Stephen King - Pet Sematary

He liked Louis enormously, and he wanted to make sure Louis was all right. Louis had been through hell lately.

When he saw the billows of smoke, his first thought was that this was something else to lay at the door of Victor Pascow, who seemed, in his dying, to have removed some sort of crash barrier between these ordinary people and an extraordinary run of bad luck. But that was stupid, and Louis’s house was the proof. It stood calm and white, a little piece of clean-limbed New England architecture in the midmorning sun.

People were running toward the old duck’s house, and as Steve banked his bike across the road and pulled into Louis’s driveway, he saw a man dash up onto the old duck’s porch, approach the front door, and then retreat. It was well that he did; a moment later the glass pane in the center of the door blew out, and flames boiled through the opening. If the fool actually had gotten the door open, the blowout would have cooked him like a lobster.

Steve dismounted and put the Honda on its kickstand, Louis momentarily forgotten. He was drawn by all the old mystery of fire. Maybe half a dozen people had gathered; except for the would-be hero, who lingered on the Crandalls’ lawn, they kept a respectful distance. Now the windows between the porch and the house blew out. Glass danced in the air. The would-be hero ducked and ran for it. Flames ran up the inner wail of the porch like groping hands, blistering the white paint. As Steve watched, one of the rattan easy chairs smouldered and then exploded into flame.

Over the crackling sounds, he heard the would-be hero cry out with a shrill and absurd sort of optimism: “Gonna lose her! Gonna lose her sure! If Jud’s in there, he’s a gone goose! Told im about the creosote in that chimbly a hunnert times!”

Steve opened his mouth to holler across and ask if the fire department had been called, but just then he heard the faint wail of sirens, approaching. A lot of them. They had been called, but the would-be hero was right: the house was going. Flames probed through half a dozen broken windows now, and the front eave had grown an almost transparent membrane of fire over its bright green shingles.

He turned back, then, remembering Louis-but if Louis were here, wouldn’t he be with the others across the street?

Steve caught something then, just barely caught it with the tail of his eye.

Beyond the head of Louis’s hot-topped driveway there was a field that stretched up a long, gently rising hill. The timothy grass, although still green, had grown high already this May, but Steve could see a path, almost as neatly mowed as a putting green on a golf course. It wound and meandered its way up the slope of the field, rising to meet the woods that began, thick and green, just below the horizon. It was here, where the pale green of the timothy grass met the thicker, denser green of the woods, that Steve had seen movement-a flash of bright white that seemed to be moving. It was gone almost as soon as his eye registered it, but it had seemed to him for that brief moment that he had seen a man carrying a white bundle.

That was Louis, his mind told him with sudden irrational certainty. That was Louis, and you better get to him quick because something damn bad has happened and pretty quick something even more damn bad is going to happen if you don’t stop him.

He stood indecisively at the head of the driveway, shifting one foot for the other, his weight jittery between the two of them.

Steve baby, you’re scared shitless just about now, aren’t you?

Yes. He was. He was scared shitless and for no reason at all. But there was also a certain… a certain (attraction) yes, a certain attraction here, something about that path, that path leading up the hill and perhaps continuing on into the woods-surely that path had to go somewhere., didn’t it? Yes, of course it did. All paths eventually went somewhere.

Louis. Don’t forget about Louis, you dummy! Louis was the man you came out to see, remember? You didn’t come out to Ludlow to go exploring the goddam woods.

“What you got there, Randy?” the would-be hero cried. His voice, still shrill and somehow optimistic, carried well.

Randy’s reply was almost but not quite obscured by the growing wail of the fire sirens. “Dead cat.”

“Burnt up?”

“Don’t look burnt,” Randy returned. “Just looks dead.”

And Steve’s mind returned implacably, as if the exchange across the street had something to do with what he had seen-or what he thought he had seen: That was Louis.

He started to move then, trotting up the path toward the woods, leaving the fire behind him. He had worked up a good sweat by the time he reached the edge of the woods, and the shade felt cool and good. There was the sweet aroma of pine and spruce, bark and sap.

Once into the woods he broke into an all-out run, not sure why he was running, not sure why his heart was beating double time. His breath whistled in and out.

He was able to lengthen his run to a sprint going downhill-the path was admirably clear-but he reached the arch that marked the entrance to the Pet Sematary at little more than a fast walk. There was a hot stitch high in his right side, just under the armpit.

His eyes barely registered the circles of graves-the beaten tin squares, the bits of board and slate. His gaze was fixed on the bizarre sight at the far side of the circular clearing. It was fixed on Louis, who was climbing a deadfall, seemingly in outright defiance of gravity. He mounted the steep fall step by step, his eyes straight ahead, like a man who has been mesmerized or who is sleepwalking. In his arms was the white thing that Steve had seen from the tail of his eye. This close, its configuration was undeniable-it was a body. One foot, clad in a black shoe with a low heel, protruded. And Steve knew with a sudden and sickening certainty that Louis was carrying Rachel’s body.

Louis’s hair had gone white.

“Louis!” Steve screamed.

Louis didn’t hesitate, didn’t pause. He reached the top of the deadfall and began down the far side.

He’ll fall, Steve thought incoherently. He’s been damned lucky, incredibly lucky, but pretty soon he’s going to fall and if his leg’s the only thing he breaks-But Louis did not fall. He reached the other side of the deadfall, was temporarily out of Steve’s sight, and then reappeared as he walked toward the woods again.

“Louis!” Steve yelled again.

This time Louis stopped and turned back.

Steve was struck dumb by what he saw. Besides the white hair, Louis’s face was that of an old, old man.

At first there was no recognition at all in Louis’s face. It dawned little by little, as if someone was turning a rheostat up in his brain. Louis’s mouth was twitching. After a while Steve realized that Louis was trying to smile.

“Steve,” he said in a cracked, uncertain voice. “Hello, Steve. I’m going to bury her. Have to do it with my bare hands, I guess. It may take until dark. The soil up there is very stony. I don’t suppose you’d want to give me a hand?”

Steve opened his mouth, but no words came out. In spite of his surprise, in spite of his horror, he did want to give Louis a hand. Somehow, up here in the woods, it seemed very right, very. very natural.

“Louis,” he managed to croak at last, “what happened? Good Christ, what happened? Was she… was she in the fire?”

“I waited too long with Gage,” Louis said. “Something got into him because I waited too long. But it will be different with Rachel, Steve. I know it will.”

He staggered a little, and Steve saw that Louis had gone insane-he saw this quite clearly. Louis was insane and abysmally weary. But somehow only the latter seemed to carry weight in his own bewildered mind.