Chapter 57 fifty seven

Louis tripped over something and fell to the ground.For a moment he thought he wouldn't get up—he was going to lie here, listening to all the strange noises coming from the Little God's Swamp, feeling his body ache.Here he will lie and sleep, or die.Maybe die. Louis remembers placing the package containing his son's body in the hole he dug, pushing most of the soil back into the hole with his hands, and he believes he remembers piling a sign with stones on top of it, Conical shape with lower circle and upper tip... He can't remember anything from then to now.Obviously he came down the stone steps again, otherwise he couldn't be here, where is... where?Louis looked around and found himself in an old pine forest not far from the deadwood pile.

Could he walk across that little god swamp without feeling it?He thought it was possible.just possible. It's far enough away, I'll just sleep here. But it was this thought that made him stand up again, and then walked back.Because if he stayed here, that thing might find him... that thing might be looking for him in the woods right now. He wiped his face with his hands, first with the palms of his hands, and then, in foolish surprise, there was blood on his hands... When did he get his own nose to bleed? "Who did it?" he whispered hoarsely, looking around nonchalantly until he found the pick and shovel again.

Louis walked for another 10 minutes, and saw the pile of dead wood looming in front of him.Luis climbed up, stumbling, but somehow managed to keep from falling, and when he was about to come down, he glanced down, a branch caught his foot, another branch bounced, and he fell sideways. On the ground, the wind blew him hard. I'd die if it wasn't for the second graveyard I fell into tonight... and if two graveyards weren't enough, I'd be damned. He started groping around again for a pick and a shovel, and finally found it.He held it in his hand, and looked around under the starlight. There was a grave of a kitten named Smudge nearby.Louis thought wearily, it is very obedient.He saw the cemeteries of dogs, cats and other pets all around him, and heard a "ding... ding... ding" sound.A tombstone made of a smashed tin can made by some child hangs in the wind.This brought back the fear, but he was so tired that he just felt his heart beat faster.He's done his work for tonight.And that "ding... ding" made him want to hurry home more than anything.

Louis stumbles across the graves at the pet cemetery.Then the metal plate's "ding... ding... ding" sounded louder and louder. It turned out to be a rectangular sheet of tin, which was bent, and the wind was constantly blowing it into the arc at the entrance to the pet cemetery. on the iron sheet.Louis reached out to straighten the iron plate... But then he froze, his scalp tightening. He saw something move at the other end of the pile of dead wood. He heard a furtive sound, the rustling of pine needles, the falling of a small orange branch, and the rattling of bushes.If you don't listen carefully, these voices can hardly be heard in the howling wind.

"Gage?" Lewis called hoarsely. His scalp tightened and his hair stood on end as he realized what he was doing as he stood in the dark calling his dead son's name.He began to shake helplessly, as if he had mortal typhoid. "Gage?" Louis called again. Those voices disappeared. It shouldn't be resurrected yet, it's too early.Don't ask me how I know, but I do.That thing over there isn't Gage, it's...something else. Louis suddenly remembered what Ellie had said to him, and God called, "Lazarus, come out." Because if he didn't call Lazarus' name, everyone in the graveyard could be brought back to life.

At the other end of the pile of dead wood, those voices sounded again.On the other side of the barrier, the sounds were barely audible over the wind.Somehow, an ancient intuition seemed to be creeping towards him.A terrifying vision came to Louis' mind: a giant mole, or a giant bat, flapping its way through the bushes. Louis walked backwards out of the pet cemetery, not daring to turn his back on the pile of dead wood... That ghostly vague feeling, like a blue scar in the dark night.Louis didn't turn around until he was down the path, and ran through the woods into the fields behind his house, when he felt he couldn't run anymore.

Louis threw the manuscript and shovel into the garage casually, and stood at the entrance of the driving road for a while, first looking at the way he came back, and then at the sky.It is now a quarter past four in the morning.He thought that dawn would be here soon. On the Atlantic Ocean, the sun might have risen for a while, but at this time in Luther Town, it was still night, and the wind was blowing constantly. Louis entered the house, walked along the garage wall to the back door and opened it. He left the light on and walked through the kitchen to a small bathroom between the kitchen and the dining room. Here he turned on the light and saw the first It was Church, curled up on the toilet seat, staring at Louis with dim, yellow-green eyes.

"Church," Louis said, "I thought someone had let you out." Church just leaned over the toilet seat and watched him.Yes, someone has let the kitten out.It was Louis who let it out by himself, and he remembered it very clearly, just like he remembered the time he changed the glass windows in the basement and said to himself that it would be good, the problem was solved, Church would not get in again, but in the end Who is he kidding?Church can come in when he wants to.Because Church is not the same now as he was before. It doesn't matter.After this tedious, exhausting job and nothing else mattered, he felt a little human, maybe one of George's stupid movie zombies, maybe some ghost in Eliot's poem.I should have claws, galloping through the Lesser God Swamp, and then crawling up the Mi'kmac Graveyard.Louis thought about letting out a dry laugh.

With a hoarse voice, Louis said as he unbuttoned his shirt, "This is me, you better believe it, Church, a useless brain." After taking off the shirt, he saw a large bruise on the left side of his body, just on the left upper rib; after taking off his pants, he found that the knee that hit the tombstone was swollen like a balloon and had turned black and purple .He thought that if he didn't move his knee, the joint would become stiff and the leg would not be able to bend, as if it had been poured into cement.It seems that in his life this is a disease that will trouble him when it is cloudy and rainy.

Louis reached out to stroke Church for some comfort, but the kitten jumped off the toilet lid and staggered away, somewhere.Before leaving, the kitten glanced at Louis with those yellow-green eyes. There was ointment for bruises in the medicine cupboard, and Louis took it out, sat on the toilet seat, and rubbed some on his battered knee, and then some on his back...it was hard to reach his own back. He left the toilet, walked to the living room, turned on the light in the hall, stood under the stairs for a while, and looked around the things in the house foolishly.How strange it all looked!It was here that he gave his wife the sapphire necklace on Christmas Eve.The necklace was always in the pocket of his pajamas, and there was his chair, where he sat to explain the facts of death to his daughter after Norma died.These facts finally made him find that even he would not accept it.The Christmas tree was still in the corner, and Ellie's own paper turkey, taped to the window, reminded Louis of some kind of crow that could tell the future.Earlier, the house was empty except for boxes and boxes filled with their belongings; that was when they first moved from the Midwest, and he remembers thinking they didn't matter at all, like a connection between his family and the outside world. A small fortress isolated.

How strange it all seemed... How he wished he'd never heard of some University of Maine, or some Luther House, or any Chad and Norma, or anything. Louis went upstairs and stepped on a stool in the toilet to get his little black bag from the overhead medicine cabinet.He took the bag into the master bedroom, sat down, and began to fumble in the bag.Yes, there were syringes just in case, medical tape and scissors, and a few deadly doses. If necessary. Louis closed the bag and put it next to the bed.He turned off the overhead light and lay down on the bed with his hands under his head.Lying on your back and resting in bed is very comfortable. His mind went back to Disney World.He saw himself wearing a white uniform and driving a white caravan with a sign like a curled ear. Of course, the appearance must not make people think that this is an ambulance. scare away. Gage sat next to him, tanned and with a healthy gleam in his eyes.Here, just to my left, is that ridiculous weirdo Guffy, shaking hands with a little boy who looks dazed. Here's Vinny with two old granny's in dresses, and another granny is taking their picture.And here's a little girl in her best dress yelling, "I love you, Digg! I love you, Digg!" Luis was on patrol with his son, who was on guard duty in this magical land, endlessly cruising in their white caravan with their flashing lights covered.They're not looking for trouble, they won't, but if trouble arises, they'll be ready to deal with it. In such a place of joy and fun, danger also lurks, and it goes without saying that a laughing man buying film on Main Street might have a heart attack; Feel the pangs of labor; a teenage girl with the looks of a magazine cover girl might have a seizure and fall down the road.There would be heat strokes, myocardial infarctions, cerebral hemorrhages, and perhaps someone struck by lightning on a sweltering summer afternoon; even Lord Worth of the Terror was here, who might be glimpsed on the monorail near the car, or secretly watching the spinning Danbao car.Here, Louis and Gage see it as just another character in Disneyland, like Guffy and Mickey Mouse.But the Lord of the Worthy Horrors is a character no one wants to have a picture with or let their son or daughter know about him, while Lois and Gage know him, when did they face it before in New England, It's waiting to choke on marbles, suffocate on dry laundry bags, and electrocute.The Lord of Terror is in people's life all the time.Peanuts, steak, and smoke can all kill.Dirty needles, poisonous bugs, dangling live wires, raging forest fires, and spinning skateboards can kill children. When people take a bath, the Lord of the Worth is in your bathroom; when people fly, the Lord of the Worth is with you.It's in the water people drink and in the food people eat.When you're all alone and terrified and yell "who's there" into the darkness, its answer comes: Don't be afraid, it's me, hi, how are you?You got bowel cancer, what a loafer, hi-ho, let's go!The drug dealer stood at the door with a knife and called in the middle of the night.Take a handful of pills and swallow them all.Hi guys, my name is Woz the Great of Terror, you can call me Woz if you want - oh, we're old friends now. I'm here to give you a heart attack or a cerebral hemorrhage or whatever, I'm here to beat you down.I can't stay long, I have to see a woman who has a postpartum haemorrhage after giving birth, and then I'm off to Omaha for a job smoking people to death. Louis thought, and the little girl's thin voice cried out, "I love you, Digg! I love you, I trust you, Digg! I'll always love you, trust you, and I'll always be young, The only Worthy Terror I have in mind is that gentle liar from Nabraska! I love you!" We marched—me and my son—because we knew that the root of death was not war or sex, but the noble, hopeless, loathsome battle with the Worthy Horror. My son and I were driving under the clear Florida skies in our white caravan.We're cruising, signal flashers covered, but we can use them when we need to - no one needs to know, just the two of us, 'cause men's hearts are harder; men plant what they can —and then take care of it. Louis thought about these incoherent things intermittently, gradually separating the waking and half-awake states, and slowly all thoughts stopped, and exhaustion plunged him into unconscious, dreamless sleep. Just before dawn, when the sun was just about to rise in the east, there was the sound of footsteps on the stairs, very slow and clumsy, but purposeful.A shadow moved in the shadows of the hall, emitting a foul smell from it.Louis mumbled something in his sleep, though he was in a deep sleep, and turned away from the smell.Then Louis let out another even breathing sound. The shadow stood outside the master bedroom where Louis was asleep for a moment, motionless, and then it walked in, and Louis' face was buried deep in the pillow.A pair of white hands stretched out, and the black medical bag beside Louis' bed clicked open. The contents of the bag were moved to make a low clinking sound. The hands groping, uninterested in medicines and syringes, found something and held it up; it gleamed silvery in the twilight of dawn. The shadow left the room.