All those he felt he could trust, I suppose. Those he could trust, I mused. My voice was a little hoarse. Ayuh, Mr. Keene said. Derrymen, you know. Not that many of em raised cows. He laughed at this old joke before going on. I came in around ten the day after the Bradleys first dropped in on Lal. He told me the story, then asked how he could help me. Id only come in to see if my last roll of pictures had been developedin those days Machens handled all the Kodak films and camerasbut after I got my photos I also said I could use some ammo for my Winchester. You gonna shoot some game, Norb? Lal asks me, passing over the shells. Might plug some varmints, I said, and we had us a chuckle over that. Mr. Keene laughed and slapped his skinny leg as if this was still the best joke he had ever heard. He leaned forward and tapped my knee. All I mean, son, is that the story got around all it needed to. Small towns, you know. If you tell the right people, what you need to pass along will get along ... see what I mean? Like another licorice whip? I took one with numb fingers. Make you fat, Mr. Keene said, and cackled. He looked old then... infinitely old, with his bifocals slipping down the gaunt blade of his nose and the skin stretched too tight and thin across his cheeks to wrinkle. The next day I brought my rifle into the store with me and Bob Tanner, who worked harder than any assistant I ever had after him, brought in his pops shotgun. Around eleven that day Gregory Cole came in for a bicarb of soda and damned if he didnt have a Colt .45 jammed right in his belt. Dont blow your balls off with that, Greg, I said. I come out of the woods all the way from Milford for this and I got one fuck of a hangover, Greg says. I guess Ill blow someones balls off before the sun goes down. Around onethirty, I put the little sign I had, BE BACK SOON, PLEASE BE PATIENT, in the door and took my rifle and walked out the back into Richards Alley. I asked Bob Tanner if he wanted to come along and he said hed better finish filling Mrs. Emersons prescription and hed see me later. Leave me a live one, Mr. Keene, he said, but I allowed as how I couldnt promise nothing. There was hardly any traffic on Canal Street at all, either on foot or by car. Every now and then a delivery truck would pass, but that was about all. I saw Jake Pinnette cross over and he had a rifle in each hand. He met Andy Criss, and they walked over to one of the benches that used to stand where the War Memorial wasyou know, where the Canal goes underground. Petie Vanness and Al Nell and Jimmy Gordon were all sitting on the courthouse steps, eating sandwiches and fruit out of their dinnerbuckets, trading with each other for stuff that looked better to them, the way kids do on the schoolyard. They was all armed. Jimmy Gordon had himself a World War I Springfield that looked bigger than he did. I see a kid go walking toward UpMile HillI think maybe it was Zack Denbrough, the father of your old buddy, the one who turned out to be a writerand Kenny Borton says from the window of the Christian Science Reading Room, You want to get out of here, kid; theres going to be shooting. Zack took one look at his face and ran like hell. There were men everywhere, men with guns, standing in doorways and sitting on steps and looking out of windows. Greg Cole was sitting in a doorway down the street with his 45 in his lap and about two dozen shells lined up beside him like toy sojers. Bruce Jagermeyer and that Swede, Olaf Theramenius, were standing underneath the marquee of the Bijou in the shade. Mr. Keene looked at me, through me. His eyes were not sharp now; they were hazy with memory, soft as the eyes of a man only become when he is remembering one of the best times of his lifethe first home run he ever hit, maybe, or the first trout he ever landed that was big enough to keep, or the first time he ever lay with a willing woman. I remember I heard the wind, sonny, he said dreamily. I remember hearing the wind and hearing the courthouse clock toll two. Bob Tanner came up behind me and I was so tightwired I almost blew his head off. He only nodded at me and crossed over to Vannocks Dry Goods, trailing his shadow out behind him. You would have thought that when it got to be twoten and nothing happened, then twofifteen, then twotwenty, folks would have just up and left, wouldnt you? But it didnt happen that way at all. People just kept their place. Because Because you knew they were going to come, didnt you? I asked. There was never any question at all. He beamed at me like a teacher pleased with a students recital. Thats right! he said. We knew. No one had to talk about it, no one had to say, Wellnow, lets wait until twenty past and if they dont show Ive got to get back to work. Things just stayed quiet, and around twotwentyfive that afternoon these two cars, one red and one dark blue, started down UpMile Hill and came into the intersection. One of them was a Chevrolet and the other was a La Salle. The Conklin brothers, Patrick Caudy, and Marie Hauser were in the Chevrolet. The Bradleys, Malloy, and Kitty Donahue were in the La Salle. They started through the intersection okay, and then Al Bradley slammed on the brakes of that La Salle so sudden that Caudy damn near ran into him. The street was too quiet and Bradley knew it. He wasnt nothing but an animal, but it doesnt take much to put up an animals wind when its been chased like a weasel in the corn for four years. He opened the door of the La Salle and stood up on the running board for a moment. He looked around, then he made a goback gesture to Caudy with his hand. Caudy said, What, boss? I heard that plain as day, the only thing I heard any of them say that day. There was a wink of sun, too, I remember that. It came off a compact mirror. The Hauser woman was powdering her nose. That was when Lal Machen and his helper, Biff Marlow, came running out of Machens store. Put em up, Bradley, youre surrounded! Lal shouts, and before Bradley could do more than turn his head, Lal started blasting. He was wild at first, but then he put one into Bradleys shoulder. The claret started to pour out of that hole right away. Bradley caught hold of the La Salles doorpost and swung himself back into the car. He threw it into gear, and thats when everyone started to shoot. It was all over in four, maybe five minutes, but it seemed a whole hell of a lot longer while it was happening. Petie and Al and Jimmy Gordon just sat there on the courthouse steps and poured bullets into the back end of the Chevrolet. I saw Bob Tanner down on one knee, firing and working the bolt on that old rifle of his like a madman. Jagermeyer and Theramenius were shooting into the right side of the La Salle from under the theater marquee and Greg Cole stood in the gutter, holding that .45 automatic out in both hands, pulling the trigger just as fast as he could work it. There must have been fifty, sixty men firing all at once. After it was all over Lal Machen dug thirtysix slugs out of the brick sides of his store. And that was three days later, after just about everydamnbody in town who wanted one for a souvenir had come down and dug one out with his penknife. When it was at its worst, it sounded like the Battle of the Marne. Windows were blown in by riflefire all around Machens. Bradley got the La Salle around in a halfcircle and he wasnt slow but by the time hed done he was running on four flats. Both the headlights were blowed out, and the windscreen was gone. Creeping Jesus Malloy and George Bradley were each at a backseat window, firing pistols. I seen one bullet take Malloy high up in the neck and tear it wide open. He shot twice more and then collapsed out the window with his arms hanging down. Caudy tried to turn the Chevrolet and only ran into the back end of Bradleys La Salle. That was really the end of em right there, son. The Chevrolets front bumper locked with the La Salles back one and there went any chance they might have had to make a run for it. Joe Conklin got out of the back seat and just stood there in the middle of the intersection, a pistol in each hand, and started to pour it on. He was shooting at Jake Pinnette and Andy Criss. The two of them fell off the bench theyd been sitting on and landed in the grass, Andy Criss shouting Im killed! Im killed! over and over again, although he was never so much as touched; neither of them were. Joe Conklin, he had time to fire both his guns empty before anything so much as touched him. His coat flew back and his pants twitched like some woman you couldnt see was stitching on them. He was wearing a straw hat, and it flew off his head so you could see how hed centerparted his hair. He had one of his guns under his arm and was trying to reload the other when someone cut the legs out from under him and he went down. Kenny Borton claimed him later, but there was really no way to tell. Could have been anybody. Conklins brother Cal came out after him soons Joe fell and down he went like a ton of bricks with a hole in his head. Marie Hauser came out. Maybe she was trying to surrender, I dunno. She still had the compact shed been using to powder her nose in her right hand. She was screaming, I believe, but by then it was hard to hear. Bullets was flying all around them. That compact mirror was blown right out of her hand. She started back to the car then but she took one in the hip. She made it somehow and managed to crawl inside again. Al Bradley revved the La Salle up just as high as it would go, and managed to get it moving again. He dragged the Chevrolet maybe ten feet before the bumper tore right offn it. The boys poured lead into it. All the windows was busted. One of the mudguards was laying in the street. Malloy was dead hanging out the window, but both of the Bradley brothers were still alive. George was firing from the back seat. His woman was dead beside him with one of her eyes shot out. Al Bradley got to the big intersection, then his auto mounted the curb and stopped there. He got out from behind the wheel and started running up Canal Street. He was riddled. Patrick Caudy got out of the Chevrolet, looked as if he was going to surrender for a minute, then he grabbed a .38 from a cheaterholster under his armpit. He triggered it off maybe three times, just firing wild, and then his shirt blew back from his chest in flames. He slid down the side of the Chevy until he was sitting on the running board. He shot one more time, and so far as I know that was the only bullet that hit anyone; it ricocheted off something and then grazed across the back of Greg Coles hand. Left a scar he used to show off when he was drunk until someoneAl Nell, maybetook him aside and told him it might be a good idea to shut up about what happened to the Bradley Gang. The Hauser woman came out and that time wasnt any doubt she was trying to surrendershe had her hands up. Maybe no one really meant to kill her, but by then there was a crossfire and she walked right into it. George Bradley run as far as that bench by the War Memorial, then someone pulped the back of his head with a shotgun blast. He fell down dead with his pants full of piss.... Hardly aware I was doing it, I took a licorice whip from the jar. They went on pouring rounds into those cars for another minute or so before it began to taper off, Mr. Keene said. When men get their blood up, it doesnt go down easy. That was when I looked around and saw Sheriff Sullivan behind Nell and the others on the courthouse steps, putting rounds through that dead Chevy with a Remington pump. Dont let anyone tell you he wasnt there; Norbert Keene is sitting in front of you and telling you he was. By the time the firing stopped, those cars didnt look like cars at all anymore, just hunks of junk with glass around them. Men started to walk over to them. No one talked. All you could hear was the wind and feet gritting over broken glass. Thats when the picturetaking started. And you ought to know this, sonny when the picturetaking starts, the story is over. Mr. Keene rocked in his chair, his slippers bumping placidly on the floor, looking at me. Theres nothing like that in the Derry News, was all I could think of to say. The headline for that day had read STATE POLICE, FBI GUN DOWN BRADLEY GANG IN PITCHED BATTLE. With the subhead Local Police Lend Support. Course not, Mr. Keene said, laughing delightedly. I seen the publisher, Mack Laughlin, put two rounds into Joe Conklin himself. Christ, I muttered. Get enough licorice, sonny? I got enough, I said. I licked my lips. Mr. Keene, how could a thing of that... that magnitude... be covered up? Wasnt no coverup, he said, looking honestly surprised. It was just that no one talked about it much. And really, who cared? It wasnt President and Mrs. Hoover that went down that day. It was no worse than shooting mad dogs that would kill you with a bite if you give them half a chance. But the women? Couple of whores, he said indifferently. Besides, it happened in Derry, not in New York or Chicago. The place makes it news as much as what happened in the place, sonny. Thats why there are bigger headlines when an earthquake kills twelve people in Los Angeles than there are when one kills three thousand in some heathen country in the Mideast. Besides, it happened in Derry. Ive heard it before, and I suppose if I continue to pursue this Ill hear it again... and again ... and again. They say it as if speaking patiently to a mental defective. They say it the way they would say Because of gravity if you asked them how come you stick to the ground when you walk. They say it as if it were a natural law any natural man should understand. And, of course, the worst of that is I do understand. I had one more question for Norbert Keene. Did you see anyone at all that day that you didnt recognize once the shooting started? Mr. Keenes answer was quick enough to drop my blood temperature ten degreesor so it felt. The clown, you mean? How did you find out about him, sonny? Oh, I heard it somewhere, I said. I only caught a glimpse of him. Once things got hot, I tended pretty much to my own knittin. I glanced around just once and saw him upstreet beyond them Swedes under the Bijous marquee, Mr. Keene said. He wasnt wearing a clown suit or nothing like that. He was dressed in a pair of farmers biballs and a cotton shirt underneath. But his face was covered with that white greasepaint they use, and he had a big red clown smile painted on. Also had these tufts of fake hair, you know. Orange. Sorta comical. Lal Machen never saw that fellow, but Biff did. Only Biff must have been confused, because he thought he saw him in one of the windows of an apartment over somewhere to the left, and once when I asked Jimmy Gordonhe was killed in Pearl Harbor, you know, went down with his ship, the California, I think it washe said he saw the guy behind the War Memorial. Mr. Keene shook his head, smiling a little. Its funny how people get during a thing like that, and even funnier what they remember after its all over. You can listen to sixteen different tales and no two of them will jibe together. Take the gun that clown fellow had, for instance Gun? I asked. He was shooting, too? Ayuh, Mr. Keene said. The one glimpse I caught of him, it looked like he had a Winchester boltaction, and it wasnt until later that I figured out I must have thought that because thats what I had. Biff Marlow thought he had a Remington, because that was what he had. And when I asked Jimmy about it, he said that guy was shooting an old Springfield, just like his. Funny, huh? Funny, I managed. Mr. Keene... didnt any of you wonder what in hell a clown, especially one in farmers biballs, was doing there just then? Sure, Mr. Keene said. It wasnt no big deal, you understand, but sure we wondered. Most of us figured it was somebody who wanted to attend the party but didnt want to be recognized. A Town Council member, maybe. Horst Mueller, maybe, or even Trace Naugler, who was mayor back then. Or it could just have been a professional man who didnt want to be recognized. A doctor or a lawyer. I wouldntve recognized my own father in a getup like that. He laughed a little and I asked him what was funny. Theres also a possibility that it was a real clown, he said. Back in the twenties and thirties the county fair in Esty came a lot earlier than it does now, and it was set up and going full blast the week that the Bradley Gang met their end. There were clowns at the county fair. Maybe one of them heard we were going to have our own little carnival and rode down because he wanted to be in on it. He smiled at me, dryly. Im about talked out, he said, but Ill tell you one more thing, since you pear to be so interested and you listen so close. It was something Biff Marlow said about sixteen years later, when we were having a few beers up to Pilots in Bangor. Right out of a clear blue sky he said it. Said that clown was leanin out of the window so far that Biff couldnt believe he wasnt fallin out. It wasnt just his head and shoulders and arms that was out; Biff said he was right out to the knees, hanging there in midair, shooting down at the cars the Bradleys had come in, with that big red grin on his face. He was tricked out like a jackolantern that had got a bad scare, was how Biff put it. Like he was floating, I said. Ayuh, Mr. Keene agreed. And Biff said there was something else, something that bothered him for weeks afterward. One of those things you get right on the tip of your tongue but wont quite come off, or something that lights on your skin like a mosquito or a noseeum. He said he finally figured out what it was one night when he had to get up and tap a kidney. He stood there whizzing into the bowl, thinking of nothing in particular, when it come to him all at once that it was twotwentyfive in the afternoon when the shooting started and the sun was out but that clown didnt cast any shadow. No shadow at all. PART 4 JULY OF 1958 You lethargic, waiting upon me, waiting for the fire and I attendant upon you, shaken by your beauty Shaken by your beauty Shaken. William Carlos Williams, Paterson Well I was born in my birthday suit The doctor slapped my behind He said You gonna be special You sweet little toot toot. Sidney Simien, My Toot Toot CHAPTER 13 The Apocalyptic Rockfight 1 Bills there first. He sits in one of the wingback chairs just inside the Reading Room door, watching as Mike deals with the librarys last few customers of the nightan old lady with a clutch of paperback gothics, a man with a huge historical tome on the Civil War, and a skinny kid waiting to check out a novel with a sevendayrental sticker in an upper corner of its plastic cover. Bill sees with no sense of surprise or serendipity at all that it is his own latest novel. He feels that surprise is beyond him, serendipity a believedin reality that has turned out to be only a dream after all. A pretty girl, her tartan skirt held together with a big gold safety pin (Christ, I havent seen one of those in years, Bill thinks, are they coming back?), is feeding quarters into the Xerox machine and copying an offprint with one eye on the big pendulum clock behind the checkout desk. The sounds are librarysoft and librarycomforting the hushsqueak of soles and heels on the redandblack linoleum of the floor; the steady tock and tick of the clock dropping off dry seconds; the catlike purr of the copying machine. The boy takes his William Denbrough novel and goes to the girl at the copier just as she finishes and begins to square up her pages. You can just leave that offprint on the desk, Mary, Mike says. Ill put it away. She flashes a grateful smile. Thanks, Mr. Hanlon. Goodnight. Goodnight, Billy. The two of you go right home.  The boogeyman will get you if you dont ... watch ... out! Billy, the skinny kid, chants and slips a proprietary arm around the girls slim waist. Well, I dont think hed want a pair as ugly as you two, Mike says, but be careful, all the same.  We will, Mr. Hanlon, Mary replies, seriously enough, and punches the boy lightly on the shoulder. Come on, ugly,  she says, and giggles. When she does this she is transformed from a pretty mildly desirable highschool junior into the coltish notquitegawky elevenyearold that Beverly Marsh had been... and as they pass him Bill is shaken by her beauty... and he feels fear; he wants to go to the boy and tell him earnestly that he must go home by welllighted streets and not look around if someone speaks. You cant be careful on a skateboard, mister, a phantom voice says inside his head, and Bill smiles a rueful grownups smile. He watches the boy open the door for his girl. They go into the vestibule, moving closer together, and Bill would have bet the royalties of the book the boy named Billy is holding under his arm that he has stolen a kiss before opening the outer door for the girl. More fool you if you didnt, Billy my man, he thinks. Now see her home safe. For Christs sake see her home safe! Mike calls, Be right with you, Big Bill. Just let me file this. Bill nods and crosses his legs. The paper bag on his lap crackles a little. Theres a pint of bourbon inside and he reckons he has never wanted a drink so badly in his life as he does right now. Mike will be able to supply water, if not iceandthe way he feels right now, a very little water will be enough. He thinks of Silver, leaning against the wall of Mikes garage on Palmer Lane. And from that his thoughts progress naturally to the day they had met in the Barrensall except Mikeand each had told his tale again lepers under porches; mummies who walked on the ice; blood from drains and dead boys in the Standpipe and pictures that moved and werewolves that chased small boys down deserted streets. They had gone deeper into the Barrens that day before the Fourth of July, he remembers now. It had been hot in town but cool in the tangled shade on the eastern bank of the Kenduskeag. He remembers one of those concrete cylinders not far away, humming to itself, the way the Xerox machine had hummed for the pretty highschool girl just now. Bill remembers that, and how, when all the stories were done, the others had looked at him. They had wanted him to tell them what they should do next, how they should proceed, and he simply didnt know. The not knowing had filled him with a kind of desperation. Looking at Mikes shadow now, looming large on the darkly paneled wall in the reference room, a sudden sureness comes to him he hadnt known then because they hadnt been complete when they met that July 3rd afternoon. The completion had come later, at the abandoned gravelpit beyond the dump, where you could climb out of the Barrens easily on either sideKansasStreet or Merit Street. Right around, in fact, where the Interstate overpass was now. The gravelpit had no name; it was old, its crumbly sides crabby with weeds and bushes. There had still been plenty of ammunition theremore than enough for an apocalyptic rockfight. But before that, on the bank of the Kenduskeag, he hadnt been sure what to saywhatdid they want him to say? What did he want to say? He remembers looking from one face to the nextBens; Bevs; Eddies; Stans; Richies. And he remembers music. Little Richard. Whompbompalompbomp ... Music. Low. And darts of light in his eyes. He remembers the darts of light because 2 Richie had hung his transistor radio over the lowermost branch of the tree he was leaning against. Although they were in the shade, the sun bounced off the surface of the Kenduskeag, onto the radios chrome facing, and from there into Bills eyes. TTake that thhing dddown, RuhRuhRichie, Bill said. Its gonna buhblind mmme. Sure, Big Bill, Richie said at once, with no smartmouth at all, and removed the radio from the branch. He also turned it off, and Bill wished he hadnt done that; it made the silence, broken only by the rippling water and the vague hum of the sewagepumping machinery, seem very loud. Their eyes watched him and he wanted to tell them to look somewhere else, what did they think he was, a freak? But of course he couldnt do that, because all they were doing was waiting for him to tell them what to do now. They had come by dreadful knowledge, and they needed him to tell them what to do with it. Why me? he wanted to shout at them, but of course he knew that, too. It was because, like it or not, he had been tapped for the position. Because he was the ideaman, because he had lost a brother to whatever it was, but most of all because he had become, in some obscure way he would never completely understand, Big Bill. He glanced at Beverly and looked away quickly from the calm trust in her eyes. Looking at Beverly made him feel funny in the pit of his stomach. Fluttery. We cuhcant go to the pppolice, he said at last. His voice sounded harsh to his own ears, too loud. We ccahan t ggo to our puhhuhharents, either. Unless ... He looked hopefully at Richie. What aaabout your mmom and ddad, foureyes? They suhheem ppretty rehrehregular. My good man, Richie said in his Toodles the Butler Voice, you obviously have no understahnding whatsoevah of my mater and pater. They Talk American, Richie, Eddie said from his spot by Ben. He was sitting by Ben for the simple reason that Ben provided enough shade for Eddie to sit in. His face looked small and pinched and worriedan old mans face. His aspirator was in his right hand. Theyd think I was ready for Juniper Hill, Richie said. He was wearing an old pair of glasses today. The day before a friend of Henry Bowerss named Gard Jagermeyer had come up behind Richie as Richie left the Derry Ice Cream Bar with a pistachio cone. Tag, youre it! this Jagermeyer, who outweighed Richie by forty pounds or so, screamed, and slammed Richie full in the back with both hands laced together. Richie flew into the gutter, losing his glasses and his icecream cone. The left lens of his glasses had shattered, and his mother was furious with him about it, lending very little credence to Richies explanations. All I know is that it was a lot of fooling around, she had said. Honestly, Richie, do you think theres a glassestree somewhere and we can just pull off a new pair of spectacles for you whenever you break the old pair? But Mom, this kid pushed me, he came up behind me, this big kid, and pushed me Richie was by then near tears. This failure to make his mother understand hurt much worse than being slammed into the gutter by Gard Jagermeyer, who was so stupid they hadnt even bothered to send him to summerschool. I dont want to hear any more about it, Maggie Tozier said flatly. But the next time you see your father come in looking whipped after working late three nights in a row, you think a little bit, Richie. You think about it. But Mom No more, I said. Her voice was curt and finalworse, it was near tears. She left the room then and the TV went on much too loud. Richie had been left alone sitting miserably at the kitchen table. It was this memory that caused Richie to shake his head again. My folks are okay, but theyd never believe something like this. WWhat aaabout other kihkids? And they looked around, Bill would remember years later, as if for someone who wasnt there. Who? Stan asked doubtfully. I cant think of anyone else I trust. Just the suhsuhsame ... Bill said in a troubled voice, and a little silence fell among them while Bill thought about what to say next. 3 If asked, Ben Hanscom would have told you that Henry Bowers hated him more than any of the others in the Losers Club, because of what had happened that day when he and Henry had shot the chutes down into the Barrens from Kansas Street, because of what had happened the day he and Richie and Beverly escaped from the Aladdin, but most of all because, by not allowing Henry to copy during examinations, he had caused Henry to be sent to summerschool and incur the wrath of his father, the reputedly insane Butch Bowers. If asked, Richie Tozier would have told you Henry hated him more than any of the others, because of the day he had fooled Henry and his two other musketeers in Freeses. Stan Uris would have told you that Henry hated him most of all because he was a Jew (when Stan had been in the third grade and Henry the fifth, Henry had once washed Stans face with snow until it bled and he was screaming hysterically with pain and fear). Bill Denbrough believed that Henry hated him the most because he was skinny, because he stuttered, and because he liked to dress well (LLLook at the ffffucking puhpuhPANSY! Henry had cried when the Derry School had had Careers Day in April and Bill had come wearing a tie; before the day was over, the tie had been ripped off and flung into a tree halfway down Charter Street). He did hate all four of them, but the boy in Derry who was number one on Henrys personal Hate Parade was not in the Losers Club at all on that July 3rd; he was a black boy named Michael Hanlon, who lived a quarter of a mile down the road from the shirttail Bowers farm. Henrys father, who was every bit as crazy as he was reputed to be, was Oscar Butch Bowers. Butch Bowers associated his financial, physical, and mental decline with the Hanlon family in general and with Mikes father in particular. Will Hanlon, he was fond of telling his few friends and his son, had had him thrown in the county jail when all of his, Hanlons, chickens died. Sos he could get the insurance money, dont you know, Butch would say, eying his audience with all the baleful interruptifyoudare pugnacity of Captain Billy Bones in the Admiral Benbow. He got some of his friends to lie him up, and thats why I had to sell my Mercry. Who lied him up, Daddy? Henry had asked when he was eight, burning at the injustice that had been done to his father. He thought to himself that when he was a grownup he would find liaruppers and coat them with honey and stake them out over anthills, like in some of those Western movies they showed at the Bijou Theater on Saturday afternoons. And because his son was a tireless listener (although, if asked, Butch would have maintained that was only as it should be), Bowers Senior filled his sons ears with a litany of hate and hard luck. He explained to his son that while all niggers were stupid, some were cunning as welland down deep they all hated white men and wanted to plow a white womans furrow. Maybe it wasnt just the insurance money after all, Butch said; maybe Hanlon had decided to lay the blame for the dead chickens at his door because Butch had the next produce stand down the road. He done it, anyway, and that was just as sure as shit sticks to a blanket. He done it and then got a bunch of white nigger bleeding hearts from town to lie him up and threaten Butch with state prison if he didnt pay that nigger off. And why not? Butch would ask his roundeyed dirtynecked silent son. Why not? I was just a man who fought the Japs for his country. There was lots of guys like us, but he was the only nigger in the county. The chicken business had been followed by one unlucky incident after anotherhis Deere tractor had blown a rod; his good harrow got busted in the north field; he got a boil on his neck which became infected, had to be lanced, then became infected again and had to be removed surgically; the nigger started using his foully gotten money to undercut Butchs prices so they lost custom. In Henrys ears, it was a constant litany the nigger, the nigger, the nigger. Everything was the niggers fault. The nigger had a nice white house with an upstairs and an oil furnace while Butch and his wife and his son lived in what was not much better than a tarpaper shack. When Butch couldnt make enough money farming and had to go to work in the woods for awhile, it was the niggers fault. When their well went dry in 1956, it was the niggers fault. Later that same year Henry, who was then ten years old, started to feed Mikes dog Mr.


Chips old stewbones and bags of potatochips. It got so Mr. Chips would wag his tail and come running when Henry called. When the dog was well used to Henry and Henrys treats, Henry one day fed him a pound of hamburger laced with insect poison. The bugkiller he found in the back shed; he had saved three weeks to buy the meat at Costellos. Mr. Chips ate half the poisoned meat and then stopped. Go on, finish your treat, Niggerdog, Henry had said. Mr. Chips wagged his tail. Since Henry had called him this from the beginning, he believed it was his other name. When the pains started, Henry produced a piece of clothesline and tied Mr. Chips to a birch so he couldnt get away and run home. He then sat on a flat sunwarmed rock, put his chin in his palms, and watched the dog die. It took a good long time, but Henry considered it time well spent. At the end Mr. Chips began to convulse and a thin green foam ran from between his jaws. How do you like that, Niggerdog? Henry asked it, and it rolled its dying eyes up at the sound of Henrys voice and tried to wag its tail. Did you like your lunch, you shitty mutt? When the dog was dead, Henry removed the clothesline, went home, and told his father what he had done. Oscar Bowers was extremely crazy by that time; a year later his wife would leave him after he beat her nearly to death. Henry was likewise frightened of his father and felt a terrible hate for him sometimes, but he also loved him. And that afternoon, after he had told, he felt he had finally found the key to his fathers affections, because his father had clapped him on the back (so hard that Henry almost fell over), taken him in the living room, and given him a beer. It was the first beer Henry had ever had, and for all the rest of his years he would associate that taste with positive emotions victory and love. Heres to a good job well done, Henrys crazy father had said. They clicked their brown bottles together and drank them down. So far as Henry knew, the niggers had never found out who killed their dog, but he supposed they had their suspicions. He hoped they did. The others in the Losers Club knew Mike by sightin a town where he was the only Negro child, it would have been strange if they had notbut that was all, because Mike didnt go to Derry Elementary School. His mother was a devout Baptist and Mike was therefore sent to the Neibolt Street Church School. In between geography, reading, and arithmetic there were Bible drills, lessons on such subjects as The Meaning of the Ten Commandments in a Godless World, and discussiongroups on how to handle everyday moral problems (if you saw a buddy shoplifting, for instance, or heard a teacher taking the name of God in vain). Mike thought the Church School was okay. There were times when he suspected, in a vague way, that he was missing some thingsa wider communication with kids his own age perhapsbut he was willing to wait until high school for these things to happen. The prospect made him a little nervous because his skin was brown, but both his mother and father had been well treated in town as far as Mike could see, and Mike believed he would be treated well if he treated others the same way. The exception to this rule, of course, was Henry Bowers. Although he tried to show it as little as possible, Mike went in constant terror of Henry. In 1958 Mike was slim and well built, taller than Stan Uris but not quite as tall as Bill Denbrough. He was fast and agile, and that had saved him from several beatings at Henrys hands. And, of course, he went to a different school. Because of that and the age difference, their paths rarely coincided. Mike took pains to keep things that way. So the irony was this although Henry hated Mike Hanlon more than any other kid in Derry, Mike had been the least hurt of any of them. Oh, he had taken his lumps. The spring after he had killed Mikes dog, Henry sprang out of the bushes one day while Mike was walking toward town to go to the library. It was late March, warm enough for bikeriding, but in those days Witcham Road turned to dirt just beyond the Bowers place, which meant that it was a quagmire of mudno good for bikes. Hello, nigger, Henry had said, emerging from the bushes, grinning. Mike backed off, eyes flicking warily right and left, watching for a chance to get away. He knew that if he could buttonhook around Henry, he could outdistance him. Henry was big and Henry was strong, but Henry was also slow. Gonna make me a tarbaby, Henry said, advancing on the smaller boy. Youre not black enough, but Ill fix that. Mike cut his eyes to the left and twitched his body in that direction. Henry took the bait and broke that waytoo fast and too far to pull himself back. Reversing with a sweet and natural speed, Mike took off to the right (in high school he would make the varsity football team as a tailback his sophomore year, and was only kept from breaking the schools alltime scoring record by a broken leg halfway through his senior season). He would have made it easily past Henry but for the mud. It was greasy, and Mike slipped to his knees. Before he could get up, Henry was upon him. Niggerniggernigger! Henry cried in a kind of religious ecstasy as he rolled Mike over. Mud went up the back of Mikes shirt and down the back of his pants. He could feel it squoozing into his shoes. But he did not begin to cry until Henry slathered mud across his face, plugging up both of his nostrils. Now youre black! Henry had screamed gleefully, rubbing mud in Mikes hair. Now youre REEEELY black! He ripped up Mikes poplin jacket and the teeshirt beneath and slammed a poultice of mud down over the boys bellybutton. Now youre as black as midnight in a MINESHAFT! Henry screamed triumphantly, and slammed mudplugs into both of Mikes ears. Then he stood back, muddy hands hooked into his belt, and yelled I killed your dog, black boy! But Mike did not hear this because of the mud in his ears and his own terrified sobs. Henry kicked a final sticky clot of mud onto Mike and then turned and walked home, not looking back. A few moments later, Mike got up and did the same, still weeping. His mother was of course furious; she wanted Will Hanlon to call Chief Borton and have him out to the Bowers house before the sun went down. Hes been after Mikey before, Mike heard her say. He was sitting in the bathtub and his parents were in the kitchen. This was his second tub of water; the first had turned black almost the moment he had stepped into it and sat down. In her fury, his mother had lapsed into a thick Texas patois Mike could barely understand. You put the law on him, Will Hanlon! Both the dog and the pup! You law em, hear me? Will heard, but did not do as his wife asked. Eventually, when she cooled down (by then it was that night and Mike two hours asleep), he refreshed her on the facts of life. Chief Borton was not Sheriff Sullivan. If Borton had been sheriff when the incident of the poisoned chickens occurred, Will would never have gotten his two hundred dollars and would have had to be content with that state of affairs. Some men would stand behind you and some men wouldnt; Borton was of the latter type. He was, in fact, a jellyfish. Mike has had trouble with that kid before, yes, he told Jessica. But he hasnt had much because hes careful around Henry Bowers. This will serve to make him more careful. You mean youre just going to let it go? Bowers has told his son stories about his dealings with me, I guess, Will said, and his son hates the three of us because of them, and because his father has also told him that hating niggers is what men are supposed to do. It all comes back to that. I cant change the fact that our son is a Negro any more than I can sit here and tell you that Henry Bowers is going to be the last one to take after him because his skins brown. Hes going to have to deal with it all the rest of his life, as I have dealt with it, and you have dealt with it. Why, right there in that Christian school you were bound he was going to go to the teacher told them blacks werent as good as whites because Noahs son Ham looked at his father while he was drunk and naked and Noahs other two boys cast their eyes aside. Thats why the sons of Ham were condemned to always be hewers of wood and drawers of water, she said. And Mikey said she was lookin right at him while she told that story to them. Jessica looked at her husband, mute and miserable. Two tears fell, one from each eye, and tracked slowly down her face. Isnt there ever any getting away from it? His reply was kind but implacable; it was a time when wives believed their husbands, and Jessica had no reason to doubt her Will. No. There is no getting away from the word nigger, not now, not in the world weve been given to live in, you and me. Country niggers from Maine are still niggers. I have thought, times, that the reason I came back to Derry was that there is no better place to remember that. But Ill have a talk with the boy. The next day he called Mike out of the barn. Will sat on the yoke of his harrow and patted a place next to him for Mike. You want to stay out of that Henry Bowerss way, he said. Mike nodded. His father is crazy. Mike nodded again. He had heard as much around town. His few glimpses of Mr. Bowers had reinforced the notion. I dont mean just a little crazy, Will said, lighting a homerolled Bugler cigarette and looking at his son. Hes about three steps away from the boobyhatch. He came back from the war that way. I think Henrys crazy too, Mike said. His voice was low but firm, and that strengthened Wills heart ... although he was, even after a checkered life whose incidents had included almost being burned alive in a juryrigged speakeasy called the Black Spot, unable to believe a kid like Henry could be crazy. Well, hes listened to his father too much, but that is only natural, Will said. Yet on this his son was closer to the truth. Henry Bowers, either because of his constant association with his father or because of something elsesome interior thingwas indeed slowly but surely going crazy. I dont want you to make a career out of running away, his father said, but because youre a Negro, youre apt to be put upon a good deal. Do you know what I mean? Yes, Daddy, Mike said, thinking of Bob Gautier at school, who had tried to explain to Mike that nigger could not be a bad word, because his father used it all the time. In fact, Bob told Mike earnestly, it was a good word. When a fighter on the Friday Night Fights took a bad beating and managed to stay on his feet, his daddy said, His head is as hard as a niggers, and when someone was really putting out at his work (which, for Mr. Gautier, was Star Beef in town), his daddy said, That man works like a nigger. And my daddy is just as much a Christian as your daddy, Bob had finished. Mike remembered that, looking at Bob Gautiers white earnest pinched face, surrounded by the mangy fur of his handmedown snowsuithood, he had felt not anger but a terrible sadness that made him feel like crying. He had seen honesty and good intent in Bobs face, but what he had felt was loneliness, distance, a great whistling emptiness between himself and the other boy. I see that you do know what I mean, Will said, and ruffled his sons hair. And what it all comes down to is that you have to be careful where you take your stand. You have to ask yourself if Henry Bowers is worth the trouble. Is he? No, Mike said. No, I dont think so. It would be yet awhile before he changed his mind; July 3rd, 1958, in fact. 4 While Henry Bowers, Victor Criss, Belch Huggins, Peter Gordon, and a halfretarded highschool boy named Steve Sadler (known as Moose, after the character in the Archie comics) were chasing a winded Mike Hanlon through the trainyard and toward the Barrens about half a mile away, Bill and the rest of the Losers Club were still sitting on the bank of the Kenduskeag, pondering their nightmare problem. I nuhknow wwhere ihihit is, I think, Bill said, finally breaking the silence. The sewers, Stan said, and they all jumped at a sudden, harsh rattling noise. Eddie smiled guiltily as he lowered his aspirator back into his lap. Bill nodded. I wuhwuhwas aasking my fuhfather about the suhsewers a ffew nuhhihights aaago. All of this area was originally marsh, Zack told his son, and the town fathers managed to put whats downtown these days in the very worst part of it. The section of the Canal that runs under Center and Main and comes out in Bassey Park is really nothing but a drain that happens to hold the Kenduskeag. Most of the year those drains are almost empty, but theyre important when the spring runoff comes or when there are floods... He paused here, perhaps thinking that it had been during the flood of the previous autumn that he had lost his younger son. ... because of the pumps, he finished. Puhpuhpumps? Bill asked, turning his head a little without even thinking about it. When he stuttered over the plosive sounds, spittle flew from his lips. The drainage pumps, his father said. Theyre in the Barrens. Concrete sleeves that stick about three feet out of the ground BuhBuhBen HHHHanscom calls them MuhMorlock hholes, Bill said, grinning. Zack grinned back... but it was a shadow of his old grin. They were in Zacks workshop, where he was turning chairdowels without much interest. Sumppumps is all they really are, kiddo, he said. They sit in cylinders about ten feet deep, and they pump the sewage and the runoff along when the slope of the land levels out or angles up a little. Its old machinery, and the city should have some new pumps, but the Council always pleads poverty when the item comes up on the agenda at budget meetings. If I had a quarter for every time Ive been down there, up to my knees in crap, rewiring one of those motors... but you dont want to hear all this, Bill. Why dont you go watch TV? I think Sugarfoots on tonight. I dddo wuhwant to hhear it, Bill said, and not only because he had come to the conclusion that there was something terrible under Derry someplace. Why do you want to hear about a bunch of sewerpumps? Zack asked. Skuhskuhhool ruhreport, Bill said wildly. Schools out. NNNext year. Well, its a pretty dull subject, Zack said. Teacherll probably give you an F for putting him to sleep. Look, heres the Kenduskeaghe drew a straight line in the light fall of sawdust on the table in which his bandsaw was embeddedand heres the Barrens. Now, because downtowns lower than the residential areasKansas Street, say, or the Old Cape, or West Broadwaymost of the downtown waste has to be pumped into the river. The waste from the houses flows down to the Barrens pretty much on its own. You see? YYYes, Bill said, drawing a little closer to his father to look at the lines, close enough so that his shoulder was against his fathers arm. Someday theyll put a stop to pumping raw sewage into the river and thatll be an end to the whole business. But for now, weve got those pumps in the... what did your buddy call em? Morlock holes, Bill said, with not a trace of a stutter; neither he nor his father noticed. Yeah. Thats what the pumps in the Morlock holes are for, anyway, and they work pretty well except when theres too much rain and the streams overflow. Because, although the gravity drains and the sewers with the pumps were meant to be separate systems, they actually crisscross all over the place. See? He drew a series of Xs radiating out from the line which represented the Kenduskeag, and Bill nodded. Well, the only thing you need to know about water draining is that it will go wherever it can. When it gets high, it starts to fill up the drains as well as the sewers. When the water in the drains gets high enough to reach those pumps, it shorts them out. Makes trouble for me, because I have to fix them. Dad, hhow big are the suhsewers and drains? You mean, whats the bore on them? Bill nodded. The main sewers are maybe six feet in diameter. The secondaries, from the residential areas, are three or four, I guess. Some of them might be a little bigger. And believe me when I tell you this, Billy, and you can tell your friends you never want to go into one of those pipes, not in a game, not on a dare, not for any reason. Why? A dozen different town governments have built on them since 1885 or so. During the Depression the WPA put in a whole secondary drain system and a tertiary sewer system; there was lots of money for public works back then. But the fellow who bossed those projects got killed in World War II, and about five years later the Water Department found out that the system blueprints were mostly gone. Thats about nine pounds of blues that just disappeared sometime between 1937 and 1950. My point is that nobody knows where all the damned sewers and drains go, or why. When they work, nobody cares. When they dont, theres three or four sad sacks from Derry Water who have to try and find out which pump went flooey or where the plugup is. And when they go down there, they damn well pack a lunch. Its dark and its smelly and there are rats. Those are all good reasons to stay out, but the best reason is that you could get lost. Its happened before. Lost under Derry. Lost in the sewers. Lost in the dark. There was something so dismal and chilling about the idea that Bill was momentarily silenced. Then he said, But havent they ever suhsuhhent people down to map I ought to finish these dowels, Zack said abruptly, turning his back and pulling away. Go on in and see whats on TV. BBBut DahDahDad Go on, Bill, Zack said, and Bill could feel the coldness again. That coldness made suppers a kind of torture as his father leafed through electrical journals (he hoped for a promotion the following year), as his mother read one of her endless British mysteries Marsh, Sayers, Innes, Allingham. Eating in that coldness robbed food of its taste; it was like eating frozen dinners that had never seen the inside of an oven. Sometimes, after, he would go up to his room and lie on his bed, holding his griping stomach, and think He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. He thought of that more and more since Georgie had died, although his mother had taught him the phrase two years before. It had taken on a talismanic cast in his mind the day he could walk up to his mother and simply speak that phrase without tripping or stuttering, looking her right in the eye as he spoke it, the coldness would break apart; her eyes would light up and she would hug him and say, Wonderful, Billy! What a good boy! What a good boy! He had, of course, told this to no one. Wild horses would not have dragged it from him; neither the rack nor the boot would have induced him to give up this secret fantasy, which lay at the very center of his heart. If he could say this phrase which she had taught him casually one Saturday morning as he and Georgie sat watching Guy Madison and Andy Devine in The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, it would be like the kiss that awakened Sleeping Beauty from her cold dreams to the warmer world of the fairytale princes love. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. Nor did he tell it to his friends on that July 3rdbut he told them what his father had told him about the Derry sewer and drain systems. He was a boy to whom invention came easily and naturally (sometimes more easily than telling the truth), and the scene he painted was quite different from the scene in which the conversation had actually taken place he and his old man had been watching the tube together, he said, having cups of coffee. Your dad lets you have coffee? Eddie asked. Shshsure, Bill said. Wow, Eddie said. My mother would never let me have a coffee. She says the caffeine in it is dangerous. He paused. She drinks quite a bit of it herself, though. My dad lets me have coffee if I want it, Beverly said, but hed kill me if he knew I smoked. What makes you so sure its in the sewers? Richie asked, looking from Bill to Stan Uris and then back to Bill again. EEEverything ggoes back tto thththat, Bill said. The vvoices Behheheverly heard ccame from the dddrain. And the bluhblood. When the ccclown chchased us, those oorange buhbuhbuttons were by a suhsewer. And JuhjuhGeorge It wasnt a clown, Big Bill, Richie said. I told you that. I know its crazy, but it was a werewolf. He looked at the others defensively. Honest to God. I saw it. Bill said It was a werewolf for yyyou. Huh? Bill said, DDont you sssee? It was a wuhwuhwerewolf for yyou because yyou saw that duhhumb movie at the AAAAladdin. I dont get it. I think I do, Ben said quietly. I went to the lllibrary and llooked it uhuhup, Bill said. I think Its a gluhgluhhe paused, throat straining, and spat it outa glamour. Glammer? Eddie asked doubtfully. GGGlamour, Bill said, and spelled it. He told them about an encyclopedia entry on the subject and a chapter he had read in a book called Nights Truth. Glamour, he said, was the Gaelic name for the creature which was haunting Derry; other races and other cultures at other times had different words for it, but they all meant the same thing. The Plains Indians called it a manitou, which sometimes took the shape of a mountainlion or an elk or an eagle. These same Indians believed that the spirit of a manitou could sometimes enter them, and at these times it was possible for them to shape the clouds themselves into representations of those animals for which their houses had been named. The Himalayans called it a tallus or taelus, which meant an evil magic being that could read your mind and then assume the shape of the thing you were most afraid of. In Central Europe it had been called eylak, brother of the vurderlak, or vampire. In France it was le loupgarou, or skinchanger, a concept that had been crudely translated as the werewolf, but, Bill told them, le loupgarou (which he pronounced le loopgaroo) could be anything, anything at all a wolf, a hawk, a sheep, even a bug. Did any of those articles tell you how to beat a glamour? Beverly asked. Bill nodded, but he didnt look hopeful. The HHHimalayans had a rihhihitual to gget rihrid of iiit, but ihits pretty gruhgruhgruesome. They looked at him, not wanting to hear but needing to. IIIt was cuhcalled the RRRitual of ChhChd, Bill said, and went on to explain what that was. If you were a Himalayan holyman, you tracked the taelus. The taelus stuck its tongue out. You stuck yours out. You and it overlapped tongues and then you both bit in all the way so you were sort of stapled together, eye to eye. Oh, I think Im gonna puke, Beverly said, rolling over on the dirt. Ben patted her back tentatively, then looked around to see if he had been observed. He hadnt been; the others were looking at Bill, mesmerized. What then? Eddie asked. WWWell, Bill said, this sounds cuhcuhcrazy, bbut the book ssaid that ththen yyou started telling juhjokes and rihriddles. What? Stan asked. Bill nodded, his face that of a correspondent who wants you to knowwithout coming right out and saying itthat he doesnt make the news but only reports it. RRight. FFirst the ttaelas monster would tell ooone, then yyyou got to tttell oone, and yyou wwwent oon like thuhthat, ttaytakin ttums Beverly sat up again, knees against her chest, hands linked around her shins. I dont see how people could talk with their tongues, you know, nailed together. Richie immediately ran out his tongue, gripped it with his fingers, and intoned My father works in a shityard! That broke them all up for awhile even though it was a baby joke. MMaybe it was suhsuhsuhpposed to be tuhtelepathy, Bill said. AAnyway, iif the hhhuman laughed fffirst in spihite of the pppp Pain? Stan asked. Bill nodded. then the taelus ggot to kkkill hhim and eeeeat him. His soul, I think. BBut iif the muhman ccould make the ttaelus llaugh fffirst, it had to go away for a huhhuhhundred yyears. Did the book say where a thing like that would come from? Ben asked. Bill shook his head. Do you believe any of it? Stan asked, sounding as if he wanted to scoff but could not quite find the moral or mental force to do so. Bill shrugged and said, I aaalmost ddo. He seemed about to say more, then shook his head and remained silent. It explains a lot, Eddie said slowly. The clown, the leper, the werewolf ... He looked over at Stan. The dead boys, too, I guess. This sounds like a job for Richard Tozier, Richie said, in the MovieTone Newsreel Announcers Voice. Man of a thousand jokes and six thousand riddles. If we sent you to do it, wed all get killed, Ben said. Slowly. In great pain. At this they all laughed again. So what do we do about it? Stan demanded, and once again Bill could only shake his head... and feel he almost knew. Stan stood up. Lets go somewhere else, he said. Im getting fanny fatigue. I like it here, Beverly said. Its shady and nice. She glanced at Stan. I suppose you want to do something babyish like going down to the dump and breaking bottles with rocks. I like breaking bottles with rocks, Richie said, standing up beside Stan. Its the j.d. in me, baby. He flipped up his collar and began to stalk around like James Dean in Rebel Without aCause. They hurt me, he said, looking moody and scratching his chest. You know, like wow. My parents. School. SoSYety. Everyone. Its pressure, baby. Its Its shit, Beverly said, and sighed. Ive got some firecrackers, Stan said, and they forgot all about glamours, manitous, and Richies bad James Dean imitation as Stan produced a package of Black Cats from his hip pocket. Even Bill was impressed. JJesus Christ, StuhStuhhan, wwhere did you ggget thuhhose? From this fat kid that I go to synagogue with sometimes, Stan said. I traded a bunch of Superman and Little Lulu funnybooks for em. Lets shoot em off! Richie cried, nearly apoplectic in his joy. Lets go shoot em off, Stanny, I wont tell any more guys you and your dad killed Christ, I promise, what do you say? Ill tell em your nose is small, Stanny! Ill tell em youre not circumcised! At this Beverly began to shriek with laughter and actually appeared to be approaching apoplexy before covering her face with her hands. Bill began to laugh, Eddie began to laugh, and after a moment even Stan joined in. The sound of it drifted across the broad shallow expanse of the Kenduskeag on that day before July 4th, a summersound, as bright as the sunrays darting off the water, and none of them saw the orange eyes staring at them from a tangle of brambles and sterile blackberry bushes to their left. This brambly patch scrubbed the entire bank for thirty feet, and in the center of it was one of Bens Morlock holes. It was from this raised concrete pipe that the eyes, each more than two feet across, stared. 5 The reason Mike ran afoul of Henry Bowers and his notsomerry band on that same day was because the next day was the Glorious Fourth. The Church School had a band in which Mike played the trombone. On the Fourth, the band would march in the annual holiday parade, playing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Onward Christian Soldiers, and America the Beautiful. This was an occasion that Mike had been looking forward to for over a month. He walked to the final rehearsal because his bike had a busted chain. The rehearsal was not scheduled until twothirty, but he left at one because he wanted to polish his trombone, which was stored in the schools music room, until it glowed. Although his tromboneplaying was really not much better than Richies Voices, he was fond of the instrument, and whenever he felt blue a half an hour of foghorning Sousa marches, hymns, or patriotic airs cheered him right up again. There was a can of Saddlers brass polish in one of the flap pockets of his khaki shirt and two or three clean rags were dangling from the hip pocket of his jeans. The thought of Henry Bowers was the furthest thing from his mind. A glance behind as he approached Neibolt Street and the Church School would have changed his mind in a hurry, because Henry, Victor, Belch, Peter Gordon, and Moose Sadler were spread across the road behind him. If they had left the Bowers house five minutes later, Mike would have been out of sight over the crest of the next hill; the apocalyptic rockfight and everything that followed it might have happened differently, or not at all. But it was Mike himself, years later, who advanced the idea that perhaps none of them were entirely their own masters in the events of that summer; that if luck and free will had played parts, then their roles had been narrow ones. He would point out a number of these suspicious coincidences to the others at their reunion lunch, but there was at least one of which he was unaware. The meeting in the Barrens that day broke up when Stan Uris produced the Black Cats and the Losers Club headed toward the dump to shoot them off. And Victor, Belch, and the others had come out to the Bowers farm because Henry had firecrackers, cherrybombs, and M80s (the possession of these last would a few years hence become a felony). The big boys were planning to go down beyond the trainyard coalpit and explode Henrys treasures. None of them, not even Belch, went out to the Bowers farm under ordinary circumstancesprimarily because of Henrys crazy father but also because they always ended up helping Henry do his chores the weeding, the endless rockpicking, the lugging of wood, the toting of water, the pitching of hay, the picking of whatever happened to be ripe at the time of the seasonpeas, cukes, tomatoes, potatoes. These boys were not exactly allergic to work, but they had plenty to do at their own places without sweating for Henrys kooky father, who didnt much care who he hit (he had once taken a length of stovewood to Victor Criss when the boy dropped a basket of tomatoes he was lugging out to the roadside stand). Getting whopped with a chunk of birch was bad enough; what made it worse was that Butch Bowers had chanted Im gonna kill all the Nips! Im gonna kill all the fuckin Nips! when he did it. Dumb as he was, Belch Huggins had expressed it best I dont fuck with crazy people, he told Victor one day two years before. Victor had laughed and agreed. But the sirensong of all those firecrackers had been too great to be withstood. Tell you what, Henry, Victor said when Henry called him up that morning at nine and invited him out. Ill meet you at the coalpit around one oclock, what do you say? You show up at the coalpit around one and Im not gonna be there, Henry replied. I got too many chores. If you show up at the coalpit around three, I will be there. And the first M80 is going to go right up your old tan track, Vic. Vic hesitated, then agreed to come over and help with the chores. The others came as well, and with the five of them, all big boys, working like fiends around the Bowers place, they got all the chores finished by early afternoon. When Henry asked his father if he could go, Bowers the elder simply waved a languid hand at his son. Butch was settled in for the afternoon on the back porch, a quart milkbottle filled with exquisitely hard cider by his rocker, his Philco portable radio on the porch rail (later that afternoon the Red Sox would be playing the Washington Senators, a prospect that would have given a man who was not crazy a bad case of cold chills). An unsheathed Japanese sword lay across Butchs lap, a war souvenir which, Butch said, he had taken off the body of a dying Nip on the island of Tarawa (he had actually traded six bottles of Budweiser and three joysticks for the sword in Honolulu). Lately Butch almost always got out his sword when he drank. And since all of the boys, including Henry himself, were secretly convinced that sooner or later he would use it on someone, it was best to be far away when it made its appearance on Butchs lap. The boys had no more than stepped out into the road when Henry spied Mike Hanlon up ahead.


Its the nigger! he said, his eyes lighting up like the eyes of a small child contemplating Santa Clauss imminent arrival on Christmas Eve. The nigger? Belch Huggins looked puzzledhe had seen the Hanlons only rarelyand then his dim eyes lit up. Oh yeah! The nigger! Lets get him, Henry! Belch broke into a thunderous trot. The others were following suit when Henry grabbed Belch and hauled him back. Henry had more experience than the others chasing Mike Hanlon, and he knew that catching him was easier said than done. That black boy could move. He dont see us. Lets just walk fast till he does. Cut the distance. They did so. An observer might have been amused the five of them looked as if they were trying out for that peculiar Olympic walking competition. Moose Sadlers considerable belly joggled up and down inside his Derry High School teeshirt. Sweat rolled down Belchs face, which soon grew red. But the distance between them and Mike closedtwo hundred yards, a hundred and fifty yards, a hundredand so far Little Black Sambo hadnt looked back. They could hear him whistling. What you gonna do to him, Henry? Victor Criss asked in a low voice. He sounded merely interested, but in truth he was worried. Just lately Henry had begun to worry him more and more. He wouldnt care if Henry wanted them to beat the Hanlon kid up, maybe even rip his shirt off or throw his pants and underwear up in a tree, but he was not sure that was all Henry had in mind. This year there had been several unpleasant encounters with the children from Derry Elementary Henry referred to as the little shits. Henry was used to dominating and terrorizing the little shits, but since March he had been balked by them time and time again. Henry and his friends had chased one of them, the foureyes Tozier kid, into Freeses, and had lost him somehow just when it seemed his ass was surely theirs. Then, on the last day of school, the Hanscom kid But Victor didnt like to think of that. What worried him, simply was this Henry might go TOO FAR. Just what TOO FAR might be was something Victor didnt like to think of... but his uneasy heart had prompted the question just the same. Were gonna catch him and take him down to that coalpit, Henry said. I thought wed put a couple of firecrackers in his shoes and see if he dances. But not the M80s, Henry, right? If Henry intended something like that Victor was going to take a powder. An M80 in each shoe would blow that niggers feet off, and that was much TOO FAR. Ive got only four of those, Henry said, not taking his eyes off Mike Hanlons back. They had closed the distance to seventyfive yards now and he also spoke in a low voice. You think Id waste two of em on a fuckin nightfighter? No, Henry. Course not. Well just put a couple of Black Cats in his loafers, Henry said, then strip him bareass and throw his clothes down into the Barrens. Maybe hell catch poison ivy going after them. We gotta roll im in the coal, too, Belch said, his formerly dim eyes now glowing brightly. Okay, Henry? Is that cool? Cool as a moose, Henry said in a casual way Victor didnt quite like. Well roll im in the coal, just like I rolled im in the mud that other time. And... Henry grinned, showing teeth that were already beginning to rot at the age of twelve. And I got something to tell him. I dont think he heard when I told im before. Whats that, Henry? Peter asked. Peter Gordon was merely interested and excited. He came from one of Derrys good families; he lived on West Broadway and in two years he would be sent to prep school in Grotonor so he believed on that July 3rd. He was brighter than Vic Criss, but had not hung around long enough to understand how Henry was eroding. Youll find out, Henry said. Now shut up. Were gettin close. They were twentyfive yards behind Mike and Henry was just opening his mouth to give the order to charge when Moose Sadler set off the first firecracker of the day. Moose had eaten three plates of baked beans the night before, and the fart was almost as loud as a shotgun blast. Mike looked around. Henry saw his eyes widen. Get him! Henry howled. Mike froze for a moment; then he took off, running for his life. 6 The Losers wound their way through the bamboo in the Barrens in this order Bill; Richie; Beverly behind Richie, walking slim and pretty in bluejeans and a white sleeveless blouse, zoris on her feet; then Ben, trying not to puff too loudly (although it was eightyone that day, he was wearing one of his baggy sweatshirts); Stan; Eddie bringing up the rear, the snout of his aspirator poking out of his right front pants pocket. Bill had fallen into a junglesafari fantasy, as he often did when walking through this part of the Barrens. The bamboo was high and white, limiting visibility to the path they had made through here. The earth was black and squelchy, with sodden patches that had to be avoided or jumped over if you didnt want to get mud in your shoes. The puddles of standing water had oddly flat rainbow colors. The air had a reeky smell that was half the dump and half rotting vegetation. Bill halted one turn away from the Kenduskeag and turned back to Richie. TTTiger up ahead, TTTozier. Richie nodded and turned back to Beverly. Tiger, he breathed. Tiger, she told Ben. Maneater? Ben asked, holding his breath to keep from panting. Theres blood all over him, Beverly said. Maneating tiger, Ben muttered to Stan, and he passed the news back to Eddie, whose thin face was hectic with excitement. They faded into the bamboo, leaving the path of black earth that looped through it magically bare. The tiger passed in front of them and all of them nearly saw it heavy, perhaps four hundred pounds, its muscles moving with grace and power beneath the silk of its striped pelt. They nearly saw its green eyes, and the flecks of blood around its snout from the last batch of pygmy warriors it had eaten alive. The bamboo rattled faintly, a noise both musical and eerie, and then was still again. It might have been a breath of summer breeze ... or it might have been the passage of an African tiger on its way toward the Old Cape side of the Barrens. Gone, Bill said. He let out a pentup breath and stepped out onto the path again. The others followed suit. Richie was the only one who had come armed he produced a cappistol with a frictiontaped handgrip. I could have had a clear shot at him if youd moved, Big Bill, he said grimly. He pushed the bridge of his old glasses up on his nose with the muzzle of the gun. Theres WuhWuhWatusis around hhhere, Bill said. CCCant rihrisk a shot. YYou wwant them down on tttop of us? Oh, Richie said, convinced. Bill made a comeon gesture with his arm and they were back on the path again, which narrowed into a neck at the end of the bamboo patch. They stepped out onto the bank of the Kenduskeag, where a series of steppingstones led across the river. Ben had shown them how to place them. You got a big rock and plopped it in the water, then you got a second and plopped it in the water while you were stepping on the first, then you got a third and plopped it in the water while you were stepping on the second, and so on until you were all the way across the river (which here, and at this time of year, was less than a foot deep and shaled with tawny sandbars) with your feet still dry. The trick was so simple it was damn near babyish, but none of them had seen it until Ben pointed it out. He was good at stuff like that, but when he showed you he never made you feel like a dummy. They went down the bank in single file and started across the dry backs of the rocks they had planted. Bill! Beverly called urgently. He froze at once, not looking back, arms held out. The water chuckled and rilled around him. What? Theres piranha fish in here! I saw them eat a whole cow two days ago. A minute after it fell in, there was nothing but bones. Dont fall off! Right, Bill said. Be careful, men. They teetered their way across the rocks. A freighttrain charged by on the railway embankment as Eddie Kaspbrak neared the halfway point, and the sudden blast of its airhorn caused him to jiggle on the edge of balance. He looked into the bright water and for one moment, between the sunflashes that darted arrows of light into his eyes, he actually saw the cruising piranhas. They were not part of the makebelieve that went with Bills jungle safari fantasy; he was quite sure of that. The fish he saw looked like oversized goldfish with the great ugly jaws of catfish or groupers. Sawteeth protruded between their thick lips and, like goldfish, they were orange. As orange as the fluffy pompoms you sometimes saw on the suits the clowns wore at the circus. They circled in the shallow water, gnashing. Eddie pinwheeled his arms. Im going in, he thought. Im going in and theyll eat me alive Then Stanley Uris gripped his wrist firmly and brought him back to dead center. Close call, Stan said. If you fell in, your motherd give you heck. Thoughts of his mother were, for once, the furthest things from Eddies mind. The others had gained the far bank now and were counting cars on the freight. Eddie stared wildly into Stans eyes, then looked into the water again. He saw a potatochip bag go dancing by, but that was all. He looked up at Stan again. Stan, I saw What? Eddie shook his head. Nothing, I guess, he said. Im just a little (but they were there yes they were and they would have eaten me alive) jumpy. The tiger, I guess. Keep going. This western bank of the Kenduskeagthe Old Cape bankwas a quagmire of mud during rainy weather and the spring runoff, but there had been no heavy rain in Derry for two weeks or more and the bank had dried to an alien crackglaze from which several of those cement cylinders poked, casting grim little shadows. About twenty yards farther down, a cement pipe jutted out over the Kenduskeag and spilled a steady thin stream of foullooking brown water into the river. Ben said quietly, Its creepy here, and the others nodded. Bill led them up the dry bank and back into the heavy shrubbery, where bugs whirred and chiggers chigged. Every now and then there would be a heavy ruffle of wings as a bird took off. Once a squirrel ran across their path, and about five minutes later, as they approached the low wrinkle of ridge that guarded the town dumps blind side, a large rat with a bit of cellophane caught in its whiskers trundled in front of Bill, passing along its own secret run through its own microcosmic wilderness. The smell of the dump was now clear and pungent; a black column of smoke rose in the sky. The ground, while still heavily overgrown except for their own narrow path, began to be strewn with litter. Bill had dubbed this dumpdandruff, and Richie had been delighted; he had laughed almost until he cried. You ought to write that down, Big Bill, he said. Thats really good. Papers caught on branches wavered and flapped like cutrate pennants; here was a silver gleam of summer sun reflected from a clutch of tin cans lying at the bottom of a green and tangled hollow; there the hotter reflection of sunrays bouncing off a broken beer bottle. Beverly spied a babydoll, its plastic skin so brightly pink it looked almost boiled. She picked it up, then dropped it with a little cry as she saw the whitishgray beetles squirming from beneath its moldy skirt and down its rotting legs. She rubbed her fingers on her jeans. They climbed to the top of the ridge and looked down into the dump. Oh shit, Bill said, and jammed his hands into his pockets as the others gathered around him. They were burning the northern end today, but here, at their end, the dumpkeeper (he was, in fact, Armando Fazio, Mandy to his friends, and the bachelor brother of the Derry Elementary School janitor) was tinkering on the World War II D9 dozer he used to push the crap into piles for burning. His shirt was off, and the big portable radio sitting under the canvas parasol on the dozers seat was putting out the Red SoxSenators pregame festivities. Cant go down there, Ben agreed. Mandy Fazio was not a bad guy, but when he saw kids in the dump he ran them off at oncebecause of the rats, because of the poison he regularly sowed to keep the rat population down, because of the potential for cuts, falls, and burns... but mostly because he believed a dump was no place for children to be. Aint you nice? he would yell at the kids he spied who had been drawn to the dump with their .22s to plink away at bottles (or rats, or seagulls) or by the exotic fascination of dumppicking you might find a toy that still worked, a chair that could be mended for a clubhouse, or a junked TV with the picturetube still intactif you threw a rock through one of these there was a very satisfying explosion. Aint you kids nice? Mandy would bellow (he bellowed not because he was angry but because he was deaf and wore no hearingaid). Dintchore folks teach you to be nice? Nice boys and girls dont play in the dump! Go to the park! Go to the liberry! Go down to Community House and play boxhockey! Be nice! Nope, Richie said. Guess the dumps out. They all sat down for a few moments to watch Mandy work on his dozer, hoping he would give up and go away but not really believing he would the presence of the radio suggested Mandy intended to stay all afternoon. It was enough to piss off the Pope, Bill thought. There was really no better place to come with firecrackers than the dump. You could put them under tin cans and then watch the cans fly into the air when the firecrackers went off, or you could light the fuses and drop them into bottles and then run like hell. The bottles didnt always break, but usually they did. Wish we had some M80s, Richie sighed, unaware of how soon one would be chucked at his head. My mother says people ought to be happy with what they have, Eddie said so solemnly that they all laughed. When the laughter died away, they all looked toward Bill again. Bill thought about it and then said, I nuhknow a pplace. Theres an old gruhgruhgravelpit at the end of the BuhBarrens by the tttrainyards Yeah! Stan said, getting to his feet. I know that place! Youre a genius, Bill! Theyll really echo there, Beverly agreed. Well, lets go, Richie said. The six of them, one shy of the magic number, walked along the brow of the hill which circled the dump. Mandy Fazio glanced up once and saw them silhouetted against the blue sky like Indians out on a raiding party. He thought about hollering at themthe Barrens was no place for kidsand then he turned back to his work instead. At least they werent in his dump. 7 Mike Hanlon ran past the Church School without pausing and pelted straight up Neibolt Street toward the Derry trainyards. There was a janitor at NCS, but Mr. Gendron was very old and even deafer than Mandy Fazio. Also, he liked to spend most of his summer days asleep in the basement by the summersilent boiler, stretched out in a battered old reclining chair with the Derry News in his lap. Mike would still be pounding on the door and shouting for the old man to let him in when Henry Bowers came up behind him and tore his freaking head off. So Mike just ran. But not blindly; he was trying to pace himself, trying to control his breathing, not yet going all out. Henry, Belch, and Moose Sadler presented no problems; even relatively fresh they ran like wounded buffalo. Victor Criss and Peter Gordon, however, were much faster. As Mike passed the house where Bill and Richie had seen the clownor the werewolfhe snapped a glance back and was alarmed to see that Peter Gordon had almost closed the distance. Peter was grinning cheerfullya steeplechase grin, a fullout polo grin, a pippipjollygoodshow grin, and Mike thought Iwonder if hed grin that way if he knew whats going to happen if they catch me.... Does he think theyre just going to say Tag, youre it, and run away? As the trainyard gate with its signPRIVATE PROPERTY KEEP OUT VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTEDloomed up, Mike was forced to let himself out to the limit. There was no painhis breathing was rapid yet still controlledbut he knew everything was going to start hurting if he had to keep this pace up for long. The gate was standing halfway open. He snapped a second look back and saw that hed pulled away from Peter again. Victor was perhaps ten paces behind Peter, the others now forty or fifty yards back. Even in that quick glance Mike could see the black anger on Henrys face. He skittered through the opening, whirled, and slammed the gate closed. He heard the click as it latched. A moment later Peter Gordon slammed into the chainlink, and a moment after that, Victor Criss ran up beside him. Peters smile was gone; a sulky, balked look had replaced it. He grabbed for the latch, but of course there was none the latch was on the inside. Incredibly, he said Come on, kid, open the gate. Thats not fair. Whats your idea of fair? Mike asked, panting. Five against one? Fairup, Peter repeated, as if he had not heard Mike at all. Mike looked at Victor, saw the troubled look in Victors eyes. He started to speak, but that was when the others pulled up to the gate. Open up, nigger! Henry bawled. He began to shake the chainlink with such ferocity that Peter looked at him, startled. Open up! Open up right now! I wont, Mike said quietly. Open up! Belch shouted. Open up, ya fuckin jigaboo! Mike backed away from the gate, his heart beating heavily in his chest. He couldnt remember ever being quite this scared, quite this upset. They lined their side of the gate, shouting at him, calling him names for nigger he had never dreamed existednightfighter, Ubangi, spade, blackberry, junglebunny, others. He was barely aware that Henry was taking something from his pocket, that he had popped a wooden match alight with his thumbnailand then a round red something came over the fence and he flinched instinctively away as the cherrybomb exploded to his left, kicking up dust. The bang silenced them all for a momentMike stared unbelievingly at them through the fence, and they stared back. Peter Gordon looked utterly shocked, and even Belch looked stunned. Theyre ascared of him now, Mike thought suddenly, and a new voice spoke inside of him, perhaps for the first time, a voice that was disturbingly adult. Theyre ascared, but that wont stop them. You got to get away, Mikey, or somethings going to happen. Not all of them will want it to happen, maybenotVictor and maybe not Peter Gordonbutit will happen anyway because Henry will make it happen. So get away. Get away fast. He backed up another two or three steps and then Henry Bowers said I was the one killed your dog, nigger. Mike froze, feeling as if he had been hit in the belly with a bowling ball. He stared into Henry Bowerss eyes and understood that Henry was telling the simple truth he had killed Mr. Chips. That moment of understanding seemed nearly eternal to Mikelooking into Henrys crazed sweatringed eyes and his rageblackened face, it seemed to him that he understood a great many things for the first time, and the fact that Henry was far crazier than Mike had ever dreamed was only the least of them. He realized above all that the world was not kind, and it was more this than the news itself that forced the cry from him You honky chickenshit bastard! Henry uttered a shriek of rage and attacked the fence, monkeying his way toward the top with a brute strength that was terrifying. Mike paused a moment longer, wanting to see if that adult voice that had spoken inside had been a true voice, and yes, it had been true after the slightest hesitation, the others spread out and also began to climb. Mike turned and ran again, sprinting across the trainyards, his shadow trailing squat at his feet. The freight which the Losers had seen crossing the Barrens was long gone now, and there was no sound but Mikes own breathing in his ears and the musical jingle of chainlink as Henry and the others climbed the fence. Mike ran across one triple set of tracks, his sneakers kicking back cinders as he ran across the space between. He stumbled crossing the second set of tracks, and felt pain flare briefly in his ankle. He got up and ran on again. He heard a thud as Henry jumped down from the top of the fence behind him. Here I come for your ass, nigger! Henry bawled. Mikes reasoning self had decided that the Barrens were his only chance now. If he could get down there he could hide in the tangles of underbrush, in the bamboo... or, if things became really desperate, he could climb into one of the drainpipes and wait it out. He could do those things, maybe... but there was a hot spark of fury in his chest that had nothing to do with his reasoning self. He could understand Henry chasing after him when he got the chance, but Mr. Chips? ... killing Mr. Chips? My DOG wasnt a nigger, you cheapshit bastard, Mike thought as he ran, and the bewildered anger grew. Now he heard another voice, this one his fathers. I dont want you to make a career out of running away... and what it all comes down to is that you have to be careful where you take your stand. You have to ask yourself if Henry Bowers is worth the trouble.... Mike had been running a straight line across the trainyards toward the storage quonsets. Beyond them another chainlink fence divided the trainyards from the Barrens. He had been planning to scale that fence and jump over to the other side. Instead he veered hard right, toward the gravelpit. This gravelpit had been used as a coalpit until 1935 or soit had been a stokingpoint for the trains which ran through the Derry yards. Then the diesels came, and the electrics. For a number of years after the coal was gone (much of the remainder stolen by people with coalfired furnaces) a local contractor had dug gravel there, but he went bust in 1955 and since then the pit had been deserted. A spur railroad line still ran in a loop up to the pit and then back toward the switchingyards, but the tracks were dull with rust, and ragweed grew up between the rotting ties. These same weeds grew in the pit itself, vying for space with goldenrod and nodding sunflowers. Amid the vegetation there was still plenty of slag coalthe stuff people had once called clinkers. As Mike ran toward this place, he took his shirt off. He reached the rim of the pit and looked back. Henry was coming across the tracks, his buddies spread out around him. That was okay, maybe. Moving as quickly as he could, using his shirt for a bindle, Mike picked up half a dozen handfuls of hard clinkers. Then he ran back toward the fence, swinging his shirt by the arms. Instead of climbing the fence when he reached it, he turned so his back was against it. He dumped the coal out of his shirt, stooped, and picked up a couple of chunks. Henry didnt see the coal; he only saw that he had the nigger trapped against the fence. He sprinted toward him, yelling. This is for my dog, you bastard! Mike cried, unaware that he had begun to cry. He threw one of the chunks of coal overhand. It flew in a hard direct line. It struck Henrys forehead with a loud bonk! and then rebounded into the air. Henry stumbled to his knees. His hands went to his head. Blood seeped through his fingers at once, like a magicians surprise. The others skidded to a stop, their faces stamped with identical expressions of disbelief. Henry uttered a high scream of pain and got to his feet again, still holding his head. Mike threw another chunk of coal. Henry ducked. He began to walk toward Mike, and when Mike threw a third chunk of coal, Henry removed one hand from his gashed forehead and batted the chunk of coal almost casually aside. He was grinning. Oh, youre gonna get such a surprise, he said. Such aOHMY GAWD! Henry tried to say more, but only inarticulate gargling noises emerged from his mouth. Mike had pegged another chunk of coal and this one had struck Henry square in the throat. Henry buckled to his knees again. Peter Gordon gaped. Moose Sadlers brow was furrowed, as if he were trying to figure out a difficult math problem. What are you guys waiting for? Henry managed. Blood seeped between his fingers. His voice sounded rusty and foreign. Get him! Get the little cocksucker! Mike didnt wait to see if they would obey or not. He dropped his shirt and leaped at the fence. He began to pull himself up toward the top and then he felt rough hands grab his foot. He looked down and saw Henry Bowerss contorted face, smeared by blood and coal. Mike yanked his foot up. His sneaker came off in Henrys hand. He pistoned his bare foot down into Henrys face and heard something crunch. Henry screamed again and staggered backward, now holding his spouting nose. Another handBelch Hugginsssnagged briefly in the cuff of Mikes jeans, but he was able to pull free. He threw one leg over the top of the fence, and then something struck him with blinding force on the side of his face. Warmth trickled down his cheek. Something else struck his hip, his forearm, his upper thigh. They were throwing his own ammunition at him. He hung briefly by his hands and then dropped, rolling over twice. The scrubby ground sloped downward here, and perhaps that saved Mike Hanlons eyesight or even his life; Henry had approached the fence again and now looped one of his four M80s over the top of the fence. It went off with a terrific CRRRACK! that echoed and blew a wide bare patch in the grass. Mike, his ears ringing, went headoverheels and staggered to his feet. He was now in high grass, on the edge of the Barrens. He wiped a hand down his right cheek and it came away bloody. The blood did not particularly worry him; he had not expected to come out of this unscathed. Henry tossed a cherrybomb, but Mike saw this one coming and moved away easily. Lets get him! Henry roared, and began to climb the fence. Jeez, Henry, I dont know This had gone too far for Peter Gordon, who had never encountered a situation that had turned so suddenly savage. Things were not supposed to get bloodyat least not for your teamwhen the odds were comfortably slugged in your favor. You better know, Henry said, looking back at Peter from halfway up the fence. He hung there like a bloated poisonous spider in human shape. His baleful eyes stared at Peter; blood rimmed them on either side. Mikes downward kick had broken his nose, although Henry would not be aware of the fact for some time yet. You better know, or Ill come after you, you fucking jerk. The others began to climb the fence, Peter and Victor with some reluctance, Belch and Moose as vacantly eager as before. Mike waited to see no more. He turned and ran into the scrub. Henry bellowed after him Ill find you, nigger! Ill find you! 8 The Losers had reached the far side of the gravelpit, which was little more than a huge weedy pockmark in the earth now, three years after the last load of gravel had been taken out of it. They were all gathered around Stan, looking appreciatively at his package of Black Cats, when the first explosion came. Eddie jumpedhe was still goofed up over the piranha fish he thought he had seen (he wasnt sure what real piranha fish looked like, but he was pretty sure they didnt look like oversized goldfish with teeth). Merrow down easy, Eddiesan, Richie said, doing his Chinese Coolie Voice. Iss just other kids shooting off fireclackers. That sssucks the rrroot, RihRihRichie, Bill remarked. The others laughed. I keep trying, Big Bill, Richie said. I feel like, if I get good enough, someday Ill earn your love. He made dainty kissing gestures at the air. Bill shot him the finger. Ben and Eddie stood side by side, grinning. Oh Im so young and youre so old, Stan Uris piped up suddenly, doing an eerily accurate Paul Anka imitation, this my darling Ive been told He can sayng! Richie screeched in his Pickaninny Voice. Lawksamussy, thisyere boy can sayng! And then, in the MovieTone Announcers Voice Want you to sign right here, boy, on this dotted line. Richie slung an arm around Stans shoulders and favored him with a gigantic gleaming smile. Were going to grow your hair out, boy. Going to give you a gittar. Going to Bill popped Richie twice on the arm, quickly and lightly. They were all excited at the prospect of shooting off firecrackers. Open them up, Stan, Beverly said. Ive got some matches. They gathered around again as Stan carefully opened the package of firecrackers. There were exotic Chinese letters on the black label and a sober caution in English that got Richie giggling again. Do not hold in hand after fuse is lit, this warning read. Good thing they told me, Richie said. I always used to hold them after I lit them. I thought thats how you got rid of your frockin hangnails. Working slowly, almost reverently, Stan removed the red cellophane and laid the block of cardboard tubes, blue and red and green, on the palm of his hand. Their fuses had been braided together in a Chinese pigtail. Ill unwind the Stan began, and then there was a much louder explosion. The echo rolled slowly across the Barrens. A cloud of gulls rose from the eastern side of the dump, squalling and crying. They all jumped this time. Stan dropped the firecrackers and had to pick them up. Was that dynamite? Beverly asked nervously. She was looking at Bill, whose head was up, his eyes wide. She thought he had never looked so handsomebut there was something too alert, too strungup, in the attitude of his head. He was like a deer scenting fire in the air. That was an M80, I think, Ben said quietly. Last Fourth of July I was in the park and there were these highschool kids that had a couple. They put one of them in a steel trashcan. It made a noise like that. Did it blow a hole in the can, Haystack? Richie asked. No, but it bulged out the side. Looked like there was some little guy inside who just stroked it one. They ran away. The big one was closer, Eddie said. He also glanced at Bill. Do you guys want to shoot these off or not? Stan asked. He had unbraided about a dozen of the firecrackers and had put the rest neatly back in the waxed paper for later. Sure, Richie said. PPPut them aaaway. They looked at Bill questioningly, a little scaredit was his abrupt tone more than what he had said. PPPuhhut them aaaaway, Bill repeated, his face contorting with the effort he was making to get the words out. Spit flew from his lips. SSSuhhomethings gggonna hhhappen. Eddie licked his lips, Richie shoved his glasses up the sweaty slope of his nose with his thumb, and Ben moved closer to Beverly without even thinking about it. Stan opened his mouth to say something and then there was another, smaller explosionanother cherrybomb. RuhRocks, Bill said. What, Bill? Stan asked. RuhRuhRocks. AAAmmo. Bill began to pick up stones, stuffing them into his pockets until they bulged. The others stared at him as though he had gone crazy... and then Eddie felt sweat break on his forehead. All of a sudden he knew what a malaria attack felt like. He had sensed something like this on the day he and Bill had met Ben (except Eddie, like the others, was already coming to think of Ben as Haystack), the day Henry Bowers had casually bloodied his nosebut this felt worse. This felt like maybe it was going to be Hiroshima time in the Barrens. Ben started to get rocks, then Richie, moving quickly, not talking now. His glasses slipped all the way off and clicked to the gravelly surface of the ground. He folded them up absently and put them inside his shirt. Why did you do that, Richie? Beverly asked. Her voice sounded thin, too taut. Dont know, keed, Richie said, and went on picking up rocks. Beverly, maybe you better, uh, go back toward the dump for awhile, Ben said. His hands were full of rocks. Shit on that, she said. Shit all over that, Ben Hanscom. She bent and began to gather rocks herself. Stan looked at them thoughtfully as they grubbed for rocks like lunatic farmers. Then he began to gather them himself, his lips pressed into a thin and prissy line.