Pet Sematary - Stephen King [21]
Louis nodded, thinking: Tell my wife that, why dont you?
Some kids it dont affect at all, at least not so you can see it, although Id guess most of em kinda.. kinda take it home in their pockets to look over later, like all the other stuff they collect. Most of em are fine. But some.. you remember the little Holloway boy, Norma?
She nodded. Ice chattered softly in the glass she held. Her glasses hung on her chest, and the headlights of a passing car illuminated the chain briefly. He had such nightmares, she said. Dreams about corpses coming out of the ground and I dont know what all. Then his dog died-ate some poisoned bait was all anyone in town could figure, wasnt it, Jud?
Poisoned bait, Jud said, nodding. Thats what most people thought, ayuh. That was 1925. Billy Holloway was maybe ten then. Went on to become a state senator. Ran for the U.S. House of Representatives later on, but he lost. That was just before Korea.
He and some of his friends had a funeral for the dog, Norma remembered. It was just a mongrel, but he loved it well. I remember his parents were a little against the burying, because of the bad dreams and all, but it went off fine. Two of the bigger boys made a coffin, didnt they, Jud?
Jud nodded and drained his iced tea. Dean and Dana
Hall, he said. Them and that other kid Billy chummed with-I cant remember his first name, but Im sure he was one of the Bowie kids. You remember the Bowies that used to live up on Middle Drive in the old Brochette house, Norma?
Yes! Norma said, as excited as if it had happened yesterday and perhaps in her mind, it seemed that way. It was a Bowie! Alan or Burt-
Or maybe it was Kendall, Jud agreed. Anyways, I remember they had a pretty good argument about who was going to be pallbearers. The dog wasnt very big, and so there wasnt room but for two. The Hall boys said they ought to be the ones to do it since they made the coffin, and also because they were twins-sort of a matched set, ysee. Billy said they didnt know Bowser-that was the dog-well enough to be the pallbearers. My dad says only close friends get to be pallbearers, was his argument, not jest any carpenter.
Jud and Norma both laughed at this, and Louis grinned.
They was just about ready to fight over it when Mandy Holloway, Billys sister, fetched out the fourth volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, Jud said. Her dad, Stephen Holloway, was the only doctor this side of Bangor and that side of Bucksport in those days, Louis, and they was the only family in Ludlow that could afford a set of encyclopedia.
They were also the first to have electric lights, Norma broke in.
Anyway, Jud resumed, Mandy come out all aflukin, head up and tail over a splashboard, all of eight years old, petticoats flyin, that big book in her arms. Billy and the Bowie kid-I think it must have been Kendall, him that crashed and burned up in Pensacola where they was trainin fighter pilots in early 1942-they was gettin ready to take on the Hall twins over the privilege of toting that poor old poisoned mutt up to the boneyard.
Louis started giggling. Soon he was laughing out loud. He could feel the days-old residue of tension left from the bitter argument with Rachel beginning to loosen.
So she says, Wait! Wait! Looka this! And they all stop and look. And goddam if she aint-
Jud, Norma said warningly.
Sorry, dear; I get carried away yarning, you know that.
I guess you do, she said.
And darned if she aint got that book open to FUNERALS, and theres a picture of Queen Victoria getting her final sendoff and bon voyage, and there are about forty-eleven people on each side of her coffin, some sweatin and strainin to lift the bugger, some just standin around in their funeral coats and ruffled collars like they was waitin for someone to call post time at the racetrack. And Mandy says, When its a ceremonial funeral of state, you can have as many as you want! The book says so!
That solved it? Louis asked.
That did the trick. They ended up with