"Yeah, it is," Louis agreed and then added, "She said he smelled bad, and I did think he was a little fragrant. Maybe he rolled in a pile of someone's mulch, or something."
"That's too bad," Rachel said, rolling over on her side. "I really think Ellie missed Church as much as she missed you."
"Uh-huh," Louis said. He bent and kissed her mouth softly. 'Go to sleep, Rachel."
"I love you, Lou. I'm glad to be home. And I'm sorry about the couch."
"It's okay," Louis said, and turned out the light.
Downstairs, he stacked the couch cushions, pulled out the hide-a-bed, and tried to prepare himself mentally for a night of having the rod under the thin mattress dig into the small of his back. The bed was sheeted, at least; he wouldn't have to make it up from scratch. Louis got two blankets from the top shelf in the front hail closet and spread them on the bed. He began to undress, then paused.
You think Church is in again? Fine. Take a walk around and have a look. As you told Rachel, it won't hurt. May even help. And checking to make sure all the doors are on the latch won't even catch you a virus.
He took a deliberate tour of the entire downstairs, checking the locks on doors and windows. He had done everything right the first time, and Church was nowhere to be seen.
"There," he said. "Let's see you get in tonight, you dumb cat." He followed this with a mental wish that Church would freeze its balls off. Except that Church of course no longer had any.
He switched off the lights and got into bed. The rod started to press into his back almost immediately, and Louis was thinking he would be awake half the night when he fell asleep. He fell asleep resting uncomfortably on his side in the hide-a-bed, but when he woke up he was.
in the burying ground beyond the Pet Sematary again. This time he was alone. He had killed Church himself this time and then had decided for some reason to bring him back to life a second time. God knew why; Louis didn't. He had buried Church deeper this time, though, and Church couldn't dig his way out. Louis could hear the cat crying somewhere under the earth, making a sound like a weeping child. The sound came up through the pores of the ground, through its stony flesh-the sound and the smell, that awful sickish-sweet smell of rot and decay. Just breathing it in made his chest feel heavy, as if a weight was on it.
The crying... the crying.
the crying was still going on...
and the weight was still on his chest.
"Louis!" It was Rachel, and she sounded alarmed. "Louis, can you corner She sounded more than alarmed; she sounded scared, and the crying had a choked, desperate quality to it. It was Cage.
He opened his eyes and stared into Church's greenish-yellow eyes. They were less than four inches from his own. The cat was on his chest, neatly curled up there like something from an old wives' tale of breath-stealing. The stink came off it in slow, noxious waves. It was purring.
Louis uttered a cry of disgust and surprise. He shot both hands out in a primitive warding-off gesture. Church thumped off the bed, landed on its side, and walked away in that stumbling lurch.
Jesus! Jesus! It was on me! Oh God, it was right on me!
His disgust could not have been greater if he had awakened to find a spider in his mouth. For a moment he thought he was going to throw up.
"Louis!"
He pushed the blankets back and stumbled to the stairs. Faint light spilled from their bedroom. Rachel was standing at the head of the stairs in her nightgown.
"Louis, he's vomiting again... choking on ft... I'm scared."
"I'm here," he said and came up to her, thinking: It got in. Somehow it got in.
Chapter 12
"Some things it don't pay to be curious about," Jud Crandall said, and for the first time he looked really old and infirm to Louis Creed, as if he were standing somewhere in the neighborhood of his own freshly prepared grave.
And later, at home, something else occurred to him about how Jud had looked at that moment.
He had looked like he was lying.
27
Louis didn't really know he was drunk until he got back in his own garage.
Outside there was starlight and a chilly rind of moon. Not enough light to cast a shadow, but enough to see by. Once he got in the garage, he was blind. There was a light switch somewhere, but he was damned if he could remember anymore just where it was. He felt his way along slowly, shuffling his feet, his head swimming, anticipating a painful crack on the knee or a toy that he would stumble over, frightening himself with its crash, perhaps falling over himself.
Ellie's little Schwinn with its red training wheels. Gage's Crawly-Gator.
Where was the eat? Had he left him in?