baterman. Hanratty had later been put down by the same man who had somehow dragged the bulls body up to the Micmac burying ground on a sledge. Timmy Baterman