Pet Sematary - Stephen King [34]
Louis tried again to scream. He could not.
I come as a friend, Pascow said-but was friend actually the word Pascow had used? Louis thought not. It was as if Pascow had spoken in a foreign language which Louis could understand through some dream magic and friend was as close to whatever word Pascow had actually used that Louiss struggling mind could come. Your destruction and the destruction of all you love is very near, Doctor. He was close enough for Louis to be able to smell death on him.
Pascow, reaching for him.
The soft, maddening click of the bones.
Louis began to overbalance in his effort to get away from that hand. His own hand struck a monument and tilted it into the earth. Pascows face, leaning down, filled the sky.
Doctor-remember.
Louis tried to scream, and the world whirled away-but still he heard the click of moving bones in the moonlit crypt of the night.
17
It takes the average human seven minutes to go to sleep, but according to Hands Human Physiology, it takes the same average human fifteen to twenty minutes to wake up. It is as if sleep is a pool from which emerging is more difficult than entering. When the sleeper wakes, he or she comes up by degrees, from deep sleep to light sleep to what is sometimes called waking sleep, a state in which the sleeper can hear sounds and will even respond to questions without being aware of it later except perhaps as fragments of dream.
Louis heard the click and rattle of bones, but gradually this sound became sharper, more metallic. There was a bang. A yell. More metallic sounds something rolling? Sure, his drifting mind agreed. Roll dem bones.
He heard his daughter calling Get it, Cage! Go get it!
This was followed by Gages crow of delight, the sound to which Louis opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of his own bedroom.
He held himself perfectly still, waiting for the reality, the good reality, the blessed reality, to come home all the way.
All a dream. No matter how terrible, how real, it had all been dream. Only a fossil in the mind under his mind.
The metallic sound came again. It was one of Gages toy cars being rolled along the upstairs hail.
Get it, Gage!
Get it! Gage yelled. Get it-get it-get it!
Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa. Gages small bare feet thundering along the hallway runner. He and Ellie were giggling.
Louis looked to his right. Rachels side of the bed was empty, the covers thrown back. The sun was well up. He glanced at his watch and saw it was nearly eight oclock. Rachel had let him oversleep probably on purpose.
Ordinarily this would have irritated him, but this morning it did not. He drew in a deep breath and let it out, content for the moment to lie here with a bar of sunlight slanting in through the window, feeling the unmistakable texture of the real world. Dust-motes danced in the sunlight.
Rachel called upstairs: Better come down and get your snack and go out for the bus, El!
Okay! The louder clack-clack of her feet. Heres your car, Gage. I got to go to school.
Gage began to yell indignantly. Although it was garbled-the only clear words being Gage, car, geddit, and Ellie-bus, his text seemed clear enough: Ellie should stay. Public education could go hang for the day.
Rachels voice again, Give your dad a shake before you come clown, El.
Ellie came in, her hair done up in a ponytail, wearing her red dress.
Im awake, babe, he said. Go on and get your bus.
Okay, Daddy. She came over, kissed his slightly scruffy cheek, and bolted for the stairs.
The dream was beginning to fade, to lose its coherence. A damn good thing too.
Gage! he yelled. Come give your dad a kiss!
Gage ignored this. He was following Ellie downstairs as rapidly as he could, yelling Get it! Get-it-get-it-GET-IT! at the top of his lungs. Louis caught just a glimpse of his sturdy little kids body, clad only in diapers and rubber pants.
Rachel called up again, Louis, was that you? You awake?
Yeah, he said, sitting up.
Told you he was! Ellie called. Im goin. Bye! The slam of the front