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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmgoing to die around here.“Honey,” Louis said, “we’re all close. All the time.”It was milk that had almost surely caused the fresh round of vomiting. Gage had awakened aroundmidnight, she said, an hour or so after Louis had gone to sleep, with his “hungry cry,” and Rachel hadgotten 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 standingajar, as he suspected he would. He remembered his mother telling him about a cat that had gotten quitegood at pawing open old-fashioned latches, such as the one on their cellar door. The cat would justclimb the edge of the door, she’d said, and pat the thumb plate of the latch with its paw until the dooropened. 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 itout the front door without ceremony. On his way back to the hide-a-bed, he closed the cellar door again.And this time shot the bolt.29In the morning, Gage’s temperature was almost normal. His cheeks were chapped, but otherwise he wasbright-eyed and full of beans. All at once, in the course of a week it seemed, his meaningless gabble hadturned into a slew of words; he would imitate almost anything you said. What Ellie wanted him to saywas “shit.”“Say shit, Gage,” Ellie said over her oatmeal.“Shit-Gage,” Gage responded agreeably over his own cereal. Louis allowed the cereal on condition thatGage eat it with only a little sugar. And, as usual, Gage seemed to be shampooing with it rather thanactually eating it.Ellie dissolved into giggles.“Say farts, Gage,” she said.“Farz-Gage,” Gage said, grinning through the oatmeal spread across his face. “Farz-n-shit.”file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (144 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM