That voice, low and dragging, said: 'We all float down here, Audra.' The last word became a long, low, fading scream — Audraaaaa — that ended once again in that sick, clogged, bubbly sound that was so much like laughter.

'Who's there?' she cried, backing away. That wasn't my imagination, no way, you're not going to tell me that —

The TV clicked on. She whirled around and saw a clown in a silvery suit with big orange buttons capering around on the screen. There were black sockets where its eyes should have been, and when its madeup lips stretched even wider in a grin, she saw teeth like razors. It held up a dripping, severed head. Its eyes were turned up to the whites a nd the mouth sagged open, but she could see well enough that it was Freddie Firestone's head. The clown laughed and danced. It swung the head around and drops of blood splashed against the inside of the TV screen. She could hear them sizzling in there.

Audra tried to scream and nothing came out but a little whine. She grabbed blindly for the dress lying over the back of the chair, and for her purse. She bolted into the hall and slammed the door behind her, gasping, her face paper-white. She dropped the purse between her feet and slipped the dress over her head.

'Float,' a low, chuckling voice said from behind her, and she felt a cold finger caress her bare heel.

She uttered another high out-of-breath scream and danced away from the door. White corpse-fingers were seeking back and forth under it, the nails peeled away to show purplish-white bloodless quicks. They made hoarse whispering noises on the rough nap of the hall carpet.

Audra snagged the strap of her purse and ran barefooted for the door at the end of the corridor. She was in a blind panic now, her only thought that she had to find the Derry Town House, and Bill. It didn't matter if he was in bed with enough other women to make up a harem. She would find him and get him to take her away from whatever unspeakable thing there was in this town.

She fled down the walkway and into the parking-lot, looking around wildly for her car. For a moment her mind froze and she couldn't even remember what she had been driving. Then it came: Datsun, tobacco-brown. She spotted it standing hubcapdeep in the still, curdled groundmist, and hurried over to it. She couldn't find the keys in her purse. She swept through it with steadily increasing panic, shuffling Kleenex, cosmetics, change, sun-glasses, and sticks of gum into a meaningless jumble. She didn't notice the battered LTD wagon parked nose-to-nose with her rented car, or the man sitting behind the wheel. She didn't notice when the LTD's door opened and the man got out; she was trying to cope with the growing certainty that she had left the Datsun's keys in the room. She couldn't go back in there; she couldn't.

Her fingers touched hard serrated metal under a box of Altoid mints and she seized at it with a little cry of triumph. For a terrible mome nt she thought it might be the key to their Rover, now sitting in the Fleet railway station's car– park three thousand miles away, and then she felt the lucite rental-car tab. She fumbled the key into the door-lock, breathing in harsh little gasps, and turned it. That was when a hand fell on her shoulder, and she screamed . . . screamed loudly this time. Somewhere a dog barked in answer, but that was all.

The hand, as hard as steel, bit cruelly in and forced her around. The face she saw looming over hers was puffed and lumpy. The eyes glittered. When the swelled lips spread in a

grotesque smile, she saw that some of the man's front teeth had been broken. The stumps looked jagged and savage.

She tried to speak and could not. The hand squeezed tighter, digging in.

'Haven't I seen you in the movies?' Tom Rogan whispered.

3

Eddie's Room

Beverly and Bill dressed quickly, without speaking, and went up to Eddie's room. On their way to the elevator they heard a phone-bell begin somewhere behind them. It was muffled, a somewhere-else sound.

'Bill, was that yours?'

'C-Could have b-b-been,' he said. 'One of the uh-others c-calling, muh-haybe.' He punched the UP button.

Eddie opened the door for them, his face white and strained. His left arm was at an angle both peculiar and weirdly evocative of old times.

'I'm okay,' he said. 'I took two Darvon. Pain's not bad right now.' But it was clearly not good, either. His lips, pressed so tightly together they had almost disappeared, were purple with shock.

Bill looked past him and saw the body on the floor. One look was enough to satisfy him of two things — it was Henry Bowers, and he was dead. He moved past Eddie and knelt by the body. The neck of a Perrier bottle had been driven into Henry's midsection, pulling the tatters of his shirt in after it. Henry's eyes were half– open, glazed. His mouth, filled with coagulating blood, snarled. His hands were claws.

A shadow fell over him and Bill looked up. It was Beverly. She looked down at Henry with no expression at all.

'All the times he ch-ch-chased us,' Bill said.

She nodded. 'He doesn't look old. You know that, Bill? He doesn't look old at all.' Abruptly she looked back at Eddie, who was sitting on the bed. Eddie looked old; old and haggard. His arm lay in his lap, useless. 'We've got to call the doctor for Eddie.'

'No,' Bill and Eddie said in unison.

'But he's hurt! His arm — '

'It's the same as luh-luh –last t-t-time,' Bill said. He got to his feet and held her by the arms, looking into her face. 'Once we g– go outside . . . once w– w– w e i h – i n v – v-holve the t – t-town — '

They'll arrest me for murder,' Eddie said dully. 'Or they'll arrest all of us. Or they'll detain us. Or something. Then there'll be an accident. One of the special accidents that only happen in Derry. Maybe they'll stick us in jail and a deputy sheriff will go berserk and shoot us all. Maybe we'll all die of ptomaine, or decide to hang ourselves in our cells.'

'Eddie, that's crazy! That's — '

'Is it?' he asked. 'Remember, this is Derry.'

'But we're grownups now! Surely you don't think . . . I mean, he came here in the middle of the night . . . attacked you . . . '

'W-With what?' Bill said. 'Where's the nuh-nuh –knife?'

She looked around, didn't see it, and dropped on her knees to look under the bed.

'Don't bother,' Eddie said in that same faint, whistly voice. 'I slammed the door on his arm when he tried to stick me with it. He dropped it and I kicked it under the TV. It's gone now. I already looked.'

'B-B-Beheverly, c-call the others,' Bill said. 'I can spuh-splint E-E-Eddie's arm, I th-hink.'

She looked at him for a long moment, then she looked down at the body on the floor again. She thought that the picture this room presented should tell a perfectly clear story to any policeman with half a brain. The place was a mess. Eddie's arm was broken. This man was dead. It was a clear case of self-defense against a night-prowler. And then she remembered Mr Ross. Mr Ross getting up and loo king and then simply folding his newspaper and going back into the house.

Once we go outside . . . once we involve the town . . .

That made her remember Bill as a kid, his face white and tired and half– c r a z y , B i l l s a y i n g Derry is It. Do you understand me? . . . Any place we go . . . when It gets us, they won't see, they won't hear, they won't know. Don't you see how it is? All we can do is to try and finish what we started.

Standing here now, looking down at Henry's corpse, Beverly thought: They're both sayingwe've all become ghosts again. That it's started to repeat. All of it. As a kid I could accept that, because kids almost are ghosts. But —

'Are you sure?' she asked desperately. 'Bill, are you sure?'