One of em stayed behind the wheel of that Packard. Mueller had a Packard, you know. Yes he did. A green one. They got together at the back of the Black Spot and doused their torches with gas. Maybe they only meant to scare us. Ive heard it the other way, but Ive heard it that way, too. Id rather believe thats how they meant it, because I aint got feeling mean enough even yet to want to believe the worst. It could have been that the gas dripped down to the handles of some of those torches and when they lit them, why, those holding them panicked and threw them any whichway just to get rid of them. Whatever, that black November night was suddenly blazing with torches. Some was holding em up and waving em around, little flaming pieces of burlap falling offn the tops of em. Some of them were laughing. But like I say, some of the others up and threw em through the back windows, into what was our kitchen. The place was burning merry hell in a minute and a half. The men outside, they were all wearing their peaky white hoods by then. Some of them were chanting Come out, niggers! Come out, niggers! Come out, niggers! Maybe some of them were chanting to scare us, but I like to believe most of em were trying to warn ussame way as I like to believe that maybe those torches going into the kitchen the way they did was an accident. Either way, it didnt much matter. The band was playing loudern a factory whistle. Everybody was whooping it up and having a good time. Nobody inside knew anything was wrong until Gerry McCrew, who was playing assistant cook that night, opened the door to the kitchen and damn near got blowtorched. Flames shot out ten feet and burned his messjacket right off. Burned most of his hair off as well. I was sitting about halfway down the east wall with Trev Dawson and Dick Hallorann when it happened, and at first I had an idea the gas stove had exploded. Id no more than got on my feet when I was knocked down by people headed for the door. About two dozen of em went marchin right up my back, an I guess that was the only time during the whole thing when I really felt scared. I could hear people screamin and tellin each other they had to get out, the place was on fire. But every time I tried to get up, someone footed me right back down again. Someone landed his big shoe square on the back of my head and I saw stars. My nose mashed on that oiled floor and I snuffled up dirt and began to cough and sneeze at the same time. Someone else stepped on the small of my back. I felt a ladys high heel slam down between the cheeks of my butt, and son, I never want another halfass enema like that one. If the seat of my khakis had ripped, I believe Id be bleedin down there to this day. It sounds funny now, but I damn near died in that stampede. I was whopped, whapped, stomped, walked on, and kicked in so many places I couldnt walk tall the next day. I was screaming and none of those people topside heard me or paid any mind. It was Trev saved me. I seen this big brown hand in front of me and I grabbed it like a drownin man grabs a life preserver. I grabbed and he hauled and up I came. Someones foot got me in the side of my neck right here He massaged that area where the jaw turns up toward the ear, and I nodded. and it hurt so bad that I guess I blacked out for a minute. But I never let go of Trevs hand, and he never let go of mine. I got to my feet, finally, just as the wall wed put up between the kitchen and the hall fell over. It made a noise likefloompthe noise a puddle of gasoline makes when you light it. I saw it go over in a big bundle of sparks, and I saw the people running to get out of its way as it fell. Some of em made it. Some didnt. One of our fellasI think it might have been Hort Sartoriswas buried under it, and for just one second I seen his hand underneath all those blazing coals, openin and closin. There was a white girl, surely no more than twenty, and the back of her dress went up. She was with a college boy and I heard her screamin at him, beggin him to help her. He took just about two swipes at it and then ran away with the others. She stood there screamin as her dress went up on her. It was like hell out where the kitchen had been. The flames was so bright you couldnt look at them. The heat was bakin hot, Mikey, roastin hot. You could feel your skin going shiny. You could feel the hairs in your nose gettin crispy. We gotta break outta here! Trev yells, and starts to drag me along the wall. Come on! Then Dick Hallorann catches hold of him. He couldnt have been no more than nineteen, and his eyes was as big as bilard balls, but he kept his head better than we did. He saved our lives. Not that way! he yells. This way! And he pointed back toward the bandstand... toward the fire, you know. Youre crazy! Trevor screamed back. He had a big bull voice, but you could barely hear him over the thunder of the fire and the screaming people. Die if you want to, but me and Willy are gettin out! He still had me by the hand and he started to haul me toward the door again, although there were so many people around it by then you couldnt see it at all. I would have gone with him. I was so shellshocked I didnt know what end was up. All I knew was that I didnt want to be baked like a human turkey. Dick grabbed Trev by the hair of the head just as hard as he could, and when Trev turned back, Dick slapped his face. I remember seeing Trevs head bounce off the wall and thinking Dick had gone crazy. Then he was hollerin in Trevs face, You go that way and you goan die! They jammed up against that door, nigger! You dont know that! Trev screamed back at him, and then there was this loud BANG! like a firecracker, only what it was, it was the heat exploding Marty Devereauxs bass drum. The fire was runnin along the beams overhead and the oil on the floor was catchin. I know it! Dick screams back. I know it! He grabbed my other hand, and for a minute there I felt like the rope in a tugowar game. Then Trev took a good look at the door and went Dicks way. Dick got us down to a window and grabbed a chair to bust it out, but before he could swing it, the heat blew it out for him. Then he grabbed Trev Dawson by the back of his pants and hauled him up. Climb! he shouts. Climb, motherfucker! And Trev went, head up and tail over the dashboard. He boosted me next, and I went up. I grabbed the sides of the window and hauled. I had a good crop of blisters all over my palms the next day that wood was already smokin. I come out headfirst, and if Trev hadnt grabbed me I mighta broke my neck. We turned back around, and it was like something from the worst nightmare you ever had, Mikey. That window was just a yellow, blazin square of light. Flames was shootin up through that tin roof in a dozen places. We could hear people screamin inside. I saw two brown hands waving around in front of the fireDicks hands. Trev Dawson made me a step with his own hands and I reached through that window and grabbed Dick. When I took his weight my gut went against the side of the building, and it was like having your belly against a stove thats just starting to get real good and hot. Dicks face came up and for a few seconds I didnt think we was going to be able to get him. Hed taken a right smart of smoke, and he was close to passing out. His lips had cracked open. The back of his shirt was smoldering. And then I damn near let go, because I could smell the people burning inside. Ive heard people say that smell is like barbecuing pork ribs, but it aint like that. Its more like what happens sometimes after they geld hosses. They build a big fire and throw all that shit into it and when the fire gets hot enough you can hear them hossballs poppin like chestnuts, and thats what people smell like when they start to cook right inside their cloes. I could smell that and I knew I couldnt take it for long so I gave one more great big yank, and out came Dick. He lost one of his shoes. I tumbled off Trevs hands and went down. Dick come down on top of me, and Im here to tell you that niggers head was hard. I lost most of my breath and just laid there on the dirt for a few seconds, rolling around and holding my bellyguts. Presently I was able to get to my knees, then to my feet. And I seen these shapes running off toward the greenbelt. At first I thought they were ghosts, and then I seen shoes. By then it was so bright around the Black Spot it was like daylight. I seen shoes and understood it was men wearin sheets. One of them had fallen a little bit behind the others and I saw . . . He trailed off, licking his lips. What did you see, Daddy? I asked. Never you mind, he said. Give me my water, Mikey. I did. He drank most of it and then got coughing. A passing nurse looked in and said Do you need anything, Mr. Hanlon? New set of testines, my dad said. You got any handy. Rhoda? She smiled a nervous, doubtful smile and passed on. My dad handed the glass to me and I put it back on his table. Its longer tellin than it is rememberin, he said. You goan fill that glass up for me before you leave? Sure, Daddy. This story goan give you nightmares, Mikey? I opened my mouth to lie, and then thought better of it. And I think now that if I had lied, he would have stopped right there. He was far gone by then, but maybe not that far gone. I guess so, I said. Thats not such a bad thing, he said to me. In nightmares we can think the worst. Thats what theyre for, I guess. He reached out his hand and I took it and we held hands while he finished. I looked around just in time to see Trev and Dick goin around the front of the building, and I chased after them, still trying to catch mwind. There was maybe forty or fifty people out there, some of them cryin, some of them pukin, some of them screamin, some of them doing all three things at once, it seemed like. Others were layin on the grass, fainted dead away with the smoke. The door was shut, and we heard people screamin on the other side, screamin to let them out, out for the love of Jesus, they were burning up. It was the only door, except for the one that went out through the kitchen to where the garbage cans and things were, you see. To go in you pushed the door open. To go out you had to pull it. Some people had gotten out, and then they started to jam up at that door and push. The door got slammed shut. The ones in the back kept pushin forward to get away from the fire, and everybody got jammed up. The ones right up front were squashed. Wasnt no way they could get that door open against the weight of all those behind. So there they were, trapped, and the fire raged. It was Trev Dawson that made it so it was only eighty or so that died instead of a hundred or maybe two hundred, and what he got for his pains wasnt a medal but two years in the Rye stockade. See, right about then this big old cargo truck pulled up, and who should be behind the wheel but my old friend Sergeant Wilson, the fella who owned all the holes there on the base. He gets out and starts shoutin orders that didnt make much sense and which people couldnt hear anyway. Trev grabbed my arm and we run over to him. Id lost all track of Dick Hallorann by then and didnt even see him until the next day. Sergeant, I have to use your truck! Trev yells in his face. Get out of my way, nigger, Wilson says, and pushes him down. Then he starts yelling all that confused shit again. Wasnt nobody paying any attention to him, and he didnt go on for long anyway, because Trevor Dawson popped up like a jackinthebox and decked him. Trev could hit damned hard, and almost any other man would have stayed down, but that cracker had a hard head. He got up, blood pouring out of his mouth and nose, and he said, Im goan kill you for that. Well, Trev hit him in the belly just as hard as he could, and when he doubled over I put my hands together and pounded the back of his neck just as hard as I could. It was a cowardly thing to do, hitting a man from behind like that, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And I would be lyin, Mikey, if I didnt tell you that hitting that poormouth sonofabitch didnt give me a bit of pleasure. Down he went, just like a steer hit with a poleaxe. Trev run to the truck, fired it up, and drove it around so it was facin the front of the Black Spot, but to the left of the door. He thowed it into first, popped the clutch on that cocksucker, and here he come! Look out there! I shouted at that crowd of people standing around.  Ware that truck! They scattered like quail, and for a wonder Trev didnt hit none of em. He hit the side of the building going maybe thirty, and cracked his face a good one on the steerin wheel of the truck. I seen the blood fly from his nose when he shook his head to clear it. He punched out reverse, backed up fifty yards, and come down on her again. WHAM! The Black Spot wasnt nothing but corrugated tin, and that second hit did her. The whole side of that oven fell in and the flames come roarin out. How anything could have still been alive in there I dont know, but there was. People are a lot tougher than youd believe, Mikey, and if you dont believe it, just take a look at me, slidin off the skin of the world by my fingernails. That place was like a smelting furnace, it was a hell of flames and smoke, but people came running out in a regular torrent. There were so many that Trev didnt even dare back the truck up again for fear he would run over some of them. So he got out and ran back to me, leaving it where it was. We stood there, watching it end. It hadnt been five minutes all told, but it felt like forever. The last dozen or so that made it out were on fire. People grabbed em and started to roll em around on the ground, trying to put em out. Looking in, we could see other people trying to come, and we knew they wasnt never going to make it. Trev grabbed my hand and I grabbed him back twice as hard. We stood there holding hands just like you and me are doing now, Mikey, him with his nose broke and blood running down his face and his eyes puffing shut, and we watched them people. They were the real ghosts we saw that night, nothing but shimmers shaped like men and women in that fire, walking toward the opening Trev had bashed with Sergeant Wilsons truck. Some of em had their arms held out, like they expected someone to save them. The others just walked, but they didnt seem to get nowhere. Their cloes were blazin. Their faces were runnin. And one after another they just toppled over and you didnt see them no more. The last one was a woman. Her dress had burned off her and there she was in her slip. She was burnin like a candle. She seemed to look right at me at the end, and I seen her eyelids was on fire. When she fell down it was over. The whole place went up in a pillar of fire. By the time the base firetrucks and two more from the Main Street fire station got there, it was already burning itself out. That was the fire at the Black Spot, Mikey. He drank the last of his water and handed me the glass to fill at the drinking fountain in the hall. Goan piss the bed tonight I guess, Mikey. I kissed his cheek and then went out into the hall to fill his glass. When I returned, he was drifting away again, his eyes glassy and contemplative. When I put the glass on the nighttable, he mumbled a thankyou I could barely understand. I looked at the Westclox on his table and saw it was almost eight. Time for me to go home. I leaned over to kiss him goodbye... and instead heard myself whisper, What did you see? His eyes, which were now slipping shut, barely turned toward the sound of my voice. He might have known it was me, or he might have believed he was hearing the voice of his own thoughts. Hunh? The thing you saw, I whispered. I didnt want to hear, but I had to hear. I was both hot and cold, my eyes burning, my hands freezing. But I had to hear. As I suppose Lots wife had to turn back and look at the destruction of Sodom. Twas a bird, he said. Right over the last of those runnin men. A hawk, maybe. What they call a kestrel. But it was big. Never told no one. Would have been locked up. That bird was maybe sixty feet from wingtip to wingtip. It was the size of a Japanese Zero. But I seen... seen its eyes . . . and I think . . . it seen me. . . . His head slipped over to the side, toward the window, where the dark was coming. It swooped down and grabbed that last man up. Got him right by the sheet, it did . . . and I heard that birds wings. . . .The sound was like fire . . . and it hovered . . . and I thought, Birds cant hover . . . but this one could, because . . . because . . . He fell silent. Why, Daddy? I whispered. Why could it hover? It didnt hover, he said. I sat there in silence, thinking he had gone to sleep for sure this time. I had never been so afraid in my life... because four years before, I had seen that bird. Somehow, in some unimaginable way, I had nearly forgotten that nightmare. It was my father who brought it back. It didnt hover, he said. It floated. It floated. There were big bunches of balloons tied to each wing, and it floated. My father went to sleep. March 1st,1985 Its come again. I know that now. Ill wait, but in my heart I know it. Im not sure I can stand it. As a kid I was able to deal with it, but its different with kids. In some fundamental way its different. I wrote all of that last night in a kind of frenzynot that I could have gone home anyway. Derry has been blanketed in a thick glaze of ice, and although the sun is out this morning, nothing is moving. I wrote until long after three this morning, pushing the pen faster and faster, trying to get it all out. I had forgotten about seeing the giant bird when I was eleven. It was my fathers story that brought it back . . . and I never forgot it again. Not any of it. In a way, I suppose it was his final gift to me. A terrible gift, you would say, but wonderful in its way. I slept right where I was, my head in my arms, my notebook and pen on the table in front of me. I woke up this morning with a numb ass and an aching back, but feeling free, somehow... purged of that old story. And then I saw that I had had company in the night, as I slept. The tracks, drying to faint muddy impressions, led from the front door of the library (which I locked; I always lock it) to the desk where I slept. There were no tracks leading away. Whatever it was, it came to me in the night, left its talisman... and then simply disappeared. Tied to my reading lamp was a single balloon. Filled with helium, it floated in a morning sunray which slanted in through one of the high windows. On it was a picture of my face, the eyes gone, blood running down from the ragged sockets, a scream distorting the mouth on the balloons thin and bulging rubber skin. I looked at it and I screamed. The scream echoed through the library, echoing back, vibrating from the circular iron staircase leading to the stacks. The balloon burst with a bang. PART 3 GROWNUPS The descent made up of despairs and without accomplishment realizes a new awakening  which is a reversal of despair. For what we cannot accomplish, what is denied to love, what we have lost in the anticipation a descent follows, endless and indestructable . William Carlos Williams, Paterson Dont it make you wanta go home, now? Dont it make you wanta go home? All Gods children get weary when they roam, Dont it make you wanta go home? Dont it make you wanta go home? Joe South CHAPTER 10 The Reunion 1 Bill Denbrough Gets a Cab The telephone was ringing, bringing him up and out of a sleep too deep for dreams. He groped for it without opening his eyes, without coming more than halfway awake. If it had stopped ringing just then he would have slipped back down into sleep without a hitch; he would have done it as simply and easily as he had once slipped down the snowcovered hills in McCarron Park on his Flexible Flyer. You ran with the sled, threw yourself onto it, and down you wentseemingly at the speed of sound. You couldnt do that as a grownup; it racked the hell out of your balls. His fingers walked over the telephones dial, slipped off, climbed it again. He had a dim premonition that it would be Mike Hanlon, Mike Hanlon calling from Derry, telling him he had to come back, telling him he had to remember, telling him they had made a promise, Stan Uris had cut their palms with a sliver of Coke bottle and they had made a promise Except all of that had already happened. He had gotten in late yesterday afternoonjust before 6 P.M., actually. He supposed that, if he had been the last call on Mikes list, all of them must have gotten in at varying times; some might even have spent most of the day here. He himself had seen none of them, felt no urge to see any of them. He had simply checked in, gone up to his room, ordered a meal from room service which he found he could not eat once it was laid out before him, and then had tumbled into bed and slept dreamlessly until now. Bill cracked one eye open and fumbled for the telephones handset. It fell off onto the table and he groped for it, opening his other eye. He felt totally blank inside his head, totally unplugged, running on batteries. He finally managed to scoop up the phone. He got up on one elbow and put it against his ear. Hello? Bill? It was Mike Hanlons voicehed had at least that much right. Last week he didnt remember Mike at all, and now a single word was enough to identify him. It was rather marvellous... but in an ominous way. Yeah, Mike. Woke you up, huh? Yeah, you did. Thats okay. On the wall above the TV was an abysmal painting of lobstermen in yellow slickers and rainhats pulling lobster traps. Looking at it, Bill remembered where he was the Derry Town House on Upper Main Street. Half a mile farther up and across the street was Bassey Park... the Kissing Bridge... the Canal. What time is it, Mike? Quarter of ten. What day? The 30th. Mike sounded a little amused. Yeah. Kay. Ive arranged a little reunion, Mike said. He sounded diffident now. Yeah? Bill swung his legs out of bed. They all came? All but Stan Uris, Mike said. Now there was something in his voice that Bill couldnt read. Bev was the last one. She got in late last evening. Why do you say the last one, Mike? Stan might show up today. Bill, Stans dead. What? How? Did his plane Nothing like that, Mike said. Look, if its all the same to you, I think it ought to wait until we get together. It would be better if I could tell all of you at the same time. It has to do with this? Yes, I think so. Mike paused briefly. Im sure it does. Bill felt the familiar weight of dread settle around his heart againwas it something you could get used to so quickly, then? Or had it been something he had carried all along, simply unfelt and unthoughtof, like the inevitable fact of his own death? He reached for his cigarettes, lit one, and blew out the match with the first drag. None of them got together yesterday? NoI dont believe so. And you havent seen any of us yet. Nojust talked to you on the phone. Okay, he said. Wheres the reunion? You remember where the old Ironworks used to be? Pasture Road, sure. Youre behind the times, old chum. Thats Mall Road these days. Weve got the thirdbiggest shopping mall in the state out there. Fortyeight Different Merchants Under One Roof for Your Shopping Convenience. Sounds really AAAmerican, all right. Bill? What? You all right? Yes. But his heart was beating too fast, the tip of his cigarette jittering a tiny bit. He had stuttered. Mike had heard it. There was a moment of silence and then Mike said, Just out past the mall, theres a restaurant called Jade of the Orient. They have private rooms for parties. I arranged for one of them yesterday. We can have it the whole afternoon, if we want it. You think this might take that long? I just dont know. A cab will know how to get there? Sure. All right, Bill said. He wrote the name of the restaurant down on the pad by the phone. Why there? Because its new, I guess, Mike said slowly. It seemed like . . . I dont know . . . Neutral ground? Bill suggested. Yes. I guess thats it. Food any good? I dont know, Mike said. Hows your appetite? Bill chuffed out smoke and halflaughed, halfcoughed. It aint so good, ole pal. Yeah, Mike said. I hear you. Noon? More like one, I guess. Well let Beverly catch a few more zs. Bill snuffed the cigarette. She married? Mike hesitated again. Well catch up on everything, he said. Just like when you go back to your highschool reunion ten years later, huh? Bill said. You get to see who got fat, who got bald, who got kkids. I wish it was like that, Mike said. Yeah. Me too, Mikey. Me too. He hung up the phone, took a long shower, and ordered a breakfast that he didnt want and which he only picked at. No; his appetite was really not much good at all. Bill dialed the Big Yellow Cab Company and asked to be picked up at quarter of one, thinking that fifteen minutes would be plenty of time to get him out to Pasture Road (he found himself totally unable to think of it as Mall Road, even when he actually saw the mall), but he had underestimated the lunchhour trafficflow... and how much Derry had grown. In 1958 it had been a big town, not much more. There were maybe thirty thousand people inside the Derry incorporated city limits and maybe another seven thousand beyond that in the surrounding burgs. Now it had become a citya very small city by London or New York standards, but doing just fine by Maine standards, where Portland, the states largest, could boast barely three hundred thousand. As the cab moved slowly down Main Street (were over the Canal now, Bill thought; cant see it, but its down there, running in the dark) and then turned up Center, his first thought was predictable enough how much had changed. But the predictable thought was accompanied by a deep dismay that he never would have expected. He remembered his childhood here as a fearful, nervous time... not only because of the summer of 58, when the seven of them had faced the terror, but because of Georges death, the deep dream his parents seemed to have fallen into following that death, the constant ragging about his stutter, Bowers and Huggins and Criss constantly on the prod for them after the rockfight in the Barrens (Bowers and Huggins and Criss, oh my! Bowers and Huggins and Criss, oh my!) and just a feeling that Derry was cold, that Derry was hard, that Derry didnt much give a shit if any of them lived or died, and certainly not if they triumphed over Pennywise the Clown. Derryfolk had lived with Pennywise in all his guises for a long time... and maybe, in some mad way, they had even come to understand him. To like him, need him. Love him? Maybe. Yes, maybe that too. So why this dismay? Perhaps only because it seemed such dull change, somehow. Or perhaps because Derry seemed to have lost its essential face for him. The Bijou Theater was gone, replaced with a parking lot (BY PERMIT ONLY, the sign over the ramp announced; VIOLATORS SUBJECT TO TOW). The Shoeboat and Bailleys Lunch, which had stood next to it, were also gone. They had been replaced by a branch of the Northern National Bank. A digital readout jutted from the front of the bland cinderblock structure, showing the time and the temperaturethe latter in both degrees Fahrenheit and degrees Celsius. The Center Street Drug, lair of Mr. Keene and the place where Bill had gotten Eddie his asthma medicine that day, was also gone. Richards Alley had become some strange hybrid called a minimall. Looking inside as the cab idled at a stoplight, Bill could see a record shop, a naturalfoods store, and a toysandgames shop which was featuring a clearance sale on ALL DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS SUPPLIES. The cab pulled forward with a jerk. Gonna take awhile, the driver said. I wish all these goddam banks would stagger their lunchhours. Pardon my French if youre a religious man. Thats all right, Bill said. It was overcast outside, and now a few splatters of rain hit the cabs windshield. The radio muttered about an escaped mental patient from somewhere who was supposed to be very dangerous, and then began muttering about the Red Sox who werent. Showers early, then clearing. When Barry Manilow began moaning about Mandy, who came and who gave without takin, the cabbie snapped the radio off. Bill asked, When did they go up? What? The banks? Uhhuh. Oh, late sixties, early sebnies, most of em, the cabbie said. He was a big man with a thick neck. He wore a redandblackchecked hunters jacket. A fluorescentorange cap was jammed down squarely on his head. It was smudged with engineoil. They got this urbanrenewal money. Rebnue Sharin, they call it. So how they shared it was rip down everythin. And the banks come in. I guess that was all that could afford to come in. Hell of a note, aint it? Urban renewal, says they. Shit for dinner, says I. Pardon my French if youre a religious man. There was a lot of talk about how they was gonna revitalize the downtown. Ayup, they revitalized it just fine. Tore down most the old stores and put up a lot of banks and parking lots. And you know you still cant find a fucking slot to park your car in. Ought to string the whole City Council up by their cocks. Except for that Polock woman thats on it. String her up by her tits. On second thought, it dont seem like shes got any. Flat as a fuckin board. Pardon my French if youre a religious man. I am, Bill said, grinning. Then get outta my cab and go to fucking church, the cabbie said, and they both burst out laughing. You lived here long? Bill asked. My whole life. Born in Derry Home Hospital, and theyll bury my fuckin remains out in Mount Hope Cemetery. Good deal, Bill said. Yeah, right, the cabbie said. He hawked, rolled down his window, and spat an extremely large yellowgreen lunger into the rainy air. His attitude, contradictory but somehow attractivealmost piquantwas one of glum good cheer. Guy who catches that wont have to buy no fuckin chewing gum for a week. Pardon my French if youre a religious man. It hasnt all changed, Bill said. The depressing promenade of banks and parking lots was slipping behind them as they climbed Center Street. Over the hill and past the First National, they began to pick up some speed. The Aladdins still there. Yeah, the cabbie conceded. But just barely. Suckers tried to tear that down, too. For another bank? Bill asked, a part of him amused to find that another part of him stood aghast at the idea. He couldnt believe that anyone in his right mind would want to tear down that stately pleasure dome with its glittering glass chandelier, its sweeping rightandleft staircases which spiraled up to the balcony, and its mammoth curtain, which did not simply pull apart when the show started but which instead rose in magical folds and tucks and gathers, all underlit in fabulous shades of red and blue and yellow and green while pullies offstage ratcheted and groaned. Not the Aladdin, that shocked part of him cried out. How could they ever even think of tearing down the Aladdin for a BANK? Oh, ayup, a bank, the cabbie said. Youre fuckingA, pardon my French if youre a religious man. It was the First Merchants of Penobscot County had its eye on the laddin. Wanted to pull it down and put up what they called a complete banking mall. Got all the papers from the City Council, and the Aladdin was condemned. Then a bunch of folks formed a committeefolks that had lived here a long timeand they petitioned, and they marched, and they hollered, and finally they had a public City Council meeting about it, and Hanlon blew those suckers out. The cabbie sounded extremely satisfied. Hanlon? Bill asked, startled. Mike Hanlon? Ayup, the cabbie said. He twisted around briefly to look at Bill, revealing a round, chapped face and hornrimmed glasses with old specks of white paint on the bows. Librarian. Black fella. You know him? I did, Bill said, remembering how he had met Mike, back in July 1958.


It had been Bowers and Huggins and Criss again... of course. Bowers and Huggins and Criss (oh my) at every turn, playing their own part, unwitting visegrips driving the seven of them togethertight, tighter, tightest. We played together when we were kids. Before I moved away. Well, there you go, the cabbie said. Its a small fucking world, pardon my French if youre a religious man, Bill finished with him. There you go, the cabbie repeated comfortably, and they rode in silence for awhile before he said, Its changed a lot, Derry has, but yeah, a lot of its still here. The Town House, where I picked you up. The Standpipe in Memorial Park. You remember that place, mister? When we were kids, we used to think that place was haunted. I remember it, Bill said. Look, theres the hospital. You recognize it? They were passing the Derry Home Hospital on the right now. Behind it, the Penobscot flowed toward its meetingplace with the Kenduskeag. Under the rainy spring sky, the river was dull pewter. The hospital that Bill remembereda white woodframe building with two wings, three stories highwas still there, but now it was surrounded, dwarfed, by a whole complex of buildings, maybe a dozen in all. He could see a parkinglot off to the left, and what looked like better than five hundred cars parked there. My God, thats not a hospital, thats a fucking college campus! Bill exclaimed. The cabdriver cackled. Not bein a religious man, Ill pardon your French. Yeah, its almost as big as the Eastern Maine up in Bangor now. They got radiation labs and a therapy center and six hundred rooms and their own laundry and God knows what else. The old hospitals still there, but its all administration now. Bill felt a queer doubling sensation in his mind, the sort of sensation he remembered getting the first time he watched a 3D movie. Trying to bring together two images that didnt quite jibe. You could fool your eyes and your brain into doing that trick, he remembered, but you were apt to end up with a whopper of a headache... and he could feel his own headache coming on now. New Derry, fine. But the old Derry was still here, like the wooden Home Hospital building. The old Derry was mostly buried under all the new construction... but your eye was somehow dragged helplessly back to look at it ... to look for it. The trainyards probably gone, isnt it? Bill asked. The cabbie laughed again, delighted. For someone who moved away when he was just a kid, you got a good memory, mister. Bill thought You should have met me last week, my Frenchspeaking friend. Its all still out there, but its nothing but ruins and rusty tracks now. The freights dont even stop no more. Fella wanted to buy the land and put up a whole roadside entertainment thingpitch n putt, batting cages, driving ranges, mini golf, gokarts, little shack fulla video games, I dont know whatallbut theres some kind of big mixup about who owns the land now. I guess hell get it eventuallyhes a persistent fellabut right now its in the courts. And the Canal, Bill murmured as they turned off Outer Center Street and onto Pasture Roadwhich, as Mike had said, was now marked with a green roadsign reading MALL ROAD. The Canals still here. Ayup, the cabbie said. Thatll always be here, I guess. Now the Derry Mall was on Bills left, and as they rolled past it, he felt that queer doubling sensation again. When they had been kids all of this had been a great long field full of rank grasses and gigantic nodding sunflowers which marked the northeastern end of the Barrens. Behind it, to the west, was the Old Cape lowincome housing development. He could remember them exploring this field, being careful not to fall into the gaping cellarhold of the Kitchener Ironworks, which had exploded on Easter Sunday in the year 1906. The field had been full of relics and they had unearthed them with all the solemn interest of archaeologists exploring Egyptian ruins bricks, dippers, chunks of iron with rusty bolts hanging from them, panes of glass, bottles full of unnamable gunk that smelled like the worst poison in the world. Something bad had happened near here, too, in the gravelpit close to the dump, but he could not remember it yet. He could only remember a name, Patrick Humboldt, and that it had something to do with a refrigerator. And something about a bird that had chased Mike Hanlon. What . . . ? He shook his head. Fragments. Straws in the wind. That was all. The field was gone now, as were the remains of the Ironworks. Bill remembered the great chimney of the Ironworks suddenly. Faced with tile, caked black with soot for the final ten feet of its length, it had lain in the high grass like a gigantic pipe. They had scrambled up somehow and had walked along it, arms held out like tightwire walkers, laughing He shook his head, as if to dismiss the mirage of the mall, an ugly collection of buildings with signs that said SEARS and J. C. PENNEY and WOOLWORTHS and CVS and YORKS STEAK HOUSE and WALDENBOOKS and dozens of others. Roads wove in and out of parking lots. The mall did not go away, because it was no mirage. The Kitchener Ironworks was gone, and the field that had grown up around its ruins was likewise gone. The mall was the reality, not the memories. But somehow he didnt believe that. Here you go, mister, the cabbie said. He pulled into the parkinglot of a building that looked like a large plastic pagoda. A little late, but better late than never, am I right? Indeed you are, Bill said. He gave the cabdriver a five. Keep the change. Good fucking deal! the cabbie exclaimed. You need someone to drive you, call Big Yellow and ask for Dave. Ask for me by name. Ill just ask for the religious fella, Bill said, grinning. The one whos got his plot all picked out in Mount Hope. You got it, Dave said, laughing. Have a good one, mister. You too, Dave. He stood in the light rain for a moment, watching the cab draw away. He realized that he had meant to ask the driver one more question, and had forgottenperhaps on purpose. He had meant to ask Dave if he liked living in Derry. Abruptly, Bill Denbrough turned and walked into the Jade of the Orient. Mike Hanlon was in the lobby, sitting in a wicker chair with a huge flaring back. He got to his feet, and Bill felt deep unreality wash over himthrough him. That sensation of doubling was back, but now it was much, much worse. He remembered a boy who had been about five feet three, trim, and agile. Before him was a man who stood about fiveseven. He was skinny. His clothes seemed to hang on him. And the lines in his face said that he was on the darker side of forty instead of only thirtyeight or so. Bills shock must have shown on his face, because Mike said quietly I know how I look. Bill flushed and said, Its not that bad, Mike, its just that I remember you as a kid. Thats all it is. Is it? You look a little tired. I am a little tired, Mike said, but Ill make it. I guess. He smiled then, and the smile lit his face. In it Bill saw the boy he had known twentyseven years ago. As the old woodframe Home Hospital had been overwhelmed with modern glass and cinderblock, so had the boy that Bill had known been overwhelmed with the inevitable accessories of adulthood. There were wrinkles on his forehead, lines had grooved themselves from the corners of his mouth nearly to his chin, and his hair was graying on both sides above the ears. But as the old hospital, although overwhelmed, was still there, still visible, so was the boy Bill had known. Mike stuck out his hand and said, Welcome back to Derry, Big Bill. Bill ignored the hand and embraced Mike. Mike hugged him back fiercely, and Bill could feel his hair, stiff and kinky, against his own shoulder and the side of his neck. Whatevers wrong, Mike, well take care of it, Bill said. He heard the rough sound of tears in his throat and didnt care. We beat it once, and we can bbeat it aaagain. Mike pulled away from him, held him at arms length; although he was still smiling, there was too much sparkle in his eyes. He took out his handkerchief and wiped them. Sure, Bill, he said. You bet. Would you gentlemen like to follow me? the hostess asked. She was a smiling Oriental woman in a delicate pink kimono upon which a dragon cavorted and curled its plated tail. Her dark hair was piled high on her head and held with ivory combs. I know the way, Rose, Mike said. Very good, Mr. Hanlon. She smiled at both of them. You are well met in friendship, I think. I think we are, Mike said. This way, Bill. He led him down a dim corridor, past the main dining room and toward a door where a beaded curtain hung. The others? Bill began. All here now, Mike said. All that could come. Bill hesitated for a moment outside the door, suddenly frightened. It was not the unknown that scared him, not the supernatural; it was the simple knowledge that he was fifteen inches taller than he had been in 1958 and minus most of his hair. He was suddenly uneasyalmost terrifiedat the thought of seeing them all again, their childrens faces almost worn away, almost buried under change as the old hospital had been buried. Banks erected inside their heads where once magic picturepalaces had stood. We grew up, he thought. We didnt think it would happen, not then, not to us. But it did, and if I go in there it will be real were all grownups now. He looked at Mike, suddenly bewildered and timid. How do they look? he heard himself asking in a faltering voice. Mike . . . how do they look? Come in and find out, Mike said, kindly enough, and led Bill into the small private room. 2 Bill Denbrough Gets a Look Perhaps it was simply the dimness of the room that caused the illusion, which lasted for only the briefest moment, but Bill wondered later if it wasnt some sort of message meant strictly for him that fate could also be kind. In that brief moment it seemed to him that none of them had grown up, that his friends had somehow done a Peter Pan act and were all still children. Richie Tozier was rocked back in his chair so that he was leaning against the wall, caught in the act of saying something to Beverly Marsh, who had a hand cupped over her mouth to hide a giggle; Richie had a wiseass grin on his face that was perfectly familiar. There was Eddie Kaspbrak, sitting on Beverlys left, and in front of him on the table, next to his waterglass, was a plastic squeezebottle with a pistolgrip handle curving down from its top. The trimmings were a little more stateoftheart, but the purpose was obviously the same it was an aspirator. Sitting at one end of the table, watching this trio with an expression of mixed anxiety, amusement, and concentration, was Ben Hanscom. Bill found his hand wanting to go to his head and realized with a sorry kind of amusement that in that second he had almost rubbed his pate to see if his hair had magically come backthat red, fine hair that he had begun to lose when he was only a college sophomore. That broke the bubble. Richie was not wearing glasses, he saw, and thought He probably has contacts nowhe would. He hated those glasses. The teeshirts and cord pants hed habitually worn had been replaced by a suit that hadnt been purchased off any rackBill estimated that he was looking at nine hundred dollars worth of tailormade on the hoof. Beverly Marsh (if her name still was Marsh) had become a stunningly beautiful woman. Instead of the casual ponytail, her hairwhich was almost exactly the same shade his own had beenspilled over the shoulders of her plain white Ship n Shore blouse in a torrent of subdued color. In this dim light it merely glowed like a wellbanked bed of embers. In daylight, even the light of such a subdued day as this one, Bill imagined it would flame. And he found himself wondering what it would feel like to plunge his hands into that hair. The worlds oldest story, he thought wryly. Ilove my wife but oh you kid. Eddieit was weird but truehad grown up to look quite a little bit like Anthony Perkins. His face was prematurely lined (although in his movements he seemed somehow younger than either Richie or Ben) and made older still by the rimless spectacles he worespectacles you would imagine a British barrister wearing as he approached the bench or leafed through a legal brief. His hair was short, worn in an outofdate style that had been known as Ivy League in the late fifties and early sixties. He was wearing a loud checked sportcoat that looked like something grabbed from the Distress Sale rack of a mens clothing store that would shortly be out of business... but the watch on one wrist was a Patek Philippe, and the ring on the little finger of his right hand was a ruby. The stone was too hugely vulgar and too ostentatious to be anything but real. Ben was the one who had really changed, and, looking at him again, Bill felt unreality wash easily over him. His face was the same, and his hair, although graying and longer, was combed in the same unusual rightside part. But Ben had gotten thin. He sat easily enough in his chair, his unadorned leather vest open to show the blue chambray workshirt beneath. He wore Levis with straight legs, cowboy boots, and a wide belt with a beatensilver buckle. These clothes clung easily to a body which was slim and narrowhipped. He wore a bracelet with heavy links on one wristnot gold links but copper ones. He got thin, Bill thought. Hes a shadow of his former self, so to speak.... Ole Ben got thin. Wonders never cease. There was a moment of silence among the six of them that was beyond description. It was one of the strangest moments Bill Denbrough ever passed in his life. Stan was not here, but a seventh had come, nonetheless. Here in this private restaurant dining room Bill felt its presence so fully that it was almost personifiedbut not as an old man in a white robe with a scythe on his shoulder. It was the white spot on the map which lay between 1958 and 1985, an area an explorer might have called the Great Dont Know. Bill wondered what exactly was there. Beverly Marsh in a short skirt which showed most of her long, coltish legs, a Beverly Marsh in white gogo boots, her hair parted in the middle and ironed? Richie Tozier carrying a sign which said STOP THE WAR on one side and GET ROTC OFF CAMPUS on the other? Ben Hanscom in a yellow hardhat with a flag decal on the front, running a bulldozer under a canvas parasol, his shirt off, showing a stomach which protruded less and less over the waistband of his pants? Was this seventh creature black? No relation to either H. Rap Brown or Grandmaster Flash, not this fellow, this fellow wore plain white shirts and fadeintothewoodwork J. C. Penney slacks, and he sat in a library carrell at the University of Maine, writing papers on the origin of footnotes and the possible advantages of ISBN numbers in book cataloguing while the marchers marched outside and Phil Ochs sang Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of and men died with their stomachs blown out for villages whose names they could not pronounce; he sat there studiously bent over his work (Bill saw him), which lay in a slant of crisp white winterlight, his face sober and absorbed, knowing that to be a librarian was to come as close as any human being can to sitting in the peakseat of eternitys engine. Was he the seventh? Or was it a young man standing before his mirror, looking at the way his forehead was growing, looking at a combful of pulledout red hairs, looking at a pile of university notebooks on the desk reflected in the mirror, notebooks which held the completed, messy first draft of a novel entitled Joanna, which would be published a year later? Some of the above, all of the above, none of the above. It didnt matter, really. The seventh was there, and in that one moment they all felt it ... and perhaps understood best the dreadful power of the thing that had brought them back. It lives, Bill thought, cold inside his clothes. Eye of newt, tail of dragon, Hand of Glory ... whatever It was, Its here again, in Derry. It. And he felt suddenly that It was the seventh; that It and time were somehow interchangeable, that It wore all their faces as well as the thousand others with which It had terrified and killed... and the idea that It might be them was somehow the most frightening idea of all. How much of us was left behind here? he thought with sudden rising terror. How much of us never left the drains and the sewers where It lived ... and where It fed? Is that why we forgot? Because part of each of us never had any future, never grew, never left Derry? Is that why? He saw no answers on their faces... only his own questions reflected back at him. Thoughts form and pass in a matter of seconds or milliseconds, and create their own timeframes, and all of this passed through Bill Denbroughs mind in a space of no more than five seconds. Then Richie Tozier, leaning back against the wall, grinned again and said Oh my, look at thisBill Denbrough went for the chrome dome look. How long you been Turtle Waxing your head, Big Bill? And Bill, with no idea at all of what might come out, opened his mouth and heard himself say Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Trashmouth. There was a moment of silenceand then the room exploded with laughter. Bill crossed to them and began to shake hands, and while there was something horrible in what he now felt, there was also something comforting about it this sensation of having come home for good. 3 Ben Hanscom Gets Skinny Mike Hanlon ordered drinks, and as if to make up for the prior silence, everyone began to talk at once. Beverly Marsh was now Beverly Rogan, it turned out. She said she was married to a wonderful man in Chicago who had turned her whole life around and who had, by some benign magic, been able to transform his wifes simple talent for sewing into a successful dress business. Eddie Kaspbrak owned a limousine company in New York. For all I know, my wife could be in bed with Al Pacino right now, he said, smiling mildly, and the room broke up. They all knew what Bill and Ben had been up to, but Bill had a peculiar sense that there had been no personal association of their namesBen as an architect, himself as a writerwith people they had known as children until very, very recently. Beverly had paperback copies of Joanna and The Black Rapids in her purse, and asked him if he would sign them. Bill did so, noticing as he did that both books were in mint conditionas if they had been purchased in the airport newsstand as she got off the plane. In like fashion, Richie told Ben how much he had admired the BBC communications center in London ... but there was a puzzled sort of light in his eyes, as if he could not quite reconcile that building with this man ... or with the fat earnest boy who had showed them how to flood out half the Barrens with scrounged boards and a rusty car door. Richie was a disc jockey in California. He told them he was known as the Man of a Thousand Voices and Bill groaned. God, Richie, your Voices were always so terrible.  Flattery will get you nowhere, mawster, Richie replied loftily. When Beverly asked him if he wore contacts now, Richie said in a low voice, Come a little closer, baybee. Look in my eyes. Beverly did, and exclaimed delightedly as Richie tilted his head a little so she could see the lower rims of the Hydromist soft lenses he wore. Is the library still the same? Ben asked Mike Hanlon. Mike took out his wallet and produced a snap of the library, taken from above. He did it with the proud air of a man producing snapshots of his kids when asked about his family. Guy in a light plane took this, he said, as the picture went from hand to hand. Ive been trying to get either the City Council or some wellheeled private donor to supply enough cash to get it blown up to mural size for the Childrens Library. So far, no soap. But its a good picture, huh? They all agreed that it was. Ben held it longest, looking at it fixedly. Finally he tapped the glass corridor which connected the two buildings. Do you recognize this from anywhere else, Mike? Mike smiled. Its your communications center, he said, and all six of them burst out laughing. The drinks came. They sat down. That silence, sudden, awkward, and perplexing, fell again. They looked at each other. Well? Beverly asked in her sweet, slightly husky voice. What do we drink to? To us, Richie said suddenly. And now he wasnt smiling. His eyes caught Bills and with a force so great he could barely deal with it, Bill remembered himself and Richie in the middle of Neibolt Street, after the thing which might have been a clown or which might have been a werewolf had disappeared, embracing each other and weeping. When he picked up his glass, his hand was trembling, and some of his drink spilled on the napery. Richie rose slowly to his feet, and one by one the others followed suit Bill first, then Ben and Eddie, Beverly, and finally Mike Hanlon. To us, Richie said, and like Bills hand, his voice trembled a little. To the Losers Club of 1958. The Losers, Beverly said, slightly amused. The Losers, Eddie said. His face was pale and old behind his rimless glasses. The Losers, Ben agreed. A faint and painful smile ghosted at the corners of his mouth. The Losers, Mike Hanlon said softly. The Losers, Bill finished. Their glasses touched. They drank. That silence fell again, and this time Richie did not break it. This time the silence seemed necessary. They sat back down and Bill said, So spill it, Mike. Tell us whats been happening here, and what we can do. Eat first, Mike said. Well talk afterward. So they ate ... and they ate long and well. Like that old joke about the condemned man, Bill thought, but his own appetite was better than it had been in ages ... since he was a kid, he was tempted to think. The food was not stunningly good, but it was far from bad, and there was a lot of it. The six of them began trading stuff back and forthspareribs, moo goo gai pan, chicken wings that had been delicately braised, egg rolls, water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, strips of beef that had been threaded onto wooden skewers. They began with pupu platters, and Richie made a childish but amusing business of broiling a little bit of everything over the flaming pot in the center of the platter he was sharing with Beverlyincluding half an egg roll and a few red kidney beans. Flamb at my table, I love it, he told Ben. Id eat shit on a shingle if it was flamb at my table. And probably has, Bill remarked. Beverly laughed so hard at this she had to spit a mouthful of food into her napkin. Oh God, I think Im gonna ralph, Richie said in an eerily exact imitation of Don Pardo, and Beverly laughed harder, blushing a bright red. Stop it, Richie, she said. Im warning you. The warning is taken, Richie said. Eat well, dear. Rose herself brought them their desserta great mound of baked Alaska which she ignited at the head of the table, where Mike sat. More flamb at my table, Richie said in the voice of a man who has died and gone to heaven. This may be the best meal Ive ever eaten in my life. But of course, Rose said demurely. If I blow that out, do I get my wish? he asked her. At Jade of the Orient, all wishes are granted, sir. Richies smile faltered suddenly. I applaud the sentiment, he said, but you know, I really doubt the veracity. They almost demolished the baked Alaska. As Bill sat back, his belly straining the waistband of his pants, he happened to notice the glasses on the table. There seemed to be hundreds of them. He grinned a little, realizing that he himself had sunk two martinis before the meal and God knew how many bottles of Kirin beer with it. The others had done about as well. In their state, fried chunks of bowling pin would probably have tasted okay. And yet he didnt feel drunk. I havent eaten like that since I was a kid, Ben said. They looked at him and a faint flush of color tinged his cheeks. I mean it literally. That may be the biggest meal Ive eaten since I was a sophomore in high school. You went on a diet? Eddie asked. Yeah, Ben said. I did. The Ben Hanscom Freedom Diet. What got you going? Richie asked. You dont want to hear all that ancient history.... Ben shifted uncomfortably. I dont know about the rest of them, Bill said, but I do. Come on, Ben. Give. What turned Haystack Calhoun into the magazine model we see before us today? Richie snorted a little. Haystack, right. Id forgotten that.  Its not much of a story, Ben said. No story at all, really. After that summerafter 1958we stayed in Derry another two years. Then my mom lost her job and we ended up moving to Nebraska, because she had a sister there who offered to take us in until my mother got on her feet again. It wasnt so great. Her sister, my aunt Jean, was a miserly bitch who had to keep telling you what your place in the great scheme of things was, how lucky we were that my mom had a sister who could give us charity, how lucky we were not to be on welfare, all that sort of thing. I was so fat I disgusted her. She couldnt leave it alone. Ben, you ought to get more exercise. Ben, youll have a heart attack before youre forty if you dont lose weight. Ben, with little children starving in the world, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.  He paused for a moment and sipped some water. The thing was, she also trotted the starving children out if I didnt clean my plate. Richie laughed and nodded. Anyway, the country was just pulling out of a recession and my mother was almost a year finding steady work. By the time we moved out of Aunt Jeans place in La Vista and got our own in Omaha, Id put on about ninety pounds over when you guys knew me. I think I put on most of it just to spite my Aunt Jean. Eddie whistled. That would have put you at about At about two hundred and ten, Ben said gravely. Anyway, I was going to East Side High School in Omaha, and the phys ed periods were ... well, pretty bad. The other kids called me Jugs. That ought to give you the idea. The ragging went on for about seven months, and then one day, while we were getting dressed in the locker room after the period, two or three of the guys started to ... to kind of slap my gut. They called it fatpaddling. Pretty soon two or three others got in on it. Then four or five more. Pretty soon it was all of them, chasing me around the locker room and up the hall, whacking my gut, my butt, my back, my legs. I got scared and started to scream. That made the rest of them laugh like crazy. You know, he said, looking down and carefully rearranging his silverware, thats the last time I can remember thinking of Henry Bowers until Mike called me two days ago. The kid who started it was a farmboy with these big old hands, and while they were chasing after me I remember thinking that Henry had come back. I thinkno, I know thats when I panicked. They chased me up the hall past the lockers where the guys who played sports kept their stuff. I was naked and red as a lobster. Id lost any sense of dignity or ... or of myself, I guess youd say. Where myself was. I was screaming for help. And here they came after me, screaming Fatpaddling! Fatpaddling! Fatpaddling! There was a bench Ben, you dont have to put yourself through this, Beverly said suddenly. Her face had gone ashypale. She toyed with her waterglass, and almost spilled it. Let him finish, Bill said. Ben looked at him for a moment and then nodded. There was a bench at the end of the corridor. I fell over it and hit my head. They were all around me in another minute or two, and then this voice said Okay. Thats enough. You guys go change up. It was Coach, standing there in the doorway, wearing his blue sweatpants with the white stripe up the sides and his white teeshirt. There was no way of telling how long hed been standing there. They all looked at him, some of them grinning, some of them guilty, some of them just looking sort, of vacant. They went away. And I burst into tears. Coach just stood there in the doorway leading back to the gym, watching me, watching this naked fat boy with his skin all red from the fatpaddling, watching this fat kid crying on the floor. And finally he said, Benny, why dont you just fucking shut up? It shocked me so much to hear a teacher use that word that I did. I looked up at him, and he came over and sat down on the bench Id fallen over. He leaned over me, and the whistle around his neck swung out and bonked me on the forehead. For a second I thought he was going to kiss me or something, and I shrank back from him, but what he did was grab one of my tits in each hand and squeeze. Then he took his hands away and rubbed them on his pants like hed touched something dirty. You think Im going to comfort you? he asked me. Im not. You disgust them and you disgust me as well. We got different reasons, but thats because theyre kids and Im not. They dont know why you disgust them. I do know. Its because I see you burying the good body God gave you in a great big mess of fat. Its a lot of stupid selfindulgence, and it makes me want to puke. Now listen to me, Benny, because this is the only time Im going to say it to you. I got a football team to coach, and basketball, and track, and somewhere in between Ive got swimming team. So Ill just say it once. Youre fat up here. And he tapped my forehead right where his damned whistle had bonked me. Thats where everybodys fat. You put whats between your ears on a diet and youre going to lose weight. But guys like you never do.  What a bastard! Beverly said indignantly. Yeah, Ben said, grinning. But he didnt know he was a bastard, thats how dumb he was. Hed probably seen Jack Webb in that movie The D.I. about sixty times, and he actually thought he was doing me a favor. And as it turned out, he was. Because I thought of something right then. I thought ...  He looked away, frowningand Bill had the strangest feeling that he knew what Ben was going to say before he said it. I told you that the last time I can remember thinking of Henry Bowers was when the other boys were chasing after me and fatpaddling. Well, when the Coach was getting up to go, that was the last time I really thought of what wed done in the summer of 58. I thought He hesitated again, looking at each of them in turn, seeming to search their faces. He went on carefully. I thought of how good we were together. I thought of what we did and how we did it, and all at once it hit me that if Coach had to face anything like that, his hair would probably have turned white all at once and his heart would have stopped dead in his chest like an old watch. It wasnt fair, of course, but he hadnt been fair to me. What happened was simple enough You got mad, Bill said. Ben smiled. Yeah, thats right, he said. I called, Coach! He turned around and looked at me. You say you coach track? I asked him. Thats right, he said. Not that its anything to you. You listen to me, you stupid stonebrained son of a bitch, I said, and his mouth dropped open and his eyes bugged out. Ill be out there for the track team in March. What do you think about that? I think you better shut your mouth before it gets you into big trouble, he said. Im going to run down everyone you get out, I said. Im going to run down your best. And then I want a fucking apology from you. His fists clenched, and for a minute I thought he was going to come back in there and let me have it. Then they unclenched again. You just keep talking, fatboy, he said softly. You got the motormouth. But the day you can outrun my best will be the day I quit this place and go back to picking corn on the circuit. And he left. You lost the weight? Richie asked. Well, I did, Ben said. But Coach was wrong. It didnt start in my head. It started with my mother. I went home that night and told her I wanted to lose some weight. We ended up having a hell of a fight, both of us crying.


She started out with that same old song and dance I wasnt really fat, I just had big bones, and a big boy who was going to be a big man had to eat big just to stay even. It was a ... a kind of security thing with her, I think. It was scary for her, trying to raise a boy on her own. She had no education and no real skills, just a willingness to work hard. And when she could give me a second helping... or when she could look across the table at me and see that I was looking solid ... She felt like she was winning the battle, Mike said. Uhhuh. Ben drank off the last of his beer and wiped a small mustache of foam off his upper lip with the heel of his hand. So the biggest fight wasnt with my head; it was with her. She just wouldnt accept it, not for months. She wouldnt take in my clothes and she wouldnt buy me new ones. I was running by then, I ran everywhere, and sometimes my heart pounded so hard I felt like I was going to pass out. The first of my mile runs I finished by puking and then fainting. Then for awhile I just puked. And after awhile I was holding up my pants while I ran. I got a paperroute and I ran with the bag around my neck, bouncing against my chest, while I held up my pants. My shirts started to look like sails. And nights when I went home and would only eat half the stuff on my plate my mother would burst into tears and say that I was starving myself, killing myself, that I didnt love her anymore, that I didnt care about how hard she had worked for me. Christ, Richie muttered, lighting a cigarette. I dont know how you handled it, Ben. I just kept the Coachs face in front of me, Ben said. I just kept remembering the way he looked after he grabbed my tits in the hallway to the boys locker room that time. Thats how I did it. I got myself some new jeans and stuff with the paperroute money, and the old guy in the firstfloor apartment used his awl to punch some new holes in my beltabout five of them, as I remember. I think that I might have remembered the other time I had to buy a pair of new jeansthat was when Henry pushed me into the Barrens that day and they just about got torn off my body. Yeah, Eddie said, grinning. And you told me about the chocolate milk. Remember that? Ben nodded. If I did remember, he went on, it was just for a secondthere and gone. About that same time I started taking Health and Nutrition at school, and I found out you could eat just about all the raw green stuff you wanted and not gain weight. So one night my mother put on a salad with lettuce and raw spinach in it, chunks of apple and maybe a little leftover ham. Now Ive never liked rabbitfood that much, but I had three helpings and just raved on and on to my mother about how good it was. That went a long way toward solving the problem. She didnt care so much what I ate as long as I ate a lot of it. She buried me in salads. I ate them for the next three years. There were times when I had to look in the mirror to make sure my nose wasnt wriggling. So what happened about the Coach? Eddie asked. Did you go out for track? He touched his aspirator, as if the thought of running had reminded him of it. Oh yeah, I went out, Ben said. The twotwenty and the fourforty. By then Id lost seventy pounds and Id sprung up two inches so that what was left was better distributed. On the first day of trials I won the twotwenty by six lengths and the fourforty by eight. Then I went over to Coach, who looked mad enough to chew nails and spit out staples, and I said Looks like its time you got out on the circuit and started picking corn. When are you heading down Kansas way?  He didnt say a thing at firstjust swung a roundhouse and knocked me flat on my back. Then he told me to get off the field. Said he didnt want a smartmouth bastard like me on his track team. I wouldnt be on it if President Kennedy appointed me to it, I said, wiping blood out of the corner of my mouth. And since you got me going I wont hold you to it ... but the next time you sit down to a big plate of corn on the cob, spare me a thought. He told me if I didnt get out right then he was going to beat the living crap out of me. Ben was smiling a little ... but there was nothing very pleasant about that smile, certainly nothing nostalgic. Those were his exact words. Everyone was watching us, including the kids Id beaten. They looked pretty embarrassed. So I just said, Ill tell you what, Coach. You get one free, on account of youre a sore loser but too old to learn any better now. But you put one more on me and Ill try to see to it that you lose your job. Im not sure I can do it, but I can make a good try. I lost the weight so I could have a little dignity and a little peace. Those are things worth fighting for.  Bill said, All of that sounds wonderful, Ben ... but the writer in me wonders if any kid ever really talked like that. Ben nodded, still smiling that peculiar smile. I doubt if any kid who hadnt been through the things we went through ever did, he said. But I said them ... and I meant them. Bill thought about this and then nodded. All right. The Coach stood back with his hands on the hips of his sweatpants, Ben said. He opened his mouth and then he closed it again. Nobody said anything. I walked off, and that was the last I had to do with Coach Woodleigh. When my homeroom teacher handed me my course sheet for my junior year, someone had typed the word excused next to phys. ed. and hed initialed it. You beat him! Richie exclaimed, and shook his clenched hands over his head. Way to go, Ben! Ben shrugged. I think what I did was beat part of myself. Coach got me going, I guess ... but it was thinking of you guys that made me really believe that I could do it. And I did do it. Ben shrugged charmingly, but Bill believed he could see fine drops of sweat at his hairline. End of True Confessions. Except I sure could use another beer. Talkings thirsty work. Mike signalled the waitress. All six of them ended up ordering another round, and they talked of light matters until the drinks came. Bill looked into his beer, watching the way the bubbles crawled up the sides of the glass. He was both amused and appalled to realize he was hoping someone else would begin to story about the years betweenthat Beverly would tell them about the wonderful man she had married (even if he was boring, as most wonderful men were), or that Richie Tozier would begin to expound on Funny Incidents in the Broadcasting Studio, or that Eddie Kaspbrak would tell them what Teddy Kennedy was really like, how much Robert Redford tipped ... or maybe offer some insights into why Ben had been able to give up the extra pounds while he had needed to hang onto his aspirator. The fact is, Bill thought, Mike is going to start talking any minute now, and Im not sure I want to hear what he has to say. The fact is, my heart is beating just a little too fast and my hands are just a little too cold. The fact is, Im just about twentyfive years too old to be this scared. We all are. So say something, someone. Lets talk of careers and spouses and what its like to look at your old playmates and realize that youve taken a few really good shots in the nose from time itself. Lets talk about sex, baseball, the price of gas, the future of the Warsaw Pact nations. Anything but what we came here to talk about. So say something, somebody. Someone did. Eddie Kaspbrak did. But it was not what Teddy Kennedy was really like or how much Redford tipped or even why he had found it necessary to keep what Richie had sometimes called Eddies lungsucker in the old days. He asked Mike when Stan Uris had died. The night before last. When I made the calls. Did it have to do with... with why were here? I could beg the question and say that, since he didnt leave a note, no one can know for sure, Mike answered, but since it happened almost immediately after I called him, I think the assumption is safe enough. He killed himself, didnt he? Beverly said dully. Oh Godpoor Stan. The others were looking at Mike, who finished his drink and said He committed suicide, yes. Apparently went up to the bathroom shortly after I called him, drew a bath, got into it, and cut his wrists. Bill looked down the table, which seemed suddenly lined with shocked, pale facesno bodies, only those faces, like white circles. Like white balloons, moon balloons, tethered here by an old promise that should have long since lapsed. How did you find out? Richie asked. Was it carried in the papers up here? No. For some time now Ive subscribed to the newpapers of those towns closest to all of you. I have kept tabs over the years. I Spy. Richies face was sour. Thanks, Mike. It was my job, Mike said simply. Poor Stan, Beverly repeated. She seemed stunned, unable to cope with the news. But he was so brave back then. So ... determined. People change, Eddie said. Do they? Bill asked. Stan was He moved his hands on the tablecloth, trying to catch the right words. He was an ordered person. The kind of person who has to have his books divided up into fiction and nonfiction on his shelves ... and then wants to have each section in alphabetical order. I can remember something he said onceI dont remember where we were or what we were doing, at least not yet, but I think it was toward the end of things. He said he could stand to be scared, but he hated being dirty. That seemed to me the essence of Stan. Maybe it was just too much, when Mike called. He saw his choices as being only two stay alive and get dirty or die clean. Maybe people really dont change as much as we think. Maybe they just ... maybe they just stiffen up. There was a moment of silence and then Richie said, All right, Mike. Whats happening in Derry? Tell us. I can tell you some, Mike said. I can tell you, for instance, whats happening nowand I can tell you some things about yourselves. But I cant tell you everything that happened back in the summer of 1958, and I dont believe Ill ever have to. Eventually youll remember it for yourselves. And I think if I told you too much before your minds were ready to remember, what happened to Stan Might happen to us? Ben asked quietly. Mike nodded. Yes. Thats exactly what Im afraid of. Bill said Then tell us what you can, Mike. All right, he said. I will. 4 The Losers Get the Scoop The murders have started again, Mike said flatly. He looked up and down the table, and then his eyes fixed on Bills. The first of the new murdersif youll allow me that rather grisly conceitbegan on the Main Street Bridge and ended underneath it. The victim was a gay and rather childlike man named Adrian Mellon. He had a bad case of asthma. Eddies hand stole out and touched the side of his aspirator. It happened last summer on July 21st, the last night of the Canal Days Festival, which was a kind of celebration, a ... a ... A Derry ritual, Bill said in a low voice. His long fingers were slowly massaging his temples, and it was not hard to guess he was thinking about his brother George ... George, who had almost certainly opened the way the last time this had happened. A ritual, Mike said quietly. Yes. He told them the story of what had happened to Adrian Mellon quickly, watching with no pleasure as their eyes got bigger and bigger. He told them what the News had reported and what it had not ... the latter including the testimony of Don Hagarty and Christopher Unwin about a certain clown which had been under the bridge like the troll in the fabled story of yore, a clown which had looked like a cross between Ronald McDonald and Bozo, according to Hagarty. It was him, Ben said in a sick hoarse voice. It was that fucker Pennywise. Theres one other thing, Mike said, looking at Bill. One of the investigating officersthe one who actually pulled Adrian Mellon out of the Canalwas a town cop named Harold Gardener. Oh Jesus Christ, Bill said in a weak teary voice. Bill? Beverly looked at him, then put a hand on his arm. Her voice was full of startled concern. Bill, whats wrong? Harold would have been about five then, Bill said. His stunned eyes searched Mikes face for confirmation. Yes. What is it, Bill? Richie asked. HHHarold Gardener was the sson of Dave Gardener, Bill said. Dave lived down the street from us back then, when George was kkilled. He was the one who got to Juh Juh ... to my brother first and brought him up to the house, wrapped in a piece of ququilt. They sat silently, saying nothing. Beverly put a hand briefly over her eyes. It all fits rather too well, doesnt it? Mike said finally. Yes, Bill said in a low voice. It fits, all right. Id kept tabs on the six of you over the years, as I said, Mike went on, but it wasnt until then that I began to understand just why I had been doing it, that it had a real and concrete purpose. Still, I held off, waiting to see how things would develop. You see, I felt that I had to be absolutely sure before I ... disturbed your lives. Not ninety percent, not even ninetyfive percent. One hundred was all that would do it. In December of last year, an eightyearold boy named Steven Johnson was found dead in Memorial Park. Like Adrian Mellon, he had been badly mutilated just before or just after his death, but he looked as if he could have died of just plain fright. Sexually assaulted? Eddie asked. No. Just plain mutilated. How many in all? Eddie asked, not looking as if he really wanted to know. Its bad, Mike said. How many? Bill repeated. Nine. So far. It cant be! Beverly cried. I would have read about it in the paper ... seen it on the news! When that crazy cop killed all those women in Castle Rock, Maine ... and those children that were murdered in Atlanta ... Yes, that, Mike said. Ive thought about that a lot. Its really the closest correlative to whats going on here, and Bevs right that really was coasttocoast news. In some ways, the Atlanta comparison is the thing about all of this that frightens me the most. The murder of nine children ... we should have TV news correspondents here, and phony psychics, and reporters from The Atlantic Monthly and Rolling Stone ... the whole media circus, in short. But it hasnt happened, Bill said. No, Mike answered, it hasnt. Oh, there was a Sundaysupplement piece about it in the Portland Sunday Telegram, and another one in the Boston Globe after the last two. A Bostonbased television program called Good Day! did a segment this February on unsolved murders, and one of the experts mentioned the Derry murders, but only passingly ... and he certainly gave no indication of knowing there had been a similar batch of murders in 195758, and another in 192930. There are some ostensible reasons, of course. Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Detroit ... those are big media towns, and in big media towns when something happens it makes a bang. There isnt a single TV or radio station in Derry, unless you count the little FM the English and Speech Department runs up at the high school. Bangors got the corner on the market when it comes to the media. Except for the Derry News, Eddie said, and they all laughed. But we all know that doesnt really cut it with the way the world is today. The communication web is there, and at some point the story should have broken nationally. But it didnt. And I think the reason is just this It doesnt want it to.  It, Bill mused, almost to himself. It, Mike agreed. If we have to call It something, it might as well be what we used to call It. Ive begun to think, you see, that It has been here so long ... whatever It really is ... that Its become a part of Derry, something as much a part of the town as the Standpipe, or the Canal, or Bassey Park, or the library. Only Its not a matter of outward geography, you understand. Maybe that was true once, but now Its ... inside. Somehow Its gotten inside. Thats the only way I know to understand all of the terrible things that have happened herethe nominally explicable as well as the utterly inexplicable. There was a fire at a Negro nightclub called the Black Spot in 1930. A year before that, a bunch of halfbright Depression outlaws was gunned down on Canal Street in the middle of the afternoon. The Bradley Gang, Bill said. The FBI got them, right? Thats what the histories say, but thats not precisely true. So far as Ive been able to find outand Id give a lot to believe that it wasnt so, because I love this townthe Bradley Gang, all seven of them, were actually gunned down by the good citizens of Derry. Ill tell you about it sometime. There was the explosion at the Kitchener Ironworks during an Easteregg hunt in 1906. There was a horrible series of animal mutilations that same year that was finally traced to Andrew Rhulin, the granduncle of the man who now runs the Rhulin Farms. He was apparently bludgeoned to death by the three deputies who were supposed to bring him in. None of the deputies were ever brought to trial. Mike Hanlon produced a small notebook from an inner pocket and paged through it, talking without looking up. In 1877 there were four lynchings inside the incorporated town limits. One of those that climbed a rope was the lay preacher of the Methodist Church, who apparently drowned all four of his children in the bathtub as if they were kittens and then shot his wife in the head. He put the gun in her hand to make it look like suicide, but no one was fooled. A year before that four loggers were found dead in a cabin downstream on the Kenduskeag, literally torn apart. Disappearances of children, of whole families, are recorded in old diary extracts ... but not in any public document. It goes on and on, but perhaps you get the idea. I get the idea, all right, Ben said. Somethings going on here, but its private. Mike closed his notebook, replaced it in his inner pocket, and looked at them soberly. If I were an insurance man instead of a librarian, Id draw you a graph, maybe. It would show an unusually high rate of every violent crime we know of, not excluding rape, incest, breaking and entering, auto theft, child abuse, spouse abuse, assault. Theres a mediumsized city in Texas where the violentcrime rate is far below what youd expect for a city of its size and mixed racial makeup. The extraordinary placidity of the people who live there has been traced to something in the water .. a natural trank of some kind. The exact opposite holds true here. Derry is a violent place to live in an ordinary year. But every twentyseven yearsalthough the cycle has never been perfectly exactthat violence has escalated to a furious peak ... and it has never been national news. Youre saying theres a cancer at work here, Beverly said. Not at all. An untreated cancer invariably kills. Derry hasnt died; on the contrary, it has thrived ... in an unspectacular, unnewsworthy way, of course. It is simply a fairly prosperous small city in a relatively unpopulous state where bad things happen too often ... and where ferocious things happen every quarter of a century or so. That holds true all down the line? Ben asked. Mike nodded. All down the line. 171516, 1740 until roughly 1743that must have been a bad one176970, and on and on. Right up to the present time. I have a feeling that its been getting steadily worse, maybe because there have been more people in Derry at the end of each cycle, maybe for some other reason. And in 1958, the cycle appears to have come to a premature end. For which we were responsible. Bill Denbrough leaned forward, his eyes suddenly bright. Youre sure of that? Sure? Yes, Mike said. All the other cycles reached their peak around September and then ended in a big way. Life usually took on its more or less normal tenor by Christmas ... Easter at the latest. In other words, there were bad years of fourteen to twenty months every twentyseven years. But the bad year that began when your brother was killed in October of 1957 ended quite abruptly in August of 1958. Why? Eddie asked urgently. His breath had thinned; Bill remembered that high whistle as Eddie inhaled breath, and knew that he would soon be tooting on the old lungsucker. What did we do? The question hung there. Mike seemed to regard it ... and at last he shook his head. Youll remember, he said. In time youll remember. What if we dont? Ben asked. Then God help us all. Nine children dead this year, Rich said. Christ. Lisa Albrecht and Steven Johnson in late 1984, Mike said. In February a boy named Dennis Torrio disappeared. A highschool boy. His body was found in midMarch, in the Barrens. Mutilated. This was nearby. He took a photograph from the same pocket into which he had replaced the notebook. It made its way around the table. Beverly and Eddie looked at it, puzzled, but Richie Tozier reacted violently. He dropped it as if it were hot. Jesus! Jesus, Mike! He looked up, his eyes wide and shocked. A moment later he passed the picture to Bill. Bill looked at it and felt the world swim into gray tones all around him. For a moment he was sure he would pass out. He heard a groan, and knew he had made the sound. He dropped the picture. What is it? he heard Beverly saying. What does it mean, Bill? Its my brothers school picture, Bill said at last. Its JuhGeorgie. The picture from his album. The one that moved. The one that winked. They handed it around again then, while Bill sat as still as stone at the head of the table, looking out into space. It was a photograph of a photograph. The picture showed a tattered school photo propped up against a white backgroundsmiling lips parted to exhibit two holes where new teeth had never grown (unless they grow in your coffin, Bill thought, and shuddered). On the margin below Georges picture were the words SCHOOL FRIENDS 195758. It was found this year? Beverly asked again. Mike nodded and she turned to Bill. When did you last see it, Bill? He wet his lips, tried to speak. Nothing came out. He tried again, hearing the words echo in his head, aware of the stutter coming back, fighting it, fighting the terror. I havent seen that picture since 1958. That spring, the year after George died. When I tried to show it to Richie, it was ggone. There was an explosive gasping sound that made them all look around. Eddie was setting his aspirator back on the table and looking slightly embarrassed. Eddie Kaspbrak blasts off! Richie cried cheerfully, and then, suddenly and eerily, the Voice of the MovieTone Newsreel Narrator came from Richs mouth Today in Derry, a whole city turns out for Asthmatics on Parade, and the star of the show is Big Ed the Snothead, known all over New England as He stopped abruptly, and one hand moved toward his face, as if to cover his eyes, and Bill suddenly thought Nono, thats not it. Not to cover his eyes but to push his glasses up on his nose. The glasses that arent even there anymore. Oh dear Christ, whats going on here? Eddie, Im sorry, Rich said. That was cruel. I dont know what the hell I was thinking about. He looked around at the others, bewildered. Mike Hanlon spoke into the silence. Id promised myself after Steven Johnsons body was discovered that if anything else happenedif there was one more clear caseI would make the calls that I ended up not making for another two months. It was as if I was hypnotized by what was happening, by the consciousness of itthe deliberateness of it. Georges picture was found by a fallen log less than ten feet from the Torrio boys body. It wasnt hidden; quite the contrary. It was as if the killer wanted it to be found. As Im sure the killer did. How did you get the police photo, Mike? Ben asked. Thats what it is, isnt it? Yes, thats what it is. Theres a fellow in the Police Department who isnt averse to making a little extra money. I pay him twenty bucks a monthall that I can afford. Hes a pipeline. The body of Dawn Roy was found four days after the Torrio boy. McCarron Park. Thirteen years old. Decapitated. April 23rd of this year. Adam Terrault. Sixteen. Reported missing when he didnt come home from band practice. Found the next day just off the path that runs through the greenbelt behind West Broadway. Also decapitated. May 6th. Frederick Cowan. Two and a half. Found in an upstairs bathroom, drowned in the toilet. Oh, Mike! Beverly cried. Yeah, its bad, he said, almost angrily. Dont you think I know that? The police are convinced that it couldnt have beenwell, some kind of accident? Bev asked. Mike shook his head. His mother was hanging clothes in the back yard. She heard sounds of a struggleheard her son screaming. She ran as fast as she could. As she went up the stairs, she says she heard the sound of the toilet flushing repeatedlythat, and someone laughing. She said it didnt sound human. And she saw nothing at all? Eddie asked. Her son, Mike said simply. His back had been broken, his skull fractured. The glass door of the showerstall was broken. There was blood everywhere. The mother is in the Bangor Mental Health Institute, now. My ... my Police Department source says shes quite lost her mind. No fucking wonder, Richie said hoarsely. Whos got a cigarette? Beverly gave him one. Rich lit it with hands that shook badly. The police line is that the killer came in through the front door while the Cowan boys mother was hanging her clothes in the back yard. Then, when she ran up the back stairs, he supposedly jumped from the bathroom window into the yard shed just left and got away clean. But the window is only one of those halfsized jobs; a kid of seven would have to wriggle to get through it. And the drop was twentyfive feet to a stoneflagged patio. Rademacher doesnt like to talk about those things, and no one in the presscertainly no one at the Newshas pressed him about them. Mike took a drink of water and then passed another picture down the line. This was not a police photograph; it was another school picture. It showed a grinning boy who was maybe thirteen. He was dressed in his best for the school photo and his hands were clean and folded neatly in his lap... but there was a devilish little glint in his eyes. He was black. Jeffrey Holly, Mike said. May 13th. A week after the Cowan boy was killed. Torn open. He was found in Bassey Park, by the Canal. Nine days after that, May 22nd, a fifthgrader named John Feury was found dead out on Neibolt Street Eddie uttered a high, quavering scream. He groped for his aspirator and knocked it off the table. It rolled down to Bill, who picked it up. Eddies face had gone a sickish yellow color. His breath whistled coldly in his throat. Get him something to drink! Ben roared. Somebody get him But Eddie was shaking his head. He triggered the aspirator down his throat. His chest heaved as he tore in a gulp of air. He triggered the aspirator again and then sat back, eyes halfclosed, panting. Ill be all right, he gasped. Gimme a minute, Im with you. Eddie, are you sure? Beverly asked. Maybe you ought to lie down Ill be all right, he repeated querulously. It was just ... the shock. You know. The shock. Id forgotten all about Neibolt Street. No one replied; no one had to. Bill thought You believe your capacity has been reached, and then Mike produces another name, and yet another, like a black magician with a hatful of malign tricks, and youre knocked on your ass again. It was too much to face all at once, this outpouring of inexplicable violence, somehow directly aimed at the six people hereor so Georges photograph seemed to suggest. Both of John Feurys legs were gone, Mike continued softly, but the medical examiner says that happened after he died. His heart gave out. He seems to have quite literally died of fear. He was found by the postman, who saw a hand sticking out from under the porch It was 29, wasnt it? Rich said, and Bill looked at him quickly. Rich glanced back at him, nodded slightly, and then looked at Mike again. Twentynine Neibolt Street. Oh yes, Mike said in that same calm voice. It was number 29. He drank more water. Are you really all right, Eddie? Eddie nodded. His breathing had eased. Rademacher made an arrest the day after Feurys body was discovered, Mike said. There was a frontpage editorial in the News that same day, calling for his resignation, incidentally. After eight murders? Ben said. Pretty radical of them, wouldnt you say? Beverly wanted to know who had been arrested. A guy who lives in a little shack way out on Route 7, almost over the town line and into Newport, Mike said. Kind of a hermit. Burns scrapwood in his stove, roofed the place with scavenged shingles and hubcaps. Name of Harold Earl. Probably doesnt see two hundred dollars in cash money over the course of a year. Someone driving by saw him standing out in his dooryard, just looking up at the sky, on the day John Feurys body was discovered. His clothes were covered with blood. Then maybe Rich began hopefully. He had three butchered deer in his shed, Mike said. Hed been jacking over in Haven. The blood on his clothes was deerblood. Rademacher asked him if he killed John Feury, and Earl is supposed to have said, Oh ayuh, I killed a lot of people. I shot most of them in the war. He also said hed seen things in the woods at night. Blue lights sometimes, floating just a few inches off the ground. Corpselights, he called them. And Bigfoot. They sent him up to the Bangor Mental Health. According to the medical report, his livers almost entirely gone. Hes been drinking paintthinner Oh my God, Beverly said. and is prone to hallucinations. Theyve been holding on to him, and until three days ago Rademacher was sticking to his idea that Earl was the most likely suspect. He had eight guys out there, digging around his shack and looking for the missing heads, lampshades made out of human skin, God knows what. Mike paused, head lowered, and then went on. His voice was slightly hoarse now. Id held off and held off. But when I saw this last one, I made the calls. I wish to God Id made them sooner. Lets see, Ben said abruptly. The victim was another fifthgrader, Mike said. A classmate of the Feury boy. He was found just off Kansas Street, near where Bill used to hide his bike when we were in the Barrens. His name was Jerry Bellwood. He was torn apart. What ... what was left of him was found at the foot of a cement retaining wall that was put in along most of Kansas Street about twenty years ago to stop the soil erosion. This police photograph of the section of that wall where Bellwood was found was taken less than half an hour after the body was removed. Here. He passed the picture to Rich Tozier, who looked and passed it on to Beverly. She glanced at it briefly, winced, and passed it on to Eddie, who gazed at it long and raptly before handing it on to Ben. Ben passed it to Bill with barely a glance. Printing straggled its way across the concrete retaining wall. It said Bill looked up at Mike grimly. He had been bewildered and frightened; now he felt the first stirrings of anger. He was glad. Angry was not such a great way to feel, but it was better than the shock, better than the miserable fear. Is that written in what I think its written in? Yes, Mike said. Jerry Bellwoods blood. 5 Richie Gets Beeped Mike had taken his photographs back. He had an idea that Bill might ask for the one of Georges last school picture, but Bill did not. He put them in his inside jacket pocket, and when they were out of sight, all of themMike inctudedfelt a sense of relief. Nine children, Beverly was saying softly. I cant believe it. I mean ... I can believe it, but I cant believe it. Nine kids and nothing? Nothing at all? Its not quite like that, Mike said. People are angry, people are scared ... or so it seems. Its really impossible to tell which ones really feel that way and which ones are faking. Faking? Beverly, do you remember, when we were kids, the man who just folded his newspaper and went inside his house while you were screaming at him for help? For a moment something seemed to jump in her eyes and she looked both terrified and aware. Then she only looked puzzled. No ... when was that, Mike? Never mind.