Pet Sematary: The creepiest book I’ve ever read
Read October 19, 2024 → November 4, 2024
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In October, you obviously have to read a creepy book. I had read some books from Stephen King before, but wasn’t the biggest fan of those. This one, however, was absolutely amazing. I could not put it down. It was so insanely creepy.
The story starts when Louis and his family are moving into a new house (in a village I actually cannot remember). Across from them lives and elderly couple, who greet their new neighbours. Louis becomes friends with Jud, the 80-year-old man. He tells Louis to be careful of the road in front of their house, because trucks drive crazily fast and it has cost many pets their lives. Louis would not want the same thing to happen to his daughter Ellie’s cat, Church.
While Jud seems to have the best intensions, he also decides to bring the family to the Pet Sematary behind their house. Here, the kids of the village bury their pets. It causes Ellie to freak out, Rachel (the wife) to get angry at Louis, and the two-year-old Gage doesn’t really care. While Louis finds the place a little weird himself, he thinks it is nothing special. Until he starts to dream about it. On his first day at his new job as the doctor of the university, a boy dies. This boy, Pascow, visits Louis in his dream. Louis has to follow him to the Pet Sematary, where Pascow warns him no to go past the deadfall. Louis is obviously creeped out by the dream, especially when he finds out it wasn’t just a dream.
When Rachel and the kids to to visit her parents, Louis stays at home and the thing Jud had warned them about happens. Church is hit by a truck and dies. Louis tries to figure out how to tell this to Ellie, but Jud has a better plan. He takes Louis to the Pet Sematary, past the deadfall. After following a creepy path with voices and shadows that do not seem human, they find themselves at another graveyard. Louis has to bury Church and just as Jud said, Church comes back to the house alive and well. Or perhaps not well. The cat is alive and it isn’t evil or anything, it just seems a little… dead. He walks into stuff, falls over and smells like the earth it was buried in. It seems clear in what direction the story is going. However, suddenly Louis mentions that his toddler Gage dies a few weeks later.
Louis had already asked Jud whether people had ever been buried behind the Pet Sematary. Jud said that wasn’t the case, but with Gage’s death, he comes clean. Someone had been buried there before and came back, but the person had turned evil. He seemed possessed by a demon. However, with the magic of the graveyard influencing Louis, he decided to take the risk. If Gage comes back evil, he can always kill him again. He is still just a toddler, so how bad can it be? Louis sends his wife and daughter away and gets to work.
I would love to share more of the story, because I think it is amazing, but that would spoil too much of the book. But I will say that the ending was shocking to me. The first part of the book is a bit longer and not too many crazy things happen, but that is the perfect way to set it up. It was clear to me that the Pet Sematary, and especially the graveyard behind it, were creepy, but it is only in the second part of the book that I realised how strange and powerful it truly was. There is just so much tension in the book about what is going to happen. Who is being influenced by the graveyard? How far are people willing to go?
The book has some amazing twists and turns and had some absolutely horrifying moments. The atmosphere is so creepy and it made me want to keep reading, but I also didn’t want the book to end. It kept me on the edge of my seat. It’s an amazing book.
