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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmHe kneeled and set Gage’s body on the ground with a groan of relief.At last his consciousness began to come back. He used his pocketknife to cut the tape holding the pickand shovel slung over his back. They fell to the ground with a clink. Louis rolled over and lay down fora moment, spread-eagled, staring blankly at the stars.What was that thing in the woods? Louis, Louis, do you really think anything good can come at theclimax of a play where something like that is among the cast of characters?But now it was too late to back out, and he knew it.Besides, he gibbered to himself, it may still come out all right; there is no gain without risk, perhaps norisk without love. There’s still my bag, not the one downstairs but the one in our bathroom on the highshelf, the one I sent Jud for the night Norma’ had her heart attack. There are syringes, and if somethinghappens. . . something bad. . . no one has to know but me.His thoughts dissolved into the inarticulate, droning mutter of prayer even as his hands groped for thepick . . . and still on his knees, Louis began to dig into the earth. Each time he brought the pick down hecollapsed over the end of it, like an old Roman falling on his sword. Yet little by little the hole tookshape and deepened. He clawed the rocks out, and most he simply pushed aside along with the growingpile of stony dirt. But some of them he saved.For the cairn.Rachel slapped her face until it began to tingle, and still she kept nodding off. Once she snapped fullyawake (she was in Pittsfield now and had the turnpike all to herself), and it seemed to her for a splitsecond that dozens of silvery, merciless eyes were looking at her, twinkling like cold, hungry fire.56Then they resolved themselves into the small reflectors on the guardrail posts. The Chevette had driftedfar over into the breakdown lane.She wrenched the wheel to the left again, the tires wailing, and she believed she heard a faint tick! thatmight have been her right front bumper just kissing off one of those guardrail posts. Her heart leaped inher chest and began to bang so hard between her ribs that she saw small specks before her eyes, growingand shrinking in time with its beat. And yet a moment later, in spite of her close shave, her scare, andRobert Gordon shouting “Red Hot” on the radio, she was drowsing off again.A crazy, paranoid thought came to her. “Paranoid, all right,” she muttered under the rock and roll. Shetried to laugh—but she couldn’t. Not quite. Because the thought remained, and in the eye of the night, itgained a spooky kind of credibility. She began to feel like a cartoon figure who has run into the rubberfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (297 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM