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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmThere was Ben-Gay in the medicine cabinet. Louis lowered the toilet seat, sat down, and smeared a gobon his bad knee. Then he rubbed some more on the small of his back—a clumsy operation.He left the toilet and walked into the living room. He turned on the hall light and stood there at the footof the stairs for a moment, looking stupidly around. How strange it all seemed! Here was where he hadstood on Christmas Eve when he had given Rachel the sapphire. It had been in the pocket of his robe.There was his chair, where he had done his best to explain the facts of death to Ellie after NormaCrandall’s fatal heart attack—facts he had found ultimately unacceptable to himself. The Christmas treehad stood in that corner, Ellie’s construction-paper turkey— the one that had reminded Louis of somesort of futuristic crow— had been Scotch-taped in that window, and much earlier the entire room hadbeen empty except for the United Van Lines boxes, filled with their family possessions and truckedacross half the country from the Midwest. He remembered thinking that their things looked veryinsignificant, boxed up like that—a small enough bulwark between his family and the coldness of all theouter world where their names and their family customs were not known.How strange it all seemed . . . and how he wished they had never heard of the University of Maine, orLudlow, or Jud and Norma Crandall, or any of it.He went upstairs in his skivvies, and in the bathroom at the top he got the stool, stood on it, and tookdown the small black bag from on top of the medicine cabinet. He took this into the master bedroom, satdown, and began to rummage through it. Yes, there were syringes in case he needed one, and amid therolls of surgical tape and surgical scissors and neatly wrapped papers of surgical gut were severalampules of very deadly stuff.If needed.Louis snapped the bag shut and put it by the bed. He turned off the overhead light, then lay down, handsbehind his head. To lie here on his back, at rest, was exquisite. His thoughts turned to Disney Worldagain. He saw himself in a plain white uniform, driving a white van with the mouse-ears logo on it--nothing to indicate it was a rescue unit on the outside, of course, nothing to scare the paying customers.Gage was sitting beside him, his skin deeply tanned, the whites of his eyes bluish with health. Here, justto the left, was Goofy, shaking hands with a little boy; the kid was in a trance of wonder. Here wasWinnie the Pooh posing with two laughing grandmas in pants suits so a third laughing grandma couldsnap their pictures; here was a little girl in her best dress crying, “I love you, Tigger! I love you, Tigger!”He and his son were on patrol. He and his son were the sentries in this magic land, and they cruisedendlessly in their white van with the red dashboard flasher neatly and sensibly covered. They were notlooking for trouble, not they, but they were ready for it should it show its face. That it was lurking evenhere, in a place dedicated to such innocent pleasures, could not be denied; some grinning man buyingfilm along Main Street could clutch his chest as the heart attack struck, a pregnant woman mightfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (302 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM