But it was Zelda, all right, her eyes alight with an insane glee, her face a raddled purple; it was Zelda screaming, I finally came back for you, Rachel, Im going to twist your back like mine and youll never get out of bed again never get out of bed again NEVER GET OUT OF BED AGAIN Church was perched on one of her shoulders and Zeldas face swam and changed, and Rachel saw with spiraling, sickening horror that it really wasnt Zelda at allhow could she have made such a stupid mistake? It was Cage. His face was not black but dirty, smeared with blood. And it was swollen, as if he had been terribly hurt and then put back together again by crude, uncaring hands. She cried his name and held her arms out. He ran to her and climbed into them, and all the time one hand remained behind his back, as if with a bunch of posies picked in someones back meadow. I brought you something, Mommy! he screamed. I brought you something, Mommy! I brought you something, I brought you something! 60 Louis Creed woke up with the sun blazing full in his eyes. He tried to get up and grimaced at the stab of pain in his back. It was huge. He fell back on the pillow and glanced down at himself. Still fully dressed. Christ. He lay there for a long moment, steeling himself against the stiffness that had settled into every muscle, and then he sat up. Oh, shit, he whispered. For a few seconds the room seesawed gently but perceptibly. His back throbbed like a bad tooth, and when he moved his head, it felt as if the tendons in his neck had been replaced by rusty bandsaw blades. But his knee was really the worst. The BenGay hadnt done a thing for it. He should have given himself a fucking cortisone shot. His pants were drawn tightly against the knee by the swelling; it looked like there was a balloon under there. Really jobbed it, he muttered. Boy, oh boy, did I ever. He bent it very slowly so he could sit on the edge of the bed, lips pressed so tightly together that they were white. Then he began to flex it a bit, listening to the pain talk, trying to decide just how bad it really was, if it might be Gage! Is Gage back? That got him on his feet in spite of the pain. He lurched across the room like Matt Dillons old sidekick Chester. He went through the door and across the hail into Gages room. He looked around wildly, his sons name trembling on his lips. But the room was empty. He limped down to Ellies room, which was also empty, and then into the spare room. That room, which faced the highway, was also empty. But There was a strange car across the road. Parked behind Juds truck. So what? So a strange vehicle over there could mean trouble, that was so what. Louis drew the curtain aside and examined the vehicle more closely. It was a small blue car, a Chevette. And curled up on top of it, apparently sleeping, was Church. He looked for a long time before letting the curtain go. Jud had company, that was allso what? And it was maybe too early to worry about what was or was not going to happen with Gage; Church hadnt come back until almost one oclock, and it was only nine oclock now. Nine oclock on a beautiful May morning. He would simply go downstairs and make some coffee, get out the heating pad and wrap it around his knee, and and whats Church doing on top of that car? Oh, come on, he said aloud and began to limp back down the hall. Cats slept anywhere and everywhere; it was the nature of the beast. Except Church doesnt cross the road anymore, remember? Forget it, he muttered and paused halfway down the stairs (which he was working his way down almost sidesaddle). Talking to himself, that was bad. That was What was that thing in the woods last night? The thought came to him unbidden, making him tighten his lips the way the pain in his knee had done when he swung it out of bed. He had dreamed about the thing in the woods last night. His dreams of Disney World had seemed to blend naturally and with a deadly ease into dreams of that thing. He dreamed that it had touched him, spoiling all good dreams forever, rotting all good intentions. It was the Wendigo, and it had turned him into not just a cannibal but the father of cannibals. In his dream he had been in the Pet Sematary again but not alone. Bill and Timmy Baterman had been there. Jud had been there, looking ghostly and dead, holding his dog Spot on a clothesrope leash. Lester Morgan was there with Hanratty the bull on a length of cartowing chain. Hanratty was lying on his side, looking around with a stupid, drugged fury. And for some reason Rachel was there too, and shed had some sort of accident at the dinner table spilled a bottle of catsup or maybe dropped a dish of cranberry jelly, maybe, because her dress was splattered with red stains. And then, rising behind the deadfall to a titanic height, its skin a cracked reptilian yellow, its eyes great hooded foglamps, its ears not ears at all but massive curling horns, was the Wendigo, a beast that looked like a lizard born of a woman. It pointed its horny, nailed finger at all of them as they craned their necks up and up to watch it . . . Stop, he whispered and shuddered at the sound of his own voice. He would go out into the kitchen, he decided, and make himself breakfast just as if it were any ordinary day. A bachelor breakfast, full of comforting cholesterol. A couple of friedegg sandwiches with mayo and a slice of Bermuda onion on each one. He smelled sweaty and dirty and cruddy, but he would save the shower for later; right now getting undressed seemed like too much work, and he was afraid he might have to get the scalpel out of his bag and actually cut the leg of the pants open in order to allow his bloated knee to escape. A hell of a way to treat good instruments, but none of the knives in the house would cut the heavy jeans fabric, and Rachels sewing scissors certainly would not do the trick. But first, breakfast. So he crossed the living room and then detoured into the front entry and looked out at the small blue car in Juds driveway. It was covered with dewfall, which meant it had been there for some time. Church was still on the roof but not sleeping. He appeared to be staring right at Louis with his ugly yellowgreen eyes. Louis stepped back hurriedly, as if someone had caught him peeking. He went into the kitchen, rattled out a frying pan, put it on the stove, got eggs from the fridge. The kitchen was bright and crisp and clear. He tried to whistlea whistle would bring the morning into its proper focusbut he could not. Things looked right, but they werent right. The house seemed dreadfully empty, and last nights work weighed on him. Things were wrong, awry; he felt a shadow hovering, and he was afraid. He limped into the bathroom and took a couple of aspirin with a glass of orange juice. He was working his way back to the stove when the telephone rang. He did not answer it immediately but turned and looked at it, feeling slow and stupid, a sucker in some game which he was only now realizing he did not understand in the least. Dont answer that, you dont want to answer that because thats the bad news, thats the end of the leash that leads around the corner and into the darkness, and I dont think you want to see whats on the other end of that leash, Louis, I really dont think you do, so dont answer that phone, run, run now, the cars in the garage, get in it and take off, but dont answer that phone He crossed the room and picked it up, standing there with one hand on the dryer as he had so many times before, and it was Irwin Goldman, and even as Irwin said hello Louis saw the tracks crossing the kitchensmall, muddy tracksand his heart seemed to freeze in his chest, and he believed he could feel his eyeballs swelling in his head, starting from their sockets; he believed that if he could have seen himself in a mirror at that moment he would have seen a face out of a seventeenthcentury painting of a lunatic asylum. They were Gages tracks, Gage had been here, he had been here in the night, and so where was he now? Its Irwin, Louis . . . Louis? Are you there? Hello? Hello, Irwin, he said, and already he knew what Irwin was going to say. He understood the blue car. He understood everything. The leash . . . the leash going into the darkness . . . he was moving fast along it now, hand over hand. Ah, if he could drop it before he saw what was at the end! But it was his leash. He had bought it. For a moment I thought wed been cut off, Goldman was saying. No, the phone slipped out of my hand, Louis said. His voice was calm. Did Rachel make it home last night? Oh yes, Louis said, thinking of the blue car, Church perched on top of it, the blue car that was so still. His eye traced the muddy footprints on the floor. I ought to speak to her, Goldman said. Right away. Its about Eileen. Ellie? What about Ellie? I really think Rachel Rachels not here right now, Louis said harshly. Shes gone to the store for bread and milk. What about Ellie? Come on, Irwin! We had to take her to the hospital, Goldman said reluctantly. She had a bad dream or a whole series of them. She was hysterical and wouldnt come out of it. She Did they sedate her? What? Sedation, Louis said impatiently, did they give her sedation? Yes, oh yes. They gave her a pill, and she went back to sleep. Did she say anything? What scared her so badly? He was gripping the phone whiteknuckled now. Silence from Irwin Goldmans enda long silence. This time Louis did not interrupt, much as he would have liked to. That was what scared Dory so badly, Irwin said finally. She babbled a lot before she got . . . before she was crying too hard to understand. Dory herself was almost . . . you know. What did she say? She said Oz the Great and Terrible had killed her mother. Only she didnt say it that way. She said . . . she said Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, which was the way our other daughter always used to say it. Our daughter Zelda. Louis, believe me when I say I would much rather have asked Rachel this question, but how much have you and she told Eileen about Zelda and how she died? Louis had closed his eyes; the world seemed to be rocking gently under his feet, and Goldmans voice had the lost quality of a voice coming through thick mists. You may hear sounds like voices, but they are only the loons down south toward Prospect. The sound carries. Louis, are you there? Is she going to be all right? Louis asked, his own voice distant. Is Ellie going to be all right? Did you get a prognosis? Delayed shock from the funeral, Goldman said. My own doctor came. Lathrop. A good man. Said she had a degree of fever and that when she woke up this afternoon, she might not even remember. But I think Rachel should come back. Louis, I am frightened. I think you should come back too. Louis did not respond. The eye of God was on the sparrow; so said good King James. Louis, however, was a lesser being, and his eye was on those muddy footprints. Louis, Gage is dead, Goldman was saying. I know that must be hard to acceptfor you and Rachel bothbut your daughter is very much alive, and she needs you. Yes, I accept that. You may be a stupid old fart, Irwin, but perhaps the nightmare that passed between your two daughters on that April day in 1965 taught you something about sensitivity. She needs me, but I cant come, because Im afraidso terribly afraidthat my hands are filthy with her mothers blood. Louis regarded those hands. Louis regarded the dirt under his nails, which was so like the dirt which comprised those footprints on the kitchen floor. All right, he said, I understand. Well be there as soon as we can, Irwin. By tonight, if thats possible. Thank you. We did the best we could, Goldman said. Maybe were too old. Maybe, Louis, maybe we always were. Did she say anything else? Louis asked. Goldmans reply was like the toll of a funeral bell against the wall of his heart. A lot, but only one other thing I could make out Paxcow says its too late.  He hung up the telephone and moved back toward the stove in a daze, apparently meaning to continue on with breakfast or put the things away, he didnt know which, and about halfway across the kitchen a wave of faintness poured over him, floating gray overcame his sight, and he swooned to the floorswoon was the right word because it seemed to take forever. He fell down and down through cloudy depths; it seemed to him that he turned over and over, looped the loop, did a dipsy doodle or two, slipped an Immelmann. Then he struck on his bad knee and the chromium bolt of pain through his head brought him back with a scream of agony. For a moment he could only crouch, the tears starting from his eyes. At last he made it back to his feet and stood there, swaying. But his head was clear again. That was something. wasnt it? The urge to flee came on him again for the last time, stronger than everhe actually felt the comforting bulge of his car keys in his pocket. He would get in the Civic and drive to Chicago. He would get Ellie and go on from there. Of course by then Goldman would know something was wrong, that something was dreadfully amiss, but he would get her anyway . . . snatch her, if he had to. Then his hand fell away from the bulge of the keys. What killed the urge was not a sense of futility, not guilt, not despair or the deep weariness inside him. It was the sight of those muddy footprints on the kitchen floor. In his minds eye he could see them tracing a path across the entire countryfirst to Illinois, then to Floridaacross the entire world, if necessary. What you bought, you owned, and what you owned eventually came home to you. There would come a day when he would open a door and there would be Gage, a demented parody of his former self, grinning a sunken grin, his clear blue eyes gone yellow and smartstupid. Or Ellie would open the bathroom door for her morning shower, and there would be Gage in the tub, his body crisscrossed with the faded scars and bulges of his fatal accident, clean but stinking of the grave. Oh yes, that day would comehe didnt doubt it a bit. How could I have been so stupid? he said to the empty room, talking to himself again, not caring. How? Grief, not stupidity, Louis. There is a difference . . . small, but vital. The battery that burying ground survives on. Growing in power, Jud said, and of course he was rightand youre part of its power now. It has fed on your grief . . . no, more than that. Its doubled it, cubed it, raised it to the nth power. And it isnt just grief it feeds on. Sanity. Its eaten your sanity. The flaw is only the inability to accept, not uncommon. Its cost you your wife, and its almost surely cost you your best friend as well as your son. This is it. What comes when youre too slow wishing away the thing that knocks on your door in the middle of the night is simple enough total darkness. I would commit suicide now, he thought, and I suppose its in the cards, isnt it? I have the equipment in my bag. It has managed everything, managed it from the first. The burying ground, the Wendigo, whatever it is. It forced our cat into the road, and perhaps it forced Gage into the road as well, it brought Rachel home, but only in its own good time. Surely Im meant to do that . . . and I want to. But things have to be put right, dont they? Yes. They did. There was Gage to think about. Gage was still out there. Somewhere. He followed the footprints through the dining room and the living room and back up the stairs. They were smudged there because he had walked over them on his way down without seeing them. They led into the bedroom. He was here, Louis thought wonderingly, he was right here, and then he saw that his medical bag was unsnapped. The contents inside, which he always arranged with careful neatness, were now in jumbled disorder. But it did not take Louis long to see that his scalpel was missing, and he put his hands over his face and sat that way for some time, a faint, despairing noise coming from his throat. At last he opened the bag again and began to look through it. Downstairs again. The sound of the pantry door being opened. The sound of a cupboard being opened, then slammed shut. The busy whine of the can opener. Last the sound of the garage door opening and closing. And then the house stood empty in the May sunshine, as it had stood empty on that August day the year before, waiting for the new people to arrive . . . as it would wait for other new people to arrive at some future date. A young married couple perhaps, with no children (but with hopes and plans). Bright young marrieds with a taste for Mondavi wine and Lwenbru beerhe would be in charge of the Northeast Banks credit department perhaps, she with a dental hygienists credential or maybe three years experience as an optometrists assistant. He would split half a cord of wood for the fireplace, she would wear highwaisted corduroy pants and walk in Mrs. Vintons field, collecting Novembers fall grasses for a table centerpiece, her hair in a ponytail, the brightest thing under the gray skies, totally unaware that an invisible Vulture rode the air currents overhead. They would congratulate themselves on their lack of superstition, on their hardheadedness in snaring the house in spite of its historythey would tell their friends that it had been firesalepriced and joke about the ghost in the attic, and all of them would have another Lwenbru or another glass of Mondavi, and they would play backgammon or Mile Bourne. And perhaps they would have a dog. 61 Louis paused on the soft shoulder to let an Orinco truck loaded with chemical fertilizer blast by him, and then he crossed the street to Juds house, trailing his shadow to the west behind him. He held an open can of Cab catfood in one hand. Church saw him coming and sat up, his eyes watchful. Hi, Church, Louis said, surveying the silent house. Want some grub? He put the can of catfood down on the trunk of the Chevette and watched as Church leaped lightly down from its roof and began to eat. Louis put his hand in his jacket pocket. Church looked around at him, tensing, as if reading his mind. Louis smiled and stepped away from the car. Church began to eat again, and Louis took a syringe from his pocket. He stripped the paper covering from it and filled it with 75 milligrams of morphine. He put the multidose vial back in his jacket and walked over to Church, who looked around again mistrustfully. Louis smiled at the cat and said, Go on, eat up, Church. Heyho, lets go, right? He stroked the cat, felt its back arch, and when Church went back to his meal again, Louis seized it around its stinking guts and sank the needle deep into its haunch. Church went electric in his grip, struggling against him, spitting and clawing, but Louis held on and depressed the plunger all the way. Only then did he let go. The cat leaped off the Chevette, hissing like a teakettle, yellowgreen eyes wild and baleful. The needle and syringe dangled from its haunch as it leaped, then fell out and broke. Louis was indifferent. He had more of everything. The cat started for the road, then turned back toward the house, as if remembering something. It got halfway there and then began to weave drunkenly. It made the steps, leaped up to the first one, then fell off. It lay on the bare patch at the foot of the porch steps on its side, breathing weakly. Louis glanced into the Chevette. If he had needed more confirmation than the stone that had replaced his heart, he had it Rachels purse on the seat, her scarf, and a clutch of plane tickets spilling out of a Delta Airlines folder. When he turned around again to walk to the porch, Churchs side had ceased its rapid, fluttery movement. Church was dead. Again. Louis stepped over it and mounted the porch steps. Gage? It was cool in the front hall. Cool and dark. The single word fell into the silence like a stone down a deepdrilled well. Louis threw another. Gage? Nothing. Even the tick of the clock in the parlor had ceased. This morning there had been no one to wind it. But there were tracks on the floor. Louis went into the living room. There was the smell of cigarettes, stale and long since burned out. He saw Juds chair by the window. It was pushed askew, as if he had gotten up suddenly. There was an ashtray on the windowsill, and in it a neat roll of cigarette ash. Jud sat here watching. Watching for what? For me of course, watching for me to come home. Only he missed me. Somehow he missed me. Louis glanced at the four beer cans lined up in a neat row. Not enough to put him to sleep, but maybe he had gotten up to go to the bathroom. However it had been, it was just a little bit too good to have been perfectly accidental, wasnt it? The muddy tracks approached the chair by the window. Mixed among the human tracks were a few faded, ghostly catprints. As if Church had walked in and out of the gravedirt left by Gages small shoes. Then the tracks made for the swinging door leading into the kitchen. Heart thudding, Louis followed the tracks. He pushed the door open and saw Juds splayed feet, his old green workpants, his checked flannel shirt. The old man was lying sprawled in a wide pool of drying blood. Louis clapped his hands to his face, as if to blight his own vision. But there was no way to do that; he saw eyes, Juds eyes, open, accusing him, perhaps even accusing himself for setting this in motion. But did he? Louis wondered. Did he really do that? Jud had been told by Stanny B., and Stanny B. had been told by his father, and Stanny B.s father had been told by his father, the last trader to the Indians, a Frenchman from the north country in the days when Franklin Pierce had been a living President. Oh Jud, Im so sorry, he whispered. Juds blank eyes stared at him. So sorry, Louis repeated. His feet seemed to move by themselves, and he was suddenly back to last Thanksgiving in his mind, not to that night when he and Jud had taken the cat up to the Pet Sematary and beyond, but to the turkey dinner Norma had put on the table, all of them laughing and talking, the two men drinking beer and Norma with a glass of white wine, and she had taken the white lawn tablecloth from the lower drawer as he was taking it now, but she had put it on the table and then anchored it with lovely pewter candlestick holders, while he Louis watched it billow down over Juds body like a collapsing parachute, mercifully covering that dead face. Almost immediately, tiny rosepetals of deepest, darkest scarlet began to stain the white lawn. Im sorry, he said for a third time. So sor Then something moved overhead, something scraped, and the word broke off between his lips. It had been soft, it had been stealthy, but it had been deliberate. Oh yes, he was convinced of that. A sound he had been meant to hear. His hands wanted to tremble, but he would not allow them. He stepped over to the kitchen table with its checkered oilcloth covering and reached into his pocket. He removed three more BectonDickson syringes, stripped them of their paper coverings, and laid them out in a neat row. He removed three more multidose vials and filled each of the syringes with enough morphine to kill a horseor Hanratty the bull, if it came to that. He put them in his pocket again. He left the kitchen, crossed the living room, and stood at the base of the stairs. Cage? From somewhere in the shadows above there came a gigglinga cold and sunless laughter that made the skin on Louiss back prickle. He started up. It was a long walk to the top of those stairs. He could well imagine a condemned man taking a walk almost as long (and as horribly short) to the platform of a scaffold with his hands tied behind his back, knowing that he would piss when he could no longer whistle. He reached the top at last, one hand in his pocket, staring only at the wall. How long did he stand that way? He did not know. He could now feel his sanity beginning to give way. This was an actual sensation, a true thing. It was interesting. He imagined a tree overloaded with ice in a terrible storm would feel this way if trees could feel anythingshortly before toppling. It was interesting . . . and it was sort of amusing. Gage, want to go to Florida with me? That giggle again. Louis turned and was greeted by the sight of his wife, to whom he had once carried a rose in his teeth, lying halfway down the hall, dead. Her legs were splayed out as Juds had been. Her back and head were cocked at an angle against the wall. She looked like a woman who has gone to sleep while reading in bed. He walked down toward her. Hello, darling, he thought, you came home. Blood had splashed the wallpaper in idiot shapes. She had been stabbed a dozen times, two dozen, who knew? His scalpel had done this work. Suddenly he saw her, really saw her, and Louis Creed began to scream. His screams echoed and racketed shrilly through this house where now only death lived and walked. Eyes bulging, face livid, hair standing on end, he screamed; the sounds came from his swollen throat like the bells of hell, terrible shrieks that signaled the end not of love but of sanity; in his mind all the hideous images were suddenly unloosed at once. Victor Pascow dying on the infirmary carpet, Church coming back with bits of green plastic in his whiskers, Gages baseball cap lying in the road, full of blood, but most of all that thing he had seen near Little Cod Swamp, the thing that had pushed the tree over, the thing with the yellow eyes, the Wendigo, creature of the north country, the dead thing whose touch awakens unspeakable appetites. Rachel had not just been killed. Something had been . . . something had been at her. (! CLICK !) That click was in his head. It was the sound of some relay fusing and burning out forever, the sound of lightning stroking down in a direct hit, the sound of a door opening. He looked up numbly, the scream still shivering in his throat and here was Cage at last, his mouth smeared with blood, his chin dripping, his lips pulled back in a hellish grin. In one hand he held Louiss scalpel. As he brought it down, Louis pulled back with no real thought at all. The scalpel whickered past his face, and Gage overbalanced. He is as clumsy as Church, Louis thought. Louis kicked his feet from under him. Gage fell awkwardly, and Louis was on him before he could get up, straddling him, one knee pinning the hand which held the scalpel. No, the thing under him panted. Its face twisted and writhed. Its eyes were baleful, insectile in their stupid hate. No, no, no Louis clawed for one of the hypos, got it out. He would have to be quick. The thing under him was like a greased fish and it would not let go of the scalpel no matter how hard he bore down on its wrist. And its face seemed to ripple and change even as he looked at it. It was Juds face, dead and staring; it was the dented, ruined face of Victor Pascow, eyes rolling mindlessly; it was, mirrorlike, Louiss own, so dreadfully pale and lunatic. Then it changed again and became the face of that creature in the woodsthe low brow, the dead yellow eyes, the tongue long and pointed and bifurcated, grinning and hissing. No, no, nonono It bucked beneath him. The hypo flew out of Louiss hand and rolled a short way down the hall. He groped for another, brought it out, and jammed it straight down into the small of Gages back. It screamed beneath him, body straining and sunfishing, nearly throwing him off. Grunting, Louis got the third syringe and jammed this one home in Gages arm, depressing the plunger all the way. He got off then and began to back slowly down the hallway. Cage got slowly to his feet and began to stagger toward him. Five steps and the scalpel fell from its hand. It struck the floor blade first and stuck itself in the wood, quivering. Ten steps and that strange yellow light in its eyes began to fade. A dozen and it fell to its knees. Now Cage looked up at him and for a moment Louis saw his sonhis real sonhis face unhappy and filled with pain. Daddy! he cried, and then fell forward on his face. Louis stood there for a moment, then went to Gage, moving carefully, expecting some trick. But there was no trick, no sudden leap with clawed hands. He slid his fingers expertly down Gages throat, found the pulse, and held it. He was then a doctor for the last time in his life, monitoring the pulse, monitoring until there was nothing, nothing inside, nothing outside. When it was gone at last, Louis got up and sauntered down the hail to a far corner. He crouched there, pulling himself into a ball, cramming himself into the corner, tighter and tighter. He found he could make himself smaller if he put a thumb in his mouth and so he did that. He remained that way for better than two hours . . . and then, little by little, a dark and ohsoplausible idea came to him. He pulled his thumb from his mouth. It made a small pop. Louis got himself (heyho lets go) going again. In the room where Gage had hidden, he stripped the sheet from the bed and took it out into the hail. He wrapped his wifes body in it, gently, with love. He was humming but did not realize it.    He found gasoline in Juds garage. Five gallons of it in a red can next to the Lawnboy. More than enough. He began in the kitchen where Jud still lay under the Thanksgiving tablecloth. He drenched that, then moved into the living room with the can still upended, spraying amber gas over the rug, the sofa, the magazine rack, the chairs, and so out into the downstairs hail and toward the back bedroom. The smell of gas was strong and rich. Juds matches were by the chair where he had kept his fruitless watch, on top of his cigarettes. Louis took them. At the front door he tossed a lighted match back over his shoulder and stepped out. The blast of the heat was immediate and savage, making the skin on his neck feel too small. He shut the door neatly and only stood on the porch for a moment, watching the orange flickers behind Normas curtains. Then he crossed the porch, pausing for a moment, remembering the beers he and Jud had drunk here a million years ago, listening to the soft, gathering roar of fire within the house. Then he stepped out. 62 Steve Masterton came around the curve just before Louiss house and saw the smoke immediatelynot from Louiss place, but from the house that belonged to the old duck across the street. He had come out this morning because he had been worried about Louisdeeply worried. Chariton had told him about Rachels call of the day before, and that had set him to wondering just where Louis was . . . and what he was up to. His worry was vague, but it itched at his mindhe wasnt going to feel right until he had gone out there and checked to see if things were okay . . . or as okay as they could be under the circumstances. The spring weather had emptied the infirmary like white magic, and Surrendra had told him to go ahead; he could handle whatever came up. So Steve had jumped onto his Honda, which he had liberated from the garage only last weekend, and headed out for Ludlow. Maybe he pushed the cycle a little faster than was strictly necessary, but the worry was there; it gnawed. And with it came the absurd feeling that he was already too late. Stupid, of course, but in the pit of his stomach there was a feeling similar to the one hed had there last fall when that Pascow thing cropped upa feeling of miserable surprise and almost leaden disillusion. He was by no means a religious man (in college Steve had been a member of the Atheists Society for two semesters and had dropped out only when his advisor had told himprivately and very much off the recordthat it might hurt his chances to obtain a med school scholarship later on), but he supposed he fell as much heir to whatever biological or biorhythmic conditions passed for premonitions as any other human being, and the death of Pascow had seemed to set a tone for the year which followed, somehow. Not a good year by any means.


Two of Surrendras relatives had been clapped in jail back home, some political thing, and Surrendra had told him that he believed one of theman uncle he cared for very muchmight well now be dead. Surrendra had wept, and the tears from the usually benign Indian had frightened Steve. And Charltons mother had had a radical mastectomy. The tough nurse was not very optimistic about her mothers chances for joining the FiveYear Club. Steve himself had attended four funerals since the death of Victor Pascowhis wifes sister, killed in a car crash; a cousin, killed in a freak accident as the result of a barroom bet (he had been electrocuted while proving he could shinny all the way to the top of a power pole); a grandparent; and of course Louiss little boy. 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 Louiss house was the proof. It stood calm and white, a little piece of cleanlimbed New England architecture in the midmorning sun. People were running toward the old ducks house, and as Steve banked his bike across the road and pulled into Louiss driveway, he saw a man dash up onto the old ducks 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 wouldbe 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 wouldbe 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 wouldbe hero cry out with a shrill and absurd sort of optimism Gonna lose her! Gonna lose her sure! If Juds in there, hes 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 wouldbe 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 Louisbut if Louis were here, wouldnt 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 Louiss hottopped 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 movementa 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 dont 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, youre scared shitless just about now, arent 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 woodssurely that path had to go somewhere., didnt it? Yes, of course it did. All paths eventually went somewhere. Louis. Dont forget about Louis, you dummy! Louis was the man you came out to see, remember? You didnt come out to Ludlow to go exploring the goddam woods. What you got there, Randy? the wouldbe hero cried. His voice, still shrill and somehow optimistic, carried well. Randys reply was almost but not quite obscured by the growing wail of the fire sirens. Dead cat. Burnt up? Dont look burnt, Randy returned. Just looks dead. And Steves mind returned implacably, as if the exchange across the street had something to do with what he had seenor 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 allout 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 downhillthe path was admirably clearbut 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 gravesthe 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 undeniableit 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 Rachels body. Louiss hair had gone white. Louis! Steve screamed. Louis didnt hesitate, didnt pause. He reached the top of the deadfall and began down the far side. Hell fall, Steve thought incoherently. Hes been damned lucky, incredibly lucky, but pretty soon hes going to fall and if his legs the only thing he breaks But Louis did not fall. He reached the other side of the deadfall, was temporarily out of Steves 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, Louiss face was that of an old, old man. At first there was no recognition at all in Louiss face. It dawned little by little, as if someone was turning a rheostat up in his brain. Louiss mouth was twitching. After a while Steve realized that Louis was trying to smile. Steve, he said in a cracked, uncertain voice. Hello, Steve. Im 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 dont suppose youd 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 insanehe saw this quite clearly. Louis was insane and abysmally weary. But somehow only the latter seemed to carry weight in his own bewildered mind. I could use some help, Louis said. Louis, even if I wanted to help you, I couldnt climb over that pile of wood. Oh yes, Louis said. You could. If you just move steadily and dont look down. Thats the secret, Steve. He turned then, and although Steve called his name, Louis moved off into the woods. For a few moments Steve could see the white of the sheet flickering through the trees. Then it was gone. He ran across to the deadfall and began to climb it with no thought at all, at first feeling with his hands for good holds, attempting to crawl up it, and then gaining his feet. As he did so, a crazy daredevil exhilaration swept over himit was like hitting on pure oxygen. He believed he could do itand he did. Moving swiftly and surely, he reached the top. He stood there for a moment, swaying, watching Louis move along the paththe path which continued on the far side of the deadfall. Louis turned and looked back at Steve. He held his wife, wrapped in a bloody sheet, in his arms. You may hear sounds, Louis said. Sounds like voices. But they are just the loons, down south toward Prospect. The sound carries. Its funny. Louis But Louis had turned away. For a moment Steve almost followed himit was very, very close. I could help him, if thats what he wants . . . and I want to help him, yes. Thats the truth because theres more going on here than meets the eye and I want to know what it is. It seems very . . . well . . . very important. It seems like a secret. Like a mystery. Then a branch snapped under one of his canted feet. It made a dry, dusty sound like a track starters gun. It brought him back to exactly where he was and what he was doing. Terror leaped into him and he turned around in a clumsy circle, arms held out for balance, his tongue and throat oily with fright, his face bearing the dismayed grimace of a man who wakes up only to find he has sleepwalked his way onto a high skyscraper ledge. Shes dead and I think that maybe Louis has killed her, Louis has gone mad, utterly mad, but But there was something worse than madness heresomething much, much worse. It was as if there was a magnet somewhere out in those woods and he could feel it pulling at something in his brain. Pulling him toward that place where Louis was taking Rachel. Come on, walk the path . . . walk the path and see where It goes. We got stuff to show you out here, Steverino, stuff they never told you about in the Atheists Society back in Lake Forest. And then, perhaps simply because it had enough for one day to feed on and lost interest in him, the call of the place in his mind simply ceased. Steve took two plunging, drunken steps back down the side of the deadfall. Then more branches let go with a grinding rattle and his left foot plunged into the tangled deadwood; harsh sharp splinters pulled off his sneaker and then tore into his flesh as he yanked free. He fell forward into the Pet Sematary, barely missing a piece of orange crate that could easily have punched into his stomach. He got to his feet, staring around, bewildered, wondering what had happened to him . . . or if anything had happened to him. Already it had begun to seem like a dream. Then, from the deep woods behind the deadfall, woods so deep that the light looked green and tarnished even on the brightest days, a low, chuckling laugh arose. The sound was huge. Steve could not even begin to imagine what sort of creature could have made such a sound. He ran, one shoe off and one shoe on, trying to shriek but unable. He was still running when he reached Louiss house, and still trying to shriek when he finally got his bike started and slued out onto Route 15. He very nearly sideswiped an arriving fire engine from Brewer. Inside his Bell helmet, his hair was standing on end. By the time he got back to his apartment in Orono, he could not precisely remember having gone to Ludlow at all. He called in sick at the infirmary, took a pill, and went to bed. Steve Masterton never really remembered that day . . . except in deep dreams, those that come in the small hours of the morning. And in these dreams he would sense that something huge had shrugged by himsomething which had reached out to touch him . . . and had then withdrawn its inhuman hand at the very last second. Something with great yellow eyes which gleamed like foglamps. Steve sometimes awoke shrieking from these dreams, his eyes wide and bulging, and he would think You think you are screaming, but its only the sound of the loons, down south, in Prospect. The sound carries. Its funny. But he did not know, could not remember, what such a thought might mean. The following year he took a job halfway across the country, in St. Louis. In the time between his last sight of Louis Creed and his departure for the Midwest, Steve never went into the town of Ludlow again. EPILOGUE The police came late that afternoon. They asked questions but voiced no suspicions. The ashes were still hot; they had not yet been raked. Louis answered their questions. They seemed satisfied. They spoke outside and he wore a hat. That was good. If they had seen his gray hair, they might have asked more questions. That would have been bad. He wore his gardening gloves, and that was good too. His hands were bloody and ruined. He played solitaire that night until long after midnight. He was just dealing a fresh hand when he heard the back door open. What you buy is what you own, and sooner or later what you own will come back to you, Louis Creed thought. He did not turn around but only looked at his cards as the slow, gritting footsteps approached. He saw the queen of spades. He put his hand on it. The steps ended directly behind him. Silence. A cold hand fell on Louiss shoulder. Rachels voice was grating, full of dirt. Darling, it said. February 1979December 1982 About the Author Stephen King grew up in Maine and has lived most of his adult life there, both in Bangor and in the Portland area. He and his wife, Tabitha, also a novelist, live in a Victorian mansion with their three childrenNaomi, Joe, and Owen Philip. He is the author of the bestselling books CARRIE, SALEMS LOT, THE SHINING, NIGHT SHIFT, THE STAND, THE DEAD ZONE, FIRESTARTER, CUJO, CREEPSHOW, and CHRISTINE, all published by New American Library. Table of Contents PET SEMATARY Dedication Contents PART ONE The Pet Sematary 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 PART TWO The Micmac Burying Ground 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 PART THREE Oz the Gweat and Tewwible 58 59 60 61 62 EPILOGUE About the Author Praise PUBLISHER'S NOTE


Table of Contents Title Page Dedication PART 1  THE SHADOW BEFORE CHAPTER 1  After the Flood (1957) CHAPTER 2  After the Festival (1984) CHAPTER 3  Six Phone Calls (1985) DERRY THE FIRST INTERLUDE PART 2  JUNE OF 1958 CHAPTER 4  Ben Hanscom Takes a Fall CHAPTER 5  Bill Denbrough Beats the Devil (I) CHAPTER 6  One of the Missing A Tale from the Summer of 58 CHAPTER 7  The Dam in the Barrens CHAPTER 8  Georgies Room and the House on Neibolt Street CHAPTER 9  Cleaning Up DERRY THE SECOND INTERLUDE PART 3  GROWNUPS CHAPTER 10  The Reunion CHAPTER 11  Walking Tours CHAPTER 12  Three Uninvited Guests DERRY THE THIRD INTERLUDE PART 4  JULY OF 1958 CHAPTER 13  The Apocalyptic Rockfight CHAPTER 14  The Album CHAPTER 15  The SmokeHole CHAPTER 16  Eddies Bad Break CHAPTER 17  Another One of the Missing The Death of Patrick Hockstetter CHAPTER 18  The Bullseye DERRY THE FOURTH INTERLUDE PART 5  THE RITUAL OF CHD CHAPTER 19  In the Watches of the Night CHAPTER 20  The Circle Closes CHAPTER 21  Under the City CHAPTER 22  The Ritual of Chd CHAPTER 23  Out DERRY THE LAST INTERLUDE EPILOGUE Copyright Page Welcome to Derry, Maine. . . . It Its a small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry, the haunting is real.... They were just kids when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grownup men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name. It will overwhelm you. . . . Characters so real you feel you are reading about yourself . . . scenes to be read in a welllit room only! Los Angeles Times a cognizant original v5 release november 13 2010 AMERICA LOVES THE BACHMAN BOOKS Fascinating. Philadelphia Inquirer CARRIE Horrifying. Chicago Tribune CHRISTINE Riveting. Playboy CUJO Gutwrenching. Newport News Daily Press THE DARK HALF Scary. Kirkus Reviews THE DARK TOWER THE GUNSLINGER Brilliant. Booklist THE DARK TOWER II THE DRAWING OF THE THREE Superb. Chicago HeraldWheaton THE DARK TOWER III THE WASTE LANDS Gripping. Chicago SunTimes THE DEAD ZONE Frightening. Cosmopolitan DIFFERENT SEASONS Hypnotic. New York Times Book Review DOLORES CLAIBORNE Unforgettable  San Francisco Chronicle THE EYES OF THE DRAGON Masterful. Cincinnati Post FIRESTARTER Terrifying. Miami Herald STEPHEN KING FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT Chilling. Milwaukee Journal GERALDS GAME Terrific USAToday IT Mesmerizing. Washington Post Book World MISERY Wonderful. Houston Chronicle NEEDFUL THINGS Demonic. Kirkus Reviews NIGHT SHIFT Macabre. Dallas TimesHerald PET SEMATARY Unrelenting. Pittsburgh Press SALEMS LOT Tremendous. Kirkus Reviews THE SHINING Spellbinding. Pittsburgh Press SKELETON CREW Diabolical. Associated Press THE STAND Great. New York Times Book Review THINNER Extraordinary. Booklist THE TOMMYKNOCKERS Marvelous. Boston Globe WORKS BY STEPHEN KING NOVELS Carrie Salems Lot The Shining The Stand The Dead Zone Firestarter Cujo THE DARK TOWER I The Gunslinger Christine Pet Sematary Cycle of the Werewolf The Talisman (with Peter Straub) It The Eyes of the Dragon Misery The Tommyknockers THE DARK TOWER II The Drawing of the Three THE DARK TOWER III The Waste Lands The Dark Half Needful Things Geralds Game Dolores Claiborne Insomnia Rose Madder Desperation The Green Mile THE DARK TOWER IV Wizard and Glass Bag of Bones Hearts in Atlantis The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon Dreamcatcher Black House (with Peter Straub) From a Buick 8 AS RICHARD BACHMAN The Long Walk Roadwork The Running Man Thinner The Regulators COLLECTIONS Night Shift Different Seasons Skeleton Crew Four Past Midnight Nightmares and Dreamscapes Everythings Eventual NONFICTION Danse Macabre On Writing SCREENPLAYS Creepshow Cats Eye Silver Bullet Maximum Overdrive Pet Sematary Golden Years Sleepwalkers The Stand The Shining Storm of the Century Rose Red SIGNET Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi  110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England First Signet Printing, August 1981 Copyright  Stephen King, 1980 All rights reserved Pages 109193 constitute an extension of this copyright page. REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHERS NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty Web sites or their content. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. eISBN  9781101138113 httpus.penguingroup.com This book is gratefully dedicated to my children. My mother and my wife taught me how to be a man. My children taught me how to be free. NAOMI RACHEL KING, at fourteen; JOSEPH HILLSTROM KING, at twelve; OWEN PHILIP KING, at seven. Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough the magic exists. S.K. This old town been home long as I remember This town gonna be here long after Im gone. East side west side take a close look round her You been down but youre still in my bones. The Michael Stanley Band Old friend, what are you looking for? After those many years abroad you come With images you tended Under foreign skies Far away from your own land. George Seferis Out of the blue and into the black. Neil Young PART 1 THE SHADOW BEFORE They begin! The perfections are sharpened The flower spreads its colored petals wide in the sun But the tongue of the bee misses them They sink back into the loam crying out you may call it a cry that creeps over them, a shiver as they wilt and disappear. . . . William Carlos Williams, Paterson Born down in a dead mans town. Bruce Springsteen CHAPTER 1 After the Flood (1957) 1 The terror, which would not end for another twentyeight yearsif it ever did endbegan, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain. The boat bobbed, listed, righted itself again, dived bravely through treacherous whirlpools, and continued on its way down Witcham Street toward the traffic light which marked the intersection of Witcham and Jackson. The three vertical lenses on all sides of the traffic light were dark this afternoon in the fall of 1957, and the houses were all dark, too. There had been steady rain for a week now, and two days ago the winds had come as well. Most sections of Derry had lost their power then, and it was not back on yet. A small boy in a yellow slicker and red galoshes ran cheerfully along beside the newspaper boat. The rain had not stopped, but it was finally slackening. It tapped on the yellow hood of the boys slicker, sounding to his ears like rain on a shed roof ... a comfortable, almost cozy sound. The boy in the yellow slicker was George Denbrough. He was six. His brother, William, known to most of the kids at Derry Elementary School (and even to the teachers, who would never have used the nickname to his face) as Stuttering Bill, was at home, hacking out the last of a nasty case of influenza. In that autumn of 1957, eight months before the real horrors began and twentyeight years before the final showdown, Stuttering Bill was ten years old. Bill had made the boat beside which George now ran. He had made it sitting up in bed, his back propped against a pile of pillows, while their mother played Fr Elise on the piano in the parlor and rain swept restlessly against his bedroom window. About threequarters of the way down the block as one headed toward the intersection and the dead traffic light, Witcham Street was blocked to motor traffic by smudgepots and four orange sawhorses. Stencilled across each of the horses was DERRY DEPT. OF PUBLIC WORKS. Beyond them, the rain had spilled out of gutters clogged with branches and rocks and big sticky piles of autumn leaves. The water had first pried fingerholds in the paving and then snatched whole greedy handfulsall of this by the third day of the rains. By noon of the fourth day, big chunks of the streets surface were boating through the intersection of Jackson and Witcham like miniature whitewater rafts. By that time, many people in Derry had begun to make nervous jokes about arks. The Public Works Department had managed to keep Jackson Street open, but Witcham was impassable from the sawhorses all the way to the center of town. But everyone agreed, the worst was over. The Kenduskeag Stream had crested just below its banks in the Barrens and bare inches below the concrete sides of the Canal which channelled it tightly as it passed through downtown. Right now a gang of menZack Denbrough, Georges and Bills father, among themwere removing the sandbags they had thrown up the day before with such panicky haste. Yesterday overflow and expensive flood damage had seemed almost inevitable. God knew it had happened beforethe flooding in 1931 had been a disaster which had cost millions of dollars and almost two dozen lives. That was a long time ago, but there were still enough people around who remembered it to scare the rest. One of the flood victims had been found twentyfive miles east, in Bucksport. The fish had eaten this unfortunate gentlemans eyes, three of his fingers, his penis, and most of his left foot. Clutched in what remained of his hands had been a Ford steering wheel. Now, though, the river was receding, and when the new Bangor Hydro dam went in upstream, the river would cease to be a threat. Or so said Zack Denbrough, who worked for Bangor Hydroelectric. As for the restwell, future floods could take care of themselves. The thing was to get through this one, to get the power back on, and then to forget it. In Derry such forgetting of tragedy and disaster was almost an art, as Bill Denbrough would come to discover in the course of time. George paused just beyond the sawhorses at the edge of a deep ravine that had been cut through the tar surface of Witcham Street. This ravine ran on an almost exact diagonal. It ended on the far side of the street, roughly forty feet farther down the hill from where he now stood, on the right. He laughed aloudthe sound of solitary, childish glee a bright runner in that gray afternoonas a vagary of the flowing water took his paper boat into a scalemodel rapids which had been formed by the break in the tar. The urgent water had cut a channel which ran along the diagonal, and so his boat travelled from one side of Witcham Street to the other, the current carrying it so fast that George had to sprint to keep up with it. Water sprayed out from beneath his galoshes in muddy sheets. Their buckles made a jolly jingling as George Denbrough ran toward his strange death. And the feeling which filled him at that moment was clear and simple love for his brother Bill ... love and a touch of regret that Bill couldnt be here to see this and be a part of it. Of course he would try to describe it to Bill when he got home, but he knew he wouldnt be able to make Bill see it, the way Bill would have been able to make him see it if their positions had been reversed. Bill was good at reading and writing, but even at his age George was wise enough to know that wasnt the only reason why Bill got all As on his report cards, or why his teachers liked his compositions so well. Telling was only part of it. Bill was good at seeing. The boat nearly whistled along the diagonal channel, just a page torn from the Classified section of the Derry News, but now George imagined it as a PT boat in a war movie, like the ones he sometimes saw down at the Derry Theater with Bill at Saturday matinees. A war picture with John Wayne fighting the Japs. The prow of the newspaper boat threw sprays of water to either side as it rushed along, and then it reached the gutter on the left side of Witcham Street. A fresh streamlet rushed over the break in the tar at this point, creating a fairly large whirlpool, and it seemed to him that the boat must be swamped and capsize. It leaned alarmingly, and then George cheered as it righted itself, turned, and went racing on down toward the intersection. George sprinted to catch up. Over his head, a grim gust of October wind rattled the trees, now almost completely unburdened of their freight of colored leaves by the storm, which had been this year a reaper of the most ruthless sort. 2 Sitting up in bed, his cheeks still flushed with heat (but his fever, like the Kenduskeag, finally receding), Bill had finished the boatbut when George reached for it, Bill held it out of reach. NNow get me the ppparaffin. Whats that? Where is it? Its on the cellar shuhshuhshelf as you go ddownstairs, Bill said. In a box that says GuhGuhhulf . . . Gulf. Bring that to me, and a knife, and a bbowl. And a puhpack of muhmuhmatches. George had gone obediently to get these things. He could hear his mother playing the piano, not Fr Elise now but something else he didnt like so wellsomething that sounded dry and fussy; he could hear rain flicking steadily against the kitchen windows. These were comfortable sounds, but the thought of the cellar was not a bit comfortable. He did not like the cellar, and he did not like going down the cellar stairs, because he always imagined there was something down there in the dark. That was silly, of course, his father said so and his mother said so and, even more important, Bill said so, but still He did not even like opening the door to flick on the light because he always had the ideathis was so exquisitely stupid he didnt dare tell anyonethat while he was feeling for the light switch, some horrible clawed paw would settle lightly over his wrist ... and then jerk him down into the darkness that smelled of dirt and wet and dim rotted vegetables. Stupid! There were no things with claws, all hairy and full of killing spite. Every now and then someone went crazy and killed a lot of peoplesometimes Chet Huntley told about such things on the evening newsand of course there were Commies, but there was no weirdo monster living down in their cellar. Still, this idea lingered. In those interminable moments while he was groping for the switch with his right hand (his left arm curled around the doorjamb in a deathgrip), that cellar smell seemed to intensify until it filled the world. Smells of dirt and wet and longgone vegetables would merge into one unmistakable ineluctable smell, the smell of the monster, the apotheosis of all monsters. It was the smell of something for which he had no name the smell of It, crouched and lurking and ready to spring. A creature which would eat anything but which was especially hungry for boymeat. He had opened the door that morning and had groped interminably for the switch, holding the jamb in his usual deathgrip, his eyes squinched shut, the tip of his tongue poked from the corner of his mouth like an agonized rootlet searching for water in a place of drought. Funny? Sure! You betcha! Lookit you, Georgie! Georgies scared of the dark! What a baby! The sound of the piano came from what his father called the living room and what his mother called the parlor. It sounded like music from another world, far away, the way talk and laughter on a summercrowded beach must sound to an exhausted swimmer who struggles with the undertow. His fingers found the switch! Ah! They snapped it and nothing. No light. Oh, cripes! The power! George snatched his arm back as if from a basket filled with snakes. He stepped back from the open cellar door, his heart hurrying in his chest. The power was out, of coursehe had forgotten the power was out. Jeezlycrow! What now? Go back and tell Bill he couldnt get the box of paraffin because the power was out and he was afraid that something might get him as he stood on the cellar stairs, something that wasnt a Commie or a mass murderer but a creature much worse than either? That it would simply slither part of its rotted self up between the stair risers and grab his ankle? That would go over big, wouldnt it? Others might laugh at such a fancy, but Bill wouldnt laugh. Bill would be mad. Bill would say, Grow up, Georgie ... do you want this boat or not? As if this thought were his cue, Bill called from his bedroom Did you dddie out there, JuhGeorgie? No, Im gettin it, Bill, George called back at once. He rubbed at his arms, trying to make the guilty gooseflesh disappear and be smooth skin again. I just stopped to get a drink of water. Well, hhurry up! So be walked down the four steps to the cellar shelf, his heart a warm, beating hammer in his throat, the hair on the nape of his neck standing at attention, his eyes hot, his hands cold, sure that at any moment the cellar door would swing shut on its own, closing off the white light falling through the kitchen windows, and then he would hear It, something worse than all the Commies and murderers in the world, worse than the Japs, worse than Attila the Hun, worse than the somethings in a hundred horror movies. It, growling deeplyhe would hear the growl in those lunatic seconds before it pounced on him and unzipped his guts. The cellarsmell was worse than ever today, because of the flood. Their house was high on Witcham Street, near the crest of the hill, and they had escaped the worst of it, but there was still standing water down there that had seeped in through the old rock foundations. The smell was low and unpleasant, making you want to take only the shallowest breaths. George sifted through the junk on the shelf as fast as he coutdold cans of Kiwi shoepolish and shoepolish rags, a broken kerosene lamp, two mostly empty bottles of Windex, an old flat can of Turtle wax. For some reason this can struck him, and he spent nearly thirty seconds looking at the turtle on the lid with a kind of hypnotic wonder. Then he tossed it back ... and here it was at last, a square box with the word GULF on it. George snatched it and ran up the stairs as fast as he could, suddenly aware that his shirttail was out and suddenly sure that his shirttail would be his undoing the thing in the cellar would allow him to get almost all the way out, and then it would grab the tail of his shirt and snatch him back and He reached the kitchen and swept the door shut behind him. It banged gustily. He leaned back against it with his eyes closed, sweat popped out on his arms and forehead, the box of paraffin gripped tightly in one hand. The piano had come to a stop, and his moms voice floated to him Georgie, cant you slam that door a little harder next time? Maybe you could break some of the plates in the Welsh dresser, if you really tried. Sorry, Mom, he called back. Georgie, you waste, Bill said from his bedroom. He pitched his voice low so their mother would not hear. George snickered a little. His fear was already gone; it had slipped away from him as easily as a nightmare slips away from a man who awakes, coldskinned and gasping, from its grip; who feels his body and stares at his surroundings to make sure that none of it ever happened and who then begins at once to forget it. Half is gone by the time his feet hit the floor; threequarters of it by the time he emerges from the shower and begins to towel off; all of it by the time he finishes his breakfast. All gone ... until the next time, when, in the grip of the nightmare, all fears will be remembered. That turtle, George thought, going to the counter drawer where the matches were kept. Where did I see a turtle like that before? But no answer came, and he dismissed the question. He got a pack of matches from the drawer, a knife from the rack (holding the sharp edge studiously away from his body, as his dad had taught him), and a small bowl from the Welsh dresser in the dining room. Then he went back into Bills room. WWhat an ahole you are, JuhGeorgie, Bill said, amiably enough, and pushed back some of the sickstuff on his nighttable an empty glass, a pitcher of water, Kleenex, books, a bottle of Vicks VapoRubthe smell of which Bill would associate all his life with thick, phlegmy chests and snotty noses. The old Philco radio was there, too, playing not Chopin or Bach but a Little Richard tune ... very softly, however, so softly that Little Richard was robbed of all his raw and elemental power. Their mother, who had studied classical piano at Juilliard, hated rock and roll. She did not merely dislike it; she abominated it. Im no ahole, George said, sitting on the edge of Bills bed and putting the things he had gathered on the nighttable. Yes you are, Bill said. Nothing but a great big brown ahole, thats you. George tried to imagine a kid who was nothing but a great big ahole on legs and began to giggle. Your ahole is bigger than Augusta, Bill said, beginning to giggle, too. Your ahole is bigger than the whole state, George replied. This broke both boys up for nearly two minutes. There followed a whispered conversation of the sort which means very little to anyone save small boys accusations of who was the biggest ahole, who had the biggest ahole, which ahole was the brownest, and so on. Finally Bill said one of the forbidden wordshe accused George of being a big brown shitty aholeand they both got laughing hard. Bills laughter turned into a coughing fit. As it finally began to taper off (by then Bills face had gone a plummy shade which George regarded with some alarm), the piano stopped again. They both looked in the direction of the parlor, listening for the pianobench to scrape back, listening for their mothers impatient footsteps. Bill buried his mouth in the crook of his elbow, stifling the last of the coughs, pointing at the pitcher at the same time. George poured him a glass of water, which he drank off. The piano began once moreFr Elise again. Stuttering Bill never forgot that piece, and even many years later it never failed to bring gooseflesh to his arms and back; his heart would drop and he would remember My mother was playing that the day Georgie died. You gonna cough anymore, Bill? No. Bill pulled a Kleenex from the box, made a rumbling sound in his chest, spat phlegm into the tissue, screwed it up, and tossed it into the wastebasket by his bed, which was filled with similar twists of tissue. Then he opened the box of paraffin and dropped a waxy cube of the stuff into his palm. George watched him closely, but without speaking or questioning. Bill didnt like George talking to him while he did stuff, but George had learned that if he just kept his mouth shut, Bill would usually explain what he was doing. Bill used the knife to cut off a small piece of the paraffin cube. He put the piece in the bowl, then struck a match and put it on top of the paraffin. The two boys watched the small yellow flame as the dying wind drove rain against the window in occasional spatters. Got to waterproof the boat or itll just get wet and sink, Bill said. When he was with George, his stutter was lightsometimes he didnt stutter at all. In school, however, it could become so bad that talking became impossible for him. Communication would cease and Bills schoolmates would look somewhere else while Bill clutched the sides of his desk, his face growing almost as red as his hair, his eyes squeezed into slits as he tried to winch some word out of his stubborn throat. Sometimesmost timesthe word would come. Other times it simply refused. He had been hit by a car when he was three and knocked into the side of a building; he had remained unconscious for seven hours. Mom said it was that accident which had caused the stutter. George sometimes got the feeling that his dadand Bill himselfwas not so sure. The piece of paraffin in the bowl was almost entirely melted. The matchflame guttered lower, growing blue as it hugged the cardboard stick, and then it went out. Bill dipped his finger into the liquid, jerked it out with a faint hiss. He smiled apologetically at George. Hot, he said. After a few seconds he dipped his finger in again and began to smear the wax along the sides of the boat, where it quickly dried to a milky haze. Can I do some? George asked. Okay. Just dont get any on the blankets or Momll kill you. George dipped his finger into the paraffin, which was now very warm but no longer hot, and began to spread it along the other side of the boat. Dont put on so much, you ahole! Bill said. You want to sink it on its mmaiden cruise? Im sorry. Thats all right. Just ggo easy. George finished the other side, then held the boat in his hands. It felt a little heavier, but not much. Too cool, he said. Im gonna go out and sail it. Yeah, you do that, Bill said. He suddenly looked tiredtired and still not very well. I wish you could come, George said. He really did. Bill sometimes got bossy after awhile, but he always had the coolest ideas and he hardly ever hit. Its your boat, really. She, Bill said. You call boats shshe. She, then. I wish I could come, too, Bill said glumly. Well ... George shifted from one foot to the other, the boat in his hands. You put on your rainstuff, Bill said, or youll wind up with the fluhhu like me. Probably catch it anyway, from my juhgerms. Thanks, Bill. Its a neat boat. And he did something he hadnt done for a long time, something Bill never forgot he leaned over and kissed his brothers cheek. Youll catch it for sure now, you ahole, Bill said, but he seemed cheered up all the same. He smiled at George. Put all this stuff back, too. Or Momll have a bbird. Sure. He gathered up the waterproofing equipment and crossed the room, the boat perched precariously on top of the paraffin box, which was sitting askew in the little bowl. JuhJuhGeorgie? George turned back to look at his brother. Be ccareful. Sure. His brow creased a little. That was something your Mom said, not your big brother. It was as strange as him giving Bill a kiss. Sure I will. He went out. Bill never saw him again. 3 Now here he was, chasing his boat down the left side of Witcham Street. He was running fast but the water was running faster and his boat was pulling ahead. He heard a deepening roar and saw that fifty yards farther down the hill the water in the gutter was cascading into a stormdrain that was still open. It was a long dark semicircle cut into the curbing, and as George watched, a stripped branch, its bark as dark and glistening as sealskin, shot into the stormdrains maw. It hung up there for a moment and then slipped down inside. That was where his boat was headed. Oh shit and Shinola! he yelled, dismayed. He put on speed, and for a moment he thought he would catch the boat. Then one of his feet slipped and he went sprawling, skinning one knee and crying out in pain. From his new pavementlevel perspective he watched his boat swing around twice, momentarily caught in another whirlpool, and then disappear. Shit and Shinola! he yelled again, and slammed his fist down on the pavement. That hurt too, and he began to cry a little. What a stupid way to lose the boat! He got up and walked over to the stormdrain. He dropped to his knees and peered in. The water made a dank hollow sound as it fell into the darkness. It was a spooky sound. It reminded him of Huh! The sound was jerked out of him as if on a string, and he recoiled. There were yellow eyes in there the sort of eyes he had always imagined but never actually seen down in the basement. Its an animal, he thought incoherently, thats all it is, some animal, maybe a housecat that got stuck down in there Still, he was ready to runwould run in a second or two, when his mental switchboard had dealt with the shock those two shiny yellow eyes had given him. He felt the rough surface of the macadam under his fingers, and the thin sheet of cold water flowing around them. He saw himself getting up and backing away, and that was when a voicea perfectly reasonable and rather pleasant voicespoke to him from inside the stormdrain. Hi, Georgie, it said. George blinked and looked again. He could barely credit what he saw; it was like something from a madeup story, or a movie where you know the animals will talk and dance. If he had been ten years older, he would not have believed what he was seeing, but he was not sixteen. He was six. There was a clown in the stormdrain. The light in there was far from good, but it was good enough so that George Denbrough was sure of what he was seeing. It was a clown, like in the circus or on TV. In fact he looked like a cross between Bozo and Clarabell, who talked by honking his (or was it her?George was never really sure of the gender) horn on Howdy Doody Saturday morningsBuffalo Bob was just about the only one who could understand Clarabell, and that always cracked George up. The face of the clown in the stormdrain was white, there were funny tufts of red hair on either side of his bald head, and there was a big clownsmile painted over his mouth. If George had been inhabiting a later year, he would have surely thought of Ronald McDonald before Bozo or Clarabell. The clown held a bunch of balloons, all colors, like gorgeous ripe fruit in one hand. In the other he held Georges newspaper boat. Want your boat, Georgie? The clown smiled. George smiled back. He couldnt help it; it was the kind of smile you just had to answer. I sure do, he said. The clown laughed. I sure do. Thats good! Thats very good! And how about a balloon? Well . . . sure! He reached forward ... and then drew his hand reluctantly back. Im not supposed to take stuff from strangers. My dad said so. Very wise of your dad, the clown in the stormdrain said, smiling. How, George wondered, could I have thought his eyes were yellow? They were a bright, dancing blue, the color of his moms eyes, and Bills. Very wise indeed. Therefore I will introduce myself. I, Georgie, am Mr. Bob Gray, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Pennywise, meet George Denbrough. George, meet Pennywise. And now we know each other. Im not a stranger to you, and youre not a stranger to me. Keerect? George giggled. I guess so. He reached forward again . . . and drew his hand back again. How did you get down there? Storm just bleeeew me away, Pennywise the Dancing Clown said. It blew the whole circus away. Can you smell the circus, Georgie? George leaned forward.