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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmcertainty came over him:when he lifted Gage, Gage’s body would break apart and he would be left with the pieces. He would beleft standing with his feet on the sides of the grave liner with the pieces, screaming. And that was howthey would find him.Go on, you chicken, go on and do it!He got Gage under the arms, aware of the fetid dampness, andlifted him that way, as he had lifted him so often from his evening tub. Gage’s head lolled all the way tothe middle of his back. Louis saw the grinning circlet of stitches which held Gage’s head onto hisshoulders.Somehow, panting, his stomach spasming from the smell and from the boneless loose feel of his son’smiserably smashed body, Louis wrestled the body out of the coffin. At last he sat on the verge of thegrave with the body in his lap, his feet dangling in the hole, his face a horrible livid color, his eyes blackholes, his mouth drawn down in a trembling bow of horror and pity and sorrow.“Gage,” he said and began to rock the boy in his arms. Gage’s hair lay against Louis’s wrist, as lifelessas wire. “Gage, It will be all right, I swear, Gage, it will be all right, this will end, this is just the night,please, Gage, I love you, Daddy loves you.”Louis rocked his son.By quarter of two, Louis was ready to leave the cemetery. Actually handling the body had been theworst of it—that was the point at which that interior astronaut, his mind, seemed to float the farthest intothe void. And yet now, resting, his back a throbbing hurt in which exhausted muscles jumped andtwitched, he felt it might be possible to get back. All the way back.He put Gage’s body on the tarpaulin and wrapped it up. He cinched it with long strips of strapping tape,then cut the length of rope in two and tied off the ends neatly. Once more he might have had a rolled-uprug, no more. He closed the coffin, then after a moment’s thought, he reopened it and put the bent spadein. Let Pleasantview have that relic; it would not have his son. He closed the coffin and then loweredhalf of the cement grave-liner top. He considered simply dropping the other half but was afraid it wouldshatter. After a moment’s consideration, he threaded his belt through the iron rings and used it to lowerthe cement square gently into place. Then he used the shovel to fill in the hole. There was not enoughdirt to bring it up even with the ground again. The grave’s swaybacked look might be noticed. It mightnot. It might be noticed and disregarded. He would not allow himself to think about it, or worry about ittonight—too much still lay ahead of him. More wild work. And he was very tired.Hey-ho, let’s go.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (278 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM