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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm“Caa,” the young man said, and now Louis fancied hecould smell death on his breath, internal injuries, lost rhythm, failure, rein.“What?” A crazy urge came to shake him.“Gaaaaaaaa—”The young man in the red gym shorts began to shudder all over. Suddenly he seemed to freeze withevery muscle locked. His eyes lost their vacant expression momentarily and seemed to find Louis’s eyes.Then everything let go at once. There was a bad stink. Louis thought he would, must speak again. Thenthe eyes resumed their vacant expression. . . and began to glaze. The man was dead.Louis sat back, vaguely aware that all his clothes were sticking to him; he was drenched with sweat.Darkness bloomed, spreading a wing softly over his eyes, and the world began to swing sickeninglysideways. Recognizing what was happening, he half-turned from the dead man, thrust his head downbetween his knees, and pressed the nails of his left thumb and left forefinger into his gums hard enoughto bring blood.After a moment the world began to clear again.13Then the room filled up with people, as if they were all only actors, waiting for their cue. This added toLouis’s feeling of unreality and disorientation—the strength of these feelings, which he had studied inpsychology classes but never actually experienced, frightened him badly. It was, he supposed, the way aperson would feel shortly after someone had slipped a powerful dose of LSD into his drink.Like a play staged only for my benefit, he thought. The room is first conveniently cleared so the dyingSibyl can speak a few lines of oblique prophecy to me and me alone, and as soon as he’s dead, everyonecomes back.The candy-stripers bungled in, one on each end of the hard stretcher, the one they used for people withspinal or neck injuries. Joan Charlton followed them, saying that the campus police were on their way.The young man had been struck by a car while jogging. Louis thought of the joggers who had run infront of his car that morning and his guts rolled.Behind Charlton came Steve Masterton with two Campus Security cops. “Louis, the people who broughtPascow in are . . .“ He broke off and said sharply, “Louis, are you all right?”“I’m okay,” he said and got up. Faintness washed over him again and then withdrew. He groped.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste...%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (54 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM