It

  "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.

  "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-stuhhation. Thah-that's where we're suh-suh-hupposed 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 in 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 the 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, boys, 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 and 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-he little root-cave beneath it had been obliterated--and climbe 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 bluejeans 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.

  They disappeared into the underbrush.

  "They're gonna go around us, Big Bill," Richie said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.

  "That's oh-oh-okay," Bill said. "G-Go on, B-B-Ben. We'll fuh-fuh-follow y-you."

  Ben trotted along the embankment, paused (expecting that Henry and the others would burst out into his face at any moment), and saw the pumping-station twenty yards farther down the streambed. The others followed him to it. They could see other cylinders on the opposite bank, one fairly close, the other forty yards upstream. Those two were both shooting torrents of muddy water into the Kenduskeag, but only a trickle was coming from the pipe sticking out of the embankment below this one. It wasn't humming, either, Ben noticed. The pumping machinery had broken down.

  He looked at Bill thoughtfully . . . and with some fright.

  Bill was looking at Richie, Stan, and Mike. "W-W-We g-guh-hotta get the l-l-lid oh-oh-off," he said. "H-H-Help m-m-me."

  There were handholds in the iron, but the rain had made them slippery and the lid itself was incredibly heavy. Ben moved in next to Bill, and Bill shifted his hands a little to make room. Ben could hear water dripping inside--an echoey, unpleasant sound, like water dripping into a well.

  "Nuh-nuh-NOW!" Bill shouted, and the five of them heaved in unison. The lid moved with an ugly grating sound.

  Beverly grabbed on beside Richie and Eddie pushed with his good arm.

  "One, two, three, push!" Richie chanted. The lid grated a little farther off the top of the cylinder. Now a crescent of darkness showed.

  "One, two, three, push!"

  The crescent fattened.

  "One, two, three, push!"

  Ben shoved until red spots danced in front of his eyes.

  "Stand back!" Mike shouted. "There it goes, there it goes!"

  They stood away and watched as the big circular cap overbalanced, then fell. It dug a slash in the wet earth and landed upside-down, like an oversized checker. Beetles scurried off its surface and into the matted grass.

  "Uck," Eddie said.

  Bill peered inside. Iron rungs descended to a circular pool of black water, its surface now pocked with raindrops. The silent pump brooded in the middle of this, half-submerged. He could see water flowing into the pumping-station from the mouth of its inflow pipe, and with a sinking in his guts he thought: That's where we have to go. In there.

  "Eh-Eh-Eh-Eddie. G-Grab on to m-m-me."

  Eddie looked at him, uncomprehending.

  "Like a puh-puh-pigger-back. Hold on with y-your g-g-good ah-ah-arm." He demonstrated.

  Eddie understood but was reluctant.

  "Quick!" Bill snapped. "Th-Th-They'll b-b-be here!"

  Eddie grabbed on around Bill's neck; Stan and Mike boosted him up so he could hook his legs around Bill's midsection. As Bill swung clumsily over the lip of the cylinder, Ben saw that Eddie's eyes were tightly shut.

  Over the rain, he could hear another sound: whipping branches, snapping twigs, voices. Henry, Victor, and Belch. The world's ugliest cavalry charge.

  Bill gripped the rough concrete lip of the cylinder and felt his way down, step by careful step. The iron rungs were slippery. Eddie had him in what was almost a deathgrip, and Bill supposed he was getting a pretty graphic demonstration of what Eddie's asthma was really all about.

  "I'm scared, Bill," Eddie whispered.

  "I-I-I am, too."

  He let go of the concrete rim and grabbed the topmost rung. Although Eddie was nearly choking him and felt as if he had already gained forty pounds, Bill paused a moment, looking at the Barrens, the Kenduskeag, the racing clouds. A voice inside--not a frightened voice, just a firm one--had told him to take a good look, in case he never saw the upper world again.

  So he looked, then began to descend with Eddie clinging to his back.

  "I can't hold on much longer," Eddie managed.

  "You w-w-won't have to," Bill said. "We're almost duh-hown."

  One of his feet went into chilly water. He felt for the next rung and found it. There was another below that and then the ladder ended. He was standing in knee-deep water beside the pump.

  He squatted, wincing as the cold water soaked his pants, and let Eddie off. He drew a deep breath. The smell wasn't so hot, but it was great not to have Eddie's arm wrapped around his throat.

  He looked up at the cylinder's mouth. It was about ten feet over his head. The others were grouped around the rim, looking down. "C-C-Come on!" he shouted. "Wuh-one at a t-t-time! Be quick!"

  Beverly came first, swinging easily over the rim and grabbing the ladder, and Stan next. The others followed. Richie came last, pausing to listen to the progress of Henry and friends. He thought, from the sound of their blundering progress, that they would probably pass a little to the left of this pumping-station, but almost certainly not by enough to make a difference.

  At that moment Victor bellowed: "Henry! There! Tozier!"

  Richie looked around and saw them rushing toward him. Victor was in the lead . . . and then Henry pushed him aside so savagely that Victor skidded to his knees. Henry had a knife, all right, a regular pigsticker. Drops of water were falling from the blade.

  Richie glanced into the cylinder, saw Ben and Stan helping Mike off the ladder, and swung over himself. Henry understood what he was doing and screamed at him. Richie, laughing crazily, slammed his left hand in the crook of his right elbow and stuck his forearm skyward, his hand fisted in what may be the world's oldest gesture. To be sure Henry got the point, he popped his middle finger up.

  "You'll die down there!" Henry shouted.

  "Prove it!" Richie shouted, laughing. He was terrified of going into this concrete throat, but he still couldn't stop laughing. And in his Irish Cop's Voice he bugled: "Sure an begorrah, the luck of the Irish nivver runs out, me foine lad!"

  Henry slipped on the wet grass and went sprawling on his butt less than twenty feet from where Richie stood, his feet on the top rung of the ladder bolted to the inner curve of the pumping-station, his head and chest out.

  "Hey, banana-heels!" Richie shouted, delirious with triumph, and then scooted down the ladder. The iron rungs were slick and once he almost fell. Then Bill and Mike grabbed him and he was standing up to his knees in water with the rest of them in a loose circle around the pump. He was trembling all over, he felt hot and cold chills chasing each other up his back, and still he couldn't stop laughing.

  "You should have seen him, Big Bill, clumsy as ever, still can't get out of his own frockin way--"

  Henry's head appeared in the circular opening at the top. Scratches from branches and brambles crisscrossed his cheeks. His mouth was working, and his eyes blazed.

  "Okay," he shouted down at them. His words had a flat resonance inside the concrete cylinder, not quite an echo.

  "Here I come. Got you now."

  He swung one leg over, felt for the topmost rung with his foot, found it, swung the other one over.

  Speaking loud, Bill said: "W-When h-h-he guh-gets d-d-down cluh-hose e-e-enough, w-w-we all gruh-gruh-grab h-him. P-P-Pull h-him d-d-down. Duh-Duh-Duck him uh-under. G-G-Got i-it?"

  "Right-o, guv'nor," Richie said, and snapped a salute with one trembling hand.

&n
bsp; "Got you," Ben said.

  Stan tipped a wink at Eddie, who didn't understand what was going on--except it seemed to him that Richie had gone crazy. He was laughing like a loon while Henry Bowers--the dreaded Henry Bowers--prepared to come down and kill them all like rats in a rain-barrel.

  "All ready for him, Bill!" Stan cried.

  Henry froze three rungs down. He looked down at the Losers over his shoulder. His face seemed, for the first time, doubtful.

  Eddie suddenly got it. If they came down, they would have to come one at a time. It was too high to jump, especially with the pumping machinery to land on, and here they were, the seven of them, waiting in a tight little circle.

  "Cuh-cuh-home oh-on, H-Henry," Bill said pleasantly.

  "Wuh-wuh-what are you w-w-waiting for?"

  "That's right," Richie chimed in. "You like to beat up little kids, right? Come on, Henry."

  "We're waiting, Henry," Bev said sweetly. "I don't think you'll like it when you get down here, but come on if you want to."

  "Unless you're chicken," Ben added. He began to make chicken sounds. Richie joined him at once and soon all of them were doing it. The derisive clucking rebounded between the damp, trickling walls. Henry looked down at them, the knife clutched in his left hand, his face the color of old bricks. He put up with perhaps thirty seconds of it and then climbed out again. The Losers sent up catcalls and insults.

  "O-O-Okay," Bill said. He spoke in a lower voice. "W-We guh-got to get ih-ih-into that druh-hain. Quh-quh-quick."

  "Why?" Beverly asked, but Bill was spared the effort of an answer. Henry reappeared at the rim of the pumping-station and dropped a rock the size of a soccer ball into the pipe. Beverly screamed and Stan pulled Eddie against the circular wall with a hoarse yell. The rock struck the pumping machinery's rusty housing and produced a musical bonggg! It ricocheted left and struck the concrete wall, missing Eddie by less than half a foot. A chip of concrete flicked painfully against his cheek. The rock fell into the water with a splash.

  "Quh-quh-quick!" Bill shouted again, and they crowded around the pumping-station's inflow pipe. Its bore was about five feet in diameter. Bill sent them in one after another (a vague circus image--all the big clowns coming out of the little car--passed across his consciousness in a meteoric flash; years later he would use the same image in a book called The Black Rapids), and climbed in last, after ducking another rock. As they watched, more rocks flew down, most striking the pump housing and rebounding at crazy angles.