It, Page 44

  And here was Neibolt Street, cutting off to the right. DERRY TRAINYARDS, a blue sign under the street-sign read. It was rusty and hung askew. Below this was a much bigger sign, yellow field, black letters. It was almost like a comment on the trainyards themselves: DEAD END, it read.

  Bill turned onto Neibolt Street, coasted to the sidewalk, and put his foot back down. "Let's w-w-walk from here."

  Richie slipped off the package carrier with mingled feelings of relief and regret. "Okay."

  They walked along the sidewalk, which was cracked and weedy. Up ahead of them, in the trainyards, a diesel engine revved slowly up, faded off, and then began all over again. Once or twice they heard the metallic music of couplings being smashed together.

  "You scared?" Richie asked Bill.

  Bill, walking Silver by the handlebars, looked over at Richie briefly and then nodded. "Y-Yeah. You?"

  "I sure am," Richie said.

  Bill told Richie he had asked his father about Neibolt Street the night before. His father said that a lot of trainmen had lived out this way until the end of World War II--engineers, conductors, signalmen, yardworkers, baggage handlers. The street had declined with the trainyards, and as Bill and Richie moved farther along it, the houses became farther apart, seedier, dirtier. The last three or four on both sides were empty and boarded up, their yards overgrown. A FOR SALE sign flapped forlornly from the porch of one. To Richie the sign looked about a thousand years old. The sidewalk stopped, and now they were walking along a beaten track from which weeds grew half-heartedly.

  Bill stopped and pointed. "Th-there it i-i-is," he said softly.

  Twenty-nine Neibolt Street had once been a trim red Cape Cod. Maybe, Richie thought, an engineer used to live there, a bachelor with no pants but jeans and lots of those gloves with the big stiff cuffs and four or five pillowtick caps--a fellow who would come home once or twice a month for stretches of three or four days and listen to the radio while he pottered in the garden; a fellow who would eat mostly fried foods (and no vegetables, although he would grow them for his friends) and who would, on windy nights, think about the Girl He Left Behind.

  Now the red paint had faded to a wishy-washy pink that was peeling away in ugly patches that looked like sores. The windows were blind eyes, boarded up. Most of the shingles were gone. Weeds grew rankly down both sides of the house and the lawn was covered with the season's first bumper crop of dandelions. To the left, a high board fence, perhaps once a neat white but now faded to a dull gray that almost matched the lowering sky, lurched drunkenly in and out of the dank shrubbery. About halfway down this fence Richie could see a monstrous grove of sunflowers--the tallest looked five feet tall or more. They had a bloated, nasty look he didn't like. A breeze rustled them and they seemed to nod together: The boys are here, isn't that nice? More boys. Our boys. Richie shivered.

  While Bill leaned Silver carefully against an elm, Richie surveyed the house. He saw a wheel sticking out of the thick grass near the porch, and pointed it out to Bill. Bill nodded; it was the overturned trike Eddie had mentioned.

  They looked up and down Neibolt Street. The chug of the diesel engine rose and fell off, then began again. The sound seemed to hang in the overcast like a charm. The street was utterly deserted. Richie could hear occasional cars passing on Route 2, but could not see them.

  The diesel engine chugged and faded, chugged and faded.

  The huge sunflowers nodded sagely together. Fresh boys. Good boys. Our boys.

  "Y-Y-You r-ruh-ready?" Bill asked, and Richie jumped a little.

  "You know, I was just thinking that maybe the last bunch of library books I took out are due today," Richie said. "Maybe I ought to--"

  "Cuh-Cuh-Cut the c-crap, R-R-Richie. Are y-you ready or n-n-not?"

  "I guess I am," Richie said, knowing he was not ready at all--he was never going to be ready for this scene.

  They crossed the overgrown lawn to the porch.

  "Luh-look th-th-there," Bill said.

  At the far lefthand side, the porch's latticework skirt leaned out against a tangle of bushes. Both boys could see the rusty nails that had been pulled free. There were old rosebushes here, and while the roses both to the right and the left of the unanchored stretch of latticework were blooming in a lackadaisical way, those directly around and in front of it were skeletal and dead.

  Bill and Richie looked at each other grimly. Everything Eddie said seemed true enough; seven weeks later, the evidence was still here.

  "You don't really want to go under there, do you?" Richie asked. He was almost pleading.

  "Nuh-nuh-no," Bill said, "b-but I'm g-gonna."

  And with a sinking heart, Richie saw that he absolutely meant it. That gray light was back in Billy's eyes, shining steadily. There was a stony eagerness in the lines of his face that made him look older. Richie thought, I think he really does mean to kill it, if it's still there. Kill it and maybe cut off its head and take it to his father and say, "Look, this is what killed Georgie, now will you talk to me again at night, maybe just tell me how your day was, or who lost when you guys were flipping to see who paid for the morning coffee?"

  "Bitt--" he said, but Bill was no longer there. He was walking around to the righthand end of the porch, where Eddie must have crawled under. Richie had to chase after him, and he almost fell over the trike caught in the weeds and slowly rusting its way into the ground.

  He caught up as Bill squatted, looking under the porch. There was no skirt at all on this end; someone--some hobo--had pried it off long ago to gain access to the shelter underneath, out of the January snow or the cold November rain or a summer thundershower.

  Richie squatted beside him, his heart thudding like a drum. There was nothing under the porch but drifts of moldering leaves, yellowing newspapers, and shadows. Too many shadows.

  "Bill," he repeated.

  "Wh-wh-what?" Bill had produced his father's Walther again. He pulled the clip carefully from the grip, and then took four bullets from his pants pocket. He loaded them in one at a time. Richie watched this, fascinated, and then looked under the porch again. He saw something else this time. Broken glass. Faintly glinting shards of glass. His stomach cramped painfully. He was not a stupid boy, and he understood this came close to completely confirming Eddie's story. Splinters of glass on the moldering leaves under the porch meant that the window had been broken from inside. From the cellar.

  "Wh-what?" Bill asked again, looking up at Richie. His face was grim and white. Looking at that set face, Richie mentally threw in the towel.

  "Nothing," he said.

  "You cuh-cuh-homing?"

  "Yeah."

  They crawled under the porch.

  The smell of decaying leaves was a smell Richie usually liked, but there was nothing pleasant about the smell under here. The leaves felt spongy under his hands and knees, and he had an impression that they might go down for two or three feet. He suddenly wondered what he would do if a hand or a claw sprang out of those leaves and seized him.

  Bill was examining the broken window. Glass had sprayed everywhere. The wooden strip which had been between the panes lay in two splintered pieces under the porch steps. The top of the window frame jutted out like a broken bone.

  "Something hit that fucker wicked hard," Richie breathed. Bill, now peering inside--or trying to--nodded.

  Richie elbowed him aside enough so he could look, too. The basement was a dim litter of crates and boxes. The floor was earth and, like the leaves, it gave off a damp and humid aroma. A furnace bulked to the left, thrusting round pipes at the low ceiling. Beyond it, at the end of the cellar, Richie could see a large stall with wooden sides. A horse stall was his first thought, but who kept horses in the jeezly cellar? Then he realized that in a house as old as this one, the furnace must have burned coal instead of oil. Nobody had bothered to convert the furnace because no one wanted the house. That thing with the sides was a coalbin. To the far right, Richie could make out a flight of stairs going up to ground l
evel.

  Now Bill was sitting down ... hunching himself forward ... and before Richie could actually believe what he was up to, his friend's legs were disappearing into the window.

  "Bill! Chrissake," he hissed, "what are you doing? Get outta there!"

  Bill didn't reply. He slithered through, scraping his duffel coat up from the small of his back, barely missing a chunk of glass that would have cut him a good one. A second later Richie heard his tennies smack down on the hard earth inside.

  "Piss on this action," Richie muttered frantically to himself, looking at the square of darkness into which his friend had disappeared. "Bill, you gone out of your mind?"

  Bill's voice floated up: "Y-You c-c-can stay up th-there if you w-want, Ruh-Ruh-Richie. St-Stand g-g-guard."

  Instead he rolled over on his belly and shoved his legs through the cellar window before his nerve could go bad on him, hoping he wouldn't cut his hands or his stomach on the broken glass.

  Something clutched his legs. Richie screamed.

  "I-I-It's juh-juh-hust m-me," Bill hissed, and a moment later Richie was standing beside him in the cellar, pulling down his shirt and his jacket. "Wh-who d-did you th-think it w-was?"

  "The boogeyman," Richie said, and laughed shakily.

  "Y-You g-go th-that w-way and I-I-I'll g-g-g--"

  "Fuck that," Richie said. He could actually hear his heartbeat in his voice, making it sound bumpy and uneven, first up and then down. "I'm stickin with you, Big Bill."

  They moved toward the coalpit first, Bill slightly in the lead, the gun in his hand, Richie close behind him, trying to look everywhere at once. Bill stood beyond one of the coalpit's jutting wooden sides for a moment, and then suddenly darted around it, pointing the gun with both hands. Richie squinched his eyes shut, steeling himself for the explosion. It didn't come. He opened his eyes again cautiously.

  "Nuh-nuh-nothin but c-c-coal," Bill said, and giggled nervously.

  Richie stepped up beside Bill and looked. There was still a drift of old coal in here, piled up almost to the ceiling at the back of the stall and trickling away to a lump or two by their feet. It was as black as a crow's wing.

  "Let's--" Richie began, and then the door at the head of the cellar stairs crashed open against the wall with a violent bang, spilling thin white daylight down the stairs.

  Both boys screamed.

  Richie heard snarling sounds. They were very loud--the sounds a wild animal in a cage might make. He saw loafers descend the steps. Faded jeans on top of them--swinging hands--

  But they weren't hands . . . they were paws. Huge, misshapen paws.

  "Cuh-cuh-climb the c-c-coal!" Bill was screaming, but Richie stood frozen, suddenly knowing what was coming for them, what was going to kill them in this cellar that stank of damp earth and the cheap wine that had been spilled in the corners. Knowing but needing to see. "There's a wuh-wuhwindow at the t-top of the c-coal!"

  The paws were covered with dense brown hair that curled and coiled like wire; the fingers were tipped with jagged nails. Now Richie saw a silk jacket. It was black with orange piping--the Derry High School colors.

  "G-G-Go!" Bill screamed, and gave Richie a gigantic shove. Richie went sprawling into the coal. Sharp jags and corners of it poked him painfully, breaking through his daze. More coal avalanched over his hands. That mad snarling went on and on.

  Panic slipped its hood over Richie's mind.

  Barely aware of what he was doing, he scrambled up the mountain of coal, gaining ground, sliding back, lunging upward again, screaming as he went. The window at the top was grimed black with coaldust and let in next to no light at all. It was latched shut. Richie seized the latch, which was of the sort that turned, and threw all his weight against it. The latch moved not at all. The snarling was closer now.

  The gun went off below him, the sound nearly deafening in the closed room. Gunsmoke, sharp and acrid, stung Richie's nose. It shocked him back to some sort of awareness and he realized that he had been trying to turn the thumb-latch the wrong way. He reversed the direction of the force he was applying, and the latch*gave with a protracted rusty squeal. Coaldust sifted down on his hands like pepper.

  The gun went off again with a second deafening bang. Bill Denbrough shouted, "YOU KILLED MY BROTHER, YOU FUCKER!"

  For a moment the creature which had come down the stairs seemed to laugh, seemed to speak--it was as if a vicious dog had suddenly begun to bark out garbled words, and for a moment Richie thought the thing in the high-school jacket snarled back, I'm going to kill you, too.

  "Richie!" Bill screamed then, and Richie heard coal clattering and falling again as Bill scrambled up. The snarls and roars continued. Wood splintered. There were mingled barks and howls--sounds out of a cold nightmare.

  Richie gave the window a tremendous shove, not caring if the glass broke and cut his hands to ribbons. He was beyond caring. It did not break; it swung outward on an old steel hinge flaked with rust. More coaldust sifted down, this time on Richie's face. He wriggled out into the side yard like an eel, smelling sweet fresh air, feeling the long grass whip at his face. He was dimly aware that it was raining. He could see the thick stalks of the giant sunflowers, green and hairy.

  The Walther went off a third time, and the beast in the cellar screamed, a primitive sound of pure rage. Then Bill cried: "It's g-got me, Richie! Help! It's g-g-got me!"

  Richie turned around on his hands and knees and saw the terrified circle of his friend's upturned face in the square of the oversized cellar window through which a winter's load of coal had once been funnelled each October.

  Bill was lying spreadeagled on the coal. His hands waved and clutched fruitlessly for the window frame, which was just out of reach. His shirt and jacket were rucked up almost to his breastbone. And he was sliding backward ... no, he was being pulled backward by something Richie could barely see. It was a moving, bulking shadow behind Bill. A shadow that snarled and gibbered and sounded almost human.

  Richie didn't need to see it. He had seen it the previous Saturday, on the screen of the Aladdin Theater. It was mad, totally mad, but even so it never occurred to Richie to doubt either his own sanity or his conclusion.

  The Teenage Werewolf had Bill Denbrough. Only it wasn't that guy Michael Landon with a lot of makeup on his face and a lot of fake fur. It was real.

  As if to prove it, Bill screamed again.

  Richie reached in and caught Bill's hands in his own. The Walther pistol was in one of them, and for the second time that day Richie looked into its black eye ... only this time it was loaded.

  They tussled for Bill--Richie gripping his hands, the Werewolf gripping his ankles.

  "G-G-Get out of h-here, Richie!" Bill screamed. "G-Get--"

  The face of the Werewolf suddenly swam out of the dark. Its forehead was low and prognathous, covered with scant hair. Its cheeks were hollow and furry. Its eyes were a dark brown, filled with horrible intelligence, horrible awareness. Its mouth dropped open and it began to snarl. White foam ran from the corners of its thick lower lip in twin streams that dripped from its chin. The hair on its head was swept back in a gruesome parody of a teenager's d.a. It threw its head back and roared, its eyes never leaving Richie's.

  Bill scrambled up the coal. Richie seized his forearms and pulled. For a moment he thought he was actually going to win. Then the Werewolf laid hold of Bill's legs again and he was yanked backward toward the darkness once more. It was stronger. It had laid hold of Bill, and it meant to have him.

  Then, with no thought at all about what he was doing or why he was doing it, Richie heard the Voice of the Irish Cop coming out of his mouth, Mr. Nell's voice. But this was not Richie Tozier doing a bad imitation; it wasn't even precisely Mr. Nell. It was the Voice of every Irish beat-cop that had ever lived and twirled a billy by its rawhide rope as he tried the doors of closed shops after midnight:

  "Let go of him, boyo, or I'll crack yer thick head! I swear to Jaysus! Leave go of him now or I'll serve ye yer own arse on a
platter!"

  The creature in the cellar let out an ear-splitting roar of rage ... but it seemed to Richie that there was another note in that bellow as well. Perhaps fear. Or pain.

  He gave one more tremendous tug, and Bill flew out of the window and onto the grass. He stared up at Richie with dark horrified eyes. The front of his jacket was smeared black with coaldust.

  "Kwuh-Kwuh-Quick!" Bill panted. He was nearly moaning. He grabbed at Richie's shirt. "W-W-We guh-guh-hotta--"

  Richie could hear coal tumbling and avalanching down again. A moment later the Werewolf's face filled the cellar window. It snarled at them. Its paws clutched at the listless grass.

  Bill still had the Watther--he had held on to the gun through all of it. Now he held it out in both hands, his eyes squinched down to slits, and pulled the trigger. There was another deafening bang. Richie saw a chunk of the Werewolf's skull tear free and a torrent of blood spilled down the side of its face, matting the fur there and soaking the collar of the school jacket it wore.

  Roaring, it began to climb out of the window.

  Moving slowly, dreamily, Richie reached under his coat and into his back pocket. He brought out the envelope with the picture of the sneezing man on it. He tore it open as the bleeding, roaring creature pulled itself out of the window, forcing its way, claws digging deep furrows in the earth. Richie tore the packet open and squeezed it. "Git back in yer place, boyo!" he ordered in the Voice of the Irish Cop. A white cloud puffed into the Werewolf's face. Its roars suddenly stopped. It stared at Richie with almost comic surprise and made a choked wheezing sound. Its eyes, red and bleary, rolled toward Richie and seemed to mark him once and forever.

  Then it began to sneeze.

  It sneezed again and again and again. Ropy strings of saliva flew from its muzzle. Greenish-black clots of snot flew out of its nostrils. One of these splatted against Richie's skin and burned there, like acid. He wiped it away with a scream of hurt and disgust.

  There was still anger in its face, but there was also pain--it was unmistakable. Bill might have hurt it with his dad's pistol, but Richie had hurt it more ... first with the Voice of the Irish Cop, and then with the sneezing powder.