Eddie felt the familiar tightening sensation as his throat began to close up to a pinhole. Not this time, dammit, he thought suddenly. Not if my friends need me. Like Bev said, shit all over that. He also began to gather rocks. 9 Henry Bowers had gotten too big too fast to be either quick or agile under ordinary circumstances, but these circumstances were not ordinary. He was in a frenzy of pain and rage, and these lent him an ephemeral unthinking physical genius. Conscious thought was gone; his mind felt the way a latesummer grassfire looks as dusk comes on, all rosered and smokegray. He took after Mike Hanlon like a bull after a red flag. Mike was following a rudimentary path along the side of the big pit, a path which would eventually lead to the dump, but Henry was too far gone to bother with such niceties as paths; he slammed through the bushes and the brambles on a straight line, feeling neither the tiny cuts inflicted by the thorns nor the slaps of limber bushes striking his face, neck, and arms. The only thing that mattered was the niggers kinky head, drawing closer. Henry had one of the M80s in his right hand and a wooden match in his left. When he caught the nigger he was going to strike the match, light the fuse, and stuff that ashcan right down the front of his pants. Mike knew that Henry was gaining and the others were close on his heels. He tried to push himself faster. He was badly scared now, keeping panic at bay only by a grim effort of will. He had turned his ankle more seriously crossing the tracks than he had thought at first, and now he was limpskipping along. The crackle and crash of Henrys goforbroke progress behind him called up unpleasant images of being chased by a killer dog or a rogue bear. The path opened out just ahead, and Mike more fell than ran into the gravelpit. He rolled to the bottom, got to his feet, and was halfway across before he realized that there were kids there, six of them. They were spread out in a straight line and there was a funny look on their faces. It wasnt until later, when hed had a chance to sort out his thoughts, that he realized what was so odd about that look it was as if they had been expecting him. Help, Mike managed as he limped toward them. He spoke instinctively to the tall boy with the red hair. Kids ... big kids That was when Henry burst into the gravelpit. He saw the six of them and came to a skidding halt. For a moment his face was marked with uncertainty and he looked back over his shoulder. He saw his troops, and when Henry looked back at the Losers (Mike was now standing beside and slightly behind Bill Denbrough, panting rapidly), he was grinning. I know you, kid, he said, speaking to Bill. He glanced at Richie. I know you, too. Wheres your glasses, foureyes? And before Richie could reply, Henry saw Ben. Well, son of a bitch! The Jew and the fatboy are here too! That your girlfriend, fatboy? Ben jumped a little, as if goosed. Just then Peter Gordon pulled up beside Henry. Victor arrived and stood on Henrys other side; Belch and Moose Sadler arrived last. They flanked Peter and Victor, and now the two opposing groups stood facing each other in neat, almost formal lines. Panting heavily as he spoke and still sounding more than a little like a human bull, Henry said, I got bones to pick with a lot of you, but I can let that go for today. I want that nigger. So you little shits buzz off. Right! Belch said smartly. He killed my dog! Mike cried out, his voice shrill and breaking. He said so! You come on over here right now, Henry said, and maybe I wont kill you. Mike trembled but did not move. Speaking softly and clearly, Bill said The BBarrens are ours. You kkkids get out of hhere. Henrys eyes widened. It was as if hed been slapped unexpectedly. Whos gonna make me? he asked. You, horsefoot? UhUhUs, Bill said. Were through tttaking your shit, BBBowers. Get owowout. You stuttering freak, Henry said. He lowered his head and charged. Bill had a handful of rocks; all of them had a handful except Mike and Beverly, who was only holding one. Bill began to throw at Henry, not hurrying his throws, but chucking hard and with fair accuracy. The first rock missed; the second struck Henry on the shoulder. If the third had missed, Henry might have closed with Bill and wrestled him to the ground, but it didnt miss; it struck Henrys lowered head. Henry cried out in surprised pain, looked up ... and was hit four more times a little billetdoux from Richie Tozier on the chest, one from Eddie that ricocheted off his shoulderblade, one from Stan Uris that struck his shin, and Beverlys one rock, which hit him in the belly. He looked at them unbelievingly, and suddenly the air was full of whizzing missiles. Henry fell back, that same bewildered, pained expression on his face. Come on, you guys! he shouted. Help me! Chchcharge them, Bill said in a low voice, and not waiting to see if they would or not, he ran forward. They came with him, firing rocks not only at Henry now but at all the others. The big boys were grubbing on the ground for ammunition of their own, but before they could gather much, they had been peppered. Peter Gordon screamed as a rock thrown by Ben glanced off his cheekbone and drew blood. He backed up a few steps, paused, threw a hesitant rock or two back... and then fled. He had had enough; things were not done this way on West Broadway. Henry grabbed up a handful of rocks in a savage sweeping gesture. Most of them, fortunately for the Losers, were pebbles. He threw one of the larger ones at Beverly and it cut her arm. She cried out. Bellowing, Ben ran for Henry Bowers, who looked around in time to see him coming but not in time to sidestep. Henry was offbalance; Ben was one hundred and fifty trying for onesixty; the result was no contest. Henry did not go sprawling but flying. He landed on his back and skidded. Ben ran toward him again and was only vaguely aware of a warm, blooming pain in his ear as Belch Huggins nailed him with a rock roughly the size of a golf ball. Henry was getting groggily to his knees as Ben reached him and kicked him hard, his sneakered foot connecting solidly with Henrys left hip. Henry rolled over heavily on his back. His eyes blazed up at Ben. You aint supposed to throw rocks at girls! Ben shouted. He could not remember ever in his life feeling so outraged. You aint  Then he saw a flame in Henrys hand as Henry popped the wooden match alight. He touched it to the thick fuse of the M80, which he then threw at Bens face. Acting with no thought at all, Ben struck the ashcan with the palm of his hand, swinging at it as one would swing a racket at a badminton birdie. The M80 went back down. Henry saw it coming. His eyes widened and then he rolled away, screaming. The ashcan exploded a splitsecond later, blackening the back of Henrys shirt and tearing some of it away. A moment later Ben was hit by Moose Sadler and driven to his knees. His teeth clicked together over his tongue, drawing blood. He blinked around, dazed. Moose was coming toward him, but before he could reach the place where Ben was kneeling, Bill came up behind him and began pelting the big kid with rocks. Moose wheeled around, bellowing. You hit me from behind, yellowbelly! Moose screamed. You fuckin dirtyfighter! He gathered himself to charge, but Richie joined Bill and also began to fire rocks at Moose. Richie was unimpressed with Mooses rhetoric on the subject of what might or might not constitute yellowbelly behavior; he had seen the five of them chasing one scared kid, and he didnt think that exactly put them up there with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. One of Richies missiles split the skin above Mooses left eyebrow. Moose howled. Eddie and Stan Uris moved up to join Bill and Richie. Beverly moved in with them, her arm bleeding but her eyes wildly alight. Rocks flew. Belch Huggins screamed as one of them clipped his crazybone. He began to dance lumbersomely, rubbing his elbow. Henry got to his feet, the back of his shirt hanging in rags, the skin beneath almost miraculously unmarked. Before he could turn around, Ben Hanscom bounced a rock off the back of his head and drove him to his knees again. It was Victor Criss who did the most damage to the Losers that day, partly because he was a pretty fair fastball pitcher, but mostlyparadoxicallybecause he was the least emotionally involved. More and more he didnt want to be here. People could get seriously hurt in rockfights; a kid could get his skull split, a mouthful of broken teeth, could even lose an eye. But since he was in it, he was in it. He intended to dish out some trouble. That coolness had allowed him to take an extra thirty seconds and pick up a handful of goodsized rocks. He threw one at Eddie as the Losers reformed their rough skirmish line, and it struck Eddie on the chin. He fell down, crying, the blood already starting to flow. Ben turned toward him but Eddie was already getting up again, the blood gruesomely bright against his pallid skin, his eyes slitted. Victor threw at Richie and the rock thudded off Richies chest. Richie threw back but Vic ducked it easily and threw one sidearm at Bill Denbrough. Bill snapped his head back, but not quite quickly enough; the rock cut his cheek wide open. Bill turned toward Victor. Their eyes locked, and Victor saw something in the stuttering kids gaze that scared the hell out of him. Absurdly, the words I take it back! trembled behind his lips ... except that was nothing you said to a little kid. Not if you didnt want your buddies to start ranking you to the dogs and back. Bill started to walk toward Victor now, and Victor began to walk toward Bill. At the same moment, as if by some telepathic signal, they began to throw rocks at each other, still closing the distance. The fighting flagged around them as the others turned to watch; even Henry turned his head. Victor ducked and bobbed, but Bill made no such effort. Victors rocks slammed him in the chest, the shoulder, the stomach. One clipped by his ear. Apparently unshaken by any of this, Bill threw one rock after another, pegging them with murderous force. The third one struck Victors knee with a brittle chipping sound and Victor uttered a stifled groan. He was out of ammunition. Bill had one rock left. It was smooth and white, shot with quartz, roughly the size and shape of a ducks egg. To Victor Criss it looked very hard. Bill was less than five feet away from him. YYYou gget owout of hhhere now, he said, or Im ggoing to spuhpuhlit your hhead ooopen. I mmean ihihit. Looking into his eyes, Victor saw that he really did. Without another word, he turned and headed back the way Peter Gordon had gone. Belch and Moose Sadler were looking around uncertainly. Blood trickled from the corner of the Sadler boys mouth, and blood from a scalpwound was sheeting down the side of Belchs face. Henrys mouth worked but no sound came out. Bill turned toward Henry. GGGet out, he said. What if I wont? Henry was trying to sound tough, but Bill could now see a different thing in Henrys eyes. He was scared, and he would go. It should have made Bill feel goodtriumphant, evenbut he only felt tired. IIf you wwont, Bill said, wwwere ggoing to muhmove iin on yyou. I think the sssix of uus can pput you in the huhhuhhospital. Seven, Mike Hanlon said, and joined them. He had a softballsized rock in each hand. Just try me, Bowers. Id love to. You fucking NIGGER! Henrys voice broke and wavered on the edge of tears. That voice took the last of the fight out of Belch and Moose; they backed away, their remaining rocks dropping from relaxing hands. Belch looked around as if wondering exactly where he might be. Get out of our place, Beverly said. Shut up, you cunt, Henry said. You Four rocks flew at once, hitting Henry in four different places. He screamed and scrambled backward over the weedraddled ground, the tatters of his shirt flapping around him. He looked from the grim, oldyoung faces of the little kids to the frantic ones of Belch and Moose. There was no help there; no help at all. Moose turned away, embarrassed. Henry got to his feet, sobbing and snuffling through his broken nose. Ill kill you all, he said, and suddenly ran for the path. A moment later he was gone. GGGo on, Bill said, speaking to Belch. Get owout. And ddont cccome down hhere anymore. The BBBarrens are owowours. Youre gonna wish you didnt cross Henry, kid, Belch said. Come on, Moose. They started away, heads down, not looking back. The seven of them stood in a loose semicircle, all of them bleeding somewhere. The apocalyptic rockfight had lasted less than four minutes, but Bill felt as if he had fought his way through all of World War II, both theaters, without so much as a single timeout. The silence was broken by Eddie Kaspbraks whooping, whining struggle for air. Ben went toward him, felt the three Twinkies and four DingDongs he had eaten on his way down to the Barrens begin to struggle and churn in his stomach, and ran past Eddie and into the bushes, where he was sick as privately and quietly as he could be. It was Richie and Bev who went to Eddie. Beverly put an arm around the thin boys waist while Richie dug his aspirator out of his pocket. Bite on this, Eddie, he said, and Eddie took a hitching, gasping breath as Richie pulled the trigger. Thanks, Eddie managed at last. Ben came back out of the bushes, blushing, wiping a hand over his mouth. Beverly went over to him and took both of his hands in hers. Thanks for sticking up for me, she said. Ben nodded, looking at his dirty sneakers. Any time, keed, he said. One by one they turned to look at Mike, Mike with his dark skin. They looked at him carefully, cautiously, thoughtfully. Mike had felt such curiosity beforethere had not been a time in his life when he had not felt itand he looked back candidly enough. Bill looked from Mike to Richie. Richie met his eyes. And Bill seemed almost to hear the clicksome final part fitting neatly into a machine of unknown intent. He felt icechips scatter up his back. Were all together now, he thought, and the idea was so strong, so right, that for a moment he thought he might have spoken it aloud. But of course there was no need to speak it aloud; he could see it in Richies eyes, in Bens, in Eddies, in Beverlys, in Stans. Were all together now, he thought again. Oh God help us. Now it really starts. Please God, help us. Whats your name, kid? Beverly asked. Mike Hanlon. You want to shoot off some firecrackers? Stan asked, and Mikes grin was answer enough. CHAPTER 14 The Album 1 As it turns out, Bill isnt the only one; they all bring booze. Bill has bourbon, Beverly has vodka and a carton of orange juice, Richie a sixpack, Ben Hanscom a bottle of Wild Turkey. Mike has a sixpack in the little refrigerator in the staff lounge. Eddie Kaspbrak comes in last, holding a small brown bag. What you got there, Eddie? Richie asks. ZaRex or KoolAid? Smiling nervously, Eddie removes first a bottle of gin and then a bottle of prune juice. In the thunderstruck silence which follows, Richie says quietly Somebody call for the men in the white coats. Eddie Kaspbraks finally gone over the top. Ginandprunejuice happens to be very healthy, Eddie replies defensively ... and then theyre all laughing wildly, the sound of their mirth echoing and reechoing in the silent library, rolling up and down the glassedin hall between the adult library and the Childrens Library. You go headon, Ben says, wiping his streaming eyes. You go headon, Eddie. I bet it really moves the mail, too. Smiling, Eddie fills a paper cup threequarters full of prune juice and then soberly adds two capfuls of gin. Oh Eddie, I do love you, Beverly says, and Eddie looks up, startled but smiling. She gazes up and down the table. I love all of you. Bill says, WWe love you too, BBev. Yes, Ben says. We love you. His eyes widen a little, and he laughs. I think we still all love each other.... Do you know how rare that must be? Theres a moment of silence, and Mike is really not surprised to see that Richie is wearing his glasses. My contacts started to burn and I had to take them out, Richie says briefly when Mike asks. Maybe we should get down to business? They all look at Bill then, as they had in the gravelpit, and Mike thinks They look at Bill when they need a leader, at Eddie when they need a navigator. Get down to business, what a hell of a phrase that is. Do I tell them that the bodies of the children that were found back then and now werent sexually molested, not even precisely mutilated, but partially eaten? Do I tell them Ive got seven miners helmets, the kind with strong electric lights set into the front, stored back at my house, one of them for a guy named Stan Uris who couldnt make the scene, as we used to say? Or is it maybe enough just to tell them to go home and get a good nights sleep, because it ends tomorrow or tomorrow night for goodeither for It or us? None of those things have to be said, perhaps, and the reason why they dont has already been stated they still love one another. Things have changed over the last twentyseven years, but that, miraculously, hasnt. It is, Mike thinks, our only real hope. The only thing that really remains is to finish going through it, to complete the job of catching up, of stapling past to present so that the strip of experience forms some halfassed kind of wheel. Yes, Mike thinks, thats it. Tonight the job is to make the wheel; tomorrow we can see if it still turns ... the way it did when we drove the big kids out of the gravelpit and out of the Barrens. Have you remembered the rest? Mike asks Richie. Richie swallows some beer and shakes his head. I remember you telling us about the bird ... and about the smokehole.  A grin breaks over Richies face. I remembered about that walking over here tonight with Bevvie and Ben. What a fucking horrorshow that was Beepbeep, Richie,  Beverly says, smiling. Well, you know, he says, still smiling himself and punching his glasses up on his nose in a gesture that is eerily reminiscent of the old Richie. He winks at Mike. You and me, right, Mikey? Mike snorts laughter and nods. Miss Scawlett! Miss Scawlett! Richie shrieks in his Pickaninny Voice. Its gettin a little waam in de smokehouse, Miss Scawlett! Laughing, Bill says, Another engineering and architectural triumph by Ben Hanscom. Beverly nods. We were digging out the clubhouse when you brought your fathers photograph album to the Barrens, Mike. Oh, Christ! Bill says, sitting suddenly boltupright. And the pictures Richie nods grimly. The same trick as in Georgies room. Only that time we all saw it.  Ben says, I remembered what happened to the extra silver dollar.  They all turn to look at him. I gave the other three to a friend of mine before I came out here, Ben says quietly. For his kids. I remembered there had been a fourth, but I couldnt remember what happened to it. Now I do. He looks at Bill. We made a silver slug out of it, didnt we? You, me, and Richie. At first we were going to make a silver bullet You were pretty sure you could do it, Richie agrees. But in the end We got ccold fuhfeet. Bill nods slowly. The memory has fallen naturally into its place, and he hears that same low but distinct click! when it happens. Were getting closer, he thinks. We went back to Neibolt Street, Richie says. All of us. You saved my life, Big Bill, Ben says suddenly and Bill shakes his head. You did, though, Ben persists, and this time Bill doesnt shake his head. He suspects that maybe he had done just that, although he does not yet remember how ... and was it him? He thinks maybe Beverly ... but that is not there. Not yet, anyway. Excuse me for a second, Mike says. Ive got a sixpack in the back fridge.  Have one of mine, Richie says. Hanlon no drinkum white mans beer, Mike replies. Especially not yours, Trashmouth. Beepbeep, Mikey, Richie says solemnly, and Mike goes to get his beer on a warm wave of their laughter. He snaps on the light in the lounge, a tacky little room with seedy chairs, a Silex badly in need of scrubbing, and a bulletin board covered with old notices, wage and hour information, and a few New Yorker cartoons now turning yellow and curling up at the edges. He opens the little refrigerator and feels the shock sink into him, bonedeep and icewhite, the way February cold sank into you when February was here and it seemed that April never would be. Blue and orange balloons drift out in a flood, dozens of them, a New Years Eve bouquet of partyballoons, and he thinks incoherently in the midst of his fear, All we need is Guy Lombardo tootling away on Auld Lang Syne. They waft past his face and rise toward the lounge ceiling. Hes trying to scream, unable to scream, seeing what had been behind the balloons, what It had popped into the refrigerator beside his beer, as if for a latenight snack after his worthless friends have all told their worthless stories and gone back to their rented beds in this home town that is no longer home. Mike takes a step backward, his hands going to his face, shutting the vision out. He stumbles over one of the chairs, almost falls, and takes his hands away. It is still there; Stan Uriss severed head beside Mikes sixpack of Bud Light, the head not of a man but of an elevenyearold boy. The mouth is open in a soundless scream but Mike can see neither teeth nor tongue because the mouth has been stuffed full of feathers. The feathers are a light brown and unspeakably huge. He knows well enough what bird those feathers came from. Oh yes. Oh yes indeed. He had seen the bird in May of 1958 and they had all seen it in early August of 1958 and then, years later, while visiting his dying father, he had found out that Will Hanlon had seen it once, too, after his escape from the fire at the Black Spot. The blood from Stans tattered neck has dripped down and formed a coagulated pool on the fridges bottom shelf. It glitters dark rubyred in the uncompromising glow shed by the fridge bulb. Uh ... uh ... uh ... Mike manages, but no more sound than that can he make. Then the head opens its eyes, and they are the silverbright eyes of Pennywise the Clown. Those eyes roll in his direction and the heads lips begin to squirm around the mouthful of feathers. It is trying to speak, perhaps trying to deliver prophecy like the oracle in a Greek play. Just thought Id join you, Mike, because you cant win without me. You cant win without me and you know it, dont you? You might have had a chance if all of me had shown up, but I just couldnt stand the strain on my allAmerican brain, if you see what I mean, jellybean. All the six of you can do on your own is hash over some old times and then get yourselves killed. So I thought Id head you off at the pass. Head you off, get it, Mikey? Get it, old pal? Get it, you fucking scumbag nigger? Youre not real! he screams, but no sound comes out; he is like a TV with the volume control turned all the way down. Incredibly, grotesquely, the head winks at him. Im real, all right. Real as raindrops. And you know what Im talking about, Mikey. What the six of you are planning to try is like taking off in a jet plane with no landing gear. Theres no sense in going up if you cant get back down, is there? No sense in going down if you cant get back up, either. Youll never think of the right riddles and jokes. Youll never make me laugh, Mikey. Youve all forgotten how to turn your screams upsidedown. Beepbeep, Mikey, what do you say? Remember the bird? Nothing but a sparrow, but sayhey! it was a lulu, wasnt it? Big as a barn, big as one of those silly Japanese movie monsters that used to scare you when you were a little kid. The days when you knew how to turn that bird from your door are gone forever. Believe it, Mikey. If you know how to use your head, youll get out of here, out of Derry, right now. If you dont know how to use it, itll end up just like this one here. Todays guidepost along the great road of life is use it before you lose it, my good man. The head rolls over on its face (the feathers in its mouth make a horrid crumpling sound) and falls out of the refrigerator. It thuks to the floor and rolls toward him like a hideous bowling ball, its bloodmatted hair changing places with its grinning face; it rolls toward him leaving a gluey trail of blood and dismembered bits of feather behind, its mouth working around its clot of feathers. Beepbeep, Mikey! it screams as Mike backs madly away from it, hands held out in a wardingoff gesture. Beepbeep, beepbeep, beepfuckingbeep! Then there is a sudden loud popthe sound of a plastic cork thumbed out of a bottle of cheap champagne. The head disappears (Real, Mike thinks sickly; there was nothing supernatural about that pop, anyway; that was the sound of air rushing back into a suddenly vacated space ... real, oh God, real). A thin net of blood droplets floats up and then patters back down. No need to clean the lounge, though; Carole will see nothing when she comes in tomorrow, not even if she has to plow her way through the balloons to get to the hotplate and make her first cup of coffee. How handy. He giggles shrilly. He looks up and yes, the balloons are still there. The blue ones say DERRY NIGGERS GET THE BIRD. The orange ones say THE LOSERS ARE STILL LOSING, BUT STANLEY URIS IS FINALLY AHEAD. No sense going up if you cant get back down, the speaking head had assured him, no sense going down if you cant get back up. This latter makes him think again of the stored miners helmets. And was it true? Suddenly hes thinking about the first day he went down to the Barrens after the rockfight. July 6th, that had been, two days after he had marched in the Fourth of July parade ... two days after he had seen Pennywise the Clown in person for the first time. It had been after that day in the Barrens, after listening to their stories and then, hesitantly, telling his own, that he had gone home and asked his father if he could look at his photograph album. Why exactly had he gone down to the Barrens that July 6th? Had he known he would find them there? It seemed that he hadand not just that they would be there, but where they would be. They had been talking about a clubhouse of some sort, he remembers, but it had seemed to him that they had been talking about that because there was something else that they didnt know how to talk about. Mike looks up at the balloons, not really seeing them now, trying to remember exactly how it had been that day, that hot hot day. Suddenly it seems very important to remember just what had happened, what every nuance had been, what his state of mind had been. Because that was when everything began to happen. Before that the others had talked about killing It, but there had been no forward motion, no plan. When Mike had come the circle closed, the wheel began to roll. It had been later that same day that Bill and Richie and Ben went down to the library and began to do serious research on an idea that Bill had had a day or a week or a month before. It had all begun to Mike? Richie calls from the Reference Room where the others are gathered. Did you die in there? Almost, Mike thinks, looking at the balloons, the blood, the feathers inside the fridge. He calls back I think you guys better come in here. He hears the scrape of their chairs, the mutter of their voices; he hears Richie saying Oh Jesus, whats up now? and another ear, this one in his memory, hears Richie saying something else, and suddenly he remembers what it is he has been searching for; even more, he understands why it has seemed so elusive. The reaction of the others when he stepped into the clearing in the darkest, deepest, and most overgrown part of the Barrens that day had been ... nothing. No surprise, no questions about how he had found them, no big deal. Ben had been eating a Twinkie, he remembers, Beverly and Richie had been smoking cigarettes, Bill had been lying on his back with his hands behind his head, looking at the sky, Eddie and Stan were looking doubtfully at a series of strings which had been pegged into the ground to form a square of about five feet on a side. No surprise, no questions, no big deal. He had simply shown up and been accepted. It was as if, without even knowing it, they had been waiting for him. And in that third ear, memorys ear, he hears Richies Pickaninny Voice raised as it was earlier tonight Lawdy, Miss Clawdy, here come 2 that black chile agin! Lawksamussy, I doan know what thisyere Barrens is comin to! Look at that there nappy haid, Big Bill! Bill didnt even look around; he just went on staring dreamily at the fat summer clouds marching across the sky. He was giving an important question his most careful consideration. Richie was not offended by the lack of attention, however. He pushed onward. Jest lookin at that nappy haid makes me bleeve I needs me another mint joolip! Ise gwinter have it out on the verandah, where its be a little bit coolah Beepbeep, Richie, Ben said from around a mouthful of Twinkie, and Beverly laughed. Hi, Mike said uncertainly. His heart was beating a little too hard, but he was determined to go on with this. He owed his thanks, and his father had told him that you always paid what you owedand as quick as you could, before the interest mounted up. Stan looked around. Hi, he said, and then looked back at the square of strings pegged into the center of the clearing. Ben, are you sure this is going to work? Itll work, Ben said. Hi, Mike. Want a cigarette? Beverly asked. I got two left. No thank you. Mike took a deep breath and said, I wanted to thank you all again for helping me the other day. Those guys meant to hurt me bad. Im sorry some of you guys got banged up. Bill waved his hand, dismissing it. DDDont wuhwuhhorry aabout it. Ththeyve hhad it iiin ffor us all yyyear. He sat up and looked at Mike with sudden starry interest. CCan I aask you sssomething? I guess so, Mike said. He sat down gingerly. He had heard such prefaces before. The Denbrough kid was going to ask him what it was like to be a Negro. But instead Bill said When LLLarsen pitched the nnohhitter in the World SSeries two years ago, ddo you think that was just luhluck? Richie dragged deep on his cigarette and started to cough. Beverly pounded him goodnaturedly on the back. Youre just a beginner, Richie, youll learn. I think its gonna fall in, Ben, Eddie said worriedly, looking at the pegged square. I dont know how cool I am on the idea of getting buried alive. Youre not gonna get buried alive, Ben said. And if you are, just suck your damn old aspirator until someone pulls you out. This struck Stanley Uris as deliciously funny. He leaned back on his elbow, his head turned up to the sky, and laughed until Eddie kicked his shin and told him to shut up. Luck, Mike said finally. I think any nohitters more luck than skill. MMMe ttoo, Bill said. Mike waited to see if there was more, but Bill seemed satisfied. He lay down again, laced his hands behind his head again, and went back to studying the clouds as they floated by. What are you guys up to? Mike asked, looking at the square of strings pegged just above the ground. Oh, this is Haystacks big idea of the week, Richie said. Last time he flooded out the Barrens and that was pretty good, but this ones a real dinnerwinner. This is Dig Your Own Clubhouse Month. Next month YYou dont nuhnuhneed to put BBBBen dduhhown, Bill said, still looking at the sky. Its going to be guhguhgood. Gods sake, Bill, I was just kidding. SuhSometimes you kkkid too much, RihRichie. Richie accepted the rebuke silently. I still dont get it, Mike said. Well, its pretty simple, Ben said. They wanted a treehouse, and we could do that, but people have a bad habit of breaking their bones when they fall out of treehouses Kookie ... Kookie ... lend me your bones, Stan said, and laughed again while the others looked at him, puzzled.


Stan did not have much sense of humor, and the bit he did have was sort of peculiar. You ees goin loco, senhorr, Richie said. Eees the heat an the cucarachas, I theenk. Anyway, Ben said, what well do is dig down about five feet in the square I pegged out there. We cant go much deeper than that or well hit groundwater, I guess. Its pretty close to the surface down here. Then well shore up the sides just to make sure they dont cave in. He looked significantly at Eddie here, but Eddie was worried. Then what? Mike asked, interested. Well cap off the top. Huh? Put boards over the top of the hole. We can put in a trapdoor or something so we can get in and out, even windows if we want Well need some hihhihhinges, Bill said, still looking at the clouds. We can get those at Reynolds Hardware, Ben said. YYou guhguhguys have your aaallowances, Bill said. Ive got five dollars, Beverly said. I saved it up from babysitting. Richie immediately began to crawl toward her on his hands and knees. I love you, Bevvie, he said, making dogs eyes at her. Will you marry me? Well live in a pinestudded bungalow A what? Beverly asked, while Ben watched them with an odd mixture of anxiety, amusement, and concentration. A bungstudded pinealow, Richie said. Five bucks is enough, sweetie, you and me and baby makes three Beverly laughed and blushed and moved away from him. We shshare the eexpenses, Bill said. Thats why we got a club. So after we cap the hole with boards, Ben went on, we put down this heavyduty glueTangleTrack, they call itand put the sods back on. Maybe sprinkle it with pine needles. We could be down there and peoplepeople like Henry Bowerscould walk right over us and not even know we were there. You thought of that? Mike said. Jeez, thats great! Ben smiled. It was his turn to blush. Bill sat up suddenly and looked at Mike. You wwwant to hehhelp? Well ... sure, Mike said. Thatd be fun. A look passed among the othersMike felt it as well as saw it. There are seven of us here, Mike thought, and for no reason at all he shivered. When are you going to break ground? PPhretty ssoon, Bill said, and Mike knewknew that it wasnt just Bens underground clubhouse Bill was talking about. Ben knew it, too. So did Richie, Beverly, and Eddie. Stan Uris had stopped smiling. WWere ggonna start this pruhhuhhoject pretty suhsuhsoon. There was a pause then, and Mike was suddenly aware of two things they wanted to say something, tell him something ... and he was not entirely sure he wanted to hear it. Ben had picked up a stick and was doodling aimlessly in the dirt, his hair hiding his face. Richie was gnawing at his already ragged fingernails. Only Bill was looking directly at Mike. Is something wrong? Mike asked uneasily. Speaking very slowly, Bill said WWWere a cluhclub. YYou can be in the club if you wwwant, but yyyou have to keekeep our seeseesecrets. You mean, like the clubhouse? Mike asked, now more uneasy than ever. Well, sure Weve got another secret, kid, Richie said, still not looking at Mike. And Big Bill says weve got something more important to do this summer than digging underground clubhouses. Hes right, too, Ben added. There was a sudden, whistling gasp. Mike jumped. It was only Eddie, blasting off. Eddie looked at Mike apologetically, shrugged, and then nodded. Well, Mike said finally, dont keep me in suspense. Tell me. Bill was looking at the others. IIs there aaanyone who ddoesnt want him in the cluhclub? No one spoke or raised a hand. WWho wants to ttell? Bill asked. There was another long pause, and this time Bill didnt break it. At last Beverly sighed and looked up at Mike. The kids who have been killed, she said. We know whos been doing it, and its not human. 3 They told him, one by one the clown on the ice, the leper under the porch, the blood and voices from the drain, the dead boys in the Standpipe. Richie told about what had happened when he and Bill went back to Neibolt Street, and Bill spoke last, telling about the school photo that had moved, and the picture he had stuck his hand into. He finished by explaining that it had killed his brother Georgie, and that the Losers Club was dedicated to killing the monster ... whatever the monster really was. Mike thought later, going home that night, that he should have listened with disbelief mounting into horror and finally run away as fast as he could, not looking back, convinced either that he was being put on by a bunch of white kids who didnt like black folks or that he was in the presence of six authentic lunatics who had in some way caught their lunacy from each other, the way everyone in the same class could catch a particularly virulent cold. But he didnt run, because in spite of the horror, he felt a strange sense of comfort. Comfort and something else, something more elemental a feeling of coming home. There are seven of us here, he thought again as Bill finally finished speaking. He opened his mouth, not sure of what he was going to say. Ive seen the clown, he said. What? Richie and Stan asked together, and Beverly turned her head so quickly that her ponytail flipped from her left shoulder to her right. I saw him on the Fourth, Mike said slowly, speaking to Bill mostly. Bills eyes, sharp and utterly concentrated, were on his, demanding that he go on. Yes, on the Fourth of July ... He trailed off momentarily, thinking But I knew him. I knew him because that wasnt the first time I saw him. And it wasnt the first time I saw something ... something wrong. He thought of the bird then, the first time hed really allowed himself to think of itexcept in nightmaressince May. He had thought he was going crazy. It was a relief to find out he wasnt crazy ... but it was still a scary relief. He wet his lips. Go on, Bev said impatiently. Hurry up. Well, the thing is, I was in the parade. I I saw you, Eddie said. You were playing the saxophone. Well, its actually a trombone, Mike said. I play with the Neibolt Church School Band. Anyway, I saw the clown. He was handing out balloons to kids on the threeway corner downtown. He was just like Ben and Bill said. Silver suit, orange buttons, white makeup on his face, big red smile. I dont know if it was lipstick or makeup, but it looked like blood. The others were nodding, excited now, but Bill only went on looking at Mike closely. OOOrange tufts of hhhair? he asked Mike, making them unconsciously over his own head with his fingers. Mike nodded. Seeing him like that ... it scared me. And while I was looking at him, he turned around and waved at me, like hed read my mind, or my feelings, or whatever you call it. And that ... like, scared me worse. I didnt know why then, but he scared me so bad for a couple of seconds I couldnt play my bone anymore. All the spit in my mouth dried up and I felt ... He glanced briefly at Beverly. He remembered it all so clearly now, how the sun had suddenly seemed intolerably dazzling on the brass of his horn and the chrome of the cars, the music too loud, the sky too blue. The clown had raised one whitegloved hand (the other was full of balloon strings) and had waved slowly back and forth, his bloody grin too red and too wide, a scream turned upsidedown. He remembered how the flesh of his testicles had begun to crawl, how his bowels had suddenly felt all loose and hot, as if he might suddenly drop a casual load of shit into his pants. But he couldnt say any of that in front of Beverly. You didnt say stuff like that in front of girls, even if they were the sort of girls you could say things like bitch and bastard in front of. ... I felt scared, he finished, feeling that was too weak, but not knowing how to say the rest. But they were nodding as if they understood, and he felt an indescribable relief wash through him. Somehow that clown looking at him, smiling his red smile, his whitegloved hand penduluming slowly back and forth ... that had been worse than having Henry Bowers and the rest after him. Ever so much worse. Then we were past, Mike went on. We marched up Main Street Hill. And I saw him again, handing out balloons to kids. Except a lot of them didnt want to take them. Some of the little ones were crying. I couldnt figure out how he could have gotten up there so fast. I thought to myself that there must be two of them, you know, both of them dressed the same way. A team. But then he turned around and waved to me again and I knew it was him. It was the same man. Hes not a man, Richie said, and Beverly shuddered. Bill put his arm around her for a moment and she looked at him gratefully. He waved to me ... and then he winked. Like we had a secret. Or like ... like maybe he knew Id recognized him. Bill dropped his arm from Beverlys shoulders. You rehrehrehrecognized him? I think so, Mike said. I have to check something before I say its for sure. My fathers got some pictures.... He collects them.... Listen, you guys play down here a lot, dont you? Sure, Ben said. Thats why were building a clubhouse. Mike nodded. Ill check and see if Im right. If I am, I can bring the pictures. OOOld picpictures? Bill asked. Yes. WWWhat else? Bill asked. Mike opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked around at them uncertainly and then said, Youd think I was crazy. Crazy or lying. DDo yyyou ththink were cruhcruhcrazy? Mike shook his head. You bet were not, Eddie said. I got a lot wrong with me, but Im not bughouse. I dont think. No, Mike said. I dont think youre crazy. Well, wewe wont ththink youre cruhcruh ... nuts, eeeither, Bill said. Mike looked them all over, cleared his throat, and said I saw a bird. Couple, three months ago. I saw a bird. Stan Uris looked at Mike. What kind of a bird? Speaking more reluctantly than ever Mike said It looked like a sparrow, sort of, but it also looked like a robin. It had an orange chest. Well, whats so special about a bird? Ben asked. There are lots of birds in Derry. But he felt uneasy, and looking at Stan, he felt sure that Stan was remembering what had happened in the Standpipe, and how he had somehow stopped it from happening by shouting out the names of birds. But he forgot all about that and everything else when Mike spoke again. This bird was bigger than a housetrailer, he said. He looked at their shocked, amazed faces. He waited for their laughter, but none came. Stan looked as if someone had clipped him with a brick. His face had gone so pale it was the color of muted November sunlight. I swear its true, Mike said. It was a giant bird, like one of those birds in the monstermovies that are supposed to be prehistoric. Yeah, like in The Giant Claw, Richie said. He thought the bird in that had been sort of fakelooking, but by the time it got to New York he had still been excited enough to spill his popcorn over the balcony railing at the Aladdin. Foxy Foxworth would have kicked him out, but the movie was over by then anyway. Sometimes you got the shit kicked out of you, but as Big Bill said, sometimes you won one, too. But it didnt look prehistoric, Mike said. And it didnt look like one of those whatdoyoucallums the Greeks and Romans made up stories about RuhRuhRocs? Bill suggested. Right, I guess so. It wasnt like those, either. It was just like a combination robin and sparrow. The two most common birds you see. He laughed a little wildly. WWWhere Bill began. Tell us, Beverly said simply, and after a moment to collect his thoughts, Mike did. And telling it, watching their faces grow concerned and scared but not disbelieving or derisive, he felt an incredible weight lift from his chest. Like Ben with his mummy or Eddie with his leper and Stan with the drowned boys, he had seen a thing that would have driven an adult insane, not just with terror but with the walloping force of an unreality too great to be explained away or, lacking any rational explanation, simply ignored. Elijahs face had been burned black by the light of Gods love, or so Mike had read; but Elijah had been an old man when it happened, and maybe that made a difference. Hadnt one of those other Bible fellows, this one little more than a kid, actually wrestled an angel to a draw? He had seen it and he had gone on with his life; he had integrated the memory into his view of the world. He was still young enough so that view was tremendously wide. But what had happened that day had nonetheless haunted his minds darker corners, and sometimes in his dreams he ran from that grotesque bird as it printed its shadow on him from above. Some of these dreams he remembered and some he did not, but they were there, shadows which moved by themselves. How little of it he had forgotten and how greatly it had troubled him (as he went about his daily round helping his father, going to school, riding his bike, doing errands for his mother, waiting for the black groups to come on American Bandstand after school) was perhaps measurable in only one waythe relief he felt in sharing it with the others. As he did, he realized it was the first time he had even allowed himself to think of it fully since that early morning by the Canal, when he had seen those odd grooves ... and the blood. 4 Mike told the story of the bird at the old Ironworks and how he had run into the pipe to escape it. Later on that afternoon, three of the LosersBen, Richie, Billwalked toward the Derry Public Library. Ben and Richie were keeping a close watch for Bowers and Company, but Bill only looked at the sidewalk, frowning, lost in thought. About an hour after telling them his story Mike had left them, saying his father wanted him home by four to pick peas. Beverly had to do some marketing and fix dinner for her father, she said. Both Eddie and Stan had their own things to do. But before they broke up for the day they began digging what was to becomeif Ben was righttheir underground clubhouse. To Bill (and to all of them, he suspected), the groundbreaking had seemed an almost symbolic act. They had begun. Whatever it was they were supposed to do as a group, as a unit, they had begun. Ben asked Bill if he believed Mike Hanlons story. They were passing Derry Community House and the library was just ahead, a stone oblong comfortably shaded by elms a century old and as yet untouched by the Dutch Elm disease that would later plague and thin them. Yeah, Bill said. I ththink it was the truhhooth. CCCrazy, but true. What about you, RuhRuhRichie? Richie nodded. Yeah. I hate to believe it, if you know what I mean, but I guess I do. You remember what he said about the birds tongue? Bill and Ben nodded. Orange fluffs on it. Thats the kicker, Richie said. Its like some comicbook villain. Lex Luthor or the Joker or someone like that. It always leaves a trademark. Bill nodded thoughtfully. It was like some comicbook villain. Because they saw it that way? Thought of it that way? Yes, perhaps so. It was kids stuff, but it seemed that was what this thing thrived onkids stuff. They crossed the street to the library side. I aaasked StuhStuhStan iif he eever hhheard of a buhbird Ilike that, Bill said. Nuhnuhnot nnecessarily a bbbig wuhwuhone, but jjust aaa A real one? Richie suggested. Bill nodded. HHe suhsaid there mmmight be a buhbird like that in Suhhouth America or AAAAfrica, but nuhnuhnot aaround hhhere. He didnt believe it, then? Ben asked. HHHe buhbelieved iiit, Bill said. And then he told them something else Stan had suggested when Bill walked with him back to where Stan had left his bike. Stans idea was that nobody else could have seen that bird before Mike told them that story. Something else, maybe, but not that bird, because the bird was Mike Hanlons personal monster. But now ... why, now that bird was the property of the whole Losers Club, wasnt it? Any of them might see it. It might not look exactly the same; Bill might see it as a crow, Richie as a hawk, Beverly as a golden eagle, for all Stan knewbut It could be a bird to all of them now. Bill told Stan that if that was true, then any of them might see the leper, the mummy, or possibly the dead boys. Which means we ought to do something pretty soon if were going to do anything at all, Stan had replied. It knows ... WuhWhat? Bill had asked sharply. EhEverything we nuhknow? Man, if It knows that, were sunk, Stan had answered. But you can bet It knows we know about It. I think Itll try to get us. Are you still thinking about what we talked about yesterday? Yes. I wish I could go with you. BuhBuhBen and RihRichie wwwill. Bens really sssmart, and RihRihRichie is, too, when he ihisnt fucking ooff. Now, standing outside the library, Richie asked Bill exactly what it was he had in mind. Bill told them, speaking slowly so he wouldnt stutter too badly. The idea had been circling in his mind for the last two weeks, but it had taken Mikes story of the bird to crystallize it. What did you do if you wanted to get rid of a bird? Well, shooting it was pretty goddam final. What did you do if you wanted to get rid of a monster? Well, the movies suggested that shooting it with a silver bullet was pretty goddam final. Ben and Richie listened to this respectfully enough. Then Richie asked, How do you get a silver bullet, Big Bill? Send away for it? Very fuhfuhfunny. Well have to mmmake it. How? I guess thats what were at the library to find out, Ben said. Richie nodded and pushed his glasses up on his nose. Behind them, his eyes were sharp and thoughtful ... but doubtful, Bill thought. He felt doubtful himself. At least there was no foolishness in Richies eyes, and that was a step in the right direction. You thinking about your dads Walther? Richie asked. The one we took to Neibolt Street? Yes, Bill said. Even if we could really make silver bullets, Richie said, where would we get the silver? Let me worry about that, Ben said quietly. Well ... okay, Richie said. Well let Haystack worry about that. Then what? Neibolt Street again? Bill nodded. NeeNeeNeibolt Street aaagain. And then we buhblow its fucking hhhead ooff. The three of them stood there a moment longer, looking at each other solemnly, and then they went into the library. 5 Sure an begorrah, its that black feller again! Richie cried in his Irish Cop Voice. A week had passed; it was nearly midJuly and the underground clubhouse was almost finished. Top o the mornin to ye, Mr. OHanlon, sor! And a foine, foine day it promises to be, foine as pertaters agrowin, as me old mither used to So far as I know, noon is the top of the morning, Richie, Ben said, popping up in the hole, and noon was two hours ago. He and Richie had been putting in shoring around the sides of the hole. Ben had taken off his sweatshirt because the day was hot and the work was hard. His teeshirt was gray with sweat and stuck to his chest and pouch of a stomach. He seemed remarkably unselfconscious of the way he looked, but Mike guessed that if Ben heard Beverly coming, he would be inside that baggy sweatshirt again before you could say puppy love. Dont be so pickyyou sound like Stan the Man, Richie said. He had gotten out of the hole five minutes before because, he told Ben, it was time for a cigarette break. I thought you said you didnt have any cigarettes, Ben had said. I dont, Richie had replied, but the principle remains the same. Mike had his fathers photograph album under his arm. Where is everybody? he asked. He knew Bill had to be somewhere around, because he had left his own bike parked under the bridge near Silver. Bill and Eddie went down to the dump about half an hour ago to liberate some more boards, Richie said. Stanny and Bev went down to Reynolds Hardware to get hinges. I dont know what the frock Haystacks up to down thereup to down there, haha, you get it?but its probably no good. Boy needs someone to keep an eye on him, you know. By the way, you owe us twentythree cents if you still want to be in this club. Your share of the hinges. Mike switched the album from his right arm to his left and dug into his pocket. He counted out twentythree cents (leaving a grand total of one dime in his own personal treasury) and handed it over to Richie. Then he walked over to the hole and looked in. Except it really wasnt a hole anymore. The sides had been neatly squared off. Each side had been shored up. The boards were all mongrels, but Ben, Bill, and Stan had done a good job of sizing them with tools from Zack Denbroughs shop (and Bill had been at great pains to make sure every tool was returned every night, and in the same condition as when it was taken). Ben and Beverly had nailed crosspieces between the supports. The hole still made Eddie a little nervous, but that was Eddies nature. Piled carefully to one side were squares of sod which would later be glued to the top. I think you guys know what youre doing, Mike said. Sure, Ben said, and pointed to the album. What you got? My fathers Derry album, Mike said. He collects old pictures and clippings about the town. Its his hobby. I was looking through it a couple of days agoI told you I thought Id seen that clown before. And I did. In here. So I brought it down. He was too ashamed to add that he had not dared to ask his fathers permission to do this. Afraid of the questions to which such a request might lead, he had taken it from the house like a thief while his father planted potatoes in the west field and his mother hung clothes in the back yard. I thought you guys ought to take a look, too. Well, lets see, Richie said. Id like to wait until everybodys here. It might be better. Okay. Richie was, in truth, not that anxious to look at more pictures of Derry, in this or any other album. Not after what had happened in Georgies room. You want to help me and Ben with the rest of the shoring? You bet. Mike put his fathers album down carefully, far enough from the hole so it wouldnt be pelted with flying dirt, and took Bens shovel. Dig right here, Ben said, showing Mike the spot. Go down about a foot. Then Ill set a board in and hold it flush against the side while you shovel the dirt back in. Good plan, man, Richie said sagely from where he sat on the edge of the excavation with his sneakers dangling down. Whats wrong with you? Mike asked. Got a bone in my leg, Richie said comfortably. Hows your project with Bill going? Mike stopped long enough to strip off his shirt and then began to dig. It was hot down here, even in the Barrens. Crickets hummed sleepily like summer clocks in the brush. Well ... not too bad, Richie said, and Mike thought he flashed Ben a mildly warning look. I guess. Why dont you play your radio, Richie? Ben asked. He slipped a board into the hole Mike had dug and held it there. Richies transistor was hung by the strap in its accustomed place, on the thick branch of a nearby shrub. Batteries are worn out, Richie said. You had to have my last twentyfive cents for hinges, remember? Cruel, Haystack, very cruel. After all the things Ive done for you. Besides, all I can get down here is WABI and they only play pansy rock. Huh? Mike asked. Haystack thinks Tommy Sands and Pat Boone sing rock and roll, Richie said, but thats because hes ill. Elvis sings rock and roll. Ernie K. Doe sings rock and roll. Carl Perkins sings rock and roll. Bobby Darin. Buddy Holly. Ahow Peggy ... my Peggy Suhuhoo ... Please, Richie, Ben said. Also, Mike said, leaning on his shovel, theres Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Shep and the Limelights, LaVerne Baker, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, the Coasters, the Isley Brothers, the Crests, the Chords, Stick McGhee They were looking at him with such amazement that Mike laughed. You lost me after Little Richard, Richie said. He liked Little Richard, but if he had a secret rockandroll hero that summer it was Jerry Lee Lewis. His mom had happened to come into the living room while Jerry Lee was performing on American Bandstand. This was at the point in his act where Jerry Lee actually climbed onto his piano and played it upside down with his hair hanging in his face. He had been singing High School Confidential. For a moment Richie believed his mom was going to faint. She didnt, but she was so traumatized by what she had seen that she talked at dinner that night about sending Richie to one of those militarytype camps for the rest of the summer. Now Richie shook his hair down over his eyes and began to sing Come on over baby all the cats are at the high school rockin Ben began to stagger around the hole, grasping his large belly and pretending to puke. Mike held his nose, but he was laughing so hard tears squirted out of his eyes. Whats wrong? Richie demanded. I mean, what ails you guys? That was good! I mean, that was really good! Oh man, Mike said, and now he was laughing so hard he could barely talk. That was priceless. I mean, that was really priceless. Negroes have no taste, Richie said. I think it even says so in the Bible. Yo mamma, Mike said, laughing harder than ever. When Richie asked, with honest bewilderment, what that meant, Mike sat down with a thump and rocked back and forth, howling and holding his stomach. You probably think Im jealous, Richie said. You probably think I want to be a Negro. Now Ben also fell down, laughing wildly. His whole body rippled and quaked alarmingly. His eyes bulged. No more, Richie, he managed. Im gonna shit my pants. Im gonna dddie if you dont stubstop I dont want to be a Negro, Richie said. Who wants to wear pink pants and live in Boston and buy pizza by the slice? I want to be Jewish like Stan. I want to own a pawnshop and sell people switchblades and plastic dogpuke and used guitars. Ben and Mike were now actually screaming with laughter. Their laughter echoed through the green and jungly ravine that was the misnamed Barrens, causing birds to take wing and squirrels to freeze momentarily on limbs. It was a young sound, penetrating, lively, vital, unsophisticated, free. Almost every living thing within range of that sound reacted to it in some way, but the thing which had tumbled out of a wide concrete drain and into the upper Kenduskeag was not living. The previous afternoon there had been a sudden driving thunderstorm (the clubhousetobe had not been much affectedsince digging operations had begun, Ben had covered the hole carefully each evening with a ragged piece of tarpaulin Eddie had scrounged from behind Wallys Spa; it smelled painty but it did the job), and the stormdrains under Derry had run with violent water for two or three hours. It was that spate of water that had pushed this unpleasant baggage into the sun for the flies to find. It was the body of a nineyearold named Jimmy Cullum. Except for the nose, his face was gone. There was a churned and featureless mess where it had been. This raw meat was dotted with deep black marks that perhaps only Stan Uris would have recognized for what they were pecks. Pecks made by a very large beak. Water rilled over Jimmy Cullums muddy chino pants. His white hands floated like dead fish. They had also been pecked, although not as badly. His paisley shirt ballooned out and collapsed back, ballooned out and collapsed back, like a bladder. Bill and Eddie, loaded down with boards scrounged from the dump, crossed the Kenduskeag by steppingstones less than forty yards from the body. They heard Richie, Ben, and Mike laughing, smiled a little themselves, and hurried past the unseen ruin of Jimmy Cullum to see what was so funny. 6 They were still laughing as Bill and Eddie came into the clearing, sweating under their load of lumber. Even Eddie, usually as pale as cheese, had some color in his face. They dropped the new boards on the almost depleted supplypile. Ben climbed out of the hole to inspect them. Good deal! he said. Wow! Great! Bill collapsed to the ground. Can I hhave my heart aaattack now or do I hhave to wuhwait until luhhater? Have it later, Ben said absently. He had brought a few tools of his own down to the Barrens and was now going over the new boards carefully, pounding out nails and removing screws. He tossed one aside because it was splintered. Rapping on another returned a dull punky sound in at least three places, and he also tossed that one aside. Eddie sat on a pile of dirt, watching him. He took a honk on his aspirator as Ben pulled a rusty nail from a board with the claw end of his hammer. The nail squealed like some small unpleasant animal that had been stepped on and didnt like it. You can get tetanus if you cut yourself on a rusty nail, Eddie informed Ben. Yeah? Richie said. Whats titnuss? Sounds like a womans disease. Youre a bird, Eddie said. Its tetanus, not titnuss, and it means lockjaw. Theres these special microbes that grow in rust, see, and if you cut yourself they can get inside your body and, um, fuck up your nerves. Eddie went an even darker red and took another fast honk on his aspirator. Lockjaw, Jesus, Richie said, impressed. That sounds mean. You bet. First your jaw locks up so tight you cant open your mouth, not even to eat. They have to cut a hole in your cheek and feed you liquids through a tube. Oh man, Mike said, standing up in the hole. His eyes were wide, the corneas very white in his brown face. For sure? My mom told me, Eddie said. Then your throat locks up and you cant eat anymore and you starve to death. They contemplated this horror in silence. Theres no cure, Eddie amplified. More silence. So, Eddie said briskly, I always watch out for rusty nails and shit like that. I had to have a tetanus shot once and it really hurt. So whyd you go to the dump with Bill and bring all this crap back? Richie asked. Eddie glanced briefly at Bill, who was looking into the clubhouse, and there was all the love and heroworship in that gaze needed to answer such a question but Eddie said softly, Some stuff has to be done even if there is a risk. Thats the first important thing I ever found out I didnt find out from my mother. A further silence, not quite uncomfortable, followed. Then Ben went back to pounding out rusty nails, and after awhile Mike Hanlon joined him. Richies transistor, robbed of its voice (at least until Richies allowance came in or he found a lawn to mow), swung from its low branch in a mild breeze. Bill had time to reflect upon how odd all this was, how odd and how perfect, that they should all be here this summer. There were kids he knew visiting relatives. Kids he knew who were off on vacations at Disneyland in California or on Cape Cod or, in the case of one chum, an unimaginably distantsounding place with the queer but somehow evocative name of Gstaad. There were kids at church camp, kids at Scout camp, kids at richkid camps where you could learn to swim and play golf, camps where you learned to say Hey, good one! instead of Fuck you! when your opponent got a killer serve past you at tennis; kids whose parents had simply taken them AWAY. Bill could understand that. He knew some kids who wanted to go AWAY, frightened by the boogeyman stalking Derry this summer, but suspected there were more parents frightened by that boogeyman. People who had planned to take their vacations at home suddenly decided to go AWAY (Gstaad? was that in Sweden? Argentina? Spain?) instead. It was a little like the polio scare of 1956, when four kids who went swimming in the OBrian Memorial Pool had gotten the disease. Grownupsa word absolutely synonymous in Bills mind with mothers and fathershad decided then, as now, that AWAY was better. Safer. Anyone able to clear out had cleared. Bill understood AWAY, and he could muse over a word of such fabulous wonder as Gstaad, but wonder was cold comfort compared with desire; Gstaad was AWAY; Derry was desire. And none of us have gone AWAY, he thought, watching as Ben and Mike pounded used nails out of used boards, as Eddie strolled off into the bushes to take a whiz (you had to go as soon as you could, in order to avoid seriously straining your bladder, he told Bill once, but you also had to watch out for poison ivy, because who needed a case of that on your pecker). Were all here in Derry.


No camp, no relatives, no vacations, no AWAY. All right here. Present and accounted for. Theres a door down there, Eddie said, zipping his fly as he came back. Hope you shook off, Eds, Richie said. If you dont shake off each time, you can get cancer. My mom told me so. Eddie looked startled, thinly worried, and then saw Richies grin. He withered him (or tried to) with a babiesmustplay look and then said, It was too big for us to carry. But Bill said if all of us went down we could get it up here. Of course, you can never shake off completely, Richie went on. You want to know what a wise man once told me, Eds? No, Eddie said, and I dont want you to call me Eds anymore, Richie. I mean, Im sincere. I dont call you Dick, as in You got any gum on ya, Dick?, so I dont see why This wise man, Richie said, told me this No matter how much you squirm and dance, the last two drops go in your pants. And thats why theres so much cancer in the world, Eddie my love. The reason theres so much cancer in the world is because nerds like you and Beverly Marsh smoke cigarettes, Eddie said. Beverly is not a nerd, Ben said in a forbidding voice. You just watch what you say, Trashmouth. Beepbeep, you gguys, Bill said absently. And speaking of BBBeverly, shes pretty struhstruhstrong. She could hhhelp get that duhdoor. Ben asked what kind of door it was. MuhMuhhogany, I thhink. Somebody threw out a mahogany door? Ben asked, surprised but not unbelieving. People throw out everything, Mike said. That dump? It kills me to go down there. I mean it kills me. Yeah, Ben agreed. A lot of that stuff could be fixed up easy. And there are people in China and South America with nothing. Thats what my mother says. Theres people with nothing right here in Maine, Sunny Jim, Richie said grimly. WWWhats ththis? Bill asked, noticing the album Mike had brought. Mike told him, saying he would show them the picture of the clown when Stan and Beverly got back with the hinges. Bill and Richie exchanged a look. Whats wrong? Mike asked. Is it what happened in your brothers room, Bill? YYeah, Bill said, and would say no more. They took turns working on the hole until Stan and Beverly came back, each with a brown paper bag containing hinges. As Mike talked, Ben sat crosslegged, tailorfashion, and made glassless windows that would swing open and shut in two of the long boards. Perhaps only Bill noticed how quickly and easily his fingers moved; how adept and knowing they were, like surgeons fingers. Bill admired that. Some of these pictures go back a hundred years, my dad said, Mike told them, holding the album on his lap. He gets them at those sales people have in their yards, and at secondhand shops. Sometimes he buys them or trades other collectors for them. Some of them are stereoscopestheres two of them just the same on a long card, and when you look at them through this thing like binoculars, it looks like one picture, only in 3D. Like House of Wax or The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Why does he like all that stuff? Beverly asked. She was wearing ordinary Levis but she had done something amusing to the cuffs, blousing them out with a bright paisley material for the final four inches so that they looked like pants out of some sailors whimsy. Yeah, Eddie said. Most of the time, Derrys pretty boring. Well, I dont know for sure, but I think its because he wasnt born here, Mike said diffidently. Its likeI dont knowlike its all new to him, or like, you know, if you came in during the middle of a movie Shshsure, youd want to see the sstart, Bill said. Yeah, Mike said. Theres a lot of history lying around in Derry. I kind of like it. And I think some of it has to do with this thingthis It, if you want to call it that. He looked at Bill and Bill nodded, his eyes thoughtful. So I was looking through it after the Fourth of July parade because I knew Id seen that clown before. I knew it. And look. He opened the book, thumbed through it, then handed it to Ben, who was sitting on his right. DDDont tttouch the puhpuhpages! Bill said, and there was such urgency in his voice that they all jumped. He had fisted the hand he had cut reaching into Georgies album, Richie saw. Fisted it into a tight, protective knot. Bills right, Richie said, and that subdued, totally unRichielike voice was a powerful convincer. Be careful. Its like Stan said. If we saw it happen, you guys could see it happen, too. Feel it, Bill added grimly. The album went from hand to hand, each of them holding the book gingerly, by the edges, as if it were old dynamite sweating big beads of nitro. It came back to Mike. He opened it to one of the first pages. Daddy says theres no way to date that one, but its probably from the early or midseventeenhundreds, Mike said. He repaired a guys bandsaw for a box of old books and pictures. That was one of them. He says it might be worth forty bucks or even more. The picture was a woodcut, the size of a large postcard. When Bills turn came to look at it, he was relieved to see that Mikes father had the kind of album where the pictures were under a protective plastic sheet. He looked, fascinated, and he thought There. Im seeing himorIt. Really seeing. Thats the face of the enemy. The picture showed a funny fellow juggling oversized bowling pins in the middle of a muddy street. There were a few houses on either side of the street, and a few huts that Bill guessed were stores, or trading posts, or whatever they called them back then. It didnt look like Derry at all, except for the Canal. It was there, neatly cobbled on both sides. In the upper background, Bill could see a team of mules on a towpath, dragging a barge. There was a group of maybe half a dozen kids gathered around the funny fellow. One of them was wearing a pastoral straw hat. Another had a hoop and a stick to roll it with. Not the sort of stick that would come with a hoop that you bought today in a Woolworths; it was a branch from a tree. Bill could see the bare knobs on it where smaller branches had been lopped off with a knife or a hatchet. That baby wasnt made in Taiwan or Korea, he thought, fascinated by this boy who could have been him if hed been born four or five generations before. The funny fellow had a huge grin on his face. He wore no makeup (except to Bill his whole face looked like makeup), but he was bald except for two tufts of hair that stuck up like horns over his ears, and Bill had no trouble recognizing their clown. Two hundred years ago or more, he thought, and felt a crazy surge of terror, anger, and excitement rush through him. Twentyseven years later, sitting in the Derry Public Library and remembering his first look into Mikes fathers album, he realized he had felt the way a hunter might feel, coming upon the first fresh spoor of an old killer tiger. Two hundred years ago ... that long, and only God knows how much longer. This led him to wonder just how long the spirit of Pennywise had been here in Derrybut he found that was a thought he did not really want to pursue. Gimme, Bill! Richie was saying, but Bill held the album a moment longer, staring fixedly at the woodcut, sure it would begin to move the bowling pins (if thats what they were) which the funny fellow was juggling would rise and fall, rise and fall, the kids would laugh and applaud (except maybe they wouldnt all laugh and applaud; some of them might scream and run instead), the muleteam pulling the barge would move beyond the borders of the picture. It didnt happen, and he passed the book on to Richie. When the album came back to Mike he turned some more pages, hunting. Here, he said. This one is from 1856, four years before Lincoln was elected President. The book went around again. This was a color picturea sort of cartoonwhich showed a bunch of drunks standing in front of a saloon while a fat politician with muttonchop whiskers declaimed from a board that had been set between two hogsheads. He held a foamy pitcher of beer in one hand. The board upon which he stood was considerably bowed with his weight. Some distance off, a group of bonneted women were looking at this show of mingled buffoonery and intemperance with disgust. The caption below the picture read POLITICS IN DERRY IS THIRSTY WORK, SEZ SENATOR GARNER! Daddy says pictures like this were really popular for about twenty years before the Civil War, Mike said. They called them foolcards, and people used to send them to each other. They were like some of the jokes in Mad, I guess. Suhsuhsatire, Bill said. Yeah, Mike said. But now look down in the corner of this one. The picture was like Mad in another wayit had as many details and little sidejokes as a big Mort Drucker panel in a Mad magazine movie takeoff. There was a grinning fat man pouring a glass of beer down a spotted dogs throat. There was a woman who had fallen on her prat in a mudpuddle. There were two street urchins slyly sticking sulphurheaded matches into the soles of a prosperouslooking businessmans shoes, and a girl swinging from her heels in an elm tree so that her underpants showed. But despite this bewildering intaglio of detail, none of them really needed Mike to point the clown out. Dressed in a loud checked vestbusting drummers suit, he was playing the shellgame with a bunch of drunken loggers. He was winking at a lumberjack who had, to judge by the gapemouthed look of surprise on his face, just picked the wrong nutshell. The drummerclown was taking a coin from him. Him again, Ben said. What ... a hundred years later? Just about, Mike said. And heres one from 1891. It was a clipping from the front page of the Derry News. HUZZAH! the headline proclaimed exuberantly. IRONWORKS OPENS! Just below this Town Turns Out for Gala Picnic. The picture showed a woodcut of the ribboncutting ceremony at the Kitchener Ironworks; its style reminded Bill of the Currier and Ives prints his mother had in the dining room, although this was nowhere near as polished. A fellow tricked out in a morning coat and tophat was holding a large pair of openjawed scissors above the Ironworks ribbon while a crowd of perhaps five hundred watched. Off to the left was a clowntheir clownturning a handspring for a group of children. The artist had caught him upside down, turning his smile into a scream. He passed the book on quickly to Richie. The next picture was a photograph under which Will Hanlon had written 1933 Repeal in Derry. Although none of the boys knew much about either the Volstead Act or its repeal, the picture made the salient facts clear. The photo was of Wallys Spa down in Hells HalfAcre. The place was almost literally filled to the rafters with men wearing opencollared white shirts, straw boaters, lumbermens shirts, teeshirts, bankers suits. All of them were holding glasses and bottles victoriously aloft. There were two big signs in the window. WELCOME BACK, JOHN BARLEYCORN! one read. The other said FREE BEER TONIGHT. The clown, dressed like the biggest dandy you ever saw (white shoes, spats, gangster pants), had his foot on the running board of a Reo auto and was drinking champagne from a ladys highheeled shoe. 1945, Mike said. The Derry News again. The headline JAPAN SURRENDERSITS OVER! THANK GOD ITS OVER! A parade was snakedancing its way along Main Street toward UpMile Hill. And there was the clown in the background, wearing his silver suit with the orange buttons, frozen in the matrix of dots that made up the grainy newsprint photo, seeming to suggest (at least to Bill) that nothing was over, no one had surrendered, nothing was won, nil was still the rule, zilch still the custom; seeming to suggest above all that all was still lost. Bill felt cold and dry and scared. Suddenly the dots in the picture disappeared and it began to move. Thats what Mike began. LLLook, Bill said. The word dropped out of his mouth like a partially melted icecube. AAAll of you luhlook at ththis! They crowded around. Oh my God, Beverly whispered, awed. Thats IT! Richie nearly screamed, pounding Bill on the back in his excitement. He looked around at Eddies white, drawn face and Stan Uriss frozen one. Thats what we saw in Georges room! Thats exactly what we Shhh, Ben said. Listen. And, almost sobbing You can hear themChrist, you can hear them in there. And in the silence that was only broken by the mild stir of the summer breeze, they all realized they could. The band was playing a martial marching tune, made faint and tinny by distance ... or the passage of time ... or whatever it was. The cheering of the crowd was like sounds that might come through on a badly tuned radio station. There were popping noises, also faint, like the muffled sound of snapping fingers. Firecrackers, Beverly whispered, and rubbed at her eyes with hands that shook. Those are firecrackers, arent they? No one answered. They watched the picture, their eyes eating up their faces. The parade wiggled its way toward them, but just before the marchers reached the extreme foregroundat the point where it seemed they must march right out of the picture and into a world thirteen years laterthey dropped from sight, as if on some kind of unknowable curve. The World War I soldiers first, their faces strangely old under their pieplate helmets, with their sign which read THE DERRY VFW WELCOMES HOME OUR BRAVE BOYS, then the Boy Scouts, the Kiwanians, the Home Nursing Corps, the Derry Christian Marching Band, then the Derry World War II vets themselves, with the highschool band behind them. The crowd moved and shifted. Tickertape and confetti fluttered down from the second and thirdfloor windows of the business buildings that lined the streets. The clown pranced along the sidelines, doing splits and cartwheels, miming a sniper, miming a salute. And Bill noticed for the first time that people were turning from himbut not as if they saw him, exactly; it was more as if they felt a draft or smelled something bad. Only the children really saw him, and they shrank away. Ben stretched his hand out to the picture, as Bill had done in Georges room. NuhNuhNuhNO! Bill cried. I think its all right, Bill, Ben said. Look. And he laid his hand on the protective plastic over the picture for a moment and then took it back. But if you stripped off that cover Beverly screamed. The clown had left off its antics when Ben withdrew his hand. It rushed toward them, its paintbloody mouth gibbering and laughing. Bill winced back but held onto the book all the same, thinking it would drop out of sight as the parade had done, and the marching band, and the Boy Scouts, and the Cadillac convertible carrying Miss Derry of 1945. But the clown did not disappear along that curve that seemed to define the edge of that old existence. Instead, it leaped with a scary, nimble grace onto a lamppost that stood in the extreme left foreground of the picture. It shinnied up like a monkey on a stickand suddenly its face was pressed against the tough plastic sheet Will Hanlon had put over each of the pages in his book. Beverly screamed again and this time Eddie joined her, although his scream was faint and bluebreathless. The plastic bulged outlater they would all agree they saw it. Bill saw the bulb of the clowns red nose flatten, the way your nose will flatten when you press it against a windowpane. Kill you all! The clown was laughing and screaming. Try to stop me and Ill kill you all! Drive you crazy and then kill you all! You cant stop me! Im the Gingerbread Man! Im the Teenage Werewolf! And for a moment It was the Teenage Werewolf, the moonsilvered face of the lycanthrope peering out at them from over the collar of the silver suit, white teeth bared. Cant stop me, Im the leper! Now the lepers face, haunted and peeling, rotting with sores, stared at them with the eyes of the living dead. Cant top me, Im the mummy! The lepers face aged and ran with sterile cracks. Ancient bandages swam halfway out of its skin and solidified there. Ben turned away, his face as white as curds, one hand plastered over his neck and ear. Cant stop me, Im the dead boys! No! Stan Uris screamed. His eyes bulged above bruisedlooking crescents of skinshockflesh, Bill thought randomly, and it was a word he would use in a novel twelve years later, with no idea where it had come from, simply taking it, as writers take the right word at the right time, as a simple gift from that outer space (otherspace) where the good words come from sometimes. Stan snatched the album from his hands and slammed it shut. He held it closed with both hands, the tendons standing out along the inner surfaces of his wrists and forearms. He looked around at the others with eyes that were nearly insane. No, he said rapidly. No, no, no. And suddenly Bill found he was more concerned with Stans repeated denials than with the clown, and he understood that this was exactly the sort of reaction the clown had hoped to provoke, because ... Because maybe Its scared of us ... really scared for the first time in Its long, long life. He grabbed Stan and shook him twice, hard, holding onto his shoulders. Stans teeth clicked together and he dropped the album. Mike picked it up and put it aside in a hurry, not liking to touch it after what he had seen. But it was still his fathers, and he understood intuitively that his father would never see in it what he had just seen. No, Stan said softly. Yes, Bill said. No, Stan said again. Yes. We aaall No. aaall suhhaw it, Stan, Bill said. He looked at the others. Yes, Ben said. Yes, Richie said. Yes, Mike said. Oh my God, yes. Yes, Bev said. Yes, Eddie managed, gasping it out of his rapidly closing throat. Bill looked at Stan, demanding with his eyes that Stan look back at him. Duhdont let it ggget yyou, man, Bill said. Yuhyou suhsaw it, tttoo. I didnt want to! Stan wailed. Sweat stood out on his brow in an oily sheen. But yyyou duhduhdid. Stan looked at the others, one by one. He ran his hands through his short hair and fetched up a great, shuddering sigh. His eyes seemed to clear of that lowering madness that had so disturbed Bill. Yes, he said. Yes. Okay. Yes. That what you want? Yes. Bill thought Were still all together. It didnt stop us. We can still kill It. We can still kill It ... if were brave. Bill looked around at the others and saw in each pair of eyes some measure of Stans hysteria. Not quite as bad, but there. YYYeah, he said, and smiled at Stan. After a moment Stan smiled back and some of that horrible shocked look left his face. Thats what I wuhwuhwanted, you wehwehwet end. Beepbeep, Dumbo, Stan said, and they all laughed. It was hysterical screaming laughter, but better than no laughter at all, Bill reckoned. CCCome on, he said, because someone had to say something. Lets fffinish the clubhouse. What do you sssay? He saw the gratitude in their eyes and felt a measure of gladness for them ... but their gratitude did little to heal his own horror. In fact, there was something in their gratitude which made him want to hate them. Would he never be able to express his own terror, lest the fragile welds that made them into one thing should let go? And even to think such a thing wasnt really fair, was it? Because in some measure at least he was using themusing his friends, risking their livesto settle the score for his dead brother. And was even that the bottom? No, because George was dead, and if revenge could be exacted at all, Bill suspected it could only be exacted on behalf of the living. And what did that make him? A selfish little shit waving a tin sword and trying to make himself look like King Arthur? Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up. His resolve was still strong, but it was a bitter resolve. Bitter. CHAPTER 15 The SmokeHole 1 Richie Tozier pushes his glasses up on his nose (already the gesture feels perfectly familiar, although he has worn contact lenses for twenty years) and thinks with some amazement that the atmosphere has changed in the room while Mike recalled the incident with the bird out at the Ironworks and reminded them about his fathers photograph album and the picture that had moved. Richie had felt a mad, exhilarating kind of energy growing in the room. He had done cocaine nine or ten times over the last couple of yearsat parties, mostly; coke wasnt something you wanted just lying around your house if you were a biggatime disc jockeyand the feel was something like that, but not exactly. This feeling was purer, more of a mainline high. He thought he recognized the feeling from his childhood, when he had felt it every day and had come to take it merely as a matter of course. He supposed that, if he had ever thought about that deeprunning aquifer of energy as a kid (he could not recall that he ever had), he would have simply dismissed it as a fact of life, something that would always be there, like the color of his eyes or his disgusting hammertoes. Well, that hadnt turned out to be true. The energy you drew on so extravagantly when you were a kid, the energy you thought would never exhaust itselfthat slipped away somewhere between eighteen and twentyfour, to be replaced by something much duller, something as bogus as a coke high purpose, maybe, or goals, or whatever rahrah Junior Chamber of Commerce word you wanted to use. It was no big deal; it didnt go all at once, with a bang. And maybe, Richie thought, thats the scary part. How you dont stop being a kid all at once, with a big explosive bang, like one of that clowns trick balloons with the BurmaShave slogans on the sides. The kid in you just leaked out, like the air out of a tire. And one day you looked in the mirror and there was a grownup looking back at you. You could go on wearing bluejeans, you could keep going to Springsteen and Seger concerts, you could dye your hair, but that was a grownups face in the mirror just the same. It all happened while you were asleep, maybe, like a visit from the Tooth Fairy. No, he thinks. Not the Tooth Fairy. The Age Fairy. He laughs aloud at the stupid extravagance of this image, and when Beverly looks at him questioningly, he waves a hand at her. Nothing, babe, he says. Just thinkin me thinks. But now that energy is back. No, not all the way backnot yet, anywaybut coming back. And its not just him; he can feel it filling the room. Mike looks okay to Richie for the first time since they all got together for that hideous lunch out by the mall. When Richie walked into the lobby and saw Mike sitting there with Ben and Eddie, he thought, shocked Theres a man whos going crazy, getting ready to commit suicide, maybe. But that look is gone now. Not just sublimated; gone. Richie has sat right here and watched the last of it slip out of Mikes face while he relived the experience of the bird and the album. Hes been energized. And it is the same with all of them. Its in their faces, their voices, their gestures. Eddie pours himself another ginandprunejuice. Bill knocks back some bourbon, and Mike cracks another beer. Beverly glances up at the balloons Bill has tethered to the microfilm recorder at the main desk and finishes her third screwdriver in a hurry. They have all been drinking pretty enthusiastically, but none of them are drunk. Richie doesnt know where that energy he feels is coming from, but its not out of a liquor bottle. DERRY NIGGERS GET THE BIRD Blue. THE LOSERS ARE STILL LOSING, BUT STANLEY URIS IS FINALLY AHEAD Orange. Christ, Richie thinks, opening a fresh beer for himself. it isnt bad enough It can be any damn monster It wants to be, and it isnt bad enough that It can feed off our fears. It also turns out to be Rodney Dangerfield in drag. Its Eddie who breaks the silence. How much do you think It knows about what were doing now? he asks. It was here, wasnt It? Ben says. Im not sure that means much, Eddie replies. Bill nods. Those are just images, he says. Im not sure that means It can see us, or know what were up to. You can see a news commentator on TV, but he cant see you.  Those balloons arent just images, Beverly says, and jerks a thumb over her shoulder at them. Theyre real. Thats not true, though,  Richie says, and they all look at him. Images are real. Sure they are. They And suddenly something else clicks into place, something new it clicks into place with such firm force that he actually puts his hands to his ears. His eyes widen behind his glasses. Oh my God! he cries suddenly. He gropes for the table, halfstands, then falls back into his chair with a boneless thud. He knocks his can of beer over reaching for it, picks it up, and drinks whats left. He looks at Mike while the others look at him, startled and concerned. The burning! he almost shouts. The burning in my eyes! Mike! The burning in my eyes Mike is nodding, smiling a little. RRichie? Bill asks. What iis it? But Richie barely hears him. The force of the memory sweeps through him like a tide, turning him alternately hot and cold, and he suddenly understands why these memories have come back one at a time. If he had remembered everything at once, the force would have been like a psychological shotgun blast let off an inch from his temple. It would have torn off the whole top of his head. We saw It come! he says to Mike. We saw It come, didnt we? You and me ... or was it just me? He grabs Mikes hand, which lies on the table. Did you see it too, Mikey, or was it just me? Did you see it? The forest fire? The crater?  saw it, Mike says quietly, and squeezes Richies hand. Richie closes his eyes for a moment, thinking he has never felt such a warm and powerful wave of relief in his life, not even when the PSA jet he had taken from L.A. to San Francisco skidded off the runway and just stopped therenobody killed, nobody even hurt. Some luggage had fallen out of the overhead bins and that was all. He had jumped onto the yellow emergency slide and had helped a woman away from the plane. The woman had turned her ankle on a hummock concealed in the high grass. She was laughing and saying, I cant believe Im not dead, I cant believe it, I just cant believe it. So Richie, who was halfcarrying the woman with one arm and waving with the other to the firemen who were making frantic comeon gestures to the deplaning passengers, said Okay, youre dead, youre dead, you feel better now? and they both laughed crazily. That had been relieflaughter ... but this relief is greater. What are you guys talking about? Eddie asks, looking from one to the other. Richie looks at Mike, but Mike shakes his head. You go ahead, Richie. Ive had my say for the evening. The rest of you dont know or maybe dont remember, because you left, Richie tells them. Me and Mikey, we were the last two Injuns in the smokehole. The smokehole, Bill muses. His eyes are far and blue. The burning sensation in my eyes, Richie says, under my contact lenses. I felt it for the first time right after Mike called me in California. I didnt know what it was then, but I do now. It was smoke. Smoke that was twentyseven years old. He looks at Mike. Psychological, would you say? Psychosomatic? Something from the subconscious? I would say not, Mike answers quietly. I would say that what you felt was as real as those balloons, or the head I saw in the icebox, or the corpse of Tony Tracker that Eddie saw. Tell them, Richie. Richie says It was four or five days after Mike brought his dads album down to the Barrens. Sometime just after the middle of July, I guess. The clubhouse was done. But ... the smokehole thing, that was your idea, Haystack. You got it out of one of your books.  Smiling a little, Ben nods. Richie thinks It was overcast that day. No breeze. Thunder in the air. Like the day a month or so later when we stood in the stream and made a circle and Stan cut our hands with that chunk of Coke bottle. The air was just sitting there, waiting for something to happen, and later Bill said that was why it got so bad in there so quick, because there was no draft. July 17th. Yes, that was it, that had been the day of the smokehole. July 17th, 1958, almost a month after summer vacation began and the nucleus of the LosersBill, Eddie, and Benhad formed down in the Barrens. Let me look up the weather forecast for that day almost twentyseven years ago, Richie thinks, and Ill tell you what it said before I even read it Richard Tozier, aka the Great Mentalizer. Hot, humid, chance of thundershowers. And watch out for the visions that may come while youre down in the smokehole.... It had been two days after the body of Jimmy Cullum was discovered, the day after Mr. Nell had come down to the Barrens again and sat right on the clubhouse without knowing it was there, because by then they had capped it off and Ben himself had carefully overseen the application of the TangleTrack and replacement of the sod. Unless you got right down on your hands and knees and crawled around, youd have no idea anything was there. Like the dam, Bens clubhouse had been a roaring success, but this time Mr. Nell didnt know anything about it. He had questioned them carefully, officially, taking down their answers in his black notebook, but there had been little they could tell himat least about Jimmy Cullumand Mr. Nell had gone away again, after reminding them once more that they were not to play in the Barrens alone ... ever. Richie guessed that Mr. Nell would have told them simply to get out if anyone in the Derry Police Department had really believed that the Cullum boy (or any of the others) had actually been killed in the Barrens. But they knew better; because of the sewer and stormdrain system, that was simply where the remains tended to finish up. Mr. Nell had come on the 16th, yes, a hot and humid day also, but sunny. The 17th had been overcast. Are you going to talk to us or not, Richie? Bev asks. She is smiling a little, her lips full and a pale rosered, her eyes alight. Im just thinking about where to start,  Richie says. He takes his glasses off, wipes them on his shirt, and suddenly he knows where with the ground opening up at his and Bills feet. Of course he knew about the clubhouseso did Bill and the rest of thembut it still freaked him out, seeing the ground suddenly open on a slit of darkness like that. He remembers Bill riding him double on the back of Silver to the usual place on Kansas Street and then stowing his bike under the little bridge. He remembers the two of them walking along the path toward the clearing, sometimes having to turn sideways because the brush was so thickit was midsummer now, and the Barrens were at that years apogee of lushness. He remembers swatting at the mosquitoes that hummed maddeningly close to their ears; he even remembers Bill saying (oh how clearly it all comes back, not as if it happened yesterday, but as if it is happening now), HHHold it a sss 2 econd, RuhRichie. Theres a damn guhguhhood one on the bback of your nehneck. Oh Christ, Richie said. He hated mosquitoes. Little flying vampires thats all they were when you got right down to the facts. Kill it, Big Bill. Bill swatted the back of Richies neck. Ouch! Suhsuhsee? Bill held his hand in front of Richies face. There was a broken mosquito body in the center of an irregular patch of blood. My blood, Richie thought, which was shed for you and for many. Yeeick, he said. DDont wworry, Bill said. Lil fuckerll nehnever dance the tuhtuhtango again. They walked on, slapping at mosquitoes, waving at the clouds of noseeums attracted by something in the smell of their sweatsomething which would years later be identified as pheromones. Whatever they were. Bill, when you gonna tell the rest of em about the silver bullets? Richie asked as they approached the clearing. In this case the rest of them meant Bev, Eddie, Mike, and Stanalthough Richie guessed Stan already had a good idea of what they were studying up on down at the Public Library. Stan was sharptoo sharp for his own good, Richie sometimes thought.