Pet Sematary - Stephen King [36]
Gage was in his chair, eating Cocoa Bears and decorating the table with it. He was decorating the plastic mat under his high chair with Cocoa Bears and apparently shampooing with it.
Rachel came out of the kitchen with his eggs and a cup of coffee. What was the big joke, Lou? You were laughing like a loon up there. Scared me a little.
Louis opened his mouth with no idea of what he was going to say, and what came out was a joke he had heard the week before at the corner market down the road-something about a Jewish tailor who bought a parrot whose only line was Ariel Sharon jerks off.
By the time he finished, Rachel was laughing too-so was Cage for that matter.
Fine. Our hero has taken care of all the evidence-to wit: the muddy sheets and the loony laughter in the bathroom. Our hero will now read the morning paper-or at least look at it-putting the seal of normality on the morning.
So thinking, Louis opened the paper.
Thats what you do, all right, he thought with immeasurable relief. You pass it like a stone, and thats the end of it unless there comes a campfire some night with friends when the wind is high and the talk turns to inexplicable events. Because on campfire nights when the wind is high, talk is cheap.
He ate his eggs. He kissed Rachel and Gage. He glanced at the square, white-painted laundry cabinet at the foot of the chute only as he left. Everything was okay. It was another knockout of a morning. Late summer showed every sign of just going on forever, and everything was okay. He glanced at the path as he backed the car out of the garage, but that was okay too. Never turned a hair. You passed it like a stone.
Everything was okay until he had gotten ten miles down the road, and then the shakes hit him so hard that he had to pull off Route z and into the morning-deserted parking lot of Sings, the Chinese restaurant not far from the Eastern Maine Medical Center where Pascows body would have been taken. The EMMC, that is, not Sings. Vic Pascow was never going to eat another helping of moo goo gai pan, ha-ha.
The shakes twisted his body, ripped at it, had their way with it. Louis felt helpless and terrified-not terrified of anything supernatural, not in this bright sunshine, but simply terrified of the
possibility that he might be losing his mind. It felt as if a long, invisible wire was being twirled through his head.
No more, he said. Please, no more.
He fumbled for the radio and got Joan Baez singing about diamonds and rust. Her sweet, cool voice soothed him, and by the time she had finished, Louis felt that he could drive on.
When he got to the Medical Center, he called hello to Charlton and then ducked into the bathroom, believing that he must look like hell. Not so. He was a little hollow under the eyes, but not even Rachel had noticed that. He slapped some cold water on his face, dried off, combed his hair, and went into his office.
Steve Masterton and the Indian doctor, Surrendra Hardu, were in there, drinking coffee and continuing to go over the front file.
Morning, Lou, Steve said.
Morning.
Lets hope it is not like last morning, Hardu said.
Thats right, you missed all the excitement.
Surrendra had plenty of excitement himself last night, Masterton said, grinning. Tell him, Surrendra.
Hardu polished his glasses, smiling. Two boys bring in their Jady friend around one oclock in the morning, he said. She is very happily drunk, celebrating the return to university, you understand. She has cut one thigh quite badly,