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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmI could help him, if that’s what he wants . . . and I want to help him, yes. That’s the truth because there’smore going on here than meets the eye and I want to know what it is. It seems very. . . well. . . veryimportant. It seems like a secret. Like a mystery.Then a branch snapped under one of his canted feet. It made a dry, dusty sound like a track starter’s gun.It brought him back to exactly where he was and what he was doing. Terror leaped into him and heturned around in a clumsy circle, arms held out for balance, his tongue and throat oily with fright, hisface bearing the dismayed grimace of a man who wakes up only to find he has sleepwalked his way ontoa high skyscraper ledge.She’s dead and I think that maybe Louis has killed her, Louis has gone mad, utterly mad, but— Butthere was something worse than madness here—something much, much worse. It was as if there was amagnet somewhere out in those woods and he could feel it pulling at something in his brain. Pulling himtoward that place where Louis was taking Rachel.Come on, walk the path. . . walk the path and see where It goes. We got stuff to show you out here,Steverino, stuff they never told you about in the Atheists’ Society back in Lake Forest.And then, perhaps simply because it had enough for one day to feed on and lost interest in him, the callof the place in his mind simply ceased. Steve took two plunging, drunken steps back down the side ofthe deadfall. Then more branches let go with a grinding rattle and his left foot plunged into the tangleddeadwood; harsh sharp splinters pulled off his sneaker and then tore into his flesh as he yanked free. Hefell forward into the Pet Sematary, barely missing a piece of orange crate that could easily have punchedinto his stomach.He got to his feet, staring around, bewildered, wondering what had happened to him. . . or if anythinghad happened to him. Already it had begun to seem like a dream.Then, from the deep woods behind the deadfall, woods so deep that the light looked green and tarnishedeven on the brightest days, a low, chuckling laugh arose. The sound was huge. Steve could not evenbegin to imagine what sort of creature could have made such a sound.He ran, one shoe off and one shoe on, trying to shriek but unable. He was still running when he reachedLouis’s house, and still trying to shriek when he finally got his bike started and slued out onto Route 15.He very nearly sideswiped an arriving fire engine from Brewer. Inside his Bell helmet, his hair wasstanding on end.By the time he got back to his apartment in Orono, he could not precisely remember having gone toLudlow at all. He called in sick at the infirmary, took a pill, and went to bed.Steve Masterton never really remembered that day. . . except in deep dreams, those that come in thesmall hours of the morning. And in these dreams he would sense that something huge had shrugged byfile:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20St...20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (331 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:50 PM