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Chapter Text

October 2019

It was just your typical October Friday evening in Derry. Cold, wet and dark. Twenty-one year old Scarlett York was sprawled out across her leather settee, absentmindedly flicking through the channels on the TV in desperate need of some entertainment after a busy week.

She adored her job as a medical student working in the local hospital, but it meant lots of late, sometimes even sleepless nights away from her little apartment on the outskirts of the town. Scarlett was a gentle souled, introverted young lady who hated mess and had a major fear of spiders and clowns, she often came across little spiders while cleaning which made her almost die with fright. But since having her little white kitten Penny, cleaning the apartment from top to tail has become a daily ritual for Scarlett as kittens are very playful. These playtimes often ended up in a lot of mess being created by the small, dinky little ball of fluff with bright blue eyes.

The loudest thing about Scarlett was probably her hair, she dyed it lavender purple last Christmas and absolutely loved it, so she kept it. She also had a few ear piercings up along each ear, which fascinated the elderly she nursed. The hair and piercings made her unique from everyone else in her life, which wasn't many since her parents were in a terrible accident three years previous. This accident resulted in both of their half mangled bodies being washed up on the river banks down by the barrens. They both went out on a walk that Halloween night to watch a fireworks display, while Scarlett was out with friends and they never came home again.

They were missing for fifteen days until police recovered the bodies. Scarlett walked the entire town in search of her beloved parents, plastering up missing posters on every lamppost she came across. Missing people, especially children wasn't a shock around Derry as it happened a lot. The victims were never found alive. Police treated the case of her parents death as a murder but after ten months of searching for a killer, they closed the case. People soon forgot, and the missing posters were covered up by more recent missing posters, like little Georgie Denbrough's missing posters. He went out in a storm with a small paper boat and never came home again, at least Scarlett's parent's remains were found sometime after their disappearance. They never found little Georgie, or his remains.

Scarlett was very close to the Denbrough family as she used to babysit Georgie and his older brother Bill when they were little. The death of her parents and the disappearance of Georgie tore Scarlett into pieces. Her parents had lived a good chunk of their lives by the time they died but little Georgie was only six years old when he went missing not long after her parents. She decided she'd pay them a visit tomorrow as they didn't live far from her apartment and she hadn't seen them in a long time. They got on so well because Scarlett understood what it was like to loose somebody so suddenly. Also as somebody who was a past pupil at Derry High School and wasn't long past her teenage years, she understood what Bill was going through as she was too, just a teenager when her whole life was turned upside down.

Scarlett let her brown eyes fall shut as the romantic movie she'd chosen played in the background. This peace was soon disturbed by the loud crash of her book shelf falling to the floor by her TV. Her eyes snapped open and to no surprise the culprit of the mess was right in front of her, tangled up in a ball of red yarn.

"Penny," Scarlett sighed, pulling herself off the couch and walking over to the tiny life form that was pretty happy in the pile of magazines and stream of red yarn. "What are you doing? You've made a mess!"

The small animal looked up at the giant that stood above her and squeaked as Scarlett scooped her up in her arms. She carried Penny over and sat down on the floor away from the mess, untangling the kitten from the yarn and placing it down in front of her. Penny sat diligently and watched Scarlett roll the yarn back up into the ball, she often wondered why her human was so hell bent on cleanliness and order. But that was just because Penny had one irrational fear that she feared more than anything in life.

The vacuum cleaner.

Ever since the day that she almost lost her tail from being sucked up by its mighty strength, She steered well clear from it when Scarlett was using it. Penny considered Vacuum Cleaner as her worst enemy, he lived in the cupboard under the stairs along with Broom, Feather Duster and Mop. Penny liked Feather Duster as he made her sneeze when Scarlett tickled her nose with him and he sometimes lost some of his feathers which she loved chasing across the floor. Penny had nightmares about Vacuum Cleaner coming to life in the cupboard during the night and sucking her up into his big bag that only Scarlett knew how to empty, so every once in a while she'd creep into the hall and peep through the crack in the door just to make sure that he was still there.

Which he always was. Feather Duster, Mop and Broom were Penny's friends. Vacuum Cleaner, was evil.

"Are you hungry little one?" Scarlett cooed as she lifted the kitten up and carried her to the kitchen, placing her on the wooden counter top. Penny was slowly picking up some words of her human's language, but one thing is for sure that she knew the word "hungry" meant food. Was she hungry? Oh yes she was ravenous! All that playing made her so hungry that she could eat a small bird. Which is a big meal for such a tiny kitten.

"Right little Penny," Scarlett hummed, opening up the kitchen cupboard and peering inside the cat food box removing two packets of food from said box. "What are we feeling tonight? Tuna or Salmon?" But when she got no meow in reply, she pulled out both packets and turned around to see that Penny was on a completely different planet.

Penny didn't have the best concentration just yet as she was only little and was still learning about the big world that surrounded her. So when a small fly buzzed into the kitchen and around Penny's head, she was fascinated that there was actually life on earth smaller than her! With her mouth slightly agape, she tilted her head all the way back in curiosity of the strange flying thing. Unfortunately, Penny forgot that she didn't quite have the life skill of balance just yet so she tumbled backwards off the countertop with a cry and to her surprise landed on all four feet on the kitchen tiles.

"We'll go for tuna, it's the safest option." Scarlett chuckled, emptying the packet contents into a cat bowl and placing it down in front of the ravenous little hunter who didn't hesitate to dive her head straight into the bowl and gobble up the strange meaty substance that made Scarlett feel sick just thinking about.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

"TELL ME YOU'RE STILL MY LITTLE GIRL BEV!"

Scarlett looked up to the ceiling and sighed. Beverly Marsh and her father Al had lived in the apartment above her for as long as she'd known them. Beverly was a good friend of Bill Denbrough and his little group of friends, but being the only girl in a group full of boys, Al was very protective with her. Scarlett didn't really like Al as a person since he wasn't the nicest to his daughter, but the screaming she was hearing through the ceiling. That was something that happened upon a daily basis.

Scarlett began to tidy up the magazines that Penny had knocked over and place them back on the shelf. She groaned as the lyrics from one of those stupid catchy songs whirled around in her head, the song happened to be 'Uptown Girl' by Billy Joel. She didn't mind the song as much, but what annoyed her was that she heard it on the radio this morning and it just never left her head! I suppose she could've worse stuck in her head.

After clearing the mess off the floor, she sat down on the couch and grabbed the ball of red yarn from behind her and started to throw it up and down in the air one-handed. Little Penny watched her in awe as the yarn was tossed up and down and up and down, Scarlett misjudged her catch and the yarn ball fell to the ground, rolling along the ground slightly untangling itself in the process.

Penny purred deeply with excitement as she stalked the ball of yarn on the ground like a snake in the grass before pouncing on top of it. She played with the yarn for hours until she finally got so tired and run down from all the excitement that she nearly feel asleep while walking! Scarlett placed the sleepy kitten into her basket on her red cushion beside the blazing fireplace. She bent down and kissed the top of the kitten's head but the little warrior was already far away in dream land.

Who knew that a single ball of red yarn could provide such entertainment for something so tiny.

Chapter Text

The next day Scarlett made her way to the Denbrough's house. The rain had slightly subsided but was still showery here and there. As she approached the house she saw Mr Denbrough outside talking to two men who seemed to be some sort of maintenance workers. Bill stood in the doorway of the house, watching the conversation unfold until his eyes met Scarlett's as she ventured up the driveway.

"Scarlett!" Bill cried out with joy as he ran and threw his arms around her, gripping onto her so tightly that she nearly stumbled backwards.

"Heya buddy! How've you been keeping?" Scarlett laughed, releasing the hug and looking Bill directly in the eye.

"I-I-I've been g-good, still working on m-m-m-my... my w-word cards." Bill stuttered but smiled once he managed to finish his sentence.

Scarlett returned the smile, ever since she's known Bill he's had a stutter. He tried so hard to get past it but it was just something that he couldn't overcome. Bill told Scarlett that ever since he and his other friends started school, they were a target for bullying, especially Bill. Now Scarlett knew the lads who were behind the bullying, when she was leaving Derry High School, those boys were only in their first year.

The boys were none other than Patrick Hockstetter and Henry Bowers. Those scumbags had a little group that took great pride in other people being miserable, according to Bill. Scarlett hated bullying, it was wrong and just flat out rude. She also knew the reputation that Derry High School upheld for bullying.

Scarlett had been bullied throughout her teenage years because of her name. You might be asking why, because there's nothing wrong with the name Scarlett. Well she was named Scarlett after she was born with a birthmark on her left shoulder. Scarlett didn't mind it but her mother made her have an operation when she was four years old to have it removed. Scarlett's mother said that the birthmark was a scar and that is how they chose the name Scarlett. The removal scar is still on her shoulder and always will be, but when Scarlett was seven years old she started competitive pool swimming and even made it onto the Derry Dolphin's swim team!

But this one girl and her friend made Scarlett's life hell, they'd tell her how ugly the scar was and that she should wear a wetsuit instead of her togs when swimming because everyone didn't need to look at her scar. They also told her that her parents didn't love her because she was named after something they got removed. This hurt Scarlett in so many ways that she began to believe what they were telling her. When she was ten she decided to try give it up, but her mother wouldn't let her.

The rumors started going around school about how ugly Scarlett was, and that she was the worst on the team, she was shoved into the lockers one day by a girl who was a few years ahead of Scarlett.

Everyone gathered around as the girl just straight up slapped Scarlett for five minutes. But she never cried, or fought back... because then she would be given into them... giving them a reaction. She was stronger than that.

Scarlett was snapped out of thought when Bill grabbed her wrist.

"W-will you come w-with me? I-I-I w-want to s-show you s-s-something."

Scarlett let Bill lead her around the side of his house towards their garage. Mr. Denbrough gave Scarlett a smile and a wave but then continued to talk to the men he was with. She had a strange gut feeling like someone was watching her but she brushed it off as nothing and kept up behind Bill.

"The basement f-flooded last night in t-t-the s-storm, so those m-men came to take a l-look. It'll be Monday before they can d-drain the w-w-w-water."

"Ah right, well you have your own indoor pool now!" Scarlett joked. Her little comment made Bill laugh, his laugh sounded exactly like little Georgie's laugh, except a little deeper. You know puberty and all that. It was nice to see him laugh, it was something Scarlett always made sure of that whoever she was with, no matter how sad they were she'd do something to make them laugh. Laughter is the best medicine. It also covered up her suffering.

Bill was still heavily grieving for his brother, they were extremely close. Scarlett's eyes widened as Bill flicked on the light switch in the garage, an entire map of the Derry sewers was created out of plastic tunnels.

"Oh Bill." Scarlett sighed as Bill grabbed her hand, leading her over to the tunnels.

"Just l-let me s-s-show you this." He said running around the tunnels and picking up a tiny plastic soldier and the hose pipe. He dropped the soldier down the tunnel and put the hose head down after it, releasing some water into the tunnel. Scarlett watched in silence as the water carried the little plastic figure through the tunnels and then dropped it into a bucket at the end of the table that was labelled 'THE BARRENS'

"The B-Barrens, t-that's where G-G-Georgie is." Bill smiled.

"Bill," Scarlett started, trying to think of the best way to say something without offending him. "Georgie has been gone for three years, I very much doubt he's still alive."

"That's where y-your parents w-w-were f-found."

"Yes I know, but they were dead and had been for days before they were found."

"Exactly m-my point! If G-G-Georgie was dead, they w-would've found his b-b-body."

Scarlett didn't know what to say, she'd been Bill's support network forever and even more so when Georgie disappeared. She didn't want to upset him but in college she'd done a couple of lectures on dealing with grief as part of her medical course. she'd learnt that the worst possible thing you can do is sugar coat a deranged idea that somebody grieving may have. But for some crazy reason, to her, Bill's idea made sense.

Every person that went missing in Derry, was either never found or their remains were uncovered near the Barrens. But before she could say anything, Mr. Denbrough was by her side.

"Don't tell me he has shown you this deranged idea of his." Mr. Denbrough sighed.

"He seems to be very positive about it." Scarlett whispered.

"Dad," Bill started before Mr. Denbrough abruptly cut him off.

"No Bill, I told you to take this down, it's a stupid idea. Georgie is dead Bill! He's gone! He's been gone for three years, there comes a point where you just give up." Mr. Denbrough folded his arms. "Now, take this down before your mother sees it." He growled before turning on his heel and walking out of the garage, leaving Scarlett and Bill alone.

"I-I guess you get y-your tunnels back." Bill sighed, staring at the little brown hamster that was currently running on his wheel in his cage.

"I'll give you a hand," Scarlett smiled. "Keep you company."

"Thanks S-Scarlett, I-I need the glue remover and it's in t-t-the b-basement. I'll g-g-go get it." Bill said, pulling on some rain boots to prevent his feet getting wet in the flooded basement and left Scarlett alone in the garage.

Bill wandered into his house and down the hallway, his mother was playing the piano in the parlour as she called it but to Bill, it was just the living room. He grabbed a flashlight and crept towards the basement door, slowly pushing it open and walking down the stairs.

The water met Bill's feet at the second step from the bottom. The basement was a lot scarier in the dark but at least he had his flashlight. He shone the light around the shelves in search of the glue remover, the sloshing of the water being the only sound as he walked around. He eventually found the small tube and gripped it in his hand, he turned and headed back for the stairwell but he only reached the bottom step before he heard someone speak from behind.

"I lost it Billy, don't be mad."

He turned to see the same yellow raincoat, the same blue jeans and the same green rain boots that he knew so well and had never forgotten.

Bill was in utter shock, there was no way that his little brother was standing in-front of him.

"It just floated off." Georgie continued.

Bill's heart was clanging in his chest so hard he thought it would burst but he still didn't move, nor did he speak.

"But Bill, if you'll come with me, you'll float too." Georgie giggled. But then the giggling soon turned into hysterical shouting.

"You'll float too, you'll float too, you'll float too, YOU'LL FLOAT TOO!"

Georgie's voice got deeper and his body began to shake violently as he shouted. A tall, maybe 7ft in height pure white faced figure arose from the water, standing behind Georgie, its lips moving in sync with Georgie's. It was like it was controlling him.

Georgie's face started to crack and turn grey like stone, but he kept shouting. The tall white figure pulled a few strands of wet hair from its face. It wasn't a human.

It was a clown.

Red hair, pure white face and white gloved hands, in a dirty white clown outfit that had red pom-poms down the front and a ruffled collar. It had little bells that lined its outfit and on its face that was painted white, it had red lines that started just above its eyebrows, crept down over its eyes and cheeks and the lined its mouth.

Bill thought he was seeing things, he stumbled backwards through the water to get away up the stairs but tripped and landed flat on his face into the flood, soaking himself through. He was too scared to scream.

The clown let a loud shout and bolted forward through the water as Georgie's little body disintegrated into the water like pixie dust. Bill gasped for air as he scrambled to his feet and took the stairs two by two, slamming the door behind him. The clown threw itself against bottom step of the stairs, its eyes rolling to the back of its head as it slithered back under the shallow water.

Bill ran and kept running all the way through his house and to the garage where Scarlett was rubbing the hamster's back through the bars of its cage.

Scarlett looked up at the drenched Bill and straightened herself, approaching him only for him to throw himself against her body into a hug and start to cry.

"Bill, Bill, Bill! What the hell happened?!" Scarlett asked, pushing his shaking body away from her and looking him in the eyes.

"I-I-I-I saw G-Georgie." Bill cried as he tried to catch his breath.

"You saw Georgie? In the basement?" Scarlett quizzed, slightly confused at why a missing child would be in the flooded basement of his family home.

"But there was a c-c-clown. It w-was controlling Georgie, it t-t-tried to k-kill m-m-me."

Scarlett couldn't believe what she was hearing, Bill explained the entire story to her and she just listened in complete shock.

If what Bill was saying was true, then Scarlett's biggest fear was running loose around Derry.

Maybe that's what she felt watching her earlier...

Chapter Text

What Bill had told Scarlett that morning was still whirling around her head as she walked back to her apartment. She left Bill in the care of his parents, as she felt it wasn't really her place to tell Bill if what he was seeing was real or not.

Bill's parents thought the story was ludicrous, but to Scarlett it oddly seemed not. No, no this can't be. A clown in a basement? Please, she was twenty-one years old not twelve, but yet she still feared clowns like there was no tomorrow. Mr. Denbrough was insisting that Bill was just being silly and was going to send him out on his bike with his little friends to take his mind off things.

If Bill really did see Georgie, does that mean, if he saw the clown too. Is this clown what's abducting people left, right and centre? It wouldn't make sense to anyone, but to Scarlett it made perfect sense.

Only a psycho would hide out in someone's flooded basement to scare them, and all those missing people and dead bodies that were recovered. There wasn't a single stab wound on any of them. The only marks that were on the victim's bodies were teeth marks. But if it were a bear or another wild animal, they would've caught it by now.

A memory Scarlett had from when she was about eleven years old flashed through her mind. Her mother once told her that a guy she went to school with, Adrian Mellon was murdered at the kissing bridge one night at the Derry County Festival in 1985. She said she remembered the newspaper headline, the group of guys who were eventually done for murder pleaded their cases not guilty of murder because they insisted that a clown pulled Adrian from the water and ate his shoulder. Killing him instantly. But those guys who were up for murder ended up doing a life sentence for murder in Derry County Jail. They were also assigned a psychiatric assessment once a week because like Bill's parents, the judge thought the story of a killer clown was in fact, ludicrous.

Scarlett heaved herself up the stairs to her apartment and unlocked the door, throwing her bag to the side and not so gracefully kicked off her shoes. She had only been out an hour so she wasn't surprised to find little Penny exactly where she'd left her. Right in-front of the washing machine. Scarlett had done the laundry before she'd left the apartment so the washing machine was still going. Penny found watching the clothes spin around and around in the washing machine was more entertaining than the ball of red yarn ever could be.

Scarlett didn't have many toys for Penny so she decided that she'd take a trip to PetSmart to get some new toys for her fur baby, she was also low on cat food so she had to go. She felt bad for leaving Penny so she approached the little feline and scooped her up and looked her straight in the eyes.

"Do you wanna come on a trip to PetSmart with me?"

"Meow."

"Of course you do! Let's go!"

Scarlett popped Penny into a little pink harness and a matching lead. The little kitten was so small she could fit in the pocket of Scarlett's bright blue hoodie. Scarlett placed her into the pocket and grabbed her house keys and left.

She didn't own a car as she lived in the city, public transport, and everything within walking distance. What more could a girl want?! Penny was very content in Scarlett's pocket, so content that she managed to doze off. All that excitement of watching the washing machine had worn her out. As Scarlett walked she felt that same feeling she did when at the Denbrough's. Somebody was definitely watching her. But when she turned she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

She arrived at PetSmart and almost walked straight into the automatic door. Her mind was totally distracted. She stuck her hand into her pocket and ruffled the little kitten's fur lightly, feeling her stir under Scarlett's touch. Penny poked her head out and blinked her big blue eyes in amazement at all the interesting stuff that she had to explore! She desperately scrambled to get out of Scarlett's pocket but Scarlett gently lifted her out and place her in the child seat of the small shopping cart.

Penny stood up in the child seat, placing her two front feet on the cold, metal shopping cart. She gave it a quick sniff as it was something new to her, and then continued to gaze at all the things around the massive store as Scarlett pushed the cart around, keeping a watchful eye that Penny didn't tumble out of the cart.

Penny gave Scarlett a look of annoyance when she turned the cart down an aisle towards the cat food. Scarlett leaned down against the handle of the cart and looked at the wide selection of cat food there was to choose from on the shelf.

It was the biggest shelf Penny had ever seen!

"What food do you want?" Scarlett asked, her eyes meeting with Penny's bright blue ones.

"Meow."

"No, you're not getting beef. It gave you terrible indigestion last time."

Penny looked at Scarlett and let the memories flood back into her small kitten brain. She'd never felt indigestion, whatever that was. But she did remember when her tummy hurt a few weeks ago and she puked it all back up. It was disgusting.

Scarlett settled for a selection of turkey, chicken and duck. She dumped the three boxes of food into the cart and kept walking. She wanted to widen Penny's food chain, so she'd get the taste for everything that was on offer.

They passed a huge fish tank on the way around the store and Scarlett stopped the cart in-front of the tank so Penny could see.

"Look Penny!" Scarlett gushed pointing at the orangey, pinky starfish that was stuck to the side of the tank's glass. The starfish pulled back some of its legs from the glass started to move down the tank. Penny was confused to say the least. This thing wasn't as big and scary as Vacuum Cleaner, but wasn't as small as Fly.
Penny placed her paws on the side of the tank, this creature had more legs than Penny could count! Or were they its toes?

"Your little cat seems to like Reuben." A frail voice spoke from behind. Scarlett turned to see a lady possibly in her early sixties standing behind her smiling dressed in a PetSmart uniform.

"Oh yes! She's very inquisitive, the world is still so new to her ya know?!" Scarlett sighed as the old lady approached, gently placing her hand upon Penny's back. Penny turned around and rubbed her back along the woman's hand loudly purring, thoroughly enjoying her back rub.

"Starfish are wonderfully talented creatures." The old lady sighed as she watched the starfish now known as Rueben settle in a new spot on the glass.

"I never knew much about them if I'm honest. I find them a little bit strange." Scarlett giggled.

"Nonsense," the woman gushed, "very interesting things to watch." She turned around to one of the shelves and removed a little fuzzy orange starfish squeaky cat toy that had bells on the end of each leg. "Here, take this for your cat, she's so fascinated by Rueben, she can have her very own cat toy version of him!"

"That's very sweet thank you!" Scarlett smiled, taking the toy from the woman's hand and tossing it into the cart.

The woman just stood there smiling, she didn't even look to be breathing. Scarlett furrowed her eyebrows and slowly waved her hand in front of the woman's face.

But she still kept staring and smiling.

"Well I do hope your little cat enjoys her toy!" The woman purred suddenly, startling Scarlett after that long silence.

"Oh I'm sure she will love it!" Scarlett smiled, looking down at Penny who was still engrossed in watching Reuben the starfish. But when Scarlett glanced back up, the old woman was gone.

Not a trace, just poof! Like magic.

Scarlett pushed the cart quickly to the checkout and paid for her items, picking up a few more items along the way for Penny, a cat scratcher, little toy mice and a toy lizard on a stick that she could play with. As they were walking home, Scarlett put her hand in her pocket and placed it on Penny's back. Penny stirred from her slumber but then slowly drifted back to sleep.

They arrived home and Scarlett placed the bag of items and a sleepy Penny on the kitchen counter, removing her harness and lead. Penny let out a massive yawn, showing off all her tiny kitten teeth like a lion in the zoo would do.

"Oooo you're so fierce, aren't you!" Scarlett hummed, scratching Penny's head. She removed the little orange starfish from the bag and shook it, its bells tinkling like a Christmas reindeer.

Penny's eyes lit up at the sound of the jingles, she swished her tail and twitched her ears. Scarlett placed Penny on the ground and tossed the starfish to her. Penny caught it in her two front paws, but fell backwards from lack of balance onto her back with the starfish still in her hold. She rolled around, gently chewing on the legs of the starfish toy.

"Just suck the wound! For Christ's sake!" A rather high pitched voice hollered. Scarlett looked up and Penny stopped chewing on her toy, staring straight towards the little open window in the grotty lounge area of the apartment. When it rained, the apartment got damp and sometimes smelled a bit musty. So when it wasn't raining during the winter months, no matter how cold it was Scarlett tried to keep a window or two open for a few hours each day.

"I need to focus right now!" Another similarly high pitched voice barked back.

"Oh you need to focus now do you?" The first voice jeered.

Scarlett approached the window and looked down onto the back alleyway behind her apartment block. A group of children, no more than twelve or thirteen years old. Scarlett immediately recognized Bill Denbrough and Beverly Marsh from the group. They were huddled around someone on the ground, but Scarlett couldn't see who. So she decided to investigate, she looked back at Penny who was back biting the end of her toy as she rolled around on the floor with it.

Scarlett grabbed her keys and quickly slipped out the front door. She hurried down the damp, dimly lit corridor of her apartment complex. The pipes screeched as the heated came on like Optimus Prime throwing himself down the stairs. A spider scuttled into the corner as Scarlett took the flights of stairs two at a time until she burst through the front door of the building, onto the street.

She wandered around into the alleyway, and right enough the group of teenagers were still huddled around in their group. As she approached the same high pitched voice that claimed it needed to focus spoke again.

"Hand me my anti-bac lotion, it's in the front pocket of my second fanny pack."

"Why do you have two fanny packs?" A tall, skinny boy replied as he followed the shorter one with dark brown hair and brown eyes order.

Scarlett noticed a boy sitting on a crate, who they were all gathered around. The brown haired fanny pack boy was cleaning and stitching up a wound on the boy's abdomen that looked like a stab wound.

"Hey," Scarlett asked, "are you okay? That looks nasty!"

"Scarlett!" Bill smiled as he ventured over and gave her a hug, followed by Beverly who also gave Scarlett a hug.

"Woah, baby." A rather goofy member of the group chimed in. "You guys know this chick?!"

"Sure do!" Beverly smiled, "She lives in the apartment below me."

"She used t-t-to babysit m-me and G-Georgie."

The goofy one smirked and pushed his nerd glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"She could sit on me all day."

"Shut up Richie!" The taller skinny boy hissed, slapping the back of the goofy boy's head. Who was now known to Scarlett as Richie.

Scarlett ignored the comment and approached the group further. Beverly grabbed her wrist and smiled.

"I better introduce the boys to you. This is Stanley," she said pointing to the taller, skinny curly headed boy who gave me a smile and a wave. "This is Richie," she pointed to the goofy one who had already passed the comment on Scarlett. "This is Eddie and Mike," Eddie was the brown haired one on the ground doing the stitching of the wound and Mike was a taller, dark skinned boy with a checkered shirt. "And lastly, this is Ben." She gestured to the timid, slightly overweight boy that was currently being stitched back together by Eddie.

"What happened to you sweetie?" Scarlett asked, bending down in front of Ben, examining his wound as he flinched under her touch.

"He ran right into the path of Henry Bowers that's what happened." Richie sniggered before whispering to Stanley. "Damn her ass looks good in those jeans."

"Shut up Richie!" Mike growled.

"Well," Scarlett started, "I have some of my equipment in my apartment so if you want I can bring you up there and make sure that wound is treated properly." She stood and took Ben's blood stained hand, pulling him off the crate as he winched.

"Thank you Scarlett, that'd be great." Ben smiled.

"You guys can come too," Scarlett smiled. "Keep him company."

"Yes! Already going back to her place and we haven't even had our first date yet!" Richie gushed only to get a scoff in return from Scarlett.

"SHUT UP RICHIE!" The entire group of teenagers yelled, Richie jumped back but still winked at Scarlett when he caught her eye, as they helped Ben up the many flights of stairs to Scarlett's apartment.

Chapter Text

"So," Scarlett started as she carried back her first aid box to the group of teenagers that were currently dotted around her living room. "he cut you with a knife?"

"Yeah, but I then kicked him back with my foot and rolled backwards across a fence down a long hill. I hit the bottom and tumbled straight into the river." Ben winched, while Scarlett began cleaning out his wound.

"Woah! Are these birth control pills?!" Richie gasped as he went through one of Eddie's medication stocked fanny packs.

"Yeah, I'm saving them for your sister!" Eddie snarled, snatching the bag back from him and shoving it, protectively under his arm.

"What were you doing down at that river anyway?" Scarlett asked, keeping a watchful eye on her needle as she continued to sow Ben's wound.

Everyone went completely silent.

"I-I-it's alright, she knows what I s-saw." Bill whispered.

"So you don't think this idea is a fucking crackhead idea then?" Richie asked.

"Well, I don't really know, the killer has never been found and whatever it is has the ability to outsmart everyone and everything." Scarlett sighed.

"Patrick went into the sewer, he thought I'd ran in there to hide. I was watching him from behind a tree, after a while, there was screaming and then he never came out again." Ben gulped.

"I'm sure he's fine," Stanley said, rolling his eyes. "whatever would want him, would have to be pretty fucking hungry."

Scarlett finished patching up Ben and turned around, sitting on the floor with her back leaning against the chair Bill was sitting on. "I actually saw something today," she began. "something that gave me that gut feeling ya know?"

"What did you see Scarlett?" Beverly asked as she wriggled her fingers in a wave at Penny who was crouched behind Scarlett's leg with shyness.

"I went to PetSmart today with Penny and this worker came up to me, probably in her near retirement age but very frail looking. We talked for a while and she gave me a toy for Penny but then stood and stared at me for ages! Like I didn't even think she was breathing until she suddenly spoke again." Scarlett explained.

"How's that creepy?" Eddie sighed.

"She vanished without a trace seconds later."

"Never mind, that's creepy as fuck." Eddie whispered.

"It knows w-w-where we are, w-w-whatever It is." Bill mumbled.

"Well what the hell do you suggest we do? It's just going to continue to feed off every vulnerable person It can find!" Stanley said, looking around at everyone for answers.

"We g-go back to the B-B-Barrens," Bill stuttered.

"When?" Eddie cut in.

"Oh Bill, I don't think that's a good idea." Scarlett whimpered. "I don't want to go down there, not after everything that's happened."

"Can somebody tell me what the hell this chick is on about?!" Richie exclaimed.

"Her parents were found there dumbass!" Beverly snapped.

"What's the big deal? They were probs doing some, I don't know! Going on a walk or something!" Richie yelled back at Beverly.

A tear fell from Scarlett's eye, landing on the top of Penny's head, who had fallen asleep against her leg.

"They w-were d-d-dead." Bill stuttered, with a hiss in his voice.

"Oh my god, are you the girl who's parents went missing on—" Richie gasped before Scarlett cut him off.

"October 31st 2016."

"Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't know." Richie whispered.

"That just goes to show you how many brain cells you hold onto." Stanley snapped at Richie. "You always remember the fucking gruesome details and talk about nothing but your dirty minded thoughts that nobody cares about! You are disgusting!"

"Ok guys! Settle down!" Scarlett growled, standing and resting her hands on Stanley's shoulders to prevent him from pouncing at Richie.

Richie scowled at Stanley and Stanley scowled at Richie.

"Right, well I'm going home, it's getting dark and I don't want to be walking home in the dark alone." Eddie huffed, standing up.

"No! We n-need a p-p-plan, a definite p-plan." Bill insisted.

"We should stick to this plan, go down to the Barrens and see if we can find anything." Beverly shrugged.

"Great, well then when will we go?" Ben asked.

"I asked that question five minutes ago." Eddie huffed, sitting back down into his chair.

"Well he's asking it again, so shush!" Mike hissed.

"We should go Tuesday after school. If we go any earlier, whatever this creature is may be watching out for us. We need to catch It off guard." Richie explained.

"Wow, he actually speaks sense." Beverly chuckled, which earned her a glare from Richie.

Bill turned to Scarlett, "Please come w-with us." He asked, giving her his puppy eyes.

Scarlett hesitated. "I have college I can't just leave—"

"Then we will meet you when you're finished. What time do your classes end?" Beverly smiled.

"Just before noon," Scarlett replied, "I can meet you at school when you finish, you guys still finish at 3:15pm?"

"Yup, well then that's settled," Stanley exclaimed. "3:15pm outside the school."

"Yeah so we can go fucking bog monster hunting." Eddie laughed.

"You g-guys!" Ben shouted over the light giggling. He looked at Scarlett and smiled. "Does this mean she's one of us now?"

Bill turned to Scarlett. "What d-do y-y-you think? Fancy b-being an official l-loser?"

"I'd be honoured!" Scarlett gushed, "as long as Penny can be one too!" She said, picking up the kitten and cuddling her to her chest.

"Anyone who's willing to hang out with us is welcome!" Mike smiled.

"To the losers club." Stanley called out, putting his hand into the centre of the circle. Everyone put their hand on top of his, Scarlett even held Penny into the circle so she could put her paw in.

"To the losers!" Everyone chanted.

Chapter Text

Beverly's hand met the cold, hard metal handle of her apartment door. The metal bit into her hand like ice as the breeze running through the apartment complex ran shivers up her spine. Her heartbeat pounding in her ears as she clutched onto the pharmacy bag with her other hand.

She opened the door and poked her head into the dark hallway. The buzz of the TV and the hum of the fan being the only sound that filled the apartment. She shut the door and turned around, letting out a startled shriek.

"Hey Bevy." Al, her father breathed. He stood tall, 6ft 4inches to be exact. Brown short hair that was nearly all bald, pointed nose and a worn, tattered face.

"Hi Daddy." Beverly whispered, she squeezed the bag under her arm, making a crinkling sound.

"Whatcha got there?" Al asked, remaining in his tall stance above her as he glanced down at the bag.

"Just some stuff." Beverly whimpered. Al pulled the bag from under her arm, Beverly looked away letting a stray tear slip down her cheek. Al pulled out a box of tampons from the bag and stared at Beverly.

"Tell me you're still my little girl." He growled.

"Yes Daddy."

Al shoved the box and bag into Beverly's chest, she grabbed it to prevent it from hitting the floor. He leaned into her, so close that Beverly could smell the booze off his breath. He inhaled her scent and pulled back.

"Go on ahead." He said, pushing her forward and watching her as she took off down the hall and into the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind her and making sure it was locked properly.

She dumped her bag beside her bathtub and tore apart the bathroom cupboard until she found a scissors. The blade shone in the dim light, the tears streamed down her face as she pulled her hair from the hair-tie. Beverly's hair was red, it was long enough that it was just touching her shoulder blades, she knew about Scarlett's bullying story and how miserable she felt. Beverly never let on that she too, was being bullied by a girl called Gretta Keene.

Gretta had an older sister called Nicole, she was the girl who made Scarlett's life hell when she was in school. Gretta and Nicole's father was the pharmacist in the town, a lovely kind old man Mr. Keene was, if only he knew what his daughters had done to people.

Gretta and her clan made Beverly feel miserable, they called her names like slut, little shit, beaverly and so many more that made Beverly's head spin at the thought of.

"This is what you did to me." Beverly sobbed as the snip of the scissors cut large chunks of her hair off, letting the clumps fall into the sink. She kept cutting until all her long hair was gone, she was left with a short hairstyle that suited her but was definitely a change. She turned on the tap and watched as the stream of water sucked the clumps of her hair down the drain.

The drain gargled and hissed like a monster that was trying to digest the velocity of hair into its starving stomach. When all the hair was gone, she shut off the water and sat herself in the empty bathtub. Her legs dangled over the side, she leaned her head back against the wall and cried until she felt sick. Beverly always thought that when you made yourself feel sick from crying, that's when you knew that you needed support.

Beverly's Mother died when she was very tiny, Al never forgave Beverly. It wasn't her fault but Al always told her that it was her who killed her Mother. Al turned to alcohol as a crutch and had been an alcoholic since the death of his wife. He abused Beverly and made her life hell as a punishment for killing her Mother.

She never knew her mother, she didn't even have a picture of her. She missed her, even though she never knew her, she missed the motherly love. Scarlett was her only friend that was a girl and she was twenty-one. Her friend Veronica, her only female friend her age, went missing about six months ago. Like Georgie, they never found a body. It broke Beverly's heart into pieces she needed a friend her own age. Before the other losers, Scarlett took Beverly under her wing and they've been friends ever since.

A small laugh filled the room, tiny, so tiny you wouldn't even hear it. Beverly looked up and through her tears she saw nobody.

Then it happened again. It was coming from the sink.

"Beverly." A small voice whispered from the drain.

Beverly pulled herself from the tub and stood, listening to see if she really was hearing things.

"Beverly."

Ok, she seriously wasn't hearing things. A voice said her name!! She approached the sink and rest both her hands on either side of the basin. Shutting one eye she peered into the plug hole with the other.

"Help us, help us please!" The voice whispered.

Then a group of them started to whisper together.

"We've all planned on meeting you, Beverly. We all float down here!"

Beverly was stunned. "Hello? Who are you?" She said softly.

The voices went silent for a little bit.

"I'm Veronica, Betty Ripsom and I'm Patrick Hockstetter." They replied one at a time.

"V-Veronica?" Beverly's voice shook as she tried to cope with what was going on.

"Yes." A now only single voice hissed back.

"What happened to you?" Beverly asked.

"Will you come play with me?"

"What? What are you talking about?!"

"Please!! I don't wanna be alone... we can play forever, and ever, and ever." The voice pleaded as it fizzled into a low growling giggle that sent shivers up Beverly's spine.

Beverly stepped back, she needed to investigate. She unlocked the bathroom door slowly and stepped out into the hallway. Al was snoring slightly in the armchair in the small living room area. Beverly made swift movements across the floor to Al's tool box, the desk fan and tv hum masking her footsteps. She took a tape measure from the box and returning to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

The voices were quite, they weren't talking anymore. Beverly held the tape measure above the plug hole with a shaky hand, slowly unraveling it. It went deeper and deeper into the plug hole until—

Splash.

It wasn't a loud splash, it was almost forced, like something was preventing the tape from going deeper.

Beverly shook the tape measure slightly, letting it tap and rattle against the side of the drain, emitting a soft echo. She checked the measurement.

24ft.

Beverly let out another shaky breath, she started to pull the tape measure back up the drain, but it got harder and harder to pull as she got nearer the end of the tape. She ripped the remaining tape from the drain, to her surprise there was blood on the end of the tape measure with and long, thick, blood-soaked clump of hair lapped around it.

"Ew, what the fuck?!" Beverly grumbled under her breath. The small giggle came from the drain again, just like that the hair got a life of its own. It unraveled itself from the tape and slithered up through Beverly's fingers.

It caught her other hand too, forcing her to scream. More hair erupted from the drain, like a spider with legs in all directions. The hair wrapped around her torso, head and her neck slowly pulling her down towards the drain. Beverly continued to scream hysterically, a vicious gargle came from the drain and blood exploded out of the drain.

The blood covered the entire bathroom as it gushed into Beverly's face. It covered every single inch of the floor, walls and ceiling. The hair let go of Beverly and sucked itself back into the drain. Beverly stumbled backwards onto the ground, sliding herself across the floor, her shoes squeaking as she kicked her legs out in the blood that was still gushing until she got her back against the wall.

Then everything stopped. The blood stopped gushing but still plastered the bathroom as Beverly's screams slowly subsided into a shaky sob. The bathroom door was kicked in, it swung open as the lock skidded along the floor and Al walked in, seeing his daughter in such a state he asked,

"What the hell is going on?!"

"The sink!" She cried. "The blood and the—"

"What blood?" Al replied.

"The sink!" She repeated herself, trying to make sense of it all as Al kneeled in front of her.

"You worry me Bevy, you worry me a lot," He cooed at her softly, his hand came out and he ran his fingers through her hair. "Why'd you do this to your hair? It makes you look like a boy."
He growled.

Beverly just stared at him with her mouth wide open in shock. Could he seriously not see this? How? It was everywhere! Al pulled himself off the floor and looked her up and down once more before leaving the bathroom, shutting the door.

Beverly just stared at the mess of her bathroom, maybe this was all just her imagination.

Chapter Text

The sun was setting over the town of Derry, a relatively still day weather wise for a late October evening. Eddie hummed quietly under his breath as with every step he kicked a small pebble along the derelict street.

Neibolt Street was a street that nobody really drove down or had much life about it. Everyone in Derry knew about the ninth house on that street. It was an old abandoned house, probably built somewhere around the late 1950's, it was all boarded up and filled with the same old furniture that was now covered by whatever wild greenery and vines had crept across it. It had a old, crooked, dead tree in the front garden that was just a area of overgrown dead grass and weeds. The door wasn't blocked up, it was just a door that opened and shut just like any other door. So the drug-addicts, alcoholics and homeless people of Derry usually used it as a shelter during stormy nights, when they didn't want to sleep rough.

From Scarlett's apartment, passing through Neibolt Street was the quickest way for Eddie to get back to his own house. He'd done it a million times before, as it was also the way he walked home from school.

A high-pitched beeping sound distracted his train of thought. His watch was beeping, like it did every hour on the hour, it was reminding him that he was to take his allergy medication. Now Eddie wasn't really sure what he was taking allergy pills for but he knew his mother would go crazy if he didn't take them. He unzipped the small front pocket of his fanny pack that was strapped securely around his waist, his mother had all his pills arranged into a box with little compartments for each day of the week.

As he was desperately trying to open the small box, a faint rattling hiss coming from the house. Eddie had to blink twice, he was sure that the front door of the house was closed when he was walking by. But now it lay open.

"Eddie." A voice hissed, it was a voice like one you'd picture a snake to have. (Not talking about human ones right now!) There was no way that a voice was speaking to him from a derelict house. It just wasn't possible.

"Eddie... what are you looking for?" The same hissing growl spoke out. Eddie stopped fiddling with the box and held a single pill between his thumb and index finger. His mouth slightly open with shock.

He was so focused on the house that he lost his balance and stumbled forwards slightly. The pill box and single pill fell from his grip and hit the concrete road, the pills scattered out in all directions.

"Shit!" Eddie mumbled under his breath, he squatted down and desperately scrambled to pick up all the little colored pills and place them back in the box.

"Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen." Eddie counted slowly as his breath shook. "There's supposed to be fifteen!" Eddie whispered, a little further away from him, the missing pill lay. He crawled along the ground and just when his fingers were inches from the pill, another hand picked it up and held it out to him.

The hand was human, pinkish skin with cuts and bruises covering it. A bandage was wrapped around the palm of the hand, leaving the long, thin fingers that were black from gangrene.

Eddie gasped at the sight and his eyes crept up the arm and saw that the creature sitting before him could've well been human at some point. But it definitely wasn't human now.

"Do you think this will help me, Eddie?" The creature hissed as drool dripped from its mouth. The individual had a disfigured face, no nose, bloodshot eyes with a hint of blue in them, long white hair, a pretty vicious sore on its forehead and a blood covered bandage that was wrapped around its head.

Eddie fell backwards and scrambled along the dry road to get to his feet. Once on his feet he ran in through the gates of 9. Neibolt Street and tripped over a branch forcing him to hit the ground with a loud thud.

He looked behind him and screamed, the creature was up on its feet, chasing Eddie as fast as it could. It wiped the drool from its mouth on the rotten cardigan it had wrapped around its decaying body, dragging a bandaged foot behind it, this really was Eddies worst nightmare coming to life.

The creature hissed and yowled as it ran after Eddie who was now back on his feet running around the back of the house through the long grass as he screamed for help.

The creature took a swipe at him but missed and Eddie kept running. He reached the metal fence that surrounded the property and turned around to see if the creature was still bounding after him.

But the creature was gone. Left standing in its place was a tall figure in a white clown costume. The figures face was hidden behind a large triangle of red balloons. Eddie didn't even breathe, he just watched.

The figure raised its arm which lifted the balloons that revealed its face. A clown, like the one you'd see in the circus.

The clown smiled at Eddie and flashed its golden eyes at him.

"Where ya goin' Eddie?" The clown purred as its smile grew wider. "If you hadn't come through here, you would be home by now. Come join the clown Eddie. You'll float down there. We all float down there." The clown let out a hysterical cackle as it watched Eddie scream and panic as he tried to get through the broken fence.

Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.

Eddie looked behind him to see pieces of red ballon falling from the sky as the clown had disappeared into thin air. Eddie squeezed through the broken fence onto the road and ran all the way home. He didn't look behind him for fear that the infected creature or the clown would be after him. He just kept running as fast as his legs would carry him.

Chapter Text

That next afternoon Stanley was in his father's office at the local synagogue, where his father, Mr. Uris was the Rabbi. The Jewish population in Derry was small but there was still enough for a synagogue to be built in the early 1980's, Stanley and his parents spent lots of time with the people of the synagogue as part of his father's role as Rabbi, meaning teacher, was to educate the people of Derry on the Jewish religion.

Stanley ran his fingers along the spine of the hardback books, that were shelved the entire way around the office. Stanley was an extremely intelligent boy so by the time he was eleven, he'd read half the books in this office. Once he reached the end of the shelf he covered his eyes and crossed the room to the other bookshelf, his back to the door.

On the wall hung a painting. A painting of a woman by the name of Judith. She was an ugly looking thing in Stanley's opinion and he was and had been frightened of that painting since he first laid eyes on it. The painting itself was harmless enough but her eyes are what freaked little Stanley out. They followed him around the room, and Stanley was convinced that she moved ever so slightly in the painting every time he looked at her. Judith's name was just "the woman in the painting" but Stanley thought that it was too much of a soft name for her. Judith suited her perfectly.

Her elongated, deformed face stared at Stanley's back as he scanned the shelves of books. Judith had watched Stanley grow up. From when he was a tiny baby to the young man he is now, every time Judith saw him she saw a new change.

Judith held a flute in her hand, her long, stick thin fingers wrapped around it. She knew Stanley had noticed her movements. Well for crying out loud, how on earth can you expect a woman to stand around in the same position all day? She moved around slightly when nobody was looking. Her bones cracked, hence why she usually moved at night when nobody was around.

Judith saw herself as the ugliest creature on earth. She often wondered how her artist could've made her look so ugly. Amedeo Modigliani, her Italian-Jewish creator saw her as beautiful. But to a child like Stanley, she was a monster.

She played her flute to herself at night, it comforted her in a way nobody else could. She longed to feel what the outside world felt like. She felt her frame moved slightly. She stood still. Stanley looked up and spun around looking straight at her.

Judith stared back.

Stanley approached her and placed his hands on her frame, slowly tilting her back to her original position. He was so close to her that she felt his breath on her chest. If only he knew that she was real.

Stanley returned to his shelf, pulling a book from it and examining its blurb. Judith watched him, knowing he'd already read that book three times. But she liked seeing him happy.

A tall white figure caught Judith's crooked eye as she moved them to stare at the creature. A clown.

Judith had never seen a clown but from hearing Stanley read stories about them, she knew what one looked like.

The clown took wide strides towards her, Judith stared at Stanley wondering how he couldn't see this creature before her. The clown smiled and brushed a gloved hand over her long neck.

"Hiya pumpkin!" The clown giggled as Judith continued to look at Stanley, longing for an explanation. "Oh, he can't see me right now. But he will see me once I'm ready to be seen. I need your help with that."

Judith had never been spoken to directly. It scared her, but this clown was offering her a possible escape? She refused to look at the creature before her. She was ugly and she knew it, people thought she was a demon, someone who wanted to feed off of human flesh. But it wasn't her fault that she was created that way.

The clown on the other hand, saw Judith as an opportunity to scare Stanley into becoming its next meal. It wanted to taste Stanley's blood, flesh and fear. It wanted a feed, and Judith was going to help him.

Judith didn't move, she stayed still as the clown shifted its weight and stepped into her Amish, green background. Judith felt its breath on her neck, it was the first time she'd ever felt something in her own space. She felt the clown put a gloved hand over her eyes and hum in her ear.

"Now, let's feast shall we?"

Stanley jumped as a loud bang came from behind him. His breath caught in his throat and he wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers and placed the book he was holding back on the shelf. He slowly turned around to see Judith's painting lying on its front on the wooden floor. How did it just fall like that? Stanley wondered before crossing the room and picking up the frame. He tried his best to avoid eye contact with the creepy woman in the painting, but when he placed the painting back on the wall he stumbled backwards with shock.

Judith had disappeared from the painting. Just her Amish green background filled the frame. Stanley rubbed his eyes and looked again. She was still missing. The lights above the bookshelf's flickered and went out, leaving the only light coming from a small lamp on his father's desk.

The closet door creaked open with the soft sound of flute music coming from somewhere. Stanley stared at the open door, waiting for his father to walk in and clip him around the ear, telling him to stop being so ridiculous. But his father never came.

The flute music continued in long drawn out notes. Then after a few moments it stopped. Another loud more metal bang came from behind him, he spun around and saw a long, silver flute rolling along the floor and stopping at his feet.

Stanley was beyond terrified and he couldn't even move with the fear. He slowly looked up into the dark corner and saw a tall woman, the ugliest woman, dressed in a low cut black dress with her black hair tied back tightly off her face. She stepped towards Stanley and twisted her head. Stanley yelped out in fear as the woman smiled, her teeth were jagged and sharp like shark teeth.

"Judith." Stanley whimpered.

Judith stuck a long black tongue from her mouth and licked her teeth. She reached a hand out and Stanley had seen enough. He screamed and ran from the room slamming the door shut behind him leaving Judith standing there.

Judith was back in her painting on the wall, wondering what on earth had gone on. She looked down at her flute on the office floor and as much as she tried, she failed to reach out and grab it. She had no clue of how her flute got outside the frame but she had no way to play away her sorrows. So all she did was wait, until the clown, who was the last thing she remembered returned to speak with her again. At least it knew that she had a purpose.

Chapter Text

The same afternoon that Stanley had been almost eaten alive by Judith, Ben was in the local library, adding the finishing touches to a project that was due the following day. A slam of a book on the table in-front of him made him jump.

"Found it." The rather short librarian huffed. She had square reading glasses that sat on the end of her nose, short blonde hair and she wouldn't have been the skinniest of people. Probably in her late sixties and she reeked of cigarette smoke.

"It's the weekend, I thought you'd be ready to take a break from the books." She said, licking her chapped lips.

"Nah, I like it in here." Ben shrugged, looking up to meet her eyes that pierced through him like daggers.

"Don't you have any friends?" She asked, her face slightly softening.

Ben thought this woman was extremely intrusive and pushy. She always was wondering about him. Why he was always in the library. Ben always wondered why she cared so much, it wasn't any of her business. So he swiftly avoided the question and looked away. She got the message and tapped the hardcover book twice with her fingers and walked away, the echo of her heels clicking off the wooden floors.

Ben pulled the rather heavy book across the table in-front of him. The book was all about the history of old Derry, dating back as far as the early 1700's. Ben has recently moved here and wanted to find out a little bit more about the town, he'd heard about the children that went missing but he couldn't believe on top of the missing children that recently disappeared, the amount of mysterious deaths and disappearances there have been in Derry over the past one-hundred years.

He opened the book and flicked through some of the pages. The first few pages being about grand openings of buildings and businesses. But then he came across a page that had more pages to follow on about the same event.

The Easter Egg Hunt celebration at the Derry Iron Works, April 3rd 1908.

The photos were all black and white. Children and parents with arms full of Easter eggs and one girl even had a puppy in her arms. Ben focused in on a particular boy in the photograph, he looked oddly like Ben. But it wasn't him, his family had no history in Derry, his eyes were just playing tricks on him.

On the next page, was a large photograph of a newspaper article from the Derry Herald.

'Easter explosion kills 88 children, 102 in total'

Across from that page were photographs of the lifeless bodies after the explosion. It saddened Ben to see such awful things happen to mostly children his own age. He kept flicking through the pages, a photograph of a bare, large tree was a few pages overleaf. As he kept turning the pages the same picture kept cropping up, each zooming closer and closer to a specific branch on the tree.

The pictures got closer and closer until Ben realized that the branch was holding something that was balancing on it. A head, a child's head. Not just any child though. The child who was in the previous photo that looked just. like. Ben.

Ben was so terrified by the site of the head without a body that he inhaled sharply and slammed the book shut. A quiet, almost melodic tune started to play, like the one you'd hear in a music box. Ben wasn't sure if the tune was in his head, or if it was real.

He turned to see if anyone was playing music, everyone else was engrossed in their books and didn't seem to be taking any notice of Ben or the music. Ben's mouth fell open when a bright red balloon floated gently, in time with the music across the room and in through an open door.

Ben stood and followed the balloon, he looked through the open door and the balloon was gone. On top of the few steps there was up to the next level of the library which was currently dormant, was a small red Easter egg with yellow polka dots on it. A small sliver of smoke emerged from the egg. It was like the smoke was drugged, instead of making Ben run it made him walk.

Towards it.

He walked right up to it and looked down on the dinky little egg. A shrill of children's laughter came from another dark doorway which lead down to the storeroom, where only staff were allowed go.

The laughter pulled Ben even closer, he walked past the egg and across the room into the dark doorway. He wandered slowly down two flights of stairs until both his feet we firmly on the bottom basement floor of the storeroom.

The library was full of books but the storeroom had wall-to-wall books all around with shelves creating aisles (in alphabetical order) that made it easier for staff to find certain books. Ben noticed another Easter egg, a yellow one with green polka dots this time on the floor a little ahead of him. The same mysterious smoke emerging from it.

Ben decided to pick up the egg, the minute he did so the lights in the storeroom flickered. The same childish laugh as before rung out in Ben's ears. Ben went deeper into the aisles and the lights stoped flickering and stayed off. The only light coming from a green energy saving light overhead. Then something dropped behind him- another Easter egg this time purple with orange polka dots. The shell was smashed and the contents- a grey slime was on the floor.

Ben's eyes trailed up the stairs. A figure stood at the top. The same height and build as Ben and possibly the same age. Ben couldn't see past the figures collarbones from where he was standing, he hid behind a concrete pillar and watched from the darkness. The figure didn't hesitate in walking forward down each step one at a time. Ben noticed that in the figures arms were a bundle of Easter eggs. When his eyes trailed back up the approaching individuals body he noticed something harrowing.

The body was headless.

The body belonged to the boy in the book that lost his head, that boy was him.

Ben gasped and stared at his mirror headless image as it stopped moving once it reached the hard concrete floor. It hadn't got a head but Ben knew it could see him. The figure let its arms fall to its side, all the eggs came tumbling to the ground and cracked, producing the same grey slime as the one Ben had seen before had.

The body took another step forward and stopped, it's right foot turned inwards. The figure moved its hands cracking all the bones before shuddering forward like it was about to crumble to pieces.

But it wasn't. It was chasing after Ben.

Ben gasped and ran deeper into the aisles of books and around every corner, trying to desperately lose the individual that was hot on his heels everytime he turned around. Smoke, like the Easter eggs drifted from the neck like a peaceful chimney would execute the smoke into the still night.

Ben kept running, even though he was just doing laps of the room he was determined to beat this monster.

"Hey Eggboy!" A deep, raspy voice spoke and when Ben turned around the body was fine but in its place was something much worse.

A clown.

Razor sharp teeth, yellow eyes, red hair and a white painted face with red lines trailing vertically down over Its eyes, stopping at the corners of his mouth that was also painted red.

The clown screamed like a banshee and continued bolting for Ben who was breathlessly running for his life. Gym class wasn't his strong point in school. Ben didn't stop running until he ran into the librarian who was walking slowly down the stairs with an arm full of books. The books tumbled to the ground among where the cracked eggs were no longer there.

"What the hell do you think you're doing down here?!" She growled, fixing her glasses on her face. Ben turned behind him, the clown was gone but if he said he was being chased by a clown, the librarian would have thought him as psychotic. So he looked at her, she whom was still waiting on an explaining to his actions.

Ben said nothing, he just pushed past the short woman and ran up the stairs. He'd never be coming back to the library again, he'd use the internet from now on.
______________
________________________________

Mike Hanlon, the newest member before Scarlett to the losers club. His parents died when he was a young child and he never got over the trauma their death had caused him. He related to being orphaned like Scarlett, but at least Mike knew what happened to his parents. Scarlett did not.

Mike and his parents lived in a house in a more quiet area of Derry. Unfortunately not long after they moved in, the house caught fire and went up like a match. Burning everything to ash except for Mike who was saved by one of the neighbors.

His parents were only young when they died. Mike still remembered the smoke that flooded out from under the bedroom door, the pounding and pleading screams for mercy from his parents as the flames licked their bodies. When Mike was pulled out of the burning house, he watched the upstairs floor creak and crack and fall asunder as the fire was winning the war.

Mike didn't really remember much about his parents, but he remembered how they died like it was yesterday. He didn't even have so much as a photograph to remember them by.

Mike now lived on the outskirts of Derry on his grandfather's meat farm. He'd learnt pretty fast that everything had a sell by date, even the tires of the tractor. His grandfather taught him how to not have feelings when he killed.

"No matter how sad it looks at you boy, don't get sucked in by it. Just pulled the trigger!" His grandfather snarled in his ear on the day of his first kill. His hand shook so violently that he feared missing the sheep's head altogether.

After years more of doing the same thing he got used to it. He became a robot, every animal that came into that farm was their for a purpose, when that purpose came it got Mike's bullet between the eyes.

The basket on the front of Mike's bike rattled, full of meat produce for the local butchers in the town. The red packaging made mike feel sick as he once knew the animal who's remains were sealed in those packages.

The roads were quiet, for a Sunday in Derry it was unusual since there was always something happening. Mike found life difficult, it wasn't easy for him being the kid at school whose parents died and their deaths were newspaper headlines. Everyone knew, the horrible people made fun of him. He had been known to stick out because of his dark skin. This made him perfect bait for bullies like Bowers and Hockstetter.

Mike had heard about Patrick Hockstetter's disappearance after Ben was attack by him and Bowers. He felt a sense of relief that he had yet to be found, he knew it was a horrible thing to feel but he felt it. When Hockstetter was gone, Henry Bowers was weaker.

The breaks of his bike screeched as they brought it to a halt against a lamppost in the town, right outside the butchers. Mike dismounted and placed his hand on the red packages in the bike basket. A car horn and the rev of an engine made him look up. The tanned, muscular arm that was hanging out the open window of the car that was approaching down the street, slowly, made Mike's eyes widen.

Henry Bowers and his two other friends. Mike didn't even know their names, and they're not important. But he knew they were driving around in search for Patrick, or some poor unfortunate soul to pick on. Mike grabbed the bike handles and quickly wheeled the bike into a nearby alleyway down the side of the butchers shop. He crouched down behind a dumpster and watched the small, roofless, blue mustang slowly drive by the alleyway.

Mike waited a moment before letting out a sigh of relief and coming out of his hiding spot. He propped his bike against the wall and went back to sorting through the parcels. He had his back turned to back entrance door of the butchers shop. The door looked weak, made from wood with rusty chain that wasn't even keeping the door locked. Anyone could've got in.

The chain rattled slightly, Mike turned to look at it. Nobody was there. Not a single soul. It was probably just the wind. A loud bang from the inside of the door made the chain rattle more severely and Mike jump backwards. It went silent once again. Mike didn't take his eyes off that door. As much as he wanted to do so, he couldn't.

Screams started to emerge from behind the door as some half incinerated hands and arms stuck out through the small opening in the door. These weren't just any screams of terror.
Mike knew these screams, he remembered them.

"MIKE GO!" A voice screamed as the burning limbs were being surrounded by a red glow.

"PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP US!"

His parents voices echoed in his head as he stood and watched those limbs flailing about from behind the door. Desperate to break free. Just like his parents were that night. The screaming stopped and the arms were sucked back in behind the door. Smoke trailed through the cracks so delicately that it was like cigarette smoke.

The chain was snapped by the hard impact of the door being kicked open. It swung back to reveal nobody standing behind it. A dark passage way was in site through the door, with a lit room at the very end behind a plastic fly screen. A haunting, strangled laugh emerged from a figure Mike noticed that was standing in the lit room. This laugh was followed by the deep bellowing call of a sheep and a lamb before being separated for slaughter.

The figure in the room turned its head. Mike couldn't see the face, only the outline of a tall porcelain white figure with orange hair. This strange figure saw Mike, he knew it had clocked him standing there as its whole body turned in his direction. The figure lifted its right hand and slowly waved at the terrified Mike who was now trembling with fear. The figure's eyes lit up a burning red much the same as the red he'd just saw with the limbs behind the door. What was this creature?

The loud scream of tires and blaring music made Mike snap his head away from viewing the mysterious figure behind the fly screen. The blue mustang that Bowers and his buddies were in earlier was coming straight for him. Mike stubbled backwards and fell into a pile of cardboard boxes with shock, he just lay there as the blue mustang screeched to a halt in front of him. Henry stood up in his seat and took a drag from his cigarette before flicking it at the petrified Mike. The cigarette burnt Mike on the arm as it hit him and fell to the floor, quickly extinguishing itself.

"STAY THE FUCK OUTTA MY TOWN!" Henry roared at Mike before sitting back down in the front seat as the car sped off, down the alleyway and turned onto a neighboring street. Mike still lay in shock. The commotion had alerted the butcher from the shop. He came out through the back door wearing a blood covered apron and wiping his bloody hands with a dirty rag.

"Mike, are you okay?" The butcher asked. But all Mike could do was swallow the lump in his throat and stare, wide eyed and breathless back at him.

Chapter Text

Today was the day. Scarlett and the rest of the losers were going down to The Barrens to try see if they could catch a glimpse of this creature that was terrifying everyone in Derry. Scarlett was in a lecture, this lecture was not one she cared about much as it was only once a week. She watched the busy car park from below, subconsciously twisting her small sapphire stud in her cartilage. The losers had agreed to go monster hunting today as they'd have a better chance of catching it off guard. But what Scarlett didn't know was that this creature had visited all the losers over the past few days. She was next.

Bill described what he saw as a clown, that day in his basement. Scarlett feared clowns and was breaking out into a cold sweat just thinking about those creepy bastards. She put her head in her hands for a moment, her lavender hair falling down around her face. She was glad she only had one class today and it was almost over, it wasn't even lunchtime yet meaning she had a little bit of time to kill before meeting up with the rest of the losers.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, making her take her head out of her hands and look at the professor, who was occupied by writing notes on the PowerPoint they were using. She slipped her phone from her pocket and read the text message, smiling to herself when she read the sender's name.

From Cyrus:

Hey girl! Fancy a Starbucks?! Catalina and I were just on our way there. I've texted the twins and Eliza also, they're on their way too! :)

Scarlett had known Cyrus for as long as she could remember. He was training to be a hairdresser in the north wing of the college, he actually was the one who dyed Scarlett's hair purple for her. In return, Scarlett taught him how to blend his eyeshadow to create the perfect cut crease with eyeliner and some sexy lashes. Cyrus has practised makeup so much that he had become better at it than Scarlett was herself; she still took the credit for teaching him all he needed to know.

To Cyrus:

Of course! I'd love too! I'm in serious need of caffeine! Be there in about 20 minutes. :)

Moments later, she got a reply back.

From Cyrus:

Lush! See you soon! Xx

The lecture ended a little while later and Scarlett couldn't have been happier. She threw her bag over her shoulder and made her way to the main entrance of the college; she couldn't help but take in every detail of the land on the walk to Starbucks. A part of her deep down did fear that if her and the losers did find this monster that it would kill her and them. She even left a note on her kitchen counter for Cyrus as he had a key for her apartment and knew how to care for Penny, for fear something did happen to her.

She arrived outside Starbucks about ten minutes later and smiled to herself to see Cyrus's blue Mini Cooper parked, snuggly beside Anastasia and Noah's (or the twins as they were also known as) shiny black pickup truck. Cyrus's Cooper was decked out with a fuzzy hot pink steering wheel cover and pink matching fuzzy dice, that hung from the rear view mirror. The seat covers were leopard print and he had a pride flag sticker, stuck onto the back of the small car. Eliza lived only five minutes walk away from basically everything in the town, so like Scarlett, she didn't need to invest in a car. Without the expense of a car, Scarlett still had to keep her apartment running; bills needed paying, she needed food and now she had little Penny to care for. So Scarlett still worked her backside off at the local seamstress. Scarlett worked there on the days she didn't have college which were only the weekends but she got well paid for her skills, she had her mother to thank for that.

The small tinkle of the bell above the door made a few people look up as she entered the small Starbucks. Some people even looked twice at her because of her hair colour. She'd grown used to people staring. She looked up and pulled at the sleeve of her oversized sweater and shivered, wishing she'd worn normal jeans instead of ripped ones. The cold wasn't a friend of hers. The small tatted looking booth down in the bottom right hand corner of the shop was where she was headed. She saw the bleached blonde hair of Cyrus sitting next to Catalina, who moved here five years ago from Madrid and was the most beautiful woman Scarlett has ever seen. Her Spanish, sun kissed skin and dark brown eyes with similar coloured waist length hair would make any guy drool over her. She wasn't cocky about her appearance, and Scarlett liked that sense of reserve about her.

The twins, Anastasia and Noah sat across from them. The identical twins were, well they were identical. Both with bright blue eyes and soft "farmers tan" skin as they called it with light blonde hair. They were farmers, sheep and pig farmers and would work closely in contact with Mike's grandfather, who's farm was just a couple of miles away from Noah and Anastasia's. Anastasia has dyed her blonde hair with some brown lowlights in it. She "didn't want to look exactly like Noah" even though she still was the spit of him. Beside the twins sat Eliza, an English girl with the thickest English accent Scarlett had ever heard. She was from London, and was the most fair skinned of the group with shoulder length dyed red hair that matched her red framed glasses, shielding her green eyes from harm. She was training to be a hairdresser in the same class as Cyrus, so they were both very chatty and loved everything to do with hair, fashion and makeup. But Eliza was also the smallest of the group possibly about 5'4 but she always wore heels to boost the height; failing as the rest of the group still towered over her.

As Scarlett walked up to the table and slid into the booth beside Cyrus, he was the first to speak.

"Hey babe! I got you your usual, caramel cream Frappuccino." He smiled, handing the small plastic cup with her favourite drink inside it.

"You are a star, thank you." Scarlett replied, noticing Cyrus's metal straw that was in his drink instead of the plastic, dark green Starbucks own brand ones. "Nice go see you're saving the environment." She noted, nodding towards the drink on the table which made Cyrus grin.

"Thank you Scarlett, Noah was just criticising me over it. Saying I was a born again VSCO girl, I gotta save the turtles babes."

"That's because you are amigo. You're entire Instagram page is edited through VSCO." Catalina giggled in her thick Spanish accent, shoving his arm playfully. "Next you will have a hydra flask to match your bright yellow straw case, ¿sí?"

"Catalina babe, I'm one step ahead of you." Cyrus said, clicking his tongue as he lifted his yellow rucksack onto his lap and pulled out his bright yellow hydra flask that, did in fact, match his yellow straw case. It was safe to say that Cyrus liked yellow.

"So, how're things with you Scarlett?" Eliza smiled as she swirled the ice around in her drink. "How's that gorgeous little kitten of yours?!"

"Oh, Penny? She's doing great!" Scarlett replied, taking a small sip from her own drink, "She definitely knows how to keep you on your toes, that's for sure." She laughed, looking up to see Anastasia looking shocked and then the shock turned to sadness as she looked up to meet Scarlett's eyes from her phone screen. "Ana, what's wrong?"

"The body in the canal, it wasn't that girl's body that went missing recently..." Anastasia mumbled, sadly placing her phone down on the table.

"Oh, her poor parents. I can't imagine what they're going through right now." Noah sighed, placing a wooden stirring stick between his index finger and thumb, flicking it across the table at Catalina who glared at him and mumbled what was most likely a string of swear words in Spanish under her breath.

"Who are we talking about? I never heard of another person go missing after Patrick Hockstetter!?" Scarlett said, looking at the twins for an answer.

"Betty Ripsom, she went missing about ten days before Patrick did. Her parents have had search parties out at all hours of the day and night looking for her. Somebody saw a body of a girl floating, face down in the river under the kissing bridge. They thought it could be Betty. Turns out it wasn't." Anastasia shrugged. "Horrible way to die really, that's if she is dead. Which by now, and I know this sounds cruel. But I hope she is. I'd rather it have been suicide or a fast murder than her being captured and beaten within an inch of her life by some gang in the city, possibly used for drug dealing or anything. What a horrible life that would be, I'd rather be dead."

"Alright, Anastasia we get it." Eliza said. "You never know, she may have just ran away to the next town."

Scarlett did in fact remember seeing a missing poster for both Patrick and a girl called Betty, on a lamppost while she was walking to college one morning. She knew of Patrick for being such a little prick. But she never knew Betty. She must've have been around the same age as the other losers, possibly in the same class at school as them. She'd find out more about her from them, she needed to know roughly how many people were going missing on a weekly basis, for fear that she would become one of them.

"Who was the girl? The one in the river?" Catalina purred, rolling her r's in the smooth Spanish accent as she looked at Anastasia.

"A girl identified as Hope Furlong, she'd been missing for about six months."

"She was in my class at school." Cyrus whispered, "A nice girl, I didn't know her that well but she asked to borrow a pencil once. She also stuck up for me, when the jocks of the year were making fun of me for being gay."

"Do you think it was... ya know... a murder?" Catalina whispered.

"I don't know," Scarlett sighed a defeated sigh. "I just pray for Hope's sake.. that her death was quick."

The whole group nodded with agreement. A wave of sadness passing over Derry with the news of every corpse or personal belonging found of the missing. Many people had moved out of Derry, since the death rate was so high and mysterious; nobody wanted to be next to die. Scarlett stayed quiet and her right hand started to absentmindedly twist her industrial piercing in her ear, her silence caught the attention of Cyrus and Noah, who looked at each other and then a Scarlett. She didn't even notice them staring until Cyrus took a final sip from his drink and spoke up.

"So Miss York, any plans for this evening?"

Scarlett panicked. She'd only know all the losers a few days and she didn't want her own group of friends to look down upon her for going with a group of fourteen year olds down to The Barrens. She knew they'd freak. Not because of her hanging around with teenagers, but the fact that she was going exploring The Barrens of all places in Derry. Especially because they all know what happened to her parents, and how close she was to little Georgie. So she casually left out the part about her trip being pre-planned and replied with.

"Oh, I was going to go down the The Barrens to lay some more flowers on my parents memorial stones."

Cyrus almost choked on his drink at the mention of The Barrens, the rest of her friends looked at her with concern and fright. "Do you want us to come with you? The last thing we need is you going missing, I don't think I'd cope without you." He asked.

"No, thank you, this is something I need to do by myself. I need to walk down there and see where they died with my own eyes, beforehand I was broken down and still distraught over their deaths. Now it's getting easier, it's something I need to do, for them." Scarlett replied, standing up and picking up the now empty cup of hers and tossing it into the nearby rubbish bin. She needed to get out of there for fear that if she stayed longer that Cyrus might pin her down to prevent her from going to The Barrens alone. She knew he and the others meant well, but Scarlett wasn't going to let this monster kill more people; whatever it was Scarlett was going to find it. So instead of being rude to them she politely excused herself by saying, "I'll text our group chat later, I have someone I need to meet beforehand." before leaving the group in utter confusion as they watched her exit the Starbucks.
_________________________________________

"That's poison ivy, that's poison ivy and that's poison ivy."

"Where? Where's the poison ivy?!" Eddie panicked, looking around at every shrub that was growing.

"Jesus Stanley, not every bush down here is poison ivy!" Richie snapped, before entering the little tunnel that was waterlogged to the knees of everyone. Scarlett and Bill had ventured further into the tunnel, about five meters ahead of Richie with their flashlights as they examined the graffiti on the sewer walls. "Aren't you guys coming in?" Richie asked, raising a brow at Stanley, Eddie, Beverly, Ben and Mike who were all stood at the entrance looking wide eyed at the three beaver group members that had ventured into the tunnel.

"No way. It's greywater." Eddie rambled.

"What the hell is greywater?" Richie sighed a defeated sigh at his germaphobe buddy.

"It's basically just piss and shit. So I'm just telling you, you guys are splashing around in millions of gallons of Derry pee." Eddie replied.

"Doesn't smell like anything to me." Richie sniggered, grabbing a stick and pulling a sheet of plastic from the grubby water and giving it a sniff.

"Wait are you serious?!" Eddie exclaimed. "I can smell that from here!"

"That's probably just your breath wafting back into your face." Richie mused.

"Unbelievable. Have you ever heard of a staph infection?!"

"Oh I'll show you a staph infection in a minute now."

"You guys!" Beverly snapped, venturing into the sewer after Bill and Scarlett, her feet sloshing in the water as she walked. "Pack it in for fucks sake."

The two boys looked at her and then at each other with a scowl. Out of the corner of Scarlett's eye she saw Bill bend down into the murky water and pull a shoe from it. He emptied the water from it and examined it with the light from his flashlight. He turned to face the rest of the losers, the sudden sloshing of the water made them all turn and look at him before Stanley spoke up with a squeaky voice that was riddled with fear.

"Shit, don't tell me that's—"

"No, G-Georgie wore rain b-boots." Bill whispered.

"Who does it belong too?" Beverly asked, flicking some slime that had fallen from the ceiling of the sewer off her arm in disgust.

Bill looked inside the shoe and in black marker was a name that couldn't be read properly without decent light, he shone his flashlight into the shoe and dropped the shoe and stumbled backwards like the shoe had electrocuted him.

"Bill! What the hell is wrong!?" Scarlett asked as she wrapped her arm around his shaking figure.

"The s-s-shoe!" Bill stuttered with wide eyes as Ben walked into the sewer and fished the shoe from the water, using Bill's flashlight to read the name. He sighed before dropping the shoe back into the water and looking around at everyone.

"It's Betty Ripsom's shoe." He said softly as everyone gasped but stood still, nobody even dared speak, as everyone's eyes fell upon Beverly. Her lip trembled as the tears streamed from her eyes.

"Betty, I was so hopeful she'd be alive!" Beverly sobbed as Mike wrapped her in a hug. "She was my best friend in the whole wide world! Why did she have to do this to me?!"

"Hey," Scarlett cooed, "I'm sure Betty has a perfectly valid reason for her disappearance, she doesn't sound like the type of person to just take off without a reason. Something is up, we won't rest until we find her."

"I'm really scared, I don't like it down here." Stanley whimpered.

"Jesus, imagine how poor Betty feels, running around down here with only one frickin shoe?!" Richie laughed as he hopped around on one foot.

"Shut up Richie, can't you see Beverly is upset enough!" Ben snapped.

"I'm just saying! If she's not down here she's most likely lying in a ditch, all decomposed and covered in worms and maggots smelling like Eddie's mom's underwear!" Richie continued.

"Shut up!" Eddie squealed.

Scarlett shone her flashlight further into the darkness of the sewer and narrowed her eyes as at the end she saw an opening into another part of the sewer. She turned to face the others and motioned towards the depths of the sewer. "I'm going in so who's coming?" She shrugged. Eddie, Richie, Ben and Stanley all shook their heads in decline frantically.

"I will." Beverly sniffled as she walked towards Scarlett.

"I will t-t-too, I w-want to find G-Georgie." Bill said.

"I'll go, keep y'all company." Mike smiled. "Leave the pussy cats here to keep watch."

The four boys had no problem being called pussy cats as they ventured back out of the sewer into the daylight of The Barrens. Bill, Scarlett, Beverly and Mike all sloshed through the water deeper and deeper into the sewer. A few rats scuttled ahead of them and down another section of the sewer. The deeper they went the darker it got and the more freaked out Scarlett got. They came to a split in the sewer, the main part they were in split into four segments that each led a different way into the depths of the sewer. The gentle flow of water around their legs was the only sound that was being made besides their breathing.

"Which way?" Mike asked as Scarlett shone her flashlight down each tunnel.

"They all look the same, I'm taking they will all lead into a loop." Scarlett shrugged.

"Sh!" Beverly hissed. "Do you hear that?!"

"Hear w-what?" Bill asked, raising an eyebrow.

A faint but growing sound of gushing water was echoing through the tunnels. It sounded like it was moving at high speed but it wasn't until they saw a demolishing tidal wave rumbling down the sewer that they all started to panic. Before they could scream the wave of water hit, sending all four of them under in its mighty force. Scarlett surfaced quickly gasping for air as she saw Bill, Beverly and Mike all getting sucked under and carried down a separate tunnel. The force of the water sucked Scarlett under again as it carried her along the tunnels as she kicked and thrashed around in desperation for air. She knew she was going to die here, she resurfaced and screamed out with all her strength she had left. She counted each pipe on the ceiling a milestone in her survival every time she resurfaced after being sucked under again she saw a figure, squatting low on one of the pipes over head a little further down the sewer.

She couldn't see exactly who or what this was, but she felt a sense of relief when she saw the figure bend down further and hold out its arm to her. She was sure she had seen its eyes glow golden but she was too busy trying to survive to look again. She held out her arm as the gushing water pulled her under again, she felt something grab her arm, stopping her from being carried any further. She was lifted from the water but before her head surfaced she inhaled water, her lungs filled with fluid and aches as she was too weak to cough. So her body gave in and fell into a deep state of unconsciousness as she was lifted from the water by the mysterious figure.

Chapter Text

The water rushed around the flailing bodies of Bill, Beverly and Mike who were desperate to surface and catch their breath. But the water was stronger and way more violent than any three of their swimming strengths put together. Bill felt his whole body go limp in the hold of the water, he had lost his strength to thrash about and his body was giving up. Just as he was about to give in, he felt himself hit a ray of daylight and begin to fall. Fast. He opened his eyes to see the deep waters of the gorge beneath him awaiting to catch his fall. He hit the water and sank down into the darkness before resurfacing, coughing up the water that was choking his lungs. Beverly and Mike soon surfaced after him wheezing and coughing desperately for air.

"What the fuck! I thought we were goners for sure!" Mike wheezed as he tried to stay afloat by lying on his back in the water to give his limbs a rest.

"Is that what you wanted?! For us all to die!?" Beverly snapped, pushing her curly red hair from her eyes.

Before Mike could reply, the two were distracted by Bill thrashing around in the water. Diving down and resurfacing, frantically trying to catch his breath he looked at Mike and Beverly who at this point had made the discovery of who was missing from their group.

Scarlett.
__________________________________________

Scarlett's eyes fluttered open, irises adjusting to the dim light she groaned as her head throbbed. She lay on her side on a soggy floor, water draining from her nose and mouth slowly with the sound of gushing water nearby. She turned her head. A faint, blurred figure with orange, frizzy hair stood with its back to her, white gloved hands the figure threw its head back and groaned. As Scarlett's vision cleared and she gained enough energy to sit up straight using her hand to steady herself. She shuffled into a cross legged position; eyes staying on the tall figure who had now bent down and was rummaging through a pile of junk on the floor.

She looked around. Still in the sewer, she knew that but she had no idea there were clearings as big as this. She thought the sewers were just continuous tunnels that travelled under the city and lead to god only knows where. But she was mistaken. Very mistaken. As she looked up, to her horror was a massive junk pile full of everything and anything you could want from a scrap yard. Above the junk pile, floating slowly around in circles were half mangled corpses. Children's corpses. Well over one-hundred bodies floated around the top of that pile being held up by some sort of force?

Scarlett was beyond petrified, she shook from the cold and the fear as she watched the figure rise and hold up a cracked mirror and examine itself in the reflection. This creature was a clown. Scarlett's fear of clowns began to throng through her body. Is this the creature that has been responsible for all those missing children and possibly the death of her parents?! The clown let out a high pitched giggle as it admired its facial features. White face with large red lines that started from the forehead and went down over the eyes, across the cheeks and connected to the same shade of red that over lined the lips. A red circle painted on the nose and bright blue eyes. Scarlett listened in silence as the clown began a conversation with itself, unaware of her eyes watching it.

"Good evening Pennywise! How are you? Is that a new jumpsuit? I like what you did with collar it's a nice touch. Oh thank you very much it's new and I thought I'd give it a spruce up!"

The clowns antics made Scarlett subconsciously gasp. It didn't go without saying that the clown heard her small gasp and was staring at her in the reflection of the mirror. When their eyes met the clown gave her a forked smile and let the mirror fall from its gloved hand and smash onto the sewer floor. It turned around and watched her, quivering and on the verge of tears. The clown's smile faded once it saw the fear riddled in Scarlett's eyes as she shook. It bounced over to her and Scarlett used all her strength to push herself backwards, whimpering until her back hit the wall. She was trapped.

The air was so thin down here Scarlett could barely breathe. The clown looked down upon her with sympathy before it sat down directly in-front of her on the floor and tilted its head to one side, studying her face. Scarlett hugged her legs to her chest as tight as she could; her eyes still never left the clown's ones. The clown reached out to touch her, she was too frightened to pull away as she watched its gloved hand touch her lavender hair and examine it before letting go and returning its hand back to its lap.

Hot tears streamed down her face as she whimpered, her nails digging into her shins for sure leaving little bruise marks; the clown kept staring at her, it inhaled and looked down into its lap. It looked back up at her. "Why is your hair that funny colour?" The clown asked, in a more serious but still quirky tone.

Scarlett froze, she didn't even dare breathe. She was so petrified of the creature that sat before her that she just wanted to pinch herself and wake up in her nice, warm bed with Penny deeply purring on the pillow next to her. She decided that the easiest way to not be killed was to try and befriend the clown, just being polite and answering its question might give her a few extra moments on earth with a pulse.

"I-I dyed it that colour because I liked it on a model I saw on YouTube." She replied, the clown smiled, happy that she had replied and wasn't going to be difficult. The clowns face fell again with a look of confusion.

"What's YouTube?"

"A website where you can watch videos of anything. Funny videos, cat videos, makeup videos, hair videos—"

"Cat videos!" The clown cut in. "I like cats. So soft and cuddly."

"Please!" Scarlett began to sob. "If you're going to eat me, please, just get it over with.. I don't want to suffer."

The clown threw its head back and howled with laughter at her comment. Scarlett curled deeper into herself waiting for the mighty teeth of the clown to clench down on her. But they didn't. She looked up again to see the clown still looking at her, over its laughing fit it was still staring. What was its problem?!

"I'm not going to eat you," The clown giggled after a few painful moments of silence. "Trust me, I've been down the road of adults before; they just don't taste as good as the kids do. The adults are, well, more mature both physically and mentally. They're tougher to chew. Does awful things to the teeth."

"Why did you pull me from the water?" Scarlett asked, a little bit more confident than before, now she knew that she had a lower chance of being eaten.

"What's your name?" The clown asked, ignoring her previous question. Scarlett thought that it avoided her question because it simply didn't know the answer or it didn't want her to know. Maybe the second option was for the best in her position.

"Scarlett," she replied. "How about you?"

"Well Scarlett, I'm Pennywise The Dancing Clown!" Pennywise giggled, the giggle was what made her blood run cold. So innocent and lighthearted, but so evil and wicked as well. Scarlett was still unsure of why the clown really pulled her from the water, if it wanted to eat her, she was sure it would've by now.

Scarlett shifted uncomfortably but cautiously as to not startle the clown and be eaten. She wasn't as frightened now, she sort of felt sorry for the clown who seemed to just want a friend just why did that friend need to be her?

"Listen, um... Pennywise, I need to get out of here." Scarlett whispered.

"Why?"

"I have a cat that needs feeding, bills that need paying and a college degree that needs my attention."

"Why the rush?"

Scarlett didn't know what to say, this thing wasn't going to back down without a fight; she could make a run for it, but to where? She had no clue what part of the city she was under. A sloshing noise came from the left entrance of the lair, this noise was followed by a soft grumbling noise almost like someone was swearing gently under their breath.

Another human?! How could it be? Maybe it was one of the losers?! Here to rescue her from the violent state of this monster before her.

Oh how wrong she was.

Scarlett let out a scream that made the clown's eyes widen as it looked over to where she was looking. A tall figure stood in the lair watching them while it held a red plastic washing basket full of white clown outfits. The figure had shoulder length black hair and was wearing a yellow t-shirt that had a picture of Tom the cat on it from the children's cartoon Tom and Jerry. It wore blue jeans with rips in places, like Scarlett's except baggier and also a pair of black work boots that had no laces in them.

"Ahh! You've finished the lot! My goodness you work fast!" Pennywise smiled a forked smile at the figure who just stared at the clown getting up and pacing towards it. "Scarlett, come here, I want you to meet my little friend."

Scarlett quickly scrambled to her feet, not wanting to irritate the clown in anyway shape or form so she simply obeyed the clown's orders and was slowly approaching the figure. Once she was within a few feet of it she was getting a closer look at it, this figure was in fact once a person. A male most likely who was half decomposed but yet still breathing and functioning perfectly. She stood cautiously by the clown's side as the figure watched her every move.

This person had skin like tissue paper, a sickly pale green colour that she could see through almost right down to the bone, it had one eye that was completely white while the other was missing so there was just a hole. The skin of the face had small holes in it, worm holes that had been dug into the skin over time telling Scarlett that this person had been dead for some time. Or maybe not as it was standing in-front of her. The person was missing part of its bottom lip and was shockingly only missing one tooth, as the rest were all there and pretty healthy looking.

"Patrick, this is Scarlett, she will be staying with us for awhile and I expect you to be polite and courteous to her, just like you are to me." Pennywise said to the figure who was now called Patrick.

Patrick dropped the basket to his feet and stuck out his right hand to shake Scarlett's. She cautiously shook his hand with her own and smiled politely while internally screaming as his half decomposed hand wrapped around her own and squeezed it. Patrick also had a strong smell of rotting flesh coming from him which didn't help Scarlett's stomach feel any less sick than it was feeling right now.

Scarlett knew exactly who Patrick was. He was none other than Patrick Hockstetter, who had been missing for the past number of weeks. Well mission complete, he was found.

"Patrick would you be so kind as to make our guest some tea? I think she needs something to heat her up." Pennywise nodded at Scarlett who was shaking from the wet clothes that were stuck to her body.

Patrick mumbled under his breath as he went to turn away to leave the lair to follow to clown's order but Pennywise stopped him in his tracks by saying, "Woah mister, you watch your language when we have female company... you know what? Forget the tea, I'll make it. Patrick go get your stool and sit in the corner, you get time out for that behaviour."

Patrick turned and stared at Pennywise before spitting on the ground and walking over to one of the junk piles, yanking a small, red wooden stool from it before taking it to the corner and sitting on it facing the wall. Pennywise turned to Scarlett who was still trying to process the fact that there was a dead, but very much alive body wandering around before her eyes before saying,

"Now, tea, one sugar or two?"

Chapter Text

"Scarlett! I swear to god if I break one of my nails from pounding my fist on your damn door I will murder you!" Cyrus shouted as he banged on the front door of Scarlett's apartment.

Meow!

"Penny! Babe! It's alright, uncle Cyrus is coming!" Cyrus cooed to the little kitten as he fumbled in his bag for the spare key to Scarlett's apartment. Once finding it, he let himself in to the apartment that looked like nobody was home. Well, except for Penny.

Penny sat in the hallway, he head tilted until she realised that her favorite uncle had come to see her! She trotted over and frantically brushed against his legs. She ran into the kitchen and desperately tried to climb the cupboard handles to get onto the counter where her cat pouches were kept.

"Woah, little one hold on. Let me help you." Cyrus chuckled, scooping the small creature up and placing her on the counter. Penny brushed herself against the food box impatiently as Cyrus topped up her dry nuts bowl and gave her some wet food on a saucer. He couldn't find her water bowl, so he grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it right to the top with water and placed it next to Penny, who was merrily purring and shoving her face deeper into the meaty substance on the saucer.

He noticed a sheet of paper with Scarlett's handwriting scrawled across it on the small kitchen table. He picked it up.

Cyrus,

If you're reading this you've noticed that I'm not home and probably haven't been for a while. Please look after Penny. When I met you and the rest of the group in Starbucks and I told you guys I was going to my parents memorial stones. I lied. I went to The Barrens with a boy I used to babysit and a girl who lives in the apartment directly above me and their group of friends. I wanted to see what I could discover down there, if there really was a monster. If I am dead, please don't mourn for me. It was my own stupid fault and I don't want you guys to endanger yourselves by coming to look for me.

Don't go to the girl in the flat above, she lives with her father who is abusive and let's say...extremely homophobic and I don't want you getting abused. Remember that I love you and that you'll always be my number one hoe! Also give Penny loads of kisses for me.

All my love,

Scarlett xxx

Cyrus stood in complete and utter shock. The paper fell from his hands and fluttered across the floor. His hands covered his mouth and nose as tears fell from his eyes; collapsing into the dingy kitchen chair he just sobbed as the most unimaginable thoughts raced through his mind. His best friend could be half mangled in a ditch somewhere and there's nothing he can do about it. After the shock subsided a little bit, he pulled out his phone and called Catalina.

"Catalina, babe," he whispered once she picked up. "We have a problem."
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Scarlett's eyes fluttered open, she had gotten tired after everything. She was lying on a rotten blanket on the sewer floor that made her want to wretch with the smell, or maybe it was just the smell coming from her. The smell of garbage, the smell of shit, and the smell of something else. Something worse than either. It was the smell of the beast that had her trapped down here. The stink of It. Or maybe it was Patrick, he was decaying slowly after all. The darkness of the sewer frightened her. She wasn't really afraid of the dark normally but it was something about down here that simply terrified her.

It was going into her second day in the sewer. She lay watching the children's corpses float above her, listening to the water drip and gush throughout the tunnels. The clown had still failed to answer why exactly it pulled her from the sewer. Scarlett thought about her cat, how desperately she wanted to be with her, in her run down apartment listening the the Marsh family scream at each other in the apartment above. As much as she gave out about the apartment to her friends, she loved it really, it was her home, had been for years and she missed it more than anything right now. Pennywise was nowhere to be seen, until a voice bellowed in her mind making her squeak and bolt into an upright seated position.

This voice didn't seem real, it was inside her head! Pennywise's voice was inside her head! But how?! "Relax pumpkin, I'm just checking in on you."

Scarlett was so confused with how the clown was in her head and her head was throbbing, possible side affect of having an intruder inside her mind, she answered timidly: "I'm fine. Now get out of my head."

With that, it was like a magnet had been released from a magnetic surface. The tension had gone. Her small reply made a sleeping Patrick wake and sit up. He looked at her, still as terrifying as ever. "Sorry Patrick, I didn't mean to wake you." Scarlett whispered watching the corpse stand and drag himself to where she was sitting on the ground. He extended a hand to her and which she accepted and pulled her off the ground. Scarlett had gotten used to the smell of Patrick, it didn't really bother her as much as it did when she first met him, nor did the sight. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and watched the water drain from it.

There was no fixing it.

She was about to fling it against the wall and watch it shatter but Patrick covered it with his decaying hand.

"You want it?" Scarlett asked, shocked when the corpse frantically shook his head in agreement. She opened her hand and watched him take it and slightly smile at her in appreciation. He shuffled over to a smaller junk pile than the massive one in the centre of the area, walking around the pile for what felt like several minutes to Scarlett. He was like a cat that kneaded the same spot for two hours before finally settling down. He placed it delicately on the junk pile and gave a satisfied nod; looking at Scarlett.

"So, you collect people's items and keep them?" She said, wandering to stand next to the corpse and admire his junk pile.

Patrick nodded and began to go about his business before Scarlett grabbed his hand, forcing him to whirl around and face her.

"Why can't you speak?"

Patrick looked at her, a sad one eye told her everything. It wasn't going to be a pretty story. The corpse dragged her over to a shelf and picked up a plastic takeaway box. He shoved it into her hands and motioned for her to open it.

So she did.

The most vile sight met her eyes. A tongue. A human tongue. Scarlett didn't know what to do. "Is this your tongue?" She whispered as Patrick nodded his head.

Pennywise had taken Patrick's tongue. Preventing him from speaking or trying to scream. It made her think why she didn't scream. She had her tongue, unlike Patrick she had all of her organs and limbs intact.

For now.

She had seen a dead body before, she was a medicine student of course. She wanted to graduate in pediatric care. She'd identified her parents bodies and studied a real human body in great detail. She had in fact cut out a tongue from a corpse. She was sure she'd done it in a much more humane way that Pennywise would've done to Patrick.

Yes she was scared of him, much more at first but a part of her said: no, don't scream. And another part of her said: are you fucking crazy? Scream!

Something hit in her heart that if Pennywise had wanted to hurt her, he could've by now. But he hadn't. He'd done all this horrible stuff to Patrick yet, she remained untouched.

That's because as these thoughts ran through her mind, Pennywise was roaming the woodland around The Barrens in a long black cloak with a hood that hid his face. You might be wondering what exactly was this killer clown looking for?

Daisies. Wild daisies.

The ground around the Barrens was really only suitable for weeds, thorn bushes and trees. But the daisies seemed to like it too. They grew in small clusters, children were attracted to them to pick which made the weekly food shop very easy for Pennywise. His bright blue eyes fell upon a dainty cluster of daisies. He picked a dozen from a few different areas until he had a satisfactory bunch in his hand.

Like lighting, he was taking long strides through the woodland, back into the sewers. Just before he reached the entrance he heard something.

"Shut up Richie!"

"Yeah! Shut up Richie!"

"Oh I get it trash the trash mouth I get it. Hey I wasn't the one scrubbing her bathroom floor, imagining that her sink went all Eddie's mom's vagina on Halloween!"

His little friends had come to play. Pennywise smiled to himself thinking about how gullible those teenagers were. Why was Scarlett hanging out with them? He didn't know, but he knew that what he had done to them, made them want more. That was his goal.

"Scarlett!" The short one called out, Ben, Pennywise looked forward to eating him as he would get a few meals from him. He looked tasty.

Pennywise was trudging through the sewer water back to his lair as he heard small chatter. He entered and saw Patrick sitting on a chair with Scarlett behind him, braiding his hair into some French plaits. Patrick didn't have a lot of hair left but Scarlett was making do with what she had. Pennywise put the daisies beside the entrance into the lair so they couldn't be seen, his presence made Scarlett jump back from Patrick and Patrick stand up. He wandered into the lair and threw his coat on the floor and circled them like prey.

"Pennywise?" Scarlett gulped. The clown stopped pacing and stood right behind her, her bare shoulder under her ripped shirt exposed to him as he licked his lips. A long black tongue like a giraffe slithered over his red outlined lips while he thought of how he could kill her there and then, sink those teeth into her shoulder and rip her arm from her socket.

Just like he did all those years ago to Adrian Mellon.

"Yes, sugar?" Pennywise purred.

"I was wondering, if I could go home? My cat needs me and my friends will be worried about me." Scarlett whispered, watching Patrick fiddle with his hands from the corner of her eye.

Pennywise grabbed her by the front of her shirt and lifted her up so he had her at eye level. The bells on his clown suit tinkled.

"Of course you can sweet pea. After I'm finished with you." He giggled. Scarlett looked at him. His eyes went from the pale blue colour to a hazy gold colour. He began to open his mouth. For some reason as much as she tried, she couldn't take her eyes of off his mouth. His mouth was opening and exposing these razor sharp teeth that lined his throat. His whole face was lifting away. She had seen this stuff with snakes on Animal Planet before. Snakes opened their jaw way back so they could swallow their prey whole. That's what Pennywise was going to do to her.

"Let me go! You monster!" Scarlett screamed as she thrashed about in his grip.

Monster.

Monster.

Monster.

Ouch.

She had accepted she was about to die. Three small lights appeared at the bottom of his throat. The my spun slowly in a circle, Scarlett felt her eyes under their control as her body went limp and her eyes rolled to the back of her head.

The deadlights.

Patrick couldn't do anything, he feared that Pennywise may finish him off if he tried to stop him. So he just stood and watched. After a few minutes, Pennywise closed his mouth and everything went back to normal. Except for Scarlett. She was suspended in the air, eyes still rolled back even when Pennywise let go of her.

"Patrick, prepare something tea for when I return." Pennywise growled, as he pulled Scarlett into his arms and left the sewer.
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"I hate it down here it's so disgusting." Catalina huffed as Anastasia dug her in the ribs.

"This is where she will be, if she's anywhere." Eliza mumbled, motioning to the two memorial stones for Scarlett's parents that's were hidden among some trees.

Cyrus gripped the letter in his hand. A small meow made him look down into the inside pocket of his black puffa jacket. Penny poked her head out from the pocket and blinked her massive blue eyes up at Cyrus.

"Dude, you brought the cat?!" Noah sighed, approaching Cyrus and patting the small creature in his pocket on the head.

"Her letter said she'd gone with a group of teenagers to the sewers to look for whatever has been doing all this horrible stuff. If we die, who'd look after Penny? So she's better off with us." Cyrus snapped.

The river gushed but someone made much more noise for the speed it was actually moving. A raven, sat on a near by tree branch. Its small black eyes watching them as they walked by; silently judging each and every one of them. Cyrus stopped dead in his tracks when he heard something. Something small. A yelp almost, but that yelp turned into shouts.

"Sh! Listen!" Cyrus hissed, everyone stopped and listened under his command.

"Henry! Please! Let him go!"

"You losers better be nice, she'll do you. You just have to ask nicely. Like I did."

"ROCK WAR!!! Ow!"

Cyrus took off running down the hill towards the noise, Noah and the girls a beat behind him. Noah let Cyrus go in front, his bigger frame might startle the troublemakers more than Cyrus would. A group of teenagers, two groups of teenagers. One group either side of the river throwing rocks at one another.

"HEY! CUT IT OUT!" Noah yelled.

Catalina and Eliza ran to a boy who was lying trying to catch his breath in the rushes. Obviously badly shaken up from whatever had just happened. Neither of the two groups listened to Noah and continued their dual, rocks plummeted at high speed through the air so much so they almost made a whistling noise as they travelled.

"If you can't beat them, join them." Anastasia called to her brother, as she started firing rocks at the three teenage boys on the other side of the river who had obviously been causing trouble. They looked like troublemakers, while the other group were just dorky and innocent thirteen year olds.

Eliza and Catalina had pulled the boy from the rushes and were trying to get him to talk. While the twins were joining the fight and Cyrus was protecting himself and Penny. The troublemaking trio was on its last legs as every throw they almost certainly got a rock in the head in return. A stumbled thrash of water caught two of the trio's members, one patted the other's arm and they ran back into the forestry. This left the gang leader still throwing rocks until one hit him square in the chest, knocking him onto his back in defeat. He rolled onto his side, blood trickling down his face ready to continue fighting.

That's until he widened his eyes in shock, once he saw what threw the rock that took him down.

"Holy shit." The small, goofy one with glasses whispered. It wasn't long until everyone involved caught onto what the shock was over.

Scarlett stood midstream, shaking slightly with her clothes just barely covering her body, blood, water and dirt covered her body. Her purple hair was matted and her face looked even worse in daylight than it did in the sewer. She walked over to the boy lying on his side, rock in her hand as he desperately tried to scramble away from her. She hauled him up by the collar of his tank top and kept a firm hold on him.

"Scarlett!" Noah shouted. "Leave him! He's not worth it!"

Scarlett turned her head to look at Noah from across the river. Everyone saw that something was off with her. "Please, please, I'm sorry! Don't hurt me!" The boy pleaded, wriggling under her hold. Scarlett looked at the boy, studying the fear in his eyes.

"Tasty, tasty, beautiful fear." She growled, throwing her head back to expose these razor sharp teeth and before anyone could react, she sank them into the boy's shoulder as he let out a bloodcurdling scream.

"FUCK! RUN!" Noah screamed as everyone ran to the top of the quarry cliffs, where they could look down upon their friend, mangling a boy to death.
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Pennywise dragged a body through the sewers, another armless victim to add to his collection along with Georgie and Adrian Mellon. Once he entered the lair he dropped the body and took a cup of tea from Patrick. "I brought dinner for later on tonight." Pennywise chuckled, motioning towards Henry Bowers' body.

Patrick placed the cup down and hauled himself across the lair to Henry's lifeless body. He fell down next to him and put his rotting hand on his chest. Henry was Patrick's friend. Just like him, this beast had caught him.

Except Henry wasn't so lucky.

"He was a friend of yours, so I thought he'd be a good choice for tonight's meal!" Pennywise chimed as Patrick scowled at him. But suddenly Pennywise remembered what he had done, slowly walking from the lair leaving Patrick to grieve for his friend, he picked up the daisies and sat in a sewer tunnel for the rest of the afternoon.

He looked at the flowers, so delicate and pretty. Like Scarlett. What he did was for the best and he hoped she wouldn't spite him for it.

She needed to know.

"I'm not a monster." He whimpered as he crushed the daisies that he picked for a special person in his hand. Crushed. Just like his heart.

Chapter Text

"What. The. Fuck. Was. That?!" Richie exclaimed as the two groups reached the cliff top.

"More like what the fuck is that!" Eliza squeaked, breathlessly pointing at the cliffs edge where the unconscious body of Scarlett lay on her back.

"Oh no way, I ain't doing this again." Mike said, stepping backwards away from both groups.

Beverly approached Scarlett's body. She placed a hand on her cheek which was cold as ice. A mist lay in her eyes, which were open but told Beverly a thousand and one things. Fear, excitement and death lingered amongst both groups. Beverly gave Scarlett's cheek a light tap as the mist cleared from her eyes and she took a sharp inhale. Scarlett stared at Beverly, who stared back at her, almost waiting for her to jump up and bite her arm off. Like she had just done to Henry Bowers. But Scarlett had no blood around her mouth or any signs that she had just murdered somebody.

Everyone stood in silence, Scarlett pushed herself into an upright position and stared at them. Anastasia approached her slowly and knelt next to her. "Scarlett, are you alright?"

Scarlett's eyes widened, remembering what she had just seen, what she had endured. She had seen the most confusing yet painful thing, yet she had no idea who she saw or why? The look on her face made Bill step forward from the two groups. "You s-saw It too. Didn't y-y-you?" He stuttered.

"Saw what?" Anastasia looked at Bill.

"A clown." Eddie whimpered. "Yeah, I saw It too."

"The blood." Beverly said, covering her mouth in shock.

"Judith." Stanley muttered.

"I saw the clown too." Ben whispered.

"The bodies burning, screaming for my help." Mike squeaked.

Richie pushed his way to the front so he was standing only inches away from Scarlett. "Can only virgins see this shit?! Is that why I'm not seeing any of this?!"

Scarlett snapped her head up at a small meow that came from Cyrus's coat pocket. Penny poked her head out and struggled to get out. Cyrus placed the small animal on the dusty ground; she sniffed it once and then bounded over towards Scarlett and jumped into her lap. Scarlett hugged the small creature so hard she almost crushed it.

"Scarlett, did you see this clown too?" Catalina purred. Scarlett squeezed her eyes shut, trying her best to forget what she had just seen. She didn't answer Catalina's question, she didn't speak of It for weeks after. She didn't tell the doctors what had happened when Cyrus dragged her to get checked over. She didn't tell anyone at college. She didn't tell anyone at work.

She couldn't.
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January 2020
*Three months later*

"You'll give those ice cubes concussion if you keep swirling them around the cup like that!" Cyrus mused, meeting Scarlett's gaze with his own as they sat in their regular booth with their regular drinks in Starbucks one Tuesday afternoon.

"Sorry," Scarlett mumbled under her breath, taking her eyes off Cyrus and placing the cup down.

"So, fancy a shopping trip this weekend?" Cyrus questioned, flicking a wooden stirring spoon across the table at her to lighten the mood.

"No thanks, I have a few hours work lined up at Pins and Needles." She replied.

"You spend enough time in that seamstresses! If you're not there, you're in college! You need a break!"

"Don't tell me what I do and don't need Cyrus!" She snapped, finishing her drink and standing up. "I have to go, I have a lab class after lunch, see you around."

With that statement she left the small café, put in her earphones and ventured back towards college. She knew Cyrus and the others were concerned about her, she appreciated their attention but she needed to be alone. Her fellow losers, Bill, Ben and Beverly had texted her every now and then but she knew they were going down to The Barrens without her. Bill wanted to find Georgie. Eliza told her not long after she was found that "a demented hell version" of Scarlett had killed Henry Bowers. Scarlett knew instantly that Pennywise had shape shifted himself into her form. It made her sick to think of, yes Henry was a prick but he didn't deserve to die under the teeth of Pennywise. Two weeks after that she heard on the news that the last two members of Henry's gang had committed suicide at the kissing bridge. They'd seen two of their friends disappear or eaten alive so Scarlett didn't really blame them for taking a gun to each other's head and pulling the triggers.

She, out of respect for Patrick who she felt wasn't as bad now that she saw how much he was suffering in that sewer went to both funerals. She went on his behalf as he was still technically alive and she knew in her heart he'd appreciate it. Her breath fogged in the cold January air, while parents pulled their children away from her and people swerved around her on the pavement. Derry was a very old-fashioned area so someone like Scarlett was looked down upon, especially with the piercings and purple hair. She refused to get facial piercings though, she was already bending the rules at college with her ear piercings and extreme hair colour.

She liked the feeling of pain, weirdly, as a medicine student she found out that she wasn't the biggest fan of blood but after being with Pennywise; it didn't bother her anymore. Mr. Brightside by The Killers played on a steady volume through her earphones as she subconsciously walked subtlety to the beat. It was a song that had gotten her through a lot. She listened to it most days and it was one of her favourites, it made her feel like she had a purpose, she got lost in the song each time she heard it. It was better to get lost in her music than her own thoughts.

Frantic screaming forced her to regain focus on the world as she looked around. A woman was screaming at her daughter who was only about ten years old. The child was walking along the white line in the middle of the busiest roads in the town. She was following a red ballon that was floating slowly ahead of her. Her eyes were fixed on the ballon. The girl's red dress swayed in the wind from fast moving cars that zoomed by on the opposite side of the road. A builder from one of the sites around Derry was trying to desperately coax the girl off the road to safety with her mother.

Nothing was working.

Scarlett scanned the street until she locked eyes with a frail old woman who was wrapped in a shawl. A few strands of her grey hair fluttered in the breeze, anyone would pity her as she shivered in cold winter air but Scarlett didn't.

She resented her.

The terrified gasp erupted from the crowd that were watching the scandal take place, a loud honk and the burning screech of rubber against tarmac as a large freight truck came towards the girl with speed, even though the driver was desperate to try and break in time. The truck's headlights flashed in Scarlett's eyes as she took the option to run.

Into the middle of the road.

She grabbed the girl and pushed her into the pavement causing her to cry out in pain as blood gushed from her nose, it was like she was fixated on the ballon by some sort of force; when she was pushed, the force was broken. Scarlett looked to her right, the truck's front was only meters away from her. But instead of running, she bent down and wrapped her arms around her head and awaited the deadly impact of the metal on her delicate body.

But the impact never came.

Everything just went really, really quiet.

Was she dead? Is it possible to feel pain if you die instantly?

Scarlett, slowly removed her shaking arms from around her face. She gasped and fell backwards onto the hard road when she saw the massive truck only inches from her face.

But it wasn't moving.

Scarlett looked around.

Nobody and nothing was moving. It was like the world had stopped and froze everyone except her. Even the birds that were flying way up in the sky weren't moving.

"Alright I get it," Scarlett huffed. "I know this is one of your games, come on, where are you? You can't hide as an old woman every time you're in public you know."

"I didn't think it was that obvious." Pennywise spoke as he appeared by her side.

"Is this your mission?! To cause panic to everyone?! Seriously! What the fuck is your problem? Leave me, my friends and my life alone!" Scarlett snapped as she stood up but he still towered over her. "I don't know what the fuck you showed me that day, with the whole open mouth thing BUT I haven't been able to sleep because I see that fucking kid in my dreams! So if you could restart the world and let me get on with me life I'd appreciate it."

Pennywise stared at her. "Okay, but if I were you I'd move because you will die if you stay where you are." He said, motioning to the truck that was inches from her.

Scarlett stepped out of the way and turned her back to him.

"I just want you to understand." He whispered, before the screams of people erupted again and the truck swerved into a lamppost. The girl's mother picked her daughter up off the street, blood still gushing from the child's nose.

She looked at Scarlett. "Thank you, you saved her life."

"Anytime, her nose is broken. I'm a medical student and you need to get her to a hospital ASAP." Scarlett replied. The mother nodded and rushed across the blocked road to one of the ambulances that had arrived on scene already. Everything was just continuing on like nothing had happened, yes an accident had occurred but nobody seemed to realise the halting Pennywise had put on the world.

Maybe it was just her world he had put a stop too. She leaned breathless against a parked car, watching a paramedic approach her. "Ma'am are you alright? Would you like me to check you over?" She asked as Scarlett shook her head and straightened up.

"No, I'm alright. I need to get back to college, thank you for your concern." She replied before taking off in the other direction towards the college.
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Scarlett wondered how she ever smoked as a teenager. It was a way for her to cope. She had often thought about picking it up again, just tobacco, not marijuana which she smoked along with tobacco in high school. Her parents didn't know, she knew how disgusted they would've been. When she saw Beverly smoke it saddened her as she too was using it as a way to cope from her problems. She had a boyfriend at the time, the sketchiest guy in the whole school and that's where she got her smokes from.

She liked the feeling of being high. It was the way it made her not give a fuck about anything is what appealed to her. She looked down at the human lungs in front of her on the dissection tray, caked in tar, arteries full of thick yellow liquid from the years of smoking the owner of these lungs once endured.

Dissection classes were only done five at a time, as the college couldn't get enough human remains to study for everyone, so every two weeks the college was given a few bodies that had been donated to medical science. Students would take an organ and dissect it down to the finest membrane. She opened up one of the lungs after slicing it with a scalpel, she studied the alveoli and how poisoned they looked.

Scarlett gritted her teeth at the thought of Pennywise chomping down on these lungs as a snack. She looked to the front of the class, the body that the organs belonged too lay, face covered at the top of the lab on a trolley. She wondered who that person was, what their life story was and truly how comfortable would they be now if they could see her slicing apart their lungs.

By the time the class was over Scarlett felt more relaxed in some way, she knew she was safe in college. Safe from danger and fear. She always had a guard up but never really knew any different, now, it oddly felt more relaxed.

Leaving the lab she was heading back towards the changing rooms to change from her ugly green scrubs into her normal clothes. Some people went in front of her on the stairs, she just camouflaged herself behind them. Even with purple hair she still felt like she was invisible at times and she liked it.

The changing room door squeaked as she pushed it open and her locker to get her bag, phone and keys from it. She felt weirdly like someone was watching her. She quickly changed and shoved her scrubs into her bag, she put her bag on the counter by the sinks and began to fix her hair that was thrown up in a messy ponytail. She dropped her hair tie as she pulled it from her hair, letting it fall around her shoulders and down her back. She ruffled her hands through her hair to loosen it out somewhat while she looked in the mirror before bending down to pick up her hair tie from the floor.

She straightened back up and placed the band on the sink counter. She stared back at her reflection but her hand slapped over her mouth before she could scream.

Her reflection was staring back at her through the mirror. But it wasn't her. It was her body and face but this Scarlett looked like a demon, she was a demon. Black eyes and sharp teeth covered in blood when she smiled at Scarlett. Surprisingly Scarlett didn't run, she had been frightened by her hellish version but even though the hell version of her showed no emotion through the eyes, Scarlett saw how she portrayed emotion in the way she looked at Scarlett. The head tilted the curled lip all had a silent plead for help to it. Like someone smiling as they are about to burst into tears.

The reflection slammed her fist on the mirror glass causing Scarlett to jump back with fright. The reflection opened her palm, pressing on the glass. A small hole was in her palm, bleeding heavily but the blood never stained the glass. Something drew Scarlett towards the mirror. A force found her feet and pushed her forward until her hips were pressed against the sink counter. The reflection still didn't move, Scarlett lifted her hand as slowly as possible until it was pressed against her reflection's bloody one in the mirror. After some time Scarlett removed her hand, blood smudged on her palm although she hadn't necessarily touched the reflection.

Scarlett looked in pure horror at her hand, wiping it on her trousers she picked up her bag and hissed at the reflection that was still staring at her. "Stay away from me."

The reflection showed her a forked smile of jagged teeth as she left the changing room, bloody palm still pressed against the glass. The reflection was satisfied that her task was unfolding nicely, with a cold, chesty laugh she disintegrated into a cloud of black smoke.

Chapter Text

"Well? What did she say?!"

"Oh! You should've seen her face! It was priceless! She's so easy to control it's hilarious!"

"Scar."

"What?"

"I created you to prove a point to her, not to scare the crap out of her!"

Pennywise pranced around his sewer after the purple haired girl, who was pulling her shoes off and flinging them into the corner. "First of all, I was already a thing. You just didn't know about me until Lucifer was like hey hey hey! I have something for you! And bam I arrived from Hell. So you're welcome for my service, I never liked it down there anyway, far too hot for me."

"But you're a female—"

Scar stopped and turned around, facing to clown. Her black eyes piercing into him and her teeth jaggedly poked out from under her cracked lips. "Oh so because I'm female there's automatically a problem? You know us females have feelings."

"Oh great, you're a hell-bred feminist." Pennywise rolled his blue eyes at her. "All I was saying was that don't girls have like a million degree showers?! I thought you girls like the heat."

"Oh we do," Scar replied. "I do like a boiling shower every now and then but ya know, it depends on the mood we're in. We have to burn ourselves to erase all the bullshit that men say on a daily basis, we need to cleanse the soul with fruity shower wash and a third-degree burn worthy water temperature." She shuffled across the sewer to Patrick, who was playing with Ynnep (yun-nep) Scar's pure white kitten with big black eyes like Scar. She too, was a cat from Hell but seemed to take a liking to Patrick.

As Patrick would stroke Ynnep's head, she'd growl and hiss, giving the occasional swipe of the paw with her razor sharp claws; ripping off some of Patrick's delicate flesh from his hand; he didn't mind, it was falling off anyway.

"I'm going to wash, Patrick when I return I'd like a cup of my mint tea." Scar announced, stroking the evil feline once before making her way towards the mouth of the sewer.

Pennywise snorted. "For a girl like you I would've thought mint tea was a bit mild."

Scar turned to him, picking a stray piece of meat from her shark like teeth. "That's why I take two chilies in it, I need to feel that burn in my stomach. It also helps my digestion, I'm still trying to digest Bowers after killing him, Jesus I thought by letting you use my skin that you'd at least have the decency to chew him up a little better. I also don't see why I must do all the dirty work for you. I thought you enjoyed killing?"

"I do, but it's also fun to play dress up every now and then. It was fun being you." He smirked.

"Well I'm glad you enjoyed it while it lasted because your three day free trial has ended!" She snarled, approaching him. "From now on, Scar does the terrorizing. You use your own abilities and I'll use mine."

"I don't like the sound of this—"

"I'll pay our dearest Scarlett a visit tomorrow, some girl to girl talk will be nice." Scar nodded, folding her arms.

Pennywise looked at her, oddly satisfied with her reply but also a little bit weary. Scar was Scarlett technically, if anyone was to get inside her head, it would be Scar and that's what Pennywise wanted. He wanted Scarlett to see the monster that Scar was because that's all he saw when he looked into his broken mirror...

A monster.

"Let me try again, I'll speak to her first then if that fails, you can give it a try." Pennywise whispered.

"Deal."
___________
________________________________

"Scarlett, have you any idea where the blue thread is? I need it to fix a pair of jeans." Ms. Gibson asked the following day. Ms. Gibson was the owner of Pins and Needles, the seamstresses that Scarlett worked at whenever she wasn't at college. She was a lovely woman, in her mid sixties with blonde hair that was in a bob style, blue eyes that hid behind a pair of black framed reading glasses that were connected to a gold chain around her neck (she was forever losing them) and pale milky skin. She was very small, no more than five foot at the most and was extremely round but a sweetheart nonetheless.

Scarlett looked up from her sewing machine and leaned back into her chair trying to think where she last saw the thread. "I haven't seen any blue thread in ages, maybe ask Consuela, she could've swept it up in her broom while tidying by mistake."

Ms. Gibson nodded and turned on her heel, fleeing out to the back of the tiny shop to find the elderly Mexican woman who cleaned the shop for Ms. Gibson and also cleaned her house. Scarlett was very fond of Consuela and Ms. Gibson, although Consuela's English was good but her accent made it increasingly difficult to understand, her and Scarlett seemed to always get on and have a giggle over something. Scarlett liked her kindness and funny stories about her husband who died twelve years ago in Mexico, hence why she named her chihuahua after him. Juan (whan) was a tiny little brown chihuahua with matching big brown eyes. He came everywhere with Consuela and was currently under Scarlett's sewing table chewing on a tennis ball.

Scarlett didn't mind the little creature at all, but she knew Penny did. Penny would meet her coming in the door from work and instantly smell Juan off her and strut away looking like she'd just been kicked. But once Scarlett offered the kitten a snack she was all over her like a rash.

The small shop was cosy, on one side of the counter it had a wooden bench where people could sit and wait if the alterations would only take a few minutes. Beside that was a bookshelf with second hand books filling it, along the pink painted walls were framed photographs of Ms. Gibson in her early days when she won awards for her sewing skills. On the other side of the counter where Scarlett was working had four small tables each with a sewing machine planted on them, the wooden floor was varnished and the walls were holding shelves with all types of sewing equipment in little containers from machine parts to stray fabric pieces. The little shop was bursting with colour and never seemed to have a dull day. The massive glass windows and glass door at the front of the shop made the daylight stream in, lighting the shop up even more for the people passing by on the Main Street outside.

A customer sat on the bench, waiting on Scarlett to finish an alteration, they held a newspaper up to their face as they read through it in deep concentration. They had been there when Scarlett came back from her lunch break and Ms. Gibson has asked Scarlett to finish the alterations on a large cloak, which Scarlett didn't mind doing.

"It's okay Consuela," Ms. Gibson sighed, following the small Mexican woman back into the shop. "I'll just run to Target now and get some."

"I am sorry Ms. Gibson, but Consuela keep an eye out while cleaning next time, if I find, I tell you right away." Consuela replied, slipping her coat on and grabbing her bag while giving Juan the signal that it was home time.

"Scarlett are you alright here if I run to get some thread? I'll only be twenty minutes." Ms. Gibson asked, grabbing her bag and taking out her car keys.

"Absolutely, you go on ahead." Scarlett smiled, watching as the two women left the shop with Juan trotting behind them.

The customer was still engrossed in the newspaper they were reading and after a while, they spoke. "It's a shame they never found that Hockstetter boy, isn't it dear." The voice was frail and shaky, like an elderly woman's voice but Scarlett knew who it belonged too.

"It is," Scarlett replied, getting up and bagging the cloak to give to the customer. "I wonder will they ever find the thing that's keeping him hostage in zombie form in the sewers and treating him like a slave."

The newspaper was put down abruptly, showing the customers face to Scarlett. "I do not! I treat him very well!" Pennywise shrieked defensively before clearing his throat so he could speak in his own bubbly voice.

"What are you doing here?" Scarlett huffed, throwing the bag at Pennywise and returning to behind the desk.

"To speak to you." He mumbled.

"Well I don't want to speak to you, your little stunt in the mirror the other day was something else I'll give you that but just leave me alone."

"Scarlett I—"

"I don't want to hear it! Just get out!"
______________
________________________________

Later that evening, Scarlett was at home in her bedroom with Penny curled up on the end of her bed while she was on her laptop. Pennywise has mentioned about the newspaper article about the disappearance of Patrick but Scarlett wanted to know more. She had asked Beverly about anyone who may know more about Derry and she said that Ben would be the guy to talk to and gave her his email. Scarlett contacted Ben who sent her loads of articles and newspaper headlines from the historical events that took place over the last one-hundred years.

The information for Derry township is what stood out to her amongst other things. Ben told her in an email that Derry started out as a beaver trapping camp, ninety-one people signed the charter that made Derry; later that winter they all disappeared without a trace. There were rumors of Indians but according to Ben everyone thought it was a plague, but it was like one day everyone just woke up and left, the only clue of their whereabouts being a trail of bloody clothes leading to The Well House.

A slam of a cupboard door from downstairs made Scarlett look up, her heart thundered in her chest the fear of monsters still manifested in her heart from a silly childhood fear but she knew now that monsters were very much real. A few moments later the same sound happened again, Scarlett was enraged, how dare Pennywise let himself into her apartment! She got up as quietly as possible as not to disturb Penny. She crept down the corridor as silent as a mouse. But stopped dead in her tracks when she heard a voice.

"Fucking hell, not even a decent biscuit to her name Ynnep!"

Scarlett reached the kitchen door, opening it slowly and flicking on the light expecting to see her clown friend. But nobody was there.

A hand covered Scarlett's mouth making her want to scream but before she could, a voice rasped in her ear. "Scream and I'll eat you alive."

The hand that covered her mouth was icy cold and smelled of the most disgusting things imaginable, it was also bleeding. Scarlett saw a white kitten sitting on the kitchen counter, exactly like Penny (for a moment she thought it was her) until she noticed the black eyes of the feline as it growled and spat at her. The hand was removed from her mouth slowly; Scarlett quickly turned and pressed her back against the stove her eyes still locked on the mysterious feline that sat on her kitchen counter.

"She's a pretty kitty isn't she?" The same voice that said it would eat her if she screamed said.

Scarlett turned her head, standing in her kitchen was a mirror image of herself in a grey hoodie, ripped jeans and red converse. She even had the same piercings as Scarlett, but she had black eyes, much like her feline friend on the counter top until it clicked with Scarlett.

"You're the reflection... from the mirror at the college."

"Oh she speaks Ynnep!" The girl sarcastically gasped before wandering over and sitting in a kitchen chair. "But yes, you are correct."

"Who are you? Why are you in my kitchen?" Scarlett whispered, voice trembling as the girl smiled, showing off her jagged teeth.

"Calm your none gender specific flaps for a moment, jeez. Well, I'm basically you but born and bred from Hell, that's where I come from. My name is Scar, I've been staying with your friends Patrick and Pennywise, nice chaps but Patrick doesn't seem to speak much. I'm in your kitchen because I want to speak to you, on the behalf of Pennywise to be honest."

Scarlett scoffed, "I don't want to speak to him, or you for that matter, so if you wouldn't mind leaving I'd appreciate it."

"You and I both know that ain't happening." Scar huffed impatiently. "So please, come sit down and chat."

Scarlett looked at her, sitting in the kitchen chair tapping her long black fingernails on the table. Her eyes went to Ynnep, who was washing her ears with her paws still positioned on the countertop. Scarlett hesitated but then did as asked and sat in a chair across the table from Scar. Grabbing a plain packet of biscuits from the top shelf of the cabinet (she kept them for guests as she didn't eat biscuits) on the way and sliding them across the table to Scar, who started eating straight away.

"So, you don't eat biscuits then?" Scar asked, crumbs spraying from her mouth.

"I never did, I wasn't allowed to as a child. That's probably why you love them so much." Scarlett replied, looking down at her hands.

"Tell me, why weren't you allowed?"

"My father was a dentist. He believed everything would give you a cavity, that's why I have always hated Halloween. I was allowed go trick or treating but I was never allowed to eat any of my treats." Scarlett mumbled, scanning her eyes around the room to avoid Scar's deathly black ones.

"Didn't your friends question it?" Scar asked, still with her mouth full.

"I didn't have many, so I usually went alone. I always went as a ghost," she smiled a little. "You know the sheet over the head with two holes cut out for eyes? Yeah, all because of—" she stopped.

"Because of what?" Scar asked, placing the packet of half eaten biscuits down.

"I had braces, I was bullied enough when they found out the meaning behind my name at school, then when my father put braces on me, it only got worse."

"Oh, I could do with some braces." Scar smiled at her, showing off the jagged teeth that were almost shark like.

"These were awful looking things, I had them for six years. I couldn't smile as it was literally one big chunk of metal in my mouth, I gained a bad lisp and it severely knocked my confidence. I didn't speak, smile or laugh. None of the guys at any of the parties ever wanted to kiss me when I had them because in my school when you had braces you were a nerd and that's what I was. An unpopular, ugly, metal-mouthed nerd." Scarlett whispered, looking down at her hands.

"Do you remember the first time you ever ate candy or something sugary?" Scar asked.

As a matter of fact, Scarlett remembered that day like it was yesterday. She was eight years old, she came home from trick or treating in her neighborhood one Halloween night to her father who was waiting for her arrival. Her mother was making dinner and Scarlett and her father sat in the living room going through the bucket of treats she'd gotten.

"Now, let's see what damage is this year shall we?" He smiled and emptied the bucket onto the small table they were sitting at. He picked up a lollipop and held it up to her. "Lollipops, what us dentists call cavities on a stick."

Scarlett sat in silence, afraid to speak or defend her precious treats as she knew it was hopeless.

He picked up a caramel and twirled it in his fingers. "Caramels, they'd get stuck in your teeth wouldn't they? Just a few more years and I'll be able to put braces on them, gain your self confidence. You know, just last week I was reading in a very important medical journal that some children are allergic to chocolate."

"Maybe I'm not allergic, father, I could try a piece!" Scarlett piped up, hoping her excitement would help her case.

"Why take the chance?" He replied, taking the candy and chucking it into the lit fireplace. Scarlett watched in horror as her goodies melted, hissed and burned in the flames of that fire.

The next day, she was cleaning out the fireplace and noticed a single chocolate that hadn’t been eaten by the flames sitting in the grate. Her father was working and her mother was doing laundry so she thought she’d try it. That’s exactly what she did. The taste to her was something she’d never expected, as it melted in her mouth it coated it like glue, sweet but with a slight under layer of salt and the sweetness stung the back of her mouth.

She waited, waited for her allergic reaction to come, her throat to close and her to stop breathing. But it never came, because she wasn’t allergic. Scarlett felt unbelievably guilty, she loved her parents dearly but she felt guilty that she had done something that they asked her not to do. She was still frightened so for the next few days she checked her teeth for cavities and brushed them all the time, no cavities came but she still felt bad that she’d disobeyed her father and she stood in the bathroom mirror and vowed never to eat chocolate or sugary food again. After that day, she never did.

“Fucking hell, that explains why I live off sugary food then.” Scar gasped.

“I guess so, opposites attract and all that.” Scarlett shrugged. “So, what do you want from me?”

Scar looked at her and flicked her lilac hair hair over her shoulder. “I want you to come with me, to the sewer, to speak with Pennywise.”

“No.”

“What?”

“I said no.”

“Why not? Listen, he won’t leave you alone until he sees you so you might as well come and get it over with.”

“I saw him today, I told him to leave me alone and I think he got the message.”

“Oh, you think he’ll give up that easy do you?” Scar scoffed getting up from her chair and putting Ynnep under her arm. “He isn’t like that, he doesn’t want to and neither do I but if you don’t play by his rules he will begin to hurt people until you do.”

Scarlett thought for a moment. “Fine, I’ll come, when and what time?”

“You have college tomorrow, I’ll meet you in the car park after your classes and we will go from there.” Scar smiled.

Scarlett looked her dead on, she wondered if by agreeing to go with her to see Pennywise was the right thing to do.