Pet Sematary - Stephen King [178]
I brought you something, Mommy! he screamed. I brought you something, Mommy! I brought you something, I brought you something!
60
Louis Creed woke up with the sun blazing full in his eyes. He tried to get up and grimaced at the stab of pain in his back. It was huge. He fell back on the pillow and glanced down at himself. Still fully dressed. Christ.
He lay there for a long moment, steeling himself against the stiffness that had settled into every muscle, and then he sat up.
Oh, shit, he whispered. For a few seconds the room seesawed gently but perceptibly. His back throbbed like a bad tooth, and when he moved his head, it felt as if the tendons in his neck had been replaced by rusty bandsaw blades. But his knee was really the worst. The Ben-Gay hadnt done a thing for it. He should have given himself a fucking cortisone shot. His pants were drawn tightly against the knee by the swelling; it looked like there was a balloon under there.
Really jobbed it, he muttered. Boy, oh boy, did I ever.
He bent it very slowly so he could sit on the edge of the bed, lips pressed so tightly together that they were white. Then he began to flex it a bit, listening to the pain talk, trying to decide just how bad it really was, if it might be-
Gage! Is Gage back?
That got him on his feet in spite of the pain. He lurched across the room like Matt Dillons old sidekick Chester. He went through the door and across the hail into Gages room. He looked around wildly, his sons name trembling on his lips. But the room was empty. He limped down to Ellies room, which was also empty, and then into the spare room. That room, which faced the highway, was also empty. But-.
There was a strange car across the road. Parked behind Juds truck.
So what?
So a strange vehicle over there could mean trouble, that was so what.
Louis drew the curtain aside and examined the vehicle more closely. It was a small blue car, a Chevette. And curled up on top of it, apparently sleeping, was Church.
He looked for a long time before letting the curtain go. Jud had company, that was all-so what? And it was maybe too early to worry about what was or was not going to happen with Gage; Church hadnt come back until almost one oclock, and it was only nine oclock now. Nine oclock on a beautiful May morning. He would simply go downstairs and make some coffee, get out the heating pad and wrap it around his knee, and-
-and whats Church doing on top of that car?
Oh, come on, he said aloud and began to limp back down the hail. Cats slept anywhere and everywhere; it was the nature of the beast.
Except Church doesnt cross the road anymore, remember?
Forget it, he muttered and paused halfway down the stairs (which he was working his way down almost sidesaddle). Talking to himself, that was bad. That was-
What was that thing in the woods last night?
The thought came to him unbidden, making him tighten his lips the way the pain in his knee had done when he swung it out of bed. He had dreamed about the thing in the woods last night. His dreams of Disney World had seemed to blend naturally and with a deadly ease into dreams of that thing. He dreamed that it had touched him, spoiling all good dreams forever, rotting all good intentions. It was the Wendigo, and it had turned him into not just a cannibal but the father of cannibals. In his dream he had been in the Pet Sematary again but not alone. Bill and Timmy Baterman had been there. Jud had been there, looking ghostly and dead, holding his dog Spot on a clothesrope leash. Lester Morgan was there with Hanratty the bull on a length of car-towing chain. Hanratty was lying on his side, looking around with a stupid, drugged fury. And for some reason Rachel was there too, and shed had some sort of accident at the dinner table
-spilled a bottle of catsup or maybe dropped a dish of cranberry jelly, maybe, because her dress was splattered with red stains.
And then, rising behind the deadfall to a titanic height, its skin a cracked reptilian yellow, its eyes great hooded foglamps, its ears not ears at all but massive curling horns,