Chapter 61 sixty one

Louis paused at a fork in the road to let an Orinco fertilizer truck rumble by, then walked across the road to Chad's house, his shadow trailing Holding a bowl of cat food in one hand. Church saw him approaching, raised himself up, and looked at him warily. "Church," Louis said, surveying the silent house, "want something to eat?" Louis put the box on the trunk of the car and watched as Church jumped gently from the roof onto the trunk and began to eat.Louis put his hands inside his jacket, and Church looked around him nervously, as if he knew what he was up to.Louis laughed, walked away from the car, and Church started eating again.Lewis took a syringe from his pocket, tore off the paper bag, filled it with 75 mg of morphine, put the high-strength vial back in his jacket pocket, and walked over to Church.The kitten looked at him distrustingly again, and Louis smiled at the cat and said, "Go on, Church, eat it all. Hi-ho, let's go, shall we?" He petted the kitten, touched The kitten arched its back, and when the kitten began to eat again, Louis grabbed the kitten's stinking stomach and stuck the needle of the syringe into the lower part of its leg.

Church startled when Louis grabbed it and struggled, grunting and scratching.But Luis still held on to it, pushing the needle all the way in, and he didn't let go until all the medicine had been injected.The kitten hopped out of the car, hissing like a teakettle, wildly evil in its yellow-green eyes.When the kitten jumped out of the car, the syringe and needle dangled from its leg, and when the cat landed, the syringe fell and shattered.Louis didn't care, he brought enough. The kitten started running towards the road, then turned and ran towards the house, as if remembering something.It had barely run half way when it started shaking like a drunk.It took a few steps, then jumped forward and fell down.It lay on its side at the bottom of the porch steps, breathing weakly.

Louis glanced at the blue car, and if he could think of any more evidence to confirm the heaviness in his heart, he found it.Rachel's purse was on the car seat, and her scarf and a few plane tickets were poking out of the clips. When Louis turned and walked towards the porch again, Church's body had stopped the rapid shaking.Church died, Church died again. Louis stepped over the kitten and headed for the porch steps. "Gage?" It was cool in the vestibule, cool and dark.Louis called Gage like a stone thrown into a deep well in the silence.Louis called again, "Gage?"

There was no sound at all.Even the hall clock has stopped its ticking, and no one has given it a boost this morning. But there are footprints on the floor. Louis walked into the living room, which smelled of cigarettes.He saw Jud's chair by the window, pushed sideways as if he had stood up suddenly, and an ashtray on the windowsill with a neat roll of ash in it. Chad sat here watching.What are you looking at?Of course it is to see me, to see me come home.Only he didn't see me, for some reason he didn't see me. Louis caught sight of four neatly placed beer cans, which wouldn't make him fall asleep at all, but maybe he went upstairs to use the bathroom.Anyway, it's a coincidence, isn't it?

Muddy footprints approached the chair by the window, mixed with the footprints of a few vague ghostly cat footprints.It seems that Church walked several times in the mud prints left by Gage.Then the footprints pointed to the door of the kitchen. With a beating heart, Louis followed the footprints to the kitchen. Louis pushed open the kitchen door and saw Chad's splayed feet, his old green overalls, his checked flannel shirt, the old man sprawled in a pool of dried blood. Louis patted his cheeks with both hands, as if to make himself see better.But it's too late.He saw Chad's eyes, open, as if condemning him, and perhaps himself, for making this happen.

But did he make it happen?Louis wondered: Did he really make this happen? It was Stani Bee who told Chad, Stani Bee's papa who was the last fur trader with the Indians, a Frenchman from the North when Franklin was president. "Oh, Chad, I'm so sorry," Louis whispered. Chad stared at him blankly. "I'm so sorry," Louis repeated. Louis's feet seemed to move on their own, and his mind went back to Thanksgiving last year, not to the night he and Chad took the kittens to the pet cemetery and the Meek Mike cemetery, but to the night they ate together that night.Norma cooked a turkey and put it on the table, and the three of them ate dinner, talking and laughing, the two men drinking beer, Norma a glass of white wine.

Norma took a white tablecloth from the bottom drawer and spread it on the table, then fastened it with pretty candle holders.Louis is getting the white tablecloth out of the bottom drawer now too, but he— Louis watched the white tablecloth fall over Chad's body like a parachute, covering Chad's face.Then the white tablecloth was immediately soaked with red blood, like little rose petals. "I'm sorry," Louis said a third time, "It's true—" Then he felt something moving overhead, something scraping and Louis's words stopped on his lips, something that went softly and sneakily but purposefully, oh yeah , he can be sure of that.It was the voice he'd always wanted to hear.

Louis' hands were about to tremble, but he controlled it, and he went to the tarpaulin-covered dining table, reached into his pocket, took out three syringes, tore open the top pouch, and placed them neatly on the table.He opened three more vials, filled each syringe with enough liquid to kill a horse—or Hanratty's bull, and put the contents back in his pocket. Louis left the kitchen, crossed the living room, stood at the bottom of the stairs, and called, "Gage?" From somewhere in the shadows upstairs there was a giggling, cold laugh that sent goosebumps down Louis's back.

He started walking up the stairs. It seemed like a long way to get to the top of the stairs.He could imagine a condemned man walking up to the platform with his hands tied behind his back, and it might have been such a long walk.The prisoner knew that when he was executed, he could no longer whistle, and he would wet his pants. Louis finally reached the top of the stairs, one hand in his pocket, just staring at the wall.How long he stood like this, he didn't know, he could feel his reason begin to give in.It's a real feeling.It was an interesting feeling, and he imagined what an ice-covered tree might feel in the midst of a terrible snowstorm, just before it collapsed, if trees had feelings, of course.It's an interesting feeling -- even a little funny.

"Gage, want to go to Florida with me?" There was another giggle. Louis turned and saw his wife, lying dead in the upstairs hall.Her legs were spread apart like Chad's.With her back and head against the wall, she looks like a woman falling asleep reading a book in bed.Louis walked up to his wife. Hello dear.Louis thought, you've come home. There was a lot of blood splattered on the wallpaper.She was stabbed a dozen times, twenty times, who knows?It was done with his scalpel. Suddenly he saw her, really saw her, and Louise started screaming. Louis's screams echoed through the house, from his swollen throat like bells in hell, a terrible scream that signaled not the end of love but the end of sanity.All the horrible images in his head popped up: Pascoe dead on the infirmary carpet, Churchy resurrected with green plastic strands stuck to his beard, Gage's baseball cap covered in blood on the road, but more Mostly the thing you saw in the little god swamp, the thing that knocked the trees down, the thing with the yellow eyes, the Wendigo, the ghost of the north, the one that makes people unbearable after touching them Something of a cannibal.

Rachel wasn't just killed. Something—something was haunting her. (Porphyrin!) It was the sound of popping in Louis's head, the sound of a fuse blowing and never being repaired, the sound of lightning bolting down, the sound of a door being opened . Louis raised his head numbly, with a scream still in his throat, and he finally saw Gage.Gage's mouth was smeared with blood, his chin was still dripping blood, his lips were drawn back in a hideous grin, and he held Louis' scalpel in one hand. When Gage raised the knife to cut at him, Louis took a step back with a blank mind, the scalpel hissed across his cheek, and Gage staggered.He was as clumsy as Church, thought Louis.Louis kicked Gage's foot from below, and Gage fell awkwardly to the ground.Louis didn't wait for him to get up, and jumped on top of him, straddling Gage, one knee pressed tightly against the hand holding the scalpel. "No!" gasped something under Louis.Its face was contorted, and its eyes were full of evil hatred. "No, no, no—" Louis reached out and grabbed a syringe. He had to be quick, the thing beneath him was slippery like a fish, and no matter how hard he pressed the wrist holding the scalpel, it wouldn't let go and drop the scalpel.Its face seemed to fluctuate and change, even as he looked at it.Now the face of the thing was Jud's face, staring lifelessly; now it was Pascoe's sunken, disfigured face with rolling eyes; It became Louis's own face, pale and mad; Grinning and hissing. "No, no, no-no-no-no-" The thing quivered under him.The syringe Louis was holding slipped out of his hand and rolled into the hall.Louis took another one out and stabbed it straight into Gage's back. The thing was still screaming and writhing and writhing under him, almost knocking Louis out of the way. With a grunt, Louis took out a third syringe, plunged it into Gage's arm, and pushed all the medicine into it.Then he got off Gage and began to back slowly down the hall.Gage stood up slowly and staggered towards him.After walking 5 steps, the scalpel fell from its hand.The scalpel landed on the blade first, inserted into the wooden board, and shook.After walking 10 steps, the strange yellow light in its eyes started to disappear.After walking 12 steps, it fell to its knees. Then Gage looked up at him, and for a moment Louis saw his own son, his own son's true face, its face full of displeasure and pain. "Daddy!" it cried, and fell face down on the ground. Louis stood for a while, then walked towards Yiji, moving his steps carefully, wondering if it was playing some trick, but there was no trick, no crooked hands popping out like claws.Louis reached Gage's throat deftly, found the pulse, felt for it, and then he was a doctor again, for the last time in his life.He checked for a pulse until finally it disappeared. When it was all over, Louis stood up, walked slowly to a corner of the hall, and crouched there, hugging his shoulders tightly, shrinking into a ball, getting smaller and smaller.He found that putting his thumb in his mouth made him smaller, so he put his finger in his mouth. He just huddled in a corner for more than two hours—then, little by little, a dark and feasible idea broke into his mind.He took his finger out of his mouth with a snap and Louis set himself up again, hey-ho, let's go. In the bedroom where Gage was hiding, Louis pulled a sheet off the bed and carried it into the hall, where he wrapped his wife's body gently and lovingly in the sheet.He was humming softly, but he didn't realize it. Louis found gasoline in Chad's garage, in a red barrel, five gallons, enough.Louis started pouring gasoline in the kitchen where Chad was lying, soaking the tablecloth covering Chad, then went into the living room and poured amber gasoline on the carpet and sofa.Magazine racks, and chairs, and then down the hall, into the back bedroom, the strong smell of gasoline everywhere. Chad's matches were on the cigarette case, next to the chair.Louis picked up the match, and at the front door he lit a match and threw it into the house, then walked out, the burning heat rushing out and making the skin on the back of his neck tense.He closed the door carefully and stood on the porch for a moment, watching the flames consume the contents of the house behind Norma's curtains.Then he crossed the porch and paused for a moment, remembering the beer he and Chad had had together so long ago, listening to the roar of the fire burning in the house. Then, he walked out.