ebEpvI

file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmsuddenly feel the labor pains start as she walked down the steps from the Sky Chariot, a teenage girl aspretty as a Norman Rockwell cover might suddenly collapse in a flopping epileptic fit, loafers rattlingout a jagged backbeat on the cement as the signals in her brain suddenly jammed up. There weresunstroke and heatstroke and brainstroke, and perhaps at the end of some sultry Orlando summerafternoon there might even be a stroke of light-fling; there was, even, Oz the Gweat and Tewwiblehimself here—he might be glimpsed walking around near the monorail’s point of egress into the Magic Kingdom orpeering down from one of the flying Dumbos with his flat and stupid gaze—down here Louis and Gagehad come to know him as just another amusement park figure like Goofy or Mickey or Tigger or theestimable Mr. D. Duck. He was the one, however, with whom no one wanted his or her picture taken,the one to whom no one wanted to introduce his son or daughter. Louis and Gage knew him; they hadmet him and faced him down in New England, some time ago. He was waiting to choke you on amarble, to smother you with a dry-cleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boogieof electricity—Available at Your Nearest Switchplate or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There wasdeath in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of cigarettes. He was aroundall the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poisonbeetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nurdy little kids into busyintersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there too—Shower with aFriend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, thefood you ate. Who’s out there? you howled into the dark when you were frightened and all alone, and itwas his answer that came back: Don’t be afraid, it’s just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel,what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis!Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Hey-ho, let’s go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in themiddle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls ofpills, munch em up. That peculiar blue cast of the fingernails following asphyxiation—in its final grimstruggle to survive the brain takes all the oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under thenails. Hi, folks, my name’s Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you want—hell,we’re old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranialblood clot or something; can’t stay, got to see a woman about a breach birth, then I’ve got a little smokeinhalationjob to do in Omaha.And that thin voice is crying, “I love you, Tigger! I love you! Ibelieve in you, Tigger! I will always love you and believe in you, and I will stay young, and the only Ozto ever live in my heart will be that gentle faker from Nebraska! I love you. .We cruise. . . my son and I. . . because the essence of it isn’t war or sex but only that sickening, noble,hopeless battle against Oz the Gweat and Tewwible. He and I, in our white van under this bright Floridasky, we cruise. And the red flasher is hooded, but it is there if we need it. . . and none need know but usbecause the soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can. . . and tends it.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (303 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM