'D-D-Do you r-r-ruh-remember the f-f-first duh-day you c-c-came d-down here?' Bill shouted over the thunder. 'The d-d-d-day schuh-hool l-let ow-out?'

'Bill — ' Richie shouted.

Bill thrust a shushing hand at him; his eyes remained fixed on Ben, pinning him to the spot.

'Sure,' Ben said, miserably trying to look in all directions at once. The bushes were now wavering and dancing wildly, their motion nearly tidal.

'The druh-druh-drain,' Bill said. 'The p-p-pumping –stuh-hation. Thah-that's where we're suh-suh-hup posed to g-g-go. Take us there!'

'But — '

'Tuh-tuh-take us th-there!'

A fusillade of rocks whizzed out of the bushes and for a moment Bill saw Victor Criss's face, somehow frightened, drugged, and avid all at the same time. Then a rock smashed into his cheekbone and it was Mike's turn to keep Bill from falling down. For a moment he couldn't see straight. His cheek felt numb. Then sensation returned in painful throbs and he

felt blood running down his face. He swiped at his cheek, wincing at the painful knob that was rising there, looked at the blood, wiped it on his jeans. His hair whipped wildly in the freshening wind.

'Teach you to throw rocks, you stuttering asshole!' Henry half-laughed, half-screamed.

'Tuh-Tuh-Take us!' Bill yelled. He understood now why he had sent Eddie back to get Ben; it was that pumping-station they were supposed to go to, that very one, and only Ben knew exactly which one it was — they ran along both banks of the Kenduskeag at irregular intervals. 'Ih-ih-hit's the pluh –pluh-hace! The w-w-way ih-in! The wuh-wuh-wuh-way to It!'

'Bill, you can't know that!' Beverly cried.

He shouted furiously at her — at all of them: 'I know!'

Ben stood there for a moment, wetting his lips, looking at Bill. Then he struck off across the clearing, heading toward the river. A brilliant bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, purplish-white, followed by a rip of thunder that made Bill reel on his feet. A fist-sized chunk of rock sailed past his nose and struck Ben's buttocks. He yipped with pain and his hand went to the spot.

'Yaah,fatboy!' Henry cried in that same half-laughing, half-screaming voice. The bushes rustled and crashed and Henry appeared as the rain stopped fooling around and came in a downpour. Water ran ni Henry's crewcut, in his eyebrows, down his cheeks. His grin showed all his teeth. Teach you to throw r — '

Mike had found one of the pieces of scrapwood left over from building the clubhouse roof and now he threw it. It flipped over twice and struck Henry's forehead. He screamed, clapped one hand to the spot like a man who's just had one hell of a good idea, and sat down hard.

'Ruh-ruh-run!' Bill hollered. 'A-After Buh-Buh-Ben!'

More crashings and stumblings in the bushes, and as the rest of ht e Losers ran after Ben Hanscom, Victor and Belch appeared, Henry stood up, and the three of them gave chase.

Even later, when the rest of that day had come back to Ben, he recalled only jumbled images of their run through the bushes. He remembered branches overloaded with dripping leaves slapping against his face, dousing him with cold water; he remembered that the thunder and lightning seemed to have become almost constant, and he remembered that Henry's screams for them to come back and fight seemed to merge with the sound of the Kenduskeag as they drew closer to it. Every time he slowed, Bill would whack him on the back to make him hurry up.

What if I can't find it? What if I can't find that particular pumping-station?

The breath tore in and out of his lungs, hot and bloody-tasting in the back of his throat. A stitch was sinking into his side. His buttocks sang where the rock had hit him. Beverly had said Henry and his friends meant to kill them, and Ben believed it now, yes he did.

He came to the Kenduskeag's bank so suddenly that he nearly plunged over the edge. He managed to get his balance, and then the embankment, undercut by the spring runoff, collapsed and he went tumbling over anyway, skidding all the way to the edge of the fast-running water, his shirt rucking up in the back, clayey mud streaking and sticking to his skin.

Bill piled into him and yanked him to his feet.

The others burst out of the bushes which overhung the bank one after the other. Richie and Eddie were last, Richie with one arm slung around Eddie's waist, his dripping specs clinging precariously to the end of his nose.

'Wuh-Wuh-Where?' Bill shouted.

Ben looked first left and then right, aware that the time was suicidally short. The river seemed higher already, and the rain-dark sky had given it a dangerous slate-gray color as it boiled its way along. Its banks were choked with underbrush and stunted trees, all of them now dancing to the wind's tune. He could hear Eddie sobbing for breath.

'Wuh-wuh-where?'

'I don't kn — ' he began, and then he saw the leaning tree and the eroded cave beneath it. That was where he had hidden that first day. He had dozed off and when he woke up he had heard Bill and Eddie goofing around. Then the big boys had come . . . seen . . . conquered. Ta-ta, bays, it was a real baby dam, believe me.

'There!' he shouted. 'That way!'

Lightning flashed again and this time Ben could hear it, a buzzing noise like an overloaded Lionel train-transformer. It struck the tree an d blue –white electric fire sizzled its gnarly base into splinters and toothpicks sized for a fairytale giant. It fell toward the river with a rending crash, driving spray high into the air. Ben drew in a dismayed gasp and smelled something hot and punky and wild. A fireball rolled up the bole of the downed tree, seemed to flash brighter, and went out. Thunder exploded, not above them but around them, as if they stood in the center of the thunderclap. The rain sheeted down.

Bill thumped him on the back, awaking him from his dazed contemplation of these things. 'Guh-guh-GO!'

Ben went, splashing and stumbling along the verge of the river, his hair hanging in his eyes. He reached the tree — the little root-cave beneath it had been obliterated — and climbed over it, digging his toes into its wet hide, scraping his hands and forearms.

Bill and Richie manhandled Eddie over, and as he stumbled off the tree-trunk, Ben caught him. They both went tumbling to the ground. Eddie cried out.

'You all right?' Ben shouted.

'I guess so,' Eddie shouted back, getting to his feet. He fumbled for his aspirator and almost dropped it. Ben grabbed it for him and Eddie gave him a grateful look as he stuffed it into his mouth and triggered it.

Richie came over, then Stan and Mike. Bill boosted Beverly up onto the tree and Ben and Richie caught her coming down on the far side, her hair plastered to her head, her blue jeans now black.

Bill came last, pulling himself onto the trunk and swinging his legs around. He saw Henry and the other two splashing down the river toward them, and as he slid off the fallen tree he shouted: 'Ruh-ruh –rocks! Throw rocks!'

There were plenty of them here on the bank, and the lightning-struck tree made a perfect barricade. In a moment or two all seven of them were chucking rocks at Henry and his pals. They had nearly reached the tree; the range was point-blank. They were driven back, yelling with pain and fury, as rocks struck their faces, their chests, their arms and legs.

'Teach us to throw rocks!' Richie shouted, and chucked one the size of a hen's egg at Victor. It struck his shoulder and bounced almost straight up into the air. Victor howled. 'Ah say . . . Ah say . . . go on an teach us, boy! We learn good!'

'Yeeeeh-aaaah!' Mike screamed. 'How do you like it? How do you like it?'

The answer was not much. They retreated until they were out of range and huddled together. A moment later they climbed the bank, slipping and stumbling on the slick wet earth, which was already honeycombed with little running streamlets, holding onto branches to stay upright.