'She says Henry's gone crazy, Big Bill,' Ben said.

'Shit, you mean he used to be sane? ' Richie asked, and spat between his teeth.

'Sh-Shut uh –up, Ruh-Richie,' Bill said, and then looked back at Beverly. 'Teh-Tell,' he said. Eddie's hand crept into his pocket and touched his aspirator. He didn't know what all this was, but he already knew it wasn't good.

Forcing herself to speak as calmly as possible, Beverly managed to get out an edited version of the story — a version that began with Henry, Victor, and Belch catching up to her on the street. She didn't tell them about her father — she was desperately ashamed of that.

When she was finished Bill stood silent for a moment, hands in his pockets, chin down, Silver's handlebars leaning against his chest. The others waited, throwing frequent glances at the railing that ran along the edge of the dropoff. Bill thought for a long time, and no one interrupted him. Eddie became aware, suddenly and effortlessly, that this might be the final act. That was how the day's silence felt, wasn't it? The feeling that the whole town had up and left, leaving only the deserted husks of buildings behind.

Richie was thinking about the picture in George's album that had suddenly come to life.

Beverly was thinking about her father, how pale his eyes had been.

Mike was thinking about the bird.

Ben was thinking about the mummy, and a smell like dead cinnamon.

Stan Uris was thinking of bluejeans, black and dripping, and hands as white as wrinkled paper, also dripping.

'Cuh-Cuh-Come oh-oh-on,' Bill said at last. 'W –We're going d-d-down.'

'Bill — ' Ben said. His face was troubled. 'Beverly said Henry was really crazy. That he meant to kill — '

'Ih-It's nuh-not theirs,' Bill said, gesturing at the green dagger-shaped slash of the Barrens to their right and below them — the underbrush, the choked groves of trees, the bamboo, the glint of water. 'Ih-Ih-It's not their pruh-pruh-hopperty,' He looked around at them, his face grim. 'I'm t-t-tired of b-being scuh-schuh-hared by them. We b-b-beat them in the ruh-rockfight, and if we h-h-have to beat them a-a-again, we'll duh-duh-do it.'

'But Bill,' Eddie said, 'what if it's not just them?

Bill turned to Eddie, and with real shock Eddie saw how tired and drawn Bill's face was –there was something frightening about that face, but it wasn't until much, much later, as an adult drifting toward sleep after the meeting at the library, that he understood what that frightening thing was: it was the face of a boy driven close to the brink of madness, a boy who was perhaps ultimately no more sane or in control of his own decisions than Henry was. Yet the essential Bill was still there, looking out of those haunted scarified eyes . . . an angry, determined Bill.

'Well,' he said, 'whuh-whuh –what if it's nuh-nuh-not?

No one answered him. Thunder boomed, closer now. Eddie looked at the sky and saw the stormclouds moving in from the west in black thunderheads. It was going to rain a bitch, as his mother sometimes said.

'Nuh-nuh –how I'll t-t-tell you what,' Bill said, looking at them. 'None of you have to guh-guh-go w-with me if you d-don't want to. That's uh-uh-up to you.'

'I'll go along, Big Bill,' Richie said quietly.

'Me too,' Ben said.

'Sure,' Mike said with a shrug.

Beverly and Stan agreed, and Eddie last.

'I don't think so, Eddie,' Richie said. 'Your arm's not, you know, looking too cool.'

Eddie looked at Bill.

'I w-w-want h-him,' Bill said. 'You w-w-walk with muh-muh-me, Eh-Eh –Eddie. I'll keep an eye on yuh-you.'

'Thanks, Bill,' Eddie said. Bill's tired, half-crazy face seemed suddenly lovely to him — lovely and well loved. He felt a dim sense of amazement. I'd die for him, I guess, if he toldme to. What kind of power is that? If it makes you look like Bill looks now, it's maybe not such a good power to have.

'Yeah, Bill's got the ultimate weapon,' Richie said. 'BO bombs.' He raised his left arm and fluttered his right hand under the exposed armpit. Ben and Mike laughed a little, and Eddie smiled.

Thunder boomed again, close and loud enough this time to make them jump and huddle closer together. The wind was picking up, rattling trash around in the gutter. The first of the dark clouds sailed over the hazy ringed disc of the sun, and their shadows melted away. The wind was cold, chilling the sweat on Eddie's uncovered arm. He shivered.

Bill looked at Stan and said a peculiar thing then.

'You got your b-b-bird-book, Stan?'

Stan tapped his hip pocket.

Bill looked at them again. 'Let's g-g-go down,' he said.

They went down the embankment single-file except for Bill, who stayed with Eddie as he had promised. He allowed Richie to push Silver down, and when they had reached the bottom, Bill put his bike in its accustomed place under the bridge. Then they stood together, looking around.

The coming storm did not produce a darkness; not even, precisely, a dimness. But the quality of the light had changed, and things stood out in a kind of dreamlike steely relief: shadowless, clear, chis elled. Eddie felt a sinking of horror and apprehension in his guts as he realized why the quality of this light seemed so familiar — it was the same sort of light he remembered from the house at 29 Neibolt Street.

A streak of lightning tattooed the clouds, bright enough to make him wince. He put a hand up to his face and found himself counting: One . . . two . . . three . . . And then the thunder came in a single coughing bark, an explosive sound, a sound like an M-80 firecracker, and they drew even closer together.

'Wasn't any rain forecast this morning,' Ben said uneasily. 'The paper said hot and hazy.'

Mike was scanning the sky. The clouds up there were black-bottomed keelboats, high and heavy, swiftly overrunning the blue haze that had covered the sky from horizon to horizon when he and Bill came out of the Denbrough house after lunch. 'It's comin fast,' he said. 'Never saw a storm come so fast.' And as if in confirmation, thunder whacked again.

'C-C-Come on,' Bill said. 'L-Let's put Eh-Eh –Eddie's Parchee-hee-si board in the cluh-cluh-clubhouse.'

They started along the path they had beaten in the weeks since the incident of the dam. Bill and Eddie were at the head of the line, their shoulders brushing the broad green leaves of the shr ubs, the others behind them. The wind gusted again, making the leaves on the trees and bushes whisper together. Farther ahead, the bamboo rattled eerily, like drums in a jungle tale.

'Bill?' Eddie said in a low voice.

'What?'

'I thought this was just in the movies, but . . . ' Eddie laughed a little. 'I feel like somebody's watching me.'

'Oh, they're th-th-there, all r-r-right,' Bill said.

Eddie looked around nervously and held his Parcheesi board a link tighter. He

11

Eddie's Room / 3:05 A.M.

opened the door on a monster from a horror comic.

A gore-streaked apparition stood there and it could only be Henry Bowers. Henry looked like a corpse which has returned from the grave. Henry's face was a frozen witch-doctor's mask of hate and murder. His right hand was cocked at cheek-level, and even as Eddie's eyes widened and he began to draw in his first shocked breath, the hand pistoned forward, the switchblade glittering like silk.

With no thought — there was no time; if he had stopped to think he would have died — Eddie slammed the door closed. It struck Henry's forearm, deflecting the knife's course so that it swung in a savage side-to-side arc less than an inch from Eddie's neck.

There was a crunch as the door pinched Henry's arm against the jamb. Henry uttered a muffled cry. His hand opened. The knife clattered to the floor. Eddie kicked it. It skittered under the TV.