Pet Sematary - Stephen King [35]
One egg or two? Rachel called.
Louis pushed back the blankets and swung his feet out onto the nubs of the hooked rug, ready to tell her hed skip the eggs, just a bowl of cereal and hed run and the words died in his throat.
His feet were filthy with dirt and pine needles.
His heart leaped up in his throat like a crazy jack-in-the-box. Moving fast, eyes bulging, teeth clamped unfeelingly on his tongue, he kicked the covers all the way back. The foot of the bed was littered with needles. The sheets were mucky and dirty.
Louis?
He saw a few errant pine needles on his knees, and suddenly he looked at his right arm. There was a scratch there on the bicep, a fresh scratch, exactly where the dead branch had poked him.
in the dream.
Im going to scream. I can feel it.
And he could too; it was roaring up from inside, nothing but a big cold bullet of fear. Reality shimmered. Reality-the real reality, he thought-was those needles, the filth on the sheets, the bloody scratch on his bare arm.
Im going to scream and then Ill go crazy and I wont have to worry about it anymore- Louis? Rachel was coming up the stairs. Louis, did you go back to sleep?
He grappled for himself in those two or three seconds; he fought grimly for himself just as he had done in those moments of roaring confusion after Pascow had been brought into the Medical Center, dying in a blanket. He won. The thought which tipped the scales was that she must not see him this way, his feet muddy and coated with needles, the blankets tossed back onto the floor to reveal the muck-splashed ground sheet.
Im awake, he called cheerfully. His tongue was bleeding from the sudden, involuntary bite he had given it. His mind swirled, and somewhere deep inside, away from the action, he wondered if he had always been within touching distance of such mad irrationalities; if everyone was.
One egg or two? She had stopped on the second or third riser. Thank God.
Two, he said, barely aware of what he was saying. Scrambled.
Good for you, she said, and went back downstairs again.
He closed his eyes briefly in relief, but in the darkness he saw Pascows silver eyes. His eyes flew open again. Louis began to move rapidly, putting off any further thought. He jerked the bedclothes off the bed. The blankets were okay. He separated out the
two sheets, balled them up, took them into the hallway, and dumped them down the laundry chute.
Almost running, he entered the bathroom, jerked the shower handle on, and stepped under water so hot it was nearly scalding, unmindful. He washed the dirt from his feet and legs.
He began to feel better, more in control. Drying off, it struck him that this was how murderers must feel when they believe they have gotten rid of all the evidence. He began to laugh. He went on drying himself, but he also went on laughing. He couldnt seem to stop.
Hey, up there! Rachel called. Whats so funny?
Private joke, Louis called back, still laughing. He was frightened, but the fright didnt stop the laughter. The laughter came, rising from a belly that was as hard as stones mortared into a wall. It occurred to him that shoving the sheets down the laundry chute was absolutely the best thing he could have done. Missy Dandridge came in five days a week to vacuum, clean and do the laundry. Rachel would never see those sheets at all until she put them back on the bed clean. He supposed it was possible that Missy would mention it to Rachel, but he didnt think so. She would probably whisper to her husband that the Creeds were playing some strange sex game that involved mud and pine
needles instead of body paints.
This thought made Louis laugh all the harder.
The last of the giggles and chuckles dried up as he was dressing, and he realized that he felt a little better. How that could be he didnt know, but he did. The room looked normal now except for the stripped bed. He had gotten rid of the poison. Maybe evidence was actually the word he was looking for, but in his mind it felt like poison.
Perhaps this is what people do with