The Creed family arrives at their new house in Ludlow, Maine, where they meet their elderly neighbor, Jud Crandall.

Jud takes the entire Creed family on a walk through the woods to the well-maintained pet cemetery on their property.

A university student named Victor Pascow is brought dying into Louis's infirmary after being struck by a car on campus.

Victor Pascow's ghost leads Louis to the pet cemetery in a dream and warns him never to cross the deadfall barrier.

Norma Crandall suffers a heart attack on Halloween night while greeting trick-or-treaters, and Louis saves her life with CPR.

The Creeds' cat Church is discovered dead on the road, struck by a truck while the family is away for Thanksgiving.

Jud leads Louis over the deadfall into the MicMac burial ground, where Louis buries Church in the ancient soil.

Church reappears at the house the day after being buried in the MicMac ground, alive but visibly transformed.

Norma Crandall dies of natural causes, leaving Jud alone and grief-stricken.

Two-year-old Gage Creed is struck and killed by a speeding truck on the road in front of the family's house.

At Gage's funeral, Louis punches his father-in-law Irwin Goldman, knocking Irwin into Gage's coffin during the viewing.

Jud visits Louis after Gage's funeral and warns him not to bury Gage in the MicMac ground, telling of Timmy Baterman.

Louis breaks into the cemetery at night, digs up Gage's coffin, and carries his son's body back toward Ludlow.

The reanimated Gage kills both Jud Crandall and Rachel Creed with a scalpel stolen from Louis's medical bag.

Louis kills Gage with morphine injections, burns down Jud's house, then carries Rachel's corpse to the MicMac burial ground.

The Creed family's move to Ludlow, Maine sets in motion a chain of events shaped by their proximity to death. Louis's friendship with Jud and the discovery of the pet cemetery introduce the family to a darkness they cannot yet understand. After a university student dies in Louis's arms and the family cat is resurrected through the MicMac burial ground, the stage is set for greater tragedy. Gage's death by truck shatters the family, and Louis's grief drives him to attempt the unthinkable: digging up his son's body to reanimate it in the ancient burial ground. The reanimated Gage murders both Jud and Rachel before Louis kills his son with morphine and burns the evidence. In a devastating final act, Louis repeats his mistake by carrying Rachel's body to the MicMac ground, where she returns.

The headline events that drive Pet Sematary from arrival to apocalypse.

Jud warns Louis and Rachel about the dangerous trucks that constantly speed past the road beside their new house.

Ellie breaks down in tears after visiting the pet cemetery, terrified that her cat Church will someday die.

Louis and Rachel have a loud argument over whether children should be exposed to the reality and naturalness of death.

Louis wakes the morning after Victor's ghostly visit to find himself covered in dirt and pine needles with a tree scratch.

Church is taken to the vet and neutered so he will be less likely to wander toward the dangerous road.

Louis almost gets struck by a speeding truck himself while crossing the road to check whether Church has been hit.

Jud tells Louis how a childhood friend named Stanny B first revealed the MicMac burial ground's secrets to him as a boy.

Ellie attends Norma's funeral with Louis and cries that she will never have children so she will never have to die.

Louis takes Gage kite-flying alone in a neighbor's field in what turns out to be their last happy day together.

Louis lies to Rachel and convinces her to take Ellie to Chicago so he can be alone to carry out his plan.

On the plane to Chicago, Ellie has a nightmare that Victor Pascow warns her about Louis, sending Rachel into a panic.

Rachel misses her connecting flight at the airport and decides to drive through the night all the way back to Ludlow.

Jud falls asleep on his porch, lulled by the burial ground's power, and does not see Louis return with Gage's body.

Louis injects Church with a lethal dose of morphine in the driveway before entering Jud's house to face what he has created.

Steve Masterson follows Louis over the deadfall but is turned back by a terrifying inhuman laugh and flees Ludlow forever.

Behind the major tragedies of Pet Sematary lie smaller moments that reveal how the Creed family is steadily undone. From Jud's earliest warning about the dangerous road to Louis and Rachel's heated arguments about shielding Ellie from death, the cracks in the family's foundation are visible from the start. Church's neutering, his eerie behavioral changes after resurrection, and Louis's own near-miss with a truck all create a slow-building sense of inevitable doom. After Gage's death, Louis's deception sends Rachel and Ellie away, triggering a race against time fueled by Ellie's nightmare and Rachel's desperate midnight drive. In the final hours, Jud succumbs to sleep at the worst possible moment, Louis kills Church before confronting what he has created, and Steve Masterson's terrified retreat over the deadfall signals that the evil has prevailed.

The quieter horrors and secondary moments that slowly seal the Creeds' fate.

Louis and Jud share beers on Louis's very first night in Ludlow, forming the surrogate father-son bond that will shape everything.

While putting Gage to bed after Ellie's first day of school, Louis is suddenly struck by a chilling premonition of horror and death.

Ellie asks Louis why pets do not live as long as people, and Louis decides to speak honestly with her about death.

Louis wakes after Victor's ghost visit and rationalizes the entire experience as sleepwalking, choosing to dismiss the supernatural warning entirely.

Louis visits Norma with flowers after saving her life, and Jud tells Louis he now owes him a debt of gratitude.

Jud admits to Louis that the MicMac burial ground had a hold on him and compelled him beyond mere gratitude to share its secret.

Louis notices that Church has become slow, clumsy, and obsessed with killing, and that every family member is innately repulsed by him.

Rachel tells Louis the full traumatic story of her sister Zelda's death from spinal meningitis and how it left her permanently scarred.

Louis drives to the cemetery alone late at night and realizes, standing at Gage's grave, that he truly intends to reanimate his son.

At the airport gate, Ellie refuses to wave goodbye to Louis and stares at him in silence, sensing something is deeply wrong.

Louis pries open Gage's coffin in the dark cemetery, confronting his son's decomposing body and crossing the point of no return.

Louis encounters what he believes is a Wendigo moving through the swamp on his trek to rebury Gage in the MicMac ground.

Irwin Goldman calls Louis to report that Ellie has been hospitalized after a nightmare that Oz the Gweat and Tewwible has killed Rachel.

Louis enters Jud's house and finds both Jud's mutilated body and Rachel's corpse, confronting the full horror of what he has done.

After Louis buries Rachel in the MicMac burial ground, she returns and touches him with a cold hand in the story's final scene.

Pet Sematary is built on moments of revelation and catastrophic decision-making, and this pool traces the choices that lead inexorably to disaster. From Louis's early surrogate-father bond with Jud and a chilling premonition about Gage, the novel plants seeds of doom that grow quietly in the shadows. Key revelations — Rachel's buried trauma over her sister Zelda's death, Jud's admission that the burial ground compelled him beyond gratitude, and Louis's midnight epiphany at Gage's grave — expose how grief and self-deception corrupt rational minds. The point of no return arrives when Louis opens Gage's coffin, and the supernatural confirms its power as something enormous stalks the swamp. In the final act, the full cost of Louis's hubris becomes undeniable when he discovers Rachel's body, and the novel closes with Rachel's cold hand reaching out, confirming that dead is never truly better.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that make tragedy inevitable.