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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmThere was a knock at the door.For a long time—it seemed like a long time, anyway—he believed it was only in his head, ahallucination. But the knocking just went on and on, patient, implacable. And suddenly Louis foundhimself thinking of the story of the monkey’s paw, and a cold terror slipped into him. He seemed to feelit with total physical reality—it was like a dead hand that had been kept in a refrigerator, a dead handwhich had suddenly taken on its own disembodied life and slipped inside his shirt to clutch the fleshover his heart. It was a silly image, fulsome and silly, but oh, it didn’t feel silly. No.Louis went to the door on feet he could not feel and lifted the latch with nerveless fingers. And as heswung it open, he thought: It’ll be Pascow. Like they said about Jim Morrison, back from the dead andbigger than ever. Pascow standing there in his jogging shorts, big as life and as mouldy as month-oldbread, Pascow with his horribly ruined head, Pascow bringing the warning again: Don’t go up there.What was that old song by the Animals? Baby please don’t go, baby PLEASE don’t go, you know I loveyou so, baby please don’t go.The door swung open and standing there on his front step in the blowing dark of this midnight, betweenthe day of the funeral parlor visitation and the day of his son’s burial, was Jud Crandall. His thin whitehair blew randomly in the chilly dark.Louis tried to laugh. Time seemed to have turned cleverly back on itself. It was Thanksgiving again.Soon they would put the stiff, unnaturally thickened body of Ellie’s cat Winston Churchill into a plasticgarbage bag and start off. Oh, do not ask what is it; let us go and make our visit.“Can I come in, Louis?” Jud asked. He took a pack of Chesterfields from his shirt pocket and poked oneinto his mouth.“Tell you what,” Louis said. “It’s late and I’ve been drinking a pile of beer.”“Ayuh, I could smell it,” Jud said. He struck a match. The wind snuffed it. He struck another aroundcupped hands, but the hands trembled and betrayed the match to the wind again. He got a third match,prepared to strike it, and then looked up at Louis standing in the doorway. “I can’t get this thing lit,” Judsaid. “Gonna let me in or not, Louis?”Louis stepped aside and let Jud walk in.38They sat at the kitchen table over beers—first time we’ve ever tipped one in our kitchen, Louis thought,a little surprised. Halfway across the living room, Ellie had cried out in her sleep, and both of them hadfrozen like statues in a children’s game. The cry had not been repeated.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (205 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM