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
to Bill. Warm blood ran into his right eye, stinging.
The paw swung again, striking the back fender this time. Richie felt the bike waver crazily, for a moment on the verge of tipping over, finally straightening out again. Bill yelled Hi –yo Silver, A WAY! again, but that was distant too, like an echo heard just before it dies out.
Richie closed his eyes and held on to Bill and waited for the end.
14
Bill had also heard the running steps and understood that the clown hadn’t given up yet, but he didn’t dare turn around and look. He would know if it caught up and knocked them flat. That was really all he needed to know.
Come on, boy, he thought. Give me everything now! Everything you got! Go, Silver! GO!
So once again Bill Denbrough found himself racing to beat the devil, only now the devil was a hideously grinning clown whose face sweated white greasepaint, whose mouth curved up in a leering red vampire smile, whose eyes were bright silver coins. A clown who was, for some lunatic reason, wearing a Derry High School jacket over its silvery suit with the orange ruff and the orange pompom buttons.
Go, boy, go — Silver, what do you say?
Neibolt Street blurred by him now. Silver was starting to hum good now. Had those running footfalls faded back a bit? He still didn’t dare turn around to see. Richie had him in a death grip, he was pinching off his wind and Bill wanted to tell Richie to loosen up a little, but he didn’t dare waste breath on that, either..
There, up ahead like a beautiful dream, was the stop-sign marking the intersection of Neibolt Street and Route 2. Cars were passing back and forth on Witcham. In his state of exhausted terror, this seemed somehow like a miracle to Bill.
Now, because he would have to put on his brakes in a moment (or do something really inventive), he risked a look back over his shoulder.
What he saw caused him to reverse Silver’s pedals with a single snap –jerk. Silver skidded, laying rubber with its locked rear tire, and Richie’s head smacked painfully into the hollow of Bill’s right shoulder.
The street was completely empty.
But twenty-five yards or so behind them, by the first of the abandoned houses which formed a kind of funeral cortege leading up to the trainyards, there was a bright flick of orange. It lay close to a stormdrain cut into the curbing.
‘Uhhnh . . . ‘
Almost too late, Bill realized that Richie was sliding off the back of Silver. Richie’s eyes were turned up so Bill could only see the lower rims of the irises below his upper lids. The mended bow of his glasses hung askew. Blood was flowing slowly from his forehead.
Bill grabbed his arm, they both slipped to the right, and Silver overbalanced. They crashed to the street in a tangle of arms and legs. Bill barked his crazybone a good one and shouted with pain. Richie’s eyes flickered at the sound.
‘I am going to show you how to get to thees treasure, senhorr, but thees man Dobbs ees plenny dangerous,’ Richie said in a snoring gasp. It was his Pancho Vanilla Voice, but its floating, unconnected quality scared Bill badly. He saw several coarse brown hairs clinging to the shallow head-wound on Richie’s forehead. They were slightly kinky, like his father’s pubic hair. They made him feel even more afraid, and he fetched Richie a strong smack upside the head.
‘Yowch!’ Richie cried. His eyes fluttered, then opened wide. ‘What are you hittin me for, Big Bill? You’ll break my glasses. They ain’t in very good shape anyway, just in case you didn’t notice.’
‘I th-th-thought you w-w-were duh-duh –dying, or s –s-something,’ Bill said.
Richie sat up slowly in the street and put a hand to his head. He groaned. ‘What hap — ‘ And then he remembered. His eyes widened in sudden shock and terror and he scrambled around on his knees, gasping harshly.
‘Duh-duh –don’t,’ Bill said. ‘I-It’s g-g-gone, R-R-Richie. It’s gone.’
Richie saw the empty street where nothing moved and suddenly burst into tears. Bill looked at him for a moment and then put his arms around Richie and hugged him. Richie clutched at Bill’s neck and hugged him back. He wanted to say something clever, something about how Bill should have tried the Bullseye on the Werewolf, but nothing would come out. Nothing except sobs.
‘D-Don’t, R-Richie,’ Bill said, ‘duh-duh –duh –h-h — ‘ Then he burst into tears himself and they only hugged each other on their knees in the street beside Bill’s spilled bike, and their tears made clean streaks down their cheeks, which were sooted
