This part of the nightmare is always the same.  I’m in the woods at night, lost in the fog.  I can’t tell if I’m running to something or away from something, but I know that I am scared.  Something is coming for me.  Something big.  I feel the electricity in the air and know that it is getting closer.  I hear branches breaking in the distance as it moves closer and my sense of foreboding grows greater.  I feel rather than see a shape moving towards me.  Something screams.  A loon?  No, me. 

And then I am awake.

I have been having this nightmare since approximately 1984, or when I first read Pet Sematary by Stephen King.  I stayed up all night and read it in one sitting.  It is the only book (although not the only thing I’ve ever read) to give me nightmares and it has given me the nightmare that has stayed with me for the last 35 years. 

I have lived this scene suddenly while searching for the correct room for my final exam.  Everyone has had some form of that nightmare.  Maybe you showed up for your presentation in your underwear, maybe you showed up for your final exam but you don’t know what time the exam is.  Me?  I show up and can’t find what room I’m supposed to be in and the next thing I know I’m in the forest.  This scene has also inserted itself during a nightmare about forgetting my firstborn child at the grocery store.  You would think that since I hadn’t read the book since college (I am a re-reader, there are some books I have read as many as 10 times) that I wouldn’t have the nightmare anymore, but that is just how good Stephen King is.

When I was younger, I loved Stephen King.  The Stand is definitely my favorite (and, yes, Randall Flagg has been a character in nightmares), but Pet Semetary is a close second.  He has a collection of short stories, Night Shift, and The Boogeyman is the only other thing I’ve read that ever gave me nightmares.  I stopped reading King accidentally during college.  There wasn’t any one thing that turned me off of him.  I just got busy and never really got back to reading him until recently.  11/22/63 was amazing and I enjoyed The Outsider as a nice break from reality.  But I digress, as happens often.

• 

• 

They made a movie out of the book my senior year in high school.  As far as Books vs the World, the book definitely won.  I was skeptical when I saw there was ANOTHER film adaptation this year, but being the junkie that I am I had to go see it.  It’s been forever since I saw the first version, but I’m pretty sure this one was better than that one.  Although I will admit to jumping out of my skin a couple of times, the book was still better than the movie.

There are a few other books that have stuck with me as long as Pet Semetary, but none have impacted me quite as much as this book has.  Do you have a book like this?