He walked up to his old house but did not stop; he only slowed his walk down to an idlers pace. There were people on the lawna mother in a lawn chair, a sleeping baby in her arms, watching two kids, maybe ten and eight, play badminton in grass that was still wet from the rain earlier. The younger of the two, a boy, managed to hit the bird back over the net and the woman called, Good one, Sean! The house was the same darkgreen color and the fanlight was still over the door, but his mothers flowerbeds were gone. So, from what he could see, was the junglegym his father had built from scavenged pipes in the back yard. He remembered the day Georgie had fallen off the top and chipped a tooth. How he had screamed! He saw these things (the ones there and the ones gone), and thought of walking over to the woman with the sleeping baby in her arms. He thought of saying Hello, my name is Bill Denbrough. I used to live here. And the woman saying, Thats nice. What else could there be? Could he ask her if the face he had carved carefully in one of the attic beamsthe face he and Georgie sometimes used to throw darts atwas still there? Could he ask her if her kids sometimes slept on the screenedin back porch when the summer nights were especially hot, talking together in low tones as they watched heatlightning dance on the horizon? He supposed he might be able to ask some of those things, but he felt he would stutter quite badly if he tried to be charming ... and did he really want to know the answers to any of those questions? After Georgie died it had become a cold house, and whatever he had come back to Derry for was not here. So he went on to the corner and turned right, not looking back. Soon he was on Kansas Street, headed back downtown. He paused for awhile at the fence which bordered the sidewalk, looking down into the Barrens. The fence was the same, rickety wood covered with fading whitewash, and the Barrens looked the same ... wilder, if anything. The only differences he could see were that the dirty smudge of smoke which had always marked the town dump was gone (the dump had been replaced with a modern wastetreatment plant), and a long overpass marched across the tangled greenery nowthe turnpike extension. Everything else was so similar that he might last have seen it the previous summer weeds and bushes sloping down to that flat marshy area on the left and to dense copses of junkyscrubby trees on the right. He could see the stands of what they had called bamboo, the silverywhite stalks twelve and fourteen feet high. He remembered that Richie had once tried to smoke some of it, claiming it was like the stuff jazz musicians smoked and could get you high. All Richie had gotten was sick. Bill could hear the trickle of water running in many small streams, could see the sun heliographing off the broader expanse of the Kenduskeag. And the smell was the same, even with the dump gone. The heavy perfume of growing things at the height of their spring strut did not quite mask the smell of waste and human offal. It was faint but unmistakable. A smell of corruption; a whiff of the underside. Thats where it ended before, and thats where its going to end this time, Bill thought with a shiver. In there ... under the city. He stood awhile longer, convinced that he must see somethingsome manifestationof the evil he had come back to Derry to fight. There was nothing. He heard water running, a springlike and vital sound that reminded him of the dam they had built down there. He could see trees and bushes ruffling in the faint breeze. There was nothing else. No sign. He walked on, dusting a faint whitewash stain from his hands as he went. He kept heading downtown, halfremembering, halfdreaming, and here came another kidthis one a little girl of about ten in highwaisted corduroy pants and a faded red blouse. She was bouncing a ball with one hand and holding a babydoll by its blonde Arnel hair in the other. Hey! Bill said. She looked up. What! Whats the best store in Derry? She thought about it. For me or for anyone? For you, Bill said. Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes, she said with no hesitation whatsoever. I beg your pardon? Bill asked. You beg what? I mean, is that a store name? Sure, she said, looking at Bill as though he might well be enfeebled. Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. My mom says its a junkshop, but I like it. They have old things. Like records you never heard of. Also postcards. It smells like a attic. I have to go home now. Bye. She walked on, not looking back, bouncing her ball and holding her dolly by the hair. Hey! he shouted after her. She looked back whimsically. I beg your whatchamacallit? The store! Where is it? She looked back over her shoulder and said, Just the way youre going. Its at the bottom of UpMile Hill. Bill felt that sense of the past folding in on itself, folding in on him. He hadnt meant to ask that little girl anything; the question had popped out of his mouth like a cork flying from the neck of a champagne bottle. He descended UpMile Hill toward downtown. The warehouses and packing plants he remembered from childhoodgloomy brick buildings with dirty windows from which titanic meaty smells issuedwere mostly gone, although the Armour and the Star Beef meatpacking plants were still there. But Hemphill was gone and there was a drivein bank and a bakery where Eagle Beef and Kosher Meats had been. And there, where the Tracker Brothers Annex had stood, was a sign painted in oldfashioned letters which read, just as the girl with the doll had said, SECONDHAND ROSE, SECONDHAND CLOTHES. The red brick had been painted a yellow which had perhaps been jaunty ten or twelve years ago, but was now dingya color Audra called urineyellow. Bill walked slowly toward it, feeling that sense of djvu settle over him again. Later he told the others he knew what ghost he was going to see before he actually saw it. The showwindow of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes was more than dingy; it was filthy. No Downeast antique shop this, with nifty little spoolbeds and Hoosier cabinets and sets of Depression glassware highlighted by hidden spotlights; this was what his mother called with utter disdain a Yankee pawnshop. The items were strewn in rickrack profusion, heaped aimlessly here, there, and everywhere. Dresses slumped off coathangers. Guitars hung from their necks like executed criminals. There was a box of 45 rpm records10c APIECE, the sign read. TWELVE FOR A BUCK. ANDREWS SISTERS, PERRY COMO, JIMMY ROGERS, OTHERS. There were kids outfits and dreadfullooking shoes with a card in front of them which read SECONDS, BUT NOT BAD! 1.00 A PAIR. There were two TVs that looked blind. A third was casting bleared images of The Brady Bunch out toward the street. A box of old paperbacks, most with stripped covers (2 FOR A QUARTER, 10 FOR A DOLLAR, MORE INSIDE, SOME HOT) sat atop a large radio with a filthy white plastic case and a tuning dial as big as an alarm clock. Bunches of plastic flowers sat in dirty vases on a chipped, gouged, dusty diningroom table. All of these things Bill saw as a chaotic background to the thing his eyes had fixed upon immediately. He stood staring at it with wide unbelieving eyes. Gooseflesh ran madly up and down his body. His forehead was hot, his hands cold, and for a moment it seemed that all the doors inside would swing wide and he would remember everything. Silver was in the righthand window. His kickstand was still gone and rust had flowered on the front and back fenders, but the oogahhorn was still there on the handlebars, its rubber bulb now glazed with cracks and age. The horn itself, which Bill had always kept neatly polished, was dull and pitted. The flat package carrier where Richie had often ridden double was still on the back fender, but it was bent now, hanging by a single bolt. At some point someone had covered the seat with imitation tigerskin which was now rubbed and frayed to a point where the stripes were almost indistinguishable. Silver. Bill raised an absent hand to wipe away the tears that were running slowly down his cheeks. After he had done a better job with his handkerchief, he went inside. The atmosphere of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes was musty with age. It was, as the girl had said, a attic smellbut not a good smell, as some attic smells are. This was not the smell of linseed oil rubbed lovingly into the surface of old tables or of ancient plush and velvet. In here was a smell of rotting bookbindings, dirty vinyl cushions that had been halfcooked in the hot suns of summers past, dust, mouseturds. From the TV in the window the Brady Bunch cackled and whooped. Competing with them from somewhere in the back was the radio voice of a disc jockey identifying himself as your pal Bobby Russell promising the new album by Prince to the caller who could give the name of the actor who had played Wally on Leave It to Beaver. Bill knewit had been a kid named Tony Dowbut he didnt want the new Prince album. The radio was sitting on a high shelf amid a number of nineteenthcentury portraits. Below it and them sat the proprietor, a man of perhaps forty who was wearing designer jeans and a fishnet teeshirt. His hair was slicked back and he was thin to the point of emaciation. His feet were cocked up on his desk, which was piled high with ledgers and dominated by an old scrolled cash register. He was reading a paperback novel which Bill thought had never been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. It was called Construction Site Studs. On the floor in front of the desk was a barber pole, its stripe revolving up and up into infinity. Its frayed cord wound across the floor to a baseboard plug like a tired snake. The sign in front of it read A DYEING BREED! 250. When the bell over the door jingled, the man behind the desk marked his place with a matchbook cover and looked up. Help you? Yes, Bill said, and opened his mouth to ask about the bike in the window. But before he could speak, his mind was suddenly filled with a single haunting sentence, words that drove away all other thought He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. What in the name of God? (thrusts) Looking for anything in particular? the proprietor asked. His voice was polite enough, but he was looking at Bill closely. Hes looking at me, Bill thought, amused in spite of his distress, as if hes got an idea Ive been smoking some of that stuff that gets the jazz musicians high. Yes, I was ihihinterested ihin (his fists against the posts) in that puhpuhpost The barber pole, you mean? The proprietors eyes now showed Bill something which, even in his present confused state, he remembered and hated from his childhood the anxiety of a man or woman who must listen to a stutterer, the urge to jump in quickly and finish the thought, thus shutting the poor bastard up. But I dont stutter! I beat it! I DONT FUCKING STUTTER! I (and still insists) The words were so clear in his mind that it seemed someone else must be speaking in there, that he was like a man possessed by demons in Biblical timesa man invaded by some presence from Outside. And yet he recognized the voice and knew it was his own. He felt sweat pop out warmly on his face. I could give you (he sees the ghosts) a deal on that post, the proprietor was saying. Tell you the truth, I cant move it at twofifty. Id give it to you for oneseventyfive, hows that? Its the only real antique in the place. (post) POLE, Bill almost screamed, and the proprietor recoiled a little. Not the pole Im interested in. Are you okay, mister? the proprietor asked. His solicitous tone belied the expression of hard wariness in his eyes, and Bill saw his left hand leave the desk. He knew, with a flash of something that was really more inductive reasoning than intuition, that there was an open drawer below Bills own sightline, and that the proprietor had almost surely put his hand on a pistol of some type. He was maybe worried about robbery; more likely he was just worried. He was, after all, clearly gay, and this was the town where the local juveniles had given Adrian Mellon a terminal bath. (he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts) It drove out all thought; it was like being insane. Where had it come from? (he thrusts) Repeating and repeating. With a sudden titanic effort, Bill attacked it. He did this by forcing his mind to translate the alien sentence into French. It was the same way he had beaten the stutter as a teenager. As the words marched across his field of thought, he changed them ... and suddenly he felt the grip of the stutter loosen. He realized that the proprietor had been saying something. PPPardon me? I said if youre going to have a fit, take it out on the street. I dont need shit like that in here. Bill drew in a deep breath. Lets start oover, he said. Pretend I just came iin. Okay, the proprietor said, agreeably enough. You just came in. Now what? The bbike in the window, Bill said. How much do you want for the bike? Take twenty bucks. He sounded easier now, but his left hand still hadnt come back into view. I think it was a Schwinn at one time, but its a mongrel now. His eye measured Bill. Big bike. You could ride it yourself. Thinking of the kids green skateboard, Bill said, I think my bikeriding days are ooover. The proprietor shrugged. His left hand finally came up again. Got a boy? YYes. How old is he? EhEhEleven. Big bike for an elevenyearold. Will you take a travellers check? Long as its no more than ten bucks over the amount of the purchase. I can give you a twenty, Bill said. Mind if I make a phone call? Not if its local. It is. Be my guest. Bill called the Derry Public Library. Mike was there. Where are you, Bill? he asked, and then immediately Are you all right? Im fine. Have you seen any of the others? No. Well see them tonight. There was a brief pause. That is, I presume. What can I do you for, Big Bill? Im buying a bike, Bill said calmly. I wondered if I could wheel it up to your house. Do you have a garage or something I could store it in? There was silence. Mike? Are you Im here, Mike said. Is it Silver? Bill looked at the proprietor. He was reading his book again ... or maybe just looking at it and listening carefully. Yes, he said. Where are you? Its called Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. All right, Mike said. My place is 61 Palmer Lane. Youd want to go up Main Street I can find it. All right, Ill meet you there. Want some supper? That would be nice. Can you get off work? No problem. Carole will cover for me. Mike hesitated again. She said that a fellow was in about an hour before I got back here. Said he left looking like a ghost. I got her to describe him. It was Ben. You sure? Yeah. And the bike. Thats part of it, too, isnt it? Shouldnt wonder, Bill said, keeping an eye on the proprietor, who still appeared to be absorbed in his book. Ill see you at my place, Mike said. Number 61. Dont forget.  I wont. Thank you, Mike. God bless, Big Bill. Bill hung up. The proprietor promptly closed his book again. Got you some storage space, my friend? Yeah. Bill took out his travellers checks and signed his name to a twenty. The proprietor examined the two signatures with a care that, in less distracted mental circumstances, Bill would have found rather insulting. At last the proprietor scribbled a bill of sale and popped the travellers check into his old cash register. He got up, put his hands on the small of his back and stretched, then walked to the front of the store. He picked his way around the heaps of junk and almostjunk merchandise with an absent delicacy Bill found fascinating. He lifted the bike, swung it around, and rolled it to the edge of the display space. Bill laid hold of the handlebars to help him, and as he did another shudder whipped through him. Silver. Again. It was Silver in his hands and (he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts) he had to force the thought away because it made him feel faint and strange. That back tires a little soft, the proprietor said (it was, in fact, as flat as a pancake). The front tire was up, but so bald the cord was showing through in places. No problem, Bill said. You can handle it from here? (I used to be able to handle it just fine; now I dont know) I guess so, Bill said. Thanks. Sure. And if you want to talk about that barber pole, come back. The proprietor held the door for him. Bill walked the bike out, turned left, and started toward Main Street. People glanced with amusement and curiosity at the man with the bald head pushing the huge bike with the flat rear tire and the oogahhorn protruding over the rusty bikebasket, but Bill hardly noticed them. He was marvelling at how well his grownup hands still fitted the rubber handgrips, was remembering how he had always meant to knot some thin strips of plastic, different colors, into the holes in each grip so they would flutter in the wind. He had never gotten around to that. He stopped at the corner of Center and Main, outside of Mr. Paperback. He leaned the bike against the building long enough to strip off his sportcoat. Pushing a bike with a flat tire was hard work, and the afternoon had come off hot. He tossed the coat into the basket and went on. Chains rusty, he thought. Whoever had it didnt take very good care of (him) it. He stopped for a moment, frowning, trying to remember just what had happened to Silver. Had he sold it? Given it away? Lost it, perhaps? He couldnt remember. Instead, that idiotic sentence (his fists against the posts and still insists) resurfaced, as strange and out of place as an easy chair on a battlefield, a recordplayer in a fireplace, a row of pencils protruding from a cement sidewalk. Bill shook his head. The sentence broke up and dispersed like smoke. He pushed Silver on to Mikes place. 6 Mike Hanlon Makes a Connection But first he made supperhamburgers with sauted mushrooms and onions and a spinach salad. They had finished working on Silver by then and were more than ready to eat. The house was a neat little Cape Cod, white with green trim. Mike had just been arriving when Bill pushed Silver up Palmer Lane. He was behind the wheel of an old Ford with rusty rocker panels and a cracked rear window, and Bill remembered the fact Mike had so quietly pointed out the six members of the Losers Club who left Derry had quit being losers. Mike had stayed behind and was still behind. Bill rolled Silver into Mikes garage, which was floored with oiled dirt and was every bit as neat as the house proved to be. Tools hung from pegs, and the lights, shielded with tin cones, looked like the lights which hang over pool tables. Bill leaned the bike against the wall. The two of them looked at it without speaking for a bit, hands in pockets. Its Silver, all right, Mike said at last. I thought you might have been wrong. But its him. What are you going to do with him? Fucked if I know. Have you got a bicycle pump? Yeah. I think Ive got a tirepatching kit, too. Are those tubeless tires? They always were. Bill bent down to look at the flat tire. Yeah. Tubeless. Getting ready to ride it again? Of ccourse not, Bill said sharply. I just dont like to see it sihihitting there on a flat. Whatever you say, Big Bill. Youre the boss. Bill looked around sharply at that, but Mike had gone to the garages back wall and was taking down a tirepump. He got a tin tirepatching kit from one of the cabinets and handed it to Bill, who looked at it curiously. It was as he remembered such things from his childhood a small tin box of about the same size and shape as those kept by men who roll their own cigarettes, except the top was bright and pebbledyou used it for roughing the rubber around the hole before you put on the patch. The box looked brandnew, and there was a Woolco price sticker on it that said 7.23. It seemed to him that when he was a kid such a kit had gone for about a bucktwentyfive. You didnt just have this hanging around, Bill said. It wasnt a question. No, Mike agreed. I bought it last week. Out at the mall, as a matter of fact. Youve got a bike of your own? No, Mike said, meeting his eyes. You just happened to buy this kit. Just got the urge, Mike agreed, his eyes still on Bills. Woke up thinking it might come in handy. The thought kept coming back all day. So ... I got the kit. And here you are to use it. Here I am to use it, Bill agreed. But like they say on the soaps, what does it all mean, dear? Ask the others, Mike said. Tonight. Will they all be there, do you think? I dont know, Big Bill. He paused and added I think theres a chance that all of them wont be. One or two of them may decide to just creep out of town. Or ... He shrugged. What do we do if that happens? I dont know. Mike pointed to the tirepatching kit. I paid seven bucks for that thing. Are you going to do something with it or just look at it? Bill took his sportcoat out of the basket and hung it carefully on an unoccupied wallpeg. Then he turned Silver upside down so that he rested on his seat and began to carefully rotate the rear tire. He didnt like the rusty way the axle squeaked, and remembered the almost silent click of the ballbearings in the kids skateboard. A little 3in1 oil would fix that right up, he thought. Wouldnt hurt to oil the chain, either. Its rusty as hell.... And playing cards. It needs playing cards on the spokes. Mike would have cards, I bet. The good ones. Bikes, with the celluloid coating that made them so stiff and so slippery that the first time you tried to shuffle them they always sprayed all over the floor. Playing cards, sure, and clothespins to hold them He stopped, suddenly cold. What in the name of Jesus are you thinking of? Something wrong, Bill? Mike asked softly. Nothing. His fingers touched something small and round and hard. He got his nails under it and pulled. A small tack came out of the tire. Heres the cuhcuhculprit, he said, and it rose in his mind again, strange, unbidden, and powerful He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. But this time the voice, his voice, was followed by his mothers voice, saying Try again, Billy. You almost had it that time. And Andy Devine as Guy Madisons sidekick Jingles yelling, Hey, Wild Bill, wait for me! He shivered. (the posts) He shook his head. I couldnt say that without stuttering even now, he thought, and for just a moment he felt that he was on the edge of understanding it all. Then it was gone. He opened the tirepatching kit and went to work. It took a long time to get it just right. Mike leaned against the wall in a bar of lateafternoon sun, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and his tie yanked down, whistling a tune which Bill finally identified as She Blinded Me with Science. While he waited for the tire cement to set, Bill hadjust for something to do, he told himselfoiled Silvers chain, sprocket, and axles. It didnt make the bike look any better, but when he spun the tires he found that the squeak was gone, and that was satisfying. Silver never would have won any beautycontests anyway. His one virtue was that he could go like a blue streak. By that time, fivethirty in the afternoon, he had nearly forgotten Mike was there; he had become completely absorbed in small yet utterly satisfying acts of maintenance. He screwed the nozzle of the pump onto the rear tires valve and watched the tire fatten, shooting for the right pressure by guess and by gosh. He was pleased to see that the patch was holding nicely. When he thought he had it right, he unscrewed the pumpnozzle and was about to turn Silver over when he heard the rapid snapflutter of playing cards behind him. He whirled, almost knocking Silver over. Mike was standing there with a deck of bluebacked Bicycle playing cards in one hand. Want these? Bill let out a long, shaky sigh. Youve got clothespins, too, I suppose? Mike took four from the flap pocket of his shirt and held them out. Just happened to have them around, I suhhuppose? Yeah, something like that, Mike said. Bill took the cards and tried to shuffle them. His hands shook and the cards sprayed out of his hands. They went everywhere ... but only two landed faceup. Bill looked at them, then up at Mike. Mikes gaze was frozen on the littered playing cards. His lips had pulled back from his teeth. The two up cards were both the ace of spades. Thats impossible, Mike said. I just opened that deck. Look. He pointed at the swillcan just inside the garage door and Bill saw the cellophane wrapper. How can one deck of cards have two aces of spades? Bill bent down and picked them up. How can you spray a deck of cards all over the floor and have only two of them land face up? he asked. Thats an even better que He turned the aces over, looked, and then showed them to Mike. One of them was a blueback, the other a redback. Holy Christ, Mikey, what have you got us into? What are you going to do with those? Mike asked in a numb voice. Why, put them on, Bill said, and suddenly he began to laugh. Thats what Im supposed to do, isnt it? If there are certain preconditions for the use of magic, those preconditions will inevitably arrange themselves. Right? Mike didnt reply. He watched as Bill went to Silvers rear wheel and attached the playing cards. His hands were still shaking and it took awhile, but he finally got it done, drew in one tight breath, held it, and spun the rear wheel. The playing cards machinegunned loudly against the spokes in the garages silence. Come on, Mike said softly. Come on in, Big Bill. Ill make us some chow. They had scoffed the burgers and now sat smoking, watching dark begin to unfold from dusk in Mikes back yard. Bill took out his wallet, found someones business card, and wrote upon it the sentence that had plagued him ever since he had seen Silver in the window of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. He showed it to Mike, who read it carefully, lips pursed. Does it mean anything to you? Bill asked. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.  He nodded. Yes, I know what that is. Well then, tell me. Or are you going to give me some more cuhcuhcrap about figuring it out for myself? No, Mike said, in this case I think its okay to tell you. The phrase goes back to English times. Its a tonguetwister that became a speech exercise for lispers and stutterers. Your mother kept trying to get you to say it that summer. The summer of 1958. You used to go around mumbling it to yourself. I did? Bill said, and then, slowly, answering his own question I did. You must have wanted to please her very much. Bill, who suddenly felt he might cry, only nodded. He didnt trust himself to speak. You never made it, Mike told him. I remember that. You tried like hell but your tang kept getting all tungled up. But I did say it, Bill replied. At least once. When? Bill brought his fist down on the picnic table hard enough to hurt. I dont remember! he shouted. And then, dully, he said it again I just dont remember. CHAPTER 12 Three Uninvited Guests 1 On the day after Mike Hanlon made his calls, Henry Bowers began to hear voices. Voices had been talking to him all day long. For awhile, Henry thought they were coming from the moon. In the late afternoon, looking up from where he was hoeing in the garden, he could see the moon in the blue daytime sky, pale and small. A ghostmoon. That, in fact, was why he believed it was the moon that was talking to him. Only a ghostmoon would talk in ghostvoicesthe voices of his old friends, and the voices of those little kids who had played down in the Barrens so long ago. Those, and another voice ... one he did not dare name. Victor Criss spoke from the moon first. They comin back, Henry. All of em, man. They comin back to Derry. Then Belch Huggins spoke from the moon, perhaps from the dark side of the moon. Youre the only one, Henry. The only one of us left. Youll have to get em for me and Vic. Aint no little kids can rank us out like that. Why, I hit a ball one time down to Trackers, and Tony Tracker said that ball would have been out of Yankee Stadium. He hoed, looking up at the ghostmoon in the sky, and after awhile Fogarty came over and hit him in the back of the neck and knocked him flat on his face. Youre hoein up the peas right along with the weeds, you ijit. Henry got up, brushing dirt off his face and out of his hair. There stood Fogarty, a big man in a white jacket and white pants, his belly swelled out in front of him. It was illegal for the guards (who were called counsellors here at Juniper Hill) to carry billyclubs, so a number of themFogarty, Adler, and Koontz were the worstcarried rolls of quarters in their pockets. They almost always hit you with them in the same place, right in the back of the neck. There was no rule against quarters. Quarters were not considered a deadly weapon at Juniper Hill, an institution for the mentally insane which stood on the outskirts of Augusta near the Sidney town line. Im sorry, Mr. Fogarty, Henry said, and offered a big grin which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth. They looked like the pickets in a fence outside a haunted house. Henry had begun to lose his teeth when he was fourteen or so. Yeah, youre sorry, Fogarty said. Youll be a lot sorrier if I catch you doing it again, Henry. Yes sir, Mr. Fogarty. Fogarty walked away, his black shoes leaving big brown tracks in the dirt of West Garden. Because Fogartys back was turned, Henry took a moment to look around surreptitiously. They had been shooed out to hoe as soon as the clouds cleared, everyone from the Blue Wardwhich was where they put you if you had once been very dangerous but were now considered only moderately dangerous. Actually, all the patients at Juniper Hill were considered moderately dangerous; it was a facility for the criminally insane. Henry Bowers was here because he had been convicted of killing his father in the late fall of 1958it had been a famous year for murder trials, all right; when it came to murder trials, 1958 had been a pip. Only of course it wasnt just his father they thought he had killed; if it had only been his father, Henry would not have spent twenty years in the Augusta State Mental Hospital, much of that time under physical and chemical restraint. No, not just his father; the authorities thought he had killed all of them, or at least most of them. Following the verdict the News had published a frontpage editorial titled The End of Derrys Long Night. In it they had recapped the salient points the belt in Henrys bureau that belonged to the missing Patrick Hockstetter; the jumble of schoolbooks, some signed out to the missing Belch Huggins and some to the missing Victor Criss, both known chums of the Bowers boy, in Henrys closet; most damning of all, the panties found tucked into a slit in Henrys mattress, panties which had been identified by laundrymark as having belonged to Veronica Grogan, deceased. Henry Bowers, the News declared, had been the monster haunting Derry in the spring and summer of 1958. But then the News had proclaimed the end of Derrys long night on the front page of its December 6th edition, and even an ijit like Henry knew that in Derry night never ended. They had bullied him with questions, had stood around him in a circle, had pointed fingers at him. Twice the Chief of Police had slapped him across the face and once a detective named Lottman had punched him in the gut, telling him to fess up, and be quick. Theres people outside and they aint happy, Henry, this Lottman had said. There aint been a lynching in Derry for a long time, but that dont mean there couldnt be one.


He supposed they would have kept it up as long as necessary, not because any of them really believed the good Derryfolk were going to break into the police station, carry Henry out, and hang him from a sourapple tree, but because they were desperate to close the books on that summers blood and horror; they would have, but Henry didnt make them. They wanted him to confess to everything, he understood after awhile. Henry didnt mind. After the horror in the sewers, after what had happened to Belch and Victor, he didnt seem to mind about anything. Yes, he said, he had killed his father. This was true. Yes, he had killed Victor Criss and Belch Huggins. This was also true, at least in the sense that he had led them into the tunnels where they had been murdered. Yes, he had killed Patrick. Yes, Veronica. Yes one, yes all. Not true, but it didnt matter. Blame needed to be taken. Perhaps that was why he had been spared. And if he refused ... He understood about Patricks belt. He had won it from Patrick playing scat one day in April, discovered it didnt fit, and tossed it in his bureau. He understood about the books, toohell, the three of them chummed around together and they cared no more for their summer textbooks than they had for their regular ones, which is to say, they cared for them about as much as a woodchuck cares for tapdancing. There were probably as many of his books in their closets, and the cops probably knew it, too. The panties ... no, he didnt know how Veronica Grogans panties had come to be in his mattress. But he thought he knew whoor whathad taken care of it. Best not to talk about such things. Best to just dummy up. So they sent him to Augusta and finally, in 1979, they had transferred him to Juniper Hill, and he had only run into trouble once here and that was because at first no one understood. A guy had tried to turn off Henrys nightlight. The nightlight was Donald Duck doffing his little sailor hat. Donald was protection after the sun went down. With no light, things could come in. The locks on the door and the wire mesh did not stop them. They came like mist. Things. They talked and laughed ... and sometimes they clutched. Hairy things, smooth things, things with eyes. The sort of things that had really killed Vic and Belch when the three of them had chased the kids into the tunnels under Derry in August of 1958. Looking around now, he saw the others from the Blue Ward. There was George DeVille, who had murdered his wife and four children one winter night in 1962. Georges head was studiously bent, his white hair blowing in the breeze, snot running gaily out of his nose, his huge wooden crucifix bobbing and dancing as he hoed. There was Jimmy Donlin, and all they said in the papers about Jimmy was that he had killed his mother in Portland during the summer of 1965, but what they hadnt said in the papers was that Jimmy had tried a novel experiment in bodydisposal by the time the cops came Jimmy had eaten more than half of her, including her brains. They made me twice as smart, Jimmy had confided to Henry one night after lightsout. In the row beyond Jimmy, hoeing fanatically and singing the same line over and over, as always, was the little Frenchman Benny Beaulieu. Benny had been a firebuga pyromaniac. Now as he hoed he sang this line from the Doors over and over Try to set the night on fire, try to set the night on fire, try to set the night on fire, try to It got on your nerves after awhile. Beyond Benny was Franklin DCruz, who had raped over fifty women before being caught with his pants down in Bangors Terrace Park. The ages of his victims ranged from three to eightyone. Not very particular was Frank DCruz. Beyond him but way back was Arlen Weston, who spent as much time looking dreamily at his hoe as he did using it. Fogarty, Adler, and John Koontz had all tried the rollofquartersinthefist trick on Weston to try and convince him he could move a bit faster, and one day Koontz had hit him maybe a little too hard because blood came not only from Arlen Westons nose but also from Arlens ears and that night he had a convulsion. Not a big one; just a little one. But since then Arlen had drifted further and further into his own interior blackness and now he was a hopeless case, almost totally unplugged from the world. Beyond Arlen was You want to pick it up or Ill give you some more help, Henry! Fogarty bawled over, and Henry began to hoe again. He didnt want any convulsions. He didnt want to end up like Arlen Weston. Soon the voices started in again. But this time they were the voices of the others, the voices of the kids that had gotten him into this in the first place, whispering down from the ghostmoon. You couldnt even catch a fatboy, Bowers, one of them whispered. Now Im rich and youre hoeing peas. Haha on you, asshole! BBBowers, you cccouldnt ccatch a cccold! Read aany gggood bbbooks since youve been in ththere? I ruhruhwrote lots! Im ruhruhrich and yyoure in Juhjuhhooniper Hill! Haha on you, you stupid asshole! Shut up, Henry whispered to the ghostvoices, hoeing faster, beginning to hoe up the new peaplants along with the weeds. Sweat rolled down his cheeks like tears. We couldve taken you. We couldve. We got you locked up, you asshole, another voice laughed. You chased me and couldnt catch me and I got rich, too! Way to go, bananaheels! Shut up, Henry muttered, hoeing faster. Just shut up! Did you want to get in my panties, Henry? another voice teased. Too bad! I let all of them do me, I was nothing but a slut, but now Im rich too and were all together again, and were doing it again but you couldnt do it now even if I let you because you couldnt get it up, so haha on you, Henry, haha all OVER you He hoed madly, weeds and dirt and peaplants flying; the ghostvoices from the ghostmoon were very loud now, echoing and flying in his head, and Fogarty was running toward him, bellowing, but Henry could not hear. Because of the voices. Couldnt even get hold of a nigger like me, could you? another jeering ghostvoice chimed in. We killed you guys in that rockfight! We fucking killed you!! Haha, asshole! Haha all over you! Then they were all babbling together, laughing at him, calling him bananaheels, asking him how hed liked the shocktreatments theyd given him when he came up here to the Red Ward, asking him if he liked it here at JuhJuhhooniper Hill, asking and laughing, laughing and asking, and Henry dropped his hoe and began to scream up at the ghostmoon in the blue sky and at first he was screaming in fury, and then the moon itself changed and became the face of the clown, its face a rotted pocked cheesy white, its eyes black holes, its red bloody grin turned up in a smile so obscenely ingenuous that it was insupportable, and so then Henry began to scream not in fury but in mortal terror and the voice of the clown spoke from the ghostmoon now and what it said was You have to go back, Henry. You have to go back and finish the job. You have to go back to Derry and kill them all. For Me. For Then Fogarty, who had been standing nearby and yelling at Henry for almost two minutes (while the other inmates stood in their rows, hoes grasped in their hands like comic phalluses, their expressions not exactly interested but almost, yes, almost thoughtful, as if they understood that this was all a part of the mystery that had put them here, that Henry Bowerss sudden attack of the screaming meemies in West Garden was interesting in some more than technical way), got tired of shouting and gave Henry a real blast with his quarters, and Henry went down like a ton of bricks, the voice of the clown following him down into that terrible whirlpool of darkness, chanting over and over again Kill them all, Henry, kill them all, kill them all, kill them all. 2 Henry Bowers lay awake. The moon was down and he felt a sharp sense of gratitude for that. The moon was less ghostly at night, more real, and if he should see that dreadful clownface in the sky, riding over the hills and fields and woods, he believed he would die of terror. He lay on his side, staring at his nightlight intently. Donald Duck had burned out; he had been replaced by Mickey and Minnie Mouse dancing a polka; they had been replaced with the greenglowing face of Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street, and late last year Oscar had been replaced by the face of Fozzie Bear. Henry had measured out the years of his incarceration with burnedout nightlights instead of coffeespoons. At exactly 204 A.M. on the morning of May 30th, his nightlight went out. A little moan escaped himno more. Koontz was on the door of the Blue Ward tonightKoontz who was the worst of the lot. Worse even than Fogarty, who had hit him so hard in the afternoon that Henry could barely turn his head. Sleeping around him were the other Blue Ward inmates. Benny Beaulieu slept in elastic restraints. He had been allowed to watch an Emergency rerun on the wardroom TV when they came in from hoeing and around six oclock had begun jerking off constantly and without letup, screaming Try to set the night on fire! Try to set the night on fire! Try to set the night on fire! He had been sedated, and that was good for about four hours, and then he had started in again around eleven when the Elavil wore off, whipping his old dingus so hard it had started to bleed through his fingers, shrieking Try to set the night on fire! So they sedated him again and put him in restraints. Now he slept, his pinched little face as grave in the dim light as Aristotles. From around his bed Henry could hear low snores and loud ones, grunts, an occasional bedfart. He could hear Jimmy Donlins breathing; it was unmistakable even though Jimmy slept five beds over. Rapid and faintly whistling, for some reason it always made Henry think of a sewing machine. From beyond the door giving on the hall he could hear the faint sound of Koontzs TV. He knew that Koontz would be watching the late movies on Channel 38, drinking Texas Driver and eating his lunch. Koontz favored sandwiches made out of chunky peanutbutter and Bermuda onions. When Henry heard this he had shuddered and thought And they say all the crazy people are locked up. This time the voice didnt come from the moon. This time it came from under the bed. Henry recognized the voice at once. It was Victor Criss, whose head had been torn off somewhere beneath Derry twentyseven years ago. It had been torn off by the Frankensteinmonster. Henry had seen it happen, and afterward he had seen the monsters eyes shift and had felt its watery yellow gaze on him. Yes, the Frankensteinmonster had killed Victor and then it had killed Belch, but here was Vic again, like the almost ghostly rerun of a blackandwhite program from the Nifty Fifties, when the President was bald and the Buicks had portholes. And now that it had happened, now that the voice had come, Henry found that he was calm and unafraid. Relieved, even. Henry, Victor said. Vic! Henry cried. What you doing under there? Benny Beaulieu snorted and muttered in his sleep. Jimmys neat nasal sewingmachine inhales and exhales paused for a moment. In the hall, the volume on Koontzs small Sony was turned down and Henry Bowers could sense him, head cocked to one side, one hand on the TVs volume knob, the fingers of the other hand touching the cylinder which bulged in the righthand pocket of his whitesthe roll of quarters. You dont have to talk out loud, Henry, Vic said. I can hear you if you just think. And they cant hear me at all. What do you want, Vic? Henry asked. There was no reply for a long time. Henry thought that maybe Vic had gone away. Outside the door the volume of Koontzs TV went up again. Then there was a scratching noise from under the bed; the springs squealed slightly as a dark shadow pulled itself out from under. Vic looked up at him and grinned. Henry grinned back uneasily. Ole Vic was looking a little bit like the Frankensteinmonster himself these days. A scar like a hangrope tattoo circled his neck. Henry thought maybe that was where his head had been sewed back on. His eyes were a weird graygreen color, and the corneas seemed to float on a watery viscous substance. Vic was still twelve. I want the same thing you want, Vic said. I want to pay em back. Pay em back, Henry Bowers said dreamily. But youll have to get out of here to do it, Vic said. Youll have to go back to Derry. I need you, Henry. We all need you. They cant hurt You, Henry said, understanding he was talking to more than Vic. They cant hurt Me if they only halfbelieve, Vic said. But there have been some distressing signs, Henry. We didnt think they could beat us back then, either. But the fatboy got away from you in the Barrens. The fatboy and the smartmouth and the quiff got away from us that day after the movies. And the rockfight, when they saved the nigger Dont talk about that! Henry shouted at Vic, and for a moment all of the peremptory hardness that had made him their leader was in his voice. Then he cringed, thinking Vic would hurt himsurely Vic could do whatever he wanted, since he was a ghostbut Vic only grinned. I can take care of them if they only halfbelieve, he said, but youre alive, Henry. You can get them no matter if they believe, halfbelieve, or dont believe at all. You can get them one by one or all at once. You can pay em back. Pay em back, Henry repeated. Then he looked at Vic doubtfully again. But I cant get out of here, Vic. Theres wire on the windows and Koontz is on the door tonight. Koontz is the worst. Maybe tomorrow night ... Dont worry about Koontz, Vic said, standing up. Henry saw he was still wearing the jeans he had been wearing that day, and that they were still splattered with drying sewermuck. Ill take care of Koontz. Vic held out his hand. After a moment Henry took it. He and Vic walked toward the Blue Ward door and the sound of the TV. They were almost there when Jimmy Donlin, who had eaten his mothers brains, woke up. His eyes widened as he saw Henrys latenight visitor. It was his mother. Her slip was showing just a quarterinch or so, as it always had. The top of her head was gone. Her eyes, horribly red, rolled toward him, and when she grinned, Jimmy saw the lipstick smears on her yellow, horsy teeth as he always had. Jimmy began to shriek. No, Ma! No, Ma! No Ma! The TV went off at once, and even before the others could begin to stir, Koontz was jerking the door open and saying, Okay, asshole, get ready to catch your head on the rebound. Ive had it. No, Ma! No, Ma! Please, Ma! No, Ma Koontz came rushing in. First he saw Bowers, standing tall and paunchy and nearly ridiculous in his johnny, his loose flesh doughy in the light spilling in from the corridor. Then he looked left and screamed out two lungfuls of silent spun glass. Standing by Bowers was a thing in a clown suit. It stood perhaps eight feet tall. Its suit was silvery. Orange pompoms ran down the front. There were oversized funny shoes on its feet. But its head was not that of a man or a clown; it was the head of a Doberman pinscher, the only animal on Gods green earth of which John Koontz was frightened. Its eyes were red. Its silky muzzle wrinkled back to show huge white teeth. A cylinder of quarters fell from Koontzs nerveless fingers and rolled across the floor and into the corner. Late the following day Benny Beaulieu, who slept through the whole thing, would find them and hide them in his footlocker. The quarters bought him cigarettestailormadesfor a month. Koontz hitched in breath to scream again as the clown lurched toward him. Its time for the circus! the clown screamed in a growling voice, and its whitegloved hands fell on Koontzs shoulders. Except that the hands inside those gloves felt like paws. 3 For the third time that daythat long, long dayKay McCall went to the telephone. She got further this time than she had on the first two occasions; this time she waited until the phone had been picked up on the other end and a hearty Irish cops voice said, Sixth Street Station, Sergeant OBannon, how may I help you? before hanging up. Oh, youre doing fine. Jesus, yes. By the eighth or ninth time youll have mustered up guts enough to give him your name. She went into the kitchen and fixed herself a weak Scotchandsoda, although she knew it probably wasnt a good idea on top of the Darvon. She recalled a snatch of folksong from the college coffeehouses of her youthGot a headful of whiskey and a bellyful of gin  Doctor say it kill me but he dont say whenand laughed jaggedly. There was a mirror running along the top of the bar. She saw her reflection in it and stopped laughing abruptly. Who is that woman? One eye swollen nearly shut. Who is that battered woman? Nose the color of a drunken knights after thirty or so years of tilting at ginmills, and puffed to a grotesque size. Who is that battered woman who looks like the ones who drag themselves to a womens shelter after they finally get frightened enough or brave enough or just plain mad enough to leave the man who is hurting them, who has systematically hurt them week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out? Laddered scratch up one cheek. Who is she, KayBird? One arm in a sling. Who? Is it you? Can it be you? Here she is ... Miss America, she sang, wanting her voice to come out tough and cynical. It started out that way but warbled on the seventh syllable and cracked on the eighth. It was not a tough voice. It was a scared voice. She knew it; she had been scared before and had always gotten over it. She thought she would be a long time getting over this. The doctor who had treated her in one of the little cubicles just off Emergency Admitting at Sisters of Mercy half a mile down the road had been young and not badlooking. Under different circumstances she might have idly (or not so idly) considered trying to get him home and take him on a sexual tour of the world. But she hadnt felt in the least bit horny. Pain wasnt conducive to horniness. Neither was fear. His name was Geffin, and she didnt care for the fixed way he was looking at her. He took a small white paper cup to the rooms sink, halffilled it with water, produced a pack of cigarettes from the drawer of his desk, and offered them to her. She took one and he lit it for her. He had to chase the tip for a second or two with the match because her hand was shaking. He tossed the match in a paper cup. Fssss. A wonderful habit, he said. Right? Oral fixation, Kay replied. He nodded and then there was silence. He kept looking at her. She got the feeling he was expecting her to cry, and it made her mad because she felt she might just do that. She hated to be emotionally preguessed, and most of all by a man. Boyfriend? he asked at last. Id rather not talk about it. Uhhuh. He smoked and looked at her. Didnt your mother ever tell you it was impolite to stare? She wanted it to come out hardedged, but it sounded like a plea Stop looking at me, I know how I look, I saw. This thought was followed by another, one she suspected her friend Beverly must have had more than once, that the worst of the beating took place inside, where you were apt to suffer something that might be called interspiritual bleeding. She knew what she looked like, yes. Worse still, she knew what she felt like. She felt yellow. It was a dismal feeling. Ill say this just once, Geffin said. His voice was low and pleasant. When I work E.R.my turn in the barrel, you might sayI see maybe two dozen battered women a week. The interns treat two dozen more. So looktheres a telephone right here on the desk. Its my dime. You call Sixth Street, give them your name and address, tell them what happened and who did it. Then you hang up and Ill take the bottle of bourbon I keep over there in the file cabinetstrictly for medicinal purposes, you understandand well have a drink on it. Because I happen to think, this is just my personal opinion, that the only lower form of life than a man who would beat up a woman is a rat with syphilis. Kay smiled wanly. I appreciate the offer, she said, but Ill pass. For the time being. Uhhuh, he said. But when you go home take a good look at yourself in the mirror, Ms. McCall. Whoever it was, he jobbed you good. She did cry then. She couldnt help it. Tom Rogan had called around noon of the day after she had seen Beverly safely off, wanting to know if Kay had been in touch with his wife. He sounded calm, reasonable, not the least upset. Kay told him she hadnt seen Beverly in almost two weeks. Tom thanked her and hung up. Around one the doorbell rang while she was writing in her study. She went to the door. Who is it? Cragins Flowers, maam, a high voice said, and how stupid she had been not to realize it had been Tom doing a bad falsetto, how stupid she had been to believe that Tom had given up so easily, how stupid she had been to take the chain off before opening the door. In he had come, and she had gotten just this far You get out of h before Toms fist came flying out of nowhere, slamming into her right eye, closing it and sending a bolt of incredible agony through her head. She had gone reeling backward down the hallway, clutching at things to try and stay upright a delicate onerose vase that had gone smashing to the tiles, a coattree that had tumbled over. She fell over her own feet as Tom closed the front door behind him and walked toward her. Get out of here! she had screamed at him. As soon as you tell me where she is, Tom said, walking down the hall toward her. She was dimly aware that Tom didnt look very goodwell, actually, terrible might have been a better wordand she felt a dim but ferocious gladness skyrocket through her. Whatever Tom had done to Bev, it looked as if Bev had given it back in spades. It had been enough to keep him off his feet for one whole day, anyhowand he still didnt look as if he belonged anywhere but in a hospital. But he also looked very mean, and very angry. Kay scrambled to her feet and backed away, keeping her eyes on him as you might keep your eyes on a wild animal that had escaped its cage. I told you I havent seen her and that was the truth, she said. Now get out of here before I call the police. Youve seen her, Tom said. His swollen lips were trying to grin. She saw that his teeth had a strange jagged look. Some of the front ones had been broken. I call up, tell you I dont know where Bev is. You say you havent seen her in two weeks. Never a single question. Never a discouraging word, even though I know damn well that you hate my guts. So where is she, you numb cunt? Tell me. Kay turned then and ran for the end of the hall, wanting to get into the parlor, rake the sliding mahogany doors closed on their recessed tracks, and turn the thumbbolt. She got there ahead of himhe was limpingbut before she could slam the doors shut he had inserted his body between. He gave one convulsive lunge and pushed through. She turned to run again; he caught her by her dress and yanked her so hard he tore the entire back of it straight down to her waist. Your wife made that dress, you shit, she thought incoherently, and then she was twisted around. Where is she? Kay brought her hand up in a walloping slap that rocked his head back and started the cut on the left side of his face bleeding again. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head forward into his fist. It felt to her for a moment as if her nose had exploded. She screamed, inhaled to scream again, and began to cough on her own blood. She was in utter terror now. She had not known there could be so much terror in all the wide world. The crazy son of a bitch was going to kill her. She screamed, she screamed, and then his fist looped into her belly, driving the air out of her and she could only gasp. She began to cough and gasp at the same time and for one terrifying moment she thought she was going to choke. Where is she? Kay shook her head. Havent ... seen her, she gasped. Police ... youll go to jail ... asshole.... He jerked her to her feet and she felt something give in her shoulder. More pain, so strong it was sickening. He whirled her around, still holding onto her arm, and now he twisted her arm up behind her and she bit down on her lower lip, promising herself that she would not scream again. Where is she? Kay shook her head. He jerked her arm up again, jerked it so hard that she heard him grunt. His warm breath puffed against her ear. She felt her closed right fist strike her own left shoulderblade and she screamed again as that thing in her shoulder gave some more. Where is she? ... know ... What? I dont KNOW! He let go of her and gave her a push. She collapsed to the floor, sobbing, snot and blood running out of her nose. There was an almost musical crash, and when she looked around, Tom was bending over her. He had broken the top off another vase, this one of Waterford crystal. He held the base. The jagged neck was only inches from her face. She stared at it, hypnotized. Let me tell you something, he said, the words coming out in little pants and blows of warm air, youre going to tell me where she went or youre going to be picking your face up off the floor. Youve got three seconds, maybe less. When Im mad it seems like time goes a lot faster. My face, she thought, and that was what finally caused her to give in ... or cave in, if you liked that better the thought of this monster using the jagged neck of the Waterford vase to cut her face apart. She went home, Kay sobbed. Her home town. Derry. Its a place called Derry, in Maine. How did she go? She took a bbbus to Milwaukee. She was going to fly from there. That shitty little cooze! Tom cried, straightening up. He walked around in a large, aimless semicircle, running his hands through his hair so that it stood up in crazy spikes and whorls. That cunt, that cooze, that nickelplated crotch! He picked up a delicate wood sculpture of a man and woman making loveshed had it since she was twentytwoand threw in into the fireplace, where it shattered to splinters. He came face to face with himself for a moment in the mirror over the fireplace and stood wideeyed, as if looking at a ghost. Then he whirled on her again. He had taken something from the pocket of the sportcoat he was wearing, and she saw with a stupid kind of wonder that it was a paperback novel. The cover was almost completely black, except for the redfoil letters which spelled out the title and a picture of several young people standing on a high bluff over a river. The Black Rapids. Whos this fuck? Huh? What? Denbrough. Denbrough. He shook the book impatiently in front of her face, then suddenly slapped her with it. Her cheek flared with pain and then dull red heat, like stovecoals. Who is he? She began to understand. They were friends. When they were children. They both grew up in Derry. He whacked her with the book again, this time from the other side. Please, she sobbed. Please, Tom. He pulled an Early American chair with spindly, graceful legs over to her, turned it around, and sat down on it. His jackolantern face looked down at her over the chairback. Listen to me, he said. You listen to your old uncle Tommy. Can you do that, you braburning bitch? She nodded. She could taste blood, hot and coppery, in her throat. Her shoulder was on fire. She prayed it was only dislocated and not broken. But that was not the worst. My face, he was going to cut up my face If you call the police and tell them I was here, Ill deny it. You cant prove a fucking thing. Its the maids day off and were all by our twosome. Of course, they might arrest me anyway, anythings possible, right? She found herself nodding again, as if her head was on a string. Sure it is. And what Id do is post bail and come right back here. Theyd find your tits on the kitchen table and your eyes in the fishbowl. Do you understand me? Are you getting your old uncle Tommy? Kay burst into tears again. That string attached to her head was still working; it bobbed up and down. Why? What? I ... I dont... Wake up, for Gods sake! Why did she go back? I dont know! Kay nearly screamed. He wiggled the broken vase at her. I dont know, she said in a lower voice. Please. She didnt tell me. Please dont hurt me. He tossed the vase in the wastebasket and stood up. He left without looking back, head down, a big shambling bear of a man. She rushed after him and locked the door. She rushed into the kitchen and locked that door. After a moments pause she had limped upstairs (as fast as her aching belly would allow) and had locked the french doors which gave on the upstairs verandahit was not beyond possibility that he might decide to shinny up one of the pillars and come in again that way. He was hurt, but he was also insane. She went for the telephone for the first time and had no more than dropped her hand on it before remembering what he had said. What Id do is post bail and come right back here ... your tits on the kitchen table and your eyes in the fishbowl. She jerked her hand off the phone. She went into the bathroom then and looked at her dripping tomato nose, her black eye. She didnt weep; the shame and horror she felt were too deep for tears. Oh Bev, I did the best I could, dear, she thought. But my face ... he said he would cut up my face.... There was Darvon and Valium in the medicine cabinet. She debated between them and finally swallowed one of each. Then she went to Sisters of Mercy for treatment and met the famous Dr. Geffin, who right now was the only man she could think of whom she would not be perfectly happy to see wiped off the face of the earth. And from there home again, home again, jiggetyjog. She went to her bedroom window and looked out. The sun was low on the horizon now. On the East Coast it would be late twilightjust going on seven oclock in Maine. You can decide what to do about the cops later. The important thing now is to warn Beverly. It would be a hell of a lot easier, Kay thought, if you had told me where you were staying, Beverly my love. I suppose you didnt know yourself. Although she had quit smoking two years before, she kept a pack of Pall Malls in the drawer of her desk for emergencies. She shot one out of the pack, lit up, grimaced. She had last smoked from this pack around December of 1982, and this baby was staler than the ERA in the Illinois state Senate. She smoked it anyway, one eye halflidded against the smoke, the other just halflidded, period. Thanks to Tom Rogan. Using her left hand laboriouslythe son of a bitch had dislocated her good armshe dialed Maine information and asked for the name and number of every hotel and motel in Derry. Maam, thats going to take awhile, the directoryassistance operator said dubiously. Its going to take even longer than that, sister, Kay said. Im going to have to write with my stupid hand. My good ones on vacation. It is not customary for Listen to me, Kay said, not unkindly. Im calling you from Chicago, and Im trying to reach a womanfriend of mine who has just left her husband and gone back to Derry, where she grew up. Her husband knows where she went. He got the information out of me by beating the living shit out of me. This man is a psycho. She needs to know hes coming. There was a long pause, and then the directoryassistance operator said in a decidedly more human voice, I think the number you really need is the Derry Police Department. Fine. Ill take that, too. But she has to be warned, Kay said. And ... She thought of Toms cut cheeks, the knot on his forehead, the one on his temple, his limp, his hideously swelled lips. And if she knows hes coming, that may be enough. There was another long pause. You there, sis? Kay asked. Arlington Motor Lodge, the operator said, 6438146. Bassey Park Inn, 6484083. The Bunyan Motor Court Slow down a little, okay? she asked, writing furiously. She looked for an ashtray, didnt see one, and mashed the Pall Mall out on the desk blotter. Okay, go on.


The Clarendon Inn 4 She got halflucky on her fifth call. Beverly Rogan was registered at the Derry Town House. She was only halflucky because Beverly was out. She left her name and number and a message that Beverly should call her the instant she came back, no matter how late it was. The desk clerk repeated the message. Kay went upstairs and took another Valium. She lay down and waited for sleep. Sleep didnt come. Im sorry, Bev, she thought, looking into the dark, floating on the dope. What he said about my face ... I just couldnt stand that. Call soon, Bev. Please call soon. And watch out for the crazy son of a bitch you married. 5 The crazy son of a bitch Bev had married did better on connections than Beverly had the day before because he left from OHare, the hub of commercial aviation in the continental United States. During the flight he read and reread the brief note on the author at the end of The Black Rapids. It said that William Denbrough was a native of New England and the author of three other novels (which were also available, the note added helpfully, in Signet paperback editions). He and his wife, the actress Audra Phillips, lived in California. He was currently at work on a new novel. Noticing that the paperback of The Black Rapids had been issued in 1976, Tom supposed the guy had written some of the other novels since then. Audra Phillips ... he had seen her in the movies, hadnt he? He rarely noticed actressesToms idea of a good flick was a crime story, a chase story, or a monster picturebut if this babe was the one he was thinking of, he had noticed her especially because she looked a lot like Beverly long red hair, green eyes, tits that wouldnt quit. He sat up a little straighter in his seat, tapping the paperback against his leg, trying to ignore the ache in his head and in his mouth. Yes, he was sure. Audra Phillips was the redhead with the good tits. He had seen her in a Clint Eastwood movie, and then about a year later in a horror flick called Graveyard Moon. Beverly had gone with him to see that one, and coming out of the theater, he had mentioned his idea that the actress looked a lot like her. I dont think so, Bev had said. Im taller and shes prettier. Her hairs a darker red, too. That was all. He hadnt thought of it again until now. He and his wife, the actress Audra Phillips ... Tom had some dim understanding of psychology; he had used it to manipulate his wife all the years of their marriage. And now a nagging unpleasantness began to nag at him, more feeling than thought. It centered on the fact that Bev and this Denbrough had played together as kids and that Denbrough had married a woman who, in spite of what Beverly said, looked amazingly like Tom Rogans wife. What sort of games had Denbrough and Beverly played when they were kids? Postoffice? Spinthebottle? Other games? Tom sat in his seat and tapped the book against his leg and felt his temples begin to throb. When he arrived at Bangor International Airport and canvassed the rentalcar booths, the girlssome dressed in yellow, some in red, some in Irish greenlooked at his blasted dangerous face nervously and told him (more nervously still) that they had no cars to rent, so sorry. Tom went to the newsstand and got a Bangor paper. He turned to the wantads, oblivious to the looks he was getting from people passing by, and isolated three likelies. He hit paydirt on his second call. Paper says youve got a 76 LTD wagon. Fourteen hundred bucks. Right, sure. I tell you what, Tom said, touching the wallet in his jacket pocket. It was fat with cashsix thousand dollars. You bring it out to the airport and well do the deal right here. You give me the car and a bill of sale and your pinkslip. Ill give you cash money. The fellow with the LTD for sale paused and then said, Id have to take my plates off. Sure, fine. How will I know you, Mr.? Mr. Barr, Tom said. He was looking at a sign across the terminal lobby that said BAR HARBOR AIRLINES GIVES YOU NEW ENGLANDAND THE WORLD! Ill be standing by the far door. Youll know me because my face doesnt look so hot. My wife and I went rollerskating yesterday and I took one hell of a fall. Things could be worse, I guess. I didnt break anything but my face. Gee, Im sorry to hear that, Mr. Barr. Ill mend. You just get the car out here, my good buddy. He hung up, walked across to the door, and stepped out into the warm fragrant May night. The guy with the LTD showed up ten minutes later, driving out of the latespring dusk. He was only a kid. They did the deal; the kid scribbled him a bill of sale which Tom stuffed indifferently into his overcoat pocket. He stood there and watched the kid take off the LTDs Maine plates. Give you an extra three bucks for the screwdriver, Tom said when he was done. The kid looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, shrugged, handed the screwdriver over, and took the three ones Tom was holding out. None of my business, the shrug said, and Tom thought How right you are, my good little buddy. Tom saw him into a cab, then got behind the wheel of the Ford. It was a piece of shit transmission whiny, universal groany, body rattly, brakes slushy. None of it mattered. He drove around to the longterm parking lot, took a ticket, and drove in. He parked next to a Subaru that looked as if it had been there for awhile. He used the kids screwdriver to remove the Subarus plates and put them on the LTD. He hummed as he worked. By 1000 P.M. he was driving east on Route 2, a Maine roadmap open on the seat beside him. He had discovered that the LTDs radio didnt work, so he drove in silence. That was all right. He had plenty to think about. All the wonderful things he was going to do to Beverly when he caught up with her, for instance. He was sure in his heart, quite sure, that Beverly was close by. And smoking. Oh my dear girl, you fucked with the wrong man when you fucked with Tom Rogan. And the question is thiswhat, exactly, are we to do with you? The Ford bulled its way through the night, chasing its high beams, and by the time Tom got to Newport, he knew. He found a drugsandsundries shop on the main drag that was still open. He went inside and bought a carton of Camels. The proprietor wished him a good evening. Tom wished him the same. He tossed the carton on the seat and got moving again. He drove slowly on up Route 7, hunting for his turnoff. Here it wasRoute 3, with a sign which read HAVEN 21 DERRY 15. He made the turn and got the Ford rolling faster. He glanced at the carton of cigarettes and smiled a little. In the green glow of the dashlights, his cut and lumpy face looked strange, ghoulish. Got some cigarettes for you, Bevvie, Tom thought as the wagon ran between stands of pine and spruce, heading toward Derry at a little better than sixty. Oh my yes. A whole carton. Just for you. And when I see you, dear, Im going to make you eat every fucking one. And if this guy Denbrough needs some education, we can arrange that, too. No problem, Bevvie. No problem at all. For the first time since the dirty bitch had bushwhacked him and run out, Tom began to feel good. 6 Audra Denbrough flew first class to Maine on a British Airways DC10. She had left Heathrow at ten minutes of six that afternoon and had been chasing the sun ever since. The sun was winninghad won, in factbut that didnt really matter. By a stroke of providential luck she had discovered that British Airways flight 23, London to Los Angeles, made one refueling stop ... at Bangor International Airport. The day had been a crazy nightmare. Freddie Firestone, the producer of Attic Room, had of course wanted Bill first thing. There had been some kind of ballsup about the stuntwoman who was supposed to fall down a flight of stairs for Audra. It seemed that stuntpeople had a union too, and this woman had fulfilled her quota of stunts for the week, or some silly thing. The union was demanding that Freddie either sign an extensionofsalary waiver or hire another woman to do the stunt. The problem was there was no other woman close enough to Audras bodytype available. Freddie told the union boss that they would have to get a man to do the stunt, then, wouldnt they? It wasnt as if the fall had to be taken in bra and panties. They had the auburnhaired wig, and the wardrobe woman could fit the fellow up with falsies and hippadding. Even some arsepads, if that was necessary. Cant be done, mate, the union boss said. Against the union charter to have a man step in for a woman. Sexual discrimination. In the movie business Freddies temper was fabled, and at that point he had lost it. He told the union boss, a fat man whose B.O. was almost paralyzing, to bugger himself. The union boss told Freddie he better watch his gob or there would be no more stunts on the set of Attic Room at all. Then he had rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in a baksheesh gesture that had driven Freddie crazy. The union boss was big but soft; Freddie, who still played football every chance he got and who had once bowled a century at cricket, was big and hard. He threw the union boss out, went back into his office to meditate, and then came out again twenty minutes later hollering for Bill. He wanted the entire scene rewritten so that the fall could be scrubbed. Audra had to tell Freddie that Bill was no longer in England. What? Freddie said. His mouth hung open. He was looking at Audra as if he believed she had gone mad. What are you telling me? Hes been called back to the Statesthats what Im telling you. Freddie made as if to grab her and Audra shrank back, a bit afraid. Freddie looked down at his hands, then put them in his pockets and only looked at her. Im sorry, Freddie, she said in a small voice. Really. She got up and poured herself a cup of coffee from the Silex on Freddies hotplate, noticing that her hands were trembling slightly. As she sat down she heard Freddies amplified voice over the studio loudspeakers, telling everyone to go home or to the pub; the days shooting was off. Audra winced. There went a minimum of ten thousand pounds, right down the bog. Freddie turned off the studio intercom, got up, poured his own cup of coffee. He sat down again and offered her his pack of Silk Cut cigarettes. Audra shook her head. Freddie took one, lit it, and squinted at her through the smoke. This is serious, isnt it? Yes, Audra said, keeping her composure as best she could. Whats happened? And because she genuinely liked Freddie and genuinely trusted him, Audra told him everything she knew. Freddie listened intently, gravely. It didnt take long to tell; doors were still slamming and engines starting in the parking lot outside when she finished. Freddie was silent for some time, looking out his window. Then he swung back to her. Hes had a nervous breakdown of some sort. Audra shook her head. No. It wasnt like that. He wasnt like that. She swallowed and added, Maybe you had to be there. Freddie smiled crookedly. You must realize that grown men rarely feel compelled to honor promises they made as little boys. And youve read Bills work; you know how much of it is about childhood, and its very good stuff indeed. Very much on the nail. The idea that hes forgotten everything that ever happened to him back then is absurd. The scars on his hands, Audra said. They were never there. Not until this morning. Bollocks! You just didnt notice them until this morning. She shrugged helplessly. Idve noticed. She could see he didnt believe that, either. Whats to do, then? Freddie asked her, and she could only shake her head. Freddie lit another cigarette from the smoldering end of the first. I can square it with the union boss, he said. Not myself, maybe; right now hed see me in hell before giving me another stunt. Ill send Teddy Rowland round to his office. Teddys a pouf, but he could talk the birds down from the trees. But what happens after? Weve got four weeks of shooting left, and heres your husband somewhere in Massachusetts Maine He waved a hand. Wherever. And how much good are you going to be without him? I He leaned forward. I like you, Audra. I genuinely do. And I like Billeven in spite of this mess. We can make do, I guess. If the script needs cobbling up, I can cobble it. Ive done my share of that sort of shoemaking in my time, Christ knows.... If he doesnt like the way it turns out, hell have no one but himself to blame. I can do without Bill, but I cant do without you. I cant have you running off to the States after your man, and Ive got to have you putting out at full power. Can you do that? I dont know. Nor do I. But I want you to think about something. We can keep things quiet for awhile, maybe for the rest of the shoot, if youll stand up like a trouper and do your job. But if you take off, it cant be kept quiet. I can be pissy, but Im not vindictive by nature and Im not going to tell you that if you take off Ill see that you never work in the business again. But you should know that if you get a reputation for temperament, you might end up stuck with just that. Im talking to you like a Dutch uncle, I know. Do you resent it? No, she said listlessly. In truth, she didnt care much one way or the other. Bill was all she could think of. Freddie was a nice enough man, but Freddie didnt understand; in the last analysis, nice man or not, all he could think of was what this was going to do to his picture. He had not seen the look in Bills eyes ... or heard him stutter. Good. He stood up. Come on over to the Hare and Hounds with me. We can both use a drink. She shook her head. A drinks the last thing I need. Im going home and think this out. Ill call for the car, he said. No. Ill take the train. He looked at her fixedly, one hand on the telephone. I believe you mean to go after him, Freddie said, and Im telling you that its a serious mistake, dear girl. Hes got a bee in his bonnet, but at bottom hes steady enough. Hell shake it, and when he does hell come back. If hed wanted you along, he would have said so. I havent decided anything, she said, knowing that she had in fact decided everything; had decided even before the car picked her up that morning. Have a care, love, Freddie said. Dont do something youll regret later. She felt the force of his personality beating on her, demanding that she give in, make the promise, do her job, wait passively for Bill to come back ... or to disappear again into that hole of the past from which he had come. She went to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Ill see you, Freddie. She went home and called British Airways. She told the clerk she might be interested in reaching a small Maine city called Derry if it was at all possible. There had been silence while the woman consulted her computer terminal ... and then the news, like a sign from heaven, that BA 23 made a stop in Bangor, which was less than fifty miles away. Shall I book the flight for you, maam? Audra closed her eyes and saw Freddies craggy, mostly kind, very earnest face, heard him saying Have a care, love. Dont do something youll regret later. Freddie didnt want her to go; Bill didnt want her to go; so why was her heart screaming at her that she had to go? She closed her eyes. Jesus, I feel so fucked up Maam ? Are you still holding the wire? Book it, Audra said, then hesitated. Have a care love.... Maybe she should sleep on it; get some distance between herself and the craziness. She began to rummage in her purse for her American Express card. For tomorrow. First class if you have it, but Ill take anything. And if I change my mind I can cancel. Probably will. Ill wake up sane and everything will be clear. But nothing had been clear this morning, and her heart clamored just as loudly for her to go. Her sleep had been a crazy tapestry of nightmares. So she had called Freddie, not because she wanted to but because she felt she owed him that. She had not gotten farshe was trying, in some stumbling way, to tell him how much she felt Bill might need herwhen there was a soft click at Freddies end. He had hung up without saying a word after his initial hello. But in a way, Audra thought, that soft click said everything that needed to be said. 7 The plane landed at Bangor at 709, EDT. Audra was the only passenger to deplane, and the others looked at her with a kind of thoughtful curiosity, probably wondering why anyone would choose to get off here, in this godforsaken little place. Audra thought of telling them Im looking for my husband, thats why. He came back to a little town near here because one of his boyhood chums called him and reminded him of a promise he couldnt quite remember. The call also reminded him that he hadnt thought of his dead brother in over twenty years. Oh yes it also brought back his stutter ... and some funny white scars on the palms of his hands. And then, she thought, the customs agent standing by in the jetway would whistle up the men in the white coats. She collected her single piece of luggageit looked very lonely riding the carousel all by itselfand approached the rentalcar booths as Tom Rogan would about an hour later. Her luck was better than his would be; National Car Rental had a Datsun. The girl filled out the form and Audra signed it. I thought it was you, the girl said, and then, timidly Might I please have your autograph? Audra gave it, writing her name on the back of a rental form, and thought Enjoy it while you can, girl. If Freddie Firestone is right, it wont be worth doodleysquat five years from now. With some amusement she realized that, after only fifteen minutes back in the States, she had begun to think like an American again. She got a roadmap, and the girl, so starstruck she could barely talk, managed to trace out her best route to Derry. Ten minutes later Audra was on the road, reminding herself at every intersection that if she forgot and began driving on the left, they would be scrubbing her off the asphalt. And as she drove, she realized that she was more frightened than she had ever been in her life. 8 By one of those odd quirks of fate or coincidence which sometimes obtain (and which, in truth, obtained more frequently in Derry), Tom had taken a room at the Koala Inn on Outer Jackson Street and Audra had taken a room at the Holiday Inn; the two motels were side by side, their parking lots divided only by a raised concrete sidewalk. And as it so happened, Audras rented Datsun and Toms purchased LTD wagon were parked nosetonose, separated only by that walkway. Both slept now, Audra quietly on her side, Tom Rogan on his back, snoring so heavily that his swollen lips flapped. 9 Henry spent that day hidinghiding in the puckies beside Route 9. Sometimes he slept. Sometimes he lay watching police cruisers slide by like hunting dogs. While the Losers ate lunch, Henry listened to voices from the moon. And when dark fell, he went out to the verge of the road and stuck out his thumb. After awhile, some fool came along and picked him up. DERRY THE THIRD INTERLUDE A bird came down the Walk He did not know I saw He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw Emily Dickinson, A Bird Came Down the Walk March 17th,1985 The fire at the Black Spot happened in the late fall of 1930. So far as I am able to determine, that firethe one my father barely escapedended the cycle of murder and disappearance which happened in the years 192930, just as the explosion at the Ironworks ended a cycle some twentyfive years before. It is as if a monstrous sacrifice is needed at the end of the cycle to quiet whatever terrible force it is which works here... to send It to sleep for another quartercentury or so. But if such a sacrifice is needed to end each cycle, it seems that some similar event is needed to set each cycle in motion. Which brings me to the Bradley Gang. Their execution took place at the threeway intersection of Canal, Main, and Kansasnot far, in fact, from the place shown in the picture which began to move for Bill and Richie one day in June of 1958some thirteen months before the fire at the Black Spot, in October of 1929 ... not long before the stockmarket crash. As with the fire at the Black Spot, many Derry residents affect not to remember what happened that day. Or they were out of town, visiting relatives. Or they were napping that afternoon and never found out what had happened until they heard it on the radio news that night. Or they will simply look you full in the face and lie to you. The police logs for that day indicate that Chief Sullivan was not even in town (Sure I remember, Aloysius Nell told me from a chair on the sunterrace of the Paulson Nursing Home in Bangor. That was my first year on the force, and I ought to remember. He was off in western Maine, birdhunting. Theyd been sheeted and carried off by the time he got back. Madder than a wet hen was Jim Sullivan), but a picture in a reference book on gangsters called Bloodletters and Badmen shows a grinning man standing beside the bulletriddled corpse of A1 Bradley in the morgue, and if that man is not Chief Sullivan, it is surely his twin brother. It was from Mr. Keene that I finally got what I believe to be the true version of the storyNorbert Keene, who was the proprietor of the Center Street Drug Store from 1925 until 1975. He talked to me willingly enough, but, like Betty Ripsoms father, he made me turn off my taperecorder before he would really unwind the talenot that it mattered; I can hear his papery voice yetanother a capella singer in the damned choir that is this town. No reason not to tell you, he said. No one will print it, and no one would believe it even if they did. He offered me an oldfashioned apothecary jar. Licorice whip? As I remember, you were always partial to the red ones, Mikey. I took one. Was Chief Sullivan there that day? Mr. Keene laughed and took a licorice whip for himself. You wondered about that, did you? I wondered, I agreed, chewing a piece of the red licorice. I hadnt had one since I was a kid, shoving my pennies across the counter to a much younger and sprier Mr. Keene. It tasted just as fine as it had back then. Youre too young to remember when Bobby Thomson hit his home run for the Giants in the playoff game in 1951, Mr. Keene said. You wouldnt have been but four years old. Well! They ran an article about that game in the newspaper a few years after, and it seemed like just about a million folks from New York claimed they were there in the ballpark that day. Mr. Keene gummed his licorice whip and a little dark drool ran down from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it off fastidiously with his handkerchief. We were sitting in the office behind the drugstore, because although Norbert Keene was eightyfive and retired ten years, he still did the books for his grandson. Just the opposite when it comes to the Bradley Gang! Keene exclaimed. He was smiling, but it was not a pleasant smileit was cynical, coldly reminiscent. There was maybe twenty thousand people who lived in downtown Derry back then. Main Street and Canal Street had both been paved for four years, but Kansas Street was still dirt. Raised dust in the summer and turned into a boghole every March and November. They used to oil UpMile Hill every June and every Fourth of July the Mayor would talk about how they were going to pave Kansas Street, but it never happened until 1942. It... but what was I saying? Twenty thousand people who lived right downtown, I prompted. Oh. Ayuh. Well, of those twenty thousand, theres probably half that have passed away since, maybe even morefifty years is a long time. And people have a funny way of dying young in Derry. Perhaps it is the air. But of those left, I dont think youd find more than a dozen whod say they were in town the day the Bradley Gang went to Tophet. Butch Rowden over at the meat market would fess up to it, I guesshe keeps a picture of one of the cars they had up on the wall where he cuts meat. Looking at that picture youd hardly know it was a car. Charlotte Littlefield would tell you a thing or two, if you could get on her good side; she teaches over to the high school, and although I reckon she must not have been more than ten or twelve at the time I bet she remembers plenty. Carl Snow... Aubrey Stacey... Eben Stampnell ... and that old geezer who paints those funny pictures and drinks all night at WallysPickman, I think his name istheyd remember. They were all there.... He trailed off vaguely, looking at the licorice whip in his hand. I thought of prodding him and decided not to. At last he said, Most of the others would lie about it, the way people lied and said they were there when Bobby Thomson hit his homer, thats all I mean. But people lied about being at that ballgame because they wished they had been there. People would lie to you about being in Derry that day because they wish they hadnt been. Do you understand me, sonny? I nodded. You sure you want to hear the rest of this? Mr. Keene asked me. Youre looking a bit peaked, Mr. Mikey. I dont, I said, but I think I better, all the same. Okay, Mr. Keene said mildly. It was my day for memories; as he offered me the apothecary jar with the licorice whips in it, I suddenly remembered a radio program my mother and dad used to listen to when I was just a little kid Mr. Keene, Tracer of Lost Persons. Sheriff was there that day, all right. He was sposed to go birdhunting, but he changed his mind damn quick when Lal Machen came in and told him that he was expecting Al Bradley that very afternoon. How did Machen know that? I asked. Well, thats an instructive tale in itself, Mr. Keene said, and the cynical smile creased his face again. Bradley wasnt never Public Enemy Number One on the FBIs hit parade, but they had wanted himsince 1928 or so. To show they could cut the mustard, I guess. Al Bradley and his brother George hit six or seven banks across the Midwest and then kidnapped a banker for ransom. The ransom was paidthirty thousand dollars, a big sum for those daysbut they killed the banker anyway. By then the Midwest had gotten a little toasty for the gangs that ran there, so Al and George and their litter of ratlings run northeast, up this way. They rented themselves a big farmhouse just over the town line in Newport, not far from where the Rhulin Farms are today. That was in the dogdays of 29, maybe July, maybe August, maybe even early September... I dont know for sure just when. There were eight of emAl Bradley, George Bradley, Joe Conklin and his brother Cal, an Irishman named Arthur Malloy who was called Creeping Jesus Malloy because he was nearsighted but wouldnt put on his specs unless he absolutely had to, and Patrick Caudy, a young fellow from Chicago who was said to be killcrazy but as handsome as Adonis. There were also two women with them Kitty Donahue, George Bradleys commonlaw wife, and Marie Hauser, who belonged to Caudy but sometimes got passed around, according to the stories we all heard later. They made one bad assumption when they got up here, sonnythey got the idea they were so far away from Indiana that they were safe. They laid low for awhile, and then got bored and decided they wanted to go hunting. They had plenty of firepower but they were a bit low on ammunition. So they all came into Derry on the seventh of October in two cars. Patrick Caudy took the women around shopping while the other men went into Machens Sporting Goods. Kitty Donahue bought a dress in Freeses, and she died in it two days later. Lal Machen waited on the men himself. He died in 1959. Too fat, he was. Always too fat. But there wasnt nothing wrong with his eyes, and he knew it was Al Bradley the minute he walked in, he said. He thought he recognized some of the others, but he wasnt sure of Malloy until he put on his specs to look at a display of knives in a glass case. Al Bradley walked up to him and said, Wed like to buy some ammunition. Well, Lal Machen says, you come to the right place. Bradley handed him a paper and Lal read it over. The paper has been lost, at least so far as I know, but Lal said it would have turned your blood cold. They wanted five hundred rounds of .38caliber ammunition, eight hundred rounds of .45caliber, sixty rounds of .50caliber, which they dont even make anymore, shotgun shells loaded both with buck and bird, and a thousand rounds each of .22 short and longrifle. Plusget thissixteen thousand rounds of .45 machinegun bullets. Holy shit! I said. Mr. Keene smiled that cynical smile again and offered me the apothecary jar. At first I shook my head and then I took another whip. This here is quite a shoppinglist, boys, Lal says. Come on, Al, Creeping Jesus Malloy says. I told you we wasnt going to get it in a hick town like this. Lets go on up to Bangor. They wont have nothing there either, but I can use a ride. Now hold your horses, Lal says, just as cool as a cucumber. This here is one hell of a good order and I wouldnt want to lose it to that Jew up Bangor. I can give you the .22s right now, also the bird and half the buck. I can give you a hundred rounds each of the .38 and .45caliber, too. I could have the rest for you... And here Lal sort of halfclosed his eyes and tapped his chin, as if calculating it out. ... by day after tomorrow. Howd that be? Bradley grinned like hed split his head around the back and said it sounded just as fine as paint. Cal Conklin said hed still like to go on up to Bangor, but he was outvoted. Now, if youre not sure you can make good on this order, you ought to say so right now, Al Bradley says to Lal, because Im a pretty fine fellow but when I get mad you dont want to get into a pissing contest with me. You follow? I do, Lal says, and Ill have all the ammo you could want, Mr.? Rader, Bradley says. Richard D. Rader, at your service. He stuck out his hand and Lai pumped it, grinning all the while. Real pleased, Mr. Rader. So then Bradley asked him what would be a good time for him and his friends to drop by and pick up the goods, and Lal Machen asked them right back how two in the afternoon sounded to them. They agreed that would be fine. Out they went. Lal watched them go. They met the two women and Caudy on the sidewalk outside. Lal recognized Caudy, too. So, Mr. Keene said, looking at me brighteyed, what do you think Lal done then? Called the cops? I guess he didnt, I said, based on what happened. Me, I would have broken my leg getting to the telephone. Well, maybe you would and maybe you wouldnt, Mr. Keene said with that same cynical, brighteyed smile, and I shivered because I knew what he meant... and he knew I knew. Once something heavy begins to roll, it cant be stopped; its simply going to roll until it finds a flat place long enough to wear away all of its forward motion. You can stand in front of that thing and get flattened ... but that wont stop it, either. Maybe you would have and maybe you wouldnt, Mr. Keene repeated. But I can tell you what Lal Machen did. The rest of that day and all of the next, when someone he knew came insome manwhy, he would tell them that he knew who had been out in the woods around the NewportDerry line shooting at deer and grouse and God knows what else with Kansas City typewriters. It was the Bradley Gang. He knew for a fact because he had recognized em. Hed tell em that Bradley and his men were coming back the next day around two to pick up the rest of their order. Hed tell them hed promised Bradley all the ammunition he could want, and that was a promise he intended to keep. How many? I asked. I felt hypnotized by his glittering eye. Suddenly the dry smell of this back roomthe smell of prescription drugs and powders, of Musterole and Vicks VapoRub and Robitussin cough syrupsuddenly all those smells seemed suffocating ... but I could no more have left than I could kill myself by holding my breath. How many men did Lal pass the word to? Mr. Keene asked. I nodded. Dont know for sure, Mr. Keene said. Didnt stand right there and take up sentry duty.