It, Page 34

  "I didn't see any people at all," Mike said.

  Will nodded and lit a cigarette. "I think I was wrong to send you there. Old places like that . . . sometimes they can be dangerous."

  Their eyes locked briefly.

  "Okay, Daddy," Mike said. "I don't want to go back anyway. It was a little spooky."

  Will nodded again. "Less said the better, I reckon. You go and get cleaned up now. And tell her to put on three or four extra sausages."

  Mike did.

  6

  Never mind that now, Mike Hanlon thought, looking at the grooves which went up to the concrete edge of the Canal and stopped there. Never mind that, it might just have been a dream anyhow, and--

  There were splotches of dried blood on the lip of the Canal.

  Mike looked at these, and then he looked down into the Canal. Black water flowed smoothly past. Runners of dirty yellow foam clung to the Canal's sides, sometimes breaking free to flow downstream in lazy loops and curves. For a moment--just a moment--two clots of this foam came together and seemed to form a face, a kid's face, its eyes turned up in an avatar of terror and agony.

  Mike's breath caught, as if on a thorn.

  The foam broke apart, became meaningless again, and at that moment there was a loud splash on his right. Mike snapped his head around, shrinking back a little, and for a moment he believed he saw something in the shadows of the outflow tunnel where the Canal resurfaced after its course under downtown.

  Then it was gone.

  Suddenly, cold and shuddering, he dug in his pocket for the knife he had found in the grass. He threw it into the Canal. There was a small splash, a ripple that began as a circle and was then tugged into the shape of an arrowhead by the current . . . then nothing.

  Nothing except the fear that was suddenly suffocating him and the deadly certainty that there was something near, something watching him, gauging its chances, biding its time.

  He turned, meaning to walk back to his bike--to run would be to dignify those fears and undignify himself--and then that splashing sound came again. It was a lot louder this second time. So much for dignity. Suddenly he was running as fast as he could, beating his buns for the gate and his bike, jamming the kickstand up with one heel and pedaling for the street as fast as he could. That sea-smell was all at once too thick . . . much too thick. It was everywhere. And the water dripping from the wet branches of the trees seemed much too loud.

  Something was coming. He heard dragging, lurching footsteps in the grass.

  He stood on the pedals, giving it everything, and shot out onto Main Street without looking back. He headed for home as fast as he could, wondering what in hell had possessed him to come in the first place . . . what had drawn him.

  And then he tried to think about the chores, the whole chores, and nothing but the chores. After awhile he actually succeeded.

  And when he saw the headline in the paper the next day (MISSING BOY PROMPTS NEW FEARS), he thought about the pocket knife he had thrown into the Canal--the pocket knife with the initials E.C. scratched on the side. He thought about the blood he had seen on the grass.

  And he thought about those grooves which stopped at the edge of the Canal.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Dam in the Barrens

  1

  Seen from the expressway at quarter to five in the morning, Boston seems a city of the dead brooding over some tragedy in its past--a plague, perhaps, or a curse. The smell of salt, heavy and cloying, comes off the ocean. Runners of early-morning fog obscure much of what movement would be seen otherwise.

  Driving north along Storrow Drive, sitting behind the wheel of the black '84 Cadillac he picked up from Butch Carrington at Cape Cod Limousine, Eddie Kaspbrak thinks you can feel this city's age; perhaps you can get that feeling of age nowhere else in America but here. Boston is a sprat compared with London, an infant compared with Rome, but by American standards at least it is old, old. It kept its place on these low hills three hundred years ago, when the Tea and Stamp Taxes were unthought of, Paul Revere and Patrick Henry unborn.

  Its age, its silence, and the foggy smell of the sea--all of these things make Eddie nervous. When Eddie's nervous he reaches for his aspirator. He sticks it in his mouth and triggers a cloud of revivifying spray down his throat.

  There are a few people in the streets he's passing, and a pedestrian or two on the walkways of the overpasses--they give lie to the impression that he has somehow wandered into a Lovecrafty tale of doomed cities, ancient evils, and monsters with unpronounceable names. Here, ganged around a bus stop with a sign reading KENMORE SQUARE CITY CENTER, he sees waitresses, nurses, city employees, their faces naked and puffed with sleep.

  That's right, Eddie thinks, now passing under a sign which reads TOBIN BRIDGE. That's right, stick to the buses. Forget the subways. The subways are a bad idea; I wouldn't go down there if I were you. Not down below. Not in the tunnels.

  This is a bad thought to have; if he doesn't get rid of it he will soon be using the aspirator again. He's glad for the heavier traffic on the Tobin Bridge. He passes a monument works. Painted on the brick side is a slightly unsettling admonishment: SLOW DOWN! WE CAN WAIT!

  Here is a green reflectorized sign which reads TO 95 MAINE, N.H., ALL NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND POINTS. He looks at it and suddenly a bone-deep shudder wracks his body. His hands momentarily weld themselves to the wheel of the Cadillac. He would like to believe it is the onset of some sickness, a virus or perhaps one of his mother's "phantom fevers," but he knows better. It is the city behind him, poised silently on the straight-edge that runs between day and night, and what that sign promises ahead of him. He's sick, all right, no doubt about that, but it's not a virus or a phantom fever. He has been poisoned by his own memories.

  I'm scared, Eddie thinks. That was always what was at the bottom of it. Just being scared. That was everything. But in the end I think we turned that around somehow. We used it. But how?

  He can't remember. He wonders if any of the others can. For all their sakes he certainly hopes so.

  A truck drones by on his left. Eddie has still got his lights on and now he hits his brights momentarily as the truck draws safely ahead. He does this without thinking. It has become an automatic function, just part of driving for a living. The unseen driver in the truck flashes his running lights in return, quickly, twice, thanking Eddie for his courtesy. If only everything could be that simple and that clear, he thinks.

  He follows the signs to 1-95. The northbound traffic is light, although he observes that the southbound lanes into the city are starting to fill up, even at this early hour. Eddie floats the big car along, pre-guessing most of the directional signs and getting into the correct lane long before he has to. It has been years--literally years--since he has guessed wrong enough to be swept past an exit he wanted. He makes his lane-choices as automatically as he flashed "okay to cut back in" to the trucker, as automatically as he once found his way through the tangle of paths in the Derry Barrens. The fact that he has never before in his life driven out of downtown Boston, one of the most confusing cities in America to drive in, does not seem to matter much at all.

  He suddenly remembers something else about that summer, something Bill said to him one day: "Y-You've g-got a c-c-cuh-hompass in your head, E-E-Eddie."

  How that had pleased him! It pleases him again as the '84 'Dorado shoots back onto the turnpike. He slides the limo's speed up to a cop-safe fifty-seven miles an hour and finds some quiet music on the radio. He supposes he would have died for Bill back then, if that had been required; if Bill had asked him, Eddie would simply have responded: "Sure, Big Bill ... you got a time in mind yet?"

  Eddie laughs at this--not much of a sound, just a snort, but the sound of it startles him into a real laugh. He laughs seldom these days, and he certainly did not expect to find many chucks (Richie's word, meaning chuckles, as in "You had any good chucks today, Eds?") on this black pilgrimage. But, he supposes, if God is dirty-mean enough to curse the faithf
ul with what they want most in life, He's maybe quirky enough to deal you a good chuck or two along the way.

  "Had any good chucks lately, Eds?" he says out loud, and laughs again. Man, he had hated it when Richie called him Eds ... but he had sort of liked it, too. The way he thought Ben Hanscom got to like Richie calling him Haystack. It was something . . . like a secret name. A secret identity. A way to be people that had nothing to do with their parents' fears, hopes, constant demands. Richie couldn't do his beloved Voices for shit, but maybe he did know how important it was for creeps like them to sometimes be different people.

  Eddie glances at the change lined up neatly on the 'Dorado's dashboard--lining up the change is another of those automatic tricks of the trade. When the tollbooths come up, you never want to have to dig for your silver, never want to find that you've gotten in an automatic-toll lane with the wrong change.

  Among the coins are two or three Susan B. Anthony silver dollars. They are coins, he reflects, that you probably only find in the pockets of chauffeurs and taxi-drivers from the New York area these days, just as the only place you are apt to see a lot of two-dollar bills is at a race-track payoff window. He always keeps a few on hand because the robot tolltaker baskets on the George Washington and the Triboro Bridges take them.

  Another of those lights suddenly comes on in his head: silver dollars. Not these fake copper sandwiches but real silver dollars, with Lady Liberty dressed in her gauzy robes stamped upon them. Ben Hanscom's silver dollars. Yes, but wasn't it Bill or Ben or Beverly who once used one of those silver cartwheels to save their lives? He is not quite sure of this, is, in fact, not quite sure of anything . . . or is it just that he doesn't want to remember?

  It was dark in there, he thinks suddenly. I remember that much. It was dark in there.

  Boston is well behind him now and the fog is starting to bum off. Ahead is MAINE, N.H., ALL NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND POINTS. Derry is ahead, and there is something in Derry which should be twenty-seven years dead and yet is somehow not. Something with as many faces as Lon Chaney. But what is it really? Didn't they see it at the end as it really was, with all its masks cast aside?

  Ah, he can remember so much . . . but not enough.

  He remembers that he loved Bill Denbrough; he remembers that well enough. Bill never made fun of his asthma. Bill never called him little sissy queerboy. He loved Bill like he would have loved a big brother . . . or a father. Bill knew stuff to do. Places to go. Things to see. Bill was never up against it. When you ran with Bill you ran to beat the devil and you laughed . . . but you hardly ever ran out of breath. And hardly ever running out of breath was great, so fucking great, Eddie would tell the world. When you ran with Big Bill, you got your chucks every day.

  "Sure, kid, EV-ery day," he says in a Richie Tozier Voice, and laughs again.

  It had been Bill's idea to make the dam in the Barrens, and it was, in a way, the dam that had brought them all together. Ben Hanscom had been the one to show them how the dam could be built--and they had built it so well that they'd gotten in a lot of trouble with Mr. Nell, the cop on the beat--but it had been Bill's idea. And although all of them except Richie had seen very odd things--frightening things--in Derry since the turn of the year, it had been Bill who had first found the courage to say something out loud.

  That dam.

  That damn dam.

  He remembered Victor Criss: "Ta-ta, boys. It was a real baby dam, believe me. You're better off without it."

  A day later, Ben Hanscom was grinning at them, saying:

  "We could

  "We could flood

  "We could flood out the

  2

  whole Barrens if we wanted to."

  Bill and Eddie looked at Ben doubtfully and then at the stuff Ben had brought along with him: some boards (scrounged from Mr. McKibbon's back yard, but that was okay, since Mr. McKibbon had probably scavenged them from someone else's), a sledgehammer, a shovel.

  "I dunno," Eddie said, glancing at Bill. "When we tried yesterday, it didn't work very good. The current kept washing our sticks away."

  "This'll work," Ben said. He also looked to Bill for the final decision.

  "Well, let's g-give it a t-t-try," Bill said. "I c-called R-R-R-Richie Tozier this m-morning. He's g-gonna be oh-over l-later, he s-said. Maybe him and Stuh-huh-hanley will want to h-help."

  "Stanley who?" Ben asked.

  "Uris," Eddie said. He was still looking cautiously at Bill, who seemed somehow different today--quieter, less enthusiastic about the idea of the dam. Bill looked pale today. Distant.

  "Stanley Uris? I guess I don't know him. Does he go to Derry Elementary?"

  "He's our age but he just finished the fourth grade," Eddie said. "He started school a year late because he was sick a lot when he was a little kid. You think you took chong yesterday, you just oughtta be glad you're not Stan. Someone's always rackin Stan to the dogs an back."

  "He's Juh-juh-hooish," Bill said. "Luh-lots of k-kids don't luh-hike him because h-he's Jewish."

  "Oh yeah?" Ben asked, impressed. "Jewish, huh?" He paused and then said carefully: "Is that like being Turkish, or is it more like, you know, Egyptian?"

  "I g-guess it's more like Tur-hur-hurkish," Bill said. He picked up one of the boards Ben had brought and looked at it. It was about six feet long and three feet wide. "My d-d-dad says most J-Jews have big nuh-noses and lots of m-m-money, but Stuh-Stuh-Stuh--"

  "But Stan's got a regular nose and he's always broke," Eddie said.

  "Yeah," Bill said, and broke into a real grin for the first time that day.

  Ben grinned.

  Eddie grinned.

  Bill tossed the board aside, got up and brushed off the seat of his jeans. He walked to the edge of the stream and the other two boys joined him. Bill shoved his hands in his back pockets and sighed deeply. Eddie was sure Bill was going to say something serious. He looked from Eddie to Ben and then back to Eddie again, not smiling now. Eddie was suddenly afraid.

  But all Bill said then was, "You got your ah-ah-aspirator, E-Eddie?"

  Eddie slapped his pocket. "I'm loaded for bear."

  "Say, how'd it work with the chocolate milk?" Ben asked.

  Eddie laughed. "Worked great!" he said. He and Ben broke up while Bill looked at them, smiling but puzzled. Eddie explained and Bill nodded, grinning again.

  "E-E-Eddie's muh-hum is w-w-worried that h-he's g-gonna break and sh-she wuh-hon't be able to g-get a re-re-refund."

  Eddie snorted and made as if to push him into the stream.

  "Watch it, fuckface," Bill said, sounding uncannily like Henry Bowers. "I'll twist your head so far around you'll be able to watch when you wipe yourself."

  Ben collapsed, shrieking with laughter. Bill glanced at him, still smiling, hands still in the back pockets of his jeans, smiling, yeah, but a little distant again, a little vague. He looked at Eddie and then cocked his head toward Ben.

  "Kid's suh-suh-soft," he said.

  "Yeah," Eddie agreed, but he felt somehow that they were only going through the motions of having a good time. Something was on Bill's mind. He supposed Bill would spill it when he was ready; the question was, did Eddie want to hear what it was? "Kid's mentally retarded."

  "Retreaded," Ben said, still giggling.

  "Y-You g-g-gonna sh-show us how to b-build a dam or a-are you g-g-gonna si-hit there on your b-big c-c-can all d-day?"

  Ben got to his feet again. He looked first at the stream, flowing past them at moderate speed. The Kenduskeag was not terribly wide this far up in the Barrens, but it had defeated them yesterday just the same. Neither Eddie nor Bill had been able to figure out how to get a foothold on the current. But Ben was smiling, the smile of one who contemplates doing something new . . . something that will be fun but not very hard. Eddie thought: He knows how--I really think he does.

  "Okay," he said. "You guys want to take your shoes off, because you're gonna get your little footsies wet."

  The mind-mother in Eddie's head spoke
up at once, her voice as stern and commanding as the voice of a traffic cop: Don't you dare do it, Eddie! Don't you dare! Wet feet, that's one way--one of the thousands of ways--that colds start, and colds lead to pneumonia, so don't you do it!

  Bill and Ben were sitting on the bank, pulling off their sneakers and socks. Ben was fussily rolling up the legs of his jeans. Bill looked up at Eddie. His eyes were clear and warm, sympathetic. Eddie was suddenly sure Big Bill knew exactly what he had been thinking, and he was ashamed.

  "Y-You c-c-comin?"

  "Yeah, sure," Eddie said. He sat down on the bank and undressed his feet while his mother ranted inside his head . . . but her voice was growing steadily more distant and echoey, he was relieved to note, as if someone had stuck a heavy fishhook through the back of her blouse and was now reeling her away from him down a very long corridor.

  3

  It was one of those perfect summer days which, in a world where everything was on track and on the beam, you would never forget. A moderate breeze kept the worst of the mosquitoes and blackflies away. The sky was a bright, crisp blue. Temperatures were in the low seventies. Birds sang and went about their birdy-business in the bushes and second-growth trees. Eddie had to use his aspirator once, and then his chest lightened and his throat seemed to widen magically to the size of a freeway. He spent the rest of the morning with it stuffed forgotten into his back pocket.

  Ben Hanscom, who had seemed so timid and unsure the day before, became a confident general once he was fully involved in the actual construction of the dam. Every now and then he would climb the bank and stand there with his muddy hands on his hips, looking at the work in progress and muttering to himself. Sometimes he would run a hand through his hair, and by eleven o'clock it was standing up in crazy, comical spikes.

  Eddie felt uncertainty at first, then a sense of glee, and finally an entirely new feeling--one that was at the same time weird, terrifying, and exhilarating. It was a feeling so alien to his usual state of being that he was not able to put a name to it until that night, lying in bed and looking at the ceiling and replaying the day. Power. That was what that feeling had been. Power. It was going to work, by God, and it was going to work better than he and Bill--maybe even Ben himself--had dreamed it could.