Pet Sematary - Stephen King [157]
He worked his arms under Gage. The body lolled bonelessly from side to side, and a sudden, awful certainty came over him:
when he lifted Gage, Gages body would break apart and he would be left with the pieces. He would be left standing with his feet on the sides of the grave liner with the pieces, screaming. And that was how they would find him.
Go on, you chicken, go on and do it!
He got Gage under the arms, aware of the fetid dampness, and
lifted him that way, as he had lifted him so often from his evening tub. Gages head lolled all the way to the middle of his back. Louis saw the grinning circlet of stitches which held Gages head onto his shoulders.
Somehow, panting, his stomach spasming from the smell and from the boneless loose feel of his sons miserably smashed body, Louis wrestled the body out of the coffin. At last he sat on the verge of the grave with the body in his lap, his feet dangling in the hole, his face a horrible livid color, his eyes black holes, his mouth drawn down in a trembling bow of horror and pity and sorrow.
Gage, he said and began to rock the boy in his arms. Gages hair lay against Louiss wrist, as lifeless as wire. Gage, It will be all right, I swear, Gage, it will be all right, this will end, this is just the night, please, Gage, I love you, Daddy loves you.
Louis rocked his son.
By quarter of two, Louis was ready to leave the cemetery. Actually handling the body had been the worst of it-that was the point at which that interior astronaut, his mind, seemed to float the farthest into the void. And yet now, resting, his back a throbbing hurt in which exhausted muscles jumped and twitched, he felt it might be possible to get back. All the way back.
He put Gages body on the tarpaulin and wrapped it up. He cinched it with long strips of strapping tape, then cut the length of rope in two and tied off the ends neatly. Once more he might have had a rolled-up rug, no more. He closed the coffin, then after a moments thought, he reopened it and put the bent spade in. Let Pleasantview have that relic; it would not have his son. He closed the coffin and then lowered half of the cement grave-liner top. He considered simply dropping the other half but was afraid it would shatter. After a moments consideration, he threaded his belt through the iron rings and used it to lower the cement square gently into place. Then he used the shovel to fill in the hole. There was not enough dirt to bring it up even with the ground again. The graves swaybacked look might be noticed. It might not. It might be noticed and disregarded. He would not allow himself to think about it, or worry about it tonight-too much still lay ahead of him. More wild work. And he was very tired.
Hey-ho, lets go.
Indeed, Louis muttered.
The wind rose, shrieking briefly through the trees and making him look around uneasily. He laid the shovel, the pick he had yet had to use, the gloves, and the flashlight beside the bundle. Using the light was a temptation, but he resisted it. Leaving the body and the tools, Louis walked back the way he had come and arrived at the high wrought-iron fence about five minutes later. There, across the street, was his Civic, parked neatly at the curb. So near and yet so far.
Louis looked at it for a moment and then struck off in a different direction.
This time he moved away from the gate, walking along the wrought-iron fence until it turned away from Mason Street at a neat right angle. There was a drainage ditch here, and Louis looked into it. What he saw made him shudder. There were masses of rotting flowers here, layer upon layer of them, washed down by seasons of rain and snow.
Christ.
No, not Christ. These leavings were made in propitiation of a much older God than the Christian one. People have called Him different things at different times, hut Rachels sister gave Him a perfectly good name, I think: Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, God of dead things left in the ground, God of rotting flowers