Pet Sematary

“I am closer,” Rachel said. And although she did sound closer somehow, there was a distant humming on the wire. It was the sound of the wind, somewhere between here and wherever she was. The wind was high tonight. That sound that always made Jud think of dead voices, sighing in chorus, maybe singing something just a little too far away to be made out. “I’m at the rest area at Biddeford on the Maine Turnpike.”
“Biddeford!”
“I couldn’t stay in Chicago. It was getting to me, too whatever it was that got Ellie, it was getting me too. And you feel it. It’s in your voice.”
“Ayuh.” He picked a Chesterfield out of his pack and slipped it into the corner of his mouth. He popped a wooden match alight and watched it flicker as his hand trembled. His hands hadn’t trembled-not before this nightmare had commenced anyway. Outside, he heard that dark wind gust. It took the house in its hand and shook it.
Power’s growing. I can feel it.
Dim terror in his old bones. It was like spun glass, fine and fragile.
“Jud, please tell me what’s going on!”
He supposed she had a right to know-a need to know. And he supposed he would tell her. Eventually he would tell her the whole story. He would show her the chain that had been forged link by link. Norma’s heart attack, the death of the cat, Louis’s question-has anyone ever buried a person up there?-Cage’s death…
. and God alone knew what further link Louis might be forging right now. Eventually he would tell her. But not over the phone.
“Rachel, how come you to be on the turnpike instead of in a plane?”
She explained how she had missed her connecting flight at Boston. “I got an Avis car, but I’m not making the time I thought I would. I got a little bit lost corning from Logan to the turnpike, and I’ve only got into Maine. I don’t think I can get there until dawn. But Jud… please. Please tell me what’s happening. I’m so scared, and I don’t even know why.”
“Rachel, listen to me,” Jud said, “you drive on up to Portland and lay over, do you hear me? Check into a motel there and get some-”
“Jud, I can’t do th-.”
“-and get some sleep. Feel no fret, Rachel. Something may be happening here tonight, or something may not. If something is-if it’s what I think-then you wouldn’t want to be here anyway. I can take care of it, I think. I better be able to take care of it because what’s happening is my fault. If nothing’s happening, then you get here this afternoon, and that will be fine. I imagine Louis will be real glad to see you.”
“I couldn’t sleep tonight, Jud.”
“Yes,” he said, reflecting that he had believed the same thing-hell, Peter had probably believed the same thing on the night Jesus had been taken into custody.
Sleeping on sentry duty. “Yes, you can. Rachel, if you doze off behind the wheel of that damn rent-a-car and go off the road and get yourself killed, what’s going to happen to Louis then? And Ellie?”
“Tell me what’s going on! If you tell me that, Jud, maybe I’ll take your advice.
But I have to know!”
“When you get to Ludlow, I want you to come here,” Jud said. “Not over to your house. Come here first. I’ll tell you everything I know, Rachel. And I am watching for Louis.”
“Tell me,” she said.
“No, ma’am. Not over the phone. I won’t. Rachel, I can’t. You go on now. Drive up to Portland and lay over.”
There was a long, considering pause.
“All right,” she said at last. “Maybe you’re right. Jud, tell me one thing. Tell me how bad it is.”
“I can handle it,” Jud said calmly. “Things have got as bad as they’re going to get.”
Outside the headlights of a car appeared, moving slowly. Jud hall-stood, watching it, and then sat down again when it accelerated past the Creed house and out of sight.
“All right,” she said. “I guess. The rest of this drive has seemed like a stone on my head.”
“Let the stone roll off, my dear,” Jud said. “Please. Save yourself for tomorrow. Things here will be all right.”
“You promise you’ll tell me the whole story?”
“Yes. We’ll have us a beer, and I’ll tell you the whole thing.”
“Goodbye, then,” Rachel said, “for now.”
“For now,” Jud agreed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Rachel.”
Before she could say anything else, Jud hung up the telephone.
He thought there were caffeine pills in the medicine cabinet, but he could not find them. He put the rest of the beer back in the refrigerator-not without regret-and settled for a cup of black coffee. He took it back to the bow window and sat down again, sipping and watching.
The coffee-and the conversation with Rachel-kept him awake and alert for three quarters of an hour, but then he began to nod once more.
No sleeping on sentry duty, old man. You let it get hold of you; you bought something,