The damp dresses, jeans, and shirts billowed in the slightly increasing wind on the laundry cords as Steph sat on the back porch steps, staring into the darkness of the night while her hair was being blown every which way. She couldn't see anything in her line of vision for what seemed to be miles, but she felt as though she needed to step outside for a moment to keep a look out... just in case someone were out there....

Watching her from a distance....

Normally, Jamie wouldn't let her daughter take so much as a tip-toe outside after the curfew took full effect in the evening but, since she was working the night shift at the restaurant, Steph decided to break the rules for once. Even though it would be storming pretty soon, she decided to get some fresh air after all of the thinking she had been doing in her mind. But, after she had sat down on the steps after hanging up the laundry, she couldn't stop the conception of ideas from swarming into her subconscious, even if she so desperately wanted to.

As her hand was combing through the golden fur of Cherokee while he sat beside her, she just kept thinking about what had happened earlier that day, and she was actually interested in all of the possible outcomes that appeared before her as if she were reading a book. Curiosity was poking at her, even though she knew that it always killed the cat to be snooping around when it came to situations like these.

After Ben had told them about the whole 'missing children' fiasco, the seven of them decided to go to the Barrens and hang out, and the boy in question ended up helping them construct a dam in the middle of the small river. When Steph had taken a peek at the layout he had drawn himself, she couldn't help but be amazed at his talent, secretly wishing she had the creativity he had. But she chose not to say that, instead complimenting his work before all of the kids played in the river. It took a lot of convincing for Eddie to join in on the fun because he was scared that he would get pneumonia, but he eventually splashed around with them nonetheless.

That's when the negative thoughts began to overtake her entire experience of what was supposed to be a peaceful night filled with relaxation and bliss. Instead it was filled with concern and immense dread for the future....

Steph had a bad feeling that the events following today would only get worse with time, that the bad occurrences would start off mild and then become severe as the days passed onward. And that made her wish that she could rewind time to the year before, when things were a whole lot better than they were now, but she knew that she couldn't do that. She just had to accept the fact that she was never going to have a normal life.

And, to be honest, that was okay... except for the 'murders and missing kids' part.

Her mind drifted to the disappearances of Betty Ripsom, Veronica Grogan, Velma Daniels, and so on. Although the positive side of her mind prayed that the poor girls would be found sooner than later instead of the police doing fuck all and not even bothering to look for them, the negative side was screaming about the fact that she was wishing that she wouldn't end up one of those younger kids.

All of them lost out there.... thought Steph as she shuddered a little. All alone... probably thirsty and starving... not in the comfort of their own homes... probably already dead.

Steph shook her head and let out a heavy sigh at the thought, muttering to herself over and over again. "Nope, stop thinking about this bullshit," she murmured. "Maybe they're not dead. They're most likely just lost and wandering around the Barrens alone...."

Lost?! entered her voice in her mind once more. Yeah, right, you idiot!

That was when the young girl stood up and decided to go right back inside the house, thinking that it wasn't safe to be on the back porch anymore. She was afraid that any wrong move would result in her untimely demise, so she wasn't taking any chances. After softly calling Cherokee inside and watching the dog trot into the house, panting just a little bit, Steph shut the back door and locked it, hearing it click into place.

She checked the clock that was resting on the kitchen wall, and she sighed just a little bit.

9:30 P.M.

She had yet another half hour before Jamie would arrive home to greet her little girl.

Just thirty more minutes alone in this house, and everything would be fine...

Or so Steph had thought.

She walked into the living room and plopped down onto the black-colored couch, grabbing the remote to switch on the television. She scanned through the channels, only seeing random comedy shows that really didn't interest her worth a damn, and she was about to turn it off entirely when she saw To Kill A Mockingbird, her favorite movie of all time, appear on one of the channels. And a big grin formed on her face as she set the remote down beside her, her crystal clear eyes set on the electronic set.

As the next fifteen minutes dragged on and Steph kept her eyes on the television, her imagination seemed to wander elsewhere as she thought of something. About the disappearances of the local children of Derry...

Six kids were missing now.

Normally, if one child were gone in the world, there wouldn't be as much chaos as there was at the moment. Steph was surprised that there weren't news reporters and tabloid journalists invading the boundaries of Derry to plaster the information all over the planet but she was slightly comforted by that fact. At least this was pretty much a secret from the rest of society, which was something that she kind of wanted. She didn't need anybody else to know about all of this shit, because that would only put more stress on her shoulders.

And that was when Steph's jaw tightened at what she was suddenly thinking... she remembered what happened vividly in her mind... almost as if it had happened the day before.

It was December. Six months ago.

The sun was setting behind the horizon that expanded over the snowy streets of the small community in Maine. Footsteps were trailed in the white powder all throughout the town and Steph was trying to get home as fast as she could before the 7:00 P.M. curfew. And, although she couldn't bring her bike because the roads were rather icy, she could still speed walk pretty quickly for her liking. And she was practically jogging down Witcham Street after leaving the Denbrough residence, even though she was trying not to slip on the icy roads with her boots against the pavement.

It had all started with Bill asking the girl to come over to his house to hang out.

Steph had agreed and stopped by his house while his parents were away. They didn't do anything besides make some snacks and watch a few Christmas flicks on the television, and the girl couldn't remember what they were for the life of her. But the only thing she could remember was that she had a feeling in her gut that something was going to happen. She didn't know what it would be, but she knew it was something.

She was speed walking down the street when her pacing started to slow when she saw it.

There was something right at the end of the street... right where the storm drain was.

Right at the place where Georgie had gone missing just under two months before.

A pang of dread hit her in the chest as she began to step closer to what it was, seeing that it was what seemed to be a heavy, yellow object just strewn in the middle of the road.

She had the feeling that something was wrong... she knew it.

Her feet slipped on a patch of ice attached to the black pavement and she was nearly sent toppling to the rough ground, but she regained her balance just in time before that could happen. She let out a shaky sigh of relaxation over the fact that she wasn't hurt, just a little startled at the fact that she could've just had a concussion right at that moment. But that wasn't her biggest concern as her eyes widened, coming to a complete halt.

She had finally realized that the massive object on the road was a person. And that was when she saw the large stains of red splattered onto the snow.

"Oh no," Steph whispered under her breath, now sprinting to whoever was lying on the ground with blood surrounding them from all directions. "Hey!" she added in more of a shout. "Hey, are you okay?!"

Then she flipped over the person, and her heart plummeted. Her blood went cold.

"N-No..." she whimpered. "No..." She couldn't believe what she saw before her eyes, brushing back the hair out of the person's open and dead eyes.

What she had seen was a corpse on the ground, long deceased and already rotting, his skin graying as his blue eyes had already dried up from being open for far, far too long. The yellow raincoat had been torn to shreds on the right side, the plastic stained a bright crimson color and a knob of bone where the boy's arm had been was sticking out, which made a wave of nausea overcome poor Steph.

It was Georgie.

The pre-teen girl couldn't scream for help or cry, she simply couldn't. All she could do was stare down at the dead seven-year-old as tears began to pour from her naturally uplifted eyes, and she felt as if her stomach were beginning to form a large hole in her intestines and she felt the urge to vomit. But she wasn't able to even do that, even though she gagged at the metallic, coppery smell of the blood surrounding the young boy's body.

Steph then heard the faintest of whispers coming from just a few feet to her right, and she froze in place. No, it couldn't be. Could it?

"Stephaniiiiieeeeeeee!" the voice mumbled in the softest murmur towards her.

A rush of terror filled her soul as she slowly turned her head in the direction of where the voice was coming from, and her eyes widened when she noticed that it was emanating from the storm drain.

That person that was speaking to her... that thing.... It couldn't possibly be in the sewers, right?

"They float," the thing in the drain crooned in the softest, but most raspy voice any human could ever imagine hearing. Steph began to crawl just a tiny bit closer to the source of the sound, even though she was screaming to herself in her mind to absolutely not do this. Her lips were parted just a little bit out of curiosity as to who could possibly be down in the Derry sewers of all places.

"Hello?" she called out in a quiet and trembling voice, her hands quivering in her violet gloves as she dared place them on the blood-soaked snow below her. She turned her head to where her ear was pointing in the direction of where the words were being spoken from. "Who-Who's down there?"

And that was when she saw the eyes. The golden, evil eyes filled with pure hatred.

Steph lurched back immediately, landing on her back as she gasped. "What the fuck?!" she cried out in shock and moderate terror, her eyes the size of saucers at this point as she struggled to get up.

"They float," it snarled in the girl's direction. "They float, Stephanie, and when you're down here with me, you'll float too --"

The young girl glanced down and saw that Georgie's body was gone, and she let out a breath of surprise. But she dared to take one last glance at the storm drain, preparing to see those hateful eyes glaring back at her again.

But they had vanished now.

"Everything down here floats," the voice muttered again, the most bone-chilling chuckle escaping that thing's lips. And that was when Steph sprinted all the way back home, not even caring how many times she slipped on ice after that.

She only noticed that there was still blood on her gloves after she had gotten home.

Steph then snapped out of her thoughts and switched off the television, making the courtroom scene from the movie she was watching disappear entirely. She then wiped the sudden tears from the sensitive skin of her face, sighing as she watched her hands shake worse than they ever had in the almost thirteen years that she had lived in this world.

She pulled her knees up to her chest as a sob threatened to escape from her throat again, but she fought it back this time, refusing to cry. She combed her fingers through her messy blonde hair as she bit her tongue to battle the surge of tears, exhaling as slowly as she could after taking a deep breath. Steph then glanced at the clock: 9:49 P.M. it read now. The smallest smile graced her face at what she saw.

Just eleven more minutes, she thought. Eleven more minutes before Mom gets home. Then you'll be safe.

Steph then saw Cherokee's ears perk up when a knock came at the front door, and she turned her head towards the source out of confusion. She had no idea who could be knocking on her door at this time of night, especially considering the fact that there was a curfew in effect! But, nevertheless, she stood up anyway, beginning to walk towards the front door that was to the right of the large kitchen set up in the house. Maybe it was just a neighbor who needed to see her mother, but she would have to tell them that Jamie was still gone.

But wait. They would already know that, right? Steph thought as she grew puzzled, her eyes narrowing a little bit as she stopped in her tracks.

She thought to herself about what she should do in this scenario: just leave the person on the porch and just go to bed, or actually answer the door like a good samaritan.

Those were the only two options she had....

She decided on a choice that wasn't even one she had thought of, and it made her smile just a bit. She would just look through the peephole and see if it was actually someone she trusted to let inside of her home. Hell, she didn't want anyone to break in and rob her and her mother, or possibly do something worse. A shaky breath exited her lips, just praying that it was her mother and that she would have to unlock the door to let her into their home. But when she realized that there wasn't a voice calling out to her, wanting to be let in, she hesitated for a moment.

Then Steph rolled her eyes in irritation towards herself. If she was going to be a pussy when it came to opening one door, then she didn't believe that would get anywhere in life with that fear.

So, with that, she stepped closer to the white door and peered through the tiny peephole, placing her hands on the wood to better stable herself in the process. If she saw a familiar face with brown hair draping past her shoulders, the girl would immediately let that woman into her house; but she didn't know what she would do if it was a complete stranger standing on her front porch. She would probably just leave them out there and go upstairs after turning all of the lights off. She didn't know why she would do the complete opposite of what her normal, kind self would ever do...

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that there was possibly a fucking serial killer out there, mutilating and kidnapping children for their own sick pleasure!

Yes, that's right, the blonde girl thought to herself.

But her face morphed into an expression of disorientation when she saw that there was absolutely nobody outside from what she could see. Steph sighed out of annoyance as she stepped away from the door and walked back into the kitchen to get a glass of Coca Cola. It was probably some stupid teenagers out after curfew playing a prank on her; they were most likely kids playing Ding Dong Ditch to frighten her. And that actually relieved her to know that it wasn't some sick psycho out there waiting to enter the house and brutally murder her.

It made Steph let out a giggle of relaxation because maybe tonight would be a relaxing one after all. There was absolutely nothing to worry about as she took a sip of her soda.

Another knock came from the door that was more of a banging sound, cutting off all sense of safety now.

Steph froze, taken aback by the sudden aggressiveness of this knocking.

She knew it had to be some stupid kids messing with her now. They wouldn't have been able to give up after she didn't bother answering the door.

And that was when the girl should've sprinted upstairs and hid under the covers of her bed, but her fighter mode kicked in. And, plus, she was curious to see who was actually outside at a time like this. That way, if it was some stupid kid, she could get him or her or them off of her property because she had a weapon to defend herself just in case. So, placing her glass of soda on the marble counter, she stepped towards the entry hall separating the kitchen from the staircase by the living room.

She felt her stomach beginning to twist into a knot full of fear as her jaw locked itself into place, and she opened the small closet under the staircase, her hands frantically searching in the dark before she found it. Steph pulled out a wooden baseball bat and held it with both of her slender hands, despite how badly they were shaking. She then stepped closer to the front door, staring daggers out the two side windows connected to it, her eyes filled with only one appearance of emotion: nervousness. She grasped the baseball bat tightly as she moved her left hand to unlatch the chain holding the door back from being opened completely.

If it turned out to be Richie just playing a sick joke on her, she would be completely done with him for a while.

But what if it were someone else?

What if it was actually someone needing something to borrow or to talk to her mother?

What if it was just a neighbor?

Steph ignored all of those possibilities as she unlocked the front door, brushing aside the fact that it could either be somebody she knew outside or someone waiting to snatch her up like the other children. She stabled her quivering hands as she took a deep breath, knowing that she would be making a leap of faith in doing this. The girl knew that she was supposed to keep that door locked to prevent someone from intruding inside, but she didn't care about that right at that moment.

Screw this! she shouted in her head. She grabbed the golden, metal doorknob and twisted it as quickly as she could.

"Gotcha!" she shouted at the top of her lungs as she flung open the door, her baseball bat gripped in her hands as she constructed to swing at whatever stupid person was outside joking around with her. But she slowly lowered the wooden object as she scanned the entirety of her front yard.

Yet again, there was nobody outside....

Steph listened for the sound of movement, her eyes squinting to also see if there was anybody outside, hiding behind one of the bushes next to her mailbox. But all she could hear was her own breathing as well as the sound of raindrops beginning to patter down on the roof of her house. But, just to make sure she was safe, she walked over to each side of the porch to see if there was anybody there as well. She didn't find anybody in those two spots either and she felt a wave of reassurance wash over her as she rubbed her forehead.

It's all in your stupid head, Steph, she said in her mind. It was just her imagination playing tricks

(sick jokes)

on her. She was absolutely fine, which caused her to sigh in relief.

(or are you, stephanie?)

Steph's head perked up a little at the sudden words she just heard in her brain, and she could ever so slightly detect the echo in the question so she knew it was one that wasn't real. But why didn't it sound like her own voice? Why did it sound so distinctly different than ever before? It was a voice she actually recognized, but she couldn't put it to a face she knew or she would've known for sure whose voice it did sound like. She decided that now would be a great time to head back inside; her mother would be home within minutes and she didn't want to be scolded for being outside when she wasn't supposed to be.

She walked towards the front door, which had been left wide open when she had taken a step outside just a minute ago. And, the moment her hand touched the knob, she heard something.

"STEPHANIIIIIEEEEEEEE...."

Steph stopped moving and her entire body became stiff with fear, her breath catching in her esophagus. She felt as though her heart had been torn out of her chest while being strangled with barbed wire... almost like she was actually dying. God, she hoped that she was dead. She pinched her cheek for a moment and felt a stinging pain for a moment.

This was real.

She was hearing the same voice that had been calling out to her from the storm drain half a year ago... only now, it wasn't a whisper. It was an ear splitting scream that nearly made her go deaf, the voice making her eardrums ache with absolute, excruciating pain for only a few seconds before going away. She was wincing with how much it hurt and she sighed with consolation, but what was happening right now wasn't okay.

"Come float with us, Stephanie..." the same voice rasped evilly, followed by a terrifying giggle. "We float down here.... We all float down here, yes, we do!"

The voice was now a low and soft growl instead of a bellowing screech, and it made Steph feel shivers race down her spine over and over again. There's no fucking way, she thought to herself frantically. No FUCKING way!

She didn't move or even give a sign of indication that she was scared, but only because she couldn't find the will to do that. All she was able to do was stand there as the baseball bat she was holding slipped out of her now sweating palms and clattered on the ground with what sounded like several loud, metallic thuds. She felt a lump forming in her throat as she came to the realization that she should have concluded many, many months ago... something she should have most definitely mentioned to Bill and the others.

Whatever was kidnapping the children of Derry and possibly killing them wasn't human at all...

It was something she couldn't even begin to comprehend....

And it was now here... to kill her!

"Fuck this," she mumbled to herself, and she dashed back into the house, slamming the door shut. She then bolted it and slid the chain lock back into place, resting her forehead against the white wood as she tried her best to catch her breath. She had completely forgotten about the baseball bat laying abandoned on the porch....

All of a sudden, a loud sound came from behind the girl. She turned around just in time to see the hall closet door flying open and a figure running out at her. She let out a shriek as she ducked her head to avoid the object that the 'person' seemingly had in 'his' hands, and it narrowly missed her by just a few inches. Just as she tried to run, her attacker rammed its shoulder into her, knocking her to the hardwood floor, which made her grunt in slight pain. The girl then looked up and saw that the figure's arm was actually a gigantic claw and that it was plummeting towards her chest, so she grabbed it and held it back from either stabbing or impaling her.

During these few seconds, she had the time to actually make out the figure's facial features. It was a clown, the same clown she had been seeing glimpses of during the past few days and, as she realized while it pinned her to the ground so she wouldn't move, she saw the blood red streaks of what seemed to be makeup curving upwards from its lips to its yellow eyes. Those same eyes she had seen in the storm drain and behind the bush while heading to the quarry earlier that day. And she noticed that its lips were curled into a maniacal smile as it struggled to stab her with its claw, a smile filled with pure insanity and loathing towards her.

Steph's fight-or-flight mode kicked in at once as her heart thumped against her ribcage and she began to thrash violently from under the clown, scratching at it and punching at it, trying to get it to let her go. She shouted in horror for it to free her from its grasp and to leave her alone, her hands flapping all over the place at this point.

She used her knees to try to buck the attacker off of her small body but the clown grabbed her by her short hair and rammed her head onto the floor, making her temples throb with agony, and a pained yelp left her lips as she stared up at the figure that was soon to be her killer. She whimpered a little bit, trying to form the closest thing to a coherent word but her fear held her back from doing that as if she were being held by a leash.

"Wuh... What... Huh-Who are you?!" she let out in a weak gasp, her eyes wide in dread, not able to move anymore.

The clown didn't reply for a moment, instead staring down at her, studying her... observing her before it would inevitably finish her off....

This was it, and Steph felt a few tears fall down her face as she closed her eyes. She was going to die... she was going to end up just another face on a 'missing person' poster. Just another lost child left to be forgotten by the rest of society....

"Glad you could ask, Stephanie!" the clown said, smiling insanely. "Very glad, indeed! Allow me to introduce myself. I am Mr. Bob Gray, otherwise known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown! Pennywise, meet Stephanie Palmer. Stephanie, meet Pennywise. Now that we've got that out of the way, prepare to never be seen again!"

It happened so fast, the action of the clown raising its claw-like arm high into the air. Steph's watery eyes widened as shock crossed her face, and then she shifted back into defensive mode as she saw the razor sharp but jagged object heading straight for her heart. She thought about what to do in the half-second that passed, knowing that if she didn't act right now, she would end up just another corpse covered in crimson red blood.

This time, she used the heel of her right foot and plowed it into the foot of the figure above her; hearing it howl in pain, she then slammed her knee into its stomach, knocking it backwards and it crashed onto the floor. Steph took that opportunity to sprint for the front door, undoing the bolt and opening it... that's when she remembered that she slid the chain into the latch moments ago and the door caught on it. "Shit!" she cried out, glancing behind her.

The clown had already gotten back up and was running towards her with the claw for an arm. She would have no time to unlock the door now, so she settled on her only escape plan out of panic: the staircase.

She dove to the side, causing the clown's talon to strike the frame of the front door, missing her by centimeters. She then dove for the staircase after running to the living room, rushing up the stairs as fast as her legs would let her, and she could hear the stomping footsteps of the assailant behind her and her adrenaline made her go to her bedroom and quickly shut the door. She then locked the door, suddenly thinking to move her dresser in front of it to block out whatever that thing was; she then covered her mouth to muffle any scream that was to come out.

There was a short few seconds of silence... horrific silence. And it didn't last long.

The door was burst open by the clown, but it was stopped by the brown dresser Steph had put there as her barricade, and she sighed with just a little bit of relief. She saw the attacker's claw slip through the crack in the door, slashing through the air as it roared with frustration directed towards her. Steph backed away as the salty tears streamed down her cheeks, knowing that the dresser wouldn't hold it off for very long, so she had to come up with a plan.

She dashed to her landline and picked it up, preparing to call the police. That was when she recalled the realization that police officers wouldn't be able to stop anything supernatural. So that was a no-go. She threw the telephone back onto the receiver, growling with mad anger as her eyes darted around the room while hearing the continuous thudding of the clown hurling itself against the dresser.

The window! Steph thought, which made her giggle out of nowhere. But now was no time to laugh, considering that she could die in the next thirty seconds, so she went to the window and unlocked it. She then heaved it open, hearing the wood scrape against the drywood wall as she put one of her legs through the opening. Her heart began to race faster, considering that she was terrified of heights to the maximum, and her hands held onto the window framing as tightly as they could for support.

She lifted her head to face the bedroom door, hoping the dresser had held her aggressor back for long enough, but she stopped short when she saw that it was gone.

The only sound she could hear was her heavy breathing and her heartbeat thrumming in her ears. She slowly eased herself back into the bedroom and inched closer to the door, looking to see if the monster that attacked her was really gone, and she saw that the hallway was empty. Her heart then uplifted when she heard the front door being opened, only for it to catch on the chain latch again. She heard Jamie's voice calling for her to unlock the door for her and she began to move the dresser out of her way.

A hand clamped down onto the girl's wrist as if it were an iron chain digging into her skin, and she let out a heartbreaking scream of terror, spinning around like lightning.

The clown had, somehow, gotten into her bedroom, and it was giggling as it held Steph in its grasp.

"EVERYTHING DOWN HERE FLOATS!" that rotten, horrible voice yelled in her face as it jerked her down onto the floor, beginning to pull her to the closet at the other end of the room.

"MOM!" Steph screeched as loudly as she could, the fingernails of her free, left hand clawing at the wooden panels of the floor as she felt herself being tugged towards the closet, where she would most likely meet her end. "HELP ME, PLEASE!" she added in a scream as her legs flailed around, and she tried to break free from the clown's white glove that had a hold of her wrist in a painful way, but it wasn't going to be letting go anytime soon. She could just barely hear the sound of her mother's panicked cries right as she turned and bit down on the hand keeping a hold of her; she could hear the monster shouting in agony as she stood up, finally free from it.

She then moved to the bedroom door and moved her dresser out of the way just in time for her mother to barge into the room with wide eyes, her sea green ones meeting her daughters midnight blue ones.

"Oh, my God, honey!" Jamie mumbled with worry but also relief that her little girl was safe and in her arms as she pulled her into a hug. "Are you okay?! You were screaming for me! A-Are you hurt?! What happened to you?!"

Steph put her hands on Jamie's shoulders to calm her down, her eyes calmer than they would have normally been in this situation. "Mom! Mom, calm down!" she exclaimed. "I'm okay... I was just..." She then turned her head around, only to see that the clown was no longer in her room; it had completely vanished. Her eyes narrowed with a bit of confusion, but she knew that it was supernormal, so she knew that she shouldn't tell her mother what had happened. She, unfortunately, had to lie.

"You were just what?" her mother asked with a trembling voice. "Stephie...?"

Steph turned her head back to her mother to stare into her eyes for a moment. "I just had a nightmare," she breathed out in a quiet tone. "That's all." She hated that she was lying to her own mother, something that she would never do. "I had a nightmare that I was being taken from you... that's why I screamed for you.... Everything's okay."

No, it fucking isn't, Steph mumbled to herself in her head. I was attacked and nearly shredded to bloody bits by a clown.

Jamie slowly nodded, although she had that look in her eyes that told Steph that she didn't entirely believe her. But the woman didn't want to pressure her daughter into telling her the truth, so she chose to believe her story for the time being... at least, until the girl was ready to admit what actually happened. "Okay..." she replied. "Well, I was going to tell you that I had gotten home from work. Then I heard you screaming for me so I had to burst through the front door to get to you. Are you sure that you're --"

The telephone then began to ring shrilly all throughout the house, the sound only coming from the nightstand in Steph's bedroom. The blonde girl jumped and spun around to face it, suddenly afraid to answer whoever was calling her house at past ten o'clock at night. But, mustering up the only bit of bravery she had left, she stepped over to the device and picked it up gingerly, silencing the ringing and putting it up to her ear.

"Hello?" she mumbled in a meek and scared voice, skipping the politeness she always had when it came to answering the phone.

Once she began to listen to the hysterical sobbing of the person on the other end of the line, she felt her stomach sink as she gasped. She put a hand over her mouth in shock after she heard what the person said, and she nearly hung up the telephone right there. But she listened to the woman on the other end, nodding to everything she was saying as Jamie watched the whole time. "Okay, Rachel," she said in a collected voice, although she tried to prevent a sob from bubbling up in her throat. "Yes... Mom and I will be right over, okay? Just hold on and focus on the kids. Mom and I will be there in just a second. Bye..."

She then hung up the phone, a shaky sigh leaving her thin lips.

"What is it, what's wrong?" Jamie's voice came from just mere feet away.

Steph looked over at her mother, her lips quivering as she began to cry again, these tears from grief this time.

"Rachel just called..." she whispered weakly. "Daniel's dead."

A/N: so... the scary shit has happened! yayyyyyyy...😐

what did you think of the flashback scene where steph saw pennywise in the storm drain several months prior?

also, pennywise has attacked steph! and it was unlike the scenes with the other losers in the film. steph has actually been physically attacked by the clown. thoughts on that scene?

what do you think steph's true fear is? let me know!

also, daniel is dead... hmmm... that's peculiar. what do we think of that?

one more question! what do you guys think of steph's character so far? do you like her? what has been your favorite moment with her in this book so far?

predictions for the next chapter?

be looking forward to the next chapter!

-denbroughswife