Pet Sematary - Stephen King [51]
Yeah, its Church, he said. Ill be damned if I know how Im going to tell Ellie about it.
Suddenly he had an idea. He would bury Church up in the Pet Sematary with no marker or any of that foolishness. He would say nothing to Ellie on the phone tonight about Church; tomorrow he would mention casually that he hadnt seen Church around; the day after he would suggest that perhaps Church had wandered off. Cats did that sometimes. Ellie would be upset, sure, but there would be none of the finality no reprise of Rachels upsetting refusal to deal with death just a withering away.
Coward, part of his mind pronounced.
Yes no argument. But who needs this hassle?
Loves that cat pretty well, doesnt she? Jud asked.
Yes, Louis said absently. He moved Churchs head again. The cat had begun to stiffen, but the head still moved much more easily than it should have. Broken neck. Yeah. Given that, he thought he could reconstruct what had happened. Church had been crossing the road-for what reason God alone knew-and a car or truck had hit him, breaking his neck and throwing him aside onto Jud Crandalls lawn. Or perhaps the cats neck had been broken when he struck the frozen ground. It didnt matter. Either way the remains remained the same. Church was dead.
He glanced up at Jud, about to tell him his conclusions, but Jud was looking away toward that fading orange line of light at
the horizon. His hood had fallen back halfway, and his face seemed thoughtful and stern harsh, even.
Louis pulled the green garbage bag out of his pocket and unfolded it, holding it tightly to keep the wind from whipping it away. The brisk crackling sound of the bag seemed to bring Jud back to this here and now.
Yes, I guess she loves it pretty well, Jud said. His use of the present tense felt slightly eerie the whole setting, with the fading light, the cold, and the wind, struck him as eerie and gothic.
Heres Heathcliff out on the desolate moors, Louis thought, grimacing against the cold. Getting ready to pop the family cat into a Hefty Bag. Yowza.
He grabbed Churchs tail, spread the mouth of the bag, and lifted the cat. He pulled a disgusted, unhappy face at the sound the cats body made coming up-rrrriiippp as he pulled it out of the frost it had set into. The cat seemed almost unbelievably heavy, as if death had settled into it like a physical weight. Christ, he feels like a bucket of sand.
Jud held the other side of the bag, and Louis dropped Church in, glad to be rid of that strange, unpleasant weight.
What are you going to do with it now? Jud asked.
Put him in the garage, I guess, Louis said. Bury him in the morning.
In the Pet Sematary?
Louis shrugged. Suppose so.
Going to tell Ellie?
I Ill have to mull that one over awhile.
Jud was quiet a moment longer, and then he seemed to reach a decision. Wait here a minute or two, Louis.
Jud moved away, with no apparent thought that Louis might not want to wait just a minute on this bitter night. He moved away with assurance and that lithe ease which was so strange in a man of his age. And Louis found he had nothing to say anyway. He didnt feel much like himself. He watched Jud go, quite content to stand here.
He raised his face into the wind after the door had clicked closed, the garbage bag with Churchs body in it riffling between his feet.
Content.
Yes, he was. For the first time since they had moved to Maine, he felt that he was in his place, that he was home. Standing here by himself in the afterglow of the day, standing on the rim of winter, he felt unhappy and yet oddly exhilarated and strangely whole-whole