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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmsmell of gas was strong and rich.Jud’s matches were by the chair where he had kept his fruitless watch, on top of his cigarettes. Louistook them. At the front door he tossed a lighted match back over his shoulder and stepped out. The blastof the heat was immediate and savage, making the skin on his neck feel too small. He shut the doorneatly and only stood on the porch for a moment, watching the orange flickersbehind Norma’s curtains. Then he crossed the porch, pausing for a moment, remembering the beers heand Jud had drunk here a million years ago, listening to the soft, gathering roar of fire within the house.Then he stepped out.62Steve Masterton came around the curve just before Louis’s house and saw the smoke immediately—notfrom Louis’s place, but from the house that belonged to the old duck across the street.He had come out this morning because he had been worried about Louis—deeply worried. Chariton hadtold him about Rachel’s call of the day before, and that had set him to wondering just where Louiswas. . . and what he was up to.His worry was vague, but it itched at his mind—he wasn’t going to feel right until he had gone out thereand checked to see if things were okay. . . or as okay as they could be under the circumstances.The spring weather had emptied the infirmary like white magic, and Surrendra had told him to go ahead;he could handle whatever came up. So Steve had jumped onto his Honda, which he had liberated fromthe garage only last weekend, and headed out for Ludlow. Maybe he pushed the cycle a little faster thanwas strictly necessary, but the worry was there; it gnawed. And with it came the absurd feeling that hewas already too late. Stupid, of course, but in the pit of his stomach there was a feeling similar to the onehe’d had there last fall when that Pascow thing cropped up—a feeling of miserable surprise and almostleaden disillusion. He was by no means a religious man (in college Steve had been a member of theAtheist’s Society for two semesters and had dropped out only when his advisor had told him—privatelyand very much off the record—that it might hurt his chances to obtain a med school scholarship lateron), but he supposed he fell as much heir to whatever biological or biorhythmic conditions passed forpremonitions as any other human being, and the death of Pascow had seemed to set a tone for the yearwhich followed, somehow. Not a good year by any means. Two of Surrendra’s relatives had beenclapped in jail back home, some political thing, and Surrendra had told him that he believed one of them—an uncle he cared for very much—might well now be dead. Surrendra had wept, and the tears fromfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (326 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM