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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmender had escaped completely unscathed, When the toboggan hit the cannon, this fortunate soul flewover it and landed headfirst in a snowbank. Cleaning up the human wreckage hadn’t been fun, and Louishad 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 couldn’t tell her that it had been a stupid accident, andpeople had been hurt, but they would all walk away from it. His laughter was partly relief, but it waspartly triumph too—won one today, Louis.The cases of bronchitis in his own family began to clear up around the time that Ellie’s school broke forthe holidays on December 16, and the four of them settled down to spend a happyand old-fashioned country Christmas. The house in North Ludlow, which had seemed so strange on thatday in August when they pulled into the driveway (strange and even hostile, what with Effie cuttingherself out back and Gage getting stung by a bee at almost the same time), had never seemed more likehome.After the kids were finally asleep on Christmas Eve, Louis and Rachel stole downstairs from the atticlike thieves, their arms full of brightly colored boxes—a set of Matchbox racers for Gage, who hadrecently discovered the joys of toy cars, Barbie and Ken dolls for Ellie, a Turn ‘n’ Go, an oversizedtrike, 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 ina 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 throwin another chunk of split birch.Winston Churchill brushed by Louis once, and he pushed the cat away with an almost absent feeling ofdistaste—that smell. Later he saw Church try to settle down next to Rachel’s leg, and Rachel also gave ita push and an impatient “Scat!” A moment later Louis saw his wife rubbing her palm on one silk-cladthigh, the way you sometimes do when you feel you might have touched something nasty or germy. Hedidn’t 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 nograce 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 fullmonth to pinpoint it exactly. The cat never purred anymore, and it used to have one of the loudestmotors going, particularly when Church was sleeping. There had been nights when Louis had had to getup and close Ellie’s 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 hide-a-bed withfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (146 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM