Archive of Our Own ^beta

You lay in your bed and stare at the ceiling.
7:16 the clock on your nightstand read.
"Y/n, your friends are outside. It's time to go to school!" Your mom said, practically barging into the room.
"Alright, mom. I'll be out, just let me get my stuff." You sigh as you push yourself up and off the bed.
You grab your school bag and put on your shoes, telling your parents and sister goodbye before heading out the door.
"Jesus fucking Christ, finally. What the fuck were you doing in there, having sex with Eddie's mom?" Richie says.
"Fuck off Richie. You think I would let her touch me, let alone that I would willingly touch her?" You say with a disgusted look on your face.
"You're seriously already pissing me off, guys. And it's only 7:30." Eddie scoffs.
You look at Richie and stare for a moment before bursting out into laughter.
"I fucking hate you guys, you know that?"
"I love you too, Eddie." You say as you lick your hand and ruffle his hair.
"Ew, what the fuck! Do you how many fucking germs and bacteria there is in your fucking saliva! You just put that shit all over me, dude!" Eddie pushes you away and shivers in disgust.
"C-cut it out, g-g-guys. Let's go already." Bill stutters.
You snicker as you grab your bike and get on it, riding it down the road with the rest of the guys.
"You know, Eddie. I think my sister got me sick two days ago and I think I might still be kinda sick so that means you're probably going to get what me and my sister did. I just hope it's not pneumonia." You tease.
"Oh my god if you get me fucking sick I'll kill you!"
"Not if pneumonia kills you first~" You laugh, riding next to Eddie and rubbing your hand on his arm before he slapped it away. "Why'd our parents even force us to go to school today, it's the last day. No one goes to school on the last day."
Scattered complaints and 'I don't know's' were heard from everyone.
In reality, you just didn't want to run into Bowers. He was starting to pick on you more often than before and it wasn't a simple teasing either. He'd pull your hair and call and tell you things you don't even think the devil himself would come up with and say.
You felt like it was going to be a very long day.
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"...So there's this church full of Jews, right? And Stan has to take this super Jewy test," Richie starts.
You roll your eyes and shake your head, not even knowing what the hell is going to come out of his mouth this time.
"But how's it work?" Bill asks.
"They slice the tip of his dick off." Eddie simply explains.
"It's actually called-" You start before being quickly cut off by Richie.
"But then Stan will have nothing left!"
You slap him up the top of his head, earning a hiss from him. "Ow..!"
Eddie looks as if he was about to say something but quickly shuts his mouth before a word could come out of it as he looks at you.
"Wait up you guys!" Stanley runs to the group, standing behind Eddie and Bill.
"Hey, Stan, what happens at the Bar Mitzvah anyways? Ed says they slice the tip of your d-di-dick off." Bill asks.
If it weren't for Bill's nonchalant tone, you'd think he was teasing Stanley. Or maybe he was trying to understand. Honestly, you found it difficult to read any of the boys. But you were kind of glad for that at the same time.
"Yeah, and I think the Rabbi's gonna pull down your pants, turn to the crowd and say 'where's the beef?'" Richie exclaims.
You hit Richie once more but laugh.
"Hey!" He said, rubbing the back of his head.
"At the Bar Mitzvah, I read from the Torah, and then I make a speech, and suddenly, I become a man." Stanley explains.
"I could think of funner ways to become a man."
"'More ‘fun' you mean." Stan corrects. You snicker at Richie's failure to understand proper grammar.
The laughter was unfortunately short-lived when you looked ahead.
"Oh shit.."
Bowers.
"Let's hurry, yeah?" You say nervously, pushing Richie and Bill forward to move faster.
"Think they'll sign my yearbook? 'Dear Richie, sorry for taking a hot, steaming dump in your backpack last March. Have a good summer.'" Richie says.
Gretta walks past us and bumps into Richie with her shoulder as she chewed her gum.
'Fucking bitch.'
"I remember that." You laugh as you recall the memory. "Maybe you should go ask them. You think they'll take a dump on your yearbook, too?"
"That's just fucking disgusting." Eddie says.
You laugh again before finally shutting up while the boys talk about their own thing.
You look at Richie as you walk down the halls to go outside.
'How thick is that prescription? How heavy are they?' You thought to yourself as you looked at his glasses.
"What?" Richie said as he stopped on the stairs and looked at you.
You simply grab his glasses off of his face and hold them in your hands. They were a pretty hefty weight. No wonder why he was constantly having to push them back up his nose.
You inspect them and place them on your face after taking yours off.
"What the fuck, dude, give them back! I can't see shit!" Richie shouts as he grabs at you, poorly trying to get his glasses back.
You laughed as you put your glasses back on and held his farther away from his reach, "You're gonna have to try harder than this, man."
Stan, Eddie, and Bill all watched from a few steps down at the interaction and whispered to each other.
"Bitch," Richie says under his breath as he puts his glasses back on. "You got the lenses dirty, asshole!"
You sigh and pull out a cloth from your pocket. You grab Richie's glasses back from his face and clean the lenses with it. "Here, all clean now."
He grumbles as he goes down the stairs, snatching them back from your hands.
You quickly walk down the stairs to Stan, Eddie, and Bill and follow next to them as they approach the trash cans and open up their bags. You do the same and toss all of your notebooks and papers in.
"No more getting up at 7 in the morning." You let out a sigh of relief.
"Best feeling ever." Stanley says.
"Yeah? Try tickling your pickle for the first time." Richie says.
Sometimes it felt impossible to deal with him and as to how you dealt with him over the past 5 years is incredible. You should be rewarded for that.
"That's gross, Richie." You groan in disgust.
"Hey, what do you guys wanna do tomorrow?" Eddie asks, looking at everyone.
"I have to babysit Josie tomorrow." You sigh.
"I start my training." Richie says.
"Wait, what training?" Eddie asks.
"Street fighter."
“Is that how you want to spend your summer? Inside of an arcade?"
"Beats spending it inside of your mother, oh!" Richie says, putting his hand up for a high-five, though immediately getting turned down.
"What if we go to the quarry?" Stanley proposes.
"Guys, we have the Barrens." Bill argues.
"Right."
You turn and look at the Sheriff's that were parked in front of the school with Betty Ripsom's mom just a few feet away waiting, seeming to look around through the crowd of kids for her missing daughter.
"Betty Ripsom's mom." You and Eddie both say.
"Is she really expecting to see her come out of that school?"
"I don't know. As if Betty Ripsom's been hiding in Home Ec for the last few weeks." Eddie shrugs.
"Right?" You say.
"You think they'll actually find her?"
"Yeah, in a ditch. All decomposed, covered in worms and maggots. Smelling like Eddie's mom's underwear."
"Shut up! That's freaking disgusting." Eddie grimaces.
"She's not dead. She's missing." Stanly quickly says.
You look at Stanley with sympathy, and back at Richie with a glare.
"Sorry, Bill. She's missing. You know the Barrens aren't that bad. Who doesn't love splashing around in shitty water?"
Patrick appears behind Richie and Henry pushes him into you and Stanley, all three of you falling to the floor.
Stanley's yarmulke falls off his head and Patrick picks it up. "Nice frisbee, flamer." He says.
"Give it back!" Stanley says, attempting to take it back from his hands and failing as Patrick throws it into a passing bus.
"Fucking losers!" Patrick laughs.
Belch burps in Eddie's face, making him gag.
Henry bumps into Bill and walks away with Patrick and Belch. "Loser."
Bill balls his fists up, struggling to even get what he was trying to say out of the anger that was very apparent, "Y-y-you s-suck, Bowers!"
"Shut up, Bill." Eddie says concerningly.
"Stop, you're gonna get us all fucking killed." You say, trying to pull Bill away.
Henry, Belch, and Patrick all turn around slowly.
"You s-s-s-say something, Bi-Bi-Bi-Billy?" Henry mocks Bill. "You got a free ride this year 'cause of your little brother. Rides' over, Denbrough." Henry looks past Bill at his father and back at Bill.
"This summer's gonna be a hurt train for you and your faggot friends," Henry turns to look at you, reaching his hand to your head and taking a fistful of your hair, holding you in place as you grunt in pain. "Including your whore-ass fuck toy." He let go and pushed you away, wiping his tongue on his hand he wiped it along Bill's cheek and walked away.
"I wish he'd go missing." Richie says.
"He's probably the one doing it." Eddie continues.
"I'm about to find a way to make him go missing myself." You sniffle with tears in your eyes.
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“Take everything but the Delicious deals, guys. My mom loves them.” Eddie says.
You groan. “But I love the Delicious Deals oatmeal creams, too, Richie. Can I have one? They’re practically begging to be eaten.”
“No. Leave them alone.” He says sternly.
“Limp dick.” You scoff as you take a box of Sugar Babies and toss it into Richie’s bag.
Richie opens the box of the oatmeal pies and hands you one and you thank him quietly.
“Hey! First you said the Barrens, and now you’re saying the sewer. I mean, what if we get caught?” Eddie says.
“We won’t, Eds. T-the sewers are public works. We’re the public, aren’t we?” Bill assures.
Richie walks to a seperate cabinet and opens it, revealing it to be holding dozens of pill bottles crammed into all three levels.
“Hey, Eddie, these your birth control pills?” Richie asks jokingly.
“Yeah, and I’m saving it for your sister. This is private stuff.” Eddie says sarcastically as he walks over to the cabinet and closes it.
“What do you have in there, though? Like, what is all of it for?” You ask as you walk out of the kitchen with them.
“My mom knows that, just drop it okay?”
The television was on and Ms. Kaspbrak was sitting in her seat watching it while she painted her nails.
“Eddie bear, where are you guys off too in such a rush?” She asked.
You all look at each other as you tried to find some sort of excuse. “Um… J-j-just my backyard, Ms. K.” Bill stuttered. “I got a new…” He stayed silent as he tried to think.
“A new croquet set. Jeez, spit it out, B-Bill.” Richie said. There were a million different things that it could’ve been and he went with a croquet set?
“Okay.” Ms. Kaspbrak says. “Oh, and sweetie, don’t go rolling around on the grass. Especially if it’s just been cut. You know how bad your allergies can get.”
“Yes, mom. Let’s go.” Eddie says before following you, Richie, and Bill out the door.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” She reminds.
Eddie sighs and walks over to his mom and gives her a kiss on the cheek. Sometimes you wonder if she did and said these things just to embarrass Eddie. You did think it was sweet, though.
Richie laughs as Eddie comes back. “Do you want one from me too, Ms. K?”
Eddie huffs as he pushes you, Bill, and Richie all out the door. “Sorry, mommy.” He says right before closing the door.
“Mommy? You still call her ‘mommy’?” You giggle.
“Shut up and let’s go. We gotta pick up Stan.” Eddie mutters as he walks to his bike and gets on it.
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"That's poison ivy, and that's poison ivy. And that's poison ivy." Stanly says as he points out a few plants.
"No that isn't." You say, putting your hand down and tossing your bike on the floor.
You don't know if he was being seriously stupid or just trying to scare Eddie, but it was ticking Richie off.
"Where? Where's the poison ivy?" Eddie says with some fear prominent in his voice.
"Nowhere. Not every fucking plant is fucking poison ivy, Stanley." Richie says, annoyed.
"Okay, well I'm starting to get itchy now and I'm pretty sure this is not good for my-"
"Do you use the same bathroom as your mother?" Richie says.
'What's he gonna say this time?'
"Sometimes, yeah." Eddie responds, thinking this was a genuine question.
"Then you probably have crabs."
"That is so not funny."
"You don't have crabs, Eddie. But maybe Richie’s right and your mom does, not gonna lie." You roll your eyes with a smirk.
"Ha ha, very funny. You're just as pathetic as Richie sometimes." Eddie laughs sarcastically.
You, Bill, and Richie walk into the sewer together. Eddie and Stanley stayed behind and stood just outside of the entrance.
"Aren't you guys coming in?" Richie turns around.
"Uh-uh. It's greywater." Eddie points at the sewer water that you, Richie, and Bill were standing in.
You raise your eyebrow.
"The hell's 'greywater'?" Richie asks.
"You beat me to it." You say, turning to him.
Eddie sighs, "It's basically piss and shit. So I'm just telling you, you guys are splashing around in millions of gallons of Derry pee. So..."
Richie picks up a stick that was in the water and sniffs it, basically sticking his whole hand in said 'water' to do so.
"Are you- Are you serious? What are you...?" Eddie says.
"Ew, dude- don't fucking touch that. Did you not hear what Eddie just said?" You step away from him and gag. You felt like you were about to throw up right where you stood. Maybe you would've done better if Eddie hadn't said anything.
"It doesn't smell like caca to me, Señor."
"Okay, I can smell it from here."
"It's probably just your breath wafting back into your face."
"Have you never heard of a staph infection?" Eddie scoffs.
You roll your eyes and walk away to follow Bill. Sometimes you questioned if they were even friends.
"Oh, I'll show you a staph infection."
"This is so unsanitary. You're literally... This is literally like swimming inside of a toilet bowl right now." Eddie says
You hear a big splash and scream from Eddie. You don't even bother to look and see what was going on anymore, there's so many things you don't even find surprising, especially from them.
"Are you- Are you retarded?"
Bill shines his flashlight at an object and picks it up. As he brings it closer to himself, your mouth hangs wide open in horror.
"Holy shit.. Holy fucking shit, dude, is that…" You were at a loss of words.
"You're the reason why we're in this position right now." Eddie tells Richie.
You shake Bill's shoulder, still looking at the shoe in shock. "S-show them. Show them the fucking shoe, Bill."
"Guys!" Bill turns around, calling everyone over to where the two of you stood.
When everyone else came over Bill showed the single shoe to them.
"Shit. Don't tell me that's..." Stanley says.
"No. Georgie wore galoshes."
There's a thick silence before it's broken by Eddie. "Who's sneaker is it?"
Stanley shines his flashlight on it and inspects it, finding the words 'B. Ripsom' on it.
"It's Betty Ripsom's." Richie says.
Your eyes go wide as you stare at the name. Was this really happening?
"Holy shit, holy fucking shit guys. What the fuck!" You shout, gripping at Bill's sleeves of his shirt.
"Oh, shit. Oh, God. Oh, fuck! I don't like this." Eddie panics.
"Clearly neither does Y/n. But how do you think Betty feels? Running around these tunnels with only one frickin' shoe?" Richie says, hopping in place on one foot.
This was clearly not the time to be joking and he quickly realized that with everyone's demeanor.
Stanly looks at Bill, "What if she's still here?"
Richie and Bill go further into the tunnel as you stay behind. You no longer wanted to get involved in this. You were scared shitless right now and frankly, you had to agree with Richie that she was probably already dead.
"You're not coming?" Richie says, turning around to look at you.
"Nuh-uh. I'm not going any farther with- with any of this s-shit! Dude, we just found a dead chick's sneaker! I'm fucking leaving." You flail your arms about.
"Yeah, I agree. My mom will have an aneurysm, okay? If she finds out we're playing down here. I'm serious, Bill." Eddie agrees with me.
Bill turns around to face you and Eddie, "If-If I was Betty Ripsom, I would want us to find me. Georgie too."
"What if I don't want to find them? I mean, no offense, Bill, but I don't want to end up like... I don't want to go missing, either."
"He has a point." Stanley says.
"I second that." You butt in.
"You too, Stanley?" Bill says with hurt in his voice.
"It's summer! We're supposed to be having fun! This isn't fun. This is scary and disgusting." Stanley makes an argument.
Suddenly a boy, one that everyone knew as 'the new kid' comes out of nowhere, splashing down into the water just outside of the tunnel.
You turn around and walk towards him with Stanley and Eddie following behind you. "Oh my god, are you okay?" You kneel down next to him.
"Holy shit, what happened to you?" Richie says as he leaves the tunnel.
You look up at everyone that stood around you and the new kid. "We gotta help him out, guys."
"I'm not taking him to the hospital, man."
"We don't have to. Eddie knows how to fix shit like this up pretty good." You say as you point at Eddie.
"Come on, man. No- this is- this is my shit. If my mom found out I used it up on someone else she'd go insane." Eddie groans.
"Then let's go to the drugstore." You say sternly, going to pick up your bike as everyone else did the same.
Bill sat the new kid up onto his bike and rode off with everyone else to go back into town.
"I think it's great that we're helping the new kid, but we also need to think of our own safety. I mean, he's bleeding all over and you guys do know that there's an AIDS epidemic happening right now as we speak, right? My mom's friend in New York City got it by touching a dirty pole on the subway. And a drop of AIDS blood got into his system through a hangnail. A hangnail! And you can amputate legs and arms. But how do you amputate a- How do you amputate a waist? You guys do know that alleys are known for dirty needles that have AIDS, right? You guys do know that?"
"We're not going to have to amputate his waist, dumbass. We’re just fucking fixing him up." You say, pulling into an alleyway with everyone else.
"We're screwed. Richie, Y/n, wait here. Come on." Bill says as he, Stanley, and Eddie go into the drugstore.
"Hey! Why me and Richie? What the fuck, man!" You shout at Bill as he walked away.
You sigh and rub your hands on your face in frustration. You look back down at the boy who was sat on a wooden box, clearly exhausted and in pain.
"I'm glad I got to meet you before you died." Richie says. The new kid looks at him with a blank face, clearly not amused by his antics.
"Shut up, Richie. Don't listen to him, he's an idiot. Do you want some water? I think I still have a bottle in my bag." You offer.
The boy shakes his head no and sits to attempt to make himself more comfortable but to no avail, as he hisses in pain and looks down at the floor.
"How long do you think they're going to take in there?" You ask.
"Fuck if I know." Richie replies. "This is boring. I'm gonna go piss somewhere."
"Stop being gross dude. At least in front of him." You say as you point to the new kid.
You sat on the ground while you waited. Eddie would've freaked if he found you sitting on the floor like this. You smiled to yourself.
Bill, Stanley, and Eddie return to the alley with an armful of pharmaceutical supplies. Eddie places them down and takes out a bandage.
"Just suck the wound." Richie says.
"Don't suck the fucking wound, Eddie. He'll get an infection from your fucking staph infection."
"I fucking know not to suck the wound now shut the fuck up, I need to focus." Eddie says, frustrated.
"You need to focus?" Richie says.
Eddie tries to put the bandage on the 'H' that was carved into the new kid's stomach. "Yeah, can you go get me something?" He asks. "Go get my bifocals, I hid 'em in my second fanny pack."
"Why the hell do you own bifocals?" You ask.
"Why do you have two fanny packs?" Stanley asks. Better question.
"I need to focus right now and it's a long story. I don't want to get into it." Eddie says.
"How the fuck is having two fanny packs a long story?"
"Oh my god, it just fucking is!"
You watch as Eddie frustratingly looks at the wound, trying to figure out what to do.
"Oh, god, he's bleeding. Oh my god!" Stanley panics.
"No shit, Stanley, an 'H' is carved into his fucking stomach. You would think that he would be bleeding." You say, pinching the bridge of your nose.
"You have to suck the wound before you apply band-aids. This is 101." Richie says.
"It's not 101, Richie shut the fuck up." You loved Richie, you really did, but this wasn't the time and hasn't been the time these past couple of hours. It was starting to really piss you off by now.
"You don't know what you're talking about, Richie."
A girl with long, red hair approaches you guys looking at the new kid. "Are you okay? That looks like it hurts."
"Oh. No, I'm good. I just.. fell." The new kid replies looking up at her.
"Yeah, right into Henry Bowers." Richie says.
You were beginning to get too irritated by now and you knew that if you listened to Richie any longer, you were going to lose it.
"I think I'm going to head out right now, guys. I'll see you tomorrow at the Quarry." You say, letting out a frustrated sigh as you get on your bike.
"Wait what? Why?" Richie asks.
You raise your eyebrow at him, indicating that his antics and everything he was saying was the reason why.
"Oh, okay. See you tomorrow." Richie says with a look of disappointment on his face.
"See you." You say before riding away.
"Fuck, now I have nothing to do." You sigh as you ride back to the block your house was on.
Looks like you'll have to figure out how to spend the next 4 hours by yourself.
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You, Ben, Stanley, Eddie, Richie, and Bill all stood at the edge of the cliff of the Quarry.
The boys were in their tighty whities while you stood out with a clean bra and pair of underwear on. In your opinion you looked far better than the rest of them.
They all hawked and spit a loogie into the water below.
Everyone's was awful including yours, but you don't think anyone could spit a loogie worse than Eddie as his immediately fell at his feet.
"Oh my God, that was terrible. I win." Richie says.
"What? How?" You say.
"You won?" Eddie says while everyone turns to look at Richie.
"Yeah."
"Did you see my loogie?"
"It's by distance." Ben says.
"Yeah. Whoever's goes the farthest is the better one." You agree with Ben.
For a kid you only fully met just yesterday, Ben was a pretty cool guy. He was real nice but not a total melvin.
"Mass. It's always been mass." Eddie disagrees.
"What the- what is mass?" Richie asks.
You look at Richie and furrow your eyebrows in confusion. "What the hell do you mean 'what is mass'? Don't you pay attention in math and science class?"
"Who cares how far it goes? It matters how cool it looks, like it's green or it's white, or juicy and fat."
"No way, dude. It's distance and always has been. That's just gross."
"All right, Eddie." Bill says, finally giving in and agreeing with Eddie.
"Thanks for that."
All of you look down at the lake below you. It probably looked way worse than it actually looked but no one bothered to jump off first.
"Who's first?" Bill says, looking at Richie and Stanley, only to be met with silence. You look at Richie and shake your head.
"I'll go."
All six of you turn around to see the girl from yesterday. Her once long hair was now cut above her neck, it looked good.
As she undressed she revealed a white bra and a pair of light blue underwear underneath.
'Woah.' You thought to yourself. You'd never think to yourself that you would find a girl so attractive
"Sissies." She says before getting a running start and jumping off the cliff into the pond.
"What the fuck?! Aw, holy shit! We just got showed up by a girl!" Richie exclaims.
"You're just about to be shown up by another." You jump off of the cliff from where you stood into the water.
The water was freezing but the adrenaline in your body was so high that it didn't even bother you.
You swim back up and slick your hair back, spitting the water that got into your mouth out.
"Hey, I don't think I ever got to say hi to you yesterday."
You turn around and see the girl from yesterday.
You didn't know her name or who she was. You only knew about the things that were said about her that you knew were rumors.
You felt bad for her. No one should have things such as those said about them. You would know.
"Yeah. Sorry about that, I had to leave earlier. I'm Y/n." You smile.
"Beverly." She does the same and looks up at the cliff to wave at Ben.
"Well, I like your hair. I think it looks nice short."
You hear shouts and splashes from behind you and turn around, once again, to see the boys coming up from the water.
You laugh and swim towards them. Eddie coughs and groans, spitting. "Gross! I think I just swallowed a bug on the way down."
"Should've kept your mouth closed." You tease.
"Shut up." Eddie says.
Richie splashes you, getting more water in your mouth.
"You trying to start a war, four eyes?"
"Says you. Do you think you'll win?" He smiles.
You swim towards him and push him down into the water then pull him back up.
"I'll keep doing this until you say 'uncle.'" You smirk.
"No way!" Richie says, trying to do the same to you.
You push him again, only to be brought down with him. You gasp as you and Richie come back up. Richie held you by your right shoulder and hand.
"Uncle!" You say, spitting with your eyes closed.
"You totally suck, Y/n!" Richie teases.
You scoff and push him off of you. "Fuck off." You jokingly say.
Richie swims off and you follow behind.
Ben rises up from under the water and puts Richie up on his shoulders while Bill does the same with Beverly.
You laugh as you watch the two play a game of chicken.
"I already won! We already won!" Richie said as he still sat on Ben's shoulders. He pushed off Beverly and she fell backwards into the water with a yelp. "They're down! Yes!"
Ben, Eddie, Richie, and Stanley all splashed around while you went to go talk to Beverley. She was next to Bill while they both watched the boys.
"Hey." You say, smiling.
"Hey, Y/n." Beverly replies with a wave.
She was so nice and laid back, so much cooler than you were. You wish you weren't so dorky sometimes, but then you wouldn't be friends with the boys.
As you were just about to say something to her, Richie exclaimed. "Aw, fuck! What was that?"
You look at the four that were formed in a circle, both Stanley and Richie freaking out about something.
"Something just touched my foot right here." Stanley said as he looked down.
Richie, Eddie, and Stanley look under the water and come back up after a few seconds. "That work?"
"Where are we looking?" Eddie asks.
"Right here, right here! Right here!"
Bill comes up from the water, "It's a turtle."
"Aw sick! Really?" You say excitedly as you go under to see it. A small turtle was it, really. Nothing to freak out about like they just did. You come back up, disappointed. "That thing's tiny, dude." You say with a frown on your face.
"Yeah, just like Eddie's dick." Richie snickers.
You roll your eyes and swim to the rocks, getting out of the water and sitting down on your towel.
Everyone else gets out of the water, the boys sat on a log next to you and Beverly laid on her towel and began to sunbathe while she played music on her cassette player.
You and the rest of the boys watched her. Creepy, kinda. Though there was a very high chance that she knew everyone watched. She knew she was pretty and she should.
Beverly turns to look at us and I look away down at the pond while the boys looked over somewhere else.
"News flash, Ben. School's out for summer!" Richie says as he fished a postcard out of Ben's bag and pulled it out, showing it to him.
"Oh, that? That's not school stuff." Ben said.
"What is it? Who sent you this?"
"No one. Give it. No one." Ben said as he snatched it from Richie's hands.
Richie continued to rummage around Ben's bag and pulled out a book with newspaper articles.
"Put it back, Richie. That's not your stuff." You say.
"What's with the history project?"
Stan moved closer to look at the book before it was passed onto Bill.
"Oh... Well, when I first moved here, I didn't really have anyone to hang out with, so I just started spending time in the library." Ben shrugs.
"You went to the library? On purpose?"
"Plenty of people go to the library on purpose, Richie. I go there to sleep sometimes, honestly." You say as you look at the book.
"Oh, I wanna see."
Beverly sits down next to Bill and now everyone was circled around him as they looked at the contents of the newspaper clippings.
"What's the 'Black Spot'?" Stanley asks.
"The Black Spot was a nightclub that was burned down years ago by that racist cult." Eddie explains.
"You actually know something about history, holy shit, man." You say.
Eddie scoffs and ignores you. Not really the reaction you wanted..
"The what?"
"Don't you watch Geraldo?"
You switch your attention to Richie, completely ignoring everything everyone was saying. It was almost like you knew what was going on but you had your attention set on only one thing for what felt like hours without control.
You once again examined his glasses, then his eyes, and then his-
"Y/n! Dude are you okay? That's the second time." Beverly says.
"Huh?" You say with your mouth slightly agape.
"You spaced out for a while. Are you okay?" Beverly asks concerningly.
"Oh, yeah. Sorry I do that sometimes, bit of a space cadet." You laugh awkwardly.
Scattered yes' and hums came from the boys as they shrugged and nodded.
Beverly gave you a sly smile.
"Why is it all murders and missing kids?"
Ben turns to face Richie. "Derry's not like any town I've ever been in before. They did a study once, and it turns out people die or disappear six times the national average."
"You read that?" Beverly asks, leaning in, intrigued.
"And that's just grown-ups. Kids are worse. Way, way worse. I've got more stuff if you wanna see it." Ben offers.
Eddie shakes his head. "No. No."
"What do you mean 'no'? What if any of this can link to Betty Ripsom and Georgie's disappearances." You argue, attempting to make a point.
Bill looks at you for a few moments before deciding. "She's right. We have to find them."
"If they're not dead." Richie says under his breath.
Beverly gets up, followed by Ben and Bill, and then everyone else.
You all put your clothes and shoes on and get onto your bikes to bike to Ben's house.
"You know, kids like him always have freaky things or are into them." Richie whispers to you.
"You're awful, you know?" You smile.
After about 10 minutes, you make it to Ben's house. It sat on a nice lawn and was white with a blue roof.
Everyone enters and Ben quickly picks up out of place objects and tosses them in his closet.
His walls were covered with newspaper articles and pictures. It was impressive how much research was done, you don't even think you've ever put this much effort into a history "project" before.
"Don't freak out, just tell us." Eddie says.
"Yeah. I heard he has a rollercoaster and a pet chimp and an old guy's fucking bones. Yeah." Richie says. God knows what he was even talking about. He looks at the walls just as you had, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wow!"
"Are those good "wow's" or bad ones?" You ask.
"What the fuck do you mean? Bad ones! This is fucking insane. Ben is fucking insane." Richie whispers to you.
"No he's not."
"Cool, huh?" Ben says proudly.
"No. No, nothing cool. There's nothing cool. Oh, this is cool, right here. Wait, no. No, it's not cool." Richie says.
You shake your head and look closer at some of the articles, one in particular catching your eye, and apparently, Stanley's too.
"What's that?" He points to a piece of paper.
"Oh, that? That's the charter for Derry Township."
"Nerd alert." Richie says.
"Says you. Who's the one who planned on playing Street Fighter all summer?"
Richie flips you off.
"No, actually, it's really interesting. Derry started out as a beaver trapping camp." Ben argues.
"Still is, am I right, boys?" Richie raises his hand for a high five. You and Stanley both shook your heads in disapproval and Eddie hardly glanced at him. He lowered his hand down.
"Ninety-one people signed the charter that made Derry. But later that winter, they all disappeared without a trace."
"What?"
"The entire camp." Eddie asks, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
You looked and listened to him closely, intrigued by the history and how he told and explained everything.
"There were rumors of Indians, but no sign of an attack. Everybody just thought it was a plague or something. But it's like one day everybody just woke up and left. The only clue was a trail of bloody clothes leading to the Well House."
"Jesus. We can get Derry on Unsolved Mysteries." Richie sighs.
"Let's do that. That's a brilliant idea." Eddie says sarcastically.
"How about no.." You object.
You examine the leftover articles that were not yet hung up. "You're right, Ben. This is cool."
"Thanks."
"Where was the Well House?" Bill asks.
"I don't know. Somewhere in town, I guess. Why?"
"Nothing."
You smile to yourself and turn to Ben. "Thanks for the history lesson, Ben. This is really cool. I can tell you put a lot of effort into this."
"Thank you." He smiles.
You sigh and cross your arms, looking at everyone else. "Well, I think I have to get going, now. I'm supposed to be home in..." You look at your watch to check the time. "2 minutes. And I don't think that will happen. I don't wanna die today so.."
"Alright. Bye, Y/n. Thanks for coming over." You point at him and click your tongue.
--------------------------------------
You hummed to yourself as you peddled down a small dirt road to get to your house.
A red balloon with 'I Love Derry' passed by and suddenly everything and every sound was completely gone.
You furrowed your eyebrows in confusion and stopped your bike.
"Hello?"
You looked around and there was no one. No sound of cars, children playing, or hundreds of people having conversations. Not even a footstep was heard.
"Hello?" You said louder, drawing the word out more.
You began to feel uncomfortable. You've never seen Derry so barren, especially at this time.
You sniffled, coughed, and even began drumming your fingers on the handles of your bike just to make some noise to somewhat comfort yourself.
You get back on and bike further, looking at any shops or playgrounds to see if anyone was there. But there wasn't. You were all alone.
You tried not to panic. Maybe everyone just decided to not be out right now. Right?
You peddle to a stream to hear the sound of the water running. It helped for a minute.
Suddenly you were pushed into it face first and when you tried to get up someone held you and your head down into it.
You splashed around in struggle, losing your strength and oxygen, and then it suddenly just disappeared.
You quickly got up and looked around everywhere and saw nothing, once again. You turn to your bike only to see another red balloon with someone standing behind it.
'Where were they coming from?'
"H-hello? Who are you?"
The balloon popped, revealing a clown with red hair and classic face paint.
You flinched at his appearance and the sudden noise.
"Hello, Y/n." The clown said with a large smile on his face. The makeup only exaggerated it even more.
Something in your mind was screaming at you to leave but you couldn't.
You had no words. You forgot how to breathe, blink, and move. You were completely frozen in fear.
"Nothing to say? I thought you didn't like the quiet." The clown frowns.
Your breath hitches. You snap out of it and quickly run to your bike only to be quickly stopped by him grabbing your wrist.
"Please, I don't want to be alone, don't leave me."
"G-get away from me!" You shout breaking away from his grasp and biking away as quickly as you could.
"No one cares about you. Forever alone. Just like me." The clown mock cries from the distance before letting out an eerie laugh.
--------------------------------------
You panted and made it onto your street, still seeing no one the whole way.
You toss your bike on the floor and head inside of your house.
"Mom! Dad! Josie!" You called out loudly.
You go to each room in the house, finding none of your family.
You sit in a corner and take fistfulls of hair into your hands and sob. "I don't want to be alone. I don't want to be alone. Please!"
You rocked back and forth, all alone. By yourself with no one by your side or even around you.
"I'm all alone." You sniffed and sobbed louder.
The jingle of keys and rattle of the door catches your ear and you let go of your hair.
"Mommy..?" Your voice cracks.
"Y/n? What are you doing on the floor? Why are you crying? And why are you wet?" She says, looking down at you pitifully.
"I- I was all alone a-and no one- there was no one. I had no one with me- and the clown and I- I couldn't breathe-" You say through sobs and hiccups.
"What's the matter with you?"
"What?" Your voice shaky.
"Stop crying and go help with the groceries."
You blink at her absently, astounded with her reaction, but you proceed to get up and go to the car to get the bags of food from the back.
"What the fuck just happened.." You said to yourself quietly. Your eyes were still puffy, and your legs hurt from the heavy peddling.
You place the bags onto the counter and go to the living room.
"I need to see someone. Someone, anyone." You whispered to yourself
You go to the phone and put in the number and bring it to your ear. Your hands still shook.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Mrs. Tozier, It's Y/n L/n. Uh, is Richie there right now?"
"Yes, he just got home. Why?"
"Do you think I could come over and hang out with him?"
The call went silent for a few seconds before Mrs. Tozier responded.
"Of course, Y/n. Come over whenever."
"Thank you, Mrs. Tozier."
And then the line went dead. You hung the phone back up and went to the kitchen where your mom was putting away the groceries.
"Hey, uh mom?"
"What? Can you help me put these away?"
"Yeah, of course. But- I'm going to Richie's house. Mrs. Tozier said it was alright with her." You say as you grab a bag and begin putting the contents of it where they belonged.
"I don't know. After earlier are you even in shape to go?" She said, looking away from you.
"Please, mom. I just- I need to talk to him. Please.." You begged.
She turned around and glared at you before responding flatly. "Fine."
The breath you didn't even know you held was released and the shakiness that you had was now calmed.
"Thank you, mom. I'll be back before the lights come on." You say.
You were horrified to even bike now but you needed to talk to someone or be around someone. Someone that knew how to comfort you, unlike your mom.
--------------------------------------
*Ding-Dong*
You stood outside on the Tozier's front door while you waited for someone to answer it.
"Mrs. Tozier? It's Y/n." You say.
After a moment the door opens, Mrs. Tozier stood at the doorway before inviting you in. "Hello, Y/n. Richie's in his room. Do you want anything?"
"No thank you. I'll just head over to his room." You smiled.
Mrs. Tozier nodded and allowed you to walk through the hallway into Richie's room.
You knock on his door.
"Mom, I'm busy!" Richie shouts from the other side of the door.
"Busy doing what?" You ask.
You can hear scrambling and curses coming from inside of the room. You smile as he opens the door.
"Y/n."
"Yeah, that's my name."
Richie rolls his eyes and sits on his bed. "What are you doing here?"
You frown and sigh. "I was just wondering if I could hang out with you for a few hours maybe?"
"Uh, yeah. Yeah, that's cool." Richie nods and invites you into his room and closes the door. "What's up?"
The bed creaks as you take a seat on it, bouncing ever so slightly. "I don't know. Just- something that happened earlier that kinda freaked me out." You shrug.
Richie takes a seat right next to you, moving an Uncanny X-Men comic out of the way and onto his nightstand.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Richie tended to be an asshole who said some pretty out of pocket and gross things sometimes, but he really did care for his friends and very rarely, treated them with care.
"Nah. But thanks, Richie." You shake your head.
Richie nodded and laid upright on his bed, grabbing his comic to continue it. "I still have that book you were reading here the last time you came over. It's on my desk." He said, pointing to it.
*knock* *knock* "Richie, what have I said about closing the door all the way when you have your friends over?" Mrs. Tozier shouted from the other side.
Richie groaned and got up to open the door. "To leave it open a little bit."
"That's right." Mrs. Tozier sighed. "Y/n, do you want anything? Water? Any snacks?" She offered.
"Some water would be nice, but I can get it myself, Mrs. Tozier."
Mrs. Tozier shook her head. "No, no. I'll bring some for you, Y/n. Just stay in here."
Richie grumbles and takes the book off of his desk, tossing it to you. "My mom never treats me like that."
You smile. "She loves you, Richie. Just be lucky she's not like Eddie's mom."
"Oh, god. I'd kill myself!" He laughs.
You laugh along with him. "'He's so fragile, take your pills my precious little baby, aw give mommy kisses.' I feel bad for him sometimes."
'No one cares about you. Forever alone.'
The clown.
You clear your throat and open up your book to the page that had the corner folded in.
“You’re freaking me out, man. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
You tried your hardest to read your book, but your mind kept going to that damn clown. Why was everyone gone? Where did it come from?

It was becoming so much, your head and eyes began to hurt, and you couldn't think about anything else but that thing.

You inhale deeply and close your eyes in an attempt to clear your mind and compose yourself. You laid further in the bedframe and heard it creak, closing your eyes longer than you wanted it to last.

And next thing you know, you're waking up with a throw blanket covering you and a pillow under your head. It was dark out and the only thing that illuminated the room was the moonlight peeking through the window.

You turn to look at the time on the digital clock. 2:06 am it read.

‘Mom's going to kill me..’ You thought to yourself.

You look at the nightstand to find a glass of water, your book, and your pair of glasses next to Richie's.

You rub your eyes and groan as you sit up just enough to where you could take a drink out of the glass of water.

You exhale and lie back down. You found it impossible to fall asleep now. You stared at Richie’s ceiling and counted all of the glow in the dark stars and occasional spaceships to try and calm your mind and get rid of all that was happening.

You turn over to your side and look at Richie.

He was sprawled out on his bed laying on his stomach. One leg was almost on the floor while the other was on the bed kicked out, and one arm was hanging off while the other was practically in your face. His mouth was slightly open as he snored.

You smile to yourself at his messy way of sleeping. You definitely were much, much more graceful than him when you slept.

You close your eyes and exhale deeply. Falling asleep again.

--------------------------------------

You wake up to the sound of movement and clattering.

You open your eyes and groan as the sun shone in your eyes. “Jesus fuck, dude. Why do you keep your curtains open like this?”

You put your glasses on and get up from the bed, walking over to Richie.

“My mom started making me let more sunlight in after she found out I was gonna spend the summer playing Street Fighter.” Richie says as he picks up his floor.

You laugh at him. You look at your watch and see the time. 9:27 am. “Shit. I should get going now, Richie. My mom's totally going to kill me if I stay any longer.”

“Just hope your dad is there, I guess.” Richie shrugs.

You groan. “I can only hope so.. I have to go now. I'll see you later on, yeah? If you're okay with it.”

“Yeah, obviously. Who wouldn't want to hang around with me.”

“You're making me second guess my decisions now, Richie.” You laugh.

“Uh-huh, whatever.”

“Alright now, bye for real this time.” You wave off as you leave his room.

As you walk down the hallway, you see Mrs. Tozier sitting down on the living room couch watching the television. You stop and wave at her to tell her bye, immediately standing in fear as you hear your name come from the TV channel she was watching.

‘Y/n, when you come and join us, you’ll float down here with us, too. Join us, Y/n.’ The hostess said. There were children surrounding her and all of them had eerily large smiles on their faces as they looked at you.

“U-uh, bye, Mrs. Tozier. I’m uh, I’m going home now..” You wave off before quickly leaving the Toizer residence and picking your bike up from outside to leave.

Richie’s house was only about a 3 minute bike from your house, and even less when you biked fast enough. You needed to get home fast, especially after yesterday’s events.

You set your bike down on your lawn and go inside, taking your shoes off before you even dare going further into the house with them on, and walk down the hallway to reach your room as quickly as possible, only to be stopped.

“Y/n? Is that you?”

You walk back and look in the kitchen to see your mom standing at the stove. “Yes, mom.”

“Good.. Where were you last night and what happened to ‘being back before the lights came on’?” She turned to you with her arms crossed and a stern look on her face.

“I was at the Tozier’s? Remember? I asked you if I could go, and you said yes.” You say, confused.

“How come you didn’t come home?”

“I just got tired and I accidentally fell asleep. I woke up late last night, but it was already 2am and I couldn’t just ride the bike in the dark back home.”

“Bullshit, Y/n. What were you doing with that boy of theirs?” She said, walking closer and closer to you.

“Nothing, mom.” You defend yourself.

“I know you did something you little slut.” Her words burned like fire.

You stood there frozen in shock. Your mom has always had horrible things to say, and they only got worse after she had your sister. They were unfortunately almost always targeted at you.

“M-mom, I promise, I didn’t do anything. I- I just stayed the night, I swear.” You fall over your words.

“You probably had-”

“What’s all the yelling about?”

Your dad came into the kitchen, interrupting what your mom was about to say. He held a washcloth in his hands, trying to clean off the grease and oil off of his hands and arms as best as he could. His t-shirt was also dirty, he was probably just in his shop.

‘Thank god.’ You thought to yourself.

“You know how Y/n wasn’t here last night? Well she stayed at the Tozier’s with their boy last night. In the same room, by themselves.” Your mom said angrily.

Your dad looked at her confused. “Yes, and?”

“What do you think they were doing in there, huh Mike? What if she was doing things with him alone in that room?” She flailed her arms about and shouted.

“First of all, Mrs. Tozier called around 9 or 10 last night to let me know that Y/n would be staying, and secondly, Y/n and Richie are 14. Mrs. Tozier has Richie keep his door open when he has friends over and his sister was there. Don’t you think they would need a little more privacy to do those ‘things’?” He stated as he walked to the sink to wash his arms and hands off.

Your mom gasped and grumbled angrily, now realising that she’d just lost the useless argument she was making.

The phone in the living room starts ringing, and you try to walk out of the kitchen to get it, only to be stopped by your mom once again.

“Y/n, you stay right here. We aren’t done with this yet.” Your mom says.

“But the-”

“Go answer the phone, Y/n. Don’t worry about it.” Your dad interrupts your mom.

“She and I aren’t done with this, Richard!”

“Y/n go get the goddamn phone!” Your dad was getting increasingly annoyed due to your mothers fit, and you could tell.

You nod your head and quickly head into the living room to pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Y/n?”

“Bill?”

“Y/n, we need to all meet at Beverly’s house. She said it was something important.”

“Uh, now’s not really the time, I’m sorry.” You looked into the kitchen to see your mom and dad shouting at each other back and forth, most likely loud enough for Bill to hear through the line.

At this point, this had just become such a normal thing that Bill hadn’t even bothered to say anything about it anymore.

“Please, Y/n.”

You sigh. “Fine. I’ll try to go. But I can't make any promises that I’ll be able to.”

“Cool. All of us are going to be there at your house in ten minutes.” Bill finishes before the line went dead.

You put the phone back on its holder and go down into your room. You change your clothes into some shorts, a white-shirt, and some low cut socks. It’s been hot lately. While trying to pass time you cleaned your room a little bit until you heard the ringing of bike bells.

You ran down the hallway and to the doorway, kneeling down as you put on your shoes.

“Where are you off to?” Your dad says.

“Oh, uh- Well Bill asked if I could hang out and play. We were all going to go to the movies and arcade for a bit.” You twiddle your thumbs as you look up at your dad.

“Alright, kiddo. Just be back before the lights come on or else your mom will lose her mind like this again. Be careful.”

“Alright. Bye dad.” You give him a hug and leave, seeing the boys out on the lawn waiting for you.

You pick up your bike and get on it. “So, what's the important thing?”

“Yeah, can you just tell me what she said exactly?” Eddie adds

“She didn't say anything. She just said that you guys need to hurry over.” Bill answered.

“So she didn't say anything. Okay. Okay.”

You all biked down the street and talked, taking about 10 minutes to get to Beverly's apartment complex. It looked dirty and run down, definitely an older building.

“Let's go through here, guys.”

“No, we gotta go through the alleyway.” Stanley says.

“The alley takes way too long.” Eddie argued.

“No, the alley is much faster.”

The two bickered back and forth.

“The alley is more dangerous and it's disgusting.” Eddie states.

“How is it more dangerous?”

“Eddie, the alley is faster.” You sigh.

“It smells like piss in the alley and it's just gross. Just take the side streets for once.”

“Oh, my god. The side streets are the same. They smell like piss and shit.”

“Can you guys be any more fucking annoying right now?” Richie says, annoyed.

As you arrive at the stairway of the apartments, Beverly meets you at the bottom. “You made it. I... I need to show you something.”

You look at her questioningly. “What is it?”

“More than we saw at the Quarry?” Richie says.

“Shut up! Just shut up, Richie!” Eddie was clearly annoyed as well. I mean, that was unnecessary and uncalled for.

“My dad will kill me if he finds out I had boys in the apartment.” Beverly says as she looks worriedly at the boys.

“What about me?” You ask. “I'm not a boy, come on, man.” You frown jokingly.

“Sorry, Y/n. Didn't mean to leave you out. My dad will kill me if he finds out if I had anyone over.” She says.

“Then we'll leave a lookout.” Bill says and immediately turns to look at Richie. “Richie, stay here.”

You snort. You totally called it.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! What if her dad comes back?”

“Then do what you always do. Start talking.”

You laugh and Richie gives you a look. “It’s a gift.”

All of you go up the steps, following behind Beverley.

Once in her apartment, she leads all of us down her hallway. “It's in there.” She pointed at a closed door as she looked at it in fear.

“What is it?” Stanley asks.

“You'll see..”

“Are you taking us to your bathroom?” Eddie asks. “I just want you to know that 89% of the worst accidents in homes are caused in bathrooms, and-and-and, and that's where all the bacteria and fungi are, and it's not a really sanitary place.”

She nods and leads everyone at the front of the door.

“What's there in the bathroom? Black mold? Monsters?” You joke.

“I told you about the black mold, please tell me it's not black mold.” Eddie says, worried.

“Worse.” Beverley opens the door, revealing a bathroom covered from wall to wall and top to bottom with blood. It was everywhere.

Everyone looks at the room in horror, Eddie whimpers as the door opens. “I knew it.” Eddie gags.

“What. The. Fuck..” You look at the blood covered room in horror, your mouth hanging agape. “..happened here..”

“You see it?” Beverly asks.

“Yes.”

“My dad couldn’t see it,I thought I might be crazy.”

“How the hell did your dad not see this shit?” You turn your head towards Beverly.

“Well, if you’re crazy, then we’re all crazy.” Ben says as he looks around the bathroom.

“We can’t leave it like this.” Bill says.

Your brows furrow as you whip your head towards Bill. “I’m sorry did you just say ‘we’? ‘We’ as in all of us, including me?”

“We have to, Y/n..”

You sigh and look down at your feet. “You always drag me into this sort of shit, Bill.” You look all around the bathroom once more. The red colour gave off a hue that radiated through the whole room. “Fine.” You gave in.

Everyone walked in fully, following Bill.

“How the hell are we supposed to clean this up?”

“I have some cleaning supplies. If you can help me get them then we can start cleaning up in here.” Beverly looks at you.

“Sure.”

She walks out of the bathroom and leads you into a small supply closet that was filled with buckets, rags, sponges, and a plethora of cleaning supplies.

“Woah. When was the last time any of this was used?” You ask as you look at the contents of the closet, dirty with cobwebs and covered in dust, smelling of old mothballs.

“I.. don’t know..” Beverly scratches her head before taking two of the buckets, a handful of rags, and enough pairs of rubber gloves for everyone.

You grab sponges and necessary cleaning sprays and such. Ones that if you were to mix, they wouldn’t kill you. You’re pretty sure that Eddie would appreciate that.

As you went into the restroom, Beverly went back to retrieve some mops.

“Uh, okay.. So let's just fill these up with water and some Pine Sol and get at it.”

“Wait! Wear the gloves!” Eddie shouts.

“Worried about a little bit of blood, Eddie?” You tease.

“A little bit of- are you high right now? Does this look like a ‘little bit of blood’ to you, Y/n? You do know that AIDS is going around, right? How can you not be afraid?”

“Guys, cut it out and stop fighting. We need to clean this up before Beverly’s dad comes back. Put on the gloves.” Bill says, picking up some rubber gloves from one of the buckets.

“You’re so bossy..” You mutter under your breath as you do the same and everyone follows.

All of the buckets get filled and everyone begins to clean up. You stood on a box and started to work on getting the blood off of the ceiling, having to go back and forth to the bucket for god knows how many times.

“Fuck this shit, this sucks. Why’d I get stuck with the shittiest part?” You grumble as you squeezed the blood and Pine Sol water mixture soaked rag into the bucket. This wasn’t what you were planning on doing today, nor is it what you wanted to. Though, it does beat being at home.

After a lot of time and a lot of effort, despite the amount of people that were all cleaning such a small space.

Everyone began to take trash bags out while Beverly emptied out the last bucket into the bathroom drain.

“My back and arms hurt so goddamn much. I’m not gonna be able to do shit for like, a week.” You complain to Stanley as you lug a trash bag down the apartment complex’s stars.

“You might be over exaggerating a little, but me too.” He sighs as he tosses his bag into the garbage.

“How do you think Richie’s doing? He’s been out here the whole time, I mean, it’s kind of hot out.” You look at Stanley as you do the same.

“He’s probably fine. Hey, do you think he talks to himself when he has no one else to?”

You giggle, “Wait, oh my gosh, you’re probably onto something.”

As you made your way back into the apartment, everything was already all put away and cleaned. There was nothing else needed so you just went back and met the rest of the boys down where Richie was.

“Did you have fun talking to yourself, Richie?”

“Wha- okay, I don’t talk to myself, and where did you start getting that from?” Richie says, furrowing his brows.

“You just look like you talk to yourself,” You shrug and pick up your bike. “Let’s go, loser.” You tease.

“Says you.” Richie scoffs.

Everyone takes their bikes and walks them while Richie rides on his.

You watch the trees and houses as you pass by them. You wondered how long it took for those trees to grow. Or how long it took to build those houses. ‘How long ago were those trees planted and houses built?’ You thought to yourself.

“No, I love being your personal doorman, really. Could you idiots have taken any longer?” Richie says as he circled around everyone on his bike.

“Cut that out.” You groan.

“Shut up, Richie.” Eddie says.

“Yeah, shut up, Richie.”

“Oh, okay. Trash the trashmouth, I get it.” Richie continued to circle around despite your plea to stop. “Hey, I wasn’t the one scrubbing the bathroom floor and imagining that her sink went all Eddie’s mom’s vagina on Halloween.”

“Jesus, Richie. Shut the fuck up already and cut that out.” You say, getting a small rock off of the pavement and throwing it at Richie.

“She didn’t imagine it.” Bill says. “I… I saw s-something, too.”

“You saw blood too?” Stanley asks.

Bill turns to face Stanley and shakes his head. “Not blood. I saw G-G-Georgie.”

Everyone turns to look at him at the mention of Georgie’s name, looks of shock and sympathy scattered.

“It seemed so real. I mean, it seemed like him but there was this…”

“The clown.” Eddie says, looking down at the floor.

You gasp at Eddie’s words. The clown.

“Yeah, I saw him, too.” He finishes.

“M-me too.” You say, letting out a shaky breath before clearing your throat.

Ben and Stanley silently nod their heads, confirming they saw the same.

“Wait, can only virgins see this stuff? Is that why I’m not seeing this shit?” Richie abruptly says.

“Jesus fuck, Richie! This is something fucking serious, is there a single moment where you could be normal and not act like a complete dickhead?!” You snap.

“Jeez, dude-”

“Oh, shit. That's Belch Huggins’ car. We should probably get out of here.” Eddie says, looking at a car parked on the side of the road.

“Yeah.”

“W-wait, isn’t that the homeschooled kid’s bike?” Bill points at a bike thrown carelessly next to Belch’s car.

“Yeah, that’s Mikes..”

“We have to help him.” Beverly says, looking at everyone.

“We should?”

“I’m with Richie on this. If Belch is involved, that means so is Bowers.” You swallow hard.

“Yes.” Beverly throws her bike down and runs to the car and everyone does the same, including tossing the bike, of course apart from Stanley who always insisted on putting the kickstand.

All of you quickly rush down the hill and hear voices coming down from the stream.

You stop and see Bowers on top of Mike, holding a rock over his head.

“Come on, Henry, smack him!”

Before Bowers could do anything else, Beverly picks up a rock from the ground and throws it at Bowers, hitting him in the head.

“Holy shit!” You shout in amazement. She’s got a hell of an arm.

“Nice throw.”

“Thanks.”

Bowers and the rest of his friends stare blankly at all of us and Mike quickly gets away from them, crawling towards us. Everyone else picks up decently sized rocks as Bowers’ friends bring him back up on his feet.

“You losers are trying too hard. She’ll do you. You just gotta ask nicely,” Bowers begins to say, and Beverly starts to get noticeably uncomfortable. “Like I did.” He makes a sexual gesture.

You look at him in disgust. “Ew..”

Ben screams and throws another rock at Bowers, hitting him right in the head just like Beverly.

“What the fuck?”

Everyone else grabs a rock and throws it.

“Oh, so we’re just doing this now I guess. Cool.” You shrug and throw yours, barely missing Belch.

“Rock war!” Richie shouts from beside you, startling you a little before getting hit in the head.

“Holy fuck! Are you okay?” You put your rock back down on the floor and quickly pull Richie back up.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m cool.” Richie adjusts his glasses and quickly picks up another rock, you doing the same.

Everyone continues to throw rocks, dodging the ones thrown by Bowers and his friends and eventually ‘winning’ the said ‘rock war.’

“Oh my god, holy shit.” You panted. Rock throwing will be your new workout now.

“What? What happened?” Richie asks.

“Dude… I can't believe you were the first one to get hit.” You laugh.

“Shut up.” Richie punches your shoulder and turns away.

Everyone walks away as Bowers lies on the floor and you follow and Richie stays behind temporarily. “Go blow your dad you mullet-wearing asshole.” He flips Bowers off and walks away.

“Hey, I’m gonna admit, guys. That was pretty fuckin’ awesome.” You exclaim.

Everyone walks down a hill with outgrown weeds and dry plants as a cargo train passes by.

“Thanks, guys, but you shouldn’t have done that. They’ll be after you guys, too, now.” Mike says.

“Oh, no, no, no. Bowers? He’s always been after us.” Eddie says and you hum in agreement.

“I guess that’s one t-thing we all have in common.”

“Yeah, Homeschool. Welcome to the Losers’ Club.”

“Y’know, despite the name I don’t think we’re that much of losers.” You joke. “So, where are we going now?”

“Downtown.” Bill says.

“Hey, isn’t that marching parade happening right now?”

Everyone walks into town, by now you didn’t even bother to grab your bike. Drum lines and the sound of horns could be heard playing, becoming louder as you entered the town. Everyone was adorned in blue and white, and American flags were being waved.

“Dude, hold on.” Richie says, tapping your shoulder before running off to one of the horn players and taking it from him, trying to play it.

“Richie, no, that’s gross!” You run over to him and try to pull him away while the player tries to take his instrument back. But to no avail as Richie refuses to budge and continues to try and play it.

“Let- let go of it, Richie. This guy’s spit is all in the mouth piece, it’s gross!”

“Dude!” The player says before finally taking it back and walking away angrily.

“What the fuck, dude?” Richie throws his arms up.

“Why are you like this?” You walk away with Richie to the rest of the group and Eddie walks in at the same time, two ice cream cones in hand.

“What are you guys talking about?” Eddie asks.

“What they always talk about.” Richie grabs the other cone from Eddie and takes a bite.

“Can I-” You ask before immediately getting turned down.

“Uh-uh.”

“Fuch you, too.”

“I actually think it will end.” Ben starts. “For a little while, at least.”

“What do you mean?” Beverly asks.

Ben stops for a few seconds before answering. “So I was going over all my Derry research and I charted out all the big events. The ironworks explosion in 1908, The Bradley Gang in ‘35, and The Black Spot in ‘62. And now kids being…” He pauses once more before looking down. “And I realize this stuff seems to happen..”

“Every 27 years.” Ben and Bill say at the same time.

“Shit… Why every 27 years though?” You ask, walking along with everyone else down into the plaza.

“I- I don't know yet…” Ben says.

“Wait, okay so let me get this straight; it comes out from wherever to eat kids for like a year, and then what? It just goes into hibernation?” Eddie says.

“Maybe it's like, what do you call it… Cicadas. You know, the bugs that come out once every 17 years.” Stanley says, perched up on the top of a park bench.

“My grandfather thinks this town is cursed. He says that all the bad things that happen in this town are because of one thing. An evil thing that feeds off the people of Derry.” Mike says.

Personally, now with everything that you’ve been seeing and experienced, you knew that this town was cursed, and there was absolutely no doubt about it.

“But it can’t be one thing. We all saw something different.” Stanley looked around at everyone.

“Maybe.. Or maybe it knows what scares us most and that’s what we see.”

“I saw a leper. He was like a walking infection..” Eddie says.

“I saw a clown. There was just no one around, nothing but the clown.” You said, looking down as you recalled what it told you.

“But you didn’t. Because it isn’t real. None of this is. Not Eddie’s leper, not Y/n seeing that clown, or Bill seeing Georgie, or that woman I keep seeing.” Stanley stutters and closes his eyes.

“She hot?” Richie asks as he leaned on his bike.

“Dickhead.” You say harshly as you elbow him in the ribs

“No, Richie. She’s not hot. Her face is all messed up. None of this makes any sense. They’re all like bad dreams.” Stanley shouts at Richie.

“I don’t think so. I know the difference between a bad dream and real life, okay?” Mike said, looking up at Stanley.

“What did you see? You saw something, too?” Eddie asked Mike.

“Yes. Do you guys know that burned down house on Harris Avenue?” You nod your head quietly. “I was inside when it burned down. Before I was rescued, my mom and dad were trapped in the next room over from me. They were pushing and pounding on the door… trying to get to me..” Mike stopped and looked at the ground. You could tell it was hard for him to say all of this. “But it was too hot. When the firemen finally found them, the skin on their hands had melted down to the bone.. We’re all afraid of something.”

“Got that right.” Richie said, looking behind him at the performers on the pop-up stage.

“Why, Rich? What are you afraid of?”

He looks back slowly and adjusts his glasses. “Clowns.”

You sigh and look down and sit in silence with everyone else for what felt like hours.

“Come on, let me show you guys something.” Bill says, breaking the silence between everyone.

“Oh, great. Are we going to have another Nerd out like Ben's?” Richie says sarcastically.

“Shut up Richie. Let's go.” You grab your bike and pull it up, following Bill off the grass and riding it after getting on the road.

“Are we going to your house?” Eddie asks.

“Yeah. It'll be quick, I promise.”

Everyone follows Bill to his house as Richie and Eddie bickered back and forth practically the whole way there, and when we made it he led us inside the garage.

“Okay, so,” Once everyone was in he turned on the slide projector and placed a map of the Derry sewer system up while Mike closed the garage door so it was dark.

Ben passes Bill some slides and he slips them into place, projecting the map of Derry on top of the sewer system.

Everyone sat down and looked at the projector, you sat next to Eddit on the floor in front of Richie.

“Look..” Bill pointed at a random storm drain on the map. “That's where Georgie disappeared. There's the Ironworks. The Black Spot. Everywhere it happens, its-its all connected by the sewers. And they all meet up at the-” Bill explains.

“The Well House..” Ben says

“The house on Nielbolt Street.”

“You mean that creepy-ass house where all the junkies and hobos like to sleep?”

Eddie takes a quick puff from his inhaler as he hyperventilates. You place his hand on his back and try to calm him down. “It's okay, try to breathe.” You whisper.

“I hate that place. It always feels like it's watching me..” Beverly says.

“That's where I saw It. That's where I saw the clown..” Eddie says.

“Th-thats where It lives.”

Eddie takes another puff, still continuing to hyperventilate and freak out. When it came to these freak outs of his it was easier to calm him but you were just as scared as him. You just held it together better than he did.

“I can't imagine anything ever wanting to live there.”

“Except for the hobos and junkies.” You add.

Stanley looks at you.

“What?” You shrug.

Eddie quickly gets up from his spot and stands in front of the projector, still struggling to properly breathe. “Can we stop talking about this? I-I can barely breathe. This is summer, we're kids- I can barely breathe. I'm having a fucking asthma attack! I'm not doing this!” Eddie frantically says and he rips the sewer map off of the wall.

“Eddie-” You get up and try to calm him down only to be pushed away.

“What the hell? Put the map back.” Bill says.

“Mmm-mmm” Eddie shakes his head.

The slides start clicking and changing through Bill's family pictures, specifically ones with Georgie. “What happened?” Bill says, looking at the projector.

“What's going on?” Mike goes to the projector to try and see how to fix it.

Everyone goes silent and the projector stops at one specific photo, one with Bill, his dad, Georgie, and his mom with her hair covering her face from the wind. “Georgie.”

“Bill?”

“Bill, stop fucking with us.” You say as you grabbed Eddie and pulled him away from the wall.

“I-I-I'm not doing anything-”

The projector keeps clicking rapidly, getting closer and closer on Georgie's face. Everyone stands in fear.

It switches it's focus from Georgie to Bill's mom and gets faster and faster.

It's not until his mom's face becomes the clowns where everyone begins to gasp and scream.

“What the fuck?!”

“What the fuck is that?! What the fuck is that?!” Richie says as he shook Eddie.

“I don't fucking know!”

“That-that's the fucking clown! That fucking thing- that's the fucking t-thing!” You scream as you point at it, backing up against the wall.

“No shit!”

“Turn it off. Turn it off!” Beverly shouts over everyone's screams.

“I-I can't fucking do this anymore, fuck you Bill!” You huddle with Eddie and Richie and close your eyes shut.

“Turn it off!”

“Turn it off!”

Mike kicks the the projector onto the ground and all the slides fall out, but it still continued to switch. The clown was still being projected a few times before it disappeared.

You exhale in relief and stare at the wall for a second.

And then it pops out.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck- Richie!” You hide behind him and he takes your hand to run and trips over a box, making the both of you fall down.
“I can't take this, I'm going to die, I should've-” You shut your eyes again as you heard the shouts and screams coming from everyone as you tightened your grip on Richie's hand and began to hyperventilate.

“What is that?!”

“What the fuck?!”

You began to feel dizzy and the fact you had your eyes closed didn't help. “I don't wanna die- oh god-”

“Get up!” Richie pulls you up to your feet and goes to the garage door with everyone else but you didn't know where Beverly was.

“Beverly- wh-what about Beverley!”

Ben and Mike frantically open the garage door and suddenly it disappears.

Beverly was stood in a corner with her hands over her face, and she slowly took them away from her face.

Everyone pants and stays quiet as she went to go hug Bill. You put you hand oh Richie’s shoulder and stare blankly at the projector on the floor.

“It saw us.. It saw us and it knows where we are!” Eddie said with his inhaler in his hand.

“So, let's go.” Bill says as he walked out of the garage.

“Go? Where?” Beverly asks.

“Nielbolt. That's where G..-G-Georgie is.”

“Are you retarded, Bill?” You say, pushing yourself in front of Richie.

“After that?” Stanley says.

“Yeah it's summer. We should be outside.” Richie says.

“If you say ‘It's summer,’ one more f..-fucking time.”

Everyone looked at Bill quietly as he grabbed his bike and went down the road.

“Bill! Wait!” Beverly shouted. “We need to go after him.”

“Excuse me- but what! With you its-its always been ‘we need to help them,’ ‘we need to go after them, ‘we, we, we.’ What's the fuck do you mean we? What if we don't want to? Why do we have to always follow everything you and Bill do? Why do you think we're in this fucking mess now, Beverly?” You shout at Beverly.

“Please.. please, Bill's going to get himself hurt or killed.”

Bill.

Suddenly you go back to when you were just 6 years old. You'd just transferred schools in the middle of the school year and no one wanted to be friends with the new girl. She sat alone during recess and lunch, and her parents never really paid any attention to her because her parents were taking care of a new baby.

Two weeks into school a boy from a different class came up to her during lunch. She looked up at him. He had a missing tooth and blue t-shirt.

“C-can I eat with you?” He asked with his lunchbox in his hands.

She looked up at him with her mouth slightly open. “Uh-huh.” She smiled as he sat down next to her.

“I'm B-B-Bill.” He smiled.

‘What a funny way to speak.’ She thought to herself.

“Nice to meet you, Bill. I'm Y/n.”

Her first friend. Her first friend was Bill, and you were just about to risk letting your first friend get hurt.

“Okay. But only because of Bill.” You sigh.

“Good.”
--------------------------------------
“Bill! Bill, stop!” You shout as you get off your bike and run to the bottom of the stairs.

Bill was standing at the top of the stairs that led to the doorway. He looked back at everyone.

“Bill, you can't go in there, this is crazy.” Beverly said as she followed you into the lawn.

“Look, you don't have to come in with me. But what happens when another Georgie goes missing? Or another Betty, or another Ed Corcoran? Or one of us?”

“Bill-” You say, going up a step.

“Are you just gonna pretend it isn't happening like everyone else in this town? Because I can't.”

You look down in embarrassment. Embarrassment that you didn't take how he felt about the situation into account. You felt horrible.

“I go home, and all I see is that Georgie isn't there. His clothes, his toys, his- stupid stuffed animals.. but he isn't.” He pauses. “So walking into this house, for me, is easier than walking into my own.” Bill turns around and heads to the door.

“Wow.” Richie says.

“What?” Beverly asks, looking at him.

“He didn't stutter once.”

Richie and Ben began to walk up the stairs with you before being stopped.

“Wait.” Stanley says as you, Richie, and Ben look back. “Shouldn't we have people keep watch? You know, just in case something bad happens?” He looks around.

“Who wants to stay here?” Bill asks, his hand on the door handle.

Everyone except Beverly raises their hand.

Richie turns to Bill. “Fuck.” He sighs.

“We'll draw straws, okay?” Beverley proposes.

“Or sticks you mean?” Stanley says.

“Fine. Sticks.” Beverly says as she grabs 7 sticks of different sizes.

“Okay. Close your eyes so you don't see the different shapes of the sticks.” She says as she holds them out to everyone.

7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and then she was left with the final one.

“Who has the shortest ones?”

You look at yours. ‘Shit.’

“Eddie, Richie, and Y/n.” Beverly says.

“Fuck, okay, shit.” You sigh and throw your stick on to the floor.

The four of you enter the house. It had overgrown vines, dust, and it smelt of something rotting.

“I can't believe I pulled the short straw. You guys are lucky you're not measuring dicks.” Richie says.

“That's unfair to me.”

“Not my fault.”

“Shut up, Richie.” Eddie says. “I can smell it.”

You walk slowly to the stand up piano and run your fingers along the keys. It was so dirty. It made you sad to see such a lively instrument turn into something so broken and neglected.

“Don't breathe through your mouth.”

“How come?”

“‘Cause then you're eating it.”

“That's not true, Eddie.” You remind as you push one of the keys down. What should've been a D was now an A, a whole octave above. You winced at the awful sound.

Eddie gags and spits on the floor and takes a puff from his inhaler.

You look at Eddie and Bill walking into a room and you quickly catch up to them so as to not be left alone.

Richie was standing next to a dirty sofa with a piece of paper in his hands.

“What?” Bill asks.

“It.. It says I'm missing.” Richie says as the paper shakes in his hands.

“Y-you're not missing, Richie.” Bill assures.

“‘Police Department. City of Derry. That's my shirt, that's my hair, that's my face.” Richie begins to freak out as he points at the paper frantically.

“Calm down, this isn't real.”

“That's my name, that's my age, that's the date!” Richie crumples the paper as he shouts.

You rush over to him and try to take the paper away. “Richie. Richie, you're here calm down”

“No, it can't be real, Richie.” Bill says.

“No it says it! What the fuck?!”

You and Bill spoke over each other as you tried to calm Richie but he still shouted frantically.

Bill rips the paper from Richie's grasp and throws it on the floor. ”Calm down, calm down.”

“It says I'm missing! Am I gonna go missing?! What the fuck!” Richie looked at you and Bill back and forth, grabbing both of you by the shirt.

“No, Richie, you're not going to go missing, I wouldn't let that happen. You have to calm down!”

Eddie stood a few feet away and he had his hands over his mouth as he watched the scene unfold.

“Look at me, Richie, look at me.” Richie pants heavily and takes his eyes away from the crumpled paper on the floor. “That… That isn't real. It's playing tricks on you.”

Suddenly a distorted voice is heard from inside the house.

“What was that?” You say, looking at the boys.

“Hello?” The voice repeated.

All four of you walk out of the room and look at the top of the stairs.

“Help me, please.”

“These stairs are definitely not OSHA certified.” You say as you made your way up the stairs.

The stairs creaked below you as you stepped, rats squeaked as they scattered, and cobwebs broke as you stepped on them.

You stopped until you saw an open door at the end of a hallway. Then your heart dropped.

Betty Ripsom.

“Betty?” Billy asks.

“Ripsom?” Richie finishes.

She's suddenly pulled away from sight of the door and screams.

All four of you jump and stay frozen in place, staying for a second in shock before moving forward.

Bill opens the door with a creak. The room looked like the rest of the house to no surprise. To try and ease your mind you try to think about what the house looked like before this.

“She was just here, where the fuck did she go?” Richie says.

Eddie was a mouth breather half the time, so when you didn't hear anything you began to feel unnerved. And when you turn to look back he's no longer there.

“Hey, guys. Where's Eddie?” You ask nervously.

“What?”

“Where the fuck is Eddie?” You repeat.

The door begins to creak and you look at it to see Eddie's figure standing at the beginning of the hallway.

“Eddie!” You rush to the door to try and stop it from closing but you're too late and it closes with a slam.

“Guys!”

“Eddie! Eddie open the door!” You shout, trying to open your side of the door only for it to stay shut. “Help me open this, Bill!”

“Eddie!” Bill shouts.

“Ahh! What the fuck!” Eddie screams.

“Eddie!” You pound on the door and try to kick it down. It's old rotting wood, why is it not breaking? “Eddie! Eddie! Open the door, Eddie!” You shout. The clown was scary by itself, but now Eddie was possibly going to have something happen to him if you didn't do anything. But you couldn't do anything right now, and that's what scared you.

“Richie! Richie!” Bill shouts.

“Bill, come on, open the door!” Richie says from the other side.

You turn around to see Bill doing the same to another door, hearing Richie on the other side of the door. “Richie! Fuck! Richie!” You shouted.

“It won't open!”

“Richie!”

“I can't!”

And then nothing. No more responses from Richie.

“Richie?” You ask quietly. Still nothing.

You huff angrily. “Bill, what the fuck! What the fuck happened! How did you let this fucking happen, Bill!” You grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

“I-I-I didn't do anything I don't know, he just-”

“I know you didn't do anything why do you think he's behind that fucking door, Bill!” You shake him.

“Y/n, c-calm down. This is what It wants, It wants to scare you!” Bill says, grabbing your hands and pulling them off his shirt. “Richie's fine, he'll be fine.” He assures you.

Tears began to well up in your eyes and your once balled up fists became limp. “I don't want to lose my friends. I don't want Eddie to die. I don't want Richie to die, Bill!”

“Calm down, h-he-he'll come back, Y/n. Just stay with me

You nod your head rapidly and sniffle before trying the door again, and finally it budged.

Bill pulls him out and quickly shuts the door. “Let's get outta here.”

“What about Eddie!” You shout. And as if on queue; gurgling noises come from the beat up mattress lying on the floor with Eddie's head popping up out of it.

“There..”

“You wanna play loogie?” He says before spitting up a black ooze like liquid and started to eerily laugh and disappeared back into the mattress.

“Eddie!” You ran to go to the mattress only for Richie to grab your hand and pull you back.

As soon as it hit the floor it began to burn the floor.

All three of you turn around to see 3 doors that were never there before, each marked with different texts.

‘Not scary at all’, ‘Scary’, and ‘Very scary’.
You look at eachother and collectively decide on the first door and run to it.

Bill opens the door, only for it to be completely dark.

“Where's my shoe?”

Bill goes to turn the light on and once it turned, you sat half the body of Betty Ripsom.

You and Richie scream as you look at the sight. “Where the fuck were her legs?!” Richie shouts as he shuts the door. “Holy shit what the fuck was that!” He says as he looks at the black ooze coming closer.

You were too scared for words right now. All you could do was hold on to Richie and close your eyes shut. This experience is making you realize that you do this when you're scared. Finally it was too much. The acid in your stomach mixed with your lunch earlier was starting to be something you were about to see again.

“This isn't real. Remember the missing kids poster. That wasn't real, so this isn't real.”

Burning from your throat came up and before you knew it you'd just spewed all over the floor with some of it getting on your shoes. You begin to sob and press your back on the wall.

“Y/n. You need to calm down. We'll find Eddie and we'll get out of here. But you need to calm down.” Bill puts a hand on your shoulder and you nod. He pulls you and Richie away from the door by a few feet. “Come on, ready?”

“No.” Richie says.

Bill opens the door and there's nothing there. No Betty Ripsom. Nothing but the hallway you were previously in.

“Oh thank God.”

“W-where's Eddie?”

You let out another sob. “Bill, you told me we'd get Eddie and get out of here, you lied to me!” More tears streamed down your face as you held his hand.

“Help! Help!” Eddie's screams could be heard from downstairs so Bill pulls you along with him.

Bill finds the room from which Eddie’s screams came from and he opens the door, rushing in.

“Eddie!”

You would run over to Eddie if it weren't for the fact that the clown was sitting down right in front of him.

You gasp and stop in your tracks as it looks back at you.

“Eddie!” Richie calls out.

The clown smiles and turns his attention to Billy. “This isn't real enough for you Billy? I'm not real enough for you?”

“Oh shit..”

“I was real enough for Georgie.” The clown laughs before springing up and running towards us.

You sob even more and close your eyes as it runs towards you only for there to be nothing getting you.

You peek your eyes open and see a metal fence post stuck in and out of his head by Beverly.

Bill and Richie gasp as they look at the same scene in front of them.

The blood coming from the clown was slowly floating up and he was frozen on the spot whining.

[Chapter 2 start]

Eddie screamed and you looked at the clown then at him before running to Eddie and hugging him. “Eddie! Eddie, oh my god! Holy shit!”

“Get Eddie!”

Everyone gathers around Eddie and screams. The clown turns around slowly and growls as he reveals an even more disturbing and distorted face.

“Oh fuck! We've gotta get out of here!” Richie shouts.

“What the fuck's wrong with his face!” You scream and Eddie gags.

All you could do was what you always did. Close your eyes. ‘It's not real, this isn't real, this thing isn't real.’ You kept repeating in your head.
“Get Eddie out!”
Everything was starting to become blurry and the only thing keeping yourself from blacking out was the tight grip that Richie had on your arm.
“Y/n! Y/n, snap out of it!”
Your ears were ringing and you could barely make out any of what was being said. You felt like you were about to pass out or throw up again.
“Y/n!” Stanley shouts as he shakes you.
You gasp and every noise suddenly became more audible and the ringing in your ears stopped. “H-huh?”
“It’s gone, Y/n. But you need to get up!”
You looked around to see that clown was no longer there nor was Bill, Ben’s stomach had three fresh cuts, and everyone either had pushed themself up against a wall or were huddled around Eddie and you.
“W-wait where’s Bill? Stanley, where’s Bill?” You asked.
“I’m gonna- I’m gonna snap your arm back into place.” Richie says as he looks at Eddie’s arm. You don’t know how you hadn’t noticed it when you ran up to Eddie, but his left forearm was snapped in half.
“Rich, do not fucking touch me. Do not fucking touch me!” Eddie shouted.
“Okay. One, two, three!” Richie took Eddie’s arm and snapped the two bones back into place, though it’s not like it helped much as it seemed that it only caused Eddie even more pain as he screamed.
You look at the scene with wide eyes. “Stanley, where the fuck is Bill?” You say once more.
“I- He went to go after the clown, I don’t know?” He says frantically.
“Get out, let’s go! Get out of the house!” Bill says as he comes running back from a hallway.
Stanley quickly pulled you up and the nausea hit as soon as you went up, didn’t help a whole lot that he was now leading you out the door as fast as he could.
Everyone leaves the house as quickly as possible, except for Richie, Bill, and Eddie.
“Oh my god! Oh my fucking god!”
“I’m gonna fucking kill you, Richie!” Eddie shouts.
“Bill! I hope you know I fucking hate you, Bill!” You shout as you make your way to your bike and try to pick it up. “Fuck!”
“Y/n! Get Eddie on your bike!” Bill says.
“What?! Do you not see me struggling to even pick the goddamned thing up, Bill?”
“We need to go, get him on your bike!”
You scoff as you pick your bike up and help Eddie onto it. “Eddie, just hold on, okay? I’m sorry.”
--------------------------------------
“You. You did this!” Ms. Kaspbrak yells as he fumbles with her car keys and grabs Eddie. “You know how delicate he is.”
“W-we were attacked, M-M-Ms. K.” Bill tried to explain.
“No. Don’t.” She opens the car door and shoves Eddie into the passenger seat. “Don’t try and blame anyone else.
She drops her keys on the floor and in a fit of anger she struggles to grab them.
“Let me help-” Beverly offers as she bends down and tries to help before Ms. Kaspbrak snatches them away.
“No, back!” She shouts. She looks up at Beverly. “Oh, I’ve heard of you, Miss Marsh. And I don’t want a dirty girl like you touching my son.” Then she looks at you. “Or you.” She hisses.
You look up at Ms. Kaspbrak with your mouth open. You’d known her for the past 5 years, you’d figure that she wouldn’t say anything. You were hurt that all of a sudden she took a dislike to you.
“Mrs. K, I-I…” Bill stutters.
“No! You are all monsters! All of you! And Eddie is done with you. Do you hear? Done!” She yells and goes into her car before leaving.
Everyone walks into the road and watches her and Eddie leave.
“W-what just-” You say as you look at every one.
“I saw the well. W-w-we know where it is, an-and next time we’ll be better prepared.” Bill stutters.
“No! No next time, Bill. You’re insane.” Stanley says.
“Why?” Beverly asks. “We all know no one else is going to do anything.”
“And there’s a reason for that, Beverly. We wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place if Bill didn’t drag us into it. Eddie’s arm would still be fine. Ben wouldn’t be looking like sliced deli meat over here. Maybe I wouldnt’ve seen that fucking clown in the first place if Bill didn’t get all of us involved in it.” You turn to look at Bill. “The only reason all of us go along with it, Bill, is because we’re your friends. Friends are supposed to keep eachother safe. Friends aren’t supposed to drag eachother into shit so deep that it nearly kills them, Bill. We love you, we do, but right now, I fucking hate you. I hate you because you dragged all of us into this, and I almost lost two friends. That’s something I shouldn’t be worrying about.” You say with tears in your eyes.
“Yeah! Eddie was nearly killed! And look at this motherfucker.” Richie shouts as he points at Ben. “He’s leaking Hamburger Helper!”
“We can’t pretend it’s gonna go away. Ben, you said it yourself, it comes back every 27 years.” Beverly says.

“Fine! I’ll be 40 and far away from here. I thought you said you wanted to get out of this town, too.”
“Because I wanna run towards something. Not away.”

“I’m sorry, who invited Molly Ringwald into the group? I’m just saying, let’s face facts. Real world.” Richie points at Beverly as she flips him the bird. He turns to Bill. “Georgie is dead. Stop trying to get us killed, too.” You gasp and cover your mouth at his choice of words. “What? I’m not wrong, am I? You agreed with me, Y/n.”
“I- But, Richie, I don’t think that you realize that’s insensitive to say around Bill.” You argue.
“Oh? But it's better to say it behind his back, Y/n?”
You huff. “Richie, just because you’re an asshole and one of my best friends does not mean that I have to be one, too.”
“Georgie’s not dead.” Bill says as he approaches Richie.
Richie looks away from you to face Bill. “You couldn’t save him, but you could still save yourself.”
“No, t-t-take it back.” Bill looks around at everyone. “ You’re scared, and we all are, but take it back!” Bill aggressively pushes Richie away.
Richie does the same and Bill punches him, knocking him down onto the floor.
“Bill!” Beverly shouts
You run to help Richie up but he slaps your hand away.
Stanley and Mike grab him by the arms and pulled him up as he flailed about. “You’re just a bunch of losers!” Bill still attempts to grab at Richie and Ben holds him back. “Fuck off!”
“Richie, stop.” Mike says.
“Bill, cut it out!” You shout trying to push him away.
“You're just a bunch of losers and you’ll get yourself killed trying to catch a stupid fucking clown.” Richie says.
“Stop!” Beverly screams. “This is what it wants. It wants to divide us. We were all together when we hurt it. That’s why we’re still alive.”
“Yeah? Well, I plan to keep it that way.” Richie says as he walks away, shoulder-checking Bill.
“Look at what you did, Bill! You did this.” You grow and grab your bike. “Richie! Wait!” You shout and run towards Richie and try to catch up with him.
“What?” Richie says harshly.
“Richie, please.”
“What? What the fuck do you want me to do? What are you waiting for? Why don’t you just go with everyone else? Why do you always follow me?”
“I- Richie, because-”
“Leave me alone, Y/n.” Richie walks away with his bike by himself.
You stood in silence as you watched him walk away. You always hung out with him the most compared to the others. There was a reason why you always wanted to be with him more, it wasn’t because he was more tolerable than the others to be around because god knows that would be wrong, but rather because you’d found yourself having a crush on him.
Right now it’s become clear to you as to why they were called crushes.
You look back at where everyone was before only to find that no one was there.
You stood by yourself and suddenly you were reminded of when you were going back home from Ben’s house.
‘No one cares about you. Forever alone.’You let out a sob as you now realize that you took part in dividing everyone, just like how Beverly said. It felt like 1st grade again. The only friends you had were the Losers. Your first friend was Bill, and you just said something that hurt him.
You sniffle and get on your bike, making your way back home.
--------------------------------------
It’d been over a month since you last talked to any of the Losers. If you came across any of them you simply waved your hand and turned away from them.
It was.. boring without them. All you ever found yourself doing was sitting in your room, riding your bike around mindlessly, playing with your sister, and only occasionally reading. You wanted to read more, but you couldn’t help but feel stuck on the fact that you never got to finish the book you left at Richie’s house.
You look on your nightstand and see issue 250 of Uncanny X-Men sitting on it, collecting dust as it hasn’t been touched since the last time Richie had come over. Which felt like ages ago.
4:16 pm.
You grab the comic and dust it off. If Richie had seen it so dirty he’d freak out. He was never very organized but when it came to his comics he had a set place for them and always put them back into their plastic sleeves so they wouldn’t get any dust on them.
You smile to yourself and open up the first page. You read a couple of the issues with Richie and you actually enjoyed them. You flip through the pages and feel the glossy paper, suddenly you were getting upset. There might be a newer issue on your nightstand if the stupid situation never happened. You would be upset at Bill if it weren’t for the fact that you contributed to the loss of everyone. But all that mattered to you right now was that they were safe and-
The phone began to ring and at the third ring you decided to get up to get it.
“Hello?”
“Y/n, it got Beverly.”
“Bill, is that you?”
“It got Beverly, Y/n! Meet us at the house on Neilbolt.”
“Bill wait-”
The dial tone went dead. Why was it always you that got hung up on? You sigh. You were scared, especially after last month. But it was a chance to see the Losers again, interact with them, help Beverly out, and that’s what mattered to you right at this very moment.
Neither your parents nor your sister were home, so you simply wrote a note and put it on the kitchen counter before you put on your shoes and left the house, biking away to the house on Nielbolt.
You thought of how everyone will act around eachother again. Are they still upset? Will Bill be upset with you? Will Richie not want to talk to you? You frowned at the thought.
When you arrived, no one else was there. You’d wondered if Bill had been playing a trick on you but you still waited, and thank god you did because a minute later everyone showed up. Well, of course except for Beverly.
Strong emotions flooded and you forgot just how much you missed them.
“Oh my god, Richie.” You say as you ran up to Richie and held him tightly.
“Jeez dude, I know I’m cool and all but..”
“Shut up.” You laugh. “God, it’s so nice to see all of you again. I’m so happy you have no clue.” You looked around and were suddenly reminded of the circumstances of why you were there. “But we need to go get Beverly.” You gulp.
“How come he gets a hug? Where’s our hug?” Stanley asks.
“I missed you all so much.” You went around to hug each of them. You forgot just how nice it was to be around friends again.
“Yeah. But we need to go get Beverly.” Bill sighs and walks into the lawn as everyone else followed. “Guys, spikes.” He picks some of them up and tries to place them into his bag just enough to where they would stay.
You stood next to Eddie and watched as he took his fanny pack off and threw it.
“Dude, what the fuck! Those are your meds!” You shout.
“They’re bullshit. I don’t need them.” He explains as he stares at the discarded fanny pack on the floor.
“Well, good to know you’ve stopped being a sissy.” You joke.
“Dude.”
“Sorry.” You clear your throat and walk towards Richie as he picks up an old beer bottle and hits it over the handrail on the house, it immediately shatters into pieces leaving only a small bit of the neck. He held it in his hands and looked at it disappointedly and tossed it on the floor.

“That glass wasn’t thick enough, Richie.” You say as you pat him on the back.

“That was lame.” Eddie said.

“Shut up, Eddie.” Richie says.
“Let’s go, guys.”
You took a deep breath before walking up the stairs, and as soon as you walked through that door, you felt all the memories from that 4th of July come back.
“Stan?” Eddie says from behind you.
You look back to see that Stanley was still right outside of the door, staring at all of you blankly.
“Stan, we all have to go. B-B-Beverly was right. If we split up like last time, the clown will kill us one by one. But if we s-stick together, all of us, we’ll win. I promise.” Bill stutters.
“Bill’s right. I’m scared, too, Stanley. Especially after what happened the last time I was here. But I have all of you guys and I trust that we’ll all win, too.” You agree with Bill and walk to Stanley.
Stanley looks down at the floor and for a second it looks like he’s about to dip out before he takes a step in.
You passed by where Eddie sat on the floor, the table was still broken. That was the spot where you were so scared that you’d just completely blacked out, that was the spot where you thought you were going to die with your friends because of that clown. You shivered at the memory.
“Follow me. The well is down here.” Bill says as he leads you down a cellar.
You looked around and now you found this area ever creepier than the main house itself. “This place is kinda giving me the heebie-jeebies right now.” You say as you push cobwebs out of the way, goosebumps were making themselves known on your arms.
“I know.”
You look at the well. It had a trail of blood following into it and it was broken up.
“Hey, Eddie, you got a quarter?”
“I wouldn't want to make a wish in that fucking thing.” Eddie says.
“Nuh-uh.. Me either.” You agree.
Everyone looks down the well. The well looked like it went down for thousands of feet, almost like it was never-ending.
“Jesus Christ."
“Beverly?” Ben shouts into the well.
“How are we supposed to get down there?” Mike asked.
Bill shines his flashlight to a discarded rope that looked about long enough. “Here. Let's use the rope.”
He grabs the rope and puts knots on it, getting the help from Mike to put it on the hook that was hanging above the well.
“I can't believe we're actually about to do this..” You say as you looked at the rope. You were next to go down after Eddie, and to say the least it looked horrifying because if you made one wrong step- wait, nevermind. You don't even want to think about it.
“Fuck..” You hold your breath as you grab onto the rope and carefully make your way down, Mike helping you on and holding the rope to steady it. You make it down to the hole that lead into the sewer and get in with the help of Bill and Richie.
“Alright, I’m coming down.” Mike says as he grabs onto the rope. Then there’s a sudden clank followed by Mike screaming.
“Mike?” You say as you look up. “Mike!” Everyone starts calling out to him.
“You okay? Mike!”
A figure starts coming over the well from above and once you were able to see who it was your heart dropped.
“Bowers.”
“Mike! Are you okay?” You call out.
“Fuck.”
“Mike!” Bill shouts.
“Where is he?” Richie asks.
Bowers looks down at us with a grin and laughs as he pulls the rope up.
“Fuck!” You try to grab the rope but as he pulled it, it began to slip from your hands.
“Get the rope! Get the rope!”
“I’m trying!” You shout frustratingly.
The rope was completely gone and all you could do was look up and hope Mike was okay.
“Shit.” Richie curses.
“Mike!” Shouts still proceeded.
“Leave him alone!”
Bowers was talking to Mike, you couldn’t exactly make out what was being said, but even an idiot would be able to know that whatever was being said was nothing nice in any way.
“Shit, what do we do?” You ask.
“Why are you asking us? We know just as much as you.”
You could only hope that Mike was okay right now, but with Bowers being involved, the chances were fairly low.
“Run, Mike!” Bill shouts.
Grunts of struggle could be heard.
Bill looks around with his flashlight. “I should get up there.”
“Are you insane? With what?” Eddie says as he pulls Bill back.
“I’ll climb.” Bill responds.
“What? No the fuck you aren’t, Bill. You’re going to fall!” You shout.
You hear Mike yell and suddenly Bowers is seen crashing down the well.
“Holy shit!”
You look up and see Mike looking over the well, staring down. “Mike! Are you okay, dude?” You ask.
“Yeah. I’m okay. I’m okay.” Mike assures as he pants before grabbing the belt of cartridges he brought to load the bolt pistol, and as he did so, he dropped the whole belt down the well. “Shoot!”
“Shit.” You said as you watched it fall.
Mike wipes his forehead and gets on the rope to make his way down with the rest of you.
“Guys, where’s Stan?” Eddie says concerningly as he made his way down the tunnel.
“Stanley!” Both Eddie and Richie shout.
You turn around and do the same as them, quickly making your way down the tunnel and out.
“Oh shit, it’s greywater.” Eddie says.
“Eddie, respectfully, I think greywater is the least of our worries and you should stop talking about it.” You say as you look around.
Everyone makes it out and looks around before running and calling his name. And after walking around for a short period of time you hear screams.
“Stan?” You call out.
“Stanley!”
“Shit, Stan!”
Everyone runs to the noise, finding a rusted door. You try to open it but it didn’t budge, and even with Mike helping after it still didn’t.
“Stanley!”
“We’re coming, don’t worry!”
Everyone else pushed on the door and it finally opened. There was only his flashlight on the floor but when Eddie picked it up and flashed it on the ground, what you saw was horrifying. Stanley was on the floor as some… thing, had its whole mouth over his face.
“What the fuck is that thing!” Richie screams.
It looks up and its gums with the teeth come up in a disgusting way.
“Oh shit.” Richie curses.
It gets off of Stanley and he gasps for air. The thing screeches as everyone screams in fear.
Was this the ‘woman’ that Stanley was talking about? You understood why he was so afraid of it now. You were, too.
“Stanley! Stanley!” You run up to him and kneel down, grabbing his hand. “Stanley, are you okay?” You say frantically.
Everyone yells Stanley’s name as they all run up to him. He screams and scooches away from everyone. “No! No! No!”
Frear was apparent but you don’t blame him at all. All of the guys were just coming at him in a rush all at once while screaming his name.
“It’s okay.”
“You left me! You took me into Neilbolt! You’re not my friends! You made me go into Neilbolt!” Stanley cries.
“Stanley, Stanley, it’s okay, we’re here. That thing is gone, Stan. We’re sorry.” You say as you tried to calm him down.
“Stanley, I’m sorry!” Richie apologizes.
“You made me go into Neilbolt!” You held him as he cried. “This is your fault.”
“Stanley, it’s okay.”
“We would never let anything happen to you. We’re here for you.” Richie says.
“You know we would never do that to you.”
“You’re not my friends.” Stanley continued to sob.
“Listen to me, Stanley, we promise we would never let anything happen to you, we promise.”
“You let her get me.”
“I’m so sorry, Stanley.” You looked at Stan and held him as you apologized continuously.
“Bill! Bill!” Eddie shouts.
You look up and see Eddie running into the closest tunnel. You help Stanley up and run with everyone else to go after him.
You follow the splashes but with everyone else running after, it was difficult to pin down where his steps were going.
“Shit, where’d he go?” You sigh and continue walking. It was currently not the time to be complaining about it, but you hated how soggy your socks were and the fact that it was ‘greywater’ as Eddie called it, did not make you feel any better.
“Bill?” Stanley calls out as everyone approaches an open metal gate.
“Bill!” Eddie calls out before tripping and falling into the water. Yuck.
“Come on. Get out of there, dude. That’s greywater.” Richie says.
“I think he knows that, Richie.” You look at him.
“Wait, wait, wait.”
“Oh my God, my fucking flashlight!” Eddie shouts as he tries to look for his flashlight.
Grotesque heads with the lower part of their jaws missing or pieces of their flesh decayed began to come up the water.
“Get the fuck out of the water RIGHT NOW Eddie!” You yell.
“Eddie!”
Frantic screams came from everyone as we backed away.
“Come on, let's get the fuck out of here! Come on!” Richie yells as he pulls Eddie up out of the water and leaves with everyone else. You run off as you fumble your flashlight in your hands. You don’t know if you’re more afraid down here than you were up in the house or not.
“What the fuck was that? Why were those there?” You shout.
“I don’t know! I don’t want to know!” Stanley says.
Mike leads the way and you all find another open gate.
“Bev? Beverly?”
“Holy shit.”
“What the fuck…” You look up and see Beverly floating about 15 feet in the air. She was completely unconscious and you wondered how the fuck this even happened. Why was this happening?
“Bev.” Ben says as he looks at her.
“How- how is she in the air?” Richie asks.
“Guys...” Eddie says as he looks up with his jaw practically on the floor.
“What? Wha- oh my God..” You look up along with him and what you see shocks you to the core.
A pile of toys, clothing, and even just belongings were piled up into this massive mountain. You had no idea how old the items were but it made you feel a great dread and sadness. Once you look further up, your eyes land on people– no, children floating in the air, just like Beverly was.
“Are those-”
“The missing kids. They’re floating.” Stanley says.
“Help me grab her. Come on.” Ben says. Mike and Richie help him up as best as they could so he could grab her by her ankles and bring her down.
Once she was down she looked almost lifeless. Her eyes were completely white and she had no expression on her face. Not even a twinge of emotion.
You wince as you look at her. You just couldn’t. So you looked down and frowned.
“Bev. Beverly.” Ben shakes her in an attempt to snap her out of it. “Why isn’t she waking up? What is wrong with her?” He shouts as tears fill his eyes. “Beverly, please! Come on.” He hugs her.
Ben grabs her and looks at her for a second before kissing her. “Woah.” “Uh-” “Wow.” Everyone looks at the scene in surprise.
Beverly gasps as she wakes up and her once completely clouded and white eyes turn back to her normal beautiful blue.
“Bev.”
“Beverly, are you okay?”
“January embers.” She says as she looks at Ben.
“My heart burns there too.” Ben finishes.
“What does that mean?” You ask only to be ignored.
“Jesus, fuck.” Richie smiles and brings Beverly and Ben into a hug and Mike and you join, staying there for a moment.
“Where’s Bill?” Beverly asks, looking at Eddie.
As if on queue, you could hear talking. It sounded like Bill and you could only hope it really was him rather than the clown.
“Guys, do you hear that?” You say quietly.
“Yeah.” Mike responds.
Eddie begins to walk slowly to the noise, and you all follow. Well. There was Bill. Standing across from what looked like Georgie with a missing arm. You knew it wasn’t Georgie.
You cling to Richie as you watched Bill talk to Georgie but you said nothing. This was for Bill to figure out on his own right now. It was his time to face this “Georgie” one last time.
You began to tear up as “Georgie” cried. You missed him, he was a nice kid. And even if you knew it wasn’t really him, it still hurt you, especially seeing how Bill was reacting to it.
“...I miss you so much.” Bill says before pulling out the bolt pistol and pointing it at “Georgie’s” head. “But you’re not Georgie.” He pulls the trigger and Georgie falls to the ground. You gasp and look away, letting out a whimper.
Everyone stays silent as you all look at the body, and a few moments later he starts to shake and gurgle.
“What the fuck?” You flinch.
Georgie screams and growls as his whole body changes. First, his feet turned into the clown’s shoes, then the missing arm grows out in a disgusting tentacle almost, then his body completely stretches out along with the clown’s attire.
Bill was right.
“What the fuck!” You yell.
Everyone steps back as the clown gets up before looking at all of you.
Richie pushes you back and stands in front of you.
“Kill it, Bill! Kill it!” Everyone yells.
Bill looks at the clown in fear and loads the bolt pistol frantically. Wait. It's not loaded.
“Bill! Wait!”
“Hey, it’s not loaded!” Mike shouts. He just remembered the same thing.
“Bill! It’s not loaded!” You shout.
Bill points the pistol at the clown’s head and pulls the trigger. Much to your surprise, the clown starts to form a hole in Its forehead and it starts to crack like if someone were to drop a ceramic pot on the floor. It stands up fully and begins to flail Its arms about.
“Holy fuck.”
“Wait, what?”
“Oh, shit.”
It stops shaking and runs towards Bill opening its mouth. It knocks down Bill and tries to bite him, but the pistol Bill had blocked the clown from doing so.
“Shit! Bill!”
Bill struggles and throws It off of him, Beverly runs to the clown and tries to hit It with a piece of rebar. “Stop! Leave him alone!”
It pushes Beverly and when Mike tries to do the same It tosses him at a wall.
Bill jumps on the clown’s back and holds on by putting a piece of rebar on the clown’s mouth. As it tried to throw him off Richie jumped on It too. “Richie!”
Ben grabs the clown’s arm and bites it, Stanley does the same. It spins around and throws Stanley and Ben off then proceeds to do the same with Richie and Bill.
“Fuck!” You grab a broken brick from the ground and throw it at the clown, but it did nothing. Once everyone was thrown off, It holds Bill and brings him away from us.
“Bill!”
“Leave him alone!”
“No, don’t!”
“Let him go.”
“No.” The clown responded. “I’ll take him. I’ll take all of you. And I’ll feast on your flesh as I feed on your fear.” The clown pauses and brings his finger up to make a proposition. “Or… you just leave us be. I will take him, only him. And then I will have my long rest and you will all live to grow and thrive and lead happy lives, until old age takes you back to the weeds.” It smiles.
Everyone looks at the two in fear, not knowing what to do. What would you do in this situation? That’s something you wish you knew right now.
“Leave… I’m the one who dragged you all into this. I’m so sorry. Sorry.” Bill begs. “Go!”
Beverly looks at everyone, “Guys, we can’t!” She shouts.
“I’m sorry.” Bill apologizes.
Richie gets up from where he was on the ground. “I told you, Bill. I fucking told you. I don’t want to die. It’s your fault.” He said and began counting on his fingers. “You punched me in the face. You made me walk through shitty water. You brought me to a fucking crackhead house. And now… I’m gonna have to kill this fucking clown.” Richie finishes as he pulls a wooden bat out from the pile.
“Richie!” You shout as the clown runs at him.
“Welcome to the Losers’ Club, asshole!” Richie shouts before smacking the clown across the face with the bat.
You grab a piece of rebar off the ground just like Mike did and grip it in your hands tightly.
As Mike goes to take a swing, the clown opens its mouth and hands come out, grabbing the bar and reaching for his face. Everyone shouted as Mike struggled to get it back, but Stanley runs to grab a metal pipe and hits the clown with it. You flinch as its head turns into the face of the lady from before and runs at him. “Stan, watch out!” Bill shouts and Stanley takes a swing at its face.
Mike runs back to go in for another hit only to be pushed down as claws grow onto the clown’s arms and attempts to stomp on Mike.
Ben runs and impales the clown with a pole and the same similar thing happened to it just like when you first came to the house. The blood flowed up slowly and the clown started to shake.
“Kill him!”
Ben tries to push it and it suddenly turns into the face of a mummy. It attaches the bandages to Ben’s head and tries to pull him in as it chomps. Ben screams as it does so but gets released when Mike takes a chain and hits it, bringing it down to the ground.
You run to it with everyone else and start taking hits at it. It stops to look at you and turns its face into your mother’s. You freeze and whimper as you look at it. Its grin becomes wide and you’re granted a horrifying image of your own “mother’s” face. You yell and take a swing and it quickly changes back to its normal face.
As everyone keeps hitting it, it then does the same to Eddie as it stops to look at him. It turns into a gross zombie-like thing and spews a dark green vomit at Eddie’s face. “I’m gonna kill you!” Eddie shouts as he kicks the clown in the face.
Once the clown gets kicked back, it looks at Beverly with an unknown man’s face adorning it.
“Hey. Bevvie. Are you still my little-” The clown begins. Beverly shouts as she brings her piece of rebar up then down straight into the clown’s mouth, impaling him.
“Holy shit.” You gasp as you stare.
Beverly quickly backs up as the clown’s face begins to crack again, but this time it doesn’t get back up. It just stays and changes back. It spits the bar out and looks at everyone as it falls back.
“Oh shit.”
Everyone slowly walked to the clown as it choked, bearing your weapons. It begins to cry as it looked up at you all.
“Thats why you didn’t kill Beverly. Because she wasn’t afraid. And we aren’t either. Not anymore. Now you’re the one who’s afraid. Because you’re gonna starve.” Bill stands over the clown as it still whimpered.
It flips backwards into a hole that was behind it and holds on so as to not fall down. “He thrusts his fists against the post and still insists he sees the ghosts. He trusts his fists against the post…”
Stanley hands Bill the pipe he held, and Bill bears it at the clown. The clown flinches and hides more.
It starts to fully lose its skin and skull at the top before uttering one word. “Fear…” He says before letting himself go down into the hole.
“Did we- did we kill it?” You ask as you look down and hold onto Richie.
“Yeah. I think we did.” Mike responds.
“I know what I’m doing for my summer experience essay.” Richie says.
Bill goes to hug Beverly, you smile. Your attention turns to Eddie who was looking up, so you do the same. The floating kids were coming back down.
“Guys. Guys.” Eddie says. “The kids are floating down.”
You look up in amazement. It was as if the kids were finally being free.
Bill goes out of your line of sight and you turn to look at him. He was walking to something specific in the pile. A yellow raincoat. Richie walks up to him and you follow. Standing next to him, you look at the name on the inside of the coat. Georgie Denbrough.
Richie and you kneel down as Bill begins to cry, holding the jacket close to his face. Everyone hugs him. You could feel yourself tearing up. All of this before was so overwhelming. You were scared. You were scared of losing your life, yes. But losing your friends has always been more of a fear to you than dying yourself.
“We’re here for you, Bill. We always are.” You assure as you rub his back.
He cries for a little while more before sniffling and folding Georgie’s raincoat before placing it carefully on the floor. “Let’s go..” He says as he stands up.
Everyone else does so and follows eachother out of the sewer. You guys had finally finished the clown off and there was nothing to be scared of. How could you be scared with just facing near death itself. You don’t even care what your mom will say or do to you once you get home.
You look at Richie and smile. It might just be time after 3 years..
--------------------------------------
Everyone sat in a circle next to the river right by the old crossover bridge and talked with eachother.
You sat in between Richie and Eddie.
Beverly starts to talk. You honestly couldn’t focus on her, though. Her voice becomes more so of background noise. You found yourself staring at Richie again. For some reason he seemed to look different in the light. Maybe it was because you only looked at him in the light for a minute after not seeing him for weeks. Looking at him in the dark didn’t do him any justice.
Richie smiles and looks at the ground and sneaks a glance at you before quickly looking away. Bill gets up from his spot and picks something up off the ground.
“Swear it. Swear if it isn’t dead, if it ever comes back, we’ll come back, too.” He says as he holds a broken piece of glass in his hand.
Everyone looks up at him in silence for a moment before Beverly stands up and everyone else follows.
Bill takes the piece of glass and brings it to his other hand.
“Uh, Bill, I don’t think that’s the safest-” You say, concerned.
“We just killed a clown and walked through piss and shit, Y/n.” Richie says as he looks at you.
“Right.”
Bill slices into his hand and goes to Richie, doing the same. Then he comes to you and you hesitate. You look at Richie who was looking back at you and you put your hand out. Bill slices it and you wince at the sudden pain.
Bill then goes all around, doing what he did to his own, yours, and Richie’s hand.
You watched as blood started to pool in the palm of your hand.
Everyone links their hands and you look at yours and Richie’s as blood dripped from both of your fingertips. It burned but you were just glad that you and everyone else were alive. This burn, the warmth, the grip, it reminded you just how lucky and nice it is to be alive.
Everyone unlinks their hands. “I gotta go..” Stan says before looking at Bill. “I hate you.” He tries to keep a straight face but smiles and spreads it to everyone else. “I’ll see you later.” He says as he leaves.
“Bye, Stan.”
Eddie hugs you and Richie. “Bye, guys.” He lets go and leaves.
“Bye, Ed.” You wave.
Mike leaves a little later on, and then it was Richie’s turn.
“See you around, Bill. See you, Y/n.” Richie waves off.
“See you, Rich.”
You watch as he walks away. You had to do this now. “Wait, Richie.” You say and run after Richie. He stops and turns around.
You stop in front of him for a second to admire his features. His eyes seemed to glisten, even in the shade under the tree. You take a deep breath before crashing your lips against his and pull back.
He looks at you with his lips parted and his glasses slightly crooked. For a second you had regrets. ‘I fucked up.’ You thought to yourself as you dug your fingernails into your uncut hand.
“I’m sorry, Richie. I just-” You try to apologize, only to be quickly shut up.
Richie held your face and returned the kiss. Your glasses made a clinking sound against eachother and you smiled as he continued. Once parting you open your eyes and see that his own glasses were slightly fogged up.
“Holy shit.” You laugh as you pull him into a hug.
“Damn, I just got showed up by a girl.” He says.
“That’s the second time now. 2-0, Richie.”
“Fuck off.”
You smile as you bury your face into the crook of his neck and he pets your hair.
“I probably wouldn’t have done anything if it weren’t for that stupid clown, honestly. Kinda glad that whole clown shit happened now.” You say.
“I’d rather you not say shit forever than to ever deal with that shit again, all offence.” Richie responds.
You pull out of the hug. “Your glasses.” You laugh.
“What about them?”
“They make you look like an idiot.” You laugh as you fix them.
Richie huffs. “Pfft. So do yours. I think I look way better. I mean, who wouldn’t fall in love with a face and body like mine? I could get all the ladies, even with these glasses.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Richie.” You smile.
You really did thank that you and everyone else got involved with the clown. Because it was true, you wouldn’t have said anything if it wasn’t for it. You weren’t a wuss anymore.
“I knew it!” Beverly shouts from behind.
You look at her dumbfounded and embarrassed.
Well..