Have you ever heard of the Stephen King novel
Pet Sematary (1983)? (If any of you other than abitagirl haven't read this gripping horror novel, you might want to skip this post. I'm about to give away much of the plot.) A young medical doctor named Louis Creed moves from Chicago with his wife Rachel and their two young children to the town of Ludlow, Maine. Louis will run the student infirmary at the nearby University of Maine at Orono. An elderly man named Jud Crandall who lives across the road from the Creeds shows them a "Pet Sematary" (a child's misspelling on a homemade sign) about a mile into the woods behind their home, a circular clearing in the woods where generations of the local kids had buried the remains of their dear pets and were still keeping the ground clear of weeds. On the side opposite the entrance is a deadfall, a tall pile of fallen trees. Later that evening Louis's kindergarten-age daughter Ellie, confronted with the fact of the mortality of pets, talks to her father about the family's beloved cat named Winston Churchill ("Church" for short), and breaks out in tears at the very thought of Church dying.
On the first day of the semester, a student named Victor Pascal is hit by a car while he is jogging on the campus, and is driven head first into the trunk of a tree. Fatally wounded, he is brought to the infirmary, where Louis is temporarily left alone with him. Just seconds before his death, Victor (who had never met Louis before) addresses him by his first name and makes a cryptic comment or two. Later that night Victor Pascal appears to Louis in a dream (or so it seems) and leads him out to the Pet Sematary, where he warns him to
never cross the deadfall, no matter how strongly he should ever feel the need. Victor warns Louis that his destruction and the destruction of those whom he loves lie on the other side. The next morning Louis convinces himself that he only had a nightmare and had walked to the Pet Sematary in his sleep.
On Thanksgiving Louis is left alone. His wife and their two children went to Chicago to spend Thanksgiving with her parents. Louis didn't go with them because Rachel's parents don't like her husband. Her father especially despises him. Louis falls asleep in front of the TV watching a football game, but is woken up by the ringing of the telephone. Jud has called to tell him that there's a dead cat on his front yard that he's afraid is Church. Louis tells Jud that Ellie will be hearbroken if she finds out that Church was killed. He tells Jud that he will secretly bury Church in the Pet Sematary and will lie to Ellie, saying that Church must have run away. Jud pauses with a strange look on his face and then tells Louis to wait for him while he goes to get something. When Jud comes back with a pickax, he tells Louis that the cat must be buried that night.
Louis follows Jud into the woods behind his home. Jud tells Louis that he is going to bury Church "somewhere else." As Louis climbs over the deadfall with no difficulty at all, he feels strangely exhilarated, which is at odds with the fact that his daughter's cat had been killed (apparently on the road in front of their home, Route 15). Jud takes Louis deep into the woods to a Micmac Indian burial ground that had been deserted hundreds of years before, where he gives Louis specific instructions on how to bury the cat (including erecting a cairn on top of the grave). None of this makes any sense to Louis, but he does what Jud tells him to do. When they return, Jud tells Louis to say nothing to Rachel or Ellie about what they just did. He even tells Louis to tell no one in Ludlow about it.
The next day Louis is putting shelves up in the garage of his home when Church comes back. Louis cannot come up with a logical explanation for the apparent resurrection of the family cat, which now gives him the creeps. Later that evening Jud tells Louis that when he was a boy, his dog had to be put out of his misery for a wound; and late that night the town drunk introduced him to the power of the Micmac burial ground. Jud claims that the burial ground has a power that made him share the sinister secret with Louis, who then asks Jud, "Has anyone ever buried a
person up there?" Jud exclaims in horror, "Why, of course not! Why would anyone do that?" (words to that effect). But Louis strongly suspects that Jud is lying. Louis never tells Rachel or Ellie about what happened to Church while they were in Chicago. The cat's body was reanimated and is now inhabited by an evil spirit of an inferior rank.
Next year Louis and Rachel's two-year-old little boy Gage is run over by an 18-wheeler on Route 15. Now guess what happens. Need I say more? The ultimate outcome of this captivating little tale is quite devastating and horrifying. As you can tell, being the twisted person that I am, I just
love this story. When she had finished reading this novel, my sister paced the floor for a long time. She was so upset with the ending. (And to think that I had given her the novel as a birthday present.
) Anyway, that's your explanation of what I was talking about. I should say that what you've just read is a summary. I've left out many interesting details, such as Rachel's childhood trauma that has a strong bearing in the plot. By the way, there's also an excellent three-hour BBC radio adaptation of
Pet Sematary that is
excellent and even better than the movie was. The last time I checked, the first part of this audio was available at
http://www.youtube.com. I haven't checked to see if the second part has been posted yet. Lewis might even have heard this audio adaptation. The novel and the BBC audio (which has
far less cussing in it than the novel, much to my liking) are highly recommended.
