The diesel engine chugged and faded, chugged and faded. The huge sunflowers nodded sagely together. Fresh boys. Good boys. Our boys. YYYou rruhready? Bill asked, and Richie jumped a little. You know, I was just thinking that maybe the last bunch of library books I took out are due today, Richie said. Maybe I ought to CuhCuhCut the ccrap, RRRichie. Are yyou ready or nnnot? I guess I am, Richie said, knowing he was not ready at allhe was never going to be ready for this scene. They crossed the overgrown lawn to the porch. Luhlook thththere, Bill said. At the far lefthand side, the porchs latticework skirt leaned out against a tangle of bushes. Both boys could see the rusty nails that had been pulled free. There were old rosebushes here, and while the roses both to the right and the left of the unanchored stretch of latticework were blooming in a lackadaisical way, those directly around and in front of it were skeletal and dead. Bill and Richie looked at each other grimly. Everything Eddie said seemed true enough; seven weeks later, the evidence was still here. You dont really want to go under there, do you? Richie asked. He was almost pleading. Nuhnuhno, Bill said, bbut Im ggonna. And with a sinking heart, Richie saw that he absolutely meant it. That gray light was back in Billys eyes, shining steadily. There was a stony eagerness in the lines of his face that made him look older. Richie thought, I think he really does mean to kill it, if its still there. Kill it and maybe cut off its head and take it to his father and say, Look, this is what killed Georgie, now will you talk to me again at night, maybe just tell me how your day was, or who lost when you guys were flipping to see who paid for the morning coffee? Bitt he said, but Bill was no longer there. He was walking around to the righthand end of the porch, where Eddie must have crawled under. Richie had to chase after him, and he almost fell over the trike caught in the weeds and slowly rusting its way into the ground. He caught up as Bill squatted, looking under the porch. There was no skirt at all on this end; someonesome hobohad pried it off long ago to gain access to the shelter underneath, out of the January snow or the cold November rain or a summer thundershower. Richie squatted beside him, his heart thudding like a drum. There was nothing under the porch but drifts of moldering leaves, yellowing newspapers, and shadows. Too many shadows. Bill, he repeated. Whwhwhat? Bill had produced his fathers Walther again. He pulled the clip carefully from the grip, and then took four bullets from his pants pocket. He loaded them in one at a time. Richie watched this, fascinated, and then looked under the porch again. He saw something else this time. Broken glass. Faintly glinting shards of glass. His stomach cramped painfully. He was not a stupid boy, and he understood this came close to completely confirming Eddies story. Splinters of glass on the moldering leaves under the porch meant that the window had been broken from inside. From the cellar. Whwhat? Bill asked again, looking up at Richie. His face was grim and white. Looking at that set face, Richie mentally threw in the towel. Nothing, he said. You cuhcuhhoming? Yeah. They crawled under the porch. The smell of decaying leaves was a smell Richie usually liked, but there was nothing pleasant about the smell under here. The leaves felt spongy under his hands and knees, and he had an impression that they might go down for two or three feet. He suddenly wondered what he would do if a hand or a claw sprang out of those leaves and seized him. Bill was examining the broken window. Glass had sprayed everywhere. The wooden strip which had been between the panes lay in two splintered pieces under the porch steps. The top of the window frame jutted out like a broken bone. Something hit that fucker wicked hard, Richie breathed. Bill, now peering insideor trying tonodded. Richie elbowed him aside enough so he could look, too. The basement was a dim litter of crates and boxes. The floor was earth and, like the leaves, it gave off a damp and humid aroma. A furnace bulked to the left, thrusting round pipes at the low ceiling. Beyond it, at the end of the cellar, Richie could see a large stall with wooden sides. A horse stall was his first thought, but who kept horses in the jeezly cellar? Then he realized that in a house as old as this one, the furnace must have burned coal instead of oil. Nobody had bothered to convert the furnace because no one wanted the house. That thing with the sides was a coalbin. To the far right, Richie could make out a flight of stairs going up to ground level. Now Bill was sitting down ... hunching himself forward ... and before Richie could actually believe what he was up to, his friends legs were disappearing into the window. Bill! Chrissake, he hissed, what are you doing? Get outta there! Bill didnt reply. He slithered through, scraping his duffel coat up from the small of his back, barely missing a chunk of glass that would have cut him a good one. A second later Richie heard his tennies smack down on the hard earth inside. Piss on this action, Richie muttered frantically to himself, looking at the square of darkness into which his friend had disappeared. Bill, you gone out of your mind? Bills voice floated up YYou cccan stay up ththere if you wwant, RuhRuhRichie. StStand ggguard. Instead he rolled over on his belly and shoved his legs through the cellar window before his nerve could go bad on him, hoping he wouldnt cut his hands or his stomach on the broken glass. Something clutched his legs. Richie screamed. IIIts juhjuhhust mme, Bill hissed, and a moment later Richie was standing beside him in the cellar, pulling down his shirt and his jacket. Whwho ddid you ththink it wwas? The boogeyman, Richie said, and laughed shakily. YYou ggo ththat wway and IIIll ggg Fuck that, Richie said. He could actually hear his heartbeat in his voice, making it sound bumpy and uneven, first up and then down. Im stickin with you, Big Bill. They moved toward the coalpit first, Bill slightly in the lead, the gun in his hand, Richie close behind him, trying to look everywhere at once. Bill stood beyond one of the coalpits jutting wooden sides for a moment, and then suddenly darted around it, pointing the gun with both hands. Richie squinched his eyes shut, steeling himself for the explosion. It didnt come. He opened his eyes again cautiously. Nuhnuhnothin but cccoal, Bill said, and giggled nervously. Richie stepped up beside Bill and looked. There was still a drift of old coal in here, piled up almost to the ceiling at the back of the stall and trickling away to a lump or two by their feet. It was as black as a crows wing. Lets Richie began, and then the door at the head of the cellar stairs crashed open against the wall with a violent bang, spilling thin white daylight down the stairs. Both boys screamed. Richie heard snarling sounds. They were very loudthe sounds a wild animal in a cage might make. He saw loafers descend the steps. Faded jeans on top of themswinging hands But they werent hands . . . they were paws. Huge, misshapen paws. Cuhcuhclimb the cccoal! Bill was screaming, but Richie stood frozen, suddenly knowing what was coming for them, what was going to kill them in this cellar that stank of damp earth and the cheap wine that had been spilled in the corners. Knowing but needing to see. Theres a wuhwuhwindow at the ttop of the ccoal! The paws were covered with dense brown hair that curled and coiled like wire; the fingers were tipped with jagged nails. Now Richie saw a silk jacket. It was black with orange pipingthe Derry High School colors. GGGo! Bill screamed, and gave Richie a gigantic shove. Richie went sprawling into the coal. Sharp jags and corners of it poked him painfully, breaking through his daze. More coal avalanched over his hands. That mad snarling went on and on. Panic slipped its hood over Richies mind. Barely aware of what he was doing, he scrambled up the mountain of coal, gaining ground, sliding back, lunging upward again, screaming as he went. The window at the top was grimed black with coaldust and let in next to no light at all. It was latched shut. Richie seized the latch, which was of the sort that turned, and threw all his weight against it. The latch moved not at all. The snarling was closer now. The gun went off below him, the sound nearly deafening in the closed room. Gunsmoke, sharp and acrid, stung Richies nose. It shocked him back to some sort of awareness and he realized that he had been trying to turn the thumblatch the wrong way. He reversed the direction of the force he was applying, and the latchgave with a protracted rusty squeal. Coaldust sifted down on his hands like pepper. The gun went off again with a second deafening bang. Bill Denbrough shouted, YOU KILLED MY BROTHER, YOU FUCKER! For a moment the creature which had come down the stairs seemed to laugh, seemed to speakit was as if a vicious dog had suddenly begun to bark out garbled words, and for a moment Richie thought the thing in the highschool jacket snarled back, Im going to kill you, too. Richie! Bill screamed then, and Richie heard coal clattering and falling again as Bill scrambled up. The snarls and roars continued. Wood splintered. There were mingled barks and howlssounds out of a cold nightmare. Richie gave the window a tremendous shove, not caring if the glass broke and cut his hands to ribbons. He was beyond caring. It did not break; it swung outward on an old steel hinge flaked with rust. More coaldust sifted down, this time on Richies face. He wriggled out into the side yard like an eel, smelling sweet fresh air, feeling the long grass whip at his face. He was dimly aware that it was raining. He could see the thick stalks of the giant sunflowers, green and hairy. The Walther went off a third time, and the beast in the cellar screamed, a primitive sound of pure rage. Then Bill cried Its ggot me, Richie! Help! Its gggot me! Richie turned around on his hands and knees and saw the terrified circle of his friends upturned face in the square of the oversized cellar window through which a winters load of coal had once been funnelled each October. Bill was lying spreadeagled on the coal. His hands waved and clutched fruitlessly for the window frame, which was just out of reach. His shirt and jacket were rucked up almost to his breastbone. And he was sliding backward ... no, he was being pulled backward by something Richie could barely see. It was a moving, bulking shadow behind Bill. A shadow that snarled and gibbered and sounded almost human. Richie didnt need to see it. He had seen it the previous Saturday, on the screen of the Aladdin Theater. It was mad, totally mad, but even so it never occurred to Richie to doubt either his own sanity or his conclusion. The Teenage Werewolf had Bill Denbrough. Only it wasnt that guy Michael Landon with a lot of makeup on his face and a lot of fake fur. It was real. As if to prove it, Bill screamed again. Richie reached in and caught Bills hands in his own. The Walther pistol was in one of them, and for the second time that day Richie looked into its black eye ... only this time it was loaded. They tussled for BillRichie gripping his hands, the Werewolf gripping his ankles. GGGet out of hhere, Richie! Bill screamed. GGet The face of the Werewolf suddenly swam out of the dark. Its forehead was low and prognathous, covered with scant hair. Its cheeks were hollow and furry. Its eyes were a dark brown, filled with horrible intelligence, horrible awareness. Its mouth dropped open and it began to snarl. White foam ran from the corners of its thick lower lip in twin streams that dripped from its chin. The hair on its head was swept back in a gruesome parody of a teenagers d.a. It threw its head back and roared, its eyes never leaving Richies. Bill scrambled up the coal. Richie seized his forearms and pulled. For a moment he thought he was actually going to win. Then the Werewolf laid hold of Bills legs again and he was yanked backward toward the darkness once more. It was stronger. It had laid hold of Bill, and it meant to have him. Then, with no thought at all about what he was doing or why he was doing it, Richie heard the Voice of the Irish Cop coming out of his mouth, Mr. Nells voice. But this was not Richie Tozier doing a bad imitation; it wasnt even precisely Mr. Nell. It was the Voice of every Irish beatcop that had ever lived and twirled a billy by its rawhide rope as he tried the doors of closed shops after midnight Let go of him, boyo, or Ill crack yer thick head! I swear to Jaysus! Leave go of him now or Ill serve ye yer own arse on a platter! The creature in the cellar let out an earsplitting roar of rage ... but it seemed to Richie that there was another note in that bellow as well. Perhaps fear. Or pain. He gave one more tremendous tug, and Bill flew out of the window and onto the grass. He stared up at Richie with dark horrified eyes. The front of his jacket was smeared black with coaldust. KwuhKwuhQuick! Bill panted. He was nearly moaning. He grabbed at Richies shirt. WWWe guhguhhotta Richie could hear coal tumbling and avalanching down again. A moment later the Werewolfs face filled the cellar window. It snarled at them. Its paws clutched at the listless grass. Bill still had the Wattherhe had held on to the gun through all of it. Now he held it out in both hands, his eyes squinched down to slits, and pulled the trigger. There was another deafening bang. Richie saw a chunk of the Werewolfs skull tear free and a torrent of blood spilled down the side of its face, matting the fur there and soaking the collar of the school jacket it wore. Roaring, it began to climb out of the window. Moving slowly, dreamily, Richie reached under his coat and into his back pocket. He brought out the envelope with the picture of the sneezing man on it. He tore it open as the bleeding, roaring creature pulled itself out of the window, forcing its way, claws digging deep furrows in the earth. Richie tore the packet open and squeezed it. Git back in yer place, boyo! he ordered in the Voice of the Irish Cop. A white cloud puffed into the Werewolfs face. Its roars suddenly stopped. It stared at Richie with almost comic surprise and made a choked wheezing sound. Its eyes, red and bleary, rolled toward Richie and seemed to mark him once and forever. Then it began to sneeze. It sneezed again and again and again. Ropy strings of saliva flew from its muzzle. Greenishblack clots of snot flew out of its nostrils. One of these splatted against Richies skin and burned there, like acid. He wiped it away with a scream of hurt and disgust. There was still anger in its face, but there was also painit was unmistakable. Bill might have hurt it with his dads pistol, but Richie had hurt it more ... first with the Voice of the Irish Cop, and then with the sneezing powder. Jesus, if I had some itching powder too and maybe a joy buzzer I might be able to kill it, Richie thought, and then Bill grabbed the collar of his jacket and jerked him backward. It was well that he did. The Werewolf stopped sneezing as suddenly as it had started and lunged at Richie. It was quick, tooincredibly quick. Richie might have only sat there with the empty envelope of Dr. Wackys sneezing powder in one hand, staring at the Werewolf with a kind of drugged wonder, thinking how brown its fur was, how red the blood was, how nothing was in black and white in real life, he might have sat there until its paws closed around his neck and its long nails pulled his throat out, but Bill grabbed him again and pulled him to his feet. Richie stumbled after him. They ran around to the front of the house and Richie thought, It wont dare chase us anymore, were on the street now, it wont dare chase us, wont dare, wont dare But it was coming. He could hear it just behind them, gibbering and snarling and slobbering. There was Silver, still leaning against the tree. Bill jumped onto the seat and threw his fathers pistol into the carrier basket where they had carried so many play guns. Richie chanced a glance behind him as he flung himself onto the package carrier and saw the Werewolf crossing the lawn toward them, less than twenty feet away now. Blood and slobber mixed on its highschool jacket. White bone gleamed through its pelt about the right temple. There were white smudges of sneezing powder on the sides of its nose. And Richie saw two other things which seemed to complete the horror. There was no zipper on the things jacket; instead there were big fluffy orange buttons, like pompoms. The other thing was worse. It was the other thing that made him feel as if he might faint, or just give up and let it kill him. A name was stitched on the jacket in gold thread, the kind of thing you could get done down at Machens for a buck if you wanted it. Stitched on the bloody left breast of the Werewolfs jacket, stained but readable, were the words RICHIE TOZIER. It lunged at them. Go, Bill! Richie screamed. Silver began to move, but slowlymuch too slowly. It took Bill so long to get going The Werewolf crossed the rutted path just as Bill pedaled into the middle of Neibolt Street. Blood splattered its faded jeans, and looking back over his shoulder, filled with a kind of dreadful, unbreakable fascination that was akin to hypnosis, Richie saw that the seams of the jeans were giving way in places, and tufts of coarse brown fur had sprung through. Silver wavered wildly back and forth. Bill was standing up, gripping the bikes handlebars from underneath, head turned up toward the cloudy sky, cords standing out on his neck. And still the playing cards were only firing single shots. One paw groped for Richie. He screamed miserably and ducked away from it. The Werewolf snarled and grinned. It was close enough so Richie could see the yellowing corneas of its eyes, could smell sweet rotten meat on its breath. Its teeth were crooked fangs. Richie screamed again as it swung a paw at him. He was sure it was going to take his head offbut the paw passed in front of him, missing by no more than an inch. The force of the swing blew Richies sweaty hair back from his forehead. Hiyo Silver AWAYYY! Bill screamed at the top of his voice. He had reached the top of a short, shallow hill. Not much, but enough to get Silver rolling. The playing cards picked up speed and began to burr along. Bill pumped the pedals madly. Silver stopped wavering and cut a straight course down Neibolt Street toward Route 2. Thank God, thank God, thank God, Richie thought incoherently. Thank The Werewolf roared againoh! my God it sounds like its RIGHT BESIDE MEand Richies wind was cut off as his shirt and jacket were jerked back against his windpipe. He made a gargling, choking sound and managed to grip Bills middle just before he was pulled off the back of the bike. Bill tilted backward but held on to Silvers handlebar grips. For one moment Richie thought the big bike would simply do a wheelie and spill both of them off the back. Then his jacket, which had been just about ready for the ragbag anyway, parted down the back with a loud ripping noise that sounded weirdly like a big fart. Richie could breathe again. He looked around and stared directly into those muddy murderous eyes. Bill! He tried to howl it, but the word had no force, no sound. Bill seemed to hear him anyway. He pedaled even harder, harder than he ever had in his life. All his guts seemed to be rising, coming unanchored. He could taste thick coppery blood in the back of his throat. His eyeballs were starting from their sockets. His mouth hung open, scooping air. And a crazy, ineluctable sense of exhilaration filled himsomething that was wild and free and all his own. A desire. He stood on the pedals; coaxed them; battered them. Silver continued to pick up speed. He was beginning to feel the road now, beginning to fly. Bill could feel him go. Hiyo Silver! he screamed again. Hiyo Silver, AWAYYYY! Richie could hear the fast rattlethud of loafers on the macadam. He turned. The Werewolfs paw struck him above the eyes with stunning force, and for a moment Richie really did think the top of his head had come off. Things suddenly seemed dim, unimportant. Sounds faded in and out. The color washed out of the world. He turned back, clinging desperately to Bill. Warm blood ran into his right eye, stinging. The paw swung again, striking the back fender this time. Richie felt the bike waver crazily, for a moment on the verge of tipping over, finally straightening out again. Bill yelled Hiyo Silver, AWAY! again, but that was distant too, like an echo heard just before it dies out. Richie closed his eyes and held on to Bill and waited for the end. 14 Bill had also heard the running steps and understood that the clown hadnt given up yet, but he didnt dare turn around and look. He would know if it caught up and knocked them flat. That was really all he needed to know. Come on, boy, he thought. Give me everything now! Everything you got! Go, Silver! GO! So once again Bill Denbrough found himself racing to beat the devil, only now the devil was a hideously grinning clown whose face sweated white greasepaint, whose mouth curved up in a leering red vampire smile, whose eyes were bright silver coins. A clown who was, for some lunatic reason, wearing a Derry High School jacket over its silvery suit with the orange ruff and the orange pompom buttons. Go, boy, goSilver,what do you say? Neibolt Street blurred by him now. Silver was starting to hum good now. Had those running footfalls faded back a bit? He still didnt dare turn around to see. Richie had him in a deathgrip, he was pinching off his wind and Bill wanted to tell Richie to loosen up a little, but he didnt dare waste breath on that, either. There, up ahead like a beautiful dream, was the stopsign marking the intersection of Neibolt Street and Route 2. Cars were passing back and forth on Witcham. In his state of exhausted terror, this seemed somehow like a miracle to Bill. Now, because he would have to put on his brakes in a moment (or do something really inventive), he risked a look back over his shoulder. What he saw caused him to reverse Silvers pedals with a single snapjerk. Silver skidded, laying rubber with its locked rear tire, and Richies head smacked painfully into the hollow of Bills right shoulder. The street was completely empty. But twentyfive yards or so behind them, by the first of the abandoned houses which formed a kind of funeral cortege leading up to the trainyards, there was a bright flick of orange. It lay close to a stormdrain cut into the curbing. Uhhhh ... Almost too late, Bill realized that Richie was sliding off the back of Silver. Richies eyes were turned up so Bill could only see the lower rims of the irises below his upper lids. The mended bow of his glasses hung askew. Blood was flowing slowly from his forehead. Bill grabbed his arm, they both slipped to the right, and Silver overbalanced. They crashed to the street in a tangle of arms and legs. Bill barked his crazybone a good one and shouted with pain. Richies eyes flickered at the sound. I am going to show you how to get to thees treasure, senhorr, but thees man Dobbs ees plenny dangerous, Richie said in a snoring gasp. It was his Pancho Vanilla Voice, but its floating, unconnected quality scared Bill badly. He saw several coarse brown hairs clinging to the shallow headwound on Richies forehead. They were slightly kinky, like his fathers pubic hair. They made him feel even more afraid, and he fetched Richie a strong smack upside the head. Yowch! Richie cried. His eyes fluttered, then opened wide. What are you hittin me for, Big Bill? Youll break my glasses. They aint in very good shape anyway, just in case you didnt notice. I thththought you wwwere duhduhdying, or sssomething, Bill said. Richie sat up slowly in the street and put a hand to his head. He groaned. What hap And then he remembered. His eyes widened in sudden shock and terror and he scrambled around on his knees, gasping harshly. Duhduhdont, Bill said. IIts gggone, RRRichie. Its gone. Richie saw the empty street where nothing moved and suddenly burst into tears. Bill looked at him for a moment and then put his arms around Richie and hugged him. Richie clutched at Bills neck and hugged him back. He wanted to say something clever, something about how Bill should have tried the Bullseye on the Werewolf, but nothing would come out. Nothing except sobs. DDont, RRichie, Bill said, duhduhduhhh Then he burst into tears himself and they only hugged each other on their knees in the street beside Bills spilled bike, and their tears made clean streaks down their cheeks, which were sooted with coaldust. CHAPTER 9 Cleaning Up 1 Somewhere high over New York State on the afternoon of May 29th, 1985, Beverly Rogan begins to laugh again. She stifles it in both hands, afraid someone will think she is crazy, but cant quite stop. We laughed a lot back then, she thinks. It is something else, another light on in the dark. We were afraid all the time, but we couldnt stop laughing, any more than I can stop now. The guy sitting next to her in the aisle seat is young, longhaired, goodlooking. He has given her several appreciative glances since the plane took off in Milwaukee at half past two (almost two and a half hours ago now, with a stop in Cleveland and another one in Philly), but has respected her clear desire not to talk; after a couple of conversational gambits to which she has responded with politeness but no more, he opens his totebag and takes out a Robert Ludlum novel. Now he closes it, holding his place with his finger, and says with some concern Everything cool with you? She nods, trying to make her face serious, and then snorts more laughter. He smiles a little, puzzled, questioning. Its nothing, she says, once again trying to be serious, but its no good; the more she tries to be serious the more her face wants to crack up. Just like the old days. Its just that all at once I realized I didnt know what airline I was on. Only that there was a great big ddduck on the ssside But the thought is too much. She goes off into gales of merry laughter. People look around at her, some frowning. Republic, he says. Pardon? You are whizzing through the air at four hundred and seventy miles an hour courtesy of Republic Airlines. Its on the KYAG folder in the seat pocket. KYAG? He pulls the folder (which does indeed have the Republic logo on the front) out of the pocket. It shows where the emergency exits are, where the flotation devices are, how to use the oxygen masks, how to assume the crashlanding position. The kissyourassgoodbye folder, he says, and this time they both burst out laughing. He really is goodlooking, she thinks suddenlyit is a fresh thought, somehow cleareyed, the sort of thought you might expect to have upon waking, when your mind isnt all junked up. Hes wearing a pullover sweater and faded jeans. His darkish blond hair is tied back with a piece of rawhide, and this makes her think of the ponytail she always wore her hair in when she was a kid. She thinks I bet hes got a nice polite collegeboys cock. Long enough to jazz with, not thick enough to be really arrogant. She starts to laugh again, totally unable to help it. She realizes she doesnt even have a handkerchief with which to wipe her streaming eyes, and this makes her laugh harder. You better get yourself under control or the stewardess will throw you off the plane, he says solemnly, and she only shakes her head, laughing; her sides and her stomach hurt now. He hands her a clean white handkerchief, and she uses it. Somehow this helps her to get it under control finally. She doesnt stop all at once, though. It just sort of tapers off into little hitchings and gaspings. Every now and then she thinks of the big duck on the side of the plane and belches out another little stream of giggles. She passes his handkerchief back after a bit. Thank you. Jesus, maam, what happened to your hand? He holds it for a moment, concerned. She looks down at it and sees the torn fingernails, the ones she ripped down to the quick tipping the vanity over on Tom. The memory of doing that hurts more than the fingernails themselves, and that stops the laughter for good. She takes her hand away from him, but gently. I slammed it in the car door at the airport, she says, thinking of all the times she has lied about things Tom has done to her, and all the times she lied about the bruises her father put on her. Is this the last time, the last lie? How wonderful that would be ... almost too wonderful to be believed. She thinks of a doctor coming in to see a terminal cancer patient and saying The Xrays show the tumor is shrinking. We dont have any idea why, but its happening. It must hurt like hell, he says. I took some aspirin. She opens the inflight magazine again, although he probably knows shes been through it twice already. Where are you headed? She closes the magazine, looks at him, smiles. Youre very nice, she says, but I dont want to talk. All right? All right, he says, smiling back. But if you want to drink to the big duck on the side of the plane when we get to Boston, Im buying.  Thank you, but I have another plane to catch. Boy, was my horoscope ever wrong this morning, he says, and reopens his novel. But you sound great when you laugh. A guy could fall in love.  She opens the magazine again, but finds herself looking at her jagged nails instead of the article on the pleasures of New Orleans. There are purple bloodblisters under two of them. In her mind she hears Tom screaming down the stairwell Ill kill you, you bitch! You fucking bitch! She shivers, cold. A bitch to Tom, a bitch to the seamstresses who goofed up before important shows and took a Beverly Rogan reaming for it, a bitch to her father long before either Tom or the hapless seamstresses became part of their lives. A bitch. You bitch. You fucking bitch. She closes her eyes momentarily. Her foot, cut on a shard of perfume bottle as she fled their bedroom, throbs more than her fingers. Kay gave her a BandAid, a pair of shoes, and a check for a thousand dollars which Beverly cashed promptly at nine oclock at the First Bank of Chicago in Watertower Square. Over Kays protests, Beverly wrote her own check for a thousand dollars on a plain sheet of typing paper. I read once that they have to take a check no matter what its written on, she told Kay. Her voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else. A radio in another room, maybe. Someone cashed a check once that was written on an artillery shell. I read that in The Book of Lists, I think. She paused, then laughed uneasily. Kay looked at her soberly, even solemnly. But Id cash it fast, before Tom thinks to freeze the accounts. Although she doesnt feel tired (she is aware, however, that by now she must be going purely on nerves and Kays black coffee), the previous night seems like something she must have dreamed. She can remember being followed by three teenaged boys who called and whistled but didnt quite dare come right up to her. She remembers the relief that washed over her when she saw the white fluorescent glow of a SevenEleven store spilling out onto the sidewalks at an intersection. She went in and let the pimplyfaced counterman look down the front of her old blouse and talked him into loaning her forty cents for the pay phone. It wasnt hard, the view being what it was. She called Kay McCall first, dialing from memory. The phone rang a dozen times and she began to fear that Kay was in New York. Kays sleepy voice mumbled, It better be good, whoever you are just as Beverly was about to hang up. Its Bev, Kay,  she said, hesitated, and then plunged. I need help. There was a moment of silence, and then Kay spoke again, sounding fully awake now.


Where are you? What happened? Im at a SevenEleven on the corner of Streyland Avenue and some other street. I ... Kay, Ive left Tom. Kay, quick and emphatic and excited Good! Finally! Hurray! Ill come and get you! That son of a bitch! That piece of shit! Ill come and get you in the fucking Mercedes! Ill hire a fortypiece band! Ill Ill take a cab,  Bev said, holding the other two dimes in one sweating palm. In the round mirror at the back of the store she could see the pimply clerk staring at her ass with deep and dreamy concentration. But youll have to pay the tab when I get there. I dont have any money. Not a cent. Ill tip the bastard five bucks, Kay cried. This is the best fucking news since Nixon resigned! You get your buns over here, girl. And She paused and when she spoke again her voice was serious and so full of kindness and love that Beverly felt she might weep. Thank God you finally did it, Bev. I mean that. Thank God. Kay McCall is a former designer who married rich, divorced richer, and discovered feminist politics in 1972, about three years before Beverly first met her. At the time of her greatest popularitycontroversy she was accused of having embraced feminism after using archaic, chauvinistic laws to take her manufacturer husband for every cent the law would allow her. Bullshit! Kay had once exclaimed to Beverly. The people who say that stuff never had to go to bed with Sam Chacowicz. Two pumps a tickle and a squirt, that was ole Sammys motto. The only time he could keep it up for longer than seventy seconds was when he was pulling off in the tub. I didnt cheat him; I just took my combat pay retroactively. She wrote three booksone on feminism and the working woman, one on feminism and the family, one on feminism and spirituality. The first two were quite popular. In the three years since her last, she had fallen out of fashion to a degree, and Beverly thought it was something of a relief to her. Her investments had done well (Feminism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive, thank God, she had once told Bev) and now she was a wealthy woman with a townhouse, a place in the country, and two or three lovers virile enough to go the distance with her in the sack but not quite virile enough to beat her at tennis. When they get that good, I drop them at once, she said, and although Kay clearly thought this was a joke, Beverly wondered if it really was. Beverly called a cab and when it came she piled into the back with her suitcase, glad to be away from the clerks eyes, and gave the driver Kays address. She was waiting at the end of her driveway, wearing her mink coat over a flannel nightgown. Pink fuzzy mules with great big pompoms were on her feet. Not orange pompoms, thank Godthat might have sent Beverly screaming into the night again. The ride over to Kays had been weird things were coming back to her, memories pouring in so fast and so clearly that it was frightening. She felt as if someone had started up a big bulldozer in her head and begun excavating a mental graveyard she hadnt even known was there. Only it was names instead of bodies that were turning up, names she hadnt thought of in years Ben Hanscom, Richie Tozier, Greta Bowie, Henry Bowers, Eddie Kaspbrak ... Bill Denbrough. Especially BillStuttering Bill, they had called him with that openness of children that is sometimes called candor, sometimes cruelty. He had seemed so tall to her, so perfect (until he opened his mouth and started to talk, that was). Names ... places ... things that had happened. Alternately hot and cold, she had remembered the voices from the drain . . . and the blood. She had screamed and her father had popped her one. Her fatherTom Tears threatened ... and then Kay was paying the cabdriver and tipping him big enough to make the startled cabbie exclaim, Thanks, lady! Wow! Kay took her into the house, got her into the shower, gave her a robe when she got out, made coffee, examined her injuries, Mercurochromed her cut foot, and put a BandAid on it. She poured a generous dollop of brandy into Bevs second cup of coffee and hectored her into drinking every drop. Then she cooked them each a rare strip steak and sauteed fresh mushrooms to go with them. All right, she said. What happened? Do we call the cops or just send you to Reno to do your residency? I cant tell you too much,  Beverly said. It would sound too crazy. But it was my fault, mostly Kay slammed her hand down on the table. It made a sound on the polished mahogany like a smallcaliber pistol shot. Bev jumped. Dont you say that, Kay said. There was high color in her cheeks, and her brown eyes were blazing. How long have we been friends? Nine years? Ten? If I hear you say it was your fault one more time, Im going to puke. You hear me? Im just going to fucking puke. It wasnt your fault this time, or last time, or the time before, or any of the times. Dont you know most of your friends thought that sooner or later hed put you in a body cast, or maybe even kill you? Beverly was looking at her wideeyed. And that would have been your fault, at least to a degree, for staying there and letting it happen. But now youre gone. Thank God for small favors. But dont you sit there with half of your fingernails ripped off and your foot cut open and beltmarks on your shoulders and tell me it was your fault.  He didnt use his belt on me, Bev said. The lie was automatic ... and so was the deep shame which brought a miserable flush to her cheeks. If youre done with Tom, you ought to be done with the lies as well, Kay said quietly, and she looked at Bev so long and so lovingly that Bev had to drop her eyes. She could taste salt tears in the back of her throat. Who did you think you were fooling? Kay asked, still speaking quietly. She reached across the table and took Bevs hands. The dark glasses, the blouses with high necks and long sleeves ... maybe you fooled a buyer or two. But you cant fool your friends, Bev. Not the people who love you. And then Beverly did cry, long and hard, and Kay held her, and later, just before going to bed, she told Kay what she could That an old friend from Derry, Maine, where she had grown up, had called, and had reminded her of a promise she had made long ago. The time to fulfill the promise had arrived, he said. Would she come? She said she would. Then the trouble with Tom had started. What was this promise? Kay asked. Beverly shook her head slowly. I cant tell you that, Kay. Much as Id like to.  Kay chewed on this and then nodded. All right. Fair enough. What are you going to do about Tom when you get back from Maine? And Bev, who had begun to feel more and more that she wouldnt be coming back from Derry, ever, said only Ill come to you first, and well decide together. Okay? Very much okay, Kay said. Is that a promise, too? As soon as Im back, Bev said steadily, you can count on it. And she hugged Kay hard. With Kays check cashed and Kays shoes on her feet, she had taken a Greyhound north to Milwaukee, afraid that Tom might have gone out to OHare to look for her. Kay, who had gone with her to the bank and the bus depot, tried to talk her out of it. OHares lousy wth security people, dear, she said. You dont have to worry about him. If he comes near you, what you do is scream your fucking head off. Beverly shook her head. I want to avoid him altogether. This is the way to do it. Kay looked at her shrewdly. Youre afraid he might talk you out of it, arent you? Beverly thought of the seven of them standing in the stream, of Stanley and his piece of broken Coke bottle glinting in the sun; she thought of the thin pain as he cut her palm lightly on a slant, she thought of them clasping hands in a childrens circle, promising to come back if it ever started again ... to come back and kill it for good. No, she said. He couldnt talk me out of this. But he might hurt me, security guards or not. You didnt see him last night, Kay. Ive seen him enough on other occasions, Kay said, her brows drawing together. The asshole that walks like a man. He was crazy, Bev said. Security guards might not stop him. This is better. Believe me.  All right, Kay said reluctantly, and Bev thought with some amusement that Kay was disappointed that there was going to be no confrontation, no big blowoff. Cash the check quick, Beverly told her again, before he can think to freeze the accounts. He will, you know. Sure, Kay said. If he does that, Ill go see the son of a bitch with a horsewhip and take it out in trade. You stay away from him, Beverly said sharply. Hes dangerous, Kay. Believe me. He was like Like my father was what trembled on her lips. Instead she said, He was like a wildman. Okay, Kay said. Be easy in your mind, dear. Go keep your promise. And do some thinking about what comes after.  I will, Bev said, but that was a lie. She had too many other things to think about what had happened the summer she was eleven, for instance. Showing Richie Tozier how to make his yoyo sleep, for instance. Voices from the drain, for instance. And something she had seen, something so horrible that even then, embracing Kay for the last time by the long silvery side of the grumbling Greyhound bus, her mind would not quite let her see it. Now, as the plane with the duck on the side begins its long descent into the Boston area, her mind turns to that again ... and to Stan Uris ... and to an unsigned poem that came on a postcard ... and the voices ... and to those few seconds when she had been eye to eye with something that was perhaps infinite. She looks out the window, looks down, and thinks that Toms evil is a small and petty thing compared with the evil waiting for her in Derry. If there is a compensation, it is that Bill Denbrough will be there ... and there was a time when an elevenyearold girl named Beverly Marsh loved Bill Denbrough. She remembers the postcard with the lovely poem written on the back, and remembers that she once knew who wrote it. She doesnt remember anymore, any more than she remembers exactly what the poem said ... but she thinks it might have been Bill. Yes, it might well have been Stuttering Bill Denbrough. She thinks suddenly of getting ready for bed the night after Richie and Ben took her to see those two horror movies. After her first date. She had cracked wise with Richie about itin those days that had been her defense when she was out on the streetbut a part of her had been touched and excited and a little scared. It really had been her first date, even though there had been two boys instead of one. Richie had paid her way and everything, just like a real date. Then, afterward, there had been those boys who chased them ... and they had spent the rest of the afternoon in the Barrens ... and Bill Denbrough had come down with another kid, she couldnt remember who, but she remembered the way Bills eyes had rested on hers for a moment, and the electric shock she had felt ... the shock and a flush that seemed to warm her entire body. She remembers thinking of all these things as she pulled on her nightgown and went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. She remembers thinking that it would take her a long time to get to sleep that night; because there was so much to think about ... and to think about in a good way, because they seemed like good kids, like kids you could maybe goof with and maybe even trust a little bit. That would be nice. That would be ... well, like heaven. And thinking these things, she took her washcloth and leaned over the basin to get some water and the voice 2 came whispering out of the drain Help me.... Beverly drew back, startled, the dry washcloth dropping onto the floor. She shook her head a little, as if to clear it, and then she bent over the basin again and looked curiously at the drain. The bathroom was at the back of their fourroom apartment. She could hear, faintly, some Western program going on the TV. When it was over, her father would probably switch over to a baseball game, or the fights, and then go to sleep in his easy chair. The wallpaper in here was a hideous pattern of frogs on lily pads. It bulged and swayed over the lumpy plaster beneath. It was watermarked in some places, actually peeling away in others. The tub was rustmarked, the toilet seat cracked. One naked 40watt bulb jutted from a porcelain socket over the basin. Beverly could remembervaguelythat there had once been a light fixture, but it had been broken some years ago and never replaced. The floor was covered with linoleum from which the pattern had faded, except for a small patch under the sink. Not a very cheery room, but Beverly had used it so long that she no longer noticed what it looked like. The washbasin was also waterstained. The drain was a simple crosshatched circle about two inches in diameter. There had once been a chrome facing, but that was also long gone. A rubber drainplug on a chain was looped nonchalantly over the faucet marked C. The drainhole was pipedark, and as she leaned over it, she noticed for the first time that there was a faint, unpleasant smella slightly fishy smellcoming from the drain. She wrinkled her nose a little in disgust. Help me She gasped. It was a voice. She had thought perhaps a rattle in the pipes ... or maybe just her imagination ... some holdover from those movies.... Help me, Beverly.... Alternate waves of coldness and warmth swept her. She had taken the rubber band out of her hair, which lay spread across her shoulders in a bright cascade. She could feel the roots trying to stiffen. Unaware that she meant to speak, she bent over the basin again and halfwhispered, Hello? Is someone there? The voice from the drain had been that of a very young child who had perhaps just learned to talk. And in spite of the gooseflesh on her arms, her mind searched for some rational explanation. It was an apartment house. The Marshes lived in the back apartment on the ground floor. There were four other apartments. Maybe there was a kid in the building amusing himself by calling into the drain. And some trick of sound ... Is someone there? she asked the drain in the bathroom, louder this time. It suddenly occurred to her that if her father happened to come in just now he would think her crazy. There was no answer from the drain, but that unpleasant smell seemed stronger. It made her think of the bamboo patch in the Barrens, and the dump beyond it; it called up images of slow, bitter smokes and black mud that wanted to suck the shoes off your feet. There were no really little kids in the building, that was the thing. The Tremonts had had a boy who was five, and girls who were three and six months, but Mr. Tremont had lost his job at the shoe shop on Tracker Avenue, they got behind on the rent, and one day not long before school let out they had all just disappeared in Mr. Tremonts rusty old PowerFlite Buick. There was Skipper Bolton in the front apartment on the second floor, but Skipper was fourteen. We all want to meet you, Beverly. . . . Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes widened in horror. For a moment ... just for a moment ... she believed she had seen something moving down there. She was suddenly aware that her hair was now hanging over her shoulders in two thick sheaves, and that they dangled closevery closeto that drainhole. Some clear instinct made her straighten up quick and get her hair away from there. She looked around. The bathroom door was firmly closed. She could hear the TV faintly, Cheyenne Bodie warning the bad guy to put the gun down before someone got hurt. She was alone. Except, of course, for that voice. Who are you? she called into the basin, pitching her voice low. Matthew Clements, the voice whispered. The clown took me down here in the pipes and I died and pretty soon hell come and take you, Beverly, and Ben Hanscom, and Bill Denbrough and Eddie Her hands flew to her cheeks and clutched them. Her eyes widened, widened, widened. She felt her body growing cold. Now the voice sounded choked and ancient ... and still it crawled with corrupted glee. Youll float down here with your friends, Beverly, we all float down here, tell Bill that Georgie says hello, tell Bill that Georgie misses him but hell see him soon, tell him Georgie will be in the closet some night with a piece of piano wire to stick in his eye, tell him The voice broke up in a series of choking hiccups and suddenly a bright red bubble backed up the drain and popped, spraying beads of blood on the distained porcelain. The choking voice spoke rapidly now, and as it spoke it changed now it was the young voice of the child that she had first heard, now it was a teenaged girls voice, nowhorriblyit became the voice of a girl Beverly had known ... Veronica Grogan. But Veronica was dead, she had been found dead in a sewerdrain Im Matthew . . . Im Betty . . . Im Veronica . . . were down here . . . down here with the clown . . . and the creature . . . and the mummy . . . and the werewolf . . . and you, Beverly, were down here with you, and we float, we change . . . A gout of blood suddenly belched from the drain, splattering the sink and the mirror and the wallpaper with its frogsandlilypads pattern. Beverly screamed, suddenly and piercingly. She backed away from the sink, struck the door, rebounded, clawed it open, and ran for the living room, where her father was just getting to his feet. What the Sam Hills wrong with you? he asked, his brows drawing together. The two of them were here alone this evening, Bevs mom was working the threetoeleven shift at Greens Farm, Derrys best restaurant. The bathroom! she cried hysterically. The bathroom, Daddy, in the bathroom Was someone peekin at you, Beverly? Huh? His arm shot out and his hand gripped her arm hard, sinking into the flesh. There was concern on his face but it was a predatory concern, somehow more frightening than comforting. No . . . the sink . . . in the sink . . . the ... the . . . She burst into hysterical tears before she could say anything more. Her heart was thundering so hard in her chest that she thought it would choke her. Al Marsh thrust her aside with an O JesusChristwhatnext expression on his face and went into the bathroom. He was in there so long that Beverly became afraid again. Then he bawled Beverly! You come here, girl! There was no question of not going. If the two of them had been standing on the edge of a high cliff and he had told her to step offright now, girlher instinctive obedience would almost certainly have carried her over the edge before her rational mind could have intervened. The bathroom door was open. There her father stood, a big man who was now losing the auburn hair he had passed on to Beverly. He was still wearing his gray fatigue pants and his gray shirt (he was a janitor at the Derry Home Hospital), and he was looking hard at Beverly. He did not drink, he did not smoke, he did not chase after women. I got all the women I need at home, he said on occasion, and when he said it a peculiar secretive smile would cross his faceit did not brighten it but did quite the opposite. Watching that smile was like watching the shadow of a cloud travel rapidly across a rocky field. They take care of me, and when they need it, I take care of them. Now just what the Sam Hill is this foolishness all about? he asked as she came in. Beverly felt as if her throat had been lined with slate. Her heart raced in her chest. She thought that she might vomit soon. There was blood on the mirror, running in long drips. There were spots of blood on the light over the sink; she could smell it cooking onto the 40watt bulb. Blood ran down the porcelain sides of the sink and plopped in fat drops on the linoleum floor. Daddy ... she whispered huskily. He turned, disgusted with her (as he was so often), and began casually to wash his hands in the bloody sink. Good God, girl. Speak up. You scared hell out of me. Explain yourself, for Lords sake. He was washing his hands in the basin, she could see blood staining the gray fabric of his pants where they rubbed against the lip of the sink, and if his forehead touched the mirror (it was close) it would be on his skin. She made a choked noise in her throat. He turned off the water, grabbed a towel on which two fans of blood from the drain had splashed, and began to dry his hands. She watched, near swooning, as he grimed blood into his big knuckles and the lines of his palms. She could see blood under his fingernails like marks of guilt. Well? Im waiting. He tossed the bloody towel back over the rod. There was blood ... blood everywhere ... and her father didnt see it. Daddy She had no idea what might have come next, but her father interrupted her. I worry about you, Al Marsh said. I dont think youre ever going to grow up, Beverly. You go out running around, you dont do hardly any of the housework around here, you cant cook, you cant sew. Half the time youre off on a cloud someplace with your nose stuck in a book and the other half youve got vapors and megrims. I worry. His hand suddenly swung and spatted painfully against her buttocks. She uttered a cry, her eyes fixed on his. There was a tiny stipple of blood caught in his bushy right eyebrow. If I look at that long enough Ill just go crazy and none of this will matter, she thought dimly. I worry a lot, he said, and hit her again, harder, on the arm above the elbow. That arm cried out and then seemed to go to sleep. She would have a spreading yellowishpurple bruise there the next day. An awful lot,  he said, and punched her in the stomach. He pulled the punch at the last second, and Beverly lost only half of her air. She doubled over, gasping, tears starting in her eyes. Her father looked at her impassively. He shoved his bloody hands in the pockets of his trousers. You got to grow up, Beverly, he said, and now his voice was kind and forgiving. Isnt that so? She nodded. Her head throbbed. She cried, but silently. If she sobbed aloudstarted what her father called that baby whininghe might go to work on her in earnest. Al Marsh had lived his entire life in Derry and told people who asked (and sometimes those who did not) that he intended to be buried herehopefully at the age of one hundred and ten. No reason why I shouldnt live forever, he sometimes told Roger Aurlette, who cut his hair once each month. I have no vices. Now explain yourself, he said, and make it quick. There was She swallowed and it hurt because there was no moisture in her throat, none at all. There was a spider. A big fat black spider. It . . . it crawled out of the drain and I . . . I guess it crawled back down. Oh! He smiled a little at her now, as if pleased by this explanation. Was that it? Damn! If youd told me, Beverly, I never would have hit you. All girls are scared of spiders. Sam Hill! Why didnt you speak up? He bent over the drain and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out a warning ... and some other voice spoke deep inside her, some terrible voice which could not have been a part of her; surely it was the voice of the devil himself Let it get him, if it wants him. Let it pull him down. Good fuckingriddance. She turned away from that voice in horror. To allow such a thought to stay for even a moment in her head would surely damn her to hell. He peered into the eye of the drain. His hands squelched in the blood on the rim of the basin. Beverly fought grimly with her gorge. Her belly ached where her dad had hit her. Dont see a thing, he said. All these buildings are old, Bev. Got drains the size of freeways, you know it? When I was janitorin down in the old high school, we used to get drowned rats in the toilet bowls once in awhile. It drove the girls crazy. He laughed fondly at the thought of such female vapors and megrims. Mostly when the Kenduskeag was high. Less wildlife in the pipes since they put in the new drain system, though. He put an arm around her and hugged her. Look. You go to bed and dont think about it anymore. Okay? She felt her love for him. I never hit you when you didnt deserve it, Beverly, he told her once when she had cried out that some punishment had been unfair. And surely that had to be true, because he was capable of love. Sometimes he would spend a whole day with her, showing her how to do things or just telling her stuff or walking around town with her, and when he was kind like that she thought her heart would swell with happiness until it killed her. She loved him, and tried to understand that he had to correct her often because it was (as he said) his Godgiven job. Daughters, Al Marsh said, need more correction than sons. He had no sons, and she felt vaguely as if that might be partly her fault as well. Okay, Daddy, she said. I wont. They walked into her small bedroom together. Her right arm now ached fiercely from the blow it had taken. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the bloody sink, bloody mirror, bloody wall, bloody floor. The bloody towel her father had used and then hung casually over the rod. She thought How can I ever go in there to wash up again? Please God, dear God, Im sorry if I had a bad thought about my dad and You can punish me for it if You want, I deserve to be punished, make me fall down and hurt myself or make me have the flu like last winter when I coughed so hard once I threw up but please God make the blood be gone in the morning, pretty please, God, okay? Okay? Her father tucked her in as he always did, and kissed her forehead. Then he only stood there for a moment in what she would always think of as his way of standing, perhaps of being bent slightly forward, hands plunged deepto above the wristin his pockets, the bright blue eyes in his mournful bassethounds face looking down at her from above. In later years, long after she stopped thinking about Derry at all, she would see a man sitting on the bus or maybe standing on a corner with his dinnerbucket in his hand, shapes, oh shapes of men, sometimes seen as day closed down, sometimes seen across Watertower Square in the noonlight of a clear windy autumn day, shapes of men, rules of men, desires of men or Tom, so like her father when he took off his shirt and stood slightly slumped in front of the bathroom mirror to shave. Shapes of men. Sometimes I worry about you, Bev, he said, but there was no trouble or anger in his voice now. He touched her hair gently, smoothing it back from her forehead. The bathroom is full of blood, Daddy! she almost screamed then. Didnt you see it? Its everywhere! Cooking onto the light over the sink, even! Didnt you SEE it? But she kept her silence as he went out and closed the door behind him, filling her room with darkness. She was still awake, still staring into the darkness, when her mother came in at eleventhirty and the TV went off. She heard her parents go into their room and she heard the bedsprings creaking steadily as they did their sexact thing. Beverly had overheard Greta Bowie telling Sally Mueller that the sexact thing hurt like fire and no nice girl ever wanted to do it (At the end of it the man pees all over your bug, Greta said, and Sally had cried Oh yuck, Id never let a boy do that to me!). If it hurt as badly as Greta said, then Bevs mother kept the hurt to herself; Bev had heard her mom cry out once or twice in a low voice, but it hadnt sounded at all like a paincry. The slow creak of the springs speeded up to a beat so rapid it was just short of frantic, and then stopped. There was a period of silence, then some low talk, then the sound of her mothers footsteps as she went into the bathroom. Beverly held her breath, waiting for her mother to scream or not. There was no screamonly the sound of water running into the basin. That was followed by some low splashing. Then the water ran out of the basin with its familiar gurgling sound. Her mother was brushing her teeth now. Moments later the bedsprings in her parents room creaked again as her mom got back into bed. Five minutes or so after that her father began to snore. A black fear stole over her heart and closed her throat. She found herself afraid to turn over on her right sideher favorite sleeping positionbecause she might see something looking in the window at her. So she just lay on her back, stiff as a poker, looking up at the pressedtin ceiling. Some time laterminutes or hours, there was no way of tellingshe fell into a thin troubled sleep. 3 Beverly always woke up when the alarm went off in her parents bedroom. You had to be fast, because the alarm no more than got started before her father banged it off. She dressed quickly while her father used the bathroom. She paused briefly (as she now almost always did) to look at her chest in the mirror trying to decide if her breasts had gotten any bigger in the night. She had started getting them late last year. There had been some faint pain at first, but that was gone now. They were extremely smallnot much more than spring apples, reallybut they were there. It was true; childhood would end; she would be a woman. She smiled at her reflection and put a hand behind her head, pushing her hair up and sticking her chest out. She giggled a little girls unaffected giggle . . . and suddenly remembered the blood spewing out of the bathroom drain the night before. The giggles stopped abruptly. She looked at her arm and saw the bruise that had formed there in the nightan ugly stain between her shoulder and elbow, a stain with many discolored fingers. The toilet went with a bang and a flush. Moving quickly, not wanting him to be mad with her this morning (not wanting him to even notice her this morning), Beverly pulled on a pair of jeans and her Derry High School sweatshirt. And then, because it could no longer be put off, she left her room for the bathroom. Her father passed her in the living room on his way back to his room to get dressed. His blue pajama suit flapped loosely around him. He grunted something at her she didnt understand. Okay, Daddy, she replied nevertheless. She stood in front of the closed bathroom door for a moment, trying to get her mind ready for what she might see inside. At least its daytime, she thought, and that brought some comfort. Not much, but some. She grasped the doorknob, turned it, and stepped inside. 4 That was a busy morning for Beverly. She got her father his breakfastorange juice, scrambled eggs, Al Marshs version of toast (the bread hot but not really toasted at all). He sat at the table, barricaded behind the News, and ate it all. Wheres the bacon? Gone, Daddy. We finished it yesterday. Cook me a hamburger. Theres only a little bit of that left, t The paper rustled, then dropped. His blue stare fell on her like weight. What did you say? he asked softly. I said right away, Daddy. He looked at her a moment longer. Then the paper went back up and Beverly hurried to the refrigerator to get the meat. She cooked him a hamburger, mashing the little bit of ground meat that was left in the icebox as hard as she could to make it look bigger. He ate it reading the Sports page and Beverly made his luncha couple of peanutbutterandjelly sandwiches, a big piece of cake her mother had brought back from Greens Farm last night, a Thermos of hot coffee heavily laced with sugar. You tell your mother I said to get this place cleaned up today, he said, taking his dinnerbucket. It looks like a damn old pigsty. Sam Hill! I spend the whole day cleaning up messes over to the hospital. I dont need to come home to a pigsty. You mind me, Beverly. Okay, Daddy. I will. He kissed her cheek, gave her a rough hug, and left. As she always did, Beverly went to the window of her room and watched him walk down the street. And as she always did, she felt a sneaking sense of relief when he turned the corner ... and hated herself for it. She did the dishes and then took the book she was reading out on the back steps for awhile.


Lars Theramenius, his long blonde hair glowing with its own serene inner light, toddled over from the next building to show Beverly his new Tonka truck and the new scrapes on his knees. Beverly exclaimed over both. Then her mother was calling her. They changed both beds, washed the floors and waxed the kitchen linoleum. Her mother did the bathroom floor, for which Beverly was profoundly grateful. Elfrida Marsh was a small woman with graying hair and a grim look. Her lined face told the world that she had been around for awhile and intended to stay around awhile longer.... It also told the world that none of it had been easy and she did not look for an early change in that state of affairs. Will you do the livingroom windows, Bevvie? she asked, coming back into the kitchen. She had changed into her waitress uniform. I have to go up to Saint Joes in Bangor to see Cheryl Tarrent. She broke her leg last night. Yeah, Ill do them, Beverly said. What happened to Mrs. Tarrent? Did she fall down or something? Cheryl Tarrent was a woman Elfrida worked with at the restaurant. She and that nogood shes married to were in a car wreck, Beverlys mother said grimly. He was drinking. You want to thank God in your prayers every night that your father doesnt drink, Bewie. I do, Beverly said. She did. Shes going to lose her job, I guess, and he cant hold one. Now tones of grim horror crept into Elfridas voice. Theyll have to go on the county, I guess. It was the worst thing Elfrida Marsh could think of. Losing a child or finding out you had cancer didnt hold a candle to it. You could be poor; you could spend your life doing what she called scratchin. But at the bottom of everything, below even the gutter, was a time when you might have to go on the county and drink the worksweat from the brows of others as a gift. This, she knew, was the prospect that now faced Cheryl Tarrent. Once you got the windows washed and take the trash out, you can go and play awhile, if you want. Its your fathers bowling night so you wont have to fix his supper, but I want you in before dark. You know why. Okay, Mom. My God, youre growing up fast, Elfrida said. She looked for a moment at the nubs in Beverlys sweatshirt. Her glance was loving but pitiless. I dont know what Im going to do around here once youre married and have a place of your own. Ill be around for just about ever, Beverly said, smiling. Her mother hugged her briefly and kissed the corner of her mouth with her warm dry lips. I know better, she said. But I love you, Bewie. I love you too, Momma. You make sure there arent any streaks on those windows when youre done, she said, picking up her purse and going to the door. If there are, youll catch the blue devil from your father. Ill be careful. As her mother opened the door to go out, Beverly asked in a tone she hoped was casual Did you see anything funny in the bathroom, Mom? Elfrida looked back at her, frowning a little. Funny? Well . . . I saw a spider in there last night. It crawled out of the drain. Didnt Daddy tell you? Did you get your dad angry at you last night, Bewie? No! Huhuh! I told him a spider crawled out of the drain and scared me and he said sometimes they used to find drowned rats in the toilets at the old high school. Because of the drains. He didnt tell you about the spider I saw? No. Oh. Well, it doesnt matter. I just wondered if you saw it. I didnt see any spider. I wish we could afford a little new linoleum for that bathroom floor. She glanced at the sky, which was blue and cloudless. They say if you kill a spider, it brings rain. You didnt kill it, did you? No, Beverly said. I didnt kill it. Her mother looked back at her, her lips pressed together so tightly they almost werent there. You sure your dad wasnt angry with you last night? No! Bewie, does he ever touch you? What? Beverly looked at her mother, totally perplexed. God, her father touched her every day. I dont get what you Never mind, Elfrida said shortly. Dont forget the trash. And if those windows are streaked, you wont need your father to give you blue devil. I wont (does he ever touch you) forget. And be in before dark. I will. (does he) (worry an awful lot) Elfrida left. Beverly went into her room again and watched her around the corner and out of view, as she had her father. Then, when she was sure her mother was well on her way to the bus stop, Beverly got the floorbucket, the Windex, and some rags from under the sink. She went into the living room and began on the windows. The apartment seemed too quiet. Each time the floor creaked or a door slammed, she jumped a little. When the Boltons toilet flushed above her, she uttered a gasp that was nearly a scream. And she kept looking toward the closed bathroom door. At last she walked down there and drew it open again and looked inside. Her mother had cleaned in here this morning, and most of the blood which had pooled under the sink was gone. So was the blood on the sinks rim. But there were still maroon streaks drying in the sink itself, spots and splashes of it on the mirror and on the wallpaper. Beverly looked at her pale reflection and realized with sudden, superstitious dread that the blood on the mirror made it seem as if her face was bleeding. She thought again What am I going to do about this? Have I gone crazy? Am I imagining it? The drain suddenly gave a burping chuckle. Beverly screamed and slammed the door and five minutes later her hands were still trembling so badly that she almost dropped the bottle of Windex as she washed the windows in the living room. 5 It was around three oclock that afternoon, the apartment locked up and the extra key tucked snugly away in the pocket of her jeans, when Beverly Marsh happened to turn up Richards Alley, a narrow walkthrough which connected Main and Center Streets, and came upon Ben Hanscom, Eddie Kaspbrak, and a boy named Bradley Donovan pitching pennies. Hi, Bev! Eddie said. You get any nightmares from those movies? Nope, Beverly said, squatting down to watch the game. Howd you know about that? Haystack told me, Eddie said, jerking a thumb at Ben, who was blushing wildly for no good reason Beverly could see. What movieth? Bradley asked, and now Beverly recognized him he had come down to the Barrens a week ago with Bill Denbrough. They had a speech class together in Bangor. Beverly more or less dismissed him from her mind. If asked, she might have said he seemed somehow less important than Ben and Eddieless there. Couple of creature features, she said to him, and duckwalked closer until she was between Ben and Eddie. You pitchin? Yes, Ben said. He looked at her quickly, then looked away. Whos winning? Eddie, Ben said. Eddies real good. She looked at Eddie, who polished his nails solemnly on the front of his shirt and then giggled. Can I play? Okay with me, Eddie said. You got pence? She felt in her pocket and brought out three. Jeez, how do you dare to go out of the house with such a wad? Eddie asked. Id be scared. Ben and Bradley Donovan laughed. Girls can be brave, too, Beverly said gravely, and a moment later they were all laughing. Bradley pitched first, then Ben, then Beverly. Because he was winning, Eddie had lasties. They tossed the pennies toward the back wall of the Center Street Drug Store. Sometimes they landed short, sometimes they struck and bounced back. At the end of each round the shooter with the penny closest to the wall collected all four pennies. Five minutes later, Beverly had twentyfour cents. She had lost only a single round. Girlth cheat! Bradley said, disgusted, and got up to go. His good humor was gone, and he looked at Beverly with both anger and humiliation. Girlth thouldnt be allowed to Ben bounced to his feet. It was awesome to watch Ben Hanscom bounce. Take that back! Bradley looked at Ben, his mouth open. What? Take it back! She didnt cheat! Bradley looked from Ben to Eddie to Beverly, who was still on her knees. Then he looked back at Ben again. You want a fat lip to math the reth of you, athhole? Sure, Ben said, and a grin suddenly crossed his face. Something in its quality caused Bradley to take a surprised, uneasy step backward. Perhaps what he saw in that grin was the simple fact that after tangling with Henry Bowers and coming out ahead not once but twice, Ben Hanscom was not about to be terrorized by skinny old Bradley Donovan (who had warts all over his hands as well as that cataclysmic lisp). Yeah, and then you all gang up on me, Bradley said, taking another step backward. His voice had picked up an uncertain waver, and tears stood out in his eyes. All a bunth of cheaterth! You just take back what you said about her, Ben said. Never mind, Ben, Beverly said. She held out a handful of coppers to Bradley. Take whats yours. I wasnt playing for keepsies anyway. Tears of humiliation spilled over Bradleys lower lashes. He struck the pennies from Beverlys hand and ran for the Center Street end of Richards Alley. The others stood looking at him, openmouthed. With safety within reach, Bradley turned around and shouted Youre jutht a little bith, thatth all! Cheater! Cheater! Your motherth a whore! Beverly gasped. Ben ran up the alley toward Bradley and succeeded in doing no more than tripping over an empty crate and falling down. Bradley was gone, and Ben knew better than to believe he could ever catch him. He turned toward Beverly instead to see if she was all right. That word had shocked him as much as it had her. She saw the concern in his face. She opened her mouth to say she was okay, not to worry, sticksandstoneswillbreakmybonesbutnameswillneverhurtme ... and that odd question her mother had asked (does he ever touch you) recurred. Odd question, yessimple yet nonsensical, full of somehow ominous undertones, murky as old coffee. Instead of saying that names would never hurt her, she burst into tears. Eddie looked at her uncomfortably, took his aspirator from his pants pocket, and sucked on it. Then he bent down and began picking up the scattered pennies. There was a fussy, careful expression on his face as he did this. Ben moved toward her instinctively, wanting to hug and give comfort, and then stopped. She was too pretty. In the face of that prettiness he felt helpless. Cheer up, he said, knowing it must sound idiotic but unable to think of anything more useful. He touched her shoulders lightly (she had put her hands over her face to hide her wet eyes and blotchy cheeks) and then took them away as if she were too hot to touch. He was now blushing so hard he looked apoplectic. Cheer up, Beverly. She lowered her hands and cried out in a shrill, furious voice My mother is not a whore! She ... shes a waitress! This was greeted by absolute silence. Ben stared at her with his lower jaw sprung ajar. Eddie looked up at her from the cobbled surface of the alley, his hands full of pennies. And suddenly all three of them were laughing hysterically. A waitress! Eddie cackled. He had only the faintest idea of what a whore was, but something about this comparison struck him as delicious just the same. Is that what she is! Yes! Yes, she is! Beverly gasped, laughing and crying at the same time. Ben was laughing so hard he couldnt stand up. He sat heavily on a trashcan. His bulk drove the lid into the can and spilled him into the alley on his side. Eddie pointed at him and howled with laughter. Beverly helped him to his feet. A window went up above them and a woman yelled, You kids get out of there! Theres people that have to work the night shift, you know! Get lost! Without thinking, the three of them linked hands, Beverly in the middle, and ran for Center Street. They were still laughing. 6 They pooled their money and discovered they had forty cents, enough for two icecream frappes from the drugstore. Because old Mr. Keene was a grouch and wouldnt let kids under twelve eat their stuff at the soda fountain (he claimed the pinball machines in the back room might corrupt them), they took the frappes in two huge waxed containers up to Bassey Park and sat on the grass to drink them. Ben had coffee, Eddie strawberry. Beverly sat between the two boys with a straw, sampling each in turn like a bee at flowers. She felt okay again for the first time since the drain had coughed up its gout of blood the night beforewashed out and emotionally exhausted, but okay, at peace with herself. For the time being, anyway. I just dont get what was wrong with Bradley, Eddie said at lastit had the tone of awkward apology. He never acted like that before. You stood up for me, Beverly said, and suddenly kissed Ben on one cheek. Thank you. Ben went scarlet again. You werent cheating, he mumbled, and abruptly gulped down half of his coffee frappe in three monster swallows. This was followed by a burp as loud as a shotgun blast. Get any on you, Daddyo? Eddie asked, and Beverly laughed helplessly, holding her stomach. No more, she giggled. My stomach hurts. Please, no more. Ben was smiling. That night, before sleep, he would play the moment when she had kissed him over and over again in his mind. Are you really okay now? he asked. She nodded. It wasnt him. It really wasnt even what he said about my mother. It was something that happened last night. She hesitated, looking from Ben to Eddie and back to Ben again. I ... I have to tell somebody. Or show somebody. Or something. I guess I cried because Ive been scared Im going looneytunes. What are you talking about, looneytunes? a new voice asked. It was Stanley Uris. As always he looked small, slim, and preternaturally neatmuch too neat for a kid who was just barely eleven. In his white shirt, neatly tucked into his fresh jeans all the way around, his hair combed, the toes of his hightop Keds spotlessly clean, he looked instead like the worlds smallest adult. Then he smiled, and the illusion was broken. She wont say whatever she was going to say, Eddie thought, because he wasnt there when Bradley called her mother that name. But after a moments hesitation, Beverly did tell. Because somehow Stanley was different from Bradleyhe was there in a way Bradley had not been. Stanleys one of us, Beverly thought, and wondered why that should cause her arms to suddenly break out in bumps. Im not doing any of them any favors by telling, she thought. Not them, and not me, neither. But it was too late. She was already speaking. Stan sat down with them, his face still and grave. Eddie offered him the last of the strawberry frappe and Stan only shook his head, his eyes never leaving Beverlys face. None of the boys spoke. She told them about the voices. About recognizing Ronnie Grogans voice. She knew Ronnie was dead, but it was her voice all the same. She told them about the blood, and how her father had not seen it or felt it, and how her mother had not seen it this morning. When she finished, she looked around at their faces, afraid of what she might see there ... but she saw no disbelief. Terror, but no disbelief. Finally Ben said, Lets go look. 7 They went in by the back door, not just because that was the lock Bevs key fitted but because she said her father would kill her if Mrs. Bolton saw her going into the apartment with three boys while her folks were gone. Why? Eddie asked. You wouldnt understand, numbnuts, Stan said. Just be quiet. Eddie started to reply, looked again at Stans white, strained face and decided to keep his mouth shut. The door gave on the kitchen, which was full of lateafternoon sun and summer silence. The breakfast dishes sparkled in the drainer. The four of them stood by the kitchen table, bunched up, and when a door slammed upstairs, they all jumped and then laughed nervously. Where is it? Ben asked. He was whispering. Her heart thudding in her temples, Beverly led them down the little hall with her parents bedroom on one side and the closed bathroom door at the end. She pulled it open, stepped quickly inside, and pulled the chain over the sink. Then she stepped back between Ben and Eddie again. The blood had dried to maroon smears on the mirror and the basin and the wallpaper. She looked at the blood because it was suddenly easier to look at that than at them. In a small voice she could hardly recognize as her own, she asked Do you see it? Do any of you see it? Is it there? Ben stepped forward, and she was again struck by how delicately he moved for such a fat boy. He touched one of the smears of blood; then a second; then a long drip on the mirror. Here. Here. Here. His voice was flat and authoritative. Jeepers! It looks like somebody killed a pig in here, Stan said, softly awed. It all came out of the drain? Eddie asked. The sight of the blood made him feel ill. His breath was shortening. He clutched at his aspirator. Beverly had to struggle to keep from bursting into fresh tears. She didnt want to do that; she was afraid if she did they would dismiss her as just another girl. But she had to clutch for the doorknob as relief washed through her in a wave of frightening strength. Until that moment she hadnt realized how sure she was that she was going crazy, having hallucinations, something. And your mom and dad never saw it, Ben marvelled. He touched a splotch of blood which had dried on the basin and then pulled his hand away and wiped it on the tail of his shirt. Jeeperscreepers. I dont know how I can ever come in here again, Beverly said. Not to wash up or brush my teeth or ... you know. Well, why dont we clean the place up? Stanley asked suddenly. Beverly looked at him. Clean it? Sure. Maybe we couldnt get all of it off the wallpaperit looks sorta, you know, on its last legsbut we could get the rest. Havent you got some rags? Under the kitchen sink, Beverly said. But my momll wonder where they went if we use them. Ive got fifty cents, Stan said quietly. His eyes never left the blood that had spattered the area of the bathroom around the washbasin. Well clean up as good as we can, then take the rags down to that coinop laundry place back the way we came. Well wash them and dry them and theyll all be back under the sink before your folks get home. My mother says you cant get blood out of cloth, Eddie objected. She says it sets in, or something. Ben uttered a hysterical little giggle. Doesnt matter if it comes out of the rags or not, he said. They cant see it. No one had to ask him who he meant by they. All right, Beverly said. Lets try it. 8 For the next half hour, the four of them cleaned like grim elves, and as the blood disappeared from the walls and the mirror and the porcelain basin, Beverly felt her heart grow lighter and lighter. Ben and Eddie did the sink and mirror while she scrubbed the floor. Stan worked on the wallpaper with studious care, using a rag that was almost dry. In the end, they got almost all of it. Ben finished by removing the lightbulb over the sink and replacing it with one from the box of bulbs in the pantry. There were plenty Elfrida Marsh had bought a twoyear supply from the Derry Lions during their annual lightbulb sale the fall before. They used Elfridas floorbucket, her Ajax, and plenty of hot water. They dumped the water frequently because none of them liked to have their hands in it once it had turned pink. At last Stanley backed away, looked at the bathroom with the critical eye of a boy in whom neatness and order are not simply ingrained but actually innate, and told them Its the best we can do, I think. There were still faint traces of blood on the wallpaper to the left of the sink, where the paper was so thin and ragged that Stanley had dared do no more than blot it gently. Yet even here the blood had been sapped of its former ominous strength; it was little more than a meaningless pastel smear. Thank you, Beverly said to all of them. She could not remember ever having meant thanks so deeply. Thank you all. Its okay, Ben mumbled. He was of course blushing again. Sure, Eddie agreed. Lets get these rags done, Stanley said. His face was set, almost stern. And later Beverly would think that perhaps only Stan realized that they had taken another step toward some unthinkable confrontation. 9 They measured out a cup of Mrs. Marshs Tide and put it in an empty mayonnaise jar. Bev found a paper shopping bag to put the bloody rags in, and the four of them went down to the KleenKloze Washateria on the corner of Main and Cony Streets. Two blocks farther up they could see the Canal gleaming a bright blue in the afternoon sun. The KleenKloze was empty except for a woman in a white nurses uniform who was waiting for her dryer to stop. She glanced at the four kids distrustfully and then went back to her paperback of Peyton Place. Cold water, Ben said in a low voice. My mom says you gotta wash blood in cold water. They dumped the rags into the washer while Stan changed his two quarters for four dimes and two nickels. He came back and watched as Bev dumped the Tide over the rags and swung the washers door closed. Then he plugged two dimes into the coinop slot and twisted the start knob. Beverly had chipped in most of the pennies she had won at pitch for the frappes, but she found four survivors deep down in the lefthand pocket of her jeans. She fished them out and offered them to Stan, who looked pained. Jeez, he said, I take a girl on a laundry date and right away she wants to go Dutch. Beverly laughed a little. You sure? Im sure, Stan said in his dry way. I mean, its really breaking my heart to give up those four pence, Beverly, but Im sure. The four of them went over to the line of plastic contour chairs against the Washaterias cinderblock wall and sat there, not talking. The Maytag with the rags in it chugged and sloshed. Fans of suds slobbered against the thick glass of its round porthole. At first the suds were reddish. Looking at them made Bev feel a little sick, but she found it was hard to look away. The bloody foam had a gruesome sort of fascination. The lady in the nurses uniform glanced at them more and more often over the top of her book. She had perhaps been afraid they would be rowdy; now their very silence seemed to unnerve her. When her dryer stopped she took her clothes out, folded them, put them into a blue plastic laundrybag and left, giving them one last puzzled look as she went out the door. As soon as she was gone, Ben said abruptly, almost harshly Youre not alone. What? Beverly asked. Youre not alone, Ben repeated. You see He stopped and looked at Eddie, who nodded. He looked at Stan, who looked unhappy ... but who, after a moment, shrugged and also nodded. What in the world are you talking about? Beverly asked. She was tired of people saying inexplicable things to her today. She gripped Bens lower arm. If you know something about this, tell me! Do you want to do it? Ben asked Eddie. Eddie shook his head. He took his aspirator out of his pocket and sucked in on it with a monstrous gasp. Speaking slowly, picking his words, Ben told Beverly how he had happened to meet Bill Denbrough and Eddie Kaspbrak in the Barrens on the day school let outthat was almost a week ago, as hard as that was to believe. He told her about how they had built the dam in the Barrens the following day. He told Bills story of how the school photograph of his dead brother had turned its head and winked. He told his own story of the mummy who had walked on the icy Canal in the dead heart of winter with balloons that floated against the wind. Beverly listened to all this with growing horror. She could feel her eyes widening, her hands and feet growing cold. Ben stopped and looked at Eddie. Eddie took another wheezing pull on his aspirator and then told the story of the leper again, speaking as rapidly as Ben had slowly, his words tumbling over one another in their urgency to escape and be gone. He finished with a sucking little halfsob, but this time he didnt cry. And you? she asked, looking at Stan Uris. I There was sudden silence, making them all start the way a sudden explosion might have done. The wash is done, Stan said. They watched him get upsmall, economical, gracefuland open the washer. He pulled out the rags, which were stuck together in a clump, and examined them. Theres a little stain left, he said, but its not too bad. Looks like it could be cranberry juice. He showed them, and they all nodded gravely, as if over important documents. Beverly felt a relief that was similar to the relief she had felt when the bathroom was clean again. She could stand the faded pastel smear on the peeling wallpaper in there, and she could stand the faint reddish stain on her mothers cleaning rags. They had done something about it, that seemed to be the important thing. Maybe it hadnt worked completely, but she discovered it had worked well enough to give her heart peace, and brother, that was good enough for Al Marshs daughter Beverly. Stan tossed them into one of the barrelshaped dryers and put in two nickels. The dryer started to turn, and Stan came back and took his seat between Eddie and Ben. For a moment the four of them sat silent again, watching the rags turn and fall, turn and fall. The drone of the gasfired dryer was soothing, almost soporific. A woman passed by the chockedopen door, wheeling a cart of groceries. She glanced in at them and passed on. I did see something, Stan said suddenly. I didnt want to talk about it, because I wanted to think it was a dream or something. Maybe even a fit, like that Stavier kid has. Any you guys know that kid? Ben and Bev shook their heads. Eddie said, The kid whos got epilepsy? Yeah, right. Thats how bad it was. I would have rather thought I had something like that than that I saw something ... really real. What was it? Bev asked, but she wasnt sure she really wanted to know. This was not like listening to ghoststories around a campfire while you ate wieners in toasted buns and cooked marshmallows over the flames until they were black and crinkly. Here they sat in this stifling laundromat and she could see great big dust kitties under the washing machines (ghostturds, her father called them), she could see dustmotes dancing in the hot shafts of sunlight which fell through the laundromats dirty plateglass window, she could see old magazines with their covers torn off. These were all normal things. Nice and normal and boring. But she was scared. Terribly scared. Because, she sensed, none of these things were madeup stories, madeup monsters Bens mummy, Eddies leper ... either or both of them might be out tonight when the sun went down. Or Bill Denbroughs brother, onearmed and implacable, cruising through the black drains under the city with silver coins for eyes. Yet, when Stan did not answer immediately, she asked again What was it? Speaking carefully, Stan said I was over in that little park where the Standpipe is Oh God, I dont like that place, Eddie said dolefully. If theres a haunted house in Derry, thats it. What? Stan said sharply. What did you say? Dont you know about that place? Eddie asked. My mom wouldnt let me go near there even before the kids started getting killed. She ... she takes real good care of me. He offered them an uneasy grin and held his aspirator tighter in his lap. You see, some kids have been drowned in there. Three or four. TheyStan? Stan, are you all right? Stan Uriss face had gone a leaden gray. His mouth worked soundlessly. His eyes rolled up until the others could only see the bottommost curves of his irises. One hand clutched weakly at empty air and then fell against his thigh. Eddie did the only thing he could think of. He leaned over, put one thin arm around Stans slumping shoulders, jammed his aspirator into Stans mouth, and triggered off a big blast. Stan began to cough and choke and gag. He sat up straight, his eyes back in focus again. He coughed into his cupped hands. At last he uttered a huge, burping gasp and slumped back against his chair. What was that? he managed at last. My asthma medicine, Eddie said apologetically. God, it tastes like dead dogshit. They all laughed at this, but it was nervous laughter. The others were looking nervously at Stan. Thin color now burned in his cheeks. Its pretty bad, all right, Eddie said with some pride. Yeah, but is it kosher? Stan said, and they all laughed again, although none of them (including Stan) really knew what kosher meant. Stan stopped laughing first and looked at Eddie intently. Tell me what you know about the Standpipe, he said. Eddie started, but both Ben and Beverly also contributed. The Derry Standpipe stood on Kansas Street, about a mile and a half west of downtown, near the southern edge of the Barrens. At one time, near the end of the previous century, it had supplied all of Derrys water, holding one and threequarters million gallons. Because the circular openair gallery just below the Standpipes roof offered a spectacular view of the town and the surrounding countryside, it had been a popular place until 1930 or so. Families would come out to tiny Memorial Park on a Saturday or Sunday forenoon when the weather was fine, climb the one hundred and sixty stairs inside the Standpipe to the gallery, and take in the view. More often than not they spread and ate a picnic lunch while they did so. The stairs were between the Standpipes outside, which was shingled a blinding white, and its inner sleeve, a great stainlesssteel cylinder standing a hundred and six feet high. These stairs wound to the top in a narrow spiral. Just below the gallery level, a thick wooden door in the Standpipes inner jacket gave on a platform over the water itselfa black, gently lapping tarn lit by naked magnesium bulbs screwed into reflective tin hoods. The water was exactly one hundred feet deep when the supply was all the way up. Where did the water come from? Ben asked. Bev, Eddie, and Stan looked at each other. None of them knew. Well, what about the kids that drowned, then? They were only a bit clearer on that. It seemed that in those days (olden days, Ben called them solemnly, as he took up this part of the tale) the door leading to the platform over the water had always been left unlocked. One night a couple of kids ... or maybe just one ... or as many as three ... had found the groundlevel door also unlocked. They had gone up on a dare. They found their way out onto the platform over the water instead of onto the gallery by mistake. In the darkness, they had fallen over the edge before they quite knew where they were. I heard it from this kid Vic Crumly who said he heard it from his dad, Beverly said, so maybe its true. Vic said his dad said that once they fell into the water they were as good as dead because there was nothing to hold onto. The platform was just out of reach. He said they paddled around in there, yelling for help, all night long, probably. Only no one heard them and they just got tireder and tireder until She trailed off, feeling the horror of it sink into her. She could see those boys in her minds eye, real or madeup, paddling around like drenched puppies. Going under, coming up sputtering. Splashing more and swimming less as panic set in. Soggy sneakers treading water. Fingers scrabbling uselessly for any kind of purchase on the smooth steel walls of the sleeve. She could taste the water they must have swallowed. She could hear the flat, echoing quality of their cries. How long? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour? How long before the cries had ceased and they had simply floated facedown, strange fish for the caretaker to find the next morning? God, Stan said dryly. I heard there was a woman who lost her baby, too, Eddie said suddenly. That was when they closed the place for good. At least, thats what I heard. They did use to let people go up, I know that. But then one time there was this lady and her baby. I dont know how old the baby was. But this platform, its supposed to go right out over the water. And the lady went to the railing and she was, you know, holding the baby, and either she dropped it or maybe it just wriggled.