Gage Creed (resurrected) killing Jud Crandall

The resurrected Gage Creed murders Jud Crandall in his kitchen at dawn, using a scalpel stolen from Louis's medical bag, after the old man fails to stop the child's reanimated corpse from entering his house.

The Return of the Wendigo-Touched Child

Jud Crandall, who had kept a fruitless watch from his bay window all night, was awakened just before five in the morning by the sound of his screen door spring. He knew at once that it was not Louis Creed who had entered. The thing that came up the hall brought with it a stench of poisoned tidal flats, and Jud, struggling to his feet, recognized the smell from his youth: it was the same black odor that had clung to Timmy Baterman forty years before. The cat Church preceded the intruder, its eyes flaring like dirty lamps, and Jud backed toward the kitchen, his thin shanks striking the swinging door. He snatched the meat cleaver from the utensil drawer beside the sink and turned to face the doorway.

The Confrontation in the Kitchen

Dawn's first milky light revealed Gage Creed standing in the kitchen, dressed in his burial suit. Moss grew on the suit's shoulders and lapels; his fine blond hair was caked with dirt. One eye stared off into space with terrible concentration; the other was fixed on Jud. The child spoke in a babyish but perfectly understandable voice, promising to send Jud's soul to hell and taunting him with obscene lies about Norma. When Jud raised the cleaver, the thing used Norma's voice to describe her supposed infidelities, a torment that broke the old man's composure. He sprang at the tiny, swaying figure, but Church arrowed out from under the butcher block and tripped him. The cleaver flew from Jud's hand, skittered across the linoleum, and slid under the refrigerator.

The Murder

With Jud on the floor and the cat hissing on his legs, Gage's right hand came out from behind his back, holding the scalpel he had stolen from Louis's medical bag. Jud put up his right hand to block the blow, and the scalpel appeared to be on both sides of his palm at once; then warmth drizzled down on his face. The Gage-thing chortled, blowing its poisoned breath in Jud's face, promising to "fuck with you all I want." Jud flailed and got hold of Gage's wrist, but skin peeled off like parchment in his hand. The scalpel was yanked out, leaving a vertical mouth in his palm, and came down again and again. The old man who had first led Louis to the Micmac burying ground, who had buried his own dog Spot there seventy years before, died on his kitchen floor in a widening pool of blood, covered at last by the Thanksgiving tablecloth Louis would later spread over him.

The Aftermath

Louis Creed, arriving at Jud's house later that morning, found the body under the white lawn cloth, tiny rose-petals of deepest scarlet already staining through. He covered his face, whispered "I'm so sorry," and then heard a stealthy movement overhead—the sound he was meant to hear. The murder had been the first act of the resurrected Gage's rampage; Rachel Creed would be found dead in the upstairs hallway, stabbed dozens of times with the same scalpel. Jud's death, like Norma's heart attack and Gage's original accident, was another link in the chain forged by the power of the Micmac burying ground—a power that had used Jud's own good intentions to bring about the destruction of everyone he loved.