Pet Sematary - Stephen King [145]
This time she made the call collect to Jud Crandall. It rang five times six seven. She was about to hang up when his voice, breathless, answered. Hlo?
Jud! Jud, this is-
Just a minute, maaxn, the operator said. Will you accept a
collect call from Mrs. Louis Creed?
Ayuh, Jud said.
Pardon, sir, is that yes or no?
I guess I will, Jud said.
There was a doubtful pause as the operator translated Yankee into American. Then: Thank you. Go ahead, maam.
Jud, have you seen Louis today?
Today? I cant say I have, Rachel. But I was away to Brewer this mornin, gettin my groceries. Been out in the garden this afternoon, behind the house. Why?
Oh, its probably nothing, but Ellie had a bad dream on the plane and I just thought Id set her mind at ease if I could.
Plane? Juds voice seemed to sharpen a trifle. Where are you, Rachel?
Chicago, she said. Ellie and I came back to spend some time with my parents.
Louis didnt go with you?
Hes going to join us by the end of the week, Rachel said, and now it was a struggle to keep her voice even. There was something in Juds voice she didnt like.
Was it his idea that you should go out there?
Well yes. Jud, whats wrong? Something is wrong, isnt it? And you know something about it.
Maybe you ought to tell me the childs dream, Jud said after a long pause. I wish you would.
46
After he and Rachel were done talking, Jud put on his light coat
-the day had clouded up and the wind had begun to blow-and crossed the road to Louiss house, pausing on his side of the road to look carefully for trucks before crossing. It was the trucks that had been the cause of all this. The damned trucks.
Except it wasnt.
He could feel the Pet Sematary pulling at him-and something beyond. Where once its voice had been a kind of seductive lullabye, the voice of possible comfort and a dreamy sort of power, it was now lower and more than ominous-it was threatening and grim. Stay out of this, you.
But he would not stay out of it. His responsibility went back too far.
He saw that Louiss Honda Civic was gone from the garage. There was only the big Ford wagon, looking dusty and unused. He tried the back door of the house and found it open.
Louis? he called, knowing that Louis was not going to answer, but needing to cut across the heavy silence of this house somehow. Oh, getting old was starting to be a pain in the ass-his limbs felt heavy and clumsy most of the time, his back was a misery to him after a mere two hours in the garden, and it felt as if there was a screw auger planted in his left hip.
He began to go through the house methodically, looking for the signs he had to look for-worlds oldest housebreaker, he thought without much humor and went right on looking. He found none of the things that would have seriously upset him:
boxes of toys held back from the Salvation Army, clothes for a small boy put aside behind a door or in the closet or under a bed
perhaps worst of all, the crib carefully set up in Gages room again. There were absolutely none of the signs, but the house still had an unpleasant blank feel, as if it were waiting to be filled with well, something.
Praps I ought to take a little run out to Pleasantview Cemetery. See if anythings doing out there. Might even run into Louis Creed. I could buy him a dinner, or somethin.
But it wasnt at Pleasantview Cemetery in Bangor that there was danger; the danger was here, in this house, and beyond it.
Jud left again and crossed the road to his own house. He pulled a six-pack of beer out of the kitchen fridge and took it into the living room. He sat down in front of the bay window that looked out on the Creed house, cracked a beer, and lit a cigarette. The afternoon drew down around him, and as it did so often these last few years, he found his mind turning back and back in a widening gyre. If he had known the run of Rachel Creeds earlier thoughts he could have told her that what her psych teacher had told