Louis Takes Rachel's Body to the Burying Ground

After the horror of finding his wife Rachel murdered by the resurrected Gage, and after killing that monstrous version of his son with morphine injections, Louis Creed enters a state of profound psychological collapse. Yet from this ruin, a dark and implausible idea takes hold: he will carry Rachel's body to the Micmac burying ground, the same place where he and Jud Crandall had buried the cat Church and where he had later interred Gage, and attempt to bring her back from the dead. This decision marks the final, irrevocable step in his journey from grief-stricken father to a man possessed by the power of that cursed place.

The Journey into the Woods

Louis wraps Rachel's body in a sheet and carries it through the woods, following the path that leads past the Pet Sematary and over the deadfall. Steve Masterton, who had come to check on Louis after the fire at Jud Crandall's house, sees him from a distance and follows, calling out. When Louis turns back, Steve is struck by the transformation: Louis's hair has gone white, and his face is that of an old, old man. Louis speaks in a cracked, uncertain voice, telling Steve he is going to bury Rachel and that he could use help, but that the soil up there is very stony. He adds, with a chilling certainty, that it will be different with Rachel because he waited too long with Gage and something got into him. When Steve hesitates, Louis tells him the secret is to move steadily and not look down, then turns and continues into the woods, the white sheet flickering through the trees until it is gone.

The Power of the Place

The Micmac burying ground exerts a powerful, almost magnetic pull on those who know of it. Jud Crandall had warned Louis that the place has a power that goes through phases, like the moon, and that it was an evil, curdled place. He had also told Louis that the soil of a man's heart is stonier, and a man grows what he can and tends it. Louis, now utterly broken and isolated, has become a vessel for that power. His grief, his guilt, and his desperate love have been twisted into a compulsion to repeat the cycle of resurrection, despite knowing the terrible consequences. The place has fed on his sanity, and he is no longer acting out of hope but out of a dark, mechanical need to undo what cannot be undone.

The Aftermath and the Return

Louis reaches the burying ground and buries Rachel with his bare hands, a task that takes until dark. He returns home, his hands bloody and ruined, and plays solitaire late into the night. The police had come earlier, asking questions, but Louis answered them while wearing a hat to hide his gray hair and gardening gloves to conceal his wounds. They seemed satisfied. Then, in the deep silence of the night, he hears the back door open. Slow, gritting footsteps approach. A cold hand falls on his shoulder, and Rachel's voice, grating and full of dirt, says, "Darling." Louis does not turn around. He has completed the circuit, and what he bought has come back to him.