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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm—made him nervous. He had never had an episode of somnambulism before, and there was no way tobe sure it was an isolated incident. . . until it did or didn’t happen again.He heard Rachel get out of bed, and then she called down softly, “Lou? Hon? You coming up?”“Just was,” he said, turning out the lamp over his study desk and getting up.It took a good deal longer than seven minutes to shut the machine down that night. Listening to Racheldraw the long, calm breaths of deep sleep beside him, the apparition of Victor Pascow seemed lessdreamlike. He would close his eyes and see the door crashing open and there he was, Our Special GuestStar, Victor Pascow, standing there in his jogging shorts, pallid under his summer tan, his collarbonepoking up.He would slide down toward sleep, think about how it would be to come fully, coldly awake in the PetSematary, to see those roughly concentric circles litten by moonlight, to have to walk back, awake,along the path through the woods. He would think these things and then snap fully awake again.It was sometime after midnight when sleep finally crept up onhis blind side and bagged him. There were no dreams. He woke up promptly at seven-thirty, to the soundof cold autumn rain beating against the window. He threw the sheets back with some apprehension. Theground sheet on his bed was flawless. No purist would describe his feet, with their rings of heel calluses,that way, but they were at least clean.Louis caught himself whistling in the shower.Missy Dandridge kept Gage while Rachel ran Winston Churchill to the vet’s office. That night Elliestayed awake until after eleven, complaining querulously that she couldn’t sleep without Church andcalling for glass after glass of water. Finally Louis refused to let her have any more on the grounds thatshe would wet the bed. This caused a crying tantrum of such ferocity that Rachel and Louis stared ateach other blankly, eyebrows raised.“She’s scared for Church,” Rachel said. “Let her work it out, Lou.”“She can’t keep it up at that pitch for long,” Louis said. “I hope.”He was right. Ellie’s hoarse, angry cries became hitches and hiccups and moans. Finally there wassilence. When Louis went up to check on her, he found she was sleeping on the floor with her armswrapped tightly around the cat bed that Church hardly even deigned to sleep in.19file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste...%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (74 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM