He pulled back. Henry rolled away and grabbed the knife again. Mike got to his knees and the two of them faced each other that way, each bleeding: Mike's fingers, Henry's nose. Henry shook his head and droplets flew away into the darkness.

'Thought you were so smart!' he cried hoarsely. 'Fucking sissies is all you were! We could have beat you in a fair fight!'

'Put the knife down, Henry,' Mike said quietly. 'I'll call the police. They'll come and get you and take you back to Juniper Hill. You'll be out of Derry. You'll be safe.'

Henry tried to talk and couldn't. He couldn't tell this hateful jig that he wouldn't be safe in Juniper Hill, or Los Angeles, or the rainforests of Timbuktu. Sooner or later the moon would rise, bone-white and snow-cold, and the ghost –voices would start, and the face of the moon would change into Its face, babbling and laughing and ordering. He swallowed slick-slimy blood.

'You never fought fair!'

'Did you?' Mike asked.

'You niggerboogienight-fighterjungle-bunnyapemancoon !' Henry screamed, and leaped at Mike again.

Mik e leaned back to avoid his blundering, awkward rush, overbalanced, and went sprawling on his back. Henry struck the table again, rebounded, turned, and clutched Mike's arm. Mike swept the letter-opener around and felt it go deep into Henry's forearm. Henry screamed, but instead of letting go, he tightened his grip. He pulled himself toward Mike, his hair in his eyes, blood flowing from his ruptured nose over his thick lips.

Mike tried to get a foot in Henry's side and push him away. Henry swung the switchblade in a glittering arc, and all six inches of it went into Mike's thigh. It went in effortlessly, as if into a warm cake of butter. Henry pulled it out, dripping, and with a scream of combined pain and effort, Mike shoved him away.

He struggled to his feet but Henry was up more quickly, and Mike was barely able to avoid Henry's next blundering rush. He could feel blood pouring down his leg in an alarming flood, filling his loafer. He got my femoral artery, I think. Jesus, he got me bad. Blood everywhere. Blood on the floor. Shoes won't be any good, shit, just bought them two months ago —

Henry came again, panting and puffing like a bull in heat. Mike staggered aside and swept the letter-opener at him again. It tore through Henry's ragged shirt and pulled a deep cut across his ribs. Henry grunted as Mike shoved him away again.

'You dirty-fighting nigger!' He wailed. 'Look what you done!'

'Drop the knife, Henry,' Mike said.

There was a titter from behind them. Henry looked . . . and then screamed in utter horror, clapping his hands to his cheeks like an offended old maid. Mike's gaze jerked toward the circulation desk. There was a loud, vibrating ka-spanggg! sound, and Stan Uris's head popped up from behind the desk. A spring corkscrewed up and into his severed, dripping neck. His face was livid with greasepaint. There was a fever spot of rouge on each cheek. Great orange pompoms flowered where the eyes had been. This grotesque Stan-in-the –box head nodded

back and forth at the end of its spring like one of the giant sunflowers beside the house on Neibolt Street. Its mouth opened and a squealing, laughing voice began to chant: 'Kill him,Henry! Kill the nigger, kill the coon, kill him, kill him, KILL HIM!'

Mike wheeled back toward Henr y, dismally aware that he had been tricked, wondering faintly whose face Henry had seen at the end of that spring. Stan's? Victor Criss's? His father's, perhaps?

Henry shrieked and rushed at Mike, the switchblade plunging up and down like the needle of a sewing machine. 'Gaaaah, nigger!' Henry was screaming. 'Gaaaah, nigger! Gaaaah, nigger!'

Mike back-pedaled, and the leg Henry had stabbed buckled under him almost at once, spilling him to the floor. There was hardly any feeling at all left in that el g. It felt cold and distant. Looking down, he saw that his cream-colored slacks were now bright red.

Henry's blade flashed by in front of his nose.

Mike stabbed out with the JESUS SAVES letter-opener as Henry turned back for another go. Henry ran into it like a bug onto a phi. Warm blood doused Mike's hand. There was a snap, and when he drew his hand back, he only had the haft of the letter-opener. The blade was in Henry's stomach.

'Gaaah! Nigger!' Henry screamed, clapping a hand over the protruding jag of blade. Blood poured through his fingers. He looked at it with bulging, unbelieving eyes. The head of the end of the creaking, dipping jack-in-the –box squealed and laughed. Mike, feeling sick and dizzy now, looked back at it and saw Belch Huggin's head, a human champagne cork wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap turned backward. He groaned aloud, and the sound was far away, echoey, in his own ears. He was aware that he was sitting in a pool of warm blood . . . his own. If I don't get a tourniquet on my leg, I'm going to die.

'Gaaaaaaaaaah! Neeeeeeegaaaa!' Henry screamed. Still holding his bleeding belly with one hand and the switchblade with the other, he staggered away from Mike and toward the library doors. He wove drunkenly from side to side, progressing across the echoing main room like a pinball in an electronic game. He struck one of the easy-chairs and knocked it over. His groping hand spilled a rack of newspapers onto the floor. He reached the doors, straight-armed one of them; and plunged out into the night.

Mike's consciousness was fading now. He worked at the buckle of his belt with fingers he could barely feel. At last he got it unhooked and managed to pull it free of its loops. He put it around his bleeding leg just below th e groin and cinched it tight. Holding it with one hand, he began to crawl toward the circulation desk. The phone was there. He wasn't sure how he was going to reach it, but for now that didn't matter. The trick was just to get there. The world wavered, blurred, grew faint behind waves of gray. He stuck his tongue out and bit down on it savagely. The pain was immediate and exquisite. The world swam back into focus. He became aware that he was still holding the ragged haft of the letter-opener, and he tossed it away. Here, at last, was the circulation desk, looking as tall as Everest.

Mike got his good leg under him and pushed himself up, clutching at the edge of the desk with the hand that wasn't holding the belt tight. His mouth was drawn down in a tremb l i n g grimace, his eyes slitted. At last he managed to get all the way up. He stood there, storklike, and groped the telephone over to him. Taped to the side were three numbers: fire, police, and hospital. With one shaking finger that looked at least ten miles away, Mike dialed the hospital: 555-3711. He closed his eyes as the phone began to ring . . . and then they opened wide as the voice of Pennywise the Clown answered.

'Howdy nigger!' Pennywise cried, and then screamed laughter as sharp as broken glass into Mike's ear. 'What do you say? How you doon? I think you're dead, what do you think? I think Henry did the job on you! Want a balloon, Mikey? Want a balloon? How you doon? Hello there!'

Mike's eyes turned up to the face of the grandfather clock, the Mueller Clock, it was called, and saw with no surprise at ail that the clockface had been replaced with his father's face, gray and raddled with cancer. The eyes were turned up to show only bulging whites. Suddenly his father popped his tongue out a nd the clock began to strike.

Mike lost his grip on the circulation desk. He swayed for a moment on his good leg and then he fell down again. The phone swung before him at the end of its cord like a mesmerist's amulet. It was becoming very hard to hold onto the belt now.

'Hello dere Amos!' Pennywise cried brightly from the swinging telephone handset. 'Dis here's de Kingfish! I is de Kingish in Derry anyhow, and dat's de troof. Wouldn't you say so, boy?'