Alabama

Alabama is a state in the southern United States that appears in Stephen King's Pet Sematary as the origin of a drunken army officer from Graves and Registration who accompanies a shipment of coffins on a train journey through Maine during World War II.

Origin of a Character

The state of Alabama is mentioned as the home of an army officer from the Graves and Registration service who accompanies a train carrying the bodies of fallen soldiers during World War II. This officer, described as having a soft, drawling Southern accent, tells the engineer, Huey Garber, that the train is a "mystery train," explaining that this is what they call a funeral train in Alabama. The officer is heavily intoxicated, drinking rye whiskey from a flask, and his drunkenness is noted by the engineer, who declines a drink because the Bangor and Aroostook railroad is strict about train drivers drinking alcohol. The officer's presence on the train is part of a larger operation to deliver coffins to various towns in Maine, including Houlton, Passadumkeag, Bangor, Derry, and Ludlow, where the body of Timmy Baterman is delivered to his father, Bill Baterman.

Narrative Significance

The mention of Alabama serves to highlight the national scope of the war's casualties and the impersonal, bureaucratic machinery of death that brings soldiers' bodies home. The officer's drunkenness and his casual, almost flippant attitude toward his grim cargo contrast with the profound grief of the families awaiting their dead, such as Bill Baterman, who is described as looking "dead inside." The officer's story, as told by Jud Crandall to Louis Creed, also underscores the theme of the dead returning, as Timmy Baterman's body is later exhumed from the Micmac burying ground and he returns as a monstrous, malevolent entity. The Alabama officer's role in the logistics of death thus foreshadows the novel's central horror: that death is not always final and that the dead can come back, changed and dangerous.