A promise made twenty-eight years ago calls seven adults to reunite in Derry, Maine, where as teenagers they battled an evil creature that preyed on the city’s children. Unsure that their Losers Club had vanquished the creature all those years ago, the seven had vowed to return to Derry if IT should ever reappear. Now, children are being murdered again and their repressed memories of that summer return as they prepare to do battle with the monster lurking in Derry’s sewers once more.
Авторы: King Stephen Edwin
it just behind them, gibbering and snarling and slobbering.
There was Silver, still leaning against the tree. Bill jumped onto the seat a nd threw his father’s pistol into the carrier basket where they had carried so many play guns. Richie chanced a glance behind him as he flung himself onto the package carrier and saw the Werewolf crossing the lawn toward them, less than twenty feet away now. Blood and slobber mixed on its high –school jacket. White bone gleamed through its pelt about the right temple. There were white smudges of sneezing powder on the sides of its nose. And Richie saw two other things which seemed to complete the horror. There was no zipper on the thing’s jacket; instead there were big fluffy orange buttons, like pompoms. The other thing was worse. It was the other thing that made him feel as if he might faint, or just give up and let it kill him. A name was stitched on the jacket in gold thread, the kind of thing you could get done down at Machen’s for a buck if you wanted it.
Stitched on the bloody left breast of the Werewolf s jacket, stained but readable, were the words RICHIE TOZIER.
It lunged at them.
‘Go, Bill!’ Richie screamed.
Silver began to move, but slowly — much too slowly. It took Bill so long to get going —
The Werewolf crossed the rutted path just as Bill pedaled into the middle of Neibolt Street. Blood splattered its faded jeans, and looking back over his shoulder, filled with a kind of dreadful, unbreakable fascination that was akin to hypnosis, Richie saw that the seams of the jeans were giving way in places, and tufts of coarse brown fur had sprung through.
Silver wavered wildly back and forth. Bill was standing up, gripping the bike’s handlebars from underneath, head turned up toward the cloudy sky, cords standing out on his neck. And still the playing cards were only firing single shots.
One paw groped for Richie. He screamed miserably and ducked away from it. The Werewolf snarled and grinned. It was close enough so Richie could see the yellowing corneas of its eyes, could smell sweet rotten meat on its breath. Its teeth were crooked fangs.
Richie screamed again as it swung a pa w at him. He was sure it was going to take his head off — but the paw passed in front of him, missing by no more than an inch. The force of the swing blew Richie’s sweaty hair back from his forehead.
‘Hi-yo Silver AWAYYY!’ Bill screamed at the top of his voice.
He had reached the top of a short, shallow hill. Not much, but enough to get Silver rolling. The playing cards picked up speed and began to burr along, gill pumped the pedals madly. Silver stopped wavering and cut a straight course down Neibolt Street toward Route 2.
Thank God, thank God, thank God., Richie thought incoherently. Thank —
The Werewolf roared again — oh my God it sounds like it’s RIGHT BESIDE ME — and Richie’s wind was cut off as his shirt and jacket were jerked back against his windpipe. He made a gargling, choking sound and managed to grip Bill’s middle just before he was pulled off the back of the bike. Bill tilted backward but held on to Silver’s handlebar grips. For one moment Richie thought the big bike would simply do a wheelie and spill both of them off the back. Then his jacket, which had been just about ready for the rag-bag anyway, parted down the back with a loud ripping noise that sounded weirdly like a big fart. Richie could breathe again.
He looked around and stared directly into those muddy murderous eyes.
‘Bill!’ He tried to howl it, but the word had no force, no sound.
Bill seemed to hear him anyway. He pedaled even harder, harder than he ever had in his life. All his guts seemed to be rising, coming unanchored. He could taste thick coppery blood in the back of his throat. His eyeballs were starting from their sockets. His mouth hung open, scooping air. And a crazy, ineluctable sense of exhilaration filled him — something that was wild and free and all his own. A desire. He stood on the pedals; coaxed them; battered them.
Silver continued to pick up speed. He was beginning to feel the road now, beginning to fly. Bill could feel him go.
‘Hi-yo Silver!’ he screamed again. ‘Hi-yo Silver, AWAYYY!’
Richie could hear the fast rattle – thud of loafers on the macadam. He turned. The Werewolf s paw struck him above the eyes with stunning force, and for a moment Richie really did think the top of his head had come off. Things suddenly seemed dim, unimportant. Sounds faded in and out. The color washed out of the world. He turned back, clinging desperately
