It, Page 45

  Jesus, if I had some itching powder too and maybe a joy buzzer I might be able to kill it, Richie thought, and then Bill grabbed the collar of his jacket and jerked him backward.

  It was well that he did. The Werewolf stopped sneezing as suddenly as it had started and lunged at Richie. It was quick, too--incredibly quick.

  Richie might have only sat there with the empty envelope of Dr. Wacky's sneezing powder in one hand, staring at the Werewolf with a kind of drugged wonder, thinking how brown its fur was, how red the blood was, how nothing was in black and white in real life, he might have sat there until its paws closed around his neck and its long nails pulled his throat out, but Bill grabbed him again and pulled him to his feet.

  Richie stumbled after him. They ran around to the front of the house and Richie thought, It won't dare chase us anymore, we're on the street now, it won't dare chase us, won't dare, won't dare--

  But it was coming. He could hear it just behind them, gibbering and snarling and slobbering.

  There was Silver, still leaning against the tree. Bill jumped onto the seat and threw his father's pistol into the carrier basket where they had carried so many play guns. Richie chanced a glance behind him as he flung himself onto the package carrier and saw the Werewolf crossing the lawn toward them, less than twenty feet away now. Blood and slobber mixed on its high-school jacket. White bone gleamed through its pelt about the right temple. There were white smudges of sneezing powder on the sides of its nose. And Richie saw two other things which seemed to complete the horror. There was no zipper on the thing's jacket; instead there were big fluffy orange buttons, like pompoms. The other thing was worse. It was the other thing that made him feel as if he might faint, or just give up and let it kill him. A name was stitched on the jacket in gold thread, the kind of thing you could get done down at Machen's for a buck if you wanted it.

  Stitched on the bloody left breast of the Werewolf's jacket, stained but readable, were the words RICHIE TOZIER.

  It lunged at them.

  "Go, Bill!" Richie screamed.

  Silver began to move, but slowly--much too slowly. It took Bill so long to get going--

  The Werewolf crossed the rutted path just as Bill pedaled into the middle of Neibolt Street. Blood splattered its faded jeans, and looking back over his shoulder, filled with a kind of dreadful, unbreakable fascination that was akin to hypnosis, Richie saw that the seams of the jeans were giving way in places, and tufts of coarse brown fur had sprung through.

  Silver wavered wildly back and forth. Bill was standing up, gripping the bike's handlebars from underneath, head turned up toward the cloudy sky, cords standing out on his neck. And still the playing cards were only firing single shots.

  One paw groped for Richie. He screamed miserably and ducked away from it. The Werewolf snarled and grinned. It was close enough so Richie could see the yellowing corneas of its eyes, could smell sweet rotten meat on its breath. Its teeth were crooked fangs.

  Richie screamed again as it swung a paw at him. He was sure it was going to take his head off--but the paw passed in front of him, missing by no more than an inch. The force of the swing blew Richie's sweaty hair back from his forehead.

  "Hi-yo Silver AWAYYY!" Bill screamed at the top of his voice.

  He had reached the top of a short, shallow hill. Not much, but enough to get Silver rolling. The playing cards picked up speed and began to burr along. Bill pumped the pedals madly. Silver stopped wavering and cut a straight course down Neibolt Street toward Route 2.

  Thank God, thank God, thank God, Richie thought incoherently. Thank--

  The Werewolf roared again--oh! my God it sounds like it's RIGHT BESIDE ME--and Richie's wind was cut off as his shirt and jacket were jerked back against his windpipe. He made a gargling, choking sound and managed to grip Bill's middle just before he was pulled off the back of the bike. Bill tilted backward but held on to Silver's handlebar grips. For one moment Richie thought the big bike would simply do a wheelie and spill both of them off the back. Then his jacket, which had been just about ready for the rag-bag anyway, parted down the back with a loud ripping noise that sounded weirdly like a big fart. Richie could breathe again.

  He looked around and stared directly into those muddy murderous eyes.

  "Bill!" He tried to howl it, but the word had no force, no sound.

  Bill seemed to hear him anyway. He pedaled even harder, harder than he ever had in his life. All his guts seemed to be rising, coming unanchored. He could taste thick coppery blood in the back of his throat. His eyeballs were starting from their sockets. His mouth hung open, scooping air. And a crazy, ineluctable sense of exhilaration filled him--something that was wild and free and all his own. A desire. He stood on the pedals; coaxed them; battered them.

  Silver continued to pick up speed. He was beginning to feel the road now, beginning to fly. Bill could feel him go.

  "Hi-yo Silver!" he screamed again. "Hi-yo Silver, AWAYYYY!"

  Richie could hear the fast rattle-thud of loafers on the macadam. He turned. The Werewolf's paw struck him above the eyes with stunning force, and for a moment Richie really did think the top of his head had come off. Things suddenly seemed dim, unimportant. Sounds faded in and out. The color washed out of the world. He turned back, clinging desperately to Bill. Warm blood ran into his right eye, stinging.

  The paw swung again, striking the back fender this time. Richie felt the bike waver crazily, for a moment on the verge of tipping over, finally straightening out again. Bill yelled Hi-yo Silver, AWAY! again, but that was distant too, like an echo heard just before it dies out.

  Richie closed his eyes and held on to Bill and waited for the end.

  14

  Bill had also heard the running steps and understood that the clown hadn't given up yet, but he didn't dare turn around and look. He would know if it caught up and knocked them flat. That was really all he needed to know.

  Come on, boy, he thought. Give me everything now! Everything you got! Go, Silver! GO!

  So once again Bill Denbrough found himself racing to beat the devil, only now the devil was a hideously grinning clown whose face sweated white greasepaint, whose mouth curved up in a leering red vampire smile, whose eyes were bright silver coins. A clown who was, for some lunatic reason, wearing a Derry High School jacket over its silvery suit with the orange ruff and the orange pompom buttons.

  Go, boy, go--Silver,what do you say?

  Neibolt Street blurred by him now. Silver was starting to hum good now. Had those running footfalls faded back a bit? He still didn't dare turn around to see. Richie had him in a deathgrip, he was pinching off his wind and Bill wanted to tell Richie to loosen up a little, but he didn't dare waste breath on that, either.

  There, up ahead like a beautiful dream, was the stop-sign marking the intersection of Neibolt Street and Route 2. Cars were passing back and forth on Witcham. In his state of exhausted terror, this seemed somehow like a miracle to Bill.

  Now, because he would have to put on his brakes in a moment (or do something really inventive), he risked a look back over his shoulder.

  What he saw caused him to reverse Silver's pedals with a single snap-jerk. Silver skidded, laying rubber with its locked rear tire, and Richie's head smacked painfully into the hollow of Bill's right shoulder.

  The street was completely empty.

  But twenty-five yards or so behind them, by the first of the abandoned houses which formed a kind of funeral cortege leading up to the trainyards, there was a bright flick of orange. It lay close to a stormdrain cut into the curbing.

  "Uhhhh ..."

  Almost too late, Bill realized that Richie was sliding off the back of Silver. Richie's eyes were turned up so Bill could only see the lower rims of the irises below his upper lids. The mended bow of his glasses hung askew. Blood was flowing slowly from his forehead.

  Bill grabbed his arm, they both slipped to the right, and Silver overbalanced. They crashed to the street in a tangle of arms and legs. Bill barked
his crazybone a good one and shouted with pain. Richie's eyes flickered at the sound.

  "I am going to show you how to get to thees treasure, senhorr, but thees man Dobbs ees plenny dangerous," Richie said in a snoring gasp. It was his Pancho Vanilla Voice, but its floating, unconnected quality scared Bill badly. He saw several coarse brown hairs clinging to the shallow head-wound on Richie's forehead. They were slightly kinky, like his father's pubic hair. They made him feel even more afraid, and he fetched Richie a strong smack upside the head.

  "Yowch!" Richie cried. His eyes fluttered, then opened wide. "What are you hittin me for, Big Bill? You'll break my glasses. They ain't in very good shape anyway, just in case you didn't notice."

  "I th-th-thought you w-w-were duh-duh-dying, or s-s-something," Bill said.

  Richie sat up slowly in the street and put a hand to his head. He groaned. "What hap--" And then he remembered. His eyes widened in sudden shock and terror and he scrambled around on his knees, gasping harshly.

  "Duh-duh-don't," Bill said. "I-It's g-g-gone, R-R-Richie. It's gone."

  Richie saw the empty street where nothing moved and suddenly burst into tears. Bill looked at him for a moment and then put his arms around Richie and hugged him. Richie clutched at Bill's neck and hugged him back. He wanted to say something clever, something about how Bill should have tried the Bullseye on the Werewolf, but nothing would come out. Nothing except sobs.

  "D-Don't, R-Richie," Bill said, "duh-duh-duh-h-h--" Then he burst into tears himself and they only hugged each other on their knees in the street beside Bill's spilled bike, and their tears made clean streaks down their cheeks, which were sooted with coaldust.

  CHAPTER 9

  Cleaning Up

  1

  Somewhere high over New York State on the afternoon of May 29th, 1985, Beverly Rogan begins to laugh again. She stifles it in both hands, afraid someone will think she is crazy, but can't quite stop.

  We laughed a lot back then, she thinks. It is something else, another light on in the dark. We were afraid all the time, but we couldn't stop laughing, any more than I can stop now.

  The guy sitting next to her in the aisle seat is young, long-haired, good-looking. He has given her several appreciative glances since the plane took off in Milwaukee at half past two (almost two and a half hours ago now, with a stop in Cleveland and another one in Philly), but has respected her clear desire not to talk; after a couple of conversational gambits to which she has responded with politeness but no more, he opens his tote-bag and takes out a Robert Ludlum novel.

  Now he closes it, holding his place with his finger, and says with some concern: "Everything cool with you?"

  She nods, trying to make her face serious, and then snorts more laughter. He smiles a little, puzzled, questioning.

  "It's nothing," she says, once again trying to be serious, but it's no good; the more she tries to be serious the more her face wants to crack up. Just like the old days. "It's just that all at once I realized I didn't know what airline I was on. Only that there was a great big d-d-duck on the s-s-side--" But the thought is too much. She goes off into gales of merry laughter. People look around at her, some frowning.

  "Republic," he says.

  "Pardon?"

  "You are whizzing through the air at four hundred and seventy miles an hour courtesy of Republic Airlines. It's on the KYAG folder in the seat pocket."

  "KYAG?"

  He pulls the folder (which does indeed have the Republic logo on the front) out of the pocket. It shows where the emergency exits are, where the flotation devices are, how to use the oxygen masks, how to assume the crash-landing position. "The kiss-your-ass-goodbye folder," he says, and this time they both burst out laughing.

  He really is good-looking, she thinks suddenly--it is a fresh thought, somehow clear-eyed, the sort of thought you might expect to have upon waking, when your mind isn't all junked up. He's wearing a pullover sweater and faded jeans. His darkish blond hair is tied back with a piece of rawhide, and this makes her think of the ponytail she always wore her hair in when she was a kid. She thinks: I bet he's got a nice polite college-boy's cock. Long enough to jazz with, not thick enough to be really arrogant.

  She starts to laugh again, totally unable to help it. She realizes she doesn't even have a handkerchief with which to wipe her streaming eyes, and this makes her laugh harder.

  "You better get yourself under control or the stewardess will throw you off the plane," he says solemnly, and she only shakes her head, laughing; her sides and her stomach hurt now.

  He hands her a clean white handkerchief, and she uses it. Somehow this helps her to get it under control finally. She doesn't stop all at once, though. It just sort of tapers off into little hitchings and gaspings. Every now and then she thinks of the big duck on the side of the plane and belches out another little stream of giggles.

  She passes his handkerchief back after a bit. "Thank you." "Jesus, ma'am, what happened to your hand?" He holds it for a moment, concerned.

  She looks down at it and sees the torn fingernails, the ones she ripped down to the quick tipping the vanity over on Tom. The memory of doing that hurts more than the fingernails themselves, and that stops the laughter for good. She takes her hand away from him, but gently.

  "I slammed it in the car door at the airport," she says, thinking of all the times she has lied about things Tom has done to her, and all the times she lied about the bruises her father put on her. Is this the last time, the last lie? How wonderful that would be ... almost too wonderful to be believed. She thinks of a doctor coming in to see a terminal cancer patient and saying The X-rays show the tumor is shrinking. We don't have any idea why, but it's happening.

  "It must hurt like hell," he says.

  "I took some aspirin." She opens the in-flight magazine again, although he probably knows she's been through it twice already.

  "Where are you headed?"

  She closes the magazine, looks at him, smiles. "You're very nice," she says, "but I don't want to talk. All right?"

  "All right," he says, smiling back. "But if you want to drink to the big duck on the side of the plane when we get to Boston, I'm buying. "

  "Thank you, but I have another plane to catch."

  "Boy, was my horoscope ever wrong this morning," he says, and reopens his novel. "But you sound great when you laugh. A guy could fall in love. "

  She opens the magazine again, but finds herself looking at her jagged nails instead of the article on the pleasures of New Orleans. There are purple blood-blisters under two of them. In her mind she hears Tom screaming down the stairwell: "I'll kill you, you bitch! You fucking bitch!" She shivers, cold. A bitch to Tom, a bitch to the seamstresses who goofed up before important shows and took a Beverly Rogan reaming for it, a bitch to her father long before either Tom or the hapless seamstresses became part of their lives.

  A bitch.

  You bitch.

  You fucking bitch.

  She closes her eyes momentarily.

  Her foot, cut on a shard of perfume bottle as she fled their bedroom, throbs more than her fingers. Kay gave her a Band-Aid, a pair of shoes, and a check for a thousand dollars which Beverly cashed promptly at nine o'clock at the First Bank of Chicago in Watertower Square.

  Over Kay's protests, Beverly wrote her own check for a thousand dollars on a plain sheet of typing paper. "I read once that they have to take a check no matter what it's written on," she told Kay. Her voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else. A radio in another room, maybe. "Someone cashed a check once that was written on an artillery shell. I read that in The Book of Lists, I think." She paused, then laughed uneasily. Kay looked at her soberly, even solemnly. "But I'd cash it fast, before Tom thinks to freeze the accounts."

  Although she doesn't feel tired (she is aware, however, that by now she must be going purely on nerves and Kay's black coffee), the previous night seems like something she must have dreamed.

  She can remember being followed by three teenaged b
oys who called and whistled but didn't quite dare come right up to her. She remembers the relief that washed over her when she saw the white fluorescent glow of a Seven-Eleven store spilling out onto the sidewalks at an intersection. She went in and let the pimply-faced counterman look down the front of her old blouse and talked him into loaning her forty cents for the pay phone. It wasn't hard, the view being what it was.

  She called Kay McCall first, dialing from memory. The phone rang a dozen times and she began to fear that Kay was in New York. Kay's sleepy voice mumbled, "It better be good, whoever you are" just as Beverly was about to hang up.

  "It's Bev, Kay, " she said, hesitated, and then plunged. "I need help."

  There was a moment of silence, and then Kay spoke again, sounding fully awake now. "Where are you? What happened?"

  "I'm at a Seven-Eleven on the corner of Streyland Avenue and some other street. I ... Kay, I've left Tom."

  Kay, quick and emphatic and excited: "Good! Finally! Hurray! I'll come and get you! That son of a bitch! That piece of shit! I'll come and get you in the fucking Mercedes! I'll hire a forty-piece band! I'll--"

  "I'll take a cab, " Bev said, holding the other two dimes in one sweating palm. In the round mirror at the back of the store she could see the pimply clerk staring at her ass with deep and dreamy concentration. "But you'll have to pay the tab when I get there. I don't have any money. Not a cent."

  "I'll tip the bastard five bucks," Kay cried. "This is the best fucking news since Nixon resigned! You get your buns over here, girl. And--" She paused and when she spoke again her voice was serious and so full of kindness and love that Beverly felt she might weep. "Thank God you finally did it, Bev. I mean that. Thank God."

  Kay McCall is a former designer who married rich, divorced richer, and discovered feminist politics in 1972, about three years before Beverly first met her. At the time of her greatest popularity/controversy she was accused of having embraced feminism after using archaic, chauvinistic laws to take her manufacturer husband for every cent the law would allow her.

  "Bullshit!" Kay had once exclaimed to Beverly. "The people who say that stuff never had to go to bed with Sam Chacowicz. Two pumps a tickle and a squirt, that was ole Sammy's motto. The only time he could keep it up for longer than seventy seconds was when he was pulling off in the tub. I didn't cheat him; I just took my combat pay retroactively."