ebEpvI

file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm“Indeed,” Louis muttered.The wind rose, shrieking briefly through the trees and making him look around uneasily. He laid theshovel, the pick he had yet had to use, the gloves, and the flashlight beside the bundle. Using the lightwas a temptation, but he resisted it. Leaving the body and the tools, Louis walked back the way he hadcome and arrived at the high wrought-iron fence about five minutes later. There, across the street, washis Civic, parked neatly at the curb. So near and yet so far.Louis looked at it for a moment and then struck off in a different direction.This time he moved away from the gate, walking along the wrought-iron fence until it turned away fromMason Street at a neat right angle. There was a drainage ditch here, and Louis looked into it. What hesaw made him shudder. There were masses of rotting flowers here, layer upon layer of them, washeddown by seasons of rain and snow.Christ.No, not Christ. These leavings were made in propitiation of a much older God than the Christian one.People have called Him different things at different times, hut Rachel’s sister gave Him a perfectly goodname, I think: Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, God of dead things left in the ground, God of rottingflowers in drainage ditches, God of the Mystery.Louis stared down into the ditch as if hypnotized. At last he dragged his gaze away with a little gasp—the gasp of one who has come to, or who has been called from a mesmerist’s trance by the final numberin a count of ten.He went on. He hadn’t walked far before he found what he was looking for, and he suspected that hismind had neatly stored this bit of information on the day of Gage’s burial.Here, looming in the windy dark, was the cemetery’s crypt.Coffins were stored there in the winter when it was too cold for even the payloaders to dig in the frozenearth. It was also used when there was a rush of business.There were such rushes of “cold custom” from time to time, Louis knew; in any given population therewere times when, for no reason anyone could understand, lots of people died.“It all balances out,” Uncle Carl told him. “If I have a two-week period in May when nobody dies, Lou,I can count on a two-week period in November when I’ll have ten funerals. Only it’s rarely November,and it’s never around Christmas, although people always think that’s when a lot of people die. That stuffabout Christmas depression is just a load of bullshit. Just ask any funeral director. Most people are realfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (279 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM