'What is it?' Ben asked.

'Why h-h-haven't they tried to guh-guh –het u-us?' Bill asked. 'They're th-there. Eh-Eh –Eddie was ruh-hight about that. I can fuh-fuh-heel them.'

'Yeah,' Ben said. 'I guess they might be stupid enough to think we're going back into the clubhouse. Then they'd have us trapped.'

'Muh-muh-maybe,' Bill said, and he felt a sudden helpless fury at his stutter, which made it impossible for him to talk fast. Perhaps they were things he would have found impossible to say anyway — how he felt he could almost see through Henry Bowers's eyes, how he felt that, although on opposite sides, pawns controlled by opposing forces, he and Henry had grown very close.

Henry expected them to stand and fight.

It expected them to stand and fight.

And be killed.

A chilly explosion of white light seemed to fill his head. They would be victims of the killer that had been stalking Derry ever since George's death — all seven of them. Perhaps their bodies would be found, perhaps not. It all depended on whether or not It could or would protect Henry — and, to a lesser degree, Belch and Victor. Yes. To the outside, to the rest ofthis town, we'll have been victims of the killer. And that's right, in a funny sort of way that really is right. It wants us dead. Henry's the tool to get it done so It doesn't have to come out. Me first, I think — Beverly and Richie might be able to hold the others, or Mike, but Stan's scared, and so's Ben, although I think he's stronger than Stan. And Eddie's got a broken arm. Why did I lead them down here? Christ! Why did I?

'Bill?' Ben said anxiously. The others joined them beside the clubhouse. Thunder whacked again, and the bushes began to rustle more urgently. The bamboo rattled on in the fading stormy light.

'Bill — ' It was Richie now.

'Shhh!' The others fell uneasily silent under his blazing haunted eyes.

He stared at the underbrush, at the path twisting away through it and back toward Kansas Street, and felt his mind suddenly go up another notch, as if to a higher plane. There was no stuttering in his mind; he felt as if his thoughts had been borne away on a mad flow of intuition — as if everything were coming to him.

George at one end, me and my friends at the other. And then it will stop

(again)

again, yes, again, because this has happened before and there always has to be some sacrifice at the end, some terrible thing to stop it, I don't know how I can know that but I do . . . and they . . . they . . .

'They luh-luh –let it happen,' Bill muttered, staring wide –eyed at the ratty pigtail of path. 'Shuh-Shuh-Sure they d-d-do.'

'Bill?' Bev asked, pleading. Stan stood on one side of her, small and neat in a blue polo shirt and chinos. Mike stood on the other, looking at Bill intensely, as if reading his thoughts.

They let it happen, they always do, and things quiet down, things go on, It . . . It . . .

(sleeps)

sleeps . . . or hibernates like a bear . . . and then it starts again, and they know . . . people know . . . they know it has to be so It can be.

'I luh-h i h –l u h –l-l-l — '

Oh please God oh please God he thrusts his fists please God against the posts let me get this out the posts and still insists oh God oh Christ OH PLEASE LET ME BE ABLE TO TALK!

'I l-led you d-down huh-here b-b-b-b-because nuh-nuh-noplace is s-s-safe,' Bill said. Spittle blabbered from his lips; he wiped them with the back of one hand. 'Duh-Duh-Derry is It. D-D-Do you uh-uh-understand m-m-me?' He glared at them; they drew away a little, their eyes shiny, almost thanotropic with fright. 'Duh-herry is Ih-Ih-It! Eh –Eh –hennyp-p-place we g– g-go . . . when Ih-Ih-It g-g-g-gets uh-us, they w-w-wuh-hon't suh-suh-see, they w-w-won't huh-huh-hear, they w-w-won't nuh-nuh-know.' He looked at them, pleading. 'Duh-don't y-y-you sub-see h-how it ih-ih-is? A-A-A11 we c-c-can duh-duh-do is to t-t-try and fuh-hinish w-what w-w-w-we stuh-harted.'

Beverly saw Mr Ross getting up, looking at her, folding his paper, and simply going into his house. They won't see, they won't hear, they won't know. And my father

(take those pants off slutchild)

had meant to kill her.

Mike thought of lunch with Bill. Bill's mother had been off in her own dreamy world, seeming not to see either of them, reading a Henry James novel while the boys made sandwiches and gobbled them standing at the counter. Richie thought of Stan's neat but utterly empty house. Stan had been a little surprised; his mother was almost always home at lunch time. On the few occasions when she wasn't, she left a note saying where she could be reached. But there had been no note today. The car was gone, and that was all. 'Probably went shopping with her friend Debbie,' Stan said, frowning a little, and had set to work making egg-salad sandwiches. Richie had forgotten about it. Until now. Eddie thought of his mother. When he had gone out with his Parcheesi board there had been none of the usual cautions: Becareful, Eddie, get under cover if it rains, Eddie, don't you dare play any rough games, Eddie. She hadn't asked if he had his aspirator, hadn't told him what time to be home, hadn't

warned him against 'those rough boys you play with.' She had simply gone on watching her soap-opera story on TV, as if he didn't exist.

As if he didn't exist.

A version of the same thought went through all of the boys' minds: they had, at some point between getting up this morning and lunch-time, simply become ghosts.

Ghosts.

'Bill,' Stan said harshly, 'if we cut across? Through the Old Cape?'

Bill shook his head. 'I don't thuh-thuh-hink s-s-so. We'd g-g-get c-c-caught in the buh-buh-bam-b-b-boo . . . the quh-quh-quick-m-mud . . . or there'd b-b-be ruh-ruh-real p-p-p-pirahna fuh-fuh –fish in the K –K-Kenduskeag . . . o-o-or suh –suh-homething e-e-else.'

Each had his or her own different vision of the same end. Ben saw bushes which suddenly became man-eating plants. Beverly saw flying leeches like the ones that had come out of that old refrigerator. Stan saw the mucky ground in the bamboo vomiting up the living corpses of children caught in there by the fabled quickmud. Mike Hanlon imagined small Jurassic reptiles with horrid sawteeth suddenly boiling out of the cleft of a rotten tree, attacking them, biting them to pieces. Richie saw the Crawling Eye oozing down on top of them as they ran under the railroad trestle. And Eddie saw them climbing the Old Cape embankment only to look up and see the leper standing at the top, his sagging flesh acrawl with beetles and maggots, waiting for them.

'If we could get out of town somehow . . . ' Richie muttered, then winced as thunder shouted a furious negative from the sky. More rain fell — it was still only squalling, but soon it would begin to come down seriously, in sheets and torrents. The day's hazy peace was now utterly gone, as if it had never been at all. 'We'd be safe if we could just get out of this fucking town.'

Beverly began: 'Beep-b — ' And then a rock came flying out of the shaggy bushes and struck Mike on the side of the head. He staggered backward, blood flowing through the tight cap of his hair, and would have fallen if Bill hadn't caught him.

'Teach you to throw rocks!' Henry's voice floated mockingly to them.

Bill could see the others looking around, wild-eyed, ready to bolt in six different directions. And if they did that, it really would be over.

'B-B-Ben!' he said sharply.

Ben looked at him. 'Bill, we gotta run. They — '

Two more rocks flew out of the bushes. One struck Stan on the upper thigh. He yelled, more surprised than hurt. Beverly sidestepped the second. It struck the ground and rolled through the clubhouse trapdoor.