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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htmhad deepened and sharpened. A moment later an air-horn blatted and an Orinco truck roared past closeenough to make his pants and jacket flap. Damned if he hadn’t almost walked right out in front of thething.This time he checked both ways before crossing. There was only the tanker’s taillights, dwindling intothe twilight.“Thought that ‘Rinco truck was gonna get you,” Jud said. “Have a care, Louis.” Even this close, Louiscouldn’t see Jud’s face, and the uncomfortable feeling persisted that this could have been anyone. . .anyone at all.“Where’s Norma?” he asked, still not looking down at the sprawled bundle of fur by Jud’s foot.“Went to the Thanksgiving church service,” he said. “She’ll stay to the supper, I guess, although I don’tthink she’ll eat nothing. She’s gotten peckish.” The wind gusted, shifting the hood back momentarily,and Louis saw that it was indeed Jud—who else would it have been? “It’s mostly an excuse for a henpaaaty,” Jud said. “They don’t eat much but sanwidges after the big meal at noon. She’ll be back aroundeight.”Louis knelt down to look at the cat. Don’t let it be Church, he wished fervently, as he turned its headgently on its neck with gloved fingers. Let it be someone else’s cat, let Jud be wrong.But of course it was Church. He was in no way mangled or disfigured; he had not been run over by oneof the big tankers or semis that cruised Route 15 (just what was that Orinco truck doing out onThanksgiving? he wondered randomly). Church’s eyes were half-open, as glazed as green marbles. Asmall flow ofblood had come from his mouth, which was also open. Not a great deal of blood; just enough to stain thewhite bib on his chest.“Yours, Louis?”“Mine,” he agreed and sighed.He was aware for the first time that he had loved Church-maybe not as fervently as Ellie but in his ownabsent way. In the weeks following his castration, Church had changed, had gotten fat and slow, hadestablished a-routine that took him between Ellie’s bed, the couch, and his dish but rarely out of thehouse. Now, in death, he looked to Louis like the old Church. The mouth so small and bloody, filledwith needle-sharp cat’s teeth, was frozen in a shooter’s snarl. The dead eyes seemed furious. It was as ifafter the short and placid stupidity of his life as a neuter, Church had rediscovered his real nature indying.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste...%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (93 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM