Pet Sematary - Stephen King [6]
Louis hesitated and then said, All right, but just one more. I have to be getting back.
Sure you do. Aint moving a bitch?
It is, Louis agreed, and then for a time they were silent. The silence was a comfortable one, as if they had known each other for a long time. This was a feeling about which Louis had read in books, but which he had never experienced until.
now. He felt ashamed of his casual thoughts about free medical advice earlier.
On the road a semi roared by, its running lights twinkling like earthstars.
Thats one mean road, all right, Crandall repeated thoughtfully, almost vaguely, and then turned to Louis. There was a peculiar little smile on his seamed mouth. He poked a Chesterfield into one corner of the smile and popped a match with his thumbnail. You remember the path there that your little girl commented on?
For a moment Louis didnt; Ellie had commented on a whole catalogue of things before finally collapsing for the night. Then he did remember. That wide mown patch winding up through the copse of trees and over the hill.
"Yes, I do. You promised to tell her about it sometime.
I did, and I will, Crandall said. That path goes up into the woods about a mile and a half. The local kids around Route 15 and Middle Drive keep it nice because they use it. Kids come and go theres a lot more moving around than there used to be when I was a boy; then you picked a place out and stuck to it. But they seem to tell each other, and every spring a bunch of them mows that path. They keep it nice all the summer long. Not all of the adults in town know its there-a lot of them do, of course, but not all, not by a long chalk-but all of the kids do. Id bet on it.
Know whats there?
The pet cemetery, Crandall said.
Pet cemetery, Louis repeated, bemused.
Its not as odd as it probly sounds, Crandall said, smoking and rocking. Its the road. It uses up a lot of animals, that road does. Dogs and cats, mostly, but that aint all. One of those big Orinco trucks run down the pet raccoon the Ryder -children used to keep. That was back-Christ, must have been in 73, maybe earlier. Before the state made keeping a coon or even a denatured skunk illegal, anyway.
Why did they do that?
Rabies, Crandall said. Lot of rabies in Maine now. There was a big old St. Bernard went rabid downstate a couple of years ago and killed four people. That was a hell of a thing. Dog hadnt had his shots. If those foolish people had
seen that dog had had its shots, it never would have happened. But a coon or a skunk, you can vaccinate it twice a year and still it dont always take. But that coon the Ryder boys had, that was what the oldtimers used to call a sweet coon. Itd waddle right up to you-gorry, want he fat!-and lick your face like a dog. Their dad even paid a vet to spay him and declaw him. That must have cost him a country fortune!
Ryder, he worked for IBM in Bangor. They went out to Colorado five years ago or maybe it was six. Funny to think of those two almost old enough to drive. Were they broken up over that coon? I guess they were. Matty Ryder cried so long his mom got scared and wanted to take him to the doctor. I spose hes over it now, but they never forget. When a good animal gets run down in the road, a kid never forgets.
Louiss mind turned to Ellie as he had last seen her tonight, fast asleep with Church purring rustily on the foot of the mattress.
My daughters got a cat, he said. Winston Churchill. We call him Church for short.
Do they climb when he walks?
I beg your pardon? Louis had no idea what he was talking about.
He still got his balls or has he been fixed?
No, Louis said. No, he hasnt been fixed.
In fact there had been some trouble over that back in Chicago. Rachel had wanted to get Church spayed, had even made the appointment with the vet. Louis canceled it. Even now he wasnt really sure why. it wasnt anything as simple or as stupid as equating his masculinity with that of his daughters tom, nor even his resentment at the idea that Church would have to be castrated