Chapter Text
18th December 2009
It had been planned in advance that Bill return to Derry to visit his parents on that specific Friday of December. He wrapped up in his warmest coat and packed a small bag to last him until Monday then him drove to Maine, listening to whatever was on the radio. It was an uneventful drive; Audra called three times about the script, asking if he had finished it yet and his answer was still ‘no’. She still couldn’t believe it had taken him years to finish his first novel, and that it would probably take years to complete this one. Her third call was to ask why he didn’t invite her to his parent’s house (‘We’re married, Bill. And I’ve never met your parents. That doesn’t sound right, does it? Does it? They didn’t even come to our wedding! Did they disown you or something?’)
Bill had replied ‘They were busy that day’ and hung up. He ignored the following three calls and exhaled a breath of relief when she didn’t call a fourth.
His marriage with Audra wasn’t necessarily fragile; he adored her for her passion and her ambition, and her kindness. Her beauty came from within, his inner writer would say and does say. But when he looked at her, he saw a ghost of someone he didn’t really remember and it left a bitter taste in his mouth. He wonders if, when he first met her, he tasted that same bitterness. If so, why did he stay with her? The bitterness tasted like nerves. It made it almost hard to face her, and even harder to admit that his parents just hadn’t been given an invitation.
Maybe that made him an asshole.
He turned the radio off after Audra’s sixth call, and drove in silence until he reached Derry, then switched on the news, that droned on and on about oncoming rainy weather over the weekend that would surely disappoint the children hoping for snow. He passed streets he should remember and people he might’ve known, he drove over a bridge he might’ve kissed someone on if they’d wanted to, and a house that looked like it housed nightmares. But they were all vague thoughts, like his instinct going ‘that there, you know it’ but that was it. No sudden, vivid memories. Just a sense, a tingle then nothing.
As said earlier, it was pre-planned that Bill turn up on this specific Friday of December, which made it all the odder to find his parent’s home vacant. His father’s car was gone from the garage and the front door was locked when he tried the handle, so he opened it with his key and had planned to settle in before they got home. He’d done it before, they surely wouldn’t mind.
For a while, Bill had explored the house. It had been a few years since he came to visit, but he didn’t know why he was still shaken over the fact that Georgie’s room looked like it hadn’t been touched since the day he died. A thick layer of dust coated his toys, the Lego turtle on the desk, his duvet. Bill left the bedroom before he got choked up, leaving his bag in the room that used to be his before continuing. He saw his dad had made a note of his visit on the calendar in the kitchen and smiled to himself.
Bill found his mother in the bathroom. The door had been slightly ajar, and just the sight of the loo made his bladder ache, so he made a beeline for it. His desperation faded when he opened the door. He stumbled backwards in shock when his eyes met his mother’s pale, limp form in the tub, her own eyes vacant and glassy.
“Fu-Fuck!” He had choked out, too frantic to be able to question the stutter he didn’t recall having “Mom!” scrambling to his knees by the tub and grasping her face in his hands, staring into her eyes, hoping to see a shred of life in them but there was nothing. He pressed a finger to her pulse but it was still and she was dead.
-
23rd December 2009
It is a cold welcome home.
Bill had called someone whilst holding his mother’s body tightly, managing to speak clearly despite his despair and stutter and soon, his mother was torn from his arms and put inside a body bag, and he was being told to prepare for the funeral. Funeral. That felt a little bit too real to him. He’d already been to a few funerals, his brother’s, his granddad’s and his great aunt Mildred’s. He had never been in charge of funeral preparations for those, he just turned up and grieved, but his father begged him to take charge and he said he would.
As he said, it was a cold welcome home.
Despite the note in the calendar, his mother slit her wrists; did she remember that he was turning up that day? Did she want him to come back to his childhood home seeing her in the bathtub, dead? Despite the note in the calendar, his father begs his only remaining son to be the adult and take charge of his mother’s funeral preparations.
“I-Is it cold in here, or is that just m-me?” Bill stammers from the rickety chair he’s seated on, fiddling with his trembling fingers. The funeral director sends him a blank look, then hobbled over to his desk and let out a dusty wheeze as he lowered himself into his chair. He’s the kind of man who loomed over others in an accidentally intimidating way, with skin like leather and tiny eyes hidden with thick frames balanced on the bridge of his nose. His suit is too big in some places and too small in others. His presence, for some reason, unnerves Bill. Perhaps because he’s the man who will arrange his mother being put in the ground.
“It’s always cold in Derry, Mr Denbrough.” The funeral director says quietly. It makes Bill curious. He remembers warm summers, swimming in warm water in just his briefs, bathing in the sun. He shrugs it off. “Shall we get on with this?”
“I-I thought we already had.” Bill replies, eyeing the pile of clothes folded in his lap. He chose his mother’s favourite blouse and skirt to bring, so she would look smart and proper, as she always preferred “My mom left a fu-funeral plan behind.” Inwardly, he feels gratitude that he wasn’t placed as the executor. No matter how much his father wanted to place all the responsibility on his shoulders, he had a few responsibilities of his own to get done.
“Yes, she did. It’s fairly detailed so this shouldn’t be too taxing.” The funeral director hums, massaging his loose skinned chin “I understand that this will be difficult. After what you went through.”
Bill swallows thickly, feeling his rough throat contract at the man’s uncharacteristic sympathy. “It’s fine.” He says, voice catching a bit at the end. The funeral director lets out another hum and proceeds to ask for the death certificate, and asked questions about her social security number, birth and death dates, and the place of death. Bill stammers through it, wondering how his parents survived this for Georgie.
“Moving on. Will the deceased be buried or entombed?”
“Buh-Buried.” Bill tells him “She always s-said she wanted to ‘be-become one with nature’ or something like th-that.”
“I’m assuming that means the deceased will not be cremated, then? Or have her body donated to someone or to science?”
“No.” Bill says “She never fa-favoured things like that. Her body was hers and th-that was that.”
“I see.” The funeral director jots something down in his yellow notepad. The questions came one after the other without thought, without time for Bill to process them and his foggy, hazy brain comes up with something to answer his questions. His lips just mouth the words, his voice just says it without understanding their meaning.
Will you hold a traditional funeral with the casket present or would you prefer a memorial service? Where would you like the ceremony held? Should the deceased be embalmed? What type of music and readings would you prefer? Who will participate (clergy, pallbearers, speakers)? Will there be a procession?
Traditional. He chokes up at her reason being that she wanted people to be able to properly say goodbye if they didn’t get a chance. Mother had chosen a nearby church for the ceremony to take place, as she had been an avid church goer. No. Mother favoured classical music, and had said that she specifically wanted Fur Elise played when Bill read out John 14:1-3. He didn’t know that verse, he’d have to memorise it for the funeral. Yes, to all. Yes.
“We can have a break, if you wish, Mr Denbrough.” The funeral director says gently, fluffy white eyebrows furrowing at Bill’s detached responses “Stop for you to gather your thoughts, perhaps some coffee, if you so wish.”
“N-No.” Bill murmurs “I’d ra-rather get this over with.”
He estimates the amount of people who will turn up to the funeral, all of her siblings, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, godparents, Bill’s father, Bill himself, and Mike. He vaguely remembered the home-schooled boy, who worked on his grandfather’s farm and got hassled by a boy with a mullet. Bill doesn’t know if he should be invited to his mother’s funeral. He manages to come up with a budget, his mother set beside some money for this, and his father agreed to pay for half of the money as well, so they can afford an extravagant funeral for a once-extravagant woman. He decides for it to be soon, sometime in January so he doesn’t have to fret or dwell for too long. He doesn’t want to stay in Derry forever after all.
The meeting lasts much too long for Bill’s liking; he wants it to be over so he can find the nearest bar in this shithole of a town, or maybe hunt down that Mike guy, just – anything to stay away from that damned house. His father is acting as though Sharon Denbrough is merely on holiday, not dead and cries in the night like Bill can’t hear him. It’s tragic; it brings back neglectful, sorrowful memories of his childhood that he isn’t surprised he repressed.
Once he chose a casket, and adds the last few remaining pieces of information, he pays the funeral director and leaves the funeral home. He gets in his car and sits in it for a moment. It’s almost like he’s forgotten how to drive, but his brain clears and he blinks, starting the engine and reversing out of the parking lot and down the street. He drives until he feels lost, surrounded by trees and a cliffside over hanging a large crater of water. He recognises it, and climbs out of the car, sliding between the barriers barring it off from pedestrians. Bill feels like this place held meaning once.
“Is i-it normal to fo-forget your childhood?” He asks aloud, hoping some deity will reply and give him answers. “Wa-Was it because of my pa-parents? Georgie?” In a sense, he thinks that is exactly why he repressed his childhood; just like how he vaguely remembers that rotting house and that bridge and that Mike, he vaguely remembers grief and being exceptionally touch-starved as a child. Your baby brother dying and your parents neglecting you was enough to repress your memories. Surely. Surely? The conclusion feels incomplete to Bill.
This place is rather good for avoiding his parent’s house, where his father tracks the halls like a ghost, talking to a woman who is no longer there and calls for his sons who are both absent. Bill puts in his Spice Girls CD, smirking to himself when Track 1 starts belting out the lyrics to ‘Wannabe’. When this song was released, he was close to obsessed. Idly, he starts mumbling along with the song as he pulls out a cigarette from the pack he discarded under his passenger seat a while back. He lights it.
Like the news said, the sky is white and it’s drizzling; the kind of rain that soaks you to the bone without you even realising it. His cigarette is wet and sags slightly, making it hard to smoke but he doesn’t mind. He always liked smoking when it was cold out, though he never let Audra in on that fact since she was never fond of the habit.
Track 1 becomes Track 2 and cigarette number 1 becomes cigarette number 2 and so forth. He relishes in the inhale that makes his throat burn. It takes him a while to realise he’s crying and that the rain is concealing the tears seeping from his eyes. His trembling fingers hold onto the cigarette tighter, like it might chain him to reality and not drag him back to the moment they were pressed to his dead mother’s pulse. He has come to terms with the fact that she was now dead and would stay dead, but it still hurts. Even though she fell into depression and left him in the dust, he feels an anguish that is achingly familiar to him.
Bill sobs, clutching at his arms in a hug that isn’t comforting. The mournful part of him wishes Audra was there to comfort him. The stubborn part of him is glad he’s alone to lick his wounds in private. He wouldn’t say that he is exactly torn at the loss of his mother, since he had held a secret bitterness for both parents most of his adolescent years and through to adulthood, but he cries for the fact that she felt she had to take her life, because he had to hold her corpse, for he has to do all of this because his father is too broken to do it.
He was once a leader. He remembers naïve optimism and being steadfast and brave to the point of recklessness but he can’t for the life of him find that within himself now. He feels fragile and weak and stupid. All his regrets clambering up on him all at once. Its like he is falling into a hole and nobody is there to help him out of it.
The next sob catches in his throat, wet eyes dropping to something red and round peaking from over the cliffside. The CD, by now, has restarted from the beginning, playing Wannabe too loudly, making it ring in his ears. Without taking his eyes off the red object, he turns the music off and climbs through the barriers once more, slowly enhancing on it as if it’ll disappear if he looks away. It bobs where it is, brushing against the cliffside rocks; it emits a rubbery noise that makes Bill frown in confusion.
He falls to his knees, hands grasping at the cliffs edge to peer over the side and he lets out a baffled noise when he sees a balloon stuck in a branch jutting out from the rocks. The thin string is tied around the branch; at first, he believes its just caught but when he looks closer, he realises that the string is actually tied intricately around the branch, finished off with a nicely done bow. The balloon spins around in the wind, the raindrops beating against it’s rubber to reveal the print on it that says: I ♥ Derry.
“W-What?” Bill mutters, sitting back up on his heels. Had a child lost it? No, that’s silly. The only way for it to have gotten there would be if a child, swimming down below, had let go of the balloon but why would a swimming child bring a balloon into the water? He supposes children are odd and would do that, but it seems strange to him. Not to mention that the string is tied so intricately, so purposefully. Maybe someone died on this cliffside and that was in memory of them? Sure, people usually left flowers or something, but Derry was a strange town. It made sense to him, he thought as he leant forwards again, he hardly remembered this town, so it wouldn’t be unbelievable if someone died here and he didn’t remember-
The balloon suddenly pops, startling a gasp out of Bill. His fingers skid against the rocks and his chest hits the cliffside; with all grip gone, he slides forwards, skin scraping roughly against the sharp edge and he tumbles off the side of the cliff, leaving nothing but a still-burning cigarette butt in his wake.
He screams all the way down, it tears out of this throat painfully and is immediately cut off when his body hits the water, slamming into it so hard that it feels like concrete, making his body cry out in pain but his lungs are filled with water instead of smoke and down here, nobody can hear him, so far out, nobody can save him so he has to save himself but he can’t swim upwards, his foot is caught on something and it’s not a turtle or a root. In his panic, he fumbles and his phone that is in his pockets falls down to the bottom of the quarry. His clothes are soaked and heavy and drag him further down, his scrambling and thrashing don’t aid him in any sense, but he can’t act thoughtfully, he’s sinking, he can’t breathe and there’s something around his ankle-
With all his remaining strength, his kicks out and his foot comes into contact with something solid, that falls away with the force of his kick and Bill is released and can finally emerge to the surface of the water. He lunges up, gasping when he can finally inhale air, hair matted and face as pale as a ghost, heart beating too fast in his chest. In panic of whatever was in the water with him, he swims as fast as he can out of the water and pulls himself onto the muddy side-line, gagging on water until it flows from his throat and onto the floor. He vomits, eyes watering, nose dribbling until there’s nothing left and he collapses onto his back, chest heaving.
Jesus Christ, what was that? Had he seriously just fallen from the cliff because a dumb balloon burst? Was he really that jittery? Well, he is unnerved from the recent events so probably, but…What had grabbed him in the water? It felt like something had tied itself around his ankle, holding him down but what could it have been? He doesn’t know, and all of the possible answers are swimming around his head, not satisfying him whatsoever.
With a grunt, he heaves himself onto his elbows, climbing to his feet unsteadily. He decides he’s had enough of nature and will head back to his father’s house now, but when he looks up to the cliffside, he sees a man standing there. He’s dark skinned, wearing winter clothing and stares over at him. Bill feels a shiver go up his spine.
Bill makes his way back to the cliff, walking slowly whilst his hand massages his throat. He’s still pretty freaked out from what just happened, and feels on edge about the man waiting for him up the cliff; today just really wasn’t his day, was it? First, he goes to a meeting planning his mother’s funeral, has a mental breakdown whilst avoiding his father, then falls off a cliff and nearly drowns and now a stranger is waiting for him, and he doesn’t know what he wants. Who the fuck did he piss off to warrant this?
He slams the car door shut to let the stranger know he’s arrived, making the man spin on his heels to face him. They have a staring contest for a split second, a jolt of familiarity goes through Bill the same time as the man says “Bill?”
Bill blinks, and the name comes to him. This is the boy he remembered, the one who stayed in Derry. “You Mike?” He asks gruffly, throat still sore.
The man – Mike – hurries forwards, through the barriers to the car, face set in confusion “Don’t you remember me?”
“I do, ki-kind of.” Bill shrugs “What’re you doing here? Ki-Kind of a remote place to just vis-visit.”
“I could say the same to you, stranger.” Mike replies fondly, shoving his hands in his pockets “You’re soaked man, what happened?”
Bill flushes in embarrassment “I fuh-fell off the cliff.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“Don’t s-sound too concerned.” Bill scoffs dryly, feeling an involuntary smile drag over his face “A balloon was stuck o-on the cliff, and it buh-burst. Got sp-spooked and fell off, I guess.”
“A…Balloon?” Mike trails off, swallowing “There’s no balloon there, Bill.”
“There was.” Bill says defensively “Maybe it f-fell off when I fell.” It sounds weak to him even as he says it, but there’s no other reasonable explanation.
Mike hums, but drops it, looking thoughtful “So, what brings you back to Derry, Bill? It hasn’t been twenty-seven years yet, you know.”
“Huh?” Bill furrows his brows “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Go on.”
“Uh, okay, well.” Bill decides to leave it, even if he’s curious as to what he meant “My mother c-committed suicide a fuh-few days ago.”
Mike’s face twists in shock and sympathy, coming closer to Bill to grasp his shoulder with a beefy hand “Fuck, Bill. I’m so sorry.” Images of porcelain skin and red-stained ceramic flash in his mind “You okay?”
“What do you think?”
“Sorry. That was a dumb question.” Mike scratches the nape of his neck “When’s her funeral?”
“January 11th. I’m st-staying until then. Planning it an-and all.” Bill fingers out another cigarette and offers Mike one, he looks conflicted but takes on anyway and lets Bill light it for him. He takes a deep inhale “H-How long has it b-been?”
“Since what?” Mike asks.
“Since we last saw e-each other.”
“Oh, uh, probably twenty-ish years?” Mikes huffs out a humourless laugh “Everyone was so determined to leave this shitty town. I can’t blame them.”
“Ev-Everyone?”
“You know, the Loser's Club.” Mike doesn’t sound baffled by Bill’s lack of memory, but seems melancholic all the same. Bill takes a puff of his cigarette, unsure what to say. He can remember some faces and some names, but overall, they escape him. The name of the club makes his heart hurt, but he feels a lack of connection and an harrowing connection as well. He can’t describe it even to himself. It’s like he wants to cling to their memory and push it away all at the same time.
“W-Why’d you st-stay?” Bill asks “If ev-everyone left, why’d you stay be-behind?”
Mike laughs again “I had to. Or…I felt I couldn’t leave. I have a duty to this shithole. I have something I promised I’d do.”
“You’ll r-rot away here, Mike.” Bill sighs, standing up from where he was hunched in the backseat and pulls his jacket tighter around himself “I-I should go. I’m getting pretty c-cold.”
“Yeah.” Mike nods, dropping his cigarette butt on the ground and stepping on it. Mike’s car is parked by Bill’s, but he’s sure he can get out without causing any damage. Bill sidesteps the man, but jolts when he grasps Bill’s bicep, bringing the two of them closer. His breath is warm on Bill’s face as he says “Be careful, alright?”
“S-Sure.” Bill stammers and gets into his car. He waves back half-heartedly when Mike does and reverses down the one-car-width road, and leaves the ghost of a memory behind at the cliffside. He doesn’t know if he should’ve kept by Mike’s side, just to cling to those memories that make him feel both agony and elation, or if he should run, run before he remembers things he must have repressed for a reason.
Bill drives away and he doesn’t look back.