But because Hanratty had gone bad, did that mean that all animals went bad? No. Hanratty the bull did not prove the general case; Hanratty was in fact an exception to the general case. Look back at the other animalsJuds dog Spot, the old womans parakeet, Church himself. They had all come back changed, and the change had been noticeable in all cases, but in the case of Spot, at least, the change hadnt been so great that Jud had forborne to recommend the process of . . . of . . . (resurrection) Yes, of resurrection to a friend years later. Of course, farther down the line he had tried to justify and hem and haw, and had spouted a lot of ominous, confused bullshit that could not even rightly be called philosophy. How could he refuse to take the chance available to himthis one, unbelievable chanceon the basis of the Timmy Baterman story? One swallow did not a summer make. Youre slanting all the evidence in favor of the conclusion you want to produce, his mind protested. At least tell yourself the goddamned truth about the change in Church. Even if you want to disqualify the animalsthe mice and the birdswhat about the way he is? Muddled . . . thats the best word of all, that sums it up. The day we were out with the kite. You remember how Gage was that day? How vibrant and alive he was, reacting to everything? Wouldnt it be better to remember him that way? Do you want to resurrect a zombie from a gradeB horror picture? Or even something so prosaic as a retarded little boy? A boy who eats with his fingers and stares blankly at images on the TV screen and who will never learn to write his own name? What did Jud say about his dog? It was like washing a piece of meat. Is that what you want? A piece of breathing meat? And even if youre able to be satisfied with that, how do you explain the return of your son from the dead to your wife? To your daughter? To Steve Masterton? To the world? What happens the first time Missy Dandridge pulls into the driveway and sees Gage riding his trike in the yard? Cant you hear her screams, Louis? Cant you see her harrowing her face with her fingernails? What do you say to the reporters? What do you say when a film crew from Real People turns up on your doorstep, wanting to shoot film of your resurrected son? Did any of this really matter, or was it only the voice of cowardice? Did he believe these things could not be dealt With? That Rachel would greet her dead son with anything but tears of joy? Yes, he supposed there was a real possibility that Gage might return . . . well . . . diminished. But would that change the quality of his love? Parents loved children who were born blind, children born as Siamese twins, children who were born with their guts abysmally rearranged. Parents pled for judicial mercy or executive clemency on behalf of children who had grown up to commit rape and murder and the torture of the innocent. Did he believe it would be impossible for him to love Gage even if Gage had to go on wearing diapers until he was eight? If he did not master the firstgrade primer until he was twelve? If he never mastered it at all? Could he simply dismiss his son as a . . . a sort of divine abortion, when there was another recourse? But, Louis, my God, you dont live in a vacuum! People will say He cut that thought off with rude, angry force. Of all the things not to consider now, public notice was probably the greatest of them. Louis glanced down at the raked dirt of Gages grave and felt a wave of awe and horror course through him. Unknowing, moving by themselves, his fingers had drawn a pattern in the dirthe had drawn a spiral. He swept the fingers of both hands through the dirt, rubbing the pattern out. Then he left Pleasantview, hurrying, feeling very much a trespasser now, believing that he would be seen, stopped, questioned at every turn of the path. He was late collecting his pizza, and although it had been left on top of one of the big ovens, it was semicold and greasy and every bit as tasty as cooked clay. Louis ate one piece and then tossed the rest out the window, box and all, as he headed back to Ludlow. He wasnt a litterbug by nature, but he did not want Rachel to see a mostly uneaten pizza at home in the wastebasket. It might raise a surmise in her mindthat a pizza wasnt really what hed had in mind when he went to Bangor. Louis now began to think about the time and circumstance. Time. Time might be of extreme, even crucial, importance. Timmy Baterman had been dead a good while before his father could get him up to the Micmac burying ground. Timmy was shot the nineteenth . . . Timmy was burieddont hold me to this, but I think it was July twentysecond. It was four or five days later that Marjorie Washburn . . . saw Timmy walking up the road. All right, say that Bill Baterman had done it four days after his sons original interral . . . no. If he was going to err, let him err on the side of conservatism. Say three days. For the sake of argument, assume that Timmy Baterman returned from the dead on July twentyfifth. That made six days between the boys death and his return, and that was a conservative estimate. It might have been as long as ten days. For Gage, it had now been four days. Time had already gotten away from him to a degree, but it was still possible to cut Billy Batermans best time considerably. If . . . If he could bring about circumstances similar to those which had made the resurrection of Church possible. Because Church had died at the best possible time, hadnt he? His family had been away when Church was struck and killed. No one was the wiser, except for him and Jud. His family had been in Chicago. For Louis, the final piece fell into place with a neat little click. You want us to what? Rachel asked, staring at him, astounded. It was a quarter of ten. Ellie had gone to bed. Rachel had taken another Valium after cleaning up the detritus of the funeral party (funeral party was another of those horrible phrases full of unstated paradox, like visiting hours, but there seemed no other phrase for the way they had spent their afternoon) and had seemed dazed and quiet ever since he returned from Bangor . . . but this had gotten through. To go back to Chicago with your mother and father, Louis repeated patiently. Theyll be going tomorrow. If you call them now and Delta right after, you may be able to get on the same plane with them. Louis, have you lost your mind? After the fight you had with my father Louis found himself speaking with a quick glibness that was totally unlike him. It afforded him a cheesy sort of exhilaration. He felt like a football sub who suddenly gets the ball and makes a seventyyard touchdown run, cutting and weaving, outthinking potential tacklers with a delirious onetimeonly ease. He had never been a particularly good liar, and he had not planned this encounter in any detail at all, but now a string of plausible lies, halftruths, and inspired justification poured out of him. The fight we had is one of the reasons I want you and Ellie to go back with them. Its time we sewed up this wound, Rachel. I knew that . . . felt it . . . at the funeral parlor. When the fight started, I was trying to patch things up. But this trip . . . I dont think its a good idea at all, Louis. We need you. And you need us. Her eyes measured him doubtfully. At least, I hope you need us. And neither of us are in any shape to in any kind of shape to stay here, Louis said forcefully. He felt as if he might be coming down with a fever. Im glad you need me, and I do need you and Ellie. But right now this is the worst damn place in the world for you, honey. Gage is everywhere in this house, around every corner. For you and me, sure. But its even worse for Ellie, I think. He saw pain flicker in her eyes and knew he had touched her. Some part of himself felt shame at this cheap victory. All the textbooks hed read on the subject of death told him that the bereaveds first strong impulse is to get away from the place where it happened . . . and that to succumb to such an impulse may turn out to be the most harmful course of action because it allows the bereaved the dubious luxury of refusing to come to terms with the new reality. The books said it was best to remain where you were, to battle grief on its home ground until it subsided into remembrance. But Louis simply did not dare make the experiment with his family at home. He had to get rid of them, at least for a while. I know, she said. It just . . . hits you all over the place. I moved the couch while you were in Bangor . . . I thought running the vacuum around would take my mind off . . . off things . . . and I found four of his little Matchbox cars under there . . . as if they were waiting for him to come back and . . . you know, play with them . . . Her voice, already wavering, now broke. Tears spilled down her cheeks. And thats when I took the second Valium because I started crying again, the way Im crying now . . . oh what a fucking soap opera all of this is . . . hold me, Lou, will you hold me? He did hold her, and he did it well, but he felt like an imposter. His mind spun with ways to turn these tears to his further benefit. Some nice guy, all right. Heyho, lets go. How long does it go on? she wept. Does it ever end? If only we could have him back, Louis, I swear Id watch him better, it would never happen, and just because that driver was going too fast that doesnt let meusoff the hook. I didnt know there could ever be hurt like this, and thats the truth. It comes, over and over it comes, and it hurts so much, Louis, theres no rest from it even when I go to sleep, when I go to sleep I dream it, over and over again, I see him running to the road . . . and I scream to him . . . Shhh, he said. Rachel, shhhh. She lifted her puffy face to him. It wasnt even as if he were being bad, Louis. It was just a game to him . . . the truck came at the wrong time . . . and Missy Dandridge called while I was still crying . . . and said she read in the Ellsworth American that the driver tried to kill himself. What? He tried to hang himself in his garage. Hes in shock and deep depression, the paper said . . . Too fucking bad he didnt make good on it, Louis said savagely, but his voice sounded distant to his own ears, and he felt a chill spreading through. The place has a power, Louis . . . its been full of power before, and Im ascared its coming round to full again. My boys dead and hes out on a thousand dollars bail and hell go on feeling depressed and suicidal until some judge takes away his license for ninety days and gives him a slaponthewrist fine. Missy says his wife has taken the kids and left him, Rachel said dully. She didnt get that from the paper, but from somebody who knows somebody down Ellsworth way. He wasnt drunk. He wasnt on drugs. He didnt have any previous speeding violations. He said that when he got to Ludlow, he just felt like putting the pedal to the metal. He said he didnt even know why. So around and around it goes. He just felt like putting the pedal to the metal. The place has a power . . . Louis thrust these thoughts away. He gripped his wifes forearm gently. Call your mother and father. Do it now. Theres no need for you and Ellie to be in this house another day. Not another day. Not without you, she said. Louis, I want us . . . I need us to stick together. Ill follow you in three daysfour at the most. If things went well, Rachel and Ellie might be back here in fortyeight hours. Ive got to find someone to fill in for me, on a parttime basis, at least, at the university. Ive got sick time and vacation time coming, but I dont want to leave Surrendra on the hot seat. Jud can watch the house while were gone, but Ill want to cut off the electricity and store what weve got in the Dandridges deep freeze, Ellies school . . . The hell with it. Its out in three weeks, anyway. Theyll understand, the circumstances being what they are. Theyll arrange an early dismissal. Itll all work just Louis? He broke off. What? What are you hiding? Hiding? He looked at her openly, clearly. I dont know what youre talking about. Dont you? No. I dont. Never mind. Ill call them right now . . . if thats what you really want. It is, he said, and the words seemed to echo in his mind with an iron clang. It might even be best. . for Ellie. She looked at him with her redrimmed eyes, still slightly glazed from Valium. You look feverish, Louis. As if you might be coming down with something. She went to the telephone and called the motel where her parents were staying before Louis could reply. The Goldmans were overjoyed at Rachels proposal. They were not so wild about the idea of Louis joining them in three or four days, but in the end they wouldnt have to worry about it all, of course. Louis had not the slightest intention of going to Chicago. He had suspected that if there was to be a snag, it would be getting air reservations this late. But luck was with him there too. There were still available seats on Deltas Bangor to Cincinnati run, and a quick check showed two cancellations on a Cincinnati to Chicago flight. It meant that Rachel and Ellie would be able to travel with the Goldmans only as far as Cincinnati, but they would get to Chicago less than an hour after. Its almost like magic, Louis thought, hanging up the telephone, and Juds voice responded promptly, Its been full of power before, and Im ascared . . . Oh, get fucked, he told Juds voice rudely. Ive learned to accept a great many strange things in the last ten months, my good old friend. But am I ready to believe that a haunted patch of ground can influence airline ticketing? I dont think so. Ill have to pack, Rachel said. She was looking at the flight information Louis had jotted down on the pad by the phone. Take just the one big suitcase, Louis said. She looked at, him wideeyed, mildly startled. For both of us? Louis, youre joking. All right, take a couple of tote bags too. But dont exhaust yourself packing a different outfit for the next three weeks, he said, thinking, Especially since you may be back in Ludlow very soon. Take enough for a week, ten days. Youve got the checkbook and the credit cards. Buy what you need. But we cant afford she began doubtfully. She seemed doubtful about everything now, malleable, easily confused. He remembered her odd, dangling comment about the Winnebago he had once spoken idly about buying. We have the money, he said. Well . . . I suppose we could use Gages college fund if we needed to, although it would take a day or two to process the savings account and a week to get the treasury bills cashed Her face began to crumple and dissolve again. Louis held her. Shes right. It just keeps right on hitting you, it never lets up. Rachel, dont, he said. Dont cry. But of course she didshe had to. While she was upstairs packing, the phone rang. Louis sprang for it, thinking it would be someone from Delta ticketing, saying a mistake had been made, no flights were available. I should have known everything was going too smoothly. But it wasnt Delta ticketing. It was Irwin Goldman. Ill get Rachel, Louis said. No. For a moment there was nothing else, only silence. Hes probably sitting there and trying to decide which name to call you first. When Goldman spoke again, his voice was strained. He seemed to be pushing the words out against some great inner resistance. Its you I want to talk to. Dory wanted me to call and apologize for my . . . for my behavior. I guess . . . Louis, I guess I wanted to apologize too. Why, Irwin! How big of you! My God, I think I just wet my pants! You dont need to apologize, Louis said. His voice was dry and mechanical. What I did was inexcusable, Goldman said. Now he did not just seem to be pushing the words out; he seemed to be coughing them out. You suggesting that Rachel and Eileen come out has made me see what a big man you have been about this . . . and how small I have been. There was something very familiar in this rap, something eerily familiar Then he got it, and his mouth suddenly pulled together in a tight pucker, as if he had bitten straight through a plump yellow lemon. Rachels wayshe was completely unaware of it, Louis was sureof saying contritely, Louis, Im sorry I was such a bitch, after her bitchiness had gotten her her own way about something she really wanted. Here was that voicerobbed of Rachels liveliness and merriness, truebut that same voice saying, Im sorry 1 was such a bastard, Louis. The old man was getting his daughter and granddaughter back; they were running home from Maine to Daddy. Courtesy of Delta and United, they were coming back to where they belonged, back to where Irwin Goldman wanted them. Now he could afford to be magnanimous. As far as old Irwin knew, he had won. So lets just forget that I took a swing at you over your dead sons body, Louis, or that I kicked you when you were down, or that I knocked his coffin off its bier and snapped the latch so you could seeor think you sawthat one last flash of your childs hand. Lets forget all of that. Let bygones be bygones. Terrible as it may be, Irwin, you old prick, Id wish for you to drop dead right this second, if it wouldnt screw up my plans. Thats all right, Mr. Goldman, he said evenly. It was . . . well . . . an emotional day for all of us. It was not all right, he persisted, and Louis realized although he did not want tothat Goldman was not just being political, was not just saying that he was sorry he had been such a bastard now that he was getting his own way. The man was nearly weeping, and he was speaking with a slow and trembling urgency. It was a terrible day for all of us. Thanks to me. Thanks to a stupid, bullheaded old man. I hurt my daughter when she needed my help . . . I hurt you, and maybe you needed my help too, Louis. That you do this . . . behave this way after I behaved that way . . . it makes me feel like garbage. And I think that is just the way I should feel. Oh let him stop this, let him stop before 1 start to scream at him and blow the whole deal. Rachels probably told you, Louis, we had another daughter Zelda, Louis said. Yes, she told me about Zelda. It was difficult, Goldman said in that trembling voice. Difficult for all of us. Most difficult for Rachel, perhapsRachel was there when Zelda diedbut difficult for Dory and me too. Dory almost had a breakdown What do you think Rachel had? Louis wanted to shout. Do you think a kid cant have a nervous breakdown? Twenty years later shes still jumping at deaths shadow. And now this happens. This miserable, awful thing. Its a minor miracle that she isnt in the fucking hospital, being fed through an I.V. tube. So dont talk to me about how difficult it was for you and your wife, you bastard. Ever since Zelda died, we have . . . I suppose we have clung to Rachel . . . always wanting to protect her . . . and to make it up to her. Make up for the problems she had with her . . . her back . . . for years afterward. Make up for not being there. Yes, the old man was really crying. Why did he have to be crying? It made it harder for Louis to hold on to his clean, pure hate. More difficult, but not impossible. He deliberately called up the image of Goldman reaching into the pocket of his smoking jacket for his overflowing checkbook . . . but he suddenly saw Zelda Goldman in the background, an unquiet ghost in a stinking bed, her cheesy face full of spite and agony, her hands pulled into claws. The Goldman ghost. Oz the Gweat and Tewwible. Please, he said. Please, Mr. Goldman. Irwin. No more. Lets not make things any worse than they have to be, okay? I believe now that you are a good man and that I misjudged you, Louis. Oh, listen, I know what you think. Am I that stupid? No. Stupid, but not that stupid. You think Im saying all of this because now I can, youre thinking oh yeah, hes getting what he wants and once he tried to buy me off, but . . . but Louis, I swear . . . No more, Louis said gently. I cant . . . I really cant take any more. Now his voice was trembling as well. Okay? All right, Goldman said and sighed. Louis thought it was a sigh of relief. But let me say again that I apologize. You dont have to accept it. But that is what I called to say, Louis. I apologize. All right, Louis said. He closed his eyes. His head was thudding. Thank you, Irwin. Your apology is accepted. Thank you, Goldman said. And thank you . . . for letting them come. Perhaps it is what they both need. Well wait for them at the airport. Fine, Louis said, and an idea suddenly occurred to him. It was crazy and attractive in its very sanity. He would let bygones be bygones . . . and he would let Gage lie in his Pleasantview grave. Instead of trying to reopen a door that had swung shut, he would latch it and doublebolt it and throw away the key. He would do just what he had told his wife he was going to do tidy up their affairs here and catch a plane back to Shytown. They would perhaps spend the entire summer there, he and his wife and his goodhearted daughter. They would go to the zoo and the planetarium and boating on the lake. He would take Ellie to the top of the Sears Tower and show her the Midwest stretching away like a great fiat gameboard, rich and dreaming. Then when midAugust came, they would come back to this house which now seemed so sad and so shadowy, and perhaps it would be like starting over again. Perhaps they could begin weaving from fresh thread. What was on the Creed loom right now was ugly, splattered with drying blood. But would that not be the same as murdering his son? Killing him a second time? A voice inside tried to argue that this was not so, but he would not listen. He shut the voice up briskly. Irwin, I ought to go now. I want to make sure Rachels got what she needs and then get her to bed. All right. Goodbye, Louis. And once more If he says hes sorry one more time, Ill fucking scream. Goodbye, Irwin, he said and hung up the phone. Rachel was deep in a litter of clothes when he came upstairs. Blouses on the beds, bras hung over the backs of chairs, slacks on hangers that had been hung over the doorknob. Shoes were lined up like soldiers under the window. She appeared to be packing slowly but competently. Louis could see it was going to take her at least three suitcases (maybe four), but he could also see no sense in arguing with her about it. Instead he pitched in and helped. Louis, she said as they closed the last suitcase (he had to sit on it before Rachel could snap the catches), are you sure theres nothing you want to tell me? For Gods sake, hon, what is this? I dont know what it is, she replied evenly. Thats why Im asking. What do you think Im going to do? Creep off to a bordello? Join the circus? What? I dont know. But this feels wrong. It feels as if youre trying to get rid of us. Rachel, thats ridiculous! He said this with a vehemence that was partly exasperation. Even in such straits as these, he felt a certain pique in being seen through so easily. She smiled wanly. You never were a very good liar, Lou. He began to protest again, and she cut him off. Ellie dreamed you were dead, she said. Last night. She woke up crying, and I went in to her. I slept with her for two or three hours and then came back in with you. She said that in her dream you were sitting at the kitchen table and your eyes were open, but she knew you were dead. She said she could hear Steve Masterton screaming. Louis looked at her, dismayed. Rachel, he said at last, her brother just died. Its normal enough for her to dream that other members of her family Yes, I surmised that much for myself. But the way she told it . . . the elements . . . it seemed to me to have a quality of prophecy. She laughed weakly. Or maybe you had to be there. Yes, maybe so, Louis said. It seemed to me to have a quality of prophecy. Come to bed with me, Rachel said. The Valiums all worn off, and I dont want to take any more. But Im afraid. Ive been having my own dreams . . . Dreams of what? Of Zelda, she said simply. The last few nights since Gage died, when I go to sleep, Zeldas there, She says shes coming for me, and this time shell get me. That both she and Gage will get me. For letting them die. Rachel, thats I know. Just a dream. Normal enough. But come to bed with me and keep the dreams away if you can, Louis. They lay together in the dark, crowded into Louiss single. Rachel? You still awake? Yes. I want to ask you something. Go ahead. He hesitated, not wanting to cause her even more pain but needing to know. Do you remember the scare we had with him when he was nine months old? he asked finally. Yes. Yes, of course I do. Why? By the time Gage was nine months old, Louis had become deeply concerned about his sons cranial size. It was right off Louiss Berterier Chart, which showed the normal range of infant head sizes on a permonth basis. At four months, Gages skull size had begun to drift toward the highest part of the curve, and then it began to go even higher than that. He wasnt having any trouble holding his head upthat would have been a dead giveaway but Louis had nevertheless taken him to George Tardiff, who was perhaps the best neurologist in the Midwest. Rachel had wanted to know what was wrong, and Louis had told her the truth he was worried that Gage might be hydrocephalic. Rachels face had grown very white, but she had remained calm. He seems normal to me, she said. Louis nodded. He does to me too. But I dont want to ignore this, babe. No, you mustnt, she said. We mustnt. Tardiff had measured Gages skull and frowned. Tardiff poked two fingers at Gages face, Three Stooges style. Gage flinched. Tardiff smiled. Louiss heart thawed out a little. Tardiff gave Gage a ball to hold. Gage held it for a while and then dropped it. Tardiff retrieved the ball and bounced it, watching Cages eyes. Gages eyes tracked the ball. Id say theres a fiftyfifty chance hes hydrocephalic, Tardiff said to Louis in his office later. Nothe odds may actually be a bit higher than that. If so, its mild. He seems very alert. The new shunt operation should take care of the problem easily . . . if there is a problem. A shunt means brain surgery, Louis said. Minor brain surgery. Louis had studied the process not long after he began to worry about the size of Gages head, and the shunt operation, designed to drain excess fluid, had not looked very minor to him. But he kept his mouth shut, telling himself just to be grateful the operation existed at all. Of course, Tardiff went on, theres still a large possibility that your kid just has a real big head for a ninemonthold. I think a CATscan is the best place to start. Do you agree? Louis had agreed. Gage spent a night in Our Sisters of Charity Hospital and underwent general anesthesia. His sleeping head was stuck into a gadget that looked like a giant clothes dryer. Rachel and Louis waited downstairs while Ellie spent the day at Grandma and Granddas, watching Sesame Street nonstop on Granddas new video recorder. For Louis, those had been long, gray hours in which he found himself totting up sums of varying ugliness and comparing results. Death under general anesthesia, death during a shunt operation, mild retardation as a result of hydrocephalus, cataclysmic retardation as a result of same, epilepsy, blindness . . . oh, there were all sorts of possibilities. For really complete disaster maps, Louis remembered thinking, see your local doctor. Tardiff had come into the waiting room around five oclock. He had three cigars. He plugged one into Louiss mouth, one into Rachels (she was too flabbergasted to protest), and one into his own. The kid is fine. No hydrocephalus. Light this thing, Rachel had said, weeping and laughing at the same time. Im going to smoke it till I puke. Grinning, Tardiff lit their cigars. God was saving him for Route 15, Dr. Tardiff, Louis thought now. Rachel, if he had been hydrocephalic, and if the shunt hadnt worked . . . could you have still loved him? What a weird question, Louis! Could you? Yes, of course. I would have loved Gage no matter what. Even if he was retarded? Yes. Would you have wanted him institutionalized? No, I dont think so, she said slowly. I suppose, with the money youre making now, we could afford that . . . a really good place, I mean . . . but I think Id want him with us if we could . . . Louis, why do you ask? Why, I suppose I was still thinking of your sister Zelda, he said. He was still astonished at this eerie glibness. Wondering if you could have gone through that again. It wouldnt have been the same, she said, sounding almost amused. Gage was . . . well, Gage was Gage. He was our son. That would have made all the difference. It would have been hard, I guess, but . . . would you have wanted him in an institution? A place like Pineland? Lets go to sleep. Thats a good idea. I feel like I can sleep now, she said. I want to put this day behind me. Amen to that, Louis said. A long time later she said drowsily, Youre right, Louis . . . just dreams and vapors . . . Sure, he said, and kissed her earlobe. Now sleep. It seemed to me to have a quality of prophecy. He did not sleep for a long time, and before he did, the curved bone of the moon looked in the window at him. 43 The following day was overcast but very warm, and Louis was sweating heavily by the time he had checked Rachels and Ellies baggage through and gotten their tickets out of the computer. He supposed just being able to keep busy was something of a gift, and he felt only a small, aching comparison to the last time he had put his family on a plane to Chicago, at Thanksgiving. Ellie seemed distant and a trifle odd. Several times that morning Louis had looked up and seen an expression of peculiar speculation on her face. Conspirators complex working overtime, boyo, he told himself. She said nothing when told they were all going to Chicago, she and Mommy first, perhaps for the whole summer, and only went on eating her breakfast (Cocoa Bears). After breakfast she went silently upstairs and got into the dress and shoes Rachel had laid out for her. She had brought the picture of her pulling Gage on her sled to the airport with her, and she sat calmly in one of the plastic contour seats in the lower lobby while Louis stood in line for their tickets and the loudspeaker blared intelligence of arriving and departing flights. Mr. and Mrs. Goldman showed up forty minutes before flight time. Irwin Goldman was natty (and apparently sweatless) in a cashmere topcoat in spite of the sixtydegree temperatures; he went over to the Avis desk to check his car in while Dory Goldman sat with Rachel and Effie. Louis and Goldman joined the others at the same time. Louis was a bit afraid that there might be a reprise of the my son, my son playlet, but he was spared. Goldman contented himself with a rather limp handshake and a muttered hello. The quick, embarrassed glance he afforded his soninlaw confirmed the certainty Louis had awakened with this morning the man must have been drunk. They went upstairs on the escalator and sat in the boarding lounge, not talking much. Dory Goldman thumbed nervously at her copy of an Erica Jong novel but did not open it. She kept glancing, a little nervously, at the picture Ellie was holding. Louis asked his daughter if she would like to walk over to the bookstore with him and pick out something to read on the plane. Ellie had been looking at him in that speculative way again. Louis didnt like it. It made him nervous. Will you be good at Grandma and Granddas? he asked her as they walked over. Yes, she said. Daddy, will the truant officer get me? Andy Pasioca says theres a truant officer and he gets school skippers. Dont you worry about the truant officer, he said. Ill take care of the school, and you can start again in the fall with no trouble. I hope Ill be okay in the fall, Ellie said. I never was in a grade before. Only kindergarten.


I dont know what kids do in grades. Homework, probably. Youll be fine. Daddy, are you still pissed off at Grandda? He gaped at her. Why in the world would you think I was . . . that I didnt like your grandda, Effie? She shrugged as if the topic held no particular interest for her. When you talk about him, you always look pissed off. Ellie, thats vulgar. Sorry. She gave him that strange, fey look and then drifted off to look at the racks of kid booksMercer Meyer and Maurice Sendak and Richard Scarry and Beatrix Potter and that famous old standby, Dr. Seuss. How do they find this stuff out? Or do they just know? How much does Ellie know? Hows it affecting her? Ellie, whats behind that pale little face? Pissed off at himChrist! Can I have these, Daddy? She was holding out a Dr. Seuss and a book Louis hadnt seen since his own childhoodthe story of Little Black Sambo and how the tigers had gotten his clothes one fine day. I thought theyd made that one an unbook, Louis thought, bemused. Yes, he said, and they stood in a short line at the cash register. Your grandda and I like each other fine, he said and thought again of his mothers story of how when a woman really wanted a baby, she found one. He remembered his own foolish promises to himself that he would never lie to his own children. Over the last few days he had developed into quite a promising liar, he felt, but he would not let himself think about it now. Oh, she said and fell silent. The silence made him uneasy. To break it he said, So do you think youll have a good time in Chicago? No. No? Why not? She looked up at him with that fey expression. Im scared. He put his hand on her head. Scared? Honey, what for? Youre not scared of the plane, are you? No, she said. I dont know what Im scared of. Daddy, I dreamed we were at Gages funeral and the funeral man opened his coffin and it was empty. Then I dreamed I was home and I looked in Gages crib and that was empty too. But there was dirt in it. Lazarus, come forth. For the first time in months he remembered the dream he had had after Pascows deaththe dream, and then waking up to find his feet dirty and the foot of the bed caked with pine needles and muck. The hairs at the nape of his neck stirred. Just dreams, he said to Ellie, and his voice sounded, to his ears at least, perfectly normal. Theyll pass. I wish you were coming with us, she said, or that we were staying here. Can we stay, Daddy? Please? I dont want to go to Grandma and Granddas . . . I just want to go back to school. Okay? Just for a little while, Ellie, he said. Ive gothe swalloweda few things to do here, and then Ill be with you. We can decide what to do next. He expected an argument, perhaps even an Elliestyle tantrum. He might even have welcomed ita known quantity, as that look was not. But there was only that pallid, disquieting silence which seemed so deep. He could have asked her more but found he didnt dare; she had already told him more than he perhaps wanted to hear. Shortly after he and Ellie returned to the boarding lounge, the flight was called. Boarding passes were produced, and the four of them got in line. Louis embraced his wife and kissed her hard. She clung to him for a moment and then let him go so he could pick Ellie up and buss her cheek. Ellie gazed at him solemnly with her sibyls eyes. I dont want to go, she said again but so low oniy Louis could really hear over the shuffle and murmur of the boarding passengers. I dont want Mommy to go either. Ellie, come on, Louis said. Youll be fine. Ill be fine, she said, but what about you? Daddy, what about you? The line had begun to move now. People were walking down the jetway to the 727. Rachel pulled Ellies hand and for a moment she resisted, holding up the line, her eyes fixed on her fatherand Louis found himself remembering her impatience last time, her cries of come oncome oncome on. Daddy? Go now, Ellie. Please. Rachel looked at Ellie and saw that dark, dreamy look for the first time. Ellie? she said, startled and, Louis thought, a little afraid. Youre holding up the line, baby. Ellies lips trembled and grew white. Then she allowed herself to be led into the jetway. She looked back at him, and he saw naked terror in her face. He raised his hand to her in false cheeriness. Ellie did not wave back. 44 As Louis left the BIA terminal building, a cold cloak fell over his mind. He became aware that he meant to go through with this. His mind, which had been sharp enough to get him through med school mostly on a scholarship and what his wife could earn pushing coffeeanddanish on the 5 to 11 A.M. shift six days a week, had taken the problem over and broken it down into components, as if this was just another prelimthe biggest one he had ever taken. And he intended to pass it with an A plus, one hundred percent. He drove to Brewer, the little city across the Penobscot River from Bangor. He found a parking spot across the street from Watsons Hardware. Can I help you? the clerk asked. Yes, Louis said. Id like a heavy flashlightone of the square onesand something I can hood it with. The clerk was a small slim man with a high forehead and sharp eves. He smiled now, but his smile was not particularly pleasant. Going jacking, good buddy? I beg your pardon? Gonna jacklight a few deer tonight? Not at all, Louis said, unsmiling. I havent a license to jack. The clerk blinked and then decided to laugh. In other words, mind my own business, huh? Well, lookyou cant hood one of those big lights, but you can get a piece of felt and poke a hole in the middle of it. Cut the beam clown to a penlight. That sounds fine, Louis said. Thanks. Surely. Anything else for you today? Yes indeed, Louis said. I need a pick, a shovel, and a spade. Shorthandled shovel, longhandled spade. A stout length of rope, eight feet long. A pair of work gloves. A canvas tarpaulin, maybe eight by eight. I can do all that, the clerk said. Ive got a septic tank to dig up, Louis said. It looks like Im in violation of the zoning ordinances, and Ive got some very nosy neighbors. I dont know if hooding my light will do any good or not, but I thought I might give it a try. I could get a pretty good fine. Ohoh, the clerk said, better get a clothespin for your nose while youre at it. Louis laughed dutifully. His purchases came to 58.60. He paid cash. As gas prices went up, they had used the big station wagon less and less. For some time it had had a bad wheelbearing, but Louis had kept putting off the repair job. This was partly because he didnt want to part with the two hundred it was likely to cost, hut mostly because it was a nuisance. Now, when he could have really used the big old dinosaur, lie didnt dare chance it. The Civic was a hatchback, and Louis was nervous about going back to Ludlow with the pick, shovel, and spade in there. Jud Crandalls eyes were sharp, and there was nothing wrong with his brains either. He would know what was up. Then it occurred to him that there was no real reason to go back to Ludlow anyway. Louis recrossed the Chamberlain Bridge into Bangor and checked into the Howard Johnsons Motor Lodge on the Odlin Roadonce again near the airport, once again near Pleasantview Cemetery where his son was buried. He checked in under the name Dee Dee Ramone and paid cash for his room. He tried to nap, reasoning that he would be glad of the rest before tomorrow morning. In the words of some Victorian novel or other, there was wild work ahead of him tonightenough wild work to last a lifetime. But his brain simply would not shut down. He lay on the anonymous motel bed beneath a nondescript motel print of picturesque boats at dock beside a picturesque old wharf in a picturesque New England harbor, fully dressed except for his shoes, his wallet, coins, and keys on the night table beside him, his hands behind his head. That feeling of coldness still held; he felt totally unplugged from his people, the places that had become so familiar to him, even his work. This could have been any Howard Johnsons in the worldin San Diego or Duluth or Bangkok or Charlotte Amalie. He was nowhere, and now and then a thought of surpassing oddity struck him before he saw any of those familiar places and faces again, he would see his son. His plan kept unreeling in his mind. He looked at it from all angles, poked it, prodded it, looked for holes or soft places. And he felt that in truth he was walking along a narrow beam over a gulf of insanity. Madness was all around him, softly fluttering as the wings of nighthunting owls with great golden eyes he was heading into madness. The voice of Tom Rush echoed dreamily in his head O death your hands are clammy . . . I feel them on my knees . . . you came and took my mother . . . wont you come back after me? Madness. Madness all around, close, hunting him. He walked the balance beam of rationality; he studied his plan. Tonight, around eleven oclock, he would dig up his sons grave, remove the body from the coffin in which it lay, wrap Gage in a cutdown piece of the tarpaulin, and put it in the trunk of the Civic. He would replace the coffin and refill the grave. He would drive to Ludlow, take Gages body from the trunk . . . and take a walk. Yes, he would take a walk. If Gage returned, the single path forked into two possibilities. Along one, he saw Gage returning as Gage, perhaps stunned or slow or even retarded (only in the deepest recesses of his mind did Louis allow himself to hope that Gage would return whole, and just as he had beenbut surely even that was possible, wasnt it?), but still his son, Rachels son, Ellies brother. Along the other, he saw some sort of monster emerging from the woods behind the house. He had accepted so much that he did not balk at the idea of monsters, or even of daemons, discorporeal beings of evil from the outerworid which might well take charge of a reanimated body from which the original soul had fled. Either way, he and his son would be alone. And he would . . . I will make a diagnosis. Yes. That is what he would do. I will make a diagnosis, not only of his body but of his spirit. I will make allowances for the trauma of the accident itself, which he may or may not remember. Keeping the example of Church before me, I will expect retardation, perhaps mild, perhaps profound. I will judge our ability to reintegrate Gage into our family on the basis of what I see over a period of from twentyfour to seventytwo hours. And if the loss is too greator if he comes back as Timmy Baterman apparently came back, as a thing of evilI will kill him. As a doctor, he felt he could kill Gage, if Gage was only the vessel containing some other being, quite easily. He would not allow himself to be swayed by its pleadings or its wiles. He would kill it as he would kill a rat carrying bubonic plague. There need be no melodrama about it. A pill in solution, perhaps two or three of them. If necessary, a shot. There was morphine in his bag. The following night, he would return the lifeless clay to Pleasantview and reenter it, simply trusting that his luck would hold a second time (you dont even know if it will hold once, he reminded himself). He had considered the easier and safer alternative of the Pet Sematary, but he would not have his son up there. There were a lot of reasons. A child burying his pet five years or ten years or even twenty years later might stumble on the remains that was one reason. But the most compelling one was simpler. The Pet Sematary might be . . . too close. The reinterment completed, he would fly to Chicago and join his family. Neither Rachel nor Ellie would ever need to know about his failed experiment. Then, looking along the other paththe path he hoped for blindly with all his love for his son he and Gage would leave the house when the examination period was over, would leave at night. He would take certain papers with him and plan never to return to Ludlow again. He and Gage would check into a motelperhaps this very one in which he now lay. The following morning he would cash every account they had, converting everything into American Express travelers checks (dont leave home with your resurrected son without them, he thought) and flat cash. He and Gage would fly somewhere Florida, most likely. From there he would call Rachel, tell her where he was, tell her to take Ellie and catch a plane without telling her mother and father where she was going. Louis believed he could convince her to do this. Ask no questions, Rachel. Just come. Come now. This minute. He would tell her where he (they) were staying. Some motel. She and Ellie would arrive in a rental car. He would bring Gage to the door when they knocked. Perhaps Gage would be wearing a bathing suit. And then Ah, but beyond that he did not dare go; instead he turned back to the plans beginning and began to go over it again. He supposed that if things worked out, it would mean accumulating the identification minutae of whole new lives so that Irwin Goldman could not use his overflowing checkbook to trace them. Such things could be done. Vaguely, he remembered arriving at the Ludlow house, tense, tired, and more than a little scared, and having some fantasy about just driving down to Orlando and hiring on as a medic at Disney World. Maybe that wasnt so farfetched after all. He saw himself, dressed in white, resuscitating a pregnant woman who had foolishly gone on the Magic Mountain ride and had fainted. Stand back, stand back, give her some air, he heard himself saying, and the woman opened her eyes and smiled gratefully at him. As his mind spun out this not disagreeable fantasy, Louis fell asleep. He slept as his daughter awoke in an airplane somewhere above Niagara Falls, screaming from a nightmare of clutching hands and stupid yet merciless eyes; he slept as the stewardess rushed down the aisle to see what was wrong; he slept as Rachel, totally unnerved, tried to soothe her; he slept as Ellie cried over and over again Its Gage! Mommy! Its Gage! its Gage! Gage is alive! Gage has got the knife from Daddys bag! Dont let him get me! Dont let him get Daddy! He slept as Ellie quieted at last and lay shuddering against her mothers breast, her eyes wide and tearless, and as Dory Goldman thought what an awful thing all of this had been for Eileen, and how much she reminded Dory of Rachel after Zelda had died. He slept and woke up at a quarter past five, with the afternoon light beginning to slant down toward the coming night. Wild work, he thought stupidly and got up. 45 By the time United Airlines flight 419 touched down at OHare Airport and offloaded its passengers at ten minutes past three, central standard time, Ellie Creed was in a state of low hysteria, and Rachel was very frightened. If you touched Ellie casually on the shoulder, she jumped and stared around at you with big walleyes, and her whole body quivered steadily and without letup. It was as if she were full of electricity. The nightmare on the airplane had been bad enough, but this . . . Rachel simply didnt know how to cope with it. Going into the terminal, Ellie tripped over her own feet and fell down. She did not get up but merely lay there on the carpet with people passing around her (or looking down at her with that mildly sympathetic but disconnected glance of people who are in transit and cannot be bothered) until Rachel picked her up in her arms. Ellie, whats wrong with you? Rachel asked. But Ellie would not answer. They moved across the lobby toward the luggage carousels, and Rachel saw her mother and father waiting there for them. She waved at them with her free hand, and they came over. They told us not to go to the gate and wait for you, Dory said, so we thought . . . Rachel? Hows Eileen? Not good. "Is there a ladies room, Mommy? Im going to throw up. Oh, God, Rachel said despairingly and took her by the hand. There was a ladies room across the lobby, and she led Ellie toward it quickly. Rachel, shall I corner Dory called. No, get the luggage, you know what it looks like. Were okay. Mercifully the ladies room was deserted. Rachel led Ellie to one of the stalls, fumbling in her purse for a dime, and then she sawthank Godthat the locks on three of them were broken. Over one broken lock, someone had written in grease pencil SIR JOHN CRAPPER WAS A SEXIST PIG! Rachel pulled the door open quickly; Ellie was now moaning and holding her stomach. She retched twice, but there was no vomiting; they were the dry heaves of total nervous exhaustion. When Ellie told her she felt a little better, Rachel took her over to the basins and washed her daughters face. Ellie was wretchedly white, and there were circles under her eyes. Ellie, what is wrong? Cant you tell me? I dont know whats wrong, she said. But I knew something was wrong ever since Daddy told me about the trip. Because something was wrong with him. Louis, what are you hiding? You were hiding something. I could see it; even Ellie could see it. It occurred to her that she had also been nervous all day, as though waiting for a blow to fall. She felt the way she did in the two or three days before her period, tense and on edge, ready to laugh or cry or get a headache that would come bulleting through like a fast express, there and then gone three hours later. What? she said now to Ellies reflection in the mirror. Honey, what could be wrong with Daddy? I dont know, Ellie said. It was the dream. Something about Gage. Or maybe it was Church. I dont remember. I dont know. Ellie, what was your dream? I dreamed I was in the Pet Sematary, Ellie said. "Paxcow took me to the Pet Sematary and said Daddy was going to go there and something terrible was going to happen. Paxcow? A bolt of terror both sharp and yet undefined struck her. What was that name, and why did it seem familiar? It seemed that she had heard that nameor one like itbut she could not for the life of her remember where. You dreamed someone named Paxcow took you to the Pet Sematary? Yes, thats what he said his name was. And Her eyes suddenly widened. Do you remember something else? He said that he was sent to warn but that he couldnt interfere. He said that he was . . . I dont know . . . that he was near Daddy because they were together when his soul was disdisI cant remember! she wailed. Honey, Rachel said, I think you dreamed about the Pet Sematary because youre still thinking about Gage. And Im sure Daddy is fine. Do you feel any better now? No, Ellie whispered. Mommy, Im scared. Arent you scared? Huhuh, Rachel said, with a brisk little shake of her head and a smilebut she was, she was scared; and that name, Faxcow, haunted her with its familiarity. She felt she had heard it in some dreadful context months or even years ago, and that nervy feeling would not leave her. She felt somethingsomething pregnant, swollen, and waiting to burst. Something terrible that needed to be averted. But what? What? Im sure everything is fine, she told Ellie. Want to go back to Grandma and Grandda? I guess so, Ellie said listlessly. A Puerto Rican woman led her very young son into the ladies, scolding him. A large wet stain had spread on the crotch of the little boys Bermudas and Rachel found herself reminded of Gage with a kind of paralyzing poignancy. This fresh sorrow was like novocaine, smothering her jitters. Come on, she said. Well call Daddy from Granddas house. He was wearing shorts, Ellie said suddenly, looking back at the little boy. Who was, honey? Paxcow, Ellie said. He was wearing red shorts in my dream. That brought the name momentarily into focus, and Rachel felt that kneeweakening fear again . . . then it danced away. They could not get close to the luggage carousel; Rachel could just see the top of her fathers hat, the one with the feather. Dory Goldman was holding two seats against the wall for them and waving. Rachel brought Ellie over. Are you feeling any better, dear? Dory asked. A little bit, Ellie said. Mommy She turned to Rachel and broke off. Rachel was sitting bolt upright, her hand clapped to her mouth, her face white. She had it. It had suddenly gone through with a terrible thud. Of course she should have known at once, but she had tried to put it out of her mind. Of course. Mommy? Rachel turned slowly to her daughter, and Ellie could hear the tendons in her neck creak. She took her hand away from her mouth. Did the man in your dream tell you his first name, Eileen? Mommy, are you all Did the man in your dream tell you his first name? Dory was looking at her daughter and granddaughter as if they might have both gone crazy. Yes, but I cant remember . . . Mommy, youre hurrrrting me Rachel looked down and saw that her free hand was clamped around Ellies lower forearm like a manacle. Was it Victor? Ellie drew sharp breath. Yes, Victor! He said his name was Victor! Mommy, did you dream of him too? Not Paxcow, Rachel said. Pascow. Thats what I said. Paxcow. Rachel, whats wrong? Dory said. She took Rachels free hand and winced at its chill. And whats wrong with Eileen? Its not Eileen, Rachel said. Its Louis, I think. Something is wrong with Louis. Or something is going to be wrong. Sit with Ellie, Mom. I want to call home. She got up and crossed to the telephones, digging in her purse for a quarter. She made the call collect, but there was no one to accept the charges. The phone simply rang. Will you try your call later? the operator asked her. Yes, Rachel said and hung up. She stood there, staring at the phone. He said that he was sent to warn but that he couldnt interfere. He said that he was . . . that he was near Daddy because they were together when his soul was disdisI cant remember! Discorporated, Rachel whispered. Her fingers dug at the fabric of her handbag. Oh my God, was that the word? She tried to catch at her thoughts, to arrange them. Was something going on here, something beyond their natural upset at Gages death and this queer crosscountry trip that was so much like flight? How much had Ellie known about the young man who had died on Louiss first day at work? Nothing, her mind answered inexorably. You kept it from her, the way you tried to keep anything from her that had to do with deatheven the possible death of her cat, remember the dumb, stupid argument we had that day in the pantry? You kept it from her. Because you were scared then and youre scared now. His name was Pascow, Victor Pascow, and how desperate is the situation now, Rachel? How bad is this? What in the name of God is happening? Her hands were trembling so badly that it took her two tries to redeposit her quarter. This time she called the infirmary at the university and got Chariton, who accepted the call, a little mystified. No, she hadnt seen Louis and would have been surprised if he had come in today. That said, she offered her sympathies to Rachel again. Rachel accepted them and then asked Chariton to have Louis call her at her folks house if he did come in. Yes, he had the number, she answered Charltons question, not wanting to tell the nurse (who probably knew anyway; she had a feeling that Chariton didnt miss much) that her folks house was half the continent away. She hung up, feeling hot and trembly. She heard Pascows name somewhere else, thats all. My God, you dont raise a kid in a glass box like a . . . a hamster or something. She heard an item about it on the radio. Or some kid mentioned it to her at school, and her mind stored it away. Even that word she couldnt saysuppose it was a jawbreaker like discorporated or discorporeal, so what? That proves nothing except that the subconscious is exactly the kind of sticky flypaper the Sunday supplements say it is. She remembered a college psych instructor who had asserted that under the right conditions, your memory could play back the names of every person to whom you had ever been introduced, every meal you had ever eaten, the weather conditions which had obtained on every day of your life. He made a persuasive case for this incredible assertion, telling them that the human mind was a computer with staggering numbers of memory chipsnot 16K, or 32K, or 64K, but perhaps as much as one billion K literally, a thousand billion. And how much might each of these organic chips be capable of storing? No one knew. But there were so many of them, he said, that there was no need for any of them to be erasable so they could be reused. In fact the conscious mind had to turn down the lights on some of them as a protection against informational insanity. You might not be able to remember where you keep your socks, the psych instructor had said, if the entire contents of the Encyclopedia Britannica was stored in the adjacent two or three memory cells. This had produced dutiful laughter from the class. But this isnt a psych class under good fluorescent lights with all that comforting jargon written on the board and some smartass assistant prof cheerfully blueskying his way through the last fifteen minutes of the period. Something is dreadfully wrong here and you know ityou feel it. I dont know what it has to do with Pascow, or Gage, or Church, but it has something to do with Louis. What? Is it Suddenly a thought as cold as a handful of jelly struck her. She picked up the telephone receiver again and groped in the coinreturn for her dime. Was Louis contemplating suicide? Was that why he had gotten rid of them, nearly pushed them out the door? Had Ellie somehow had a . . . a . . . oh, fuck psychology! Had she had a psychic flash of some sort? This time she made the call collect to Jud Crandall. It rang five times . . . six . . . seven. She was about to hang up when his voice, breathless, answered. Hlo? Jud! Jud, this is Just a minute, madam, the operator said. Will you accept a collect call from Mrs. Louis Creed? Ayuh, Jud said. Pardon, sir, is that yes or no? I guess I will, Jud said. There was a doubtful pause as the operator translated Yankee into American. Then Thank you. Go ahead, maam. Jud, have you seen Louis today? Today? I cant say I have, Rachel. But I was away to Brewer this mornin, gettin my groceries. Been out in the garden this afternoon, behind the house. Why? Oh, its probably nothing, but Ellie had a bad dream on the plane and I just thought Id set her mind at ease if I could. Plane? Juds voice seemed to sharpen a trifle. Where are you, Rachel? Chicago, she said. Ellie and I came back to spend some time with my parents. Louis didnt go with you? Hes going to join us by the end of the week, Rachel said, and now it was a struggle to keep her voice even. There was something in Juds voice she didnt like. Was it his idea that you should go out there? Well . . . yes. Jud, whats wrong? Something is wrong, isnt it? And you know something about it. Maybe you ought to tell me the childs dream, Jud said after a long pause. I wish you would. 46 After he and Rachel were done talking, Jud put on his light coatthe day had clouded up and the wind had begun to blowand crossed the road to Louiss house, pausing on his side of the road to look carefully for trucks before crossing. It was the trucks that had been the cause of all this. The damned trucks. Except it wasnt. He could feel the Pet Sematary pulling at himand something beyond. Where once its voice had been a kind of seductive lullabye, the voice of possible comfort and a dreamy sort of power, it was now lower and more than ominousit was threatening and grim. Stay out of this, you. But he would not stay out of it. His responsibility went back too far. He saw that Louiss Honda Civic was gone from the garage. There was only the big Ford wagon, looking dusty and unused. He tried the back door of the house and found it open. Louis? he called, knowing that Louis was not going to answer, but needing to cut across the heavy silence of this house somehow. Oh, getting old was starting to be a pain in the asshis limbs felt heavy and clumsy most of the time, his back was a misery to him after a mere two hours in the garden, and it felt as if there was a screw auger planted in his left hip. He began to go through the house methodically, looking for the signs he had to look forworlds oldest housebreaker, he thought without much humor and went right on looking. He found none of the things that would have seriously upset him boxes of toys held back from the Salvation Army, clothes for a small boy put aside behind a door or in the closet or under a bed . . . perhaps worst of all, the crib carefully set up in Gages room again. There were absolutely none of the signs, but the house still had an unpleasant blank feel, as if it were waiting to be filled with . . . well, something. Praps I ought to take a little run out to Pleasantview Cemetery. See if anythings doing out there. Might even run into Louis Creed. I could buy him a dinner, or somethin. But it wasnt 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 sixpack 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 found his mind turning back and back in a widening gyre. If he had known the run of Rachel Creeds 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. Sepiatoned memories grew bright again, the colors trueing up, the voices losing that tinny echo of time and regaining their original resonance. It wasnt informational breakdown at all, Jud could have told him. The name for it was senility. In his mind Jud again saw Lester Morgans 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 Hanrattys 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 dreadthe 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 Creeds 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 wasnt planning to do anything he shouldnt. And still he felt the soft tug of whatever it was, whatever sick power it was that inhabited that devils 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 youre 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 Johnsons dining room. The food was plentiful and dullexactly 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 questionswheres Rachel, what are you doing here, hows 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 Grinnells 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 neargale 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 backtoback halfhour 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 didnt know them. If he intended to do it, he would begin from his own dooryard. Unaware of these other happenings, like slowmoving 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 grownups 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 oclock 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 Gages baseball cap lying in the road, full of blood. The coldness was on him again, stronger than ever, but there was something beneath itan 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 Hondas 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 . . . youre upset . . . a nights 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 risesan 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 oclock 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 daughters 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 ringshe jumped, and Ellie almost spilled her glass of milkbut it was only a lady from Dorys 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 . . . Im sorry, but I have to go home. If I can get a plane, Im going tonight. Her mother and father had gaped at her, but Ellie had closed her eyes in an adult expression of reliefit 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 and 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 sons death. You and Ellie are both reacting strongly to that, and who could blame you? But youll 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 Deltas number while Dory stood close by, telling her they ought to just think about this, didnt 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. Its extremely important that I get from Chicago to Bangor tonight. Its . . . its a bit of an emergency, Im afraid. Can you check the connections for me? Dubiously Yes, maam, but this is very short notice. Well, please check, Rachel said, her voice cracking a little. Ill take standby, anything. All right, maam. 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. Dont let them stop you, Mommy, Ellie said in a low voice. Please. No way, big sister, Rachel said and then wincedit was what they had called her ever since Gage had been born. But she was no ones big sister anymore, was she? Thank you, Ellie said. Its very important, isnt 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. Its . . . its everything now. Its running all through me now. Cant you feel it, Mommy? Something like a Something like a wind. Ellie sighed shakily. But you dont know what it is? You dont remember anything more about your dream? Ellie thought hard and then shook her head reluctantly. Daddy. Church. And Gage. Thats all I remember. But I dont 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, maam, the reservations clerk said. Hello? Rachel tightened her grip on both Ellie and the phone. I think I can get you to Bangor, maambut youre going to be getting in very late. That doesnt matter, Rachel said. Do you have a pen? Its 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 Rachels 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. Dont you dare! Ellie cried shrilly. Its not crazy! Its not! Goldman blinked and stepped back at this small but ferocious outburst. Drive her, Irwin, Dory said quietly into the silence that followed. Ive begun to feel nervous too. Ill feel better if I know Louis is all right. Goldman stared at his wife and at last turned to Rachel. Ill drive you, if it is what you want, he said. I . . . Rachel, Ill come with you, if you want that. Rachel shook her head. Thank you, Daddy, but I got all the last seats. Its 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. Ellies 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 Hondas 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 canvaswrapped bundle cradled in his arms, looking carefully for traffic before crossing to the wroughtiron 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 wasnt 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 wroughtiron bars of the high fence, giggling at the old jokes its the most popular place in town; people are dying to get in. Why is it wrong to laugh in the grave yard? Because everyone who lives there is always in a grave mood. Gage, he muttered. Gage was in there, behind that wroughtiron 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 wasnt 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. Its 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 its lockeddid you really think anyone would leave a cemetery inside the municipal city limits of any American city unlocked after eleven oclock? 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 worlds oldest, slowest kid. Hey, police? I just saw the worlds 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, Im 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 relentlessly. 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. Youre going to climb that baby? Dont make me laugh. Louis Creed was a fairly tall man, standing a bit over sixtwo, but the fence was easily nine feet high, each wroughtiron 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, hut youre 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 Gages body out? He went on walking, vaguely aware that he was circling the cemetery but not doing anything constructive. All right, heres the answer. Ill just go on home to Ludlow tonight and come back tomorrow, in the late afternoon.. Ill go in through the gate around four oclock and find a place to hole up until its 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. Good idea, O Great Swami Louis . . . and in the meantime, what do I do about that great big bundle of stuff 1 threw over the wall? Pick, shovel, flashlight . . . you might as well stamp GRAVEROBBING EQUIPMENT on every damn piece of it. It landed in the bushes. Whos going to find it, for Chrissake? On measure that made sense. But this was no sensible errand he was on, and his heart told him quietly and absolutely that he couldnt come back tomorrow. If he didnt do it tonight, he would never do it. He would never be able to screw himself up to this crazy pitch again. This was the moment, the only time for it he was ever going to have. There were fewer houses up this wayan occasional square of yellow light gleamed on the other side of the street, and once he saw the grayblue flicker of a blackandwhite TVand looking through the fence he saw that the graves were older here, more rounded, sometimes leaning forward or backward with the freezes and thaws of many seasons. There was another stop sign up ahead, and another right turn would put him on a street roughly parallel to Mason Street, where he had begun. And when he got back to the beginning, what did he do? Collect two hundred dollars and go around again? Admit defeat? Car headlights turned down the street. Louis stepped behind another tree, waiting for it to pass. This car was moving very slowly, and after a moment a white spotlight stabbed out from the passenger side and ran flickering along the wroughtiron fence. His heart squeezed painfully in his chest. It was a police car, checking the cemetery. He pressed himself tight against the tree, the rough bark against his cheek, hoping madly that it was big enough to shield him. The spotlight ran toward him. Louis put his head down, trying to shield the white blur of his face. The spotlight reached the tree, disappeared for a moment, and then reappeared on Louiss right. He slipped around the tree a little. He had a momentary glimpse of the dark bubbles on the cruisers roof. He waited for the taillights to flare a brighter red, for the doors to open, for the spotlight to suddenly turn back on its ball joint, hunting for him like a big white finger. Hey, you! You behind that tree! Come on out where we can see you, and we want to see both hands empty! Come out NOW! The police car kept on going. It reached the corner, signaled with sedate propriety, and turned left. Louis collapsed back against the tree, breathing fast, his mouth sour and dry. He supposed they would cruise past his parked Honda, but that didnt really matter. Parking from 6 P.M. to 7 A.M. was legal on Mason Street. There were plenty of other cars parked along it. Their owners would belong to the scattering of apartment buildings on the other side of the street. Louis found himself glancing up at the tree he had hidden behind. Just above his head, the tree forked. He supposed he could Without allowing himself to think about it further, he reached into the fork and pulled himself up, scrambling with his tennis shoes for purchase, sending a little shower of bark down to the sidewalk. He got a knee up and a moment later he had one foot planted solidly in the crotch of the elm. If the police car should happen to come back, their spotlight would find an extremely peculiar bird in this tree. He ought to move quickly. He pulled himself up onto a higher branch, one which overhung the very top of the fence. He felt absurdly like the twelveyearold he supposed he had once been. The tree was not still; it rocked easily, almost soothingly, in the steady wind. Its leaves rustled and murmured. Louis assessed the situation and then, before he could get cold feet, he dropped off into space, holding on to the branch with his hands laced together over it. The branch was perhaps a little thicker than a brawny mans forearm. With his sneakers dangling about eight feet over the sidewalk, he pulled himself hand for hand toward the fence. The branch dipped but showed no sign of breaking. He was faintly aware of his shadow following along on the cement sidewalk below him, an amorphous black apeshape. The wind chilled his hot armpits, and he found himself shivering in spite of the sweat running down his face and neck. The branch dipped and swayed with his movements. The farther out he moved, the more pronounced the dip became. His hands and wrists were getting tired now, and he was afraid that his sweatgreasy palms might slip. He reached the fence. His tennis shoes dangled perhaps a foot below the arrow tips. The tips did not look blunt at all from this angle. They looked very sharp. Sharp or not, he suddenly realized it was not just his balls that were at risk here. If he fell and hit one of those things dead on, his weight would be enough to drive it all the way up into his lungs. The returning cops would find an early and extremely grisly Halloween decoration on the Pleasantview fence. Breathing fast, not quite gasping, he groped for the fence points with his feet, needing a moments rest. For a moment he hung there, his feet moving in an air dance, searching but not finding. Light touched him and grew. Oh Christ, thats a car, theres a car coming! He tried to shuffle his hands forward, but his palms slipped. His interlaced fingers were coming apart. Still groping for purchase, he turned his head to the left, looking under his straining arm. It was a car, but it shot through the intersection up the street without slowing. Lucky. If it had His hands slipped again. He felt bark sift down onto his hair. One foot found purchase, but now his other pants leg had caught on one of the arrow points. And Christ, he wasnt going to be able to hang on much longer. Desperately, Louis jerked his leg. The branch dipped. His hands slipped again. There was a mutter of tearing cloth, and then he was standing on two of the arrow points. They dug into the soles of his tennis shoes, and the pressure quickly became painful, but Louis stood on them anyway. The relief in his hands and arms was greater than the pain in his feet. What a figure I must cut, Louis thought with dim and dismal amusement. Holding the branch with his left hand, he wiped his right hand across his jacket. Then he wiped off the left while he held with the right. He stood on the points for a moment longer and then slipped his hands forward along the branch. It was slim enough for him to be able to lace his fingers together comfortably now. He swung forward like Tarzan, feet leaving the arrow points. The branch dipped alarmingly, and he heard an ominous cracking sound. He let go, dropping on faith. He landed badly. One knee thudded against a gravestone, sending a lance of pain up his thigh. He rolled over on the grass, holding the knee, lips skinned back in something like a grin, hoping that he hadnt shattered his kneecap. At last the pain began to fade a little, and he found that he could flex the joint. It would be all right if he kept moving and didnt allow it to stiffen up on him. Maybe. He got to his feet and started to walk along the fence back toward Mason Street and his equipment. His knee was bad at first, and he limped, but the pain smoothed out to a dull ache as he went. There was aspirin in the Hondas firstaid kit. He should have remembered to bring that with him. Too late now. He kept an eye out for cars and faded back deeper into the cemetery when one came. On the Mason Street side, which was apt to be better traveled, he kept well back from the fence until he was opposite the Civic. He was about to trot down to the fence and pull his bundle out of the bushes when he heard footfalls on the sidewalk and a womans low laughter. He sat down behind a large grave marker it hurt his knee too much to squatand watched a couple walk up the far side of Mason Street. They were walking with their arms about each others waists, and something about their movement from one white pool of light to the next made Louis think of some old TV show. In a moment he had it The Jimmy Durante Hour. What would they do if he rose up now, a wavering shadow in this silent city of the dead, and cried hollowly across to them Goodnight, Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are! They stopped in the pool of light just beyond his car and embraced. Watching them, Louis felt a kind of sick wonder and selfloathing. Here he was, crouched behind a tombstone like a subhuman character in some cheap comicbook story, watching lovers. Is the line so thin, then? he wondered, and that thought also had a ring of familiarity. So thin you can simply step over it with this little fuss, muss, and bother? Climb a tree, shinny along a branch, drop into a graveyard, watch lovers . . . dig holes? That simple? Is it lunacy? I spent eight years becoming a doctor, but Ive become a grave robber in one simple stepwhat I suppose people would call a ghoul. He crammed his fists against his mouth to stop some sound from coming out and felt for that interior coldness, that sense of disconnection. It was there, and Louis drew it gratefully around him. When the couple finally walked on, Louis watched them with nothing but impatience. They climbed the steps of one of the apartment buildings. The man felt for a key, and a moment later they were inside. The street was silent again except for the constant beat of the wind, rustling the trees and tumbling his sweaty hair over his forehead. Louis ran down to the fence, bent low, and felt through the brush for his canvas bundle. Here it was, rough under his fingers. He picked it up, listening to the muffled clank from inside. He carried it over to the broad graveled drive that led in through the gates and paused to orient himself. Straight up here, go left at the fork. No problem. He walked along the edge of the drive, wanting to be able to go farther into the shadow of the elms if there did happen to be a fulltime caretaker and if he happened to be out. He bore left at the fork, approaching Cages grave now, and suddenly, appallingly, realized he could not remember what his son had looked like. He paused, staring off into the rows of graves, the frowning faades of the monuments, and tried to summon him up. Individual features came to himhis blond hair, still so fine and light, his slanting eyes, his small, white teeth, the little twist of scar on his chin from the time he had fallen down the back steps of their place in Chicago. He could see these things but could not integrate them into a coherent whole. He saw Gage running toward the road, running toward his appointment with the Orinco truck, but Gages face was turned away. He tried to summon up Cage as he had been in his crib on the night of the kiteflying day and could see only darkness in his minds eye. Gage, where are you? Have you ever thought, Louis, that you may not be doing your son any good service? Perhaps hes happy where he is . . . maybe all of that isnt the bullshit you always thought it was. Maybe hes with the angels or maybe hes just sleeping. And if hes sleeping, do you really know what it is you might wake up? Oh Gage, where are you? I want you home with us. But was he really controlling his own actions? Why couldnt he summon up Gages face, and why was he going against everyones warningJuds, the dream of Pascow, the trepidation of his own troubled heart? He thought of the grave markers in the Pet Sematary, those rude circles, spiraling down into the Mystery, and then the coldness came over him again. Why was he standing here, trying to summon up Gages face anyway? He would be seeing it soon enough. The headstone was here now; it read simply GAGE WILLIAM CREED, followed by the two dates. Someone had been here today to pay his or her respects, he saw; there were fresh flowers. Who would that have been? Missy Dandridge? His heart beat heavily but slowly in his chest. This was it then; if he was going to do it, he had better start. There was only so much night ahead, and then the day would come. Louis glanced into his heart one final time and saw that yes, he did intend to go ahead with this. He nodded his head almost imperceptibly and fished for his pocketknife. He had cinched his bundle with Scotch strapping tape, and now he cut it. He unrolled the tarp at the foot of Gages grave like a bedroll and then arranged items in exactly the same way he would have arranged instruments to suture a cut or to perform a small inoffice operation. Here was the flashlight with its lens felted as the hardware store clerk had suggested. The felt was also secured with strapping tape. He had made a small circle in the middle by placing a penny on the felt and cutting around it with a scalpel. Here was the shorthandled pick which he should not have to usehe had brought it only as a contingency. He would have no sealed cap to deal with, and he shouldnt run into any rocks in a newly filled grave. Here was the shovel, the spade, the length of rope, the work gloves. He put the gloves on, grabbed the spade, and started. The ground was soft, the digging easy. The graves shape was well defined, the dirt he was throwing out softer than the earth at the verge. His mind made a kind of automatic comparison between the ease of this dig and the rocky, unforgiving ground of the place where, if all went well, he would be reburying his son later on this night. Up there he would need the pick. Then he tried to stop thinking altogether. It only got in the way. He threw the dirt on the ground to the left of the grave, working into a steady rhythm that only became more difficult to maintain as the hole deepened. He stepped into the grave, smelling that dank aroma of fresh dirt, a smell he remembered from his summers with Uncle Carl. Digger, he thought and stopped to wipe sweat from his brow. Uncle Carl had told him that was the nickname for every graveyard sexton in America. Their friends called them Digger. He started in again. He stopped only once more, and that was to check his watch. It was twenty minutes past twelve. He felt time slipping through his fist like something that had been greased. Forty minutes later, the spade gritted across something, and Louiss teeth came down on his upper lip hard enough to bring blood. He got the flashlight and shone it down. Here was more dirt, and scrawled across it in a diagonal slash, a grayishsilver line. It was the top of the grave liner. Louis got most of the dirt off, but he was wary of making too much noise, and nothing was much louder than a shovel scraping across concrete in the dead of night. He climbed out of the grave and got the rope. This he threaded through the iron rings on one half of the segmented graveliner top. He got out of the grave again, spread out the tarpaulin, lay down on it, and grasped the ends of the rope. Louis, I think this is it. Your last chance. Youre right. Its my last chance and Im damned well taking it. He wound the ends of the rope around his hands and pulled. The square of concrete came up easily, gritting on the pivot end. It stood neatly upright over a square of blackness, now a vertical tombstone instead of a horizontal grave cover. Louis pulled the rope out of the rings and tossed it aside. He wouldnt need it for the other hail; he could stand on the sides of the grave liner and pull it up. He got down into the grave again, moving carefully, not wanting to overturn the cement slab he had already pulled up and mash his toes or break the damned thing, which was quite thin. Pebbles rattled down into the hole, and he heard several of them chip hollowly off Gages coffin. Bending, he grasped the other half of the graveliner top and pulled upward. As he did so, he felt something squelch coldly under his fingers. When he had this second half of the top standing on end, he looked down at his hand and saw a fat earthworm wriggling feebly there. With a choked cry of disgust, Louis wiped it off on the earthen sidewall of his sons grave. Then he shone his flashlight downward. Here was the coffin he had last seen resting on chrome runners over the grave at the funeral service, surrounded by that ghastly green Astroturf. This was the safetydeposit box in which he was supposed to bury all his hopes for his son. Fury, clean and white hot, the antithesis of his former coldness, rose up in him. Idiotic! The answer was no! Louis groped for the spade and found it. He raised it over his shoulder and brought it down on the coffins latch once, twice, a third time, a fourth. His lips were drawn back in a furious grimace. Going to break you out, Gage, see if I dont! The latch had splintered on the first stroke and probably no more were necessary, but he went on, not wanting just to open the coffin but to hurt it.