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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmband of a gigantic slingshot. Poor guy finds forward motion harder and harder, until at last the potentialenergy of the rubber band equalizes the actual energy of the runner . . . inertia becomeswhat? . . . elementary physics. . . something trying to hold her back. . . stay out of this, you. . . and abody at rest tends to remain at rest . . . Gage’s body, for instance . . . once set in motion.This time the scream of tires was louder, the shave a lot closer; for a moment there was the queeling,grailing sound of the Chevette running along the guardrail cables, scraping paint down to the twinklingmetal, and for a moment the wheel didn’t answer, and then Rachel was standing on the brake, sobbing;she had been asleep this time, not just dozing but asleep and dreaming at sixty miles an hour, and if therehad been no guardrail. . . or if there had been an overpass stanchion. .She pulled over and put the car in park and wept into her hands, bewildered and afraid.Something is trying to keep me away from him.When she felt she had control of herself, she began to drive again—the little car’s steering did not seemimpaired, but she supposed the Avis company would have some serious questions for her when shereturned their car to BIA tomorrow.Never mind. One thing at a time. Got to get some coffee into me—that’s the first thing.When the Pittsfield exit came up, Rachel took it. About a mile down the road she came to bright arcsodiumlights and the steady mutter-growl of diesel engines. She pulled in, had the Chevette filled up(“Somebody put a pretty good ding along the side of her,” the gas jockey said in an almost admiringvoice), and then went into the diner, which smelled of deep-fat grease, vulcanized eggs . . . and,blessedly, of good strong coffee.Rachel had three cups, one after another, like medicine—black, sweetened with a lot of sugar. A fewtruckers sat at the counter or in the booths, kidding the waitresses, who somehow all managed to looklike tired nurses filled with bad news under these fluorescent lights burning in the night’s little hours.She paid her check and went back out to where she had parked the Chevette. It wouldn’t start. The key,when turned, would cause the solenoid to utter a dry click, but that was all.Rachel began to beat her fists slowly and forcelessly against the steering wheel. Something was trying tostop her. There was no reason for this car, brand-new and with less than five thousand miles on itsodometer, to have died like this, but it had. Somehow it had, and here she was, stranded in Pittsfield, stillalmost fifty miles from home.She listened to the steady drone of the big trucks, and it came to her with a sudden, vicious certainty thatthe truck which had killed her son was here among them . . . not muttering but chuckling.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (298 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM