Pet Sematary - Stephen King [169]
This time the scream of tires was louder, the shave a lot closer; for a moment there was the queeling, grailing sound of the Chevette running along the guardrail cables, scraping paint down to the twinkling metal, and for a moment the wheel didnt answer, and then Rachel was standing on the brake, sobbing; she had been asleep this time, not just dozing but asleep and dreaming at sixty miles an hour, and if there had been no guardrail or if there had been an overpass stanchion..
She pulled over and put the car in park and wept into her hands, bewildered and afraid.
Something is trying to keep me away from him.
When she felt she had control of herself, she began to drive again-the little cars steering did not seem impaired, but she supposed the Avis company would have some serious questions for her when she returned their car to BIA tomorrow.
Never mind. One thing at a time. Got to get some coffee into me-thats the first thing.
When the Pittsfield exit came up, Rachel took it. About a mile down the road she came to bright arc-sodium lights and the steady mutter-growl of diesel engines. She pulled in, had the Chevette filled up (Somebody put a pretty good ding along the side of her, the gas jockey said in an almost admiring voice), and then went into the diner, which smelled of deep-fat grease, vulcanized eggs and, blessedly, of good strong coffee.
Rachel had three cups, one after another, like medicine-black, sweetened with a lot of sugar. A few truckers sat at the counter or in the booths, kidding the waitresses, who somehow all managed to look like tired nurses filled with bad news under these fluorescent lights burning in the nights little hours.
She paid her check and went back out to where she had parked the Chevette. It wouldnt start. The key, when turned, would cause the solenoid to utter a dry click, but that was all.
Rachel began to beat her fists slowly and forcelessly against the steering wheel. Something was trying to stop her. There was no reason for this car, brand-new and with less than five thousand miles on its odometer, to have died like this, but it had. Somehow it had, and here she was, stranded in Pittsfield, still almost fifty miles from home.
She listened to the steady drone of the big trucks, and it came to her with a sudden, vicious certainty that the truck which had killed her son was here among them not muttering but chuckling.
Rachel lowered her head and began to cry.
57
Louis stumbled over something and fell full-length on the ground. For a moment he didnt think he would be able to get up
-getting up was far beyond him-he would simply lie here, listening to the chorus of peepers from Little God Swamp somewhere behind him and feeling the chorus of aches and pains inside his own body. He would lie here until he went to sleep. Or died. Probably the latter.
He could remember slipping the canvas bundle into the hole he had dug, and pushing most of the earth back into the hole with his bare hands. And he believed he could remember piling the rocks up, building from a broad base to a point.
From then to now he remembered very little. He had obviously gotten back down the steps again or he wouldnt be here, which was where? Looking around, he thought he recognized one of the groves of great old pines not far beyond the deadfall. Could he have made it all the way back through Little God Swamp without knowing it? He supposed it was possible. Just.
This is far enough. I'll just sleep here.
But it was that thought, so falsely comforting, that got him to his feet and moving again. Because if he stayed here, that thing might find him that thing might be in the woods and looking for him right this moment.
He scrubbed his hand up to his face, palm first, and was stupidly surprised to see blood on his hand at some point hed given himself a nosebleed. Who gives a fuck? he muttered hoarsely and grubbed apathetically around him until he had found