Chapter 62 sixty two

Steve turned around a fork in front of Louis's house on his bicycle and saw thick smoke, but it wasn't coming from Louis's house, but from the old man's house across the street. Steve came out this morning because he had been worried about Louis, worried deeply about him. Charlton told him about Rachel's phone call the day before yesterday, which made him wonder where the hell Louis was... what the hell was he up to. Steve's worry was vague, but it kept lingering in his head, and he didn't think he'd feel better until he went to Louis' house to make sure everything was alright...or at least make sense of things in this case It's okay.

The spring weather, like white magic, has kept the infirmary empty of patients. After Steve told Hardu his intentions, Hardu told him to just go ahead.He can handle whatever happens in the infirmary. So Steve hopped on the Honda he had just pulled out of the garage last week, and headed for Ludlow.Maybe he pushed too fast and the car wiped the ground, but Steve still thought it was too late.It was silly, of course, but the feeling in his chest was similar to the morning Pascoe died last fall...a feeling of pain and surprise.Steve wasn't a religious man, but he had certain premonitions like everyone else, and Pascoe's death seemed to set the tone for this year, which wasn't a good year at all.Two of Hardu's relatives back home are in prison for political reasons, and Hardu tells Steve that one of them, an uncle he cared about deeply, is probably dead by now.Hal was crying, and Steve was terrified at the tears streaming from the good Indian's eyes.Charlton's mum had a mastectomy, and the strong man was less optimistic about her mother's condition being under control, saying her mum might not make it to the five-year club celebrations.Steve himself has been to four funerals since Pascoe's death: the funeral of his wife's sister, who died in a car accident; electrocuted at the top of a pole; a grandfather's funeral; and of course one for Louis' younger son.

Steve likes Louis very much, and he wants to find out if Louis is okay.Louis has been to hell these days, and his mood sucks. When Steve first saw the smoke, his first thought was that this was yet another event related to Pascoe's death, which seemed to bring a series of bad luck to these ordinary people.But it was a foolish idea, as evidenced by the Lewis family's white house, which stood unharmed and serene in the midday sun with all the serenity of New England architecture. People were running towards the old man's house, and as Steve was riding across the road and parked in the driveway of Lewis's house, he saw a man run towards the old man's porch, run to the front door, back up .He did the right thing.Moments later the middle pane of glass on the door exploded, and flames gushed out of it.If the fool had actually opened the door, the flames of the explosion would have burned him like a lobster.

Steve got off the motorcycle, propped it aside, and forgot about Luis for a moment, fascinated by the mysterious fire. Maybe five or six people had gathered there, but the hero who tried to open the door was prowling the lawn of Chad's house, keeping his distance from the others. Now the glass between the porch and the house is all broken.Shards of glass flew in the sky. The coming hero dodged and ran there.Flames devoured the inside walls of the porch, burning the white paint. As Steve watched, he saw an anole wicker chair turn into flames. Over the crackling fire, Steve heard the future hero screaming, "It's going to burn! It's gonna burn! If Chad's in there, it's gonna burn! How many times have I told him , just don’t sweep the eucalyptus in the chimney!”

Steve opened his mouth and shouted across the street, asking if anyone had called the fire department. Just then he heard the siren of the fire engine, and now flames were shooting out of five or six windows, and the green tiles of the front eaves were almost covered with a transparent film of fire. Steve turned around, and that's when he thought about Louis...but if Louis was here, wouldn't he have to go across the street too? Then Steve sees something and almost misses it for a split second out of the corner of his eye. On the other side of the road from Lewis's house, there was a field leading up to a gently rising hill.The Timothy grass, though still green, had grown quite tall in May.

But Steve could see there was a path, the grass on the path was neatly mowed, like the grass on a golf course.The road followed the field uphill into a thick wood, and there, just before the trail disappeared into the woods, Steve saw something move, something bright white, Things move fast. At that moment Steve understood that it was a man walking with a white package. An absurd certainty popped into Steve's mind: That's Louis, that's Louis.You'd better catch up to him, because something bad has happened, and if you don't stop him, something worse will happen soon. Steve stood hesitantly at the end of the driveway, moving his left and right feet back and forth, and his body's center of gravity was constantly shifting.

A voice said: Steve, you guy, you're freaking out right now, aren't you? Yes, he was terrified, but inexplicably.But there's also a... a... yes, a pull, and there's a pull to the path, it leads up to the hill, maybe into the woods, sure that's where the road goes, isn't it?Yes, of course yes, all roads lead somewhere. louis.Don't forget Luis, you idiot, Luis is the one you came out to see, remember?You didn't come to Luther Hall to explore some woods. "Randy, what did you find there?" the hero-to-be yelled, his voice high-pitched but optimistic, and his voice carried far.

Randy's reply, barely audible over the blaring fire truck sirens, said, "A dead cat." "Burn to death?" "It doesn't look like it was burned," Randy replied, "It just looks dead." Steve's thoughts are restless, as if the conversation between the two people across the street has something to do with what he just saw, or thought he saw in Louis. So Steve started trotting towards the forest, regardless of the fire behind him.He was sweating profusely when he ran to the edge of the wood, cool and comfortable in its shade and sweet with the scent of pine and spruce.

After entering the woods, he ran quickly again, and he didn't know why he ran, and he didn't know why his heartbeat doubled.He was short of breath, and he could have run at full speed on the way down the hill, the trail was clean and clear, but he hit the arched sign that marked the entrance to the pet cemetery, and he felt a lump in his right rib under his armpit. The cut was burning and painful. His eyes saw the circle of graves, the tombstones of tin, chips, and battens.His eyes caught on to the strange circular clearing beyond the cemetery, and finally his eyes settled on Louis, who was climbing over the pile of deadwood, looking heavy on his feet, ascending the steep pile of deadwood.Louis looked forward, like someone who has been hypnotized or sleepwalking.In his hands is something white that Steve sees out of the corner of his eye.This time it was very close, judging from its appearance, there was no doubt that it was a corpse.One foot in a black low-heeled shoe stretched out of the bag, and Steve had a sudden, ghastly certainty that Louis was cradling Rachel's dead body.

Louis's hair had turned gray. "Louis!" Steve screamed. Louis didn't hesitate, didn't stop, he climbed to the top of the dead wood pile, and then started to walk down to the other end. He's going to fall, Steve thought wildly, how lucky he is, unbelievably lucky, but he's going to fall soon enough, if only his leg is broken then... But Louis didn't fall.Steve didn't see him for a moment as he walked down the pile of dead wood, but then as he walked into the woods Steve saw him again. "Louis!" Steve yelled again. This time Louis stopped and turned around.

Steve was dumbfounded by what he saw, Louis's face turned into that of a very, very old man, except that his hair had all gone white. Steve didn't recognize Louis' face at all at first, and then bit by bit, Louis' mouth twitched as if someone were twisting a resistor in his brain.It took a moment for Steve to realize that Louis was trying to laugh. "Steve," Louis said in a gruff, hesitant tone, "hello Steve, I'm going to bury her, I think I'll have to bury her with my hands. Probably until dark, and the The soil is full of rocks, I guess you are trying to help me?" Steve opened his mouth, but no words came out.As much as he was shocked, as much as he was terrified, he really wanted to help Louis, and somehow, in this wood, on this hill, it seemed right, so...natural. "Louis," Steve finally said hoarsely, "what happened? God, what happened? She was... she died in the fire?" "I waited too long for Gage," Louis said, "because I waited too long and something got inside him, but it wasn't the same for Rachel, Steve. Husband, I knew it would be different." Louis staggers, and Steve sees that Louis is mad, and he sees it clearly.Louis was crazy, and somehow exhausted.But Steve seems to be weighing Louis' words in bewilderment. "I might need some help," Louis said. "Louis, I can't climb over that log even if I wanted to help you." "Oh, you can," Louis said. "You can. As long as you walk steadily and don't look down. That's the secret, Steve." After speaking, Louis turned around again. Although Steve called his name, Louis still walked into the woods.A few times Steve could see the white sheets flashing through the trees, then lost sight of them. Steve ran over and came to the pile of dead wood, and began to climb up without thinking. At first, he groped with his hands to find some stable places, tried to climb up, and then stepped on it.As he did so, an ecstatic feeling flooded his body, like he was breathing oxygen.He believed he could climb it, and he did.He walked quickly up, and he came to the top of the dead wood pile.He swayed from the top, watching Louis walk along the path that led from under the pile of dead wood to the other side. Louis turned and looked at Steve, who was holding his wife in his arms, wrapped in bloody sheets. "You might hear some noises," Lewis said. "They sound like people. But they're just abysses migrating south. It's funny how far it travels." "Louis—" But Louis had turned and walked away. For a moment Steve almost keeps up with Louis - the two of them are very, very close. I can help him if that's what he needs... yes, I want to.And that's true, because there's more going on here than just a glance, and I want to know what it is.It seems so... oh... important, it's like a secret.Like a mysterious mystery. Then a branch tripped his foot with a dry crack like the starting pistol in a race.It made him suddenly realize what he was doing and where he was, and fear welled up in him, and he turned awkwardly in a circle, nearly tripping, and stretched out his hands for balance.His tongue and throat were greasy, and his face was grim with frustration, like a sleepwalker waking up to find himself on the edge of a skyscraper. She's dead, and I think maybe Louis killed her, and Louis has gone mad, utterly mad, but— But there's something worse than madness here, something much worse than that.There seemed to be a magnet somewhere out there in the woods, and he could feel the pull pulling something in his brain, pulling him toward where Louis was holding Rachel. Come on, get to the path...follow the path and see where the path leads.We've got something here to show you, Steve, stuff that you've never been told at the Atheist Association in Lake Woods. Just then, maybe just because he'd been through so much during the day, he lost interest in everything, and the call from that place in his head stopped.Steve took two steps back under the pile of deadwood, then many of the trees parted, and his left foot sank in a tangle of deadwood, spiky splinters of twigs hanging off his shoe, and then stabbing again. into his flesh.He fell forward into the pet cemetery, nearly landing on a yellowish plank and puncturing his stomach. He stood up and looked around, bewildered, wondering what was wrong with him—if something had happened, it all looked like a dream. At this moment, a loud cry came from the deep forest behind the pile of dead wood. The sound was so loud that Steve couldn't imagine what kind of creature it was that could make such a sound. Steve started running with one shoe on and the other bare, and he wanted to scream but couldn't.He was still running when he got to the Louis family's house, and when he finally got on his motorcycle and headed towards Route 15, he wanted to scream.He nearly hit a fire truck from Brewer on Route 15, his hair bristling in his helmet. When Steve returned to his apartment, he had no memory of ever being in Luther House.He called the infirmary, called in sick, took a pill, and went to bed. Steve never really remembers that day... except in deep dreams, those visions come in short morning sleeps where he can feel something huge walk by him However, the thing had reached out to touch him...but withdrew its inhuman claws at the last moment. The thing had huge yellow eyes that looked like lights in a thick fog. Steve would sometimes wake up screaming from these dreams, his eyes wide and bulging, and he'd think: You think you're screaming, but it's just arby birds, they It is migrating to the south, and the sound travels far, which is very funny. But he didn't know and couldn't remember what that thought meant.The next year he found a job in St. Louis, another city in the United States, far away from Maine. Between the time Steve last saw Louis and his departure from Maine for the Midwest, Steve never visited Luther House again.