Pet Sematary - Stephen King [142]
He saw himself, dressed in white, resuscitating a pregnant woman who had foolishly gone on the Magic Mountain ride and had fainted. Stand back, stand back, give her some air, he heard
himself saying, and the woman opened her eyes and smiled gratefully at him.
As his mind spun out this not disagreeable fantasy, Louis fell asleep. He slept as his daughter awoke in an airplane somewhere above Niagara Falls, screaming from a nightmare of clutching hands and stupid yet merciless eyes; he slept as the stewardess rushed down the aisle to see what was wrong; he slept as Rachel, totally unnerved, tried to soothe her; he slept as Ellie cried over and over again: Its Gage! Mommy! Its Gage! its Gage! Gage is alive! Gage has got the knife from Daddys bag! Dont let him get me! Dont let him get Daddy!
He slept as Ellie quieted at last and lay shuddering against her mothers breast, her eyes wide and tearless, and as Dory Goldman thought what an awful thing all of this had been for Eileen, and how much she reminded Dory of Rachel after Zelda had died.
He slept and woke up at a quarter past five, with the afternoon light beginning to slant down toward the coming night.
Wild work, he thought stupidly and got up.
45
By the time United Airlines flight 419 touched down at OHare Airport and offloaded its passengers at ten minutes past three, central standard time, Ellie Creed was in a state of low hysteria, and Rachel was very frightened.
If you touched Ellie casually on the shoulder, she jumped and stared around at you with big walleyes, and her whole body quivered steadily and without letup. It was as if she were full of electricity. The nightmare on the airplane had been bad enough, but this Rachel simply didnt know how to cope with it.
Going into the terminal, Ellie tripped over her own feet and fell down. She did not get up but merely lay there on the carpet with people passing around her (or looking down at her with that mildly sympathetic but disconnected glance of people who are in transit and cannot be bothered) until Rachel picked her up in her arms.
Ellie, whats wrong with you? Rachel asked.
But Ellie would not answer. They moved across the lobby toward the luggage carousels, and Rachel saw her mother and father waiting there for them. She waved at them with her free hand, and they came over.
They told us not to go to the gate and wait for you, Dory said, so we thought Rachel? Hows Eileen?
Not good.
"Is there a ladies room, Mommy? Im going to throw up.
Oh, God, Rachel said despairingly and took her by the hand. There was a ladies room across the lobby, and she led Ellie toward it quickly.
Rachel, shall I corner Dory called.
No, get the luggage, you know what it looks like. Were okay.
Mercifully the ladies room was deserted. Rachel led Ellie to one of the stalls, fumbling in her purse for a dime, and then she saw-thank God-that the locks on three of them were broken. Over one broken lock, someone had written in grease pencil:
SIR JOHN CRAPPER WAS A SEXIST PIG!
Rachel pulled the door open quickly; Ellie was now moaning and holding her stomach. She retched twice, but there was no vomiting; they were the dry heaves of total nervous exhaustion.
When Ellie told her she felt a little better, Rachel took her over to the basins and washed her daughters face. Ellie was wretchedly white, and there were circles under her eyes.
Ellie, what is wrong? Cant you tell me?
I dont know whats wrong, she said. But I knew something was wrong ever since Daddy told me about the trip. Because something was wrong with him.
Louis, what are you hiding? You were hiding something. I could see it; even Ellie could see it.
It occurred to her that she had also been nervous all day, as though waiting for a blow to fall. She felt the way she did in the two or three days before her period, tense and on edge, ready to laugh or cry or get a headache that would