Pet Sematary and the Banshee Wail

Pet Sematary and the Banshee Wail

Several year ago I was dating a girl who had an extreme fear of horror movies and the number 666 (yeah, she was nuts). I think she had a bad experience after watching "The Omen" or something. Afterwards she apparently suffered from nightmares, night-terrors, oily discharge and a touch of PTSD.

Anyway, one night I somehow talked her into watching Pet Sematary as long as I promised not to “do anything to scare the shit out of me!"  So I said okay. But at no time did I use the word "promise".

I don't know if you've seen it, but there's a pretty creepy cat in that movie. Well this girl I was dating also had a cat.  (I'm setting the stage here, but you already know this because you are all writers and are up on such things.)

So we're well into the movie and the cat and many other things in it are creeping her out. Plus, at my insistence, we're watching it with the lights out, reinforced, of course, by my "promise".

At one point she has to go to the bathroom and actually makes me walk her there (for real).  So I hit pause on the DVD player, walk her to the bathroom and immediately go back to the living room, pick up her cat and hide alongside the doorway.

She comes out of the bathroom, whispering, "Where are you? Where are you!?"  

I don't answer.

She tip-toes to the living room doorway extremely on edge at which point I seize my opportunity as her protector and benefactor and shove her cat in her face while doing my best and loudest "RREEEEERRRRR!!" crazy cat imitation.

Well she screamed. She screamed so loud -- and LONG -- it scared the ever-lovin' shit out of me, too. There were white lightning bolts of electricity shooting through my eyes. My hair vibrated. I thought I was having a seizure. I wished someone would shove a handkerchief in my mouth so I wouldn't bite off my tongue.

It goes without saying the cat went ape-shit. He was flying all over the house, climbing up curtains, wooden bannisters, crashing into furniture and windows. I’m pretty sure at one point I saw him run across the ceiling. What he was saying, of course, was, "Get me the fuck outta here!" 

Just as with an earthquake, it's not so much the jolt of it that does the most damage, but the duration of that jolt. And so it is with the Banshee Wail.  Imagine somebody screaming for 10 seconds. Seriously, imagine a scream and then count off 10 seconds. It was horrifying. And, I must say, rather amusing (after the fact, of course).  Amusingly horrifying. Horrifyingly amusing. You decide.

I think we broke up after that, at least that's what they told me in the ICU when I came to three days later. Least ways, I never saw her again.

But I’ve seen the cat many times: in my nightmares, in my night terrors, and sometimes even in my oily discharge.