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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmIt was Steve Masterton, checking back about racket ball, and Louis agreed to meet him at the MemorialGym in an hour. He could not really afford the time, and racket ball was the last thing in the world hefelt like right now, but he had to get out. He wanted to get away from the cat, that weird cat which hadno business being here at all.He hurried, tucking in his shirt quickly, stuffing a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, 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. Hemanaged 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 whippingunpleasantly 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 didn’t. At that particular moment hedidn’t think he could bring himself to touch it.26Jud lit a cigarette with a wooden kitchen match, shook it out, and tossed the stub into a tin ashtray with abarely 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 pick-up supper with Steve—submarine sandwiches in the mostly deserted Bear’sDen. He had found out early that if you asked for a hoagie or a grinder or a gyro in Maine, they didn’tknow what you were talking about. Ask for a sub or a Wop-burger, and you were in business. Withsome food in him, Louis began to feel better about Church’s return, felt that he had things more inperspective, but he was still not anxious to return to his dark, empty house where the cat could be—let’sface it, gang—anywhere at all.Norma sat with them for quite a while, watching TV and working on a sampler that showed the sungoing down behind a small county meeting house. The cross on the roof tree was silhouetted blackagainst the setting sun. Something to sell, she said, at the church sale the week before Christmas. Alwaysa big event. Her fingers moved well, pushing the needle through the cloth, pulling it up through the steelcircle. Her arthritis was barely noticeable tonight. Louis supposed it might be the weather, which hadbeen cold but very dry. She had recovered nicely from her heart attack, and on that evening less than tenweeks before a cerebral accident would kill her, he thought that she looked less haggard and actuallyfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (120 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM