Pet Sematary - Stephen King [55]
Except its not treasure weve come to bury. Just my daughters castrated cat.
He felt wild laughter bubble up inside and stifled it.
He did not hear any sounds like voices, nor did he see any St. Elmos fire, but after stepping over half a dozen tussocks, he looked down and saw that his feet, calves, knees, and lower thighs had disappeared into a ground fog that was perfectly smooth, perfectly white, and perfectly opaque. It was like moving through the worlds lightest drift of snow.
The air seemed to have a quality of light in it now, and it was warmer, he could have sworn it. He could see Jud before him, moving steadily along, the blunt end of the pick hooked over his shoulder. The pick enhanced the illusion of a man intent on burying treasure.
That crazy sense of exhilaration persisted, and he suddenly wondered if maybe Rachel was trying to call him; if, back in the house, the phone was ringing and ringing, making its rational, prosaic sound. If- He almost walked into Juds back again. The old man had stopped in the middle of the path. His head was cocked to one side. His mouth was pursed and tense.
Jud? Whats-
Shhh!
Louis hushed, looking around uneasily. Here the ground mist was thinner, but he still couldnt see his own shoes. Then he heard crackling underbrush and breaking branches. Something was moving out there-something big.
He opened his mouth to ask Jud if it was a moose (bear was the thought that actually crossed his mind), and then he closed it again. The sound carries, Jud had said.
He cocked his head to one side in unconscious imitation of Jud, unaware that he was doing it, and listened. The sound seemed at first distant, then very close; moving away arid then moving ominously toward them. Louis felt the sweat on his forehead begin to trickle down his chapped cheeks. He shifted the Hefty Bag with Churchs body in it from one hand to the other. His palm had dampened, and the green plastic seemed greasy, wanting to slide through his fist. Now the thing out there seemed so close that Louis expected to see its shape at any moment, rising
up on two legs, perhaps, blotting out the stars with some unthought-of, immense and shaggy body.
Bear was no longer what he was thinking of.
Now he didnt know just what he was thinking of.
Then it moved away and disappeared.
Louis opened his mouth again, the words What was that? already on his tongue. Then a shrill, maniacal laugh came out of the darkness, rising and falling in hysterical cycles, loud, piercing, chilling. To Louis it seemed that every joint in his body had frozen solid and that he had somehow gained weight, so much weight that if he turned to run he would plunge down and out of sight in the swampy ground.
The laughter rose, split into dry cackles like some rottenly friable chunk of rock along many fault lines; it reached the pitch of a scream, then sank into a guttural chuckling that might have become sobs before it faded out altogether.
Somewhere there was a drip of water and above them, like a steady river in a bed of sky, the monotonous whine of the wind. Otherwise Little God Swamp was silent.
Louis began to shudder all over. His flesh-particularly that of his lower belly-began to creep. Yes, creep was the right word; his flesh actually seemed to be moving on his body. His mouth was totally dry. There seemed to be no spit at all left in it. Yet that feeling of exhilaration persisted, an unshakable lunacy.
What in Christs name? he whispered hoarsely to Jud.
Jud turned to look at him, and in the dim light Louis thought the old man looked a hundred and twenty. There was no sign of that odd, dancing light in his eyes now. His face was drawn, and there was stark terror in his eyes. But when he spoke, his voice was steady enough. Just a loon, he said. Come on. Almost there.
They went on. The tussocks became firm ground again. For a few moments Louis had a sensation of open space, although that dim glow in the air had now