Suddenly he thought he understood It meant to thrust him through some wall at the end of the universe and into some other place (what that old Turtle called the macroverse) where It really lived; where It existed as a titanic, glowing core which might be no more than the smallest mote in that Others mind; he would see It naked, a thing of unshaped destroying light, and there he would either be mercifully annihilated or live forever, insane and yet conscious inside Its homicidal endless formless hungry being. Please help me! For the others you must help yourself, son But how? Please tell me! How? How? HOW? He had reached the Turtles heavily scaled back legs now; there was time enough to observe its titanic yet ancient flesh, time to be struck with the wonder of its heavy toenailsthey were an odd bluishyellow color, and he could see galaxies swimming in each one. Please, you are good, I sense and believe that you are good, and I am begging you ... wont you please help me? you already know. there is only Chd. and your friends. Please oh please son, youve got to thrust your fists against the posts and still insist you see the ghosts ... thats all I can tell you. once you get into cosmological shit like this, you got to throw away the instruction manual He realized the voice of the Turtle was fading. He was beyond it now, bulleting into a darkness that was deeper than deep. The Turtles voice was being overcome, overmastered, by the gleeful, gibbering voice of the Thing that had thrust him out and into this black voidthe voice of the Spider, of It. how do you like it out here, Little Friend? do you like it? do you love it? do you give it ninetyeight points because it has a good beat and you can dance to it? can you catch it on your tonsils and heave it left and right? did you enjoy meeting my friend the Turtle? I thought that stupid old fuck died years ago, and for all the good he could do you, he might as well have, did you think he could help you? no no no no he thrusts no he thuhthuhhuhhuhrusts no stop babbling! the time is short; let us talk while we still can. tell me about yourself, Little Friend ... tell me, do you love all the cold dark out here? are you enjoying your grand tour of the nothingness that lies Outside? wait until you break through, Little Friend! wait until you break through to where I am! wait for that! wait for the deadlights! youll look and youll go mad ... but youll live ... and live ... and live ... inside them ... inside Me ... It screamed noxious laughter, and Bill became aware that Its voice was beginning both to fade and to swell, as if he was simultaneously drawing out of Its range ... and hurtling into it. And wasnt that just what was happening? Yes. He thought it was. Because while the voices were in perfect sync, the one he was now rushing toward was totally alien, speaking syllables no human tongue or throat could reproduce. Thats the voice of the deadlights, he thought. the time is short; let us talk while we still can Its human voice fading the way the Bangor radio stations faded when you were in the car and travelling south. Bright, flaring terror filled him. He would shortly be beyond sane communication with It ... and some part of him understood that, for all Its laughter, for all Its alien glee, that was what It wanted. Not just to send him out to whatever It really was, but to break their mental communication. If that ceased, he would be utterly destroyed. To pass beyond communication was to pass beyond salvation; he understood that much from the way his parents had behaved toward him after George had died. It was the only lesson their refrigerator coldness had had to teach him. Leaving It ... and approaching It. But the leaving was somehow more important. If It wanted to eat little kids out here, or suck them in, or whatever It did, why hadnt It sent them all out here? Why just him? Because It had to rid Its Spiderself of him, that was why. Somehow the SpiderIt and the It which It called the deadlights were linked. Whatever lived out here in the black might be invulnerable when It was here and nowhere else ... but It was also on earth, under Derry, in a form that was physical. However repulsive It might be, in Derry it was physical ... and what was physical could be killed. Bill skidded through the dark, his speed still increasing. Why do I sense so much of Its talk is nothing but a bluff, a big shuckandjive? Why should that be? How can that be? He understood how, maybe ... just maybe. There is only Chd, the Turtle had said. And suppose this was it? Suppose they had bitten deep into each others tongues, not physically but mentally, spiritually? And suppose that if It could throw Bill far enough into the void, far enough toward Its eternal discorporate self, the ritual would be over? It would have ripped him free, killed him, and won everything all at the same time. youre doing good, son, but very shortly its going to be too late Its scared! Scared of me! Scared of all of us! skidding, he was skidding, and there was a wall up ahead, he sensed it, sensed it in the dark, the wall at the edge of the continuum, and beyond it the other shape, the deadlights dont talk to me, son, and dont talk to yourselfits tearing you loose. bite in if you care, if you dare, if you can be brave, if you can stand ... bite in, son! Bill bit innot with his teeth, but with teeth in his mind. Dropping his voice a full register, making it not his own (making it, in fact, his fathers voice, although Bill would go to his grave not knowing this; some secrets are never known, and its probably better so), drawing in a great breath, he cried HE THRUSTS HIS FISTS AGAINST THE POSTS AND STILL INSISTS HE SEES THE GHOSTS NOW LET ME GO! He felt It scream in his mind, a scream of frustrated petulant rage ... but it was also a scream of fear and pain. It was not used to not having Its own way; such a thing had never happened to It, and until the most recent moments of Its existence It had not suspected such a thing could. Bill felt It writhing at him, not pulling but pushingtrying to get him away. THRUSTS HIS FISTS AGAINST THE POSTS, I SAID! STOP IT! BRING ME BACK! YOU MUST! I COMMAND IT! I DEMAND IT! It screamed again, Its pain more intense nowperhaps partly because, while It had spent Its long, long existence inflicting pain, feeding on it, It had never experienced it as a part of Itself. Still It tried to push him, to get rid of him, blindly and stubbornly insisting on winning, as It had always won before. It pushed ... but Bill sensed that his outward speed had slowed, and a grotesque image came into his mind Its tongue, covered with that living spittle, extended like a thick rubber band, cracking, bleeding. He saw himself clinging to the tip of that tongue by his teeth, ripping through it a little at a time, his face bathed in the convulsive ichor that was Its blood, drowning in Its dead stench, yet still holding on, holding on somehow, while It struggled in Its blind pain and towering rage not to let Its tongue snap back (Chd, this Chd, stand, be brave, be true, stand for your brother, your friends; believe, believe in all the things you have believed in, believe that if you tell the policeman youre lost hell see that you get home safely, that there is a Tooth Fairy who lives in a huge enamel castle, and Santa Claus below the North Pole, making toys with his trove of elves, and that Captain Midnight could be real, yes, he could be in spite of Calvin and Cissy Clarks big brother Carlton saying that was all a lot of baby stuff, believe that your mother and father will love you again, that courage is possible and words will come smoothly every time; no more Losers, no more cowering in a hole in the ground and calling it a clubhouse, no more crying in Georgies room because you couldnt save him and didnt know, believe in yourself, believe in the heat of that desire) He suddenly began to laugh in the darkness, not in hysteria but in utter delighted amazement. OH SHIT, I BELIEVE IN ALL OF THOSE THINGS! he shouted, and it was true even at eleven he had observed that things turned out right a ridiculous amount of the time. Light flared around him. He raised his arms out and above his head. He turned his face up, and suddenly he felt power rush through him. He heard It scream again ... and suddenly he was being drawn back the way he had come, still holding that image of his teeth planted deep in the strange meat of Its tongue, his teeth locked together like grim old death. He flew through the dark, legs trailing behind him, the tips of his mudcrusted sneaker laces flying like pennants, the wind of this empty place blowing in his ears. He was pulled past the Turtle and saw that its head had withdrawn into its shell; its voice emerged hollow and distorted, as if even the shell it lived in were a well eternities deep not bad, son, but Id finish it now; dont let It get away. energy has a way of dissipating, you know; what can be done when youre eleven can often never be done again The voice of the Turtle faded, faded, faded. There was only the rushing dark ... and then the mouth of a cyclopean tunnel ... smells of age and decay ... cobwebs brushing at his face like rotted skeins of silk in a haunted house ... moldering tiles blurring by ... intersections, all dark now, the moonballoons all gone, and It was screaming, screaming let me go let me go Ill leave never come back let me GO IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURRRRRRRRRR Thrusts his fists! Bill screamed, nearly delirious now. He could see light ahead but it was fading, guttering like great candles which had at last burned low ... and for a moment he saw himself and the others holding hands in a line, Eddie on one side of him and Richie on the other. He saw his own body, sagging, his head rolled back on his neck, staring up at the Spider, which twisted and whirled like a dervish, Its coarse, spiny legs beating at the floor, poison dripping from Its stinger. It was screaming in Its deathagony. So Bill honestly believed. Then he was slamming back into his body with all the impact of a line drive slamming into a baseball glove, the force of it tearing his hands loose from Richies and Eddies, driving him to his knees and skidding him across the floor to the edge of the web. He reached out for one of the strands without thinking, and his hand immediately went numb, as if it had been injected with a hypo full of novocaine. The strand itself was as thick as a telephonepole guywire. Dont touch that, Bill! Ben yelled, and Bill yanked his hand away in one quick jerk, leaving a raw place across his palm just below the fingers. It filled with blood and he staggered to his feet, eyes on the Spider. It was scrabbling away from them, making Its way into the growing dimness at the back of the chamber as the light failed. It left puddles and pools of black blood behind as It went; somehow their confrontation had ruptured Its insides in a dozen, maybe a hundred places. Bill, the web! Mike screamed. Look out! He stepped backward, craning his neck up, as strands of Its web came floating down, striking the stoneflagged floor on either side of him like the bodies of meaty white snakes. They immediately began to lose shape, to flow into the cracks between the stones. The web was falling apart, coming loose from its many moorings. One of the bodies, wrapped up like a fly, came plunging down to strike the floor with a sickening rottedgourd sound. The Spider! Bill yelled. Where is It? He could still hear It in his head, mewling and crying out in Its pain, and understood dimly that It had gone into the same tunnel It had thrown Bill into ... but had It gone in there to flee back to the place where It had meant to send Bill ... or to hide until they were gone? To die? Or escape? Christ, the lights! Richie shouted. The lightsre going out! What happened, Bill? Where did you go? We thought you were dead! In some confused part of his mind Bill knew that wasnt true if they had really thought him dead, they would have run, scattered, and It would have picked them off easily, one by one. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that they had thought him dead, but believed him alive. We have to make sure! If Its dying or gone back to where It came from, where the rest of It is, thats fine. But what if Its just hurt? What if It can get better? What Stans shriek cut across his thoughts like broken glass. In the fading light Bill saw that one of the strands of webbing had come down on Stans shoulder. Before Bill could reach him, Mike had thrown himself at the smaller boy in a flying tackle. He drove Stan away and the piece of webbing snapped back, taking a piece of Stans polo shirt with it. Get back! Ben yelled at them. Get away from it, its all coming down! He seized Beverlys hand and pulled her back toward the childsized door while Stan struggled to his feet, looked dazedly around, and then grabbed Eddie. The two of them started toward Ben and Beverly, helping each other, looking like phantoms in the fading light. Overhead, the spiderweb was drooping, collapsing on itself, losing its fearful symmetry. Bodies twirled lazily in the air like nightmarish plumbbobs. Crossstrands fell in like the rotted rungs of some strange complex of ladders. Severed strands hit the stone flagging, hissed like cats, lost their shape, began to run. Mike Hanlon wove his way through them as he would later weave his way through the opposing lines of nearly a dozen highschool football teams, head down, ducking and dodging. Richie joined him. Incredibly, Richie was laughing, although his hair was standing straight up on his head like the quills of a porcupine. The light grew dimmer, the phosphorescence that had coiled on the walls now dying away. Bill! Mike shouted. Come on! Get the frock out of there! What if Its not dead? Bill screamed back. We got to go after It, Mike! We got to make sure! A snarl of webbing sagged outward like a parachute and then fell with a nasty ripping sound that was like skin being pulled apart. Mike grabbed Bills arm and pulled him, stumbling, out of the way. Its dead! Eddie cried, joining them. His eyes were febrile lamps, his breathing a chilly winterwhistle in his throat. Fallen strands of webbing had sizzled complex scars into the plaster of Paris of his cast. I heard It, It was dying, you dont sound like that if youre on your way to a sock hop, It was dying, Im sure of it! Richies hands groped out of the darkness, seized Bill, and pulled him into a rough embrace. He began to pound Bills back ecstatically. I heard It, tooIt was dying, Big Bill! It was dying ... and youre not stuttering! Not at all! Howdja do it? How in the hell? Bills brain was whirling. Exhaustion tugged at him with thick and clumsy hands. He could not remember ever feeling this tired ... but in his mind he heard the drawling, almost weary voice of the Turtle Id finish it now; dont let It get away.... what can be done when youre eleven can often never be done again. But we have to be sure The shadows were joining hands and now the darkness was almost complete. But before the light failed utterly, he thought he saw the same hellish doubt on Beverlys face ... and in Stans eyes. And still, as the last of the light gave way, they could hear the tenebrous whispershudderthump of Its unspeakable web falling to pieces. 3 Bill in the VoidLate well here you are again, Little Buddy! but whats happened to your hair? youre just as bald as a cueball! sad! what sad, short lives humans live! each life a short pamphlet written by an idiot! tuttut, and all that Im still Bill Denbrough. You killed my brother and you killed Stan the Man, you tried to kill Mike. And Im going to tell you something this time Im not going to stop until the jobs done the Turtle was stupid, too stupid to lie. he told you the truth, Little Buddy ... the time only comes around once. you hurt me ... you surprised me. never again. I am the one who called you back. I. You called, all right, but You werent the only one your friend the Turtle ... he died a few years ago. the old idiot puked inside his shell and choked to death on a galaxy or two. very sad, dont you think? but also quite bizarre. deserves a place in Ripleys Believe It or Not, thats what I think. happened right around the same time you had that writers block. you must have felt him go, Little Buddy I dont believe that, either oh youll believe ... youll see. this time, Little Buddy, I intend you to see everything, including the deadlights He sensed Its voice rising, buzzing and racketingat last he sensed the full extent of Its fury, and he was terrified. He reached for the tongue of Its mind, concentrating, trying desperately to recapture the full extent of that childish belief, understanding at the same time that there was a deadly truth in what It had said last time It had been unprepared. This time ... well, even if It had not been the only one to call them, It sure had been waiting. But still He felt his own fury, clean and singing, as his eyes fixed on Its eyes. He sensed Its old scars, sensed that It had truly been hurt, and that It was still hurt. And as It threw him, as he felt his mind swatted out of his body, he concentrated all of his being on seizing Its tongue ... and missed his grip. 4 Richie The other four watched, paralyzed. It was an exact replay of what had happened beforeat first. The Spider, which seemed about to seize Bill and gobble him up, grew suddenly still. Bills eyes locked with Its ruby ones. There was a sense of contact ... a contact just beyond their ability to divine. But they felt the struggle, the clash of wills. Then Richie glanced up into the new web, and saw the first difference. There were bodies there, some halfeaten and halfrotted, and that was the same ... but high up, in one corner, was another body, and Richie was sure this one was still fresh, possibly even still alive. Beverly had not looked upher eyes were fixed on Bill and the Spiderbut even in his terror, Richie saw the resemblance between Beverly and the woman in the web. Her hair was long and red. Her eyes were open but glassy and unmoving. A line of spittle had run from the left comer of her mouth down to her chin. She had been attached to one of the webs main cables by a gossamer harness that went around her waist and under both arms so that she lolled forward in a halfbow, arms and legs dangling limply. Her feet were bare. Richie saw another body crumpled at the foot of her web, a man he had never seen before ... and yet his mind registered an almost subconscious resemblance to the late unlamented Henry Bowers. Blood had run from both of the strangers eyes and caked in a foam around his mouth and on his chin. He Then Beverly was screaming. Somethings wrong! Somethings gone wrong, do something, for Christs sake wont somebody DO something Richies gaze snapped back to Bill and the Spider ... and he sensedheard monstrous laughter. Bills face was stretching in some subtle way. His skin had gone parchmentsallow, as shiny as the skin of a very old person. His eyes were rolled up to the whites. Oh Bill, where are you? As Richie watched, blood suddenly burst from Bills nose in a foam. His mouth was writhing, trying to scream ... and now the Spider was advancing on him again. It was turning, presenting Its stinger. It means to kill him ... kill his body, anyway ... while his mind is somewhere else. It means to shut him out forever. Its winning ... Bill, where are you? For Christs sake, where are you? And somewhere, faintly, from some unimaginable distance, he heard Bill scream ... and the words, although meaningless, were crystalclear and full of sickening (the Turtle is dead oh God the Turtle really is dead) despair. Bev shrieked again and put her hands to her ears as if to shut out that fading voice. The Spiders stinger rose and Richie bolted at It, a grin spreading up toward his ears, and he called out in his best Irish Cops Voice Here, here, me foine girl! Just what in the hell do ye think yere doin? Belay that guff before I snatch yer pettiskirts and snap yer smithyriddles! The Spider stopped laughing, and Richie felt a rising howl of anger and pain inside Its head. Hurt It! he thought triumphantly. Hurt It, how about that, hurt It, and guess what? IVE GOT ITS TONGUE! I THINK BILL MISSED IT SOMEHOW BUT WHILE IT WAS DISTRACTED I GOT Then, screaming at him, Its cries a hive of furious bees in his head, Richie was whacked out of himself and into darkness, dimly aware that It was trying to shake him loose. It was doing a pretty good job, too. Terror washed through him, and then was replaced by a sense of cosmic absurdity. He remembered Beverly with his Duncan yoyo, showing him how to make it sleep, walk the dog, go around the world. And now here he was, Richie the Human YoYo, and Its tongue was the string. Here he was, and this wasnt called walking the dog but maybe walking the Spider, and if that wasnt funny, what was? Richie laughed. It wasnt polite to laugh with your mouth full, of course, but he doubted if anybody out here read Miss Manners. That got him laughing again, and he bit in harder. The Spider screamed and shook him furiously, howling Its anger at being surprised againIt had believed only the writer would challenge It, and now this man who was laughing like a crazy boy had seized It when It was least prepared. Richie felt himself slipping. hold eet a secon, senhorrita, we ees goin out here together or I ain gonna sell you no tickets in la lotera after all, and every one is a big winner, I swear on my mammas name He felt his teeth catch again, more firmly this time. And there was a fainting sort of pain as It drove Its fangs into his own tongue. Boy, it was still pretty funny, though. Even in the dark, being hurled after Bill with only the tongue of this unspeakable monster left to connect him to his own world, even with the pain of Its poisonous fangs suffusing his mind like a red fog, it was pretty goddamned funny. Check it out, folks. Youll believe a disc jockey can fly. He was flying, all right. Richie was in greater darkness than he had ever known, than he had ever suspected might exist, travelling at what felt like the speed of light, and being shaken as a terrier shakes a rat. He sensed that there was something up ahead, some titanic corpse. The Turtle he had heard Bill lamenting in his fading voice? Must be. It was only a shell, a dead husk. Then he was past, rushing on into the darkness. Really steaming now, he thought, and felt that wild urge to cackle again. bill! bill, can you hear me? hes gone, hes in the deadlights, let me go! LET ME GO! (richie?) Incredibly distant; incredibly far out in the black. bill! bill! here I am! catch hold! for Gods sake catch hold hes dead, youre all dead, youre too old, dont you understand that? now let me GO! hey bitch, youre never too old to rock and roll LET ME GO! take me to him and maybe I will Richie closer, he was closer now, thank Godhere I come, Big Bill! Richie to the rescue! Gonna save your old cracked ass! Owe you one from that day on Neibolt Street, remember? let me GOOOO! It was hurting badly now, and Richie understood how completely he had caught It by surpriseIt had believed It had only Bill to deal with. Well, good. Good nuff. Richie didnt care about killing It right now; he was no longer sure It could be killed. But Bill could be killed, and Richie sensed that Bills time was now very, very short. Bill was closing in on some large nasty surprise out here, something best not thought about. Richie, no! Go back! Its the edge of everything up here! The deadlights! souns like what you turn on when you drivinn you hearse at midnie, senhorr ... and where is you, honeychile? smile, so I can see where you is! And suddenly Bill was there, skidding along on (the left? right? there was no direction here) one side or the other. And beyond him, coming up fast, Richie could seesense something that finally dried up his laughter. It was a barrier, something of a strange, nongeometrical shape that his mind could not grasp. Instead his mind translated it as best it could, as it had translated the shape of It into a Spider, allowing Richie to think of it as a colossal gray wall made of fossilized wooden stakes. These stakes went forever up and forever down, like the bars of a cage. And from between them shone a great blind light. It glared and moved, smiled and snarled. The light was alive. (deadlights) More than alive it was full of a forcemagnetism, gravity, perhaps something else. Richie felt himself lifted and dropped, swirled and pulled, as if he were shooting a fast throat of rapids in an innertube. He could feel the light moving eagerly over his face ... and the light was thinking. This is It, this is It, the rest of It. let me go, you promised to let me GO I know but sometimes, honeychile, I liemymamma she beat me fo it but my daddy, he done just about give up He sensed Bill tumbling and flailing toward one of the gaps in the wall, sensed evil fingers of light reaching for him, and with a final despairing effort, he reached for his friend. Bill! Your hand! Give me your hand! YOUR HAND, GODDAMMIT! YOUR HAND! Bills hand shot out, the fingers opening and closing, that living fire crawling and twisting over Audras wedding ring in runic, Moorish patternswheels, crescents, stars, swastikas, linked circles that grew into rolling chains. Bills face was overlaid with the same light, making him look tattooed. Richie stretched out as far as he could, hearing It scream and yammer. (I missed him, oh dear God I missed hes going to shoot through) Then Bills fingers closed over Richies, and Richie clenched his hand into a fist. Bills legs flew through one of the gaps in the frozen wood, and for one mad moment Richie realized he could see all the bones and veins and capillaries inside them, as if Bill had shot halfway into the maw of the worlds strongest Xray machine. Richie felt the muscles in his arm stretch like taffy, felt the ballandsocket joint in his shoulder creak and groan in protest as the footpounds of pressure built up. He summoned all of his force and shouted Pull us back! Pull us back or Ill kill you! I ... Ill Voice you to death! The Spider screeched again, and Richie suddenly felt a great, snapping whiplash curl through his body. His arm was a whitehot bar of agony. His grip on Bills hand began to slip. Hold on, Big Bill! I got you! Richie, I got you! You better, Richie thought grimly, because I think you could walk ten billion miles out here and never find a fucking pay toilet. They whistled back, that crazy light fading, becoming a series of brilliant pinpoints that finally winked out. They drove through the darkness like torpedoes, Richie gripping Its tongue with his teeth and Bills wrist with one aching hand. There was the Turtle; there and gone in a single eyeblink. Richie sensed them drawing closer to whatever passed for the real world (although he believed he would never think of it as exactly real again; he would see it as a clever canvas scene underlaid with a crisscrossing of supportcables ... cables like the strands of a spiderweb). But were going to be all right, he thought. Were going to get back. We The buffeting began thenthe whipping, slamming, sidetoside flailing as It tried one final time to shake them off and leave them Outside. And Richie felt his grip slipping. He heard Its guttural roar of triumph and concentrated his being on holding ... but he continued to slip. He bit down frantically, but Its tongue seemed to be losing substance and reality; it seemed to be becoming gossamer. Help! Richie screamed. Im losing it! Help! Somebody help us! 5 Eddie Eddie was halfaware of what was happening; he felt it somehow, saw it somehow, but as if through a gauzy curtain. Somewhere, Bill and Richie were struggling to come back. Their bodies were here, but the rest of themthe real of themwas far away. He had seen the Spider turn to impale Bill with Its stinger, and then Richie had run forward, yelling at It in that ridiculous Irish Cops Voice he used to use ... only Richie must have improved his act a hell of a lot over the years, because this Voice sounded eerily like Mr. Nell from the old days. The Spider had turned toward Richie, and Eddie had seen Its unspeakable red eyes bulge in their sockets. Richie yelled again, this time in his Pancho Vanilla Voice, and Eddie had felt the Spider scream in pain. Ben yelled hoarsely as a split appeared in Its hide along the line of one of Its scars from the last time. A stream of ichor, black as crude oil, sprayed out. Richie had started to say something else ... and his voice had begun to diminish, like the fade at the end of a pop song. His head had rolled back on his neck, his eyes fixed on Its eyes. The Spider grew quiet again. Time passedEddie had no idea just how much. Richie and the Spider stared at each other; Eddie sensed the connection between them, felt a swirl of talk and emotion somewhere far away. He could make out nothing exactly, but sensed the tones of things in colors and hues. Bill lay slumped on the floor, nose and ears bleeding, fingers twitching slightly, his long face pale, his eyes closed. The Spider was now bleeding in four or five places, badly hurt again, badly hurt but still dangerously vital, and Eddie thought Why are we just standing around here? We could hurt It while Its occupied with Richie! Why doesnt somebody move, for Christs sake? He sensed a wild triumphand that feeling was clearer, sharper. Closer. Theyre coming back! he wanted to shout, but his mouth was too dry, his throat too tight. Theyre coming back! Then Richies head began to turn slowly from side to side. His body seemed to ripple inside his clothes. His glasses hung on the end of his nose for a moment ... then fell off and shattered on the stone floor. The Spider stirred, its spiny legs making a dry clittering on the floor. Eddie heard It cry out in terrible triumph, and a moment later, Richies voice burst clearly into his head (help! Im losing it! somebody help me!) Eddie ran forward then, yanking his aspirator from his pocket with his good hand, his lips drawn back in a grimace, his breath whistling painfully in and out of a throat that now felt the size of a pinhole. Crazily, his mothers face danced before him and she was crying Dont go near that Thing, Eddie! Dont go near It! Things like that give you cancer! Shut up, Ma!Eddie screamed in a high, shrieky voiceall the voice he had left. The Spiders head turned toward the sound, Its eyes momentarily leaving Richies. Here! Eddie howled in his fading voice. Here, have some of this! He leaped at It, triggering the aspirator at the same time, and for an instant all his childhood belief in the medicine came back to him, the childhood medicine that could solve everything, that could make him feel better when the bigger boys roughed him up or when he was knocked over in the rush to get through the doors when school let out or when he had to sit on the edge of the Tracker Brothers vacant lot, out of the game because his mother wouldnt allow him to play baseball. It was good medicine, strong medicine, and as he leaped into the Spiders face, smelling Its foul yellow stench, feeling himself overwhelmed by Its singleminded fury and determination to wipe them all out, he triggered the aspirator into one of Its ruby eyes. He feltheard Its screamno rage this time, only pain, a horrid screaming agony. He saw the mist of droplets settle on that bloodred bulge, saw the droplets turn white where they landed, saw them sink in as a splash of carbolic acid would sink in; he saw Its huge eye begin to flatten out like a bloody eggyolk and run in a ghastly stream of living blood and ichor and maggoty pus.


Come home now, Bill! he screamed with the last of his voice, and then he struck It, he felt Its noisome heat baking into him; he felt a terrible wet warmth and realized that his good arm had slipped into the Spiders mouth. He triggered the aspirator again, shooting the stuff right down Its throat this time, right down Its rotten evil stinking gullet, and there was sudden, flashing pain, as clean as the drop of a heavy knife, as Its jaws closed and ripped his arm off at the shoulder. Eddie fell to the floor, the ragged stump of his arm spraying blood, faintly aware that Bill was getting shakily to his feet, that Richie was weaving and stumbling toward him like a drunk at the end of a long hard night. eds Far away. Unimportant. He could feel everything running out of him along with his lifes blood ... all the rage, all the pain, all the fear, all the confusion and hurt. He supposed he was dying but he felt ... ah, God, he felt so lucid, so clear, like a windowpane which has been washed clean and now lets in all the gloriously frightening light of some unsuspected dawning; the light, oh God, that perfect rational light that clears the horizon somewhere in the world every second. eds oh my god bill ben someone hes lost his arm, his He looked up at Beverly and saw she was crying, the tears coursing down her dirty cheeks as she got an arm under him; he became aware that she had taken off her blouse and was trying to staunch the flow of blood, and that she was screaming for help. Then he looked at Richie and licked his lips. Fading, fading back. Becoming clearer and clearer, emptying out, all of the impurities flowing out of him so he could become clear, so that the light could flow through, and if he had had time enough he could have preached on this, he could have sermonized Not bad, he would begin. This is not bad at all. But there was something else he had to say first. Richie, he whispered. What? Richie was down on his hands and knees, staring at him desperately. Dont call me Eds, he said, and smiled. He raised his left hand slowly and touched Richies cheek. Richie was crying. You know I ... I .... Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he was still thinking it over he died. 6 Derry700900 A.M. By 700 A.M., the windspeed in Derry had picked up to about thirtyseven miles an hour, with gusts up to fortyfive. Harry Brooks, a National Weather Service forecaster based at Bangor International Airport, made an alarmed call to NWS headquarters in Augusta. The winds, he said, were coming out of the west and blowing in a queer semicircular pattern he had never seen before ... but it looked to him more and more like some weird species of pocket hurricane, one that was limited almost exclusively to Derry Township. At 710, the major Bangor radio stations broadcast the first severeweather warnings. The explosion of the powertransformer at Tracker Brothers had killed the power all over Derry on the Kansas Street side of the Barrens. At 717, a hoary old maple on the Old Cape side of the Barrens fell with a terrific rending crash, flattening a NiteOwl store on the corner of Merit Street and Cape Avenue. An elderly patron named Raymond Fogarty was killed by a toppling beer cooler. This was the same Raymond Fogarty who, as the minister of the First Methodist Church of Derry, had presided over the burial rites of George Denbrough in October of 1957. The maple also pulled down enough power lines to knock out the power in both the Old Cape and the somewhat more fashionable Sherburn Woods development beyond it. The clock in the steeple of the Grace Baptist Church had chimed neither six nor seven. At 720, three minutes after the maple fell in the Old Cape and about an hour and fifteen minutes after every toilet and domestic drain over there had suddenly reversed itself, the clock in the tower chimed thirteen times. A minute later, a bluewhite stroke of lightning struck the steeple. Heather Libby, the ministers wife, happened to be looking out the window of the parsonages kitchen at the time, and she said that the steeple exploded like someone loaded it up with dynamite. Whitewashed boards, chunks of beams, and clockwork from Switzerland showered down on the street. The ragged remains of the steeple burned briefly and then guttered out in the rain, which was now a tropical downpour. The streets leading downhill into the downtown shopping area foamed and ran. The progress of the Canal under Main Street had become a steady shaking thunder that made people look at each other uneasily. At 725, with the titanic crash of the Grace Baptist steeple still reverberating all over Derry, the janitor who came into Wallys Spa every morning except Sunday to swamp the place out saw something which sent him screaming into the street. This fellow, who had been an alcoholic ever since his first semester at the University of Maine lo these eleven years ago, was paid a pittance for his serviceshis real pay, it was understood, was his absolute freedom to finish up anything left in the beer kegs under the bar from the night before. Richie Tozier might or might not have remembered him; he was Vincent Caruso Taliendo, better known to his fifthgrade contemporaries as Boogers Taliendo. As he was mopping up on that apocalyptic morning in Derry, working his way gradually closer and closer to the serving area, he saw all seven of the beer tapsthree Bud, two Narragansett, one Schlitz (known more familiarly to the bleary patrons of Wallys as Slits), and one Miller Litenod forward, as if pulled by seven invisible hands. Beer ran from them in streams of goldwhite foam. Vince started forward, thinking not of ghosts or phantoms but of his mornings dividend going down the drain. Then he skidded to a stop, eyes widening, and a wailing, horrified scream rose in the empty, beersmelling cave that was Wallys Spa. Beer had given way to arterial streams of blood. It swirled in the chromium drains, overflowed, and ran down the side of the bar in little streamlets. Now hair and chunks of flesh began to splurt out of the beertaps. Boogers Taliendo watched this, transfixed, not even able to summon enough strength to scream again. Then there was a thudding, toneless blast as one of the beer kegs under the counter exploded. All of the cupboard doors under the bar swung wide. Greenish smoke, like the aftermath of a magicians trick, began to drift out of them. Boogers had seen enough. Screaming, he fled into the street, which was now a shallow canal. He fell on his butt, got up, and threw a terrified glance back over his shoulder. One of the bar windows blew out with a loud shootinggallery sound. Whickers of broken glass whistled all around Vinces head. A moment later the other window exploded. Once again he was miraculously untouched ... but he decided on the spur of the moment that the time had come to see his sister up Eastport. He started off at once, and his journey to the Derry town limits and beyond would make a saga in itself ... but suffice it to say that he did eventually get out of town. Others were not so lucky. Aloysius Nell, who had turned seventyseven not long since, was sitting with his wife in the parlor of their home on Strapham Street, watching the storm pound Derry. At 732, he suffered a fatal stroke. His wife told her brother a week later that Aloysius dropped his coffee cup on the rug, sat boltupright, his eyes wide and staring, and screamed Here, here, me foine girl! Just what in the hell do ye think yere doin? Belay that guff before I snatch yer pettiskirrrr Then he fell out of his chair, smashing his coffee cup under him. Maureen Nell, who knew well how bad his ticker had been for the last three years, understood immediately that all was over with him, and after loosening his collar she had run for the telephone to call Father McDowell. But the phone was out of order. A funny noise like a police siren was all it would make. And so, although she knew it was probably a blasphemy she would have to answer for to Saint Peter, she had attempted to give him the last rites herself. She felt confident, she told her brother, that God would understand even if Saint Peter didnt. Aloysius had been a good husband and a good man, and if he drank too much, that was only the Irish in him coming out. At 749 a series of explosions shook the Derry Mall, which stood on the site of the defunct Kitchener Ironworks. No one was killed; the mall didnt open until 1000, and the fiveman janitorial squad hadnt been due to arrive until 800 (and on such a morning as this, very few of them would have shown up anyway). A team of investigators later dismissed the idea of sabotage. They suggestedrather vaguelythat the explosions had probably been caused by water which had seeped into the malls electrical system. Whatever the reason, no one was going to go shopping at the Derry Mall for a long time. One explosion totally wiped out Zales Jewelry Store. Diamond rings, ID bracelets, strings of pearls, trays of wedding rings, and Seiko digital watches flew everywhere in a hail of bright, sparkly trinkets. A musicbox flew the length of the east corridor and landed in the fountain outside of the J. C. Penneys, where it briefly played a bubbly rendition of the theme from Love Story before shutting down. The same blast tore a hole through the BaskinRobbins next door, turning the thirtyone flavors into icecream soup that ran away along the floor in cloudy runnels. The blast which tore through Sears lifted off a chunk of the roof and the rising wind sailed it away like a kite; it came down a thousand yards away, slicing cleanly through the silo of a farmer named Brent Kilgallon. Kilgallons sixteenyearold son rushed out with his mothers Kodak and took a picture. The National Enquirer bought it for sixty dollars, which the boy used to buy two new tires for his Yamaha motorcycle. A third explosion ripped through Hit or Miss, sending flaming skirts, jeans, and underwear out into the flooded parkinglot. And a final explosion tore open the mall branch of the Derry Farmers Trust like a rotted box of crackers. A chunk of the banks roof was also torn off. Burglar alarms went off with a bray that would not be silenced until the security systems independent wiring hookup was shorted out four hours later. Loan contracts, banking instruments, deposit slips, cashdrawer chits, and MoneyManager forms were lifted into the sky and blown away by the rising wind. And money tens and twenties mostly, with a generous helping of fives and a soupon of fifties and hundreds. Better than 75,000 blew away, according to the banks officers.... Later, after a mass shakeup in the banks executive structure (and an FSLIC bailout), some would admitstrictly off the record, of coursethat it had been more like 200,000. A woman in Haven Village named Rebecca Paulson found a fiftydollar bill fluttering from her backdoor welcome mat, two twenties in her birdhouse, and a hundred plastered against an oak tree in her back yard. She and her husband used the money to make an extra two payments on their Bombardier Skidoo. Dr. Hale, a retired doctor who had lived on West Broadway for nearly fifty years, was killed at 800 A.M. Dr. Hale liked to boast that he had taken the same twomile walk from his West Broadway home and around Derry Park and the Elementary School for the last twentyfive of those fifty years. Nothing stopped him; not rain, sleet, hail, howling noreasters, or subzero cold. He set out on the morning of May 31st in spite of his housekeepers worried fussings. His exitline from the world, spoken back over his shoulder as he went through the front door, pulling his hat firmly down to his ears, was Dont be so goddamned silly, Hilda. This is nothing but a capful of rain. You should have seen it in 57! That was a storm! As Dr. Hale turned back onto West Broadway, a manhole cover in front of the Mueller place suddenly lifted off like the payload of a Redstone rocket. It decapitated the good doctor so quickly and neatly that he walked on another three steps before collapsing, dead, on the sidewalk. And the wind continued to rise. 7 Under the City415 P.M. Eddie led them through the darkened tunnels for an hour, perhaps an hour and a half, before admitting, in a tone that was more bewildered than frightened, that for the first time in his life he was lost. They could still hear the dim thunder of water in the drains, but the acoustics of all of these tunnels was so crazed that it was impossible to tell if the watersounds were coming from ahead or behind, left or right, above or below. Their matches were gone. They were lost in the dark. Bill was scared ... plenty scared. The conversation hed had with his father in his fathers shop kept coming back to him. Theres nine pounds of blueprints that just disappeared somewhere along the line.... My point is that nobody knows where all the damned sewers and drains go, or why. When they work, nobody cares. When they dont, theres three or four sad sacks from Derry Water who have to try and find out which pump went flooey or where the plugup is.... Its dark and smelly and there are rats. Those are all good reasons to stay out, but the best reason is that you could get lost. Its happened before. Happened before. Happened before. Its happened Sure it had. There was that bundle of bones and polished cotton they had passed on the way to Its lair, for instance. Bill felt panic trying to rise and pushed it back. It went, but not easily. He could feel it back there, a live thing, struggling and twisting, trying to get out. Adding to it was the nagging unanswerable question of whether they had killed It or not. Richie said yes, Mike said yes, so did Eddie. But he hadnt liked the frightened doubtful look on Bevs face, or on Stans, as the light died and they crawled back through the small door, away from the susurating collapsing web. So what do we do now? Stan asked. Bill heard the frightened, littleboy tremble in Stans voice and knew the question was aimed directly at him. Yeah, Ben said. What? Damn, I wish we had a flashlight ... or even a can ... candle. Bill thought he heard a stifled sob in the second ellipsis. It frightened him more than anything else. Ben would have been astounded to know it, but Bill thought the fat boy tough and resourceful, steadier than Richie and less apt to cave in suddenly than Stan. If Ben was getting ready to crack, they were on the edge of very bad trouble. It was not the skeleton of the Water Department guy to which Bills own mind kept returning but to Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher, lost in McDougals Cave. He would push the thought away and then it would come stealing back. Something else was troubling him, but the concept was too large and too vague for his tired boys mind to grasp. Perhaps it was the very simplicity of the idea that made it elusive they were falling away from each other. The bond that had held them all this long summer was dissolving. It had been faced and vanquished. It might be dead, as Richie and Eddie thought, or It might be wounded so badly It would sleep for a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand. They had faced It, seen It with Its final mask laid aside, and It had been horrible enoughoh, for sure!but once seen, Its physical form was not so bad and Its most potent weapon was taken away from It. They all had, after all, seen spiders before. They were alien and somehow crawlingly dreadful, and he supposed that none of them would ever be able to see another one (if we ever get out of this) without feeling a shudder of revulsion. But a spider was, after all, only a spider. Perhaps at the end, when the masks of horror were laid aside, there was nothing with which the human mind could not cope. That was a heartening thought. Anything except (the deadlights) whatever had been out there, but perhaps even that unspeakable living light which crouched at the doorway to the macroverse was dead or dying. The deadlights, and the trip into the black to the place where they had been, was already growing hazy and hard to recall in his mind. And that wasnt really the point. The point, felt but not grasped, was simply that the fellowship was ending ... it was ending and they were still in the dark. That Other had, through their friendship, perhaps been able to make them something more than children. But they were becoming children again. Bill felt it as much as the others. What now, Bill? Richie asked, finally saying it right out. I dddont nuhnuhknow, Bill said. His stutter was back, alive and well. He heard it, they heard it, and he stood in the dark, smelling the sodden aroma of their growing panic, wondering how long it would be before somebodyStan, most likely it would be Stantore things wide open by saying Well, why dont you know? You got us into this! And what about Henry? Mike asked uneasily. Is he still out there, or what? Oh, Jeez, Eddie said ... almost moaned. I forgot about him. Sure he is, sure he is, hes probably as lost as we are and we could run into him any time ... Jeez, Bill, dont you have any ideas? Your dad works down here! Dont you have any ideas at all? Bill listened to the distant mocking thunder of the water and tried to have the idea that Eddieall of themhad a right to demand. Because yes, correct, he had gotten them into this and it was his responsibility to get them back out again. Nothing came. Nothing. I have an idea, Beverly said quietly. In the dark, Bill heard a sound he could not immediately place. A whispery little sound, but not scary. Then there was a more easily placed sound ... a zipper. What? he thought, and then he realized what. She was undressing. For some reason, Beverly was undressing. What are you doing? Richie asked, and his shocked voice cracked on the last word. I know something, Beverly said in the dark, and to Bill her voice sounded older. I know because my father told me. I know how to bring us back together. And if were not together well never get out. What? Ben asked, sounding bewildered and terrified. What are you talking about? Something that will bring us together forever. Something that will show NuhNuhNo, BBBeverly! Bill said, suddenly understanding, understanding everything. that will show that I love you all, Beverly said, that youre all my friends. Whats she t Mike began. Calmly, Beverly cut across his words. Whos first? she asked. I think 8 In the Lair of It1985 hes dying, Beverly wept. His arm, It ate his arm She reached for Bill, clung to him, and Bill shook her off. Its getting away again! he roared at her. Blood caked his lips and chin. CuhCuhCome on! Richie! BBBen! This tuhtime were gggoing to fuhhinish her! Richie turned Bill toward him, looked at him as you would look at a man who is hopelessly raving. Bill, we have to take care of Eddie. We have to get a tourniquet on him, get him out of here. But Beverly was now sitting with Eddies head in her lap, cradling him. She had closed his eyes. Go with Bill, she said. If you let him die for nothing ... if It comes back in another twentyfive years, or fifty, or even two thousand, I swear Ill ... Ill haunt your ghosts. Go! Richie looked at her for a moment, indecisive. Then he became aware that her face was losing definition, becoming not a face but a pale shape in the growing shadows. The light was fading. It decided him. All right, he said to Bill. This time we chase. Ben was standing in back of the spiderweb, which had begun to decay again. He had also seen the shape swaying high up in it, and he prayed that Bill would not look up. But as the web began to fall in drifts and strands and skeins, Bill did. He saw Audra, sagging as if in a very old and creaky elevator. She dropped ten feet, stopped, swaying from side to side, and then abruptly dropped another fifteen. Her face never changed. Her eyes, chinablue, were wide open. Her bare feet swung back and forth like pendulums. Her hair hung lankly over her shoulders. Her mouth was ajar. AUDRA! he screamed. Bill, come on! Ben shouted. The web was falling all around them now, thudding to the floor and beginning to run. Richie suddenly grabbed Bill around the waist and propelled him forward, shooting for a tenfoothigh gap between the floor and the bottommost crossstrand of the sagging web. Go, Bill! Go! Go! Thats Audra! Bill shouted desperately. ThuhThats AUDRA! I dont give a shit if its the Pope, Richie said grimly. Eddies dead and were going to kill It, if Its still alive. Were going to finish the job this time, Big Bill. Either shes alive or shes not. Now come on! Bill hung back a moment longer, and then snapshots of the children, all the dead children, seemed to flutter through his mind like lost photographs from Georges album. SCHOOL FRIENDS. AAll ruhright. Lets ggo. GuhGuhGod forgive mme. He and Richie ran under the strand of crosswebbing seconds before it collapsed, and joined Ben on the other side. They ran after It as Audra swung and dangled fifty feet above the stone floor, wrapped in a numbing cocoon that was attached to the decaying web. 9 Ben They followed the trail of Its black bloodoily pools of ichor that ran and dripped into the cracks between the flagstones. But as the floor began to rise toward a semicircular black opening at the far side of the chamber, Ben saw something new a trail of eggs. Each was black and roughshelled, perhaps as big as an ostrichegg. A waxy light shone from within them. Ben realized they were semitransparent; he could see black shapes moving inside. Itschildren, he thought, and felt his gorge rise. Its miscarried children. God! God! Richie and Bill had stopped and were staring at the eggs with stupid, dazed wonder. Go on! Go on! Ben shouted. Ill take care of them! Get It! Here! Richie shouted, and threw Ben a pack of Derry Town House matches. Ben caught them. Bill and Richie ran on. Ben watched them in the rapidly dimming light for a moment. They ran into the darkness of Its escapepassage and were lost from sight. Then he looked down at the first of the thinshelled eggs, at the black, mantalike shadow inside, and felt his determination waver. This ... hey guys, this was too much. This was simply too awful. And surely they would die without his help; they had not been so much laid as dropped. But Its time was close ... and if one of them is capable of surviving ... even one ... Summoning all of his courage, summoning up Eddies pale, dying face, Ben brought one Desert Driver boot down on the first egg. It broke with a sodden squelch as some stinking placenta ran out around his boot. Then a spider the size of a rat was scrabbling weakly across the floor, trying to get away, and Ben could hear it in his head, its high mewling cries like the sound of a handsaw being bent rapidly back and forth so that it makes ghostmusic. Ben lurched after it on legs that felt like stilts and brought his foot down again. He felt the spiders body crunch and splatter under the heel of his boot. His gorge clenched and this time there was no way he could hold back. He vomited, then twisted his heel, grinding the thing into the stones, listening to the cries in his head fade to nothing. How many? How many eggs? Didnt I read somewhere that spiders can lay thousands ... or millions? I cant keep doing this, Ill go mad You have to. You have to. Come on, Ben ... get it together! He went to the next egg and repeated the process in the last of the dying light. Everything was repeated the brittle snap, the squelch of liquid, the final coup de grace. The next. The next. The next. Making his way slowly toward the black arch into which his friends had gone. The darkness was complete now, Beverly and the decaying web somewhere behind him. He could still hear the whisper of its collapse. The eggs were pallid stones in the dark. As he reached each one he struck a light from the matchbook and broke it open. In each case he was able to follow the course of the dazed spiderling and crush it before the light flickered out. He had no idea how he was going to proceed if his matches gave out before he had crushed the last of the eggs and killed each ones unspeakable cargo. 10 It1985 Still coming. It sensed them still coming, gaining, and Its fear grew. Perhaps It was not eternal after allthe unthinkable must finally be thought. Worse, It sensed the death of Its young. A third of these hated hateful menboys was walking steadily up Its trail of birth, almost insane with revulsion but continuing nonetheless, methodically stamping the life from each of Its eggs. No! It wailed, lurching from side to side, feeling Its lifeforce running from a hundred wounds, none of them mortal in itself, but each a song of pain, each slowing It. One of Its legs hung by a single living twist of meat. One of Its eyes was blind. It sensed a terrible rupture inside, the result of whatever poison one of the hated menboys had managed to shoot down Its throat. And still they came on, closing the distance, and how could this happen? It whined and mewled, and when It sensed them almost directly behind, It did the only thing It could do now It turned to fight. 11 Beverly Before the last of the light faded and utter dark closed down, she saw Bills wife plunge another twenty feet and then fetch up again. She had begun to spin, her long red hair fanning out. His wife, she thought. But I was his first love, and if he thought some other woman was his first, it was only because he forgot ... forgot Derry. Then she was in darkness, alone with the sound of the falling web and Eddies simple moveless weight. She didnt want to let him go, didnt want to let his face lie on the foul floor of this place. So she held his head in the crook of an arm that had gone mostly numb and brushed his hair away from his damp forehead. She thought of the birds ... that was something she supposed she had gotten from Stan. Poor Stan, who hadnt been able to face this. All of them ... I was their first love. She tried to remember itit was something good to think about in all this darkness, where you couldnt place the sounds. It made her feel less alone. At first it wouldnt come; the image of the birds intervenedcrows and grackles and starlings, spring birds that came back from somewhere while the streets were still running with meltwater and the last patches of crusted dirty snow clung grimly to their shady places. It seemed to her that it was always on a cloudy day that you first heard and saw those spring birds and wondered where they came from. Suddenly they were just back in Derry, filling the white air with their raucous chatter. They lined the telephone wires and roofpeaks of the Victorian houses on West Broadway; they jostled for places on the aluminum branches of the elaborate TV antenna on top of Wallys Spa; they loaded the wet black branches of the elms on Lower Main Street. They settled, they talked to each other in the screamy babbling voices of old countrywomen at the weekly Grange Bingo games, and then, at some signal which humans could not discern, they all took wing at once, turning the sky black with their numbers ... and came down somewhere else. Yes, the birds, I was thinking of them because I was ashamed. It was my father who made me ashamed, I guess, and maybe that was Its doing, too. Maybe. The memory camethe memory behind the birdsbut it was vague and disconnected. Perhaps this one always would be. She had Her thoughts broke off as she realized that Eddie 12 Love and DesireAugust 10th, 1958 comes to her first, because he is the most frightened. He comes to her not as her friend of that summer, or as her brief lover now, but the way he would have come to his mother only three or four years ago, to be comforted; he doesnt draw back from her smooth nakedness and at first she doubts if he even feels it. He is trembling, and although she holds him the darkness is so perfect that even this close she cannot see him; except for the rough cast he might as well be a phantom. What do you want? he asks her. You have to put your thing in me,  she says. He tries to pull back but she holds him and he subsides against her. She has heard someoneBen, she thinksdraw in his breath. Bevvie, I cant do that. I dont know how I think its easy. But youll have to get undressed. She thinks about the intricacies of managing cast and shirt, first somehow separating and then rejoining them, and amends, Your pants, anyway. No, I cant! But she thinks part of him can, and wants to, because his trembling has stopped and she feels something small and hard which presses against the right side of her belly. You can, she says, and pulls him down. The surface beneath her bare back and legs is firm, clayey, dry. The distant thunder of the water is drowsy, soothing. She reaches for him. Theres a moment when her fathers face intervenes, harsh and forbidding (I want to see if youre intact) and then she closes her arms around Eddies neck, her smooth cheek against his smooth cheek, and as he tentatively touches her small breasts she sighs and thinks for the first time This is Eddie and she remembers a day in Julycouldit only have been last month?when no one else turned up in the Barrens but Eddie, and he had a whole bunch of Little Lulu comic books and they read together for most of the afternoon, Little Lulu looking for beebleberries and getting in all sorts of crazy situations, Witch Hazel, all of those guys. It had been fun. She thinks of birds; in particular of the grackles and starlings and crows that come back in the spring, and her hands go to his belt and loosen it, and he says again that he cant do that; she tells him that he can, she knows he can, and what she feels is not shame or fear now but a kind of triumph. Where? he says, and that hard thing pushes urgently against her inner thigh. Here, she says. Bevvie, Ill fall on you! he says, and she hears his breath start to whistle painfully. I think thats sort of the idea,  she tells him and holds him gently and guides him. He pushes forward too fast and there is pain. Ssssss!she draws her breath in, her teeth biting at her lower lip and thinks of the birds again, the spring birds, lining the roofpeaks of houses, taking wing all at once under low March clouds. Beverly? he says uncertainly. Are you okay? Go slower, she says. Itll be easier for you to breathe. He does move more slowly, and after awhile his breathing speeds up but she understands this is not because there is anything wrong with him. The pain fades. Suddenly he moves more quickly, then stops, stiffens, and makes a soundsome sound. She senses that this is something for him, something extraordinarily special, something like ... like flying. She feels powerful she feels a sense of triumph rise up strongly within her. Is this what her father was afraid of? Well he might be! There was power in this act, all right, a chainbreaking power that was blooddeep. She feels no physical pleasure, but there is a kind of mental ecstasy in it for her. She senses the closeness. He puts his face against her neck and she holds him Hes crying. She holds him. And feels the part of him that made a connection between them begin to fade. It is not leaving her, exactly; it is simply fading, becoming less. When his weight shifts away she sits up and touches his face in the darkness. Did you? Did I what? Whatever it is. I dont know, exactly. He shakes his headshefeels it with her hand against his cheek. I dont think it was exactly like ... you know, like the big boys say. But it was ... it was really something. He speaks low so the others cant hear. I love you, Bevvie. Her consciousness breaks down a little there. Shes quite sure theres more talk, some whispered, some loud, and cant remember what is said. It doesnt matter. Does she have to talk each of them into it all over again? Yes, probably. But it doesnt matter. They have to be talked into it, this essential human link between the world and the infinite, the only place where the bloodstream touches eternity.


It doesnt matter. What matters is love and desire. Here in this dark is as good a place as any. Better than some, maybe. Mike comes to her, then Richie, and the act is repeated. Now she feels some pleasure, dim heat in her childish unmatured sex, and she closes her eyes as Stan comes to her and she thinks of the birds, spring and the birds, and she sees them, again and again, all lighting at once, filling up the winternaked trees, shockwave riders on the moving edge of natures most violent season, she sees them take wing again and again, the flutter of their wings like the snap of many sheets on the line, and she thinks A month from now every kid in Derry Park will have a kite, theyll run to keep the strings from getting tangled with each other. She thinks again This is what flying is like. With Stan as with the others, there is that rueful sense of fading, of leaving, with whatever they truly need from this actsome ultimateclose but as yet unfound. Did you? she asks again, and although she doesnt know exactly what it is, she knows that he hasnt. There is a long wait, and then Ben comes to her. He is trembling all over, but it is not the fearful trembling she felt in Stan. Beverly, I cant, he says in a tone which purports to be reasonable and is anything but. You can too. I can feel it. She sure can. Theres more of this hardness; more of him. She can feel it below the gentle push of his belly. Its size raises a certain curiosity and she touches the bulge lightly. He groans against her neck, and the blow of his breath causes her bare body to dimple with goosebumps. She feels the first twist of real heat race through hersuddenlythe feeling in her is very large; she recognizes that it is too big (and is he too big, can she take that into herself?) and too old for her, something, some feeling that walks in boots. This is like Henrys M80s, something not meant for kids, something that could explode and blow you up. But this was not the place or time for worry; here there was love, desire, and the dark. If they didnt try for the first two they would surely be left with the last. Beverly, dont Yes. I ...  Show me how to fly, she says with a calmness she doesnt feel, aware by the fresh wet warmth on her cheek and neck that he has begun to cry. Show me, Ben. No ... If you wrote the poem, show me. Feel my hair if you want to, Ben. Its all right.  Beverly ... I ... I ... Hes not just trembling now; hes shaking all over. But she senses again that this ague is not all fearpartof it is the precursor of the throe this act is all about. She thinks of (the birds) his face, his dear sweet earnest face, and knows it is not fear; it is wanting he feels, a deep passionate wanting now barely held in check, and she feels that sense of power again, something like flying, something like looking down from above and seeing all the birds on the roofpeaks, on the TV antenna atop Wallys, seeing streets spread out maplike, oh desire, right, this was something, it was love and desire that taught you to fly. Ben! Yes! she cries suddenly, and the leash breaks. She feels pain again, and for a moment there is the frightening sensation of being crushed. Then he props himself up on the palms of his hands and that feeling is gone. Hes big, oh yesthe pain is back, and its much deeper than when Eddie first entered her. She has to bite her lip again and think of the birds until the burning is gone. But it does go, and she is able to reach up and touch his lips with one finger, and he moans. The heat is back, and she feels her power suddenly shift to him; she gives it gladly and goes with it. There is a sensation first of being rocked, of a delicious spiralling sweetness which makes her begin to turn her head helplessly from side to side, and a tuneless humming comes from between her closed lips, this is flying, this, oh love, oh desire, oh this is something impossible to deny, binding, giving, making a strong circle binding, giving ... flying. Oh Ben, oh my dear, yes, she whispers, feeling the sweat stand out on her face, feeling their connection, something firmly in place, something like eternity, the number 8 rocked over on its side. I love you so much, dear.  And she feels the thing begin to happensomething of which the girls who whisper and giggle about sex in the girls room have no idea, at least as far as she knows; they only marvel at how gooshy sex must be, and now she realizes that for many of them sex must be some unrealized undefined monster; they refer to the act as It. Would you do It, do your sister and her boyfriend do It, do your mom and dad still do It, and how they never intend to do It; oh yes, you would think that the whole girls side of the fifthgrade class was made up of spinsterstobe, and it is obvious to Beverly that none of them can suspect this ... this conclusion, and she is only kept from screaming by her knowledge that the others will hear and think her badly hurt. She puts the side of her hand in her mouth and bites down hard. She understands the screamy laughter of Greta Bowie and Sally Mueller and all the others better now hadnt they, the seven of them, spent most of this, the longest, scariest summer of their lives, laughing like loons? You laugh because whats fearful and unknown is also whats funny, you laugh the way a small child will sometimes laugh and cry at the same time when a capering circus clown approaches, knowing it is supposed to be funny ... but it is also unknown, full of the unknowns eternal power. Biting her hand will not stay the cry, and she can only reassure themand Benby crying out her affirmative in the darkness. Yes! Yes! Yes! Glorious images of flight fill her head, mixing with the harsh calling of the grackles and starlings; these sounds become the worlds sweetest music. So she flies, she flies up, and now the power is not with her or with him but somewhere between them, and he cries out, and she can feel his arms trembling, and she arches up and into him, feeling his spasm, his touch, his total fleeting intimacy with her in the dark. They break through into the lifelight together. Then it is over and they are in each others arms and when he tries to say somethingperhaps some stupid apology that would hurt what she remembers, some stupid apology like a handcuff, she stops his words with a kiss and sends him away. Bill comes to her. He tries to say something, but his stutter is almost total now. You be quiet, she says, secure in her new knowledge, but aware that she is tired now. Tired and damned sore. The insides and backs of her thighs feel sticky, and she thinks its maybe because Ben actually finished, or maybe because she is bleeding. Everything is going to be totally okay. AAAre you shuhshuhshuhhure? Yes, she says, and links her hands behind his neck, feeling the sweaty mat of his hair. You just bet. Duhduhdoes ihih ... does ihihih Shhh ... It is not as it was with Ben; there is passion, but not the same kind. Being with Bill now is the best conclusion to this that there could be. He is kind; tender; just short of calm. She senses his eagerness, but it is tempered and held back by his anxiety for her, perhaps because only Bill and she herself realize what an enormous act this is, and how it must never be spoken of, not to anyone else, not even to each other. At the end, she is surprised by that sudden upsurge and she has time to think Oh! Its going to happen again, I dont know if I can stand it But her thoughts are swept away by the utter sweetness of it, and she barely hears him whispering, I love you, Bev, I love you, Ill always love you saying it over and over and not stuttering at all. She hugs him to her and for a moment they stay that way, his smooth cheek against hers. He withdraws from her without saying anything and for a little while shes alone, pulling her clothes back together, slowly putting them on, aware of a dull throbbing pain of which they, being male, will never know, aware also of a certain exhausted pleasure and the relief of having it over. There is an emptiness down there now, and although she is glad that her sex is her own again, the emptiness imparts a strange melancholy which she could never express ... except to think of bare trees under a white winter sky, empty trees, trees waiting for blackbirds to come like ministers at the end of March to preside over the death of snow. She finds them by groping for their hands. For a moment no one speaks and when someone does, it does not surprise her much that its Eddie. I think when we went right two turns back, we shoulda gone left. Jeez, I knew that, but I was so sweaty and frigged up Been frigged up your whole life, Eds, Richie says. His voice is pleasant. The raw edge of panic is completely gone. We went wrong some other places too, Eddie says, ignoring him, but thats the worst one. If we can find our way back there, we just might be okay. They form up in a clumsy line, Eddie first, Beverly second now, her hand on Eddies shoulder as Mikes is on hers. They begin to move again, faster this time. Eddie displays none of his former nervous care. Were going home, she thinks, and shivers with relief and joy. Home, yes. And that will be good. Weve done our job, what we came for, now we can go back to just being kids again. And that will be good, too. As they move through the dark she realizes the sound of running water is closer. CHAPTER 23 Out 1 Derry9001000 A.M. By ten past nine, Derry windspeeds were being clocked at an average of fiftyfive miles an hour, with gusts up to seventy. The anemometer in the courthouse registered one gust of eightyone, and then the needle dropped all the way back to zero. The wind had ripped the whirling cuplike device on the courthouse roof off its moorings and it flew away into the rainswept dimness of the day. Like George Denbroughs boat, it was never seen again. By ninethirty, the thing the Derry Water Department had sworn was now impossible seemed not only possible but imminent that downtown Derry might be flooded for the first time since August of 1958, when many of the old drains had clogged up or caved in during a freak rainstorm. By quarter of ten, men with grim faces were arriving in cars and pickup trucks along both sides of the Canal, their foulweather gear rippling crazily in the freighttrain wind. For the first time since October of 1957, sandbags began to go up along the Canals cement sides. The arch where the Canal went under the threeway intersection at the heart of Derrys downtown area was full almost to the top; Main Street, Canal Street, and the foot of UpMile Hill were impassable except by foot, and those who splashed and hurried their way toward the sandbagging operation felt the very streets beneath their feet trembling with the frenzied flow of the water, the way a turnpike overpass will tremble when big trucks pass each other. But this was a steady vibration, and the men were glad to be on the north side of downtown, away from that steady rumbling that was felt rather than heard. Harold Gardener shouted at Alfred Zitner, who ran Zitners Realty on the west side of town, asked him if the streets were going to collapse. Zitner said hell would freeze over before something like that happened. Harold had a brief image of Adolf Hitler and Judas Iscariot handing out iceskates and went on heaving sandbags. The water was now less than three inches below the top of the Canals cement walls. In the Barrens the Kenduskeag was already out of its banks, and by noon the luxuriant undergrowth and scrub trees would be poking out of a vast shallow, stinking lake. The men continued to work, pausing only when the supply of sandbags ran out ... and then, at ten of ten, they were frozen by a great rending ripping sound. Harold Gardener later told his wife he thought maybe the end of the world had come. It wasnt downtown falling into the earthnot thenit was the Standpipe. Only Andrew Keene, Norbert Keenes grandson, actually saw it happen, and he had smoked so much Colombian Red that morning that at first he thought it had to be a hallucination. He had been wandering Derrys stormswept streets since about eight oclock, roughly the same time that Dr. Hale was ascending to that great family medical practice in the sky. He was drenched to the skin (except for the twoounce baggie of pot tucked up into his armpit, that was) but totally unaware of it. His eyes widened in disbelief. He had reached Memorial Park, which stood on the flank of Standpipe Hill. And unless he was wrong, the Standpipe now had a pronounced lean, like that fuckedup tower in Pisa that was on all the macaroni boxes. Oh, wow! Andrew Keene cried, his eyes widening even morethey looked as if they might be on small tough springs nowas the splintering sounds began. The Standpipes lean was becoming more and more acute as he stood there with his jeans plastered to his skinny shanks and his drenched paisley headband dripping water into his eyes. White shingles were popping off the downtown side of the great round watertower ... no, not exactly popping off; it was more like they were squirting off. And a definite crinkle had appeared about twenty feet above the Standpipes stone foundation. Water suddenly began to spray out through this crinkle, and now the shingles werent squirting off the Standpipes downtown side; they were spewing into the windstream. A rending sound began to come from the Standpipe, and Andrew could see it moving, like the hand of a great clock inclining from noon to one to two. The baggie of pot fell out of his armpit and fetched up inside his shirt somewhere near his belt. He didnt notice. He was utterly fetched. Large twanging sounds came from inside the Standpipe, as if the strings of the worlds biggest guitar were being broken one by one. These were the cables inside the cylinder, which had provided the proper balance of stress against the waterpressure. The Standpipe began to heel over faster and faster, boards and beams ripping apart, splinters jumping and whirling into the air. FAAAR FUCKING OWWWWT! Andrew Keene shrieked, but it was lost in the Standpipes final crashing fall, and by the rising sound of one and threequarters million gallons of water, seven thousand tons of water, pouring out of the buildings ruptured spouting side. It went in a gray tidal wave, and of course if Andrew Keene had been on the downhill side of the Standpipe, he would have exited the world in no time. But God favors drunks, small children, and the cataclysmically stoned; Andrew was standing in a place where he could see it all and not be touched by a single drop. GREAT FUCKING SPECIAL EFFECTS! Andrew screamed as the water rolled over Memorial Park like a solid thing, sweeping away the sundial beside which a small boy named Stan Uris had often stood watching birds with his fathers field glasses. STEVEN SPIELBERG EAT YOUR HEART OUT! The stone birdbath also went. Andrew saw it for a moment, turning over and over, pedestal for dish and dish for pedestal, and then it was gone. A line of maples and birches separating Memorial Park from Kansas Street were knocked down like so many pins in a bowling alley. They took wild spiky snarls of power lines with them. The water rolled across the street, beginning to spread now, beginning to look more like water than that mindboggling solid wall that had taken sundial, birdbath, and trees, but it still had power enough to sweep almost a dozen houses on the far side of Kansas Street off their foundations and into the Barrens. They went with sickening ease, most of them still whole. Andrew Keene recognized one of them as belonging to the Karl Massensik family. Mr. Massensik had been his sixthgrade teacher, a real pooch. As the house went over the edge and down the slope, Andrew realized he could still see a candle burning brightly in one window, and he wondered briefly if he might be mentally highsiding it, if you could dig the concept. There was an explosion from the Barrens and a brief gout of yellow flame as someones Coleman gas lantern ignited oil pouring out of a ruptured fueltank. Andrew stared at the far side of Kansas Street, where until just forty seconds ago there had been a neat line of middleclass houses. They were Gone City now, and you better believe it, sweet thing. In their places were ten cellarholes that looked like swimmingpools. Andrew wanted to advance the opinion that this was far fucking out, but he couldnt yell anymore. Seemed like his yeller was busted. His diaphragm felt weak and useless. He heard a series of crunching thuds, the sound of a giant with his shoes full of Ritz crackers marching down a flight of stairs. It was the Standpipe rolling down the hill, a huge white cylinder still spouting the last of its water supply, the thick cables that had helped to hold it together flying into the air and then cracking down again like steel bullwhips, digging runnels in the soft earth that immediately filled up with rushing rainwater. As Andrew watched, with his chin resting somewhere between his collarbones, the Standpipe, horizontal now, better than a hundred and twentyfive feet long, flew out into the air. For a moment it seemed frozen there, a surreal image straight out of rubberwalled straitjacketed toodleoo land, rainwater sparkling on its shattered sides, its windows broken, casements hanging, the flashing light on top, meant as a warning for lowflying light planes, still flashing, and then it fell into the street with a final rending crash. Kansas Street had channelled a lot of the water, and now it began to rush toward downtown by way of UpMile Hill. There used to be houses over there, Andrew Keene thought, and suddenly all the strength ran out of his legs. He sat down heavilykersplash. He stared at the broken stone foundation on which the Standpipe had stood for his whole life. He wondered if anyone would ever believe him. He wondered if he believed it himself. 2 The Kill1002 A.M., May 31st, 1985 Bill and Richie saw It turn toward them, Its mandibles opening and closing, Its one good eye glaring down at them, and Bill realized It gave off Its own source of illumination, like some grisly lightningbug. But the light was flickering and uncertain; It was badly hurt. Its thoughts buzzed and racketed (let me go! let me go and you can have everything youve ever wantedmoney,fame, fortune, powerI can give you these things) in his head. Bill moved forward emptyhanded, his eyes fixed on Its single red one. He felt the power growing inside him, investing him, knotting his arms into cords, filling each clenched fist with its own force. Richie walked beside him, his lips pulled back over his teeth. (I can give you your wife backI can do it, only Ishell remember nothing as the seven of you remembered nothing) They were close, very close now. Bill could smell Its stinking aroma and realized with sudden horror that it was the smell of the Barrens, the smell they had taken for the smell of sewers and polluted streams and the burning dump ... but had they ever really believed those were all it had been? It was the smell of It, and perhaps it had been strongest in the Barrens but it had hung over all Derry like a cloud and people just didnt smell it, the way zookeepers dont smell their charges after awhile, or even wonder why the visitors wrinkle their noses when they come in. Us two, he muttered to Richie, and Richie nodded without taking his eyes off the Spider, which now shrank back from them, Its abominable spiny legs clittering, brought to bay at last. (I cant give you eternal life but I can touch you and you will live long long livestwohundred years, three hundred, perhaps five hundredI can make you gods of the Earthif you let me go if you let me go if you let me) Bill? Richie asked hoarsely. With a scream building in him, building up and up and up, Bill charged. Richie ran with him stride for stride. They struck together with their right fists, but Bill understood it was not really their fists they were striking with at all; it was their combined force, augmented by the force of that Other; it was the force of memory and desire; above all else, it was the force of love and unforgotten childhood like one big wheel. The Spiders shriek filled Bills head, seeming to splinter his brains. He felt his fist plunge deep into writhing wetness. His arm followed it in up to the shoulder. He pulled it back, dripping with the Spiders black blood. Ichor poured from the hole he had made. He saw Richie standing almost beneath Its bloated body, covered with Its darkly sparkling blood, standing in the classic boxers stance, his dripping fists pumping. The Spider lashed at them with Its legs. Bill felt one of them rip down his side, parting his shirt, parting skin. Its stinger pumped uselessly against the floor. Its screams were clarionbells in his head. It lunged clumsily forward, trying to bite him, and instead of retreating Bill drove forward, using not just his fist now but his whole body, making himself into a torpedo. He ran into Its gut like a sprinting fullback who lowers his shoulders and simply drives straight ahead. For a moment he felt Its stinking flesh simply give, as if it would rebound and send him flying. With an inarticulate scream he drove harder, pushing forward and upward with his legs, digging at It with his hands. And he broke through; was inundated with Its hot fluids. They ran across his face, in his ears. He snuffled them up his nose in thin squirming streams. He was in the black again, up to his shoulders inside Its convulsing body. And in his clogged ears he could hear a sound like the steady whackWHACKwhackWHACK of a big bass drum, the one that leads the parade when the circus comes to town with its complement of freaks and strutting capering clowns. The sound of Its heart. He heard Richie scream in sudden pain, a sound that rose into a quick, gasping moan and was cut off. Bill suddenly thrust both fisted hands forward. He was choking, strangling in Its pulsing bag of guts and waters. WhackWHACKwhackWHACK He plunged his hands into It, ripping, tearing, parting, seeking the source of the sound; rupturing organs, his slimed fingers opening and closing, his locked chest seeming to swell from lack of air. WhackWHACKwhackWHACK And suddenly it was in his hands, a great living thing that pumped and pulsed against his palms, pushing them back and forth. (NONONONONONONO) Yes! Bill cried, choking, drowning. Yes! Try this, you bitch! TRY THIS ONE OUT! DO YOU LIKE IT? DO YOU LOVE IT? DO YOU? He laced his fingers together over the pulsing narthex of Its heart, palms spread apart in an inverted Vand brought them together with all the force he could muster. There was one final shriek of pain and fear as Its heart exploded between his hands, running out between his fingers in jittering strings. WhackWHACKwhackWHA The scream, fading, dwindling. Bill felt Its body clench around him suddenly, like a fist in a slick glove. Then everything loosened. He became aware that Its body was tilting, slipping slowly off to one side. At the same time he began pulling back, his consciousness leaving him. The Spider collapsed on Its side, a huge bundle of steaming alien meat, Its legs still quivering and jerking, caressing the sides of the tunnel and scraping across the floor in random scrawls. Bill staggered away, breathing in whooping gasps, spitting in an effort to clear his mouth of Its horrible taste. He tripped over his own feet and fell to his knees. And clearly, he heard the Voice of the Other; the Turtle might be dead, but whatever had invested it was not. Son, you did real good. Then it was gone. The power went with it. He felt weak, revulsed, halfinsane. He looked over his shoulder and saw the dying black nightmare of the Spider, still jerking and quivering. Richie! He cried out in a hoarse, breaking voice. Richie, where are you, man? No answer. The light was gone now. It had died with the Spider. He fumbled in the pocket of his matted shirt for the last book of matches. They were there, but they wouldnt light; the heads were soaked with blood. Richie! he screamed again, beginning to weep now. He began to crawl forward, first one hand and then the other groping in the dark. At last one of them struck something which yielded limply to his touch. His hands flew over it ... and stopped as they touched Richies face. Richie! Richie! Still no answer. Struggling in the dark, Bill got one arm under Richies back and the other under his knees. He wobbled to his feet and began to stumble back the way they had come with Richie in his arms. 3 Derry10001015 A.M. At 1000 the steady vibration which had been running through Derrys downtown streets increased to a rumbling roar. The Derry News would later write that the supports of the Canals underground portion, weakened by the savage assault of what amounted to a flash flood, simply collapsed. There were, however, people who disagreed with that view. I was there, I know, Harold Gardener later told his wife. It wasnt just that the Canals supports collapsed. It was an earthquake, thats what it was. It was a fucking earthquake. Either way, the results were the same. As the rumbling built steadily up and up, windows began to shatter, plaster ceilings began to fall, and the inhuman cry of twisting beams and foundations swelled into a frightening chorus. Cracks raced up the bulletpocked brick faade of Machens like grasping hands. The cables holding the marquee of the Aladdin Theater out over the street snapped and the marquee came crashing down. Richards Alley, which ran behind the Center Street Drug, suddenly filled up with an avalanche of yellow brick as the Brian X Dowd Professional Building, erected in 1952, came crashing down. A huge screen of jaundicecolored dust rose in the air and was snatched away like a veil. At the same time the statue of Paul Bunyan in front of the City Center exploded. It was as if that longago art teachers threat to blow it up had finally proved to be dead serious after all. The bearded grinning head rose straight up in the air. One leg kicked forward, the other back, as if Paul had attempted some sort of a split so enthusiastic it had resulted in dismemberment. The statues midsection blew out in a cloud of shrapnel and the head of the plastic axe rose into the rainy sky, disappeared, and then came down again, twirling end over end. It sheared through the roof of the Kissing Bridge, and then its floor. And then, at 1002 A.M., downtown Derry simply collapsed. Most of the water from the ruptured Standpipe had crossed Kansas Street and ended up in the Barrens, but tons of it rushed down into the business district by way of UpMile Hill. Perhaps that was the straw that broke the camels back ... or perhaps, as Harold Gardener told his wife, there really was an earthquake. Cracks raced across the surface of Main Street. They were narrow at first... and then they began to gape like hungry mouths and the sound of the Canal floated up, not muffled now but frighteningly loud. Everything began to shake. The neon sign proclaiming OUTLET MOCCASINS in front of Shorty Squiress souvenir shop hit the street and shorted out in three feet of water. A moment or two later, Shortys building, which stood next to Mr. Paperback, began to descend. Buddy Angstrom was the first to see this phenomenon. He elbowed Alfred Zitner, who looked, gaped, and then elbowed Harold Gardener. Within a space of seconds the sandbagging operation stopped. The men lining both sides of the Canal only stood and stared toward downtown in the pouring rain, their faces stamped with identical expressions of horrified wonder. Squiress Souvenirs and Sundries appeared to have been built on some huge elevator which was now on the way down. It sank into the apparently solid concrete with ponderous stately dignity. When it came to a stop, you could have dropped to your hands and knees on the flooded sidewalk and entered through one of the thirdfloor windows. Water sprayed up all around the building, and a moment later Shorty himself appeared on the roof, waving his arms madly for rescue. Then he was obliterated as the officebuilding next door, the one which housed Mr. Paperback at ground level, also sank into the ground. Unfortunately, this one did not go straight down as Shortys building had done; the Mr. Paperback building developed a marked lean (for a moment, in fact, it bore a strong resemblance to that fuckedup tower in Pisa, the one on the macaroni boxes). As it tilted, bricks began to shower from its top and sides. Shorty was struck by several. Harold Gardener saw him reel backward, hands to his head... and then the top three floors of the Mr. Paperback building slid off as neatly as pancakes from the top of a stack. Shorty disappeared. Someone on the sandbag line screamed, and then everything was lost in the grinding roar of destruction. Men were knocked off their feet or sent wobbling and staggering back from the Canal. Harold Gardener saw the buildings which faced each other across Main Street lean forward, like ladies kibbitzing over a cardgame, their heads almost touching. The street itself was sinking, cracking, breaking up. Water splashed and sprayed. And then, one after another, buildings on both sides of the street simply swayed past their centers of gravity and crashed into the streetthe Northeast Bank, The Shoeboat, Alveys Smokes n Jokes, Bailleys Lunch, Bandlers Record and Music Barn. Except that by then there was really no street for them to crash into. The street had fallen into the Canal, stretching like taffy at first and then breaking up into bobbing chunks of asphalt. Harold saw the trafficisland at the threestreet intersection suddenly drop out of sight, and as water geysered up, he suddenly understood what was going to happen. Gotta get out of here! he screamed at Al Zitner. Its gonna backwater! Al! Its gonna backwater! Al Zitner gave no sign that he had heard. His was the face of a sleepwalker, or perhaps of a man who has been deeply hypnotized. He stood in his soaked redandbluechecked sportcoat, in his opencollared Lacoste shirt with the little alligator on the left boob, in his blue socks with the crossed white golfclubs knitted into their sides, in his brown L. L. Beans boat shoes with the rubber soles. He was watching perhaps a million dollars of his own personal investments sinking into the street, three or four millions of his friends investmentsthe guys he played poker with, the guys he golfed with, the guys he skied with at his timesharing condo in Rangely. Suddenly his home town, Derry, Maine, for Christs sake, looked bizarrely like that fuckedup city where the wogs pushed people around in those long skinny canoes. Water roiled and boiled between the buildings that were still standing. Canal Street ended in a jagged black diving board over the edge of a churning lake. It was really no wonder Zitner hadnt heard Harold. Others, however, had come to the same conclusion Gardener had come toyou couldnt drop that much shit into a raging body of water without causing a lot of trouble. Some dropped the sandbags they had been holding and took to their heels. Harold Gardener was one of these, and so he lived. Others were not so lucky and were still somewhere in the general area as the Canal, its throat now choked with tons of asphalt, concrete, brick, plaster, glass, and about four million dollars worth of assorted merchandise, backsurged and poured over its concrete sleeve, carrying away men and sandbags impartially. Harold kept thinking it meant to have him; no matter how fast he ran the water kept gaining. He finally escaped by clawing his way up a steep embankment covered with shrubbery. He looked back once and saw a man he believed to be Roger Lernerd, the head loan officer at Harolds credit union, trying to start his car in the parkinglot of the Canal MiniMall.