Pet Sematary

A truck driver puts Rachel’s car’s battery cables back on, which had somehow come off. Rachel offers him money but he refuses. Rachel knows she has been held up just long enough for something terrible to happen because a new car’s cables should not rattle off. In Chicago, Ellie has a nightmare; in Ludlow, Jud is getting stabbed by Gage while Rachel drives as fast as she can. She goes to Jud’s house first, seeing muddy footprints that she recognizes as being the size of Gage’s feet. She rings the bell to break the stillness, frightening herself. She waits for Jud then hears Church meowing inside and enters, confused. She sees blood on Church’s mouth and calls Jud’s name. She thinks of Zelda slamming her head against the wall when she was angry. She feels that something wants her to be here and hears a groan from upstairs. She fears that Zelda has come back to kill her but goes to investigate anyway. The door opens to Zelda in Gage’s burial suit, screaming at her that she’s come back for her, but then the face changes and it is Gage, smeared with blood. She holds her arms out and Gage runs into them with the scalpel clutched behind his back, screaming that he’s brought Rachel something.

Louis wakes up in incredible pain and wonders if Gage has returned. He looks outside and sees a strange car parked at Jud’s house. Church is sleeping on the car’s hood. Louis is unable to shake off the strange sensation that something is wrong. Louis thinks about his dreams: that the Wendigo touched him last night, turning him into the father of cannibals. He remembers Jud dead in his dream and Rachel’s dress being stained red. He makes himself breakfast, trying to shake the horrible images from his head, and is shaken when he notices Church staring directly into his eyes from outside the window. The phone rings, and Louis immediately knows it’s bad news and almost gets in the car and runs. Irwin is the person calling. Louis notices Gage’s footprints and understands what’s going on. Irwin asks if Rachel’s there, and Louis lies, saying yes. Irwin expresses concern because Ellie had a nightmare that Oz the Gweat and Tewwible killed her mother, and she was so hysterical they had to take her to the hospital. Irwin says he is frightened and that Rachel and Louis should come back to Chicago because their daughter is alive and needs them. Irwin relays that Ellie mentioned Pascow saying it was too late. Louis hangs up and faints. When he regains consciousness, he thinks about fleeing but knows he and Ellie will never be safe from the monster he has created. Louis thinks about committing suicide but knows he must kill Gage first. He follows Gage’s footprints to the medicine bag and realizes the scalpel is missing. He goes downstairs and gets cat food, thinking about the young couple who will buy this house after for dirt-cheap, and who might have a dog.

Louis waits for a truck to pass the road then feeds Church, who looks at him suspiciously. He strokes the cat, then injects him with a lethal dose of morphine. Church hisses and leaps off the car, stumbles, and falls. Louis sees Rachel’s purse inside the strange car. He checks to make sure Church is dead then goes to Jud’s house. Louis calls for Gage repeatedly with no answer, following the tracks on the floor. Louis notices Jud’s chair and cigarettes, realizing he sat up watching for Louis but somehow missed him. Louis sees cat paw prints alongside Gage’s footprints and follows them. He finds Jud in a pool of blood and apologizes as he covers Jud with Norma’s tablecloth. He hears a scraping sound upstairs and fills three syringes with lethal morphine doses. Louis calls for Gage and hears a horrifying giggle. He walks up the stairs, feeling like he’s losing his sanity, and asks Gage to come to Florida with him. He turns to see Rachel, dead, and it takes him a moment to start screaming, thinking of all the tragedy he has witnessed and the fact that it seems like something has eaten Rachel. He turns to see Gage’s mouth smeared with blood. Gage attacks him with the scalpel but Louis easily evades him because Gage is clumsy, like Church. Louis knocks him over and pins him down, reaching for one of the needles. Gage’s face changes into Victor’s, Jud’s, and Louis’s; Gage fights, sending the needle flying, but Louis grabs the other two, one after another, and sticks him with them. Gage staggers off, crying out, “Daddy” before he falls over dead. Louis checks to make sure it isn’t a trick, then goes and hides in a hall corner, sucking his thumb. He wraps Rachel in a sheet, spreads gasoline throughout the house, and lights it on fire before leaving.

Steve Masterton comes to check on Louis after being worried about Rachel’s call the day before: “Maybe he pushed the cycle a little faster than was strictly necessary, but the worry was there; it gnawed. And with it came the absurd feeling that he was already too late” (387). Although an atheist, Masterson believes Pascow’s death somehow set in motion the rest of the tragic events that have befallen the medical service team. Seeing the flames, Steve at first worries it is Louis’s house on fire. When he gets there, the house explodes, nearly killing one man who has tried to go in after Jud. The fire department comes, and Steve notices Louis carrying a white bundle on a path away from the house. Steve knows he should stop Louis and feels the path’s attraction. Church is found dead by the man who had tried to enter Jud’s house. Masterson follows Louis, watching him climb the deadfall. Louis’s hair has gone completely white; Masterson realizes that Louis is carrying Rachel’s body. Masterson screams Louis’s name repeatedly until Louis finally turns around. He asks Masterson if he wants to help him bury Rachel; Steve finds that he wants to but instead asks what’s happened. Louis explains haphazardly; Masterson realizes that Louis has gone insane. Louis turns around and continues on his task. Masterson follows Louis over the deadfall and feels the pull of the burial ground, but it abruptly stops, and Masterson goes back down the deadfall, almost accidentally killing himself on one of the grave markers. He hears a low chuckling that sounds huge and runs away, hopping on his bike and riding as fast as he can. After he gets home, he only remembers that day in his dreams, thinking about how something evil almost got him but decided to ignore him at the last minute. He never goes back to Ludlow again and takes a job in St. Louis.

The police ask Louis questions and he answers them. He plays solitaire into the night until he hears footsteps and Rachel “grating” voice, “full of dirt” (395).