He woke up sometime after three the next morning and shuffled to the bathroom, He was standing there urinating, blinking owlishly in the bright white fluorescent bathroom light, when the discrepancy suddenly showed up in his mind, and his eyes widenedit was as if two pieces of something which should have fitted together perfectly had instead thudded against one another and rebounded. Tonight Jud had told him that his dog had died when he was tenhad died of infection after being scraped up in a snarl of rusty barbed wire. But on the latesummer day when all of them had walked up to the Pet Sematary together, Jud said that his dog had died of old age and was buried therehe had even pointed out the marker, although the years had worn the inscription away. Louis flushed the toilet, turned out the light, and went back to bed. Something else was wrong, as welland in a moment he had it. Jud had been born with the century, and that day at the Pet Sematary he had told Louis his dog had died during the first year of the Great War. That would have been when Jud was fourteen, if he had meant when the war actually started in Europe. When he was seventeen, if he had meant when America entered the war. But tonight he had said that Spot died when he, Jud, was ten. Well, hes an old man, and old men get confused in their memories, he thought uneasily. Hes said himself that hes noticed signs of increasing forgetfulnessgroping for names and addresses that used to come to him easily, sometimes getting up in the morning and having no memory of the chores he planned to do just the night before. For a man of his age, hes getting off pretty goddamned light . . . senilitys probably too strong a word for it in Juds case; forgetfulness is actually better, more accurate. Nothing too surprising about a man forgetting when a dog died some seventy years ago. Or the circumstances in which it died, for that matter. Forget it, Louis. But he wasnt able to fall asleep again right away; for a long while he lay awake, too conscious of the empty house and the wind that whined around the eaves outside it. At some point he slept without even being aware that he had gone over the edge; it must have been so, because as he slipped away, it seemed to him that he heard bare feet slowly climbing the stairs and that he thought, Let me alone, Pascow, let me alone, whats done is done and whats dead is deadand the steps faded away. And although a great many other inexplicable things happened as that year darkened, Louis was never bothered by the specter of Victor Pascow again, either waking or dreaming. 23 He awoke at nine the next morning. Bright sunshine streamed in the bedrooms east windows. The telephone was ringing. Louis reached up and snared it. Hello? Hi! Rachel said. Did I wake you up? Hope so. You woke me up, you bitch, he said, smiling. Ooooh, such nasty language, you bad old bear, she said. I tried to call you last night. Were you over at Juds? He hesitated for only the tiniest fraction of a moment. Yes, he said. Had a few beers. Norma was up at some sort of Thanksgiving supper. I thought about giving you a ring, but . . you know. They chatted awhile. Rachel updated him on her family, something he could have done without, although he took a small, mean satisfaction in the news that her fathers bald spot seemed to be expanding at a faster rate. You want to talk to Gage? Rachel asked. Louis grinned. Yeah, I guess so, he said. Dont let him hang up the phone like he did the other time. Much rattling at the other end. Dimly he heard Rachel cajoling the kid to say hi, Daddy. At last Gage said, Hi, Dayee. Hi, Gage, Louis said cheerfully. How you doing? Hows your life? Did you pull over your granddas pipe rack again? I certainly hope so. Maybe this time you can trash his stamp collection as well. Gage babbled on happily for thirty seconds or so, interspersing his gobbles and grunts with a few recognizable words from his growing vocabularymommy, Ellie, grandda, grandma, car (pronounced in the best Yankee tradition as kaaa, Louis was amused to note), twuck, and shit. At last Rachel pried the phone away from him to Gages wail of indignation and Louiss measured reliefhe loved his son and missed him like mad, but holding a conversation with a notquitetwoyearold was a little bit like trying to play cribbage with a lunatic; the cards kept going everywhere and sometimes you found yourself pegging backwards. So hows everything there? Rachel asked. Okay, Louis said, with no hesitation at all this timebut he was aware he had crossed a line, back when Rachel had asked him if he had gone over to Juds last night and he told her he had. In his mind he suddenly heard Jud Crandall saying, The soil of a mans heart is stonier, Louis . . . a man grows what he can and he tends it. Well . . . a little dull, if you want to know the Gods honest. Miss you. You actually mean to tell me youre not enjoying your vacation from this sideshow? Oh, I like the quiet, he admitted, sure. But it gets strange after the first twentyfour hours or so. Can I talk to Daddy? It was Ellie in the background. Louis? Ellies here. Okay, put her on. He talked to Ellie for almost five minutes. She prattled on about the doll Grandma had gotten her, about the trip she and Grandda had taken to the stockyards (Boy, do they stink, Daddy, Ellie said, and Louis thought, Your granddas no rose, either, sweetie), about how she had helped make bread, and about how Gage had gotten away from Rachel while she was changing him. Gage had run down the hallway and pooped right in the doorway leading into Granddas study (Atta boy, Gage! Louis thought, a big grin spreading over his face). He actually thought he was going to get awayat least for this morningand was getting ready to ask Ellie for her mother again so he could say goodbye to her when Ellie asked, Hows Church, Daddy? Does he miss me? The grin faded from Louiss mouth, but he answered readily. and with the perfect note of offhanded casualness Hes fine, I guess. I gave him the leftover beef stew last night and then put him out. Havent seen him this morning, but I just woke up. Oh boy, you would have made a great murderercool as a cucumber. Dr. Creed, when did you last see the deceased? He came in for supper. Had a plate of beef stew, in fact. I havent seen him since then. Well, give him a kiss for me. Yuck, kiss your own cat, Louis said, and Ellie giggled. You want to talk to Mommy again, Daddy? Sure. Put her on. Then it was over. He talked to Rachel for another couple of minutes; the subject of Church was not touched upon. He and his wife exchanged loveyous, and Louis hung up. Thats that, he said to the empty, sunny room, and maybe the worst thing about it was that he didnt feel bad, didnt feel guilty at all. 24 Steve Masterton called around ninethirty and asked if Louis would like to come up to the university and play some racket ballthe place was deserted, he said gleefully, and they could play the whole goddam day if they wanted to. Louis could understand the gleewhen the university was in session, the waiting list for a racket ball court was sometimes two days longbut he declined all the same, telling Steve he wanted to work on an article he was writing for The Magazine of College Medicine. You sure? Steve asked. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy, you know. Check me later, Louis said. Maybe Ill be up for it. Steve said he would and hung up. Louis had told only a halflie this time; he did plan to work on his article, which concerned itself with treating contagious ailments such as chickenpox and mononucleosis in the infirmary environment, but the main reason he had turned down Steves offer was that he was a mass of aches and pains. He had discovered this as soon as he finished talking to Rachel and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. His back muscles creaked and groaned, his shoulders were sore from lugging the cat in that damned garbage bag, and the hamstrings in back of his knees felt like guitar strings tuned three octaves past their normal pitch. Christ, he thought, and you had the stupid idea you were in some kind of shape. He would have looked cute trying to play racket ball with Steve, lumbering around like an arthritic old man. And speaking of old men, he hadnt made that hike into the woods the night before by himself; he had gone with a guy who was closing in on eightyfive. He wondered if Jud was hurting as badly as he was this morning. He spent an hour and a half working on his article, but it did not march very well. The emptiness and the silence began to get on his nerves, and at last he stacked his yellow legal pads and the offprints he had ordered from Johns Hopkins on the shelf above his typewriter, put on his parka, and crossed the road. Jud and Norma werent there, but there was an envelope tacked to the porch door with his name written across the front of it. He took it down and opened the flap with his thumb. Louis, The good wife and me are off to Bucksport to do some shopping and to look at a welsh dresser at the Emporium Galorium that Normas had her eye on for about a hundred years, it seems like. Probably well have a spot of lunch at McLeods while were there and come back in the late afternoon. Come on over for a beer or two tonight, if you want. Your family is your family. I dont want to be no buttinsky, but if Ellie were my daughter, I wouldnt rush to tell her that her cat got killed on the highwaywhy not let her enjoy her holiday? By the way, Louis, I wouldnt talk about what we did last night either, not around North Ludlow. There are other people who know about that old Micmac burying ground, and there are other people in town who have buried their animals there . . . you might say its another part of the Pet Sematary. Believe it or not, there is even a bull buried up there! Old Zack McGovern, who used to live out on Stack pole Road, buried his prize bull Hanratty in the Micmac burying ground back in 1967 or 68. Ha, ha! He told me that he and his two boys had taken that bull out there and 1 laughed until I thought 1 would rupture myself! But people around here dont like to talk about it, and they dont like people they consider to be outsiders to know about it, not because some of these old superstitions go back three hundred years or more (although they do), but because they sort of believe in those superstitions, and they think any outsider who knows that they do must be laughing at them. Does that make any sense? I suspect itdoesnt, but nevertheless thats how it is. So just do me a favor and keep shut on the subject, will you? We will talk more about this, probably tonight, and by then you will understand more, but in the meantime I want to tell you that you did yourself proud. I knew you would. Jud PSNorma doesnt know what this note saysI told her something differentand I would just as soon keep it that way if its all the same to you. I've told Norma more than one lie in the fiftyeight years weve been married, and Id guess that most men tell their wives a smart of lies, but you know, most of them could stand before God and confess them without dropping their eyes from His. Well, drop over tonight and well do a little boozing. J. Louis stood on the top step leading to Jud and Normas porch now bare, its comfortable rattan furniture stored to wait for another springfrowning over this note. Dont tell Ellie the cat had been killedhe hadnt. Other animals buried there? Superstitions going back three hundred years? . . . and by then you will understand more. He touched this line lightly with his finger, and for the first time allowed his mind to deliberately turn back to what they had done the night before. It was blurred in his memory, it had the melting, cottoncandy texture of dreams or of waking actions performed under a light haze of drugs. He could recall climbing the deadfall and the odd, brighter quality of light in the bogthat and the way it had felt ten or twenty degrees warmer therebut all of it was like the conversation you had with the anesthetist just before he or she put you out like a light. . . . and Id guess most men tell their wives a smart of lies . . . Wives and daughters as well, Louis thoughtbut it was eerie, the way Jud seemed almost to know what had transpired this morning, both on the telephone and in his own head. Slowly he refolded the note, which had been written on a sheet of lined paper like that in a schoolboys Blue Horse tablet, and put it back into the envelope. He put the envelope into his hip pocket and crossed the road again. 25 It was around one oclock that afternoon when Church came back like the cat in the nursery rhyme. Louis was in the garage, where he had been working off and on for the last six weeks on a fairly ambitious set of shelves; he wanted to put all of the dangerous garage stuff such as bottles of windshieldwiper fluid, antifreeze, and sharp tools on these shelves, where they would be out of Gages reach. He was hammering in a nail when Church strolled in, his tail high. Louis did not drop the hammer or even slam his thumbhis heart jogged in his chest but did not leap; a hot wire seemed to glow momentarily in his stomach and then cool immediately, like the filament of a light bulb that glows overbrightly for a moment and then burns out. It was as if, he told himself later, he had spent that entire sunny postThanksgiving Friday morning waiting for Church to come back; as if he had known in some deeper, more primitive part of his mind what their night hike up to the Micmac burying ground had meant all along. He put the hammer down carefully, spat the nails he had been holding in his mouth back into his palm, and then dumped them into the pockets of his workmans apron. He went to Church and picked the cat up. Live weight, he thought with a kind of sick excitement. He weighs what he did before he was hit. This is live weight. He was heavier in the bag. He was heavier when he was dead. His heart took a bigger jog this timealmost a leapand for a moment the garage seemed to swim in front of his eyes. Church laid his ears back and allowed himself to be held. Louis carried him out into the sunlight and sat down on the back steps. The cat tried to get down then, but Louis stroked him and held him on his lap. His heart seemed to be taking regular jogs now. He probed gently into the heavy ruff of fur at Churchs neck, remembering the sick, boneless way Churchs head had swiveled on his broken neck the night before. He felt nothing now but good muscle and tendon. He held Church up and looked at the cats muzzle closely. What he saw there caused him to drop the cat onto the grass quickly and to cover his face with one hand, his eyes shut. The whole world was swimming now, and his head was full of a tottery, sick vertigoit was the sort of feeling he could remember from the bitter end of long drunks, just before the puking started. There was dried blood caked on Churchs muzzle, and caught in his long whiskers were two tiny shreds of green plastic. Bits of Hefty Bag. We will talk more about this and by then you will understand more . . . Oh Christ, he understood more than he wanted to right now. Give me a chance, Louis thought, and Ill understand myself right into the nearest mental asylum. He let Church into the house, got his blue dish, and opened a tunaandliver cat dinner. As he spooned the graybrown mess out of the can, Church purred unevenly and rubbed back and forth along Louiss ankles. The feel of the cat caused Louis to break out in gooseflesh, and he had to clench his teeth grimly to keep from kicking him away. His furry sides felt somehow too slick, too thickin a word, loathsome. Louis found he didnt care if he never touched Church again. When he bent and put the dish on the floor, Church streaked past him to get it, and Louis could have sworn he smelled sour earthas if it had been ground into the cats fur. He stood back, watching the cat eat. He could hear him smackinghad Church smacked over his food that way before? Perhaps he had, and Louis had just never noticed. Either way, it was a disgusting sound. Gross, Ellie would have said. Abruptly Louis turned and went upstairs. He started at a walk, but by the time he got to the upper hallway, he was almost running. He undressed, tossing all of his clothes in the laundry hamper although he had put them on fresh from the underwear out that morning. He drew himself a hot. bath, as hot as he could take it, and plopped in. The steam rose around him, and he could feel the hot water working on his muscles, loosening them. The bath was also working on his head, loosening that. By the time the water had begun to cool, he was feeling dozy and pretty much all right again. The cat came back, just like the cat in the nursery rhyme, all right, so what, big deal. It had all been a mistake. Hadnt he thought to himself yesterday evening that Church looked remarkably whole and unmarked for an animal that had been struck by a car? Think of all the woodchucks and cats and dogs youve seen strewn all over the highway, he thought, their bodies burst, their guts everywhere. Technicolor, as Loudon Wainwright says on that record about the dead skunk. It was obvious now. Church had been struck hard and stunned. The cat he had carried up to Juds old Micmac burying ground had been unconscious, not dead. Didnt they say cats had nine lives? Thank God he hadnt said anything to Ellie! She wouldnt ever have to know how close Church had come. The blood on his mouth and ruff . . . the way his neck turned . . . But he was a doctor, not a vet. He had made a misdiagnosis that was all. It had hardly been under the best circumstances for close examination, squatting on Juds lawn in twentydegree temperatures, the light almost gone from the sky. And he had been wearing gloves. That could have A bloated, misshapen shadow rose on the tiled bathroom wall, like the head of a small dragon or of some monstrous snake; something touched his bare shoulder lightly and skidded. Louis jerked upward galvanically, splashing water out of the tub and soaking the bathmat. He turned, cringing back at the same time, and stared into the muddy yellowgreen eyes of his daughters cat, who was perched on the lowered seat of the toilet. Church was swaying slowly back and forth as if drunk. Louis watched, his body crawling with revulsion, a scream barely held back in his mouth by his clamped teeth. Church had never looked like thishad never swayed, like a snake trying to hypnotize its preynot before he was fixed and not afterward. For the first and last time he played with the idea that this was a different cat, one that just looked like Ellies, a cat that had just wandered into his garage while he was putting up those shelves, and that the real Church was still buried under that cairn on the bluff in the woods. But the markings were the same . . . and the one ragged, ear . . . and the paw that had that funny chewed look. Ellie had slammed that paw in the back door of their little suburban house when Church was little more than a kitten. It was Church, all right. Get out of here, Louis whispered hoarsely at him. Church stared at him a moment longerGod, his eyes were different, somehow they were differentand then leaped down from the toilet seat. He landed with none of the uncanny grace cats usually display. He staggered awkwardly, haunches thudding against the tub, and then he was gone. It, Louis thought. Not he; it. Remember, its been spayed. He got out of the tub and dried off quickly, jerkily. He was shaved and mostly dressed when the phone rang, shrill in the empty house. When it sounded, Louis whirled, eyes wide, hands going up. He lowered them slowly. His heart was racing. His muscles felt full of adrenaline. It was Steve Masterton, checking back about racket ball, and Louis agreed to meet him at the Memorial Gym in an hour. He could not really afford the time, and racket ball was the last thing in the world he felt like right now, but he had to get out. He wanted to get away from the cat, that weird cat which had no business being here at all. He hurried, tucking in his shirt quickly, stuffing a pair of shorts, a tshirt, and a towel into his zipper bag, and trotting down the stairs. Church was lying on the fourth riser from the bottom. Louis tripped over the cat and almost fell. He managed to grab the bannister and barely save himself from what could have been a nasty fall. He stood at the bottom of the stairs, breathing in snatches, his heart racing, the adrenaline whipping unpleasantly through his body. Church stood up, stretched . . . and seemed to grin at him. Louis left. He should have put the cat out, he knew that, but he didnt. At that particular moment he didnt think he could bring himself to touch it. 26 Jud lit a cigarette with a wooden kitchen match, shook it out, and tossed the stub into a tin ashtray with a barely readable Jim Beam advertisement painted on its bottom. Ayuh, it was Stanley Bouchard who told me about the place. He paused, thinking. Barely touched glasses of beer stood before them on the checked oilcloth that covered the kitchen table. Behind them, the barrel of range oil clamped to the wall gurgled three times, deliberately, and was still. Louis had caught a pickup supper with Stevesubmarine sandwiches in the mostly deserted Bears Den. He had found out early that if you asked for a hoagie or a grinder or a gyro in Maine, they didnt know what you were talking about. Ask for a sub or a Wopburger, and you were in business. With some food in him, Louis began to feel better about Churchs return, felt that he had things more in perspective, but he was still not anxious to return to his dark, empty house where the cat could belets face it, ganganywhere at all. Norma sat with them for quite a while, watching TV and working on a sampler that showed the sun going down behind a small county meeting house. The cross on the roof tree was silhouetted black against the setting sun. Something to sell, she said, at the church sale the week before Christmas. Always a big event. Her fingers moved well, pushing the needle through the cloth, pulling it up through the steel circle. Her arthritis was barely noticeable tonight. Louis supposed it might be the weather, which had been cold but very dry. She had recovered nicely from her heart attack, and on that evening less than ten weeks before a cerebral accident would kill her, he thought that she looked less haggard and actually younger. On that evening he could see the girl she had been. At a quarter to ten she said goodnight, and now he sat here with Jud, who had ceased speaking and seemed only to be following his cigarette smoke up and up, like a kid watching a barber pole to see where the stripes go. Stanny B., Louis prompted gently. Jud blinked and seemed to come back to himself. Oh, ayuh, he said. Everyone in Ludlowround Bucksport and Prospect and Orrington too, I guessjust called him Stanny B. That year my dog Spot died1910 I mean, the first time he diedStanny was already an old man and more than a little crazy. There was others around these parts that knew the Micmac burying ground was there, but it was Stanny B. I heard it from, and he knew about it from his father and his father before him. A whole family of proper Canucks, they were. Jud laughed and sipped his beer. I can still hear him talking in that broken English of his. He found me sitting behind the livery stable that used to stand on Route 15except it was just the BangorBucksport Road back thenright about where the Orinco plant is now. Spot wasnt dead but he was going, and my dad sent me away to check on some chickenfeed, which old Yorky sold back then. We didnt need chickenfeed any more than a cow needs a blackboard, and I knew well enough why he sent me down there. He was going to kill the dog? He knew how tenderly I felt about Spot, so he sent me away while he did it. I saw about the chickenfeed, and while old Yorky set it out for me I went around back and sat down on the old grindstone that used to be there and just bawled. Jud shook his head slowly and gently, still smiling a little. And along comes old Stanny B., he said. Half the people in town thought he was soft, and the other half thought he might be dangerous. His grandfather was a big fur trapper and trader in the early 1800s. Stannys grandda would go all the way from the Maritimes to Bangor and Derry, sometimes as far south as Skowhegan to buy pelts, or so Ive heard. He drove a big wagon covered with rawhide strips like something out of a medicine show. He had crosses all over it, for he was a proper Christian and would preach on the Resurrection when he was drunk enough this is what Stanny said, he loved to talk about his granddabut he had pagan Indian signs all over it as well because he believed that all Indians, no matter what the tribe, belonged to one big tribethat lost one of Israel the Bible talks about. He said he believed all Indians were hellbound, but that their magic worked because they were Christians all the same, in some queer, damned way. Stannys grandda bought from the Micmacs and did a good business with them long after most of the other trappers and traders had given up or gone west because he traded with them at a fair price and because, Stanny said, he knew the whole Bible by heart, and the Micmacs liked to hear him speak the words the blackrobes had spoken to them in the years before the buckskin men and woodsmen came. He fell silent. Louis waited. The Micmacs told Stanny B.s grandda about the burying ground which they didnt use anymore because the Wendigo had soured the ground, and about Little God Swamp, and the steps, and all the rest. The Wendigo story, now, that was something you could hear in those days all over the north country. It was a story they had to have, the same way I guess we have to have some of our Christian stories. Norma would damn me for a profaner if she heard me say that, but Louis, its true. Sometimes, if the winter was long and hard and the food was short, there were north country Indians who would finally get down to the bad place where it was starve or . . . or do something else. Cannibalism? Jud shrugged. Maybe. Maybe theyd pick out someone who was old and used up, and then there would be stew for a while. And the story they worked out would be that the Wendigo had walked through their village or encampment while they were sleepin and touched them. And the Wendigo was supposed to give those it touched a taste for the flesh of their own kind. Louis nodded. Saying the devil made them do it. Sure. My own guess is that the Micmacs around here had to do it at some point and that they buried the bones of whoever they ateone or two, maybe even ten or a dozenup there in their burying ground. And then decided the ground had gone sour, Louis muttered. So heres Stanny B., come out in back of the livery to get his jug, I guess, Jud said, already halfcrocked, he was. His grandfather was worth maybe a million dollars when he diedor so people saidand Stanny B. was nothing but the local ragman. He asked me what was wrong, and I told him. He saw Id been bawling, and he told me there was a way it could be fixed up, if I was brave and sure I wanted it fixed up. I said Id give anything to have Spot well again, and I asked him if he knew a vet that could do it. Dont know no vet, me, Stanny said, but I know how to fix your dog, boy. You go home now and tell your dad to put that dog in a grain sack, but you aint gonna bury him, no! You gonna drag him up to the Pet Sematary and you gonna put him in the shade by that big deadfall. Then you gonna come back and say its done. I asked him what good that would do, and Stanny told me to stay awake that night and come out when he threw a stone against my window. And it be midnight, boy, so if you forget Stanny B. and go to sleep, Stanny B. gonna forget you, and its goodbye dog, let him go straight to Hell! Jud looked at Louis and lit another cigarette. It went just the way Stanny set it up. When I got back, my dad said hed put a bullet in Spots head to spare him any more suffering. I didnt even have to say anything about the Pet Sematary; my dad asked me if I didnt think Spot would want me to bury him up there, and I said I guessed he would. So off I went, dragging my dog in a grain sack. My dad asked me if I wanted help, and I said no because I remembered what Stanny B. said. I laid awake that nightforever, seemed like. You know how time is for kids. It would seem to me I must have stayed awake right around until morning, and then the clock would only chime ten or eleven. A couple of times I almost nodded off, but each time I snapped wide awake again. It was almost as if someone had shaken me and said, Wake up, Jud! Wake up! Like something wanted to make sure I stayed awake. Louis raised his eyebrows at that, and Jud shrugged. When the clock in the downstairs hall chimed twelve, I got right up and sat there dressed on my bed with the moon shinin in the window. Next I know, the clock is chimin the halfhour, then one oclock, and still no Stanny B. Hes forgot all about me, that dumb Frenchman, I think to myself, and Im gettin ready to take my clothes off again when these two pebbles whap off the window, damn near hard enough to break the glass. One of them did put a crack in a pane, but I never noticed it until the next morning, and my mother didnt see it until the next winter, and by then she thought the frost done it. I just about flew across to that window and heaved it up. It grated and rumbled against the frame, the way they only seem to do when youre a kid and you want to get out after midnight Louis laughed, even though he could not remember ever having wanted to get out of the house at some dark hour when he was a boy of ten. Still, if he had wanted to, he was sure that windows which had never creaked in the daytime would creak then. I figured my folks must have thought burglars were trying to break in, but when my heart quieted down I could hear my dad still sawin wood in the bedroom on the first floor. I looked out and there was Stanny B., standin in our driveway and lookin up, swayin like there was a high wind when there wasnt so much as a puff of breeze. I dont think he ever would have come, Louis, except that hed gotten to that stage of drunkenness where youre as wide awake as an owl with diarrhea and you just dont give a care about anything. And he sort of yells up at meonly I guess he thought he was whisperingYou comin down, boy, or am I comin up to get you? Shh! I says, scared to death now that my dad will wake up and give me the whopping of my young life. Whatd you say? Stanny says, even louder than before. If my parents had been around on the road side of this house, Louis, I would have been a goner. But they had the bedroom that belongs to Norma and me now, with the river view. I bet you got down those stairs in one hell of a hurry, Louis said. Have you got another beer, Jud? He was already two past his usual limit, but tonight that seemed okay. Tonight that seemed almost mandatory. I do, and you know where theyre kept, Jud said and lit a fresh smoke. He waited until Louis was seated again. No, I wouldnt have dared to try the stairs. They went past my parents bedroom. I went down the ivy trellis, hand over hand, just as quick as I could. I was some scared, I can tell you, but I think I was more scared of my dad just then than I was of going up to the Pet Sematary with Stanny B. He crushed out his smoke. We went up there, the two of us, and I guess Stanny B. must have fallen down half a dozen times if he fell down once. He was really far gone; smelled like hed fallen into a vat of corn. One time he damn near put a stick through his throat. But he had a pick and shovel with him. When we got to the Pet Sematary, I kind of expected hed sling me the pick and shovel and just pass out while I dug the hole.


Instead he seemed to sober up a little. He told me we was goin on, up over the deadfall and deeper into the woods, where there was another burial place. I looked at Stanny, who was so drunk he could barely keep his feet, and I looked at that deadfall, and I said, You cant climb that, Stanny B., youll break your neck. And he said, I aint gonna break my neck, me, and neither are you. I can walk and you can lug your dog. And he was right. He sailed up over that deadfall just as smooth as silk, never even looking down, and I lugged Spot all the way up there, although he must have weighed thirtyfive pounds or so and I only went about ninety myself. I want to tell you, though, Louis, I was some sore and sprung the next day. How do you feel today? Louis didnt answer, only nodded. We walked and we walked, Jud said. It seemed to me we was gonna walk forever. The woods were spookier in those days. More birds calling from the trees, and you didnt know what any of em was. Animals moving around out there. Deer, most likely, but back then there were moose too and bears and catamounts. I dragged Spot. After a while I started to get the funny idea that old Stanny B. was gone and I was following an Indian. Following an Indian and somewhere farther along hed turn around, all grinning and blackeyed, his face streaked up with that stinking paint they made from bearfat; that hed have a tommyhawk made out of a wedge of slate and a hake of ashwood all tied together with rawhide, and hed grab me by the back of the neck and whack off my hairalong with the top of my skull. Stanny wasnt staggerin or fallin anymore; he just walked straight and easy, with his head up, and that sort of helped to feed the idea. But when we got to the edge of the Little God Swamp and he turned around to talk to me, I seen it was Stanny, all right, and the reason he wasnt staggerin or fallin anymore was because he was scared. Scairt himself sober, he did. He told me the same things I told you last nightabout the loons, and the St. Elmos fire, and how I wasnt to take any notice of anything I saw or heard. Most of all, he said, dont speak to anything if it should speak to you. Then we started across the swamp. And I did see something. I aint going to tell you what, only that Ive been up there maybe five times since that time when I was ten, and Ive never seen anything like it again. Nor will I, Louis, because my trip to the Micmac burial place last night was my last trip. Im not sitting here believing all of this, am I? Louis asked himself almost conversationallythe three beers helped him to sound conversational, at least to his own minds ear. I am not sitting here believing this story of old Frenchmen and Indian burying grounds and something called the Wendigo and pets that come back to life, am I? For Christs sake, the cat was stunned, thats all, a car hit it and stunned itno big deal. This is a senile old mans maunderings. Except that it wasnt, and Louis knew it wasnt, and three beers wasnt going to cure that knowing, and thirtythree beers wouldnt. Church had been dead, that was one thing; he was alive now and that was another; there was something fundamentally different, fundamentally wrong about him, and that was a third. Something had happened. Jud had repaid what he saw as a favor . . . but the medicine available at the Micmac burying ground was perhaps not such good medicine, and Louis now saw something in Juds eyes that told him the old man knew it. Louis thought of what he had seenor thought he had seenin Juds eyes the night before. That capering, gleeful thing. He remembered thinking that Juds decision to take Louis and Ellies cat on that particular night journey had not entirely been Juds own. If not his, then whose? his mind asked. And because he had no answer, Louis swept the uncomfortable question away. I buried Spot and built the cairn, Jud went on flatly, and by the time I was done, Stanny B. was fast asleep. I had to shake the hell out of him to get him going again, but by the time we got down those fortyfour stairs Fortyfive, Louis murmured. Jud nodded. Yeah, thats right, aint it? Fortyfive. By the time we got down those fortyfive stairs, he was walking as steady as if he was sober again. We went back through the swamp and the woods and over the deadfall, and finally we crossed the road and we was at my house again. It seemed to me like ten hours must have gone past, but it was still full dark. What happens now? I ask Stanny B. Now you wait and see what may happen, Stanny says, and off he walks, staggering and lurching again. I imagine he slept out in back of the livery that night, and as things turned out, my dog Spot outlived Stanny B. by two years. His liver went bad and poisoned him, and two little kids found him in the road on July 4, 1912, stiff as a poker. But me, that night, I just climbed back up the ivy and got into bed and fell asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow. Next morning 1 didnt get up until almost nine oclock, and then my mother was calling me. My dad worked on the railroad, and he would have been gone since six. Jud paused, thinking. My mother wasnt just calling me, Louis. She was screaming for me. Jud went to the fridge, got himself a Millers, and opened it on the drawer handle below the breadbox and toaster. His face looked yellow in the overhead light, the color of nicotine. He drained half his beer, uttered a belch like a gunshot, and then glanced down the hail toward the room where Norma slept. He looked back at Louis. This is hard for me to talk about, he said. I have turned it over in my mind, years and years, but Ive never told anyone about it. Others knew what had happened, but they never talked to me about it. The way it is about sex, I guess. Im telling you, Louis, because youve got a different kind of pet now. Not necessarily a dangerous one, but . . . different. Do you find thats true? Louis thought of Church jumping awkwardly off the toilet seat, his haunches thudding against the side of the tub; he thought of those muddy eyes that were almost but not quite stupid staring into his own. At last he nodded. When I got downstairs, my mother was backed into a corner in the pantry between our icebox and one of the counters. There was a bunch of white stuff on the floorcurtains shed been meaning to hang. Standing in the doorway of the pantry was Spot, my dog. There was dirt all over him and mud splashed clear up his legs. The fur on his belly was filthy, all knotted and snarled. He was just standing therenot growling or nothing just standing there, but it was pretty clear that he had backed her into a corner, whether he meant to or not. She was in terror, Louis. I dont know how you felt about your parents, but I know how I felt about mineI loved them both dearly. Knowing Id done something to put my own mother in terror took away any joy I might have felt when I saw Spot standing there. I didnt even seem to feel surprised that he was there. I know the feeling, Louis said. When I saw Church this morning, I just . . . it seemed like something that was He paused a moment. Perfectly natural? Those were the words that came immediately to mind, but they were not the right words. Like something that was meant. Yes, Jud said. He lit a fresh cigarette. His hands were shaking the smallest bit. And my mother seen me there, still in my underwear, and she screamed at me, Feed your dog, Jud! Your dog needs to be fed, get him out of here before he messes the curtains! So I found him some scraps and called him, and at first he didnt come, at first it was like he didnt know his own name, and I almost thought, well, this aint Spot at all, its some stray that looks like Spot, thats all Yes! Louis exclaimed. Jud nodded. But the second or third time I called him, he came. He sort of jerked toward me, and when I led him out onto the porch, damned if he didnt run right into the side of the door and just about fall over. He ate the scraps though, just wolfed them down. By then I was over my first fright and was starting to get an idea of what had happened. I got on my knees and hugged him, I was so glad to see him. Then he licked my face, and . . . Jud shuddered and finished his beer. Louis, his tongue was cold. Being licked by Spot was like getting rubbed up the side of your face with a dead carp. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Louis said, Go on. He ate, and when he was done, I got an old tub we kept for him out from under the back porch, and I gave him a bath. Spot always hated to have a bath; usually it took both me and my dad to do it, and wed end up with our shirts off and our pants soaked, my dad cussing and Spot looking sort of ashamedthe way dogs do. And more likely than not hed roll around in the dirt right after and then go over by my mothers clothesline to shake off and put dirt all over the sheets she had hung and shed scream at both of us that she was going to shoot that dog for a stranger before she got much older. But that day Spot just sat in the tub and let me wash him. He never moved at all. I didnt like it. It was like . . . like washing meat. I got an old piece of towel after I gave him his bath and dried him all off. I could see the places where the barbed wire had hooked himthere was no fur in any of those places, and the flesh looked dimpled in. It is the way an old wound looks after its been healed five years and more. Louis nodded. In his line of work, he had seen such things from time to time. The wound never seemed to fill in completely, and that made him think of graves and his days as an undertaker's apprentice, and how there was never enough dirt to fill them in again. Then I saw his head. There was another of those dimples there, but the fur had grown back white in a little circle. It was near his ear. Where your father shot him, Louis said. Jud nodded. Shooting a man or an animal in the head isnt as surefire as it sounds, Jud. There are wouldbe suicides in vegetable wards or even walking around right as rain who didnt know that a bullet can strike the skull plate and travel right around it in a semicircle, exiting the other side without ever penetrating the brain. I personally saw one case where a fellow shot himself above the right ear and died because the bullet went around his head and tore open his jugular vein on the other side of his head. That bullet path looked like a county roadmap. Jud smiled and nodded. I remember reading somethin like that in one of Normas newspapers, the Star or the Enquirerone of those. But if my pop said Spot was gone, Louis, he was gone. All right, Louis said. If you say thats how it was, that is how it was. Was your daughters cat gone? I sure thought it was, Louis said. You got to do better than that. Youre a doctor. You make it sound like You got to do better than that, Louis, youre God. Im not God. It was dark Sure, it was dark, and his head swiveled on his neck like it was full of ball bearings, and when you moved him, he pulled out of the frost, Louissounded like a piece of sticky tape comin off a letter. Live things dont do that. You only stop meltin the frost under where youre layin when youre dead. In the other room, the clock struck tenthirty. What did your father say when he came home and saw the dog? Louis asked. I was out in the driveway, shooting marbles in the dirt, more or less waitin for him. I felt like I always felt when Id done something wrong and knew I was probably gonna get a spankin. He come in through the gateposts about eight oclock, wearin his bib overalls and his pillowtick cap . . . you ever seen one of those? Louis nodded, then stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. Yeah, gettin late, Jud said. Got to finish this up. Its not that late, Louis said. Im just a few beers ahead of my usual pace. Go on, Jud. Take your time. I want to hear this. My dad had an old lard tin he kept his dinner in, Jud said, and he come in through the gate swingin it, empty, by the handle, you know. Whisflin somethin. It was gettin dark, but he seen me there in the gloom and he says, Hi there, Judkins! like he would do, and then, Wheres your He got that far, and then here comes Spot out of the dark, not runnin like he usually did, ready to jump all over him he was so glad to see him, but just walkin, waggin his tail, and my dad dropped that lard bucket and stepped back. I dont know bwhat he would have turned tail and run except his back hit the picket fence and then he just stood there, looking at the dog. And when Spot did jump up, Dad just caught his paws and held them, like you might hold a ladys hands you was gettin ready to dance with. He looked at the dog for a long time and then he looked at me, and he said, He needs a bath, Jud. He stinks of the ground you buried him in. And then he went in the house. What did you do? Louis asked. Gave him another bath. He just sat there in the tub and took it again. And when I went in the house, my mother had gone to bed, even though it wasnt even nine oclock. My dad said, We got to talk, Judkins. And I set down across from him, and he talked to me like a man for the first time in my life with the smell of the honeysuckle coming across the road from whats your house now and the smell of the wild roses from our own house. Jud Crandall sighed. I had always thought it would be good to have him talk to me that way, but it wasnt. It wasnt a bit good. All this tonight, Louisits like when you look into a mirror thats been set up right across from another mirror, and you can see yourself going down a whole hail of mirrors. How many times has this story been passed along, I wonder? A story thats just the same, except for the names? And thats like the sex thing too, isnt it? Your dad knew all about it. Ayuh. Who took you up there, Jud? he asked me, and I told him. He just nodded like it was what he would have expected. I guess it probly was, although I found out later that there were six or eight people in Ludlow at that time that could have taken me up there. I guess he knew that Stanny B. was the only one crazy enough to have actually done it. Did you ask him why he didnt take you, Jud? I did, Jud said. Somewhere during that long talk I did ask him that. And he said it was a bad place, by and large, and that it didnt often do anything good for people who had lost their animals or for the animals themselves. He asked me if I liked Spot the way he was, and do you know, Louis, I had the hardest time answering that. . and its important that I tell you my feelings on that, because sooner or later youre going to ask me why I led you up there with your daughters cat if it was a bad thing to do. Isnt that so? Louis nodded. What was Ellie going to think about Church when she got back? That had been much on his mind while he and Steve Masterton had been playing racket ball that afternoon. Maybe I did it because kids need to know that sometimes dead is better, Jud said with some difficulty. Thats somethin your Ellie dont know, and I got a feelin that maybe she dont know because your wife dont know. Now, you go ahead and tell me if Im wrong, and well leave it. Louis opened his mouth and then closed it again. Jud went on, now speaking very slowly, appearing to move from word to word as they had moved from hummock to hummock in Little God Swamp the night before. Ive seen it happen over the years, he said. I guess I told you that Lester Morgan buried his prize bull up there. Black Angus named Hanratty. Aint that a silly name for a bull? Died of some sort of ulcer inside, and Lester dragged him all the way up there on a sledge. How he did ithow he got over the deadfall there I dunnobut its said that what you want to do, you can. And at least as far as that burying ground goes, Id say its true. Well, Hanratty came back, but Lester shot him dead two weeks later. That bull turned mean, really mean. But hes the only animal I ever heard of that did. Most of them just seem . . . a little stupid . . . a little slow . . . a little . . . A little dead? Yeah, Jud said. A little dead. Like they had been . . . somewhere . . . and came back . . . but not all the way. Now, your daughter isnt going to know that, Louis. Not that her cat was hit by a car, and killed, and came back. So you could say you cant teach a child a lesson unless the child knows theres a lesson to be learned. Except . . Except sometimes you can, Louis said, more to himself than to Jud. Yes, Jud agreed, sometimes you can. Maybe shell learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life, but the end of pain. You dont tell her those things; she will figure them out on her own. And if shes anything like me, shell go on loving her pet. It wont turn vicious, or bite, or anything like that. Shell go on loving it . . . but shell draw her own conclusions . . . and shell breathe a sigh of relief when it finally dies. Thats why you took me up there, Louis said. He felt better now. He had an explanation. It was diffuse, it relied more upon the logic of the nerve endings than the logic of the rational mind, but under the circumstances, he found he could accept that. And it meant he could forget the expression he thought he had seen on Juds face briefly last nightthat dark, capering glee. Okay, thats Abruptly, almost shockingly, Jud covered his face with both hands. For one moment Louis thought he had been struck by a sudden pain, and he halfrose, concerned, until he saw the convulsive heave of the chest and realized that the old man was struggling not to cry. Thats why, but it aint why, he said in a strangled, choked voice. I did it for the same reason Stanny B. did it and for the same reason Lester Morgan did it. Lester took Linda Lavesque up there after her dog got run over in the road. He took her up there even though he had to put his goddam bull out of its misery for chasing kids through its pasture like it was mad. He did it anyway, he did it anyway, Louis, Jud almost moaned, and what the Christ do you make of that! Jud, what are you talking about? Louis asked, alarmed. Lester did it and Stanny did it for the same reason I did it. You do it because it gets hold of you. You do it because that burial place is a secret place, and you want to share the secret, and when you find a reason that seems good enough, why . . . Jud took his hands away from his face and looked at Louis with eyes that seemed incredibly ancient, incredibly haggard. Why then you just go ahead and do it. You make up reasons . . . they seem like good reasons . . . but mostly you do it because you want to. Or because you have to. My dad, he didnt take me up there because hed heard about it but hed never been. Stanny B. had been up there . . . and he took me . . . and seventy years go by . . . and then . . . all at once . . . Jud shook his head and coughed dryly into the palm of his hand. Listen, he said. Listen, Louis. Lesters bull was the only damn animal I ever knew of that turned really mean. I blieve that Missus Lavesques little chow might have bit the postman once, after, and I heard a few other things . . . animals that got a little nasty . . but Spot was always a good dog. He always smelled like dirt, it didnt matter how many times you washed him, he always smelled like dirtbut he was a good dog. My mother would never touch him afterward, but he was a good dog just the same. But Louis, if you was to take your cat out tonight and kill it, I would never say a word. That place . . . all at once it gets hold of you . . . and you make up the sweetestsmelling reasons in the world . . . but I could have been wrong, Louis. That's all Im saying. Lester could have been wrong. Stanny B. could have been wrong. Hell, I aint God either. But bringing the dead back to life . . . thats about as close to playing God as you can get, aint it? Louis opened his mouth again, then closed it again. What would have come out would have sounded wrong, wrong and cruel Jud, I didnt go through all that just to kill the damn cat again. Jud drained his beer and then put it carefully aside with the other empties. I guess thats it, he said. I am talked out. Can I ask you one other question? Louis asked. I guess so, Jud said. Louis said Has anyone ever buried a person up there? Juds arm jerked convulsively; two of the beer bottles fell off the table, and one of them shattered. Christ on His throne, he said to Louis. No! And who ever would? You dont even want to talk about such things, Louis! I was just curious, Louis said uneasily. Some things it dont pay to be curious about, Jud Crandall said, and for the first time he looked really old and infirm to Louis Creed, as if he were standing somewhere in the neighborhood of his own freshly prepared grave. And later, at home, something else occurred to him about how Jud had looked at that moment. He had looked like he was lying. 27 Louis didnt really know he was drunk until he got back in his own garage. Outside there was starlight and a chilly rind of moon. Not enough light to cast a shadow, but enough to see by. Once he got in the garage, he was blind. There was a light switch somewhere, but he was damned if he could remember anymore just where it was. He felt his way along slowly, shuffling his feet, his head swimming, anticipating a painful crack on the knee or a toy that he would stumble over, frightening himself with its crash, perhaps falling over himself. Ellies little Schwinn with its red training wheels. Gages CrawlyGator. Where was the eat? Had he left him in? Somehow he sailed off course and ran into the wall. A splinter whispered into one palm and he cried out Shit! to the darkness, realizing after the word was out that it sounded more seared than mad. The whole garage seemed to have taken a stealthy halfturn. Now it wasnt just the light switch; now he didnt know where the fuck anything was, and that included the door into the kitchen. He began walking again, moving slowly, his palm stinging. This is what it would be like to be blind, he thought, and that made him think of a Stevie Wonder concert he and Rachel had gone towhen? Six years ago? As impossible as it seemed, it had to be. She had been pregnant with Ellie then. Two guys had led Wonder to his synthesizer, guiding him over the cables that snaked across the stage so he wouldnt stumble. And later, when he had gotten up to dance with one of the backup singers, she had led him carefully to a clear place on the floor. He had danced well, Louis remembered thinking. He had danced well, but he had needed a hand to lead him to the space where he could do it. How about a hand right now to lead me to my kitchen door? he thought . . . and abruptly shuddered. If a hand came out of the darkness now to lead him, how he would screamscream and scream and scream. He stood still, heart thudding. Come on, he told himself. Stop this shit, come on, come on Where was that fucking cat? Then he did slam into something, the rear bumper of the station wagon, and the pain sang up his body from his barked shin, making his eyes water. He grabbed his leg and rubbed it, standing onelegged like a heron, but at least he knew where he was now, the geography of the garage fixed firmly in his mind again, and besides, his night vision was coming, good old visual purple. He had left the cat in, he remembered that now, hadnt really wanted to touch it, to pick it up and put it out and And that was when Churchs hot, furry body oiled against his ankle like a low eddy of water, followed by its loathsome tail, curling against his calf like a clutching snake, and then Louis did scream; he opened his mouth wide and screamed. 28 Daddy! Ellie screamed. She ran up the jet way toward him, weaving in and out between deplaning passengers like a quarterback on a keeper play. Most of them stood aside, grinning. Louis was a little embarrassed by her ardor, but he felt a large, stupid grin spreading across his own face just the same. Rachel was carrying Gage in her arms, and he saw Louis when Ellie shouted. Dayeee! he yelled exuberantly and began to wriggle in Rachels arms. She smiled (a trifle wearily, Louis thought) and set him on his feet. He began to run after Ellie, his legs pumping busily. Dayeee! Dayeee! Louis had time to notice that Gage was wearing a jumper he had never seen beforeit looked like more of Granddas work to Louis. Then Ellie hurtled into him and shinnied up him like a tree. Hi, Daddy! she bellowed and smacked his cheek heartily. Hi, hon, he said and bent over to catch Gage. He pulled him up into the crook of his arm and hugged them both. Im glad to see you back. Rachel came up then, her traveling bag and pocketbook slung over one arm, Gages diaper bag slung over the other. ILL BE A BIG BOY SOON was printed on the side of the diaper bag, a sentiment probably meant more to cheer up the parents than the diaperwearing child. She looked like a professional photographer at the end of a long, grueling assignment. Louis bent between his two kids and planted a kiss on her mouth. Hi. Hi, Doe, she said, and smiled. You look beat. I am beat. We got as far as Boston with no problem. We changed planes with no problem. We took off with no problem. But as the plane is banking over the city, Gage looks down and says, Pretty, pretty, and then whoopses all over himself. Oh, Jesus. I got him changed in the toilet, she said. I dont think its a virus or anything. He was just airsick. Come on home, Louis said. Ive got chili on the stove. Chili! Chili! Ellie screamed in Louiss ear, transported with delight and excitement. Chiwwi! Chiwwi! Gage screamed in Louiss other ear, which at least equalized the ringing. on, Louis said. Lets get your suitcases and blow this joint. Daddy, hows Church? Ellie asked as he set her down. It was a question Louis had expected, but not Ellies anxious face, and the deep worry line that appeared between her dark blue eyes. Louis frowned and then glanced at Rachel. She woke up screaming over the weekend, Rachel said quietly. She had a nightmare. I dreamed that Church got run over, Ellie said. Too many turkey sandwiches after the big day, thats my guess, Rachel said. She had a bout of diarrhea too. Set her mind at rest, Louis, and lets get out of this airport. Ive seen enough airports in the last week to last me for at least five years. Why, Church is fine, honey, Louis said slowly. Yes, hes fine. He lies around the house all day long and looks at me with those strange, muddy eyesas if hed seen something that had blasted away most of whatever intelligence a cat has. Hes just great. I put him out with a broom at night because I dont like to touch him. I just kind of sweep at him with it and he goes. And the other day when I opened the door, Ellie, he had a mouseor what was left of it. Hed strewed the guts hell to breakfast. And speaking of breakfast, I skipped mine that morning. Otherwise Hes just fine. Oh, Ellie said, and that furrow between her eyes smoothed out. Oh, thats good. When I had that dream, I was sure he was dead. Were you? Louis asked, and smiled. Dreams are funny, arent they? Dweems!" Cage holleredhe had reached the parrot stage that Louis remembered from Ellies development. Dweeeeeems! He gave Louiss hair a hearty tug. Come on, gang, Louis said, and they started down to the baggage area. They had gotten as far as the station wagon in the parking lot when Gage began saying Pretty, pretty, in a strange, hiccupping voice. This time he whoopsed all over Louis, who had put on a new pair of doubleknit slacks for the planemeeting occasion. Apparently Gage thought pretty was the code word for Ive got to throw up now, so sorry, stand clear. It turned out to be a virus after all. By the time they had driven the seventeen miles from the Bangor airport to their house in Ludlow, Gage had begun to show signs of fever and had fallen into an uncomfortable doze. Louis backed into the garage, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Church slink along one wall, tail up, strange eyes fixed on the car. It disappeared into the dying glow of the day, and a moment later Louis saw a disemboweled mouse lying beside a stack of four summer tireshe had had the snows put on while Rachel and the kids were gone. The mouses innards glowed pink and raw in the garages gloom. Louis got out quickly and purposely bumped against the pile of tires, which were stacked up like black checkers. The top two fell over and covered the mouse. Ooops, he said. Youre a spaz, Daddy, Ellie said, not unkindly. Thats right, Louis said with a kind of hectic cheer. He felt a little like saying Pretty, pretty and blowing his groceries all over everything. Daddys a spaz. He could remember Church killing only a single rat before his queer resurrection; he sometimes cornered mice and played with them in that deadly cat way that ultimately ended in destruction, but he or Ellie or Rachel had always intervened before the end. And once cats were fixed, he knew, few of them would do more than give a mouse an interested stare, at least as long as they were wellfed. Are you going to stand there dreaming or help me with this kid? Rachel asked. Come back from Planet Mongo, Dr. Creed. Earth people need you. She sounded tired and irritable. Im sorry, babe, Louis said. He came around to get Gage, who was now as hot as the coals in a banked stove. So only the three of them ate Louiss famous South Side Chili that night; Gage reclined on the living room sofa, feverish and apathetic, drinking a bottle filled with lukewarm chicken broth and watching a cartoon show on TV. After dinner Ellie went to the garage door and called Church. Louis, who was doing the dishes while Rachel unpacked upstairs, hoped the cat wouldnt come, but he didhe came in walking in his new slow lurch, and he came almost at once, as if heas if it had been lurking out there. Lurking. The word came immediately to mind. Church! Ellie cried. Hi, Church! She picked the cat up and hugged it. Louis watched out of the corner of his eye; his hands, which had been groping on the bottom of the sink for any leftover silverware, were still. He saw Ellies happy face change slowly to puzzlement. The cat lay quiet in her arms, its ears laid back, its eyes on hers. After a long momentit seemed very long to Louisshe put Church down. The cat padded away toward the dining room without looking back. Executioner of small mice, Louis thought randomly. Christ, what did we do that night? He tried honestly to remember, but it already seemed far away, dim and distant, like the messy death of Victor Pascow on the floor of the infirmarys reception room. He could remember carriages of wind passing in the sky and the white glimmer of snow in the back field which rose to the woods. That was all. Daddy? Ellie said in a low, subdued voice. What, Ellie? Church smells funny. Does he? Louis asked, his voice carefully neutral. Yes! Ellie said, distressed. Yes, he does! He never smelled funny before! He smells like . . . he smells like kaka! Well, maybe he rolled in something bad, honey, Louis said. Whatever that bad smell is, hell lose it. I certainly hope so, Ellie said in a comical dowagers voice. She walked off. Louis found the last fork, washed it, and pulled the plug. He stood at the sink, looking out into the night while the soapy water ran down the drain with a thick chuckling sound. When the sound from the drain was gone he could hear the wind outside, thin and wild, coming from the north, bringing down winter, and he realized he was afraid, simply, stupidly afraid, the way you are afraid when a cloud suddenly sails across the sun and somewhere you hear a ticking sound you cant account for. A hundred and three? Rachel asked. Jesus, Lou! Are you sure? Its a virus, Louis said. He tried not to let Rachels voice, which seemed almost accusatory, grate on him. She was tired. It had been a long day for her; she had crossed half the country with her kids today.


Here it was eleven oclock, and the day wasnt over yet. Ellie was deeply asleep in her room. Gage was on their bed in a state that could best be described as semiconscious. Louis had started him on Liquiprin an hour ago. The aspirin will bring his fever down by morning, hon. Arent you going to give him ampicillin or anything? Patiently, Louis said, If he had the flu or a strep infection, I would. He doesnt. Hes got a virus, and that stuff doesnt do doodlysquat for viruses. It would just give him the runs and dehydrate him more. Are you sure its a virus? Well, if you want a second opinion, Louis snapped, be my guest. You dont have to shout at me! Rachel shouted. I wasnt shouting! Louis shouted back. You were, Rachel began, you were shuhshuhshouting And then her mouth began to quiver and she put a hand up to her face. Louis saw there were deep graybrown pockets under her eyes and felt badly ashamed of himself. Im sorry, he said, and sat down beside her. Christ, I dont know whats the matter with me. I apologize, Rachel. Never complain, never explain, she said, smiling wanly. Isnt that what you told me once? The trip was a bitch. And Ive been afraid youd hit the roof when you looked in Gages dresser drawers. I guess maybe I ought to tell you now, while youre feeling sorry for me. Whats to hit the roof about? She smiled wanly. My mother and father bought him ten new outfits. He was wearing one of them today. I noticed he had on something new, he said shortly. I noticed you noticing, she replied and pulled a comic scowl that made him laugh, although he didnt feel much like laughing. And six new dresses for Ellie. Six dresses! he said, strangling the urge to yell. He was suddenly furioussickly furious and hurt in a way he couldnt explain. Rachel, why? Why did you let him do that? We dont need . . . we can buy . . . He ceased. His rage had made him inarticulate, and for a moment he saw himself carrying Ellies dead cat through the woods, shifting the plastic bag from one hand to the other . . . and all the while Irwin Goldman, that dirty old fuck from Lake Forest, had been busy trying to buy his daughters affection by unlimbering the worldfamous checkbook and the worldfamous fountain pen. For one moment he felt himself on the verge of shouting He bought her six dresses and I brought her goddam cat back from the dead, so who loves her more? He clamped down on the words. He would never say anything like that. Never. She touched his neck gently. Louis, she said. It was both of them together. Please try to see. Please. They love the children, and they dont see them much. And theyre getting old. Louis, youd hardly recognize my father. Really. Id recognize him, Louis muttered. Please, honey. Try to see. Try to be kind. It doesnt hurt you. He looked at her for a long time. It does though, he said finally. Maybe it shouldnt, but it does. She opened her mouth to reply, and then Ellie called out from her room Daddy! Mommy! Somebody! Rachel started to get up, and Louis pulled her back down. Stay with Gage. Ill go. He thought he knew what the trouble was. But he had put the cat out, damn it; after Ellie had gone to bed, he had caught it in the kitchen sniffing around its dish and had put it out. He didnt want the cat sleeping with her. Not anymore. Odd thoughts of disease, mingled with memories of Uncle Carls funeral parlor, had come to him when he thought of Church sleeping on Ellies bed. Shes going to know that somethings wrong and Church was better before. He had put the cat out, but when he went in, Ellie was sitting up in bed, more asleep than awake, and Church was spread out on the counterpane, a batlike shadow. The cats eyes were open and stupidly gleaming in the light from the hail. Daddy, put him out, Ellie almost groaned. He stinks so bad. Shhh, Ellie, go to sleep, Louis said, astounded by the calmness of his own voice. It made him think of the morning after his sleepwalking incident, the day after Pascow had died. Getting to the infirmary and ducking into the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror, convinced that he must look like hell. But he had looked pretty much all right. It was enough to make you wonder how many people were going around with dreadful secrets bottled up inside. Its not a secret, goddammit! Its just the cat! But Ellie was right. It stank to high heaven. He took the cat out of her room and carried it downstairs, trying to breathe through his mouth. There were worse smells; shit was worse, if you wanted to be perfectly blunt. A month ago theyd had a goround with the septic tank, and as Jud had said when he came over to watch Puffer and Sons pump the tank, That aint Chanel Number Five, is it, Louis? The smell of a gangrenous woundwhat old Doctor Bracermunn at med school had called hot fleshwas worse too. Even the smell which came from the Civics catalytic converter when it had been idling in the garage for a while was worse. But this smell was pretty damn bad. And how had the cat gotten in, anyway? He had put it out earlier, sweeping it out with the broom while all three of themhis peoplewere upstairs. This was the first time he had actually held the cat since the day it had come back, almost a week ago. It lay hotly in his arms, like a quiescent disease, and Louis wondered, What bolthole did you find, you bastard? He thought suddenly of his dream that other nightPascow simply passing through the door between the kitchen and the garage. Maybe there was no bolthole. Maybe it had just passed through the door, like a ghost. Bag that, he whispered aloud, and his voice was slightly hoarse. Louis became suddenly sure that the cat would begin to struggle in his arms, that it would scratch him. But Church lay totally still, radiating that stupid heat and that dirty stink, looking at Louiss face as if it could read the thoughts going on behind Louiss eyes. He opened the door and tossed the cat out into the garage, maybe a little too hard. Go on, he said. Kill another mouse or something. Church landed awkwardly, its hindquarters bunching beneath it and momentarily collapsing. It seemed to shoot Louis a look of green, ugly hate. Then it strolled drunkenly off and was gone. Christ, Jud, he thought, but I wish youd kept your mouth shut. He went to the sink and washed his hands and forearms vigorously, as if scrubbing for an operation. You do it because it gets hold of you . . . you make up reasons . . . they seem like good reasons . . . but mostly you do it because once youve been up there, its your place, and you belong to it . . . and you make up the sweetestsmelling reasons in the world. No, he couldnt blame Jud. He had gone of his own free will and he couldnt blame Jud. He turned off the water and began to dry his hands and arms. Suddenly the towel stopped moving and he stared straight ahead, looking out into the little piece of night framed in the window over the sink. Does that mean its my place now? That its mine too? No. Not if I dont want it to be. He slung the towel over the rack and went upstairs. Rachel was in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin, and Gage was tucked in neatly beside her. She looked at Louis apologetically. Would you mind, hon? Just for tonight? Id feel better having him with me. Hes so hot. No, Louis said. Thats fine. Ill pull out the hideabed downstairs. You really dont mind? No. It wont hurt Cage, and itll make you feel better. He paused, then smiled. Youre going to pick up his virus, though. That comes almost guaranteed. I dont suppose that changes your mind, does it? She smiled back and shook her head. What was Ellie fussing about? Church. She wanted me to take Church away. Ellie wanted Church taken away? Thats a switch. Yeah, it is, Louis agreed and then added, She said he smelled bad, and I did think he was a little fragrant. Maybe he rolled in a pile of someones mulch, or something. Thats too bad, Rachel said, rolling over on her side. I really think Ellie missed Church as much as she missed you. Uhhuh, Louis said. He bent and kissed her mouth softly. Go to sleep, Rachel. I love you, Lou. Im glad to be home. And Im sorry about the couch. Its okay, Louis said, and turned out the light. Downstairs, he stacked the couch cushions, pulled out the hideabed, and tried to prepare himself mentally for a night of having the rod under the thin mattress dig into the small of his back. The bed was sheeted, at least; he wouldnt have to make it up from scratch. Louis got two blankets from the top shelf in the front hail closet and spread them on the bed. He began to undress, then paused. You think Church is in again? Fine. Take a walk around and have a look. As you told Rachel, it wont hurt. May even help. And checking to make sure all the doors are on the latch wont even catch you a virus. He took a deliberate tour of the entire downstairs, checking the locks on doors and windows. He had done everything right the first time, and Church was nowhere to be seen. There, he said. Lets see you get in tonight, you dumb cat. He followed this with a mental wish that Church would freeze its balls off. Except that Church of course no longer had any. He switched off the lights and got into bed. The rod started to press into his back almost immediately, and Louis was thinking he would be awake half the night when he fell asleep. He fell asleep resting uncomfortably on his side in the hideabed, but when he woke up he was . . . . . . in the burying ground beyond the Pet Sematary again. This time he was alone. He had killed Church himself this time and then had decided for some reason to bring him back to life a second time. God knew why; Louis didnt. He had buried Church deeper this time, though, and Church couldnt dig his way out. Louis could hear the cat crying somewhere under the earth, making a sound like a weeping child. The sound came up through the pores of the ground, through its stony fleshthe sound and the smell, that awful sickishsweet smell of rot and decay. Just breathing it in made his chest feel heavy, as if a weight was on it. The crying . . . the crying . . . . . . the crying was still going on . . . . . . and the weight was still on his chest . . . Louis! It was Rachel, and she sounded alarmed. Louis, can you come? She sounded more than alarmed; she sounded scared, and the crying had a choked, desperate quality to it. It was Cage. He opened his eyes and stared into Churchs greenishyellow eyes. They were less than four inches from his own. The cat was on his chest, neatly curled up there like something from an old wives tale of breathstealing. The stink came off it in slow, noxious waves. It was purring. Louis uttered a cry of disgust and surprise. He shot both hands out in a primitive wardingoff gesture. Church thumped off the bed, landed on its side, and walked away in that stumbling lurch. Jesus! Jesus! It was on me! Oh God, it was right on me! His disgust could not have been greater if he had awakened to find a spider in his mouth. For a moment he thought he was going to throw up. Louis! He pushed the blankets back and stumbled to the stairs. Faint light spilled from their bedroom. Rachel was standing at the head of the stairs in her nightgown. Louis, hes vomiting again . . . choking on it . . . Im scared. Im here, he said and came up to her, thinking It got in. Somehow it got in. From the cellar, probably. Maybe theres a broken cellar window. In fact there must be a broken window down there. Ill check it tomorrow when 1 get home. Hell, before I go to work. Ill Gage stopped crying and began to make an ugly, gargling choking sound. Louis! Rachel screamed. Louis moved fast. Gage was on his side and vomit was trickling out of his mouth onto an old towel Rachel had spread beside him. He was vomiting, yes, but not enough. Most of it was inside, and Gage was blushing with the onset of asphyxiation. Louis grabbed the boy under the arms, aware in a distant way of how hot his sons armpits were under the Dr. Denton suit, and put him up on his shoulder as if to burp him. Then Louis snapped himself backward, jerking Cage with him. Gages neck whiplashed. He uttered a loud bark that was not quite a belch, and an amazing flag of almost solid vomit flew from his mouth and spattered on the floor and the dresser. Cage began to cry again, a solid, bawling sound that was music to Louiss ears. To cry like that you had to be getting an unlimited supply of oxygen. Rachels knees buckled and she collapsed onto the bed, head supported in her hands. She was shaking violently. He almost died, didnt he, Louis? He almost chchchoh my God Louis walked around the room with his son in his arms. Gages cries were tapering off to whimperings; he was already almost asleep again. The chances are fifty to one he would have cleared it himself, Rachel. I just gave him a hand. But he was close, she said. She looked up at him, and her whiteringed eyes were stunned and unbelieving. Louis, he was so close. Suddenly he remembered her shouting at him in the sunny kitchen Hes not going to die, no one is going to die around here . . . Honey, Louis said, were all close. All the time. It was milk that had almost surely caused the fresh round of vomiting. Gage had awakened around midnight, she said, an hour or so after Louis had gone to sleep, with his hungry cry, and Rachel had gotten him a bottle. She had drowsed off again herself while he was still taking it. About an hour later, the choking spell began. No more milk, Louis said, and Rachel had agreed, almost humbly. No more milk. Louis got back downstairs at around a quarter of two and spent fifteen minutes hunting up the cat. During his search, he found the door which communicated between the kitchen and basement standing ajar, as he suspected he would. He remembered his mother telling him about a cat that had gotten quite good at pawing open oldfashioned latches, such as the one on their cellar door. The cat would just climb the edge of the door, shed said, and pat the thumb plate of the latch with its paw until the door opened. A cute enough trick, Louis thought, but not one he intended to allow Church to practice often. There was, after all, a lock on the cellar door, too. He found Church dozing under the stove and tossed it out the front door without ceremony. On his way back to the hideabed, he closed the cellar door again. And this time shot the bolt. 29 In the morning, Gages temperature was almost normal. His cheeks were chapped, but otherwise he was brighteyed and full of beans. All at once, in the course of a week it seemed, his meaningless gabble had turned into a slew of words; he would imitate almost anything you said. What Ellie wanted him to say was shit. Say shit, Gage, Ellie said over her oatmeal. ShitGage, Gage responded agreeably over his own cereal. Louis allowed the cereal on condition that Gage eat it with only a little sugar. And, as usual, Gage seemed to be shampooing with it rather than actually eating it. Ellie dissolved into giggles. Say farts, Gage, she said. FarzGage, Gage said, grinning through the oatmeal spread across his face. Farznshit. Ellie and Louis broke up. It was impossible not to. Rachel was not so amused. Thats enough vulgar talk for one morning, I think, she said, handing Louis his eggs. Shitnfarznfarznshit, Gage sang cheerily, and Ellie hid her giggles in her hands. Rachels mouth twitched a little, and Louis thought she was looking a hundred percent better in spite of her broken rest. A lot of it was relief, Louis supposed. Gage was better and she was home. Dont say that, Gage, Rachel said. Pretty, Gage said as a change of pace and threw up all the cereal he had eaten into his bowl. Oh, grossOUT! Ellie screamed and fled the table. Louis broke up completely then. He couldnt help it. He laughed until he was crying and cried until he was laughing again. Rachel and Gage stared at him as if he had gone crazy. No, Louis could have told them. Ive been crazy, but I think Im going to be all right now. I really think I am. He didnt know if it was over or not, but it felt over; perhaps that would be enough. And for a while, at least, it was. 30 Gages virus hung on for a week, then cleared up. A week later he came down with a bout of bronchitis. Ellie also caught this and then Rachel; during the period before Christmas, the three of them went around hacking like very old and wheezy hunting dogs. Louis didnt catch it, and Rachel seemed to hold this against him. The final week of classes at the university was a hectic one for Louis, Steve, Surrendra, and Charlton. There was no fluat least not yetbut plenty of bronchitis and several cases of mononucleosis and walking pneumonia. Two days before classes broke for Christmas, six moaning, drunken fraternity boys were brought in by their concerned friends. There were a few moments of confusion gruesomely reminiscent of the Pascow affair. All six of the damned fools had crammed onto one mediumlength toboggan (the sixth had actually been sitting on the shoulders of the tail man, from what Louis could piece together) and had set off to ride the toboggan down the hill above the steam plant. Hilarious. Except that after gaining a lot of speed, the toboggan had wandered off course and struck one of the Civil War cannons. The score was two broken arms, a broken wrist, a total of seven broken ribs, a concussion, plus contusions far too numerous to count. Only the boy riding on the shoulders of the tailender had escaped completely unscathed, When the toboggan hit the cannon, this fortunate soul flew over it and landed headfirst in a snowbank. Cleaning up the human wreckage hadnt been fun, and Louis had scored all of the boys liberally with his tongue as he stitched and bandaged and stared into pupils, but telling Rachel about it later, he had again laughed until he cried. Rachel had looked at him strangely, not understanding what was so funny, and Louis couldnt tell her that it had been a stupid accident, and people had been hurt, but they would all walk away from it. His laughter was partly relief, but it was partly triumph toowon one today, Louis. The cases of bronchitis in his own family began to clear up around the time that Ellies school broke for the holidays on December 16, and the four of them settled down to spend a happy and oldfashioned country Christmas. The house in North Ludlow, which had seemed so strange on that day in August when they pulled into the driveway (strange and even hostile, what with Effie cutting herself out back and Gage getting stung by a bee at almost the same time), had never seemed more like home. After the kids were finally asleep on Christmas Eve, Louis and Rachel stole downstairs from the attic like thieves, their arms full of brightly colored boxesa set of Matchbox racers for Gage, who had recently discovered the joys of toy cars, Barbie and Ken dolls for Ellie, a Turn n Go, an oversized trike, doll clothes, a play oven with a light bulb inside, other stuff. The two of them sat side by side in the glow of lights from the tree, fussing the stuff together, Rachel in a pair of silk lounging pajamas, Louis in his robe. He could not remember a more pleasant evening. There was a fire in the fireplace, and every now and then one or the other of them would rise and throw in another chunk of split birch. Winston Churchill brushed by Louis once, and he pushed the cat away with an almost absent feeling of distastethat smell. Later he saw Church try to settle down next to Rachels leg, and Rachel also gave it a push and an impatient Scat! A moment later Louis saw his wife rubbing her palm on one silkclad thigh, the way you sometimes do when you feel you might have touched something nasty or germy. He didnt think Rachel was even aware she was doing it. Church ambled over to the brick hearth and collapsed in front of the fire gracelessly. The cat had no grace at all now, it seemed; it had lost it all on that night Louis rarely allowed himself to think about. And Church had lost something else as well. Louis had been aware of it, but it had taken him a full month to pinpoint it exactly. The cat never purred anymore, and it used to have one of the loudest motors going, particularly when Church was sleeping. There had been nights when Louis had had to get up and close Ellies door so he could get to sleep himself. Now the cat slept like a stone. Like the dead. No, he reminded himself, there was one exception. The night he had awakened on the hideabed with Church curled up on his chest like a stinking blanket . . . Church had been purring that night. It had been making some sound, anyway. But as Jud Crandall had knownor guessedit had not been all bad. Louis found a broken window downcellar behind the furnace, and when the glazier fixed it, he had saved them yea bucks in wasted heating oil. For calling his attention to the broken pane, which he might not have discovered for weeksmonths, maybehe supposed he even owed Church a vote of thanks. Ellie no longer wanted Church to sleep with her, that was true, but sometimes when she was watching TV, she would let the cat hop up on her lap and go to sleep. But just as often, he thought, hunting through the bag of plastic widgets that were supposed to hold Ellies BatCycle together, she would push him down after a few minutes, saying, Go on, Church, you stink. She fed him regularly and with love, and even Gage was not above giving old Church an occasional tail tug . . . more in the spirit of friendliness than in one of meanness, Louis was convinced; he was like a tiny monk yanking a furry bell rope. At these times Church would crawl lackadaisically under one of the radiators where Gage couldnt get him. We might have noticed more differences with a dog, Louis thought, but cats are such goddam independent animals anyway. Independent and odd. Fey even. It didnt surprise him that the old Egyptian queens and pharaohs had wanted their cats mummified and popped into their triangular tombs with them in order to serve as spirit guides in the next world. Cats were weird. How you doing with that BatCycle, Chief? He held out the finished product. Tada! Rachel pointed at the bag, which still had three or four plastic widgets in it. What are those? Spares, Louis said, smiling guiltily. You better hope theyre spares. The kid will break her rotten little neck. That comes later, Louis said maliciously. When shes twelve and showing off on her new skateboard. She groaned. Come on, Doc, have a heart! Louis stood up, put his hands on the small of his back, and twisted his torso. His spine crackled. Thats all the toys. And theyre all together. Remember last year? She giggled and Louis smiled. Last year seemingly everything theyd gotten had to be assembled, and theyd been up until almost four oclock Christmas morning, both of them finishing grouchy and out of sorts. And by midafternoon of Christmas, Ellie had decided the boxes were more fun than the toys. GrossOUT! Louis said, imitating Ellie. Well, come on to bed, Rachel said, and Ill give you a present early. Woman, Louis said, drawing himself up to his full height, that is mine by right. Dont you wish, she said and laughed through her hands. In that moment she looked amazingly like Ellie . . . and like Gage. Just a minute, he said. Theres one other thing I gotta do. He hurried into the front hail closet and brought back one of his boots. He removed the fire screen from in front of the dying fire. Louis, what are you Youll see. On the left side of the hearth the fire was out and there was a thick bed of fluffy gray ashes. Louis stamped the boot into them, leaving a deep track. Then he tromped the boot down on the outer bricks, using it like a big rubber stamp. There, he said, after he had put the boot away in the closet again. You like? Rachel was giggling again. Louis, Ellies going to go nuts. During the last two weeks of school, Ellie had picked up a disquieting rumor around kindergarten, to wit, that Santa Claus was really parents. This idea had been reinforced by a rather skinny Santa at the Bangor Mall, whom Ellie had glimpsed in the Deering Ice Cream Parlor a few days ago. Santa had been sitting on a counter stool, his beard pulled to one side so he could eat a cheeseburger. This had troubled Ellie mightily (it seemed to be the cheeseburger, somehow, even more than the false beard), in spite of Rachels assurances that the department store and Salvation Army Santas were really helpers, sent out by the real Santa, who was far too busy completing inventory and reading childrens lastminute letters up north to be boogying around the world on public relations jaunts. Louis replaced the fire screen carefully. Now there were two clear boot tracks in their fireplace, one in the ashes and one on the hearth. They both pointed toward the Christmas tree, as if Santa had hit bottom on one foot and immediately stepped out to leave the goodies assigned to the Creed household. The illusion was perfect unless you happened to notice that they were both left feet . . . and Louis doubted if Ellie was that analytical. Louis Creed, I love you, Rachel said and kissed him. You married a winner, baby, Louis said, smiling sincerely. Stick with me and Ill make you a star. They started for the stairs. He pointed at the card table Ellie had set up in front of the TV. There were oatmeal cookies and two RingDings on it. Also a can of Micheloeb. FOR YOU, SANNA, the note said in Ellies large, sticklike printing. You want a cookie or a RingDing? RingDing, she said and ate half of it. Louis popped the tab on the beer. A beer this late is going to give me acid indigestion, he said. Crap, she said goodhumoredly. Come on, Doe. Louis put down the can of beer and suddenly grasped the pocket of his robe as if he had forgotten somethingalthough he had been aware of that small packet of weight all evening long. Here, he said. For you. You can open it now. Its after midnight. Merry Christmas, babe. She turned the little box, wrapped up in silver paper and tied with wide satinyblue ribbon, in her hands. Louis, what is it? He shrugged. Soap. Shampoo sample. I forget, exactly. She opened it on the stairs, saw the Tiffany box, and squealed. She pulled out the cotton batting and then just stood there, her mouth slightly agape. Well? he asked anxiously. He had never bought her a real piece of jewelry before, and he was nervous. Do you like it? She took it out, draped the fine gold chain over her tented fingers, and held the tiny sapphire up to the hail light. It twirled lazily, seeming to shoot off cool blue rays. Oh Louis, its so damn beautiful He saw she was crying a little and felt both touched and alarmed. Hey, babe, dont do that, he said. Put it on. Louis, we cant affordyou cant afford Shhh, he said. I socked some money away off and on since last Christmas . . . and it wasnt as much as you might think. How much was it? Ill never tell you that, Rachel, he said solemnly. An army of Chinese torturers couldnt get it out of me. Two thousand dollars. Two thousand! She hugged him so suddenly and so tightly that he almost fell down the stairs. Louis, youre crazy! Put it on, he said again. She did. He helped her with the clasp, and then she turned around to look at him. I want to go up and look at it, she said. I think I want to preen. Preen away, he said. Ill put out the cat and get the lights. When we make it, she said, looking directly into his eyes, I want to take everything off except this. Preen in a hurry, then, Louis said, and she laughed. He grabbed Church and draped it over his armhe didnt bother much with the broom these days. He supposed that, in spite of everything, he had almost gotten used to the cat again. He went toward the entryway door, turning off lights as he went. When he opened the door communicating between the kitchen and garage, an eddy of cold air swirled around his ankles. Have a merry Christmas, Ch He broke off. Lying on the welcome mat was a dead crow. Its head was mangled. One wing had been ripped off and lay behind the body like a charred piece of paper. Church immediately squirmed out of Louiss arms and began to nuzzle the frozen corpse eagerly. As Louis watched, the cats head darted forward, its ears laid back, and before he could turn his head, Church had ripped out one of the crows milky, glazed eyes. Church strikes again, Louis thought a little sickly, and turned his headnot, however, before he had seen the bloody, gaping socket where the crows eye had been. Shouldnt bother me, shouldnt, Ive seen worse, oh yeah, Pascow, for instance, Pascow was worse, a lot worse But it did bother him. His stomach turned over. The warm build of sexual excitement had suddenly deflated. Christ, that birds damn near as big as he is. Must have caught it with its guard down. Way, way down. This would have to be cleaned up. Nobody needed this sort of present on Christmas morning. And it was his responsibility, wasnt it? Sure was. His and nobody elses. He had recognized that much in a subconscious way even on the evening of his family's return, when he had purposely spilled the tires over the tattered body of the mouse Church had killed. The soil of a mans heart is stonier, Louis. This thought was so clear, somehow so threedimensional and auditory, that Louis jerked a little, as if Jud had materialized at his shoulder and spoken aloud. A man grows what he can . . . and tends it. Church was still hunched greedily over the dead bird. He was working at the other wing now. There was a tenebrous rustling sound as Church pulled it back and forth, back and forth. Never get it off the ground, Orville. Thats right, Wilbur, fucking birds just as dead as dogshit, might as well feed it to the cat, might as well Louis suddenly kicked Church, kicked him hard. The cats hindquarters rose and came down splayfooted. It walked away, sparing him another of its ugly yellowgreen glances. Eat me, Louis hissed at it, catlike himself. Louis? Rachels voice came faintly from their bedroom. Coming to bed? Be right there, he called back. Ive just got this little mess to clean up, Rachel, okay? Because its my mess. He fumbled for the switch that controlled the garage light. He went quickly back to the cupboard under the kitchen sink and got a green Hefty Bag. He took the bag back into the garage and took the shovel down from its nail on the garage wall. He scraped up the crow and dropped it into the bag. Then he shoveled up the severed wing and slipped that in. He tied a knot in the top of the bag and dropped it into the bin on the far side of the Civic. By the time he had finished, his ankles were growing numb. Church was standing by the garage doorway. Louis made a threatening gesture at the cat with the shovel, and it was gone like black water. Upstairs, Rachel was lying on her bed, wearing nothing but the sapphire on its chain . . . as promised. She smiled at him lazily. What took you so long, Chief? The light over the sink was out, Louis said. I changed the bulb. Come here, she said and tugged him gently toward her. Not by the hand. He knows if youve been sleeping, she sang softly; a little smile curved up the corners of her lips. He knows if youre awake . . . oh my, Louis dear, whats this? Something that just woke up, I think, Louis said, slipping off his robe. Maybe we ought to see if we can get it to sleep before Santa comes, what do you think? She rose on one elbow; he felt her breath, warm and sweet. He knows if youve been bad or good . . . so be good . . . for goodness sake . . . Have you been a good boy, Louis? I think so, he said. His voice was not quite steady. Lets see if you taste as good as you look, she said. The sex was good, but Louis did not find himself simply slipping off afterward as he usually did when the sex was goodslipping off easy with himself, his wife, his life.