Chapter 18 eighteen

It was 10 o'clock, and Apuzhaoen's drug salesman hadn't come yet.Louis couldn't wait. He called the Registrar's Office, and a Mrs. Stapleton replied that she would send a record on Pascoe shortly.Just as Louis hung up the phone, Appchaoen's drug salesman came. He didn't sell any drugs to Louis, but asked him if he would be interested in buying discounted New England Patriots season tickets.Louis didn't buy it.The guy said gloomily, "I don't think you'd buy either," and left. At noon, Louis walked to a fast food restaurant, bought a tuna sandwich and a Coke, took it back to the office, and ate while reading Pascoe's records.He wanted to find out something about himself and North Luther House and the pet cemetery, maybe the kid grew up there or buried a cat or a dog or something there, so Louis could understand what he had been through. There is a reasonable explanation.

But Louis found no clues.Pascoe is from New Jersey and is here to study electrical engineering.On those few sheets of paper, Louis saw nothing of any possible connection between the two of them.He drank the Coke in the glass with a straw, and then threw the paper cup and garbage into the wastebasket. Although the lunch was not a big one, Louis had a good appetite.Really, he thinks he's fine, at least for now, he's not shaking anymore.It seemed to him that the morning scene now looked like a dream for no reason. Louis tapped his fingers on the notebook, shrugged, picked up the phone again, dialed the number for the state medical center, and asked the operator to connect him to the morgue.After he reported his identity, he said, "You have a student named Pasco..."

"Not here now, he's not here anymore," said the voice on the other end of the phone. Louis felt his throat constrict, and he managed to say, "What?" "His body was brought back to his parents last night. The Brookings funeral home took his body out on Delta Flight 109. Where do you think he went? At what show Are you dancing?" "Oh, no, of course, no. Only, it seems too fast." The other party flipped through the records and said: "He did the autopsy yesterday afternoon, at about 2:30, and it was done by Dr. Renzwick. At that time, Pascoe's father had arranged everything. I think his corpse Newark about two o'clock next morning."

"Ah, in that case..." "Unless one of the porters screwed up and sent him somewhere else. The Delta flight can't go wrong though. We've had one before. One guy went with friends Died fishing, put his body in the cargo hold of some airline, meant to go back to his hometown of Minnesota, but someone made a mistake and shipped him first to Miami and then to to Demunis, then to Fagou, and back to North Dakota. By the time people figured it out, the dead body was all black and smelled like rotten pork. I heard there were 6 The porter was so disgusting." After speaking, the voice laughed happily.

Louis closed his eyes and said, "Ah, thank you..." "Doctor, I can give you Dr. Renzwick's home phone number if you want, but he usually goes out to play golf in the morning." Louis said, "No, it's all right." He hung up the phone.Luis thought: Let it all pass, Pascoe's body was almost certainly already in his own home when I had the nightmare. As he drove home that afternoon, Louis found a plausible explanation for the mud on his feet and bed: he had been sleepwalking.Sleepwalking occurred at night due to the extreme depression caused by an unexpected accident on the first day of work in which a student was fatally injured and then died.That explains everything.Last night's dream seemed real, because some of it was real—touching the carpet, feeling the cold dew, and of course the dead branch that scratched his arm.It also explains why Pascoe was able to score past the goal but he couldn't.

A vision flashed through Louise's mind: last night Rachel came downstairs and found him banging his head against the back door, trying to break through in his dream.Louis smiled at the thought that Rachel would be surprised if she saw this.With the idea of ​​sleepwalking in his head, Louis began to explain why he was sleepwalking.Maybe it was his visit to the pet cemetery, which led to his fight with his wife, and his daughter's first exposure to the concept of death, and maybe it all came together when he went to bed last night. Fortunately, I returned home safe and sound-I didn't remember this part, I must have come back unconsciously.That's all right, he can't imagine waking up in the cemetery next to Smudge the cat's grave, dazed and covered in dew, he'd be scared to death--no doubt , just like Rachel.

But all this is over. Let it go, Louis thought with relief, yes; but what did Pascoe mean when he died?Louis was still wondering, but he immediately stopped his thoughts. That night, while Rachel was ironing and Ellie and Gage were sitting in chairs watching TV, Louis casually told his wife that he wanted to go for a walk for some air. Without looking up, Rachel asked, "Could you come back early and help me put Gage to bed? You know he's always more obedient when you're around." "No problem," Louis said. Ellie stared at the TV and asked, "Dad, where are you going?"

"Baby, just go outside." "Oh." Louis walked out. Fifteen minutes later, Louis arrived at the pet cemetery. He looked around curiously, with a strong feeling in his heart: there was no doubt that he had been here.The headstone of Smudge the cat had been knocked over, and Louis remembered bumping into it as Pascoe approached him towards the end of his dream.Louis straightened the tombstone absently, and walked towards the pile of dead wood. He didn't like the pile of dead wood, because he remembered that in his dream the wind-whitened dead wood was a pile of bones, and the thought still made him shudder.He barely reached out to touch a dead tree. The tree lost its balance and rolled down beside the pile of trees. Louis jumped back and the dead tree missed his shoes.

Louis first walked around the left side of the pile of dead trees, and then walked around the right side, and found that the bushes under the dead trees on both sides were dense and difficult to penetrate, and it was impossible to push the bushes to make a way, even if it was a Even smart people can't help it.There are lush and poisonous vines growing on the dead wood pile, and they are almost spreading to the ground.Louis had been hearing from some people that they were immune to the vine, but he knew that almost no one was actually immune to it.Beyond that were huge, terrible thorns, which Louis had never seen before.He walked slowly back to the middle of the pile of dead wood, his hands in the back pockets of his jeans, looking at the pile of dead wood.

You're not going to try to climb this pile of dead trees, are you? Boss, of course I won't, why would I do such a stupid thing? Great, Louis, you really worried me for a while.It doesn't look very nice to go to work when you break your ankle, doesn't it? Of course, and besides, it was getting a little dark. Luis was conscious, but began to climb the pile of dead wood.Halfway up, he felt his feet move and heard strange creaking noises. Doc, those bones will roll. The deadwood pile moved again, and Louis began to crawl down, his shirttail pulled out of his trousers.He got down to the ground safe and sound, patted the dead bark on his hands, and walked back to the path leading to his home.At home, the children listened to him tell stories before going to bed, and his wife and he drank tea after the children went to bed, and Church had only one day, and would be castrated tomorrow.

Before Louis left, he took a closer look at the open space. It was lush green, and the night fog from somewhere began to cover the tombstones. The centripetal circles resembled generations of children in Luther Township. hands, built this cemetery. But, Louis, is that all there is to it? Although Louis only glanced at the situation on the other side of the deadwood pile before feeling a little nervous about the deadwood pile rolling, he could swear that there was a path leading to the depths of the woods. Louis, this is none of your business, you have to put it aside. All right, boss. Louis turned and walked home. That night, after Rachel went to bed, Louis stayed up for an hour reading the medical journals he had already read, unwilling to admit that the thought of going to bed made him nervous.He had never sleepwalked before, and there was no way to prove that it was just an accident—unless it happened again or never happened again. He heard Rachel get up, and then she called him softly, "Louis, honey, aren't you coming upstairs to sleep?" "Here we go," Louis said.He then switched off the lamp on the desk and went upstairs. It took Louis far more than seven minutes to fall asleep.During this period, he fell asleep listening to his wife's even breathing beside him, and he seemed to see the image of Pascoe again.As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw the door slammed open, and Pascoe stood there like a guest, in gym shorts and his collarbone protruding. Louis was slowly getting sleepy, but his mind was still thinking that if he woke up clearly in the pet cemetery and saw the foggy centripetal circles around the grave in the moonlight, he would have to walk consciously along the forest. What would it be like to walk home on the small path in the middle of the road?Thinking of this, he slowly became sleepy, and then would wake up suddenly. Louis was not fully asleep until after midnight.A night without dreams.At 7:30 the next day, Louis was awakened by the sound of icy autumn rain on the glass, and worriedly lifted the sheets, which were flawless.His feet cannot be said to be extremely clean, but at least they are clean.Louis breathed a sigh of relief and whistled as he showered.