I told Richie everything. I told him about how my dad died– what I saw. I told him the reason why we moved here in the first place– that my dad wasn't really back in California like I made all of them believe. I explained why I left him that night in the woods– how the gunshots and his comments were too much for me. I even told him about what happened in the store only seconds before I ran into him.
And he didn't think I was bat-shit crazy. Well, at least he didn't say it out-loud if he did or not. He just calmed me down and walked me down the street to his house, listening as I told him everything there was to know. He didn't let me inside of his house, but when he left me on the porch, it seemed as if he was only gone for a few seconds. He gave me an old t-shirt of his to wear since the one I had on had blood on the shoulder. We walked back to town together, the entire time he would make little comments, just trying to make me smile. Sometimes it worked, but I couldn't help but continue to feel scared.
We picked up our bikes outside of the store and walked down to the alleyway we were supposed to meet the group at. "Are you sure you don't want me to walk you home or something?" He asked as we neared the alleyway.
I nodded and looked at him. "Yeah, I don't really want to be alone right now."
He gave me a small smile and we rode up to the alleyway, rounding the corner and seeing our friends sitting around. "About time you two showed up," Stan said, sitting up from against the wall.
"Cool it snipped dick," Richie said, looking at me. "some asshole ran into her with his beer right outside the bar, covered her in it. So we went back to my house and got her a shirt."
I smiled at him and gave him a small nod. He didn't have to lie for me, but he did. "Yeah, I'm sorry we're late."
"Yuh-You guys aren't th-that late." Bill said, standing up. "Ruh-Ruh-Richie where are you going?"
I turned to see Richie was walking away and towards one of the band members. "I'm gonna bless you all with my talents on this...whatever the fuck it is." He said, waving his hand at the unsuspecting member's instrument.
"It's a baritone, Richie," Stan called out, obviously annoyed as we watched him steal the instrument from the band member and try to play it.
"He's horrible at that," I looked to my right to see Eddie walking over with two ice cream cones in his hands. "What the hell is Richie doing?"
"I think he referred it as, blessing us with his talents." Bev laughed, using her fingers to make quotation marks.
"They say they found Edwards hand all chewed up down near the standpipe..." Stan said as Bill walked closer to the missing kid poster.
"He asked to borrow a pencil once..." Ben added.
Bill flipped up the missing kid's poster of some boy, to reveal Betty Ripsom's poster. I didn't know her, I only really saw her in the halls. She was good friends with Heather, but our paths never crossed. She went missing only a few weeks before school let out. Sometimes her mom would wait outside at the end of school, waiting for Betty to walk out with her classmates. They've yet to find her. "It's like she's been f-f-forgotten just because Corcoran's missing."
Bev nudged my elbow and nodded her head to the street. We both turned to see Richie playing the baritone while simultaneously keeping it away from the struggling band member. "Is it ever going to end?" Stan asked, gaining our attention back.
"Wait, what are you guys talking about?" Eddie asked as if for the first time he was actually listening in on the conversation.
"What they always talk about," Richie said, walking up to the group and taking one of the ice cream cones from Eddie. "thanks Eds."
Eddie went to say something, but instead, he rolled his eyes and ate his ice cream. "I see you finally got your instrument taken away from you," I said, nodding my head back towards the street.
"Eh, loser doesn't understand real talent when he hears it," he said, bringing the ice cream up to his mouth before pulling it back away. "do you want some?"
I considered his offer, I really did. But I just shook my head. "No thank you." I really didn't want to think about ice cream or what happened earlier ever again– I could still feel Richie secretly judging me...but maybe I'm just thinking too much about it.
"I actually think it will end, for a little while at least," Ben said, crossing his arms.
"What do you mean?" Bev asked as we all looked at him in curiosity.
"Well I was going over all of my Derry research, and I charted out all of the big events," he said, taking a deep breath and letting his arms fall to his side. "The ironworks explosion in 1908, the Bradley gang in '35, and the Black Spot in '62, and now kids being..." Ben paused, his eyes landing on Bill for a few seconds before looking away. "well, you know."
I kept thinking about all of the dates he had just listed. 1908...1935...1962 and now 1989. There was a pattern to these horrible events. "A pattern..." I said, looking at Ben. "All of those events, there's a pattern to them, right?"
He nodded. "Going over it all I've realized that this stuff seems to happen every-"
"27 years," I added, as Bill also chimed into the conversation with the same numbers. "But why?"
Ben just kind of shrugged his shoulders. "I couldn't really come up with the answer, just the math."
"So you're telling me, some crazy ass shit happens every 27 years here?" Richie asked ice cream all over his mouth.
"That seems to be exactly what he said Richie, why don't you try and listen for once?" Stan said, seeming a little off.
"Can we maybe not talk about all of this in an alleyway?" Eddie asked, finishing off his ice cream cone. "I mean, it's creepy in all sorts."
"Yeah, let's move over to the town center, by the Paul Bunyan statue," Mike said, as we all grabbed our bikes and left the alleyway.
"Hey..." I looked to my left to see Eddie riding beside me as we took over the streets. "Are you okay?"
I was caught off guard by his question. I mean, personally I thought I was pulling off the whole somewhat puffy, red eyes and completely in fear look pretty well. But I guess not. "Yeah," I lied, putting on a smile. "I'm fine."
The town center had people all over the place. Off in a grassy area was a stage where a band was performing and a clown was making balloon animals for kids. Families were sitting down on the grass with their picnic baskets, eating and just enjoying the sun with one another. We propped our bikes up onto their kickstands and took over the benches that were near the Paul Bunyan statue. Eddie and Bill opted out of their bench seat so Bev and I could sit down on the remaining spots. They used Bill's bike as a seat, leaning against it. Richie opted out sitting on the bench too, keeping his seat on his bike and his back turned to the stage.
"So let me get this straight," Eddie said, closing his eyes as if he was trying to understand the every 27-year theory we were previously discussing. "it comes out from...wherever, to eat kids for like a year? And then what? It just goes into hibernation?"
"Maybe it's like, oh what do you call it?" Stan sighed, tapping his fingers against his knee. "Cicadas! You know, those bugs that come out once every seventeen years?"
"Yeah, but the only thing Cicada's harm are some types of trees and basic human hearing," I said, looking at him. "definitely not explosions, robberies, arson, and kidnapping."
"My grandfather thinks this town is cursed," Mike said, gaining all of our attention. "He says that all bad things that happen in this town, are because of one thing. An evil thing that feeds off the people of Derry."
"But it can't be one thing," Stan denied, looking at everyone hoping for some support. "we all saw something different."
"Maybe," Mike replied, looking around the group. "But maybe it knows what scares us most and that's what we see."
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and it felt as if a clump of air was stuck in my chest. As I processed everything Mike was saying– it started to come together. "I-I-I saw a leper!" Eddie interjected, looking disgusted. "He was like a walking infection."
"But you didn't," Stan said, immediately shutting Eddie down. "Be-Because it isn't real." He started laughing softly to himself, and we all immediately knew he must be in some sort of denial. "None of this is. Not Eddie's leper, or-or Bill seeing Georgie, o-or the woman I-I keep seeing."
"Is she hot?" Richie asked, completely straight face. I shot him a 'are you serious right now' look and he just shrugged his shoulders.
Stan snapped his head over at Richie, a distraught look written all over his face. "No Richie! She's not hot! Her face is all...messed up. None of this makes any sense– they're all like bad dreams."
Mike looked up at him with squinted eyes. "I don't think so. I know the difference between a bad dream and real life, okay?"
"What'd you see?" Eddie asked, looking more interested. "You saw something too?"
Mike sighed and nodded his head. "You guys know that burnt house on Harris Avenue?"
I'd only seen the house once. I never traveled far down Harris Avenue, or over towards that area at all. But the first time I saw the house, it peaked my interest. I couldn't help but wonder what happened there. "I've only seen it once," I said, everyone, looking at me. "but I've always wondered what happened."
The demeanor on Mike's face had changed, sadness clouding his features as he looked down at his hands. "I was inside when it burnt down." We all looked around at one another, shocked to discover that our friend had survived the fire that engulfed and ruined that house. "Before I was rescued, my mom and dad were trapped in the room next to me. They were pushing and pounding on the door, trying to get to me...but it was too hot."
"Oh my God..." I heard Bev whisper quietly as she looked at Mike with sad eyes.
He had closed his eyes and took a deep breath– trying to restrain his emotions and the bad memory from taking over him. "When the firemen finally found them, the skin on their hands–" he paused, his Adam's apple bobbing as if he was trying to make the words come out of his mouth. "melted down to the bone." His voice quivered.
I got up from my seat and sat down next to him. I couldn't find the words to say. I'm sorry was definitely not going to do it– the last thing someone who's lost someone wants to hear is how sorry you are for their loss. I grabbed his hand and held it tightly, hoping that he'd get my message. I knew how he felt, I lost my dad. But I couldn't even begin to fathom what it was like for him to lose both of his parents while they were right there in the next room. "You've always got us," I said, giving him a small smile.
He nodded in appreciation before looking back at our group, his eyes landing on Stan more frequently than the others. "We're all afraid of something."
Richie turned his head towards the stage. "You got that right."
"Why Rich? What are you afraid of?" Eddie asked.
"Yeah, forgive me– but I find it hard to believe that you're afraid of something," I said as Richie turned back to face the group. "no offense."
He gulped and adjusted his glasses. "Clowns."
I looked around at all of my friends, each of them equally as scared as the next. They've all seen something. They've all had an encounter with this...thing. Up until today, it had only been Richie and me who hadn't– we were the non-believers. Well, Richie still is, but I'm not. I took a deep breath and looked down at my lap. "I lied."
"Lied? About what?" Ben asked.
I looked at Richie, giving him a faint smile as a token of my appreciation for him helping me today. I could feel my heart slowly begin to beat faster as the thought of what happened in the store came to mind. I looked up from my lap. "I saw something."
"Yuh-You did?" Bill asked, his eyes wide. "Wuh-what did you see?"
"It happened today, just before we met up with all of you," I said, nodding my head at Richie.
"You saw something too?" Bev asked, looking at Richie.
"Hell no," Richie replied, shaking his head. "I just ran into her after it happened."
"I went to that parlor right down the street to get some ice cream because I was hot, and at first everything was fine." I started to play with my hands, trying to distract myself in some sort. "Then the lights flickered and there was static and music started to play– but there wasn't a radio in the store. Then this guy...he was robbing the store and he-he shot me. When I left the store, I turned around and there was the clown."
"Are you okay?" Stan asked.
I nodded. "Yeah, just...really freaked out. I mean, it felt like he actually shot me- there was blood on my shirt and everything, but no wound." I looked over at Ben. "What the hell is this thing?"
Bill stood up and looked over at me. "We're going to find out. Ben, do you think you can go home and grab some of those slides?"
"Yeah...but why?"
"We're going to my house. It's about time this thing is stopped and we're going to figure out how to do it."
Eddie held up his hand, looking nervous. "We are?"
Bill moved his bike from behind Eddie and swung his leg over the seat. "Yeah, we a-are."
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