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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmHere was the coffin he had last seen resting on chrome runners over the grave at the funeral service,surrounded by that ghastly green Astroturf. This was the safety-deposit box in which he was supposed tobury all his hopes for his son. Fury, clean and white hot, the antithesis of his former coldness, rose up inhim. Idiotic! The answer was no!Louis groped for the spade and found it. He raised it over his shoulder and brought it down on thecoffin’s latch once, twice, a third time, a fourth. His lips were drawn back in a furious grimace.Going to break you out, Gage, see if 1 don’t!The latch had splintered on the first stroke and probably no more were necessary, but he went on, notwanting just to open the coffin but to hurt it. Some kind of sanity finally returned, and he stopped withthe spade raised for another blow.The blade was bent and scratched. He tossed it aside and scrambled out of the grave on legs that feltweak and rubbery. He felt sick to his stomach, and the anger had gone as quickly as it had come. In itsplace the coldness flooded back in, and never in his life had his mind felt so alone and disconnected; hefelt like an astronaut who has floated away from his ship during an EVA and now only drifts in a greatblackness, breathing on borrowed time. Did Bill Baterman feel like this? he wondered.He lay on the ground, on his back this time, waiting to see if he was under control and ready to proceed.When the rubbery feeling had left his legs, he sat up and slipped back down into the grave. He shone theflashlight on the latch and saw it was not just broken, but demolished. He had swung the spade in a blindfury, but every blow he had struck had gone directly there, bull’s eye, as if guided. The wood around ithad splintered.Louis slipped the flashlight into his armpit. He squatted down slightly. His hands groped, like the handsof a catcher in a troupe of circus flyers, waiting to perform his part in a mortal docking.He found the groove in the lid, and he slipped his fingers into it. He paused for a moment—one couldnot rightly call it a hesitation—and then he opened his son’s coffin.50Rachel Creed almost made her flight from Boston to Portland. Almost. Her Chicago plane left on time (amiracle in itself), was cleared straight into LaGuardia (another), and left New York only five minutesbehind schedule. It got to the gate in Boston fifteen minutes late—at 11:12 P.M. That left her withthirteen minutes.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (273 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM