Pet Sematary

Pet Sematary is a 1983 horror novel by American writer Stephen King. The novel was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1984, and adapted into two films: one in 1989 and another in 2019.

In 1979, King was writer-in-residence at the University of Maine and the house his family was renting in Orrington, Maine, was adjacent to a major road where dogs and cats were often killed by oncoming trucks. After his daughter's cat was killed by a truck along that road, he explained the death of the pet to his daughter and buried the cat. Three days later, King imagined what would happen if a family suffered the same tragedy but the cat came back to life. He then imagined what would happen if that family's young son were also killed by a passing truck. He decided to write a book based on these ideas, and that the book would be a re-telling of "The Monkey's Paw" (1902), a short story by W. W. Jacobs about parents whose son resurrects after they wish for that to happen. The first draft was completed in May 1979. In June 1983, King published a short story, "The Return of Timmy Baterman", in the program for the event "Satyricon II" (also known as "DeepSouthCon 21"); this was incorporated into Pet Sematary. King has gone on record stating that of all the novels he has written, Pet Sematary is the one which genuinely scared him the most.

Louis Creed, a doctor from Chicago, is appointed director of the University of Maine's campus health service. He moves to a house near the town of Ludlow with his wife Rachel, their two young children, Ellie and Gage, and Ellie's cat, Winston Churchill ("Church"). Their elderly neighbor, Jud Crandall, warns Louis and Rachel about the highway that runs past their house, which is frequented by speeding trucks.

Jud and Louis become close friends, with Louis viewing Jud as a kind of surrogate father. Jud takes the family on a walk in the woods behind their home. A well-tended path leads to a pet cemetery (misspelled "sematary" on the sign) maintained by the children of the town. Louis is charmed, but Rachel finds the concept of the pet cemetery disturbing. She herself finds it difficult to talk about death, following the traumatic death of her sister Zelda when they were both children.

On campus, Louis is called to attend to Victor Pascow, a student who has been mortally injured in an automobile accident. Victor addresses his dying words to Louis, and seems to be warning him of something. The following night, Louis dreams that Pascow leads him to the deadfall at the back of the pet cemetery, and warns him not to go beyond that point. Louis wakes to find his feet and bedsheets covered with dried mud and pine needles.

Around Thanksgiving, Ellie's cat, Church, is run over on the highway. Rachel and the children are visiting Rachel's parents in Chicago at the time, and Louis frets over breaking the bad news to Ellie. Jud takes him to the "sematary", supposedly to bury Church, but instead of stopping there, Jud leads Louis beyond the deadfall, to "the real cemetery": an ancient burial ground once used by the Mi'kmaq. Here, Louis buries the cat according to Jud's instructions. The next afternoon, Church returns home, but his whole manner has changed. The once docile cat is now an enthusiastic hunter, leaving the dismembered corpses of his kills for Louis to find. He also smells so bad that Ellie no longer wants him in her room at night. Jud confirms that Church has been resurrected, and admits that as a boy he went through a similar experience with a beloved dog. Louis, deeply disturbed, begins to wish that he had never listened to Jud.

Several months later, two-year-old Gage is killed by a speeding truck on the same highway that caused Church's death. Overcome with despair, Louis considers bringing his son back to life in the same way he resurrected Church. Jud attempts to dissuade him by telling him the story of Timmy Baterman, the last person resurrected in this way. After being killed in action during World War II, Timmy's body was shipped back to the United States, and his grieving father Bill buried Timmy in the secret burial ground. Timmy returned as an altered, malevolent version of himself, terrorizing the people of the town and revealing secrets that he had no way of knowing. Eventually Bill killed Timmy and set their house on fire before shooting himself. Jud believes that whatever came back was not Timmy, but a "demon" in possession of his corpse. He concludes that "sometimes, dead is better" and states that "the place has... its own evil purpose", and that Louis's knowledge of it may even have brought about Gage's death.

Despite Jud's warning and his own reservations, Louis's grief and guilt spur him to act. He arranges for Rachel and Ellie to visit Rachel's parents, while he exhumes Gage's body and re-inters him in the burial ground. During this time Ellie has prophetic dreams, which spur Rachel to come home early.