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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmLudlow Baptist Church. poked through one canopy of old elms, and to the right he could see the squarebrick sturdiness of Ellie’s school.Overhead, white clouds moved slowly toward a horizon the color of faded denim. And everywhere werethe late-summer fields, used up at the end of the cycle, dormant but not dead, an incredible tawny color.“Gorgeous is the right word,” Louis said finally.“They used to call it Prospect Hill back in the old days,” Jud said. He put a cigarette in the corner of hismouth but did not light it. “There’s a few that still do, but now that younger people have moved intotown, it’s mostly been forgot. I don’t think there’s very many people that even come up here. It don’tlook like you could see much because the hill’s not very high. But you can see—” He gestured with onehand and fell silent.“You can see everything,” Rachel said in a low, awed voice. She turned to Louis. “Honey, do we ownthis?”And before Louis could answer, Jud said: “It’s part of the property, oh yes.”Which wasn’t, Louis thought, quite the same thing.It was cooler in the woods, perhaps by as much as eight or ten degrees. The path, still wide andoccasionally markedwith flowers in pots or in coffee cans (most of them wilted), was now floored with dry pine needles.They had gone about a quarter of a mile, moving downhill now, when Jud called Ellie back.“This is a good walk for a little girl,” Jud said kindly, “but I want you to promise your mom and dad thatif you come up here, you’ll always stay on the path.”“I promise,” Ellie said promptly “Why?”He glanced at Louis, who had stopped to. rest. Toting Gage, even in the shade of these old pines andspruces, was heavy work. “Do you know where you are?” Jud asked Louis.Louis considered and rejected answers: Ludlow, North Ludlow, behind my house, between Route 15 andMiddle Drive. He shook his head.Jud jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “Plenty of stuff that way,” he said. “That’s town. This way,nothing but woods for fifty miles or more. The North Ludlow Woods they call it here, but it hits a littlecorner of Orrington, then goes over to Rockford. Ends up going onto those state lands I told you about,file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste...%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (23 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM