Pet Sematary - Stephen King [182]
And perhaps they would have a dog.
61
Louis paused on the soft shoulder to let an Orinco truck loaded with chemical fertilizer blast by him, and then he crossed the street to Juds house, trailing his shadow to the west behind him. He held an open can of Cab catfood in one hand.
Church saw him coming and sat up, his eyes watchful.
Hi, Church, Louis said, surveying the silent house. Want some grub?
He put the can of catfood down on the trunk of the Chevette and watched as Church leaped lightly down from its roof and began to eat. Louis put his hand in his jacket pocket. Church looked around at him, tensing, as if reading his mind. Louis smiled and stepped away from the car. Church began to eat again, and Louis took a syringe from his pocket. He stripped the paper covering from it and filled it with 75 milligrams of morphine. He put the multidose vial back in his jacket and walked over to Church, who looked around again mistrustfully. Louis smiled at the cat and said, Go on, eat up, Church. Hey-ho, lets go, right? He stroked the cat, felt its back arch, and when Church went back to his meal again, Louis seized it around its stinking guts and sank the needle deep into its haunch.
Church went electric in his grip, struggling against him, spitting and clawing, but Louis held on and depressed the plunger all the way. Only then did he let go. The cat leaped off the Chevette, hissing like a teakettle, yellow-green eyes wild and baleful. The needle and syringe dangled from its haunch as it leaped, then fell out and broke. Louis was indifferent. He had more of everything.
The cat started for the road, then turned back toward the house, as if remembering something. It got halfway there and then began to weave drunkenly. It made the steps, leaped up to the first one, then fell off. It lay on the bare patch at the foot of the porch steps on its side, breathing weakly.
Louis glanced into the Chevette. If he had needed more confirmation than the stone that had replaced his heart, he had it: Rachels purse on the seat, her scarf, and a clutch of plane tickets spilling out of a Delta Airlines folder.
When he turned around again to walk to the porch, Churchs side had ceased its rapid, fluttery movement. Church was dead. Again.
Louis stepped over it and mounted the porch steps.
Gage?
It was cool in the front hail. Cool and dark. The single word fell into the silence like a stone down a deep-drilled well. Louis threw another.
Gage?
Nothing. Even the tick of the clock in the parlor had ceased. This morning there had been no one to wind it.
But there were tracks on the floor.
Louis went into the living room. There was the smell of cigarettes, stale and long since burned out. He saw Juds chair by the window. It was pushed askew, as if he had gotten up suddenly. There was an ashtray on the windowsill, and in it a neat roll of cigarette ash.
Jud sat here watching. Watching for what? For me of course, watching for me to come home. Only he missed me. Somehow he missed me.
Louis glanced at the four beer cans lined up in a neat row. Not enough to put him to sleep, but maybe he had gotten up to go to the bathroom. However it had been, it was just a little bit too good to have been perfectly accidental, wasnt it?
The muddy tracks approached the chair by the window. Mixed among the human tracks were a few faded, ghostly catprints. As if Church had walked in and out of the gravedirt left by Gages small shoes. Then the tracks made for the swinging door leading into the kitchen.
Heart thudding, Louis followed the tracks.
He pushed the door open and saw Juds splayed feet, his old green workpants, his checked flannel shirt. The old man was lying sprawled in a wide pool of drying blood.
Louis clapped his hands to his face, as if to blight his own vision. But there was