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
pass out. He heard a groan, and knew he had made the sound. He dropped the picture.
‘What is it?’ he heard Beverly saying. ‘What does it mean, Bill?’
‘It’s my brother’s school picture,’ Bill said at last. ‘It’s Juh-Georgie. The picture from his album. The one that moved. The one that winked.’
They handed it around again then, while Bill sat as still as stone at the head of the table, looking out into space. It was a photograph of a photograph. The picture showed a tattered school photo propped up against a white background — smiling lips parted to exhibit two holes where new teeth had never grown (unless they grow in your coffin, Bill thought, and shuddered). On the margin below George’s picture were the words SCHOOL FRIENDS 1957-58.
‘It was found this year?’ Beverly asked again. Mike nodded and she turned to Bill. ‘When did you last see it, Bill?’
He wet his lips, tried to speak. Nothing came out. He tried again, hearing the words echo in his head, aware of the stutter coming back, fighting it, fighting the terror.
‘I haven’t seen that picture since 1958. That spring, the year after George died. When I tried to show it to Richie, it was g-gone.’
There was an explosive gasping sound that made them all look around. Eddie was setting his aspirator back on the table and looking slightly embarrassed.
‘Eddie Kaspbrak blasts off!’ Richie cried cheerfully, and then, suddenly and eerily, the Voice of the MovieTone Newsreel Narrator came from Rich’s mouth: ‘Today in Derry, a whole city turns out for Asthmatics on Parade, and the star of the show is Big Ed the Snothead, known all over New England as — ‘
He stopped abruptly, and one hand moved toward his face, as if to cover his eyes, and Bill suddenly thought: No — no, that’s not it. Not to cover his eyes but to push his glasses up on his nose. The glasses that aren’t even there anymore. Oh dear Christ, what’s going on here?
‘Eddie, I’m sorry,’ Rich said. ‘That was cruel. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking about.’ He looked around at the others, bewildered.
Mike Hanlon spoke into the silence.
‘I’d promised myself after Steven Johnson’s body was discovered that if anything else happened — if there was one more clear case — I would make the calls that I ended up not making for another two months. It was as if I was hypnotized by what was happening, by the consciousness of it — the deliberateness of it. George’s picture was found by a fallen log less than ten feet from the Torrio boy’s body. It wasn’t hidden; quite the contrary. It was as if the killer wanted it to be found. As I’m sure the killer did.’
‘How did you get the police photo, Mike?’ Ben asked. That’s what it is, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, that’s what it is. There’s a fellow in the Police Department who isn’t averse to making a little extra money. I pay him twenty bucks a month — all that I can afford. He’s a pipeline.
The body of Dawn Roy was found four days after the Torrio boy. McCarron Park. Thirteen years old. Decapitated.
‘April 23rd of this year. Adam Terrault. Sixteen. Reported missing when he didn’t come home from band practice. Found the next day just off the path that runs through the greenbelt behind West Broadway. Also decapitated.
‘May 6th. Frederick Cowan. Two and a half. Found in an upstairs bathroom, drowned in the toilet.’
‘Oh, Mike!’ Beverly cried.
‘Yeah, it’s bad,’ he said, almost angrily. ‘Don’t you think I know that?’
‘The police are convinced that it couldn’t have been — w e l l , s o m e k i n d o f a c c i d ent?’ Bev asked.
Mike shook his head. ‘His mother was hanging clothes in the back yard. She heard sounds of a struggle — heard her son screaming. She ran as fast as she could. As she went up the stairs, she says she heard the sound of the toilet flushing repeatedly — that, and someone laughing. She said it didn’t sound human.’
‘And she saw nothing at all?’ Eddie asked.
‘Her son,’ Mike said simply. ‘His back had been broken, his skull fractured. The glass door of the shower-stall was broken. There was blood everywhere. The mother is in the Bangor Mental Health Institute, now. My . . . my Police Department source says she’s quite lost her mind.’
‘No fucking wonder,’ Richie said hoarsely. ‘Who’s got a cigarette?’
Beverly gave him one. Rich li t it with hands that shook badly.
‘The police line is that the killer came in through the front door while the Cowan boy’s mother was hanging her clothes in the back yard. Then, when she ran
