Pet Sematary - Stephen King [71]
Jud nodded.
Shooting a man or an animal in the head isnt as sure-fire as it sounds, Jud. There are would-be suicides in vegetable wards or even walking around right as rain who didnt know that a bullet can strike the skull plate and travel right around it in a semicircle, exiting the other side without ever penetrating the brain. I personally saw one case where a fellow shot himself above the right ear and died because the bullet went around his head and tore open his jugular vein on the other side of his head. That bullet path looked like a county roadmap.
Jud smiled and nodded. I remember reading somethin like that in one of Normas newspapers, the Star or the Enquirer-one of those. But if my pop said Spot was gone, Louis, he was gone.
All right, Louis said. If you say thats how it was, that is how it was.
Was your daughters cat gone?
I sure thought it was, Louis said.
You got to do better than that. Youre a doctor.
You make it sound like You got to do better than that, Louis, youre God. Im not God. It was dark-
Sure, it was dark, and his head swiveled on his neck like it was full of ball bearings, and when you moved him, he pulled out
of the frost, Louis-sounded like a piece of sticky tape comin off a letter. Live things dont do that. You only stop meltin the frost under where youre layin when youre dead.
In the other room, the clock struck ten-thirty.
What did your father say when he came home and saw the dog? Louis asked.
I was out in the driveway, shooting marbles in the dirt, more or less waitin for him. I felt like I always felt when Id done something wrong and knew I was probably gonna get a spankin. He come in through the gateposts about eight oclock, wearin his bib overalls and his pillow-tick cap you ever seen one of those?
Louis nodded, then stifled a yawn with the back of his hand.
Yeah, gettin late, Jud said. Got to finish this up.
Its not that late, Louis said. Im just a few beers ahead of my usual pace. Go on, Jud. Take your time. I want to hear this.
My dad had an old lard tin he kept his dinner in, Jud said, and he come in through the gate swingin it, empty, by the handle, you know. Whisflin somethin. It was gettin dark, but he seen me there in the gloom and he says, Hi there, Judkins! like he would do, and then, Wheres your-
He got that far, and then here comes Spot out of the dark, not runnin like he usually did, ready to jump all over him he was so glad to see him, but just walkin, waggin his tail, and my dad dropped that lard bucket and stepped back. I dont know bwhat he would have turned tail and run except his back hit the picket fence and then he just stood there, looking at the dog. And when Spot did jump up, Dad just caught his paws and held them, like you might hold a ladys hands you was gettin ready to dance with. He looked at the dog for a long time and then he looked at me, and he said, He needs a bath, Jud. He stinks of the ground you buried him in. And then he went in the house.
What did you do? Louis asked.
Gave him another bath. He just sat there in the tub and took it again. And when I went in the house, my mother had gone to bed, even though it wasnt even nine oclock. My dad said, We got to talk, Judkins. And I set down across from him, and he talked to me like a man for the first time in my life with the smell of the honeysuckle coming across the road from whats your house now and the smell of the wild roses from our own house.
Jud Crandall sighed. I had always thought it would be good to have him talk to me that way, but it wasnt. It wasnt a bit good. All this tonight, Louis-its like when you look into a mirror thats been set up right across from another mirror, and you can see yourself going down a whole hail of mirrors. How many times has this story been passed along, I wonder? A story thats just the same, except for the names? And thats like the sex thing too, isnt it?
Your dad knew all about it.
Ayuh. Who took you up there, Jud? he asked me, and I told him. He just nodded like it was what he would have expected. I guess it probly was, although