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file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Stephen%20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm“Just follow me,” Jud said. “Follow me and don’t look down. Don’t hesitate and don’t look down. Iknow the way through, but it has to be done quick and sure.”Louis began to think that perhaps it was a dream, that he had simply never awakened from his afternoonnap. If I was awake, he thought, I’d no more head up that deadfall than I’d get drunk and go skydiving.But I’m going to do it. I really think I am. SoI must be dreaming. Right?Jud angled slightly left, away from the center of the deadfall. The flash’s beam centered brightly on thejumbled heap of(bones)fallen trees and old logs. The circle of light grew smaller and even brighter as they approached. Withoutthe slightest pause, without even a brief scan to assure himself that he was in the right place, Jud startedup. He did not scramble; he did not climb bent over, the way a man will climb a rocky hillside or asandy slope. He simply mounted, as if climbing a set of stairs. He walked like a man who knows exactlywhere his next step is coming from.Louis followed in the same way.He did not look down or search for footholds. It came to him with a strange but total surety that thedeadfall could not harm him unless he allowed it to. It was a piece of utter assholery of course, like thestupid confidence of a man who believes it’s safe to drive when totally shitfaced as long as he’s wearinghis St. Christopher’s medallion.But it worked,There was no pistol-shot snap of an old branch giving way, no sickening plunge into a hole lined withjutting, weather-whitened splinters, each one ready to cut and gore and mangle. His shoes(Hush Puppy loafers—hardly recommended for climbing dead-falls) did not slip on the old dry mosswhich had overgrown many of the fallen trees. He pitched neither forward nor backward. The wind sangwildly through the fir trees all around them.For a moment he saw Jud standing on top of the deadfall, and then he began down the far side, calvesdropping out of sight, then thighs, then hips and waist. The light bounced randomly off the whippingbranches of the trees on the other side of the .the barrier. Yes, that’s what it was—why try to pretend it wasn’t? The barrier.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste...%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20Pet%20Sematary.htm (98 of 333)7/28/2005 9:21:49 PM