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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmIt was obvious now. Church had been struck hard and stunned. The cat he had carried up to Jud’s oldMicmac burying ground had been unconscious, not dead. Didn’t they say cats had nine lives? ThankGod he hadn’t said anything to Ellie! She wouldn’t 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 thebest circumstances for close examination, squatting on Jud’s lawn in twenty-degree temperatures, thelight 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 lightlyand 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 yellow-green eyes of hisdaughter’s 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 withrevulsion, a scream barely held back in his mouth by his clamped teeth. Church had never looked likethis—had never swayed, like a snake trying to hypnotize its prey—not before he was fixed and notafterward. For the first and last time he played with the idea that this was a different cat, one that justlooked like Ellie’s, 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 markingswere the same. . . and the one ragged, ear . . . and the paw that had that funny chewed look. Ellie hadslammed that paw in the back door of their little suburban house when Church was little more than akitten.It was Church, all right.“Get out of here,” Louis whispered hoarsely at him.Church stared at him a moment longer—God, his eyes were different, somehow they were different—and then leaped down from the toilet seat. He landed with none of the uncanny grace cats usuallydisplay. He staggered awkwardly, haunches thudding against the tub, and then he was gone.It, Louis thought. Not he; it. Remember, it’s been spayed.He got out of the tub and dried off quickly, jerkily. He was shaved and mostly dressed when the phonerang, shrill in the empty house. When it sounded, Louis whirled, eyes wide, hands going up. He loweredthem slowly. His heart was racing. His muscles felt full of adrenaline.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (119 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM