Pet Sematary, Page 34

  P'raps I ought to take a little run out to Pleasantview Cemetery. See if anything's doing out there. Might even run into Louis Creed. I could buy him a dinner, or somethin.

  But it wasn't at Pleasantview Cemetery in Bangor that there was danger; the danger was here, in this house, and beyond it.

  Jud left again and crossed the road to his own house. He pulled a six-pack of beer out of the kitchen fridge and took it into the living room. He sat down in front of the bay window that looked out on the Creed house, cracked a beer, and lit a cigarette. The afternoon drew down around him, and as it did so often these last few years, he would find his mind turning back and back in a widening gyre. If he had known the run of Rachel Creed's earlier thoughts he could have told her that what her psych teacher had told her was maybe the truth, but when you got older that dimming function of the memory broke down little by little, the same way that everything else in your body broke down, and you found yourself recalling places and faces and events with an eerie surety. Sepia-toned memories grew bright again, the colors trueing up, the voices losing that tinny echo of time and regaining their original resonance. It wasn't informational breakdowns at all, Jud could have told him. The name for it was senility.

  In his mind Jud again saw Lester Morgan's bull Hanratty, his eyes rimmed with red, charging at everything in sight, everything that moved. Charging at trees when the wind jigged the leaves. Before Lester gave up and called it off, every tree in Hanratty's fenced meadow was gored with his brainless fury and his horns were splintered and his head was bleeding. When Lester put Hanratty down, Lester had been sick with dread--the way Jud himself was right now.

  He drank beer and smoked. Daylight faded. He did not put on the light. Gradually the tip of his cigarette became a small red pip in the darkness. He sat and drank beer and watched Louis Creed's driveway. He believed that when Louis came home from wherever he was, he would go over and have a little talk with him. Make sure Louis wasn't planning to do anything he shouldn't.

  And still he felt the soft tug of whatever it was, whatever sick power it was that inhabited that devil's place, reaching down from its bluff of rotted stone where all those cairns had been built.

  Stay out of this, you. Stay out of it or you're going to be very, very sorry.

  Ignoring it as best he could, Jud sat and smoked and drank beer. And waited.

  47

  While Jud Crandall was sitting in the ladderbacked rocker and watching for him out of his bay window, Louis was eating a big tasteless dinner in the Howard Johnson's dining room.

  The food was plentiful and dull--exactly what his body seemed to want. Outside it had grown dark. The headlights of the passing cars probed like fingers. He shoveled the food in. A steak. A baked potato. A side dish of beans which were a bright green nature had never intended. A wedge of apple pie with a scoop of ice cream on top of it melting into a soft drool. He ate at a corner table, watching people come and go, wondering if he might not see someone he knew. In a vague way, he rather hoped that would happen. It would lead to questions--where's Rachel, what are you doing here, how's it going?--and perhaps the questions would lead to complications, and maybe complications were what he really wanted. A way out.

  And as a matter of fact, a couple that he did know came in just as he was finishing his apple pie and his second cup of coffee. Rob Grinnell, a Bangor doctor, and his pretty wife Barbara. He waited for them to see him, sitting here in the corner at his table for one, but the hostess led them to the booths on the far side of the room, and Louis lost sight of them entirely except for an occasional glimpse of Grinnell's prematurely graying hair.

  The waitress brought Louis his check. He signed for it, jotting his room number under his signature, and left by the side door.

  Outside the wind had risen to near-gale force. It was a steady droning presence, making the electrical wires hum oddly. He could see no stars but had a sense of clouds rushing past overhead at high speed. Louis stood on the walk for a moment, hands in pockets, face tilted into that wind. Then he turned back and went up to his room and turned on the television. It was too early to do anything serious, and that nightwind was too full of possibilities. It made him nervous.

  He watched four hours of TV, eight back-to-back half-hour comedy programs. He realized it had been a very long time since he had watched so much TV in a steady, uninterrupted stream. He thought that all the female leads on the sitcoms were what he and his friends had called "cockteasers" back in high school.

  In Chicago, Dory Goldman was wailing, "Fly back? Honey, why do you want to fly back? You just got here!"

  In Ludlow, Jud Crandall sat by his bay window, smoking and drinking beer, motionless, examining the mental scrapbook of his own past and waiting for Louis to come home. Sooner or later Louis would come home, just like Lassie in that old movie. There were other ways up to the Pet Sematary and the place beyond, but Louis didn't know them. If he intended to do it, he would begin from his own dooryard.

  Unaware of these other happenings, like slow-

  moving projectiles aimed not at where he was, but rather in the best ballistics tradition at the place where he would be, Louis sat and watched the HoJo color television set. He had never seen any of these programs before, but he had heard vague rumors of them: a black family, a white family, a little kid who was smarter than the rich grown-ups he lived with, a woman who was single, a woman who was married, a woman who was divorced. He watched it all, sitting in the HoJo chair and glancing out every now and then at the blowy night.

  When the eleven o'clock news came on, he turned the television set off and went out to do what he had decided to do perhaps at the very moment he had seen Gage's baseball cap lying in the road, full of blood. The coldness was on him again, stronger than ever, but there was something beneath it--an ember of eagerness, or passion, or perhaps lust. No matter. It warmed him against the cold and kept him together in the wind. As he started the Honda's engine, he thought that perhaps Jud was right about the growing power of that place, for surely he felt it around him now, leading (or pushing) him on, and he wondered:

  Could I stop? Could I stop even if I wanted to?

  48

  "You want to what?" Dory asked again. "Rachel . . . you're upset . . . a night's sleep . . ."

  Rachel only shook her head. She could not explain to her mother why she had to go back. The feeling had risen in her the way a wind rises--an early stirring of the grasses, hardly noticed; then the air begins to move faster and harder, and there is no calm left; then the gusts become hard enough to make eerie screaming noises around the eaves; then they are shaking the house and you realize that this is something like a hurricane and if the wind gets much higher, things are going to fall down.

  It was six o'clock in Chicago. In Bangor, Louis was just sitting down to his big, tasteless meal. Rachel and Ellie had done no more than pick at their dinners. Rachel kept raising her eyes from her plate to find her daughter's dark glance upon her, asking her what she was going to do about whatever trouble Daddy was in, asking her what she was going to do.

  She waited for the telephone to ring, for Jud to call and tell her that Louis had come home, and once it did ring--she jumped, and Ellie almost spilled her glass of milk--but it was only a lady from Dory's bridge club, wanting to know if she had gotten home all right.

  They were having their coffee when Rachel had abruptly tossed down her napkin and said, "Daddy . . . Mom . . . I'm sorry, but I have to go home. If I can get a plane, I'm going tonight."

  Her mother and father had gaped at her, but Ellie had closed her eyes in an adult expression of relief--it would have been funny if not for the waxy, stretched quality of her skin.

  They did not understand, and Rachel could no more explain than she could have explained how those tiny puffs of wind, so faint they can barely stir the tips of short grass, can gradually grow in power until they can knock a steel building flat. She did not believe that Ellie had heard a news item about the death of Victor Pascow a
nd filed it away in her subconscious.

  "Rachel. Honey." Her father spoke slowly, kindly, the way one might speak to someone in the grip of a transitory but dangerous hysteria. "This is all just a reaction to your son's death. You and Ellie are both reacting strongly to that, and who could blame you? But you'll just collapse if you try to--"

  Rachel did not answer him. She went to the telephone in the hall, found AIRLINES in the Yellow Pages and dialed Delta's number while Dory stood close by, telling her they ought to just think about this, didn't she think, they ought to talk about it, perhaps make a list . . . and beyond her Ellie stood, her face still dark--but now it was lit by enough hope to give Rachel some courage.

  "Delta Airlines," the voice on the other end said brightly. "This is Kim, may I help you?"

  "I hope so," Rachel said. "It's extremely important that I get from Chicago to Bangor tonight. It's . . . it's a bit of an emergency, I'm afraid. Can you check the connections for me?"

  Dubiously: "Yes, ma'am, but this is very short notice."

  "Well, please check," Rachel said, her voice cracking a little. "I'll take standby, anything."

  "All right, ma'am. Please hold." The line became smoothly silent.

  Rachel closed her eyes, and after a moment she felt a cool hand on her arm. She opened her eyes and saw that Ellie had moved next to her. Irwin and Dory stood together, talking quietly and looking at them. The way you look at people you suspect of being lunatics, Rachel thought wearily. She mustered a smile for Ellie.

  "Don't let them stop you, Mommy," Ellie said in a low voice. "Please."

  "No way, big sister," Rachel said and then winced--it was what they had called her ever since Gage had been born. But she was no one's big sister anymore, was she?

  "Thank you," Ellie said.

  "It's very important, isn't it?"

  Ellie nodded.

  "Honey, I believe that it is. But you could help me if you could tell me more. Is it just the dream?"

  "No," Ellie said. "It's . . . it's everything now. It's running all through me now. Can't you feel it, Mommy? Something like a--"

  "Something like a wind."

  Ellie sighed shakily.

  "But you don't know what it is? You don't remember anything more about your dream?"

  Ellie thought hard and then shook her head reluctantly. "Daddy. Church. And Gage. That's all I remember. But I don't remember how they go together, Mommy!"

  Rachel hugged her tightly. "It will be all right," she said, but the weight on her heart did not lessen.

  "Hello, ma'am," the reservations clerk said.

  "Hello?" Rachel tightened her grip on both Ellie and the phone.

  "I think I can get you to Bangor, ma'am--but you're going to be getting in very late."

  "That doesn't matter," Rachel said.

  "Do you have a pen? It's complicated."

  "Yes, right here," Rachel said, getting a stub of pencil out of the drawer. She found the back of an envelope to write on.

  Rachel listened carefully, writing down everything. When the airline clerk finished, Rachel smiled a little and made an O with her thumb and forefinger to show Ellie that it was going to work. Probably going to work, she amended. Some of the connections looked very, very tight . . . especially in Boston.

  "Please book it all," Rachel said. "And thank you."

  Kim took Rachel's name and credit card number. Rachel hung up at last, limp but relieved. She looked at her father. "Daddy, will you drive me to the airport?"

  "Maybe I ought to say no," Goldman said. "I think I might have a responsibility to put a stop to this craziness."

  "Don't you dare!" Ellie cried shrilly. "It's not crazy! It's not!"

  Goldman blinked and stepped back at this small but ferocious outburst.

  "Drive her, Irwin," Dory said quietly into the silence that followed. "I've begun to feel nervous too. I'll feel better if I know Louis is all right."

  Goldman stared at his wife and at last turned to Rachel. "I'll drive you, if it is what you want," he said. "I . . . Rachel, I'll come with you, if you want that."

  Rachel shook her head. "Thank you, Daddy, but I got all the last seats. It's as if God saved them for me."

  Irwin Goldman sighed. At that moment he looked very old and it suddenly occurred to Rachel that her father looked like Jud Crandall.

  "You have time to pack a bag, if you want," he said. "We can be at the airport in forty minutes, if I drive the way I used to when your mother and I were first married. Find her your tote bag, Dory."

  "Mommy," Ellie said. Rachel turned toward her. Ellie's face was now sheened with light sweat.

  "What, honey?"

  "Be careful, Mommy," Ellie said.

  49

  The trees were only moving shapes against a cloudy sky backlit by the glow from the airport not too far distant. Louis parked the Honda on Mason Street. Mason bordered Pleasantview on its south side, and here the wind was almost strong enough to rip the car door out of his hand. He had to push hard to shut it. The wind rippled at his jacket as he opened the Honda's hatch and took out the piece of tarpaulin he had cut and wrapped around his tools.

  He was in a wing of darkness between two streetlights, standing on the curb with the canvas-wrapped bundle cradled in his arms, looking carefully for traffic before crossing to the wrought-iron fence which marked the boundary of the graveyard. He did not want to be seen at all, if he could help it, not even by someone who would notice him and forget him the next second. Beside him, the branches of an old elm groaned restlessly in the wind, making Louis think of jackleg necktie parties. God, he was so scared. This wasn't wild work; it was mad work.

  No traffic. On the Mason Street side, the streetlamps marched away in perfect white circles, casting spotlights on the sidewalk where, during the days after Fairmount Grammar School let out, boys would ride bikes and girls would jump rope and play hopscotch, never noticing the nearby graveyard, except perhaps at Halloween, when it would acquire a certain spooky charm. Perhaps they would dare to cross their suburban street and hang a paper skeleton on the wrought-iron bars of the high fence, giggling at the old jokes: It's the most popular place in town; people are dying to get in. Why is it wrong to laugh in the graveyard? Because everyone who lives there is always in a grave mood.

  "Gage," he muttered. Gage was in there, behind that wrought-iron fence, unjustly imprisoned under a blanket of dark earth, and that was no joke. Gonna break you out, Gage, he thought. Gonna break you out big guy, or die trying.

  Louis crossed the street with his heavy bundle in his arms, stepped up on the other curb, glanced both ways again, and tossed the canvas roll over the fence. It clinked softly as it struck the ground on the far side. Dusting his hands, Louis walked away. He had marked the place in his mind. Even if he forgot, all he really had to do was follow the fence on the inside until he was standing opposite his Civic, and he would fall over it.

  But would the gate be open this late?

  He walked down Mason Street to the stop sign, the wind chasing him and worrying his heels. Moving shadows danced and twined on the roadway.

  He turned the corner onto Pleasant Street, still following the fence. Car headlights splashed up the street, and Louis stepped casually behind an elm tree. It wasn't a cop car, he saw, only a van moving toward Hammond Street and, probably, the turnpike. When it was well past him, Louis walked on.

  Of course it will be unlocked. It's got to be.

  He reached the gate, which formed a cathedral shape in wrought iron, slim and graceful in the moving wind shadows thrown by the streetlights. He reached out and tried it.

  Locked.

  You stupid fool, of course it's locked--did you really think anyone would leave a cemetery inside the municipal city limits of any American city unlocked after eleven o'clock? No one is that trusting, dear man, not anymore. So what do you do now?

  Now he would have to climb and just hope no one happened to glance away from the Carson Show long enough to see him monkeying
up the wrought iron like the world's oldest, slowest kid.

  Hey, police? I just saw the world's oldest, slowest kid climbing into Pleasantview Cemetery. Looked like he was dying to get in. Yeah, looked like a grave matter to me. Kidding? Oh no, I'm in dead earnest. Maybe you ought to dig into it.

  Louis continued up Pleasant Street and turned right at the next intersection. The high iron fence marched along beside him restlessly. The wind cooled and evaporated the drops of sweat on his forehead and in the hollows of his temples. His shadow waxed and waned in the streetlights. Every now and then he glanced at the fence, and then he stopped and forced himself to really look at it.

  You're going to climb that baby? Don't make me laugh.

  Louis Creed was a fairly tall man, standing a bit over six-two, but the fence was easily nine feet high, each wrought-iron stave ending in a decorative, arrowlike point. Decorative, that is, until you happened to slip while swinging your leg over and the force of your suddenly dropping two hundred pounds drove one of those arrow points into your groin, exploding your testicles. And there you would be, skewered like a pig at a barbecue, hollering until someone called for the police and they came and pulled you off and took you to the hospital.

  The sweat continued to flow, sticking his shirt to his back. All was silent except for the faint hum of late traffic on Hammond Street.

  There had to be a way to get in there.

  Had to be.

  Come on, Louis, face the facts. You may be crazy, but you're not that crazy. Maybe you could shinny up to the top of that fence, but it would take a trained gymnast to swing over those points without sticking himself on them. And even supposing you can get in, how are you going to get yourself and Gage's body out?

  He went on walking, vaguely aware that he was circling the cemetery but not doing anything constructive.

  All right, here's the answer. I'll just go on home to Ludlow tonight and come back tomorrow, in the late afternoon. I'll go in through the gate around four o'clock and find a place to hole up until it's midnight or a little later. I will, in other words, put off until tomorrow what I should have been smart enough to think of today.