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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmYes, I accept that. You may be a stupid old fart, Irwin, but perhaps the nightmare that passed betweenyour two daughters on that April day in 1965 taught you something about sensitivity.She needs me, but I can’t come, because I’m afraid—so terribly afraid—that my hands are filthy withher mother’s blood.Louis regarded those hands. Louis regarded the dirt under his nails, which was so like the dirt whichcomprised those footprints on the kitchen floor.“All right,” he said, “I understand. We’ll be there as soon as we can, Irwin. By tonight, if that’s possible.Thank you.”“We did the best we could,” Goldman said. “Maybe we’re too old. Maybe, Louis, maybe we alwayswere.”“Did she say anything else?” Louis asked.Goldman’s reply was like the toll of a funeral bell against the wall of his heart. “A lot, but only one otherthing I could make out: ‘Paxcow says it’s too late.”He hung up the telephone and moved back toward the stove in a daze, apparently meaning to continueon with breakfast or put the things away, he didn’t know which, and about halfway across the kitchen awave of faintness poured over him, floating gray overcame his sight, and he swooned to the floor—”swoon” was the right word because it seemed to take forever. He fell down and down through cloudydepths; it seemed to him that he turned over and over, looped the loop, did a dipsy doodle or two,slipped an Immelmann. Then he struck on his bad knee and the chromium bolt of pain through his headbrought him back with a scream of agony. For a moment he could only crouch, the tears starting fromhis eyes.At last he made it back to his feet and stood there, swaying. But his head was clear again. That wassomething. wasn’t it?The urge to flee came on him again for the last time, stronger than ever—he actually felt the comfortingbulge of his car keys in his pocket. He would get in the Civic and drive to Chicago. He would get Ellieand go on from there. Of course by then Goldman would know something was wrong, that somethingwas dreadfully amiss, but he would get her anyway. . . snatch her, if he had to.Then his hand fell away from the bulge of the keys. What killed the urge was not a sense of futility, notguilt, not despair or the deep weariness inside him. It was the sight of those muddy footprints on thekitchen floor. In his mind’s eye he could see them tracing a path across the entire country—first toIllinois,file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (318 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM