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
a boy?’
‘Y-Yes.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Eh-Eh –Eleven.’
‘Big bike for an eleven-year-old.’
‘Will you take a traveller’s check?’
‘Long as it’s no more than ten bucks over the amount of the purchase.’
‘I can give you a twenty,’ Bill said. ‘Mind if I make a phone call?’
‘Not if it’s local.’
‘It is.’
‘Be my guest.’
Bill called the Derry Public Library. Mike was there. ‘Where are you, Bill?’ he asked, and then immediately: ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. Have you seen any of the others?’
‘No. We’ll see them tonight.’ There was a brief pause. That is, I presume. What can I do you for, Big Bill?’
‘I’m buying a bike,’ Bill said calmly. ‘I wondered if I could wheel it up to your house. Do you have a garage or something I could store it in?’
There was silence.
‘Mike? Are you — ‘
‘I’m here,’ Mike said. ‘Is it Silver?’
Bill looked at the proprietor. He was reading his book again . . . or maybe just looking at it and listening carefully.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Where are you?’
‘It’s called Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes.’
‘All right,’ Mike said. ‘My place is 61 Palmer Lane. You’d want to go up MainStreet — ‘
‘I can find it.’
‘All right, I’ll meet you there. Want some supper?’
‘That would be nice. Can you get off work?’
‘No problem. Carole will cover for me.’ Mike hesitated again. ‘She said that a fellow was in about an hour before I got back here. Said he left looking like a ghost. I got her to describe him. It was Ben.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah. And the bike. That’s part of it, too, isn’t it?’
‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ Bill said, keeping an eye on the proprietor, who still appeared to be absorbed in his book.
‘I’ll see you at my place,’ Mike said. ‘Number 61. Don’t forget.’
‘I won’t. Thank you, Mike.’
‘God bless, Big Bill.’
Bill hung up. The proprietor promptly closed his book again. ‘Got you some storage space, my friend?’
‘Yeah.’ Bill took out his traveller’s checks and signed his name to a twenty. The proprietor examined the two signatures with a care that, in less distracted mental circumstances, Bill would have found rather insulting.
At last the proprietor scribbled a bill of sale and popped the traveller’s check into his old cash register. He got up, put his hands on the small of his back and stretched, then walked to the front of the store. He picked his way around the heaps of junk and almost-junk merchandise with an absent delicacy Bill found fascinating.
He lifted the bike, swung it around, and rolled it to the edge of the display space. Bill laid hold of the handlebars to help him, and as he did another shudder whipped through him. Silver. Again. It was Silver in his hands and
(he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts)
he had to force the thought away because it made h im feel faint and strange.
‘That back tire’s a little soft,’ the proprietor said (it was, in fact, as flat as a pancake). The front tire was up, but so bald the cord was showing through in places.
‘No problem,’ Bill said.
‘You can handle it from here?’
(I used to be able to handle it just fine; now I don’t know)
‘I guess so,’ Bill said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Sure. And if you want to talk about that barber pole, come back.’
The proprietor held the door for him. Bill walked the bike out, turned left, and started toward Main Street. People glanced with amusement and curiosity at the man with the bald head pushing the huge bike with the flat rear tire and the oogah-horn protruding over the rusty bike-basket, but Bill hardly noticed them. He was marvelling at how well his grownup hands still fitted the rubber handgrips, was remembering how he had always meant to knot some thin strips of plastic, different colors, into the holes in each grip so they would flutter in the wind. He had never gotten around to that.
He stopped at the corner of Center and Main, outside of Mr Paperback. He leaned the bike against the building long enough to strip off his sportcoat. Pushing a bike with a flat tire was hard work, and the afternoon had come off hot. He tossed the coat into the basket and went on.
Chain’s rusty, he thought. Whoever had it didn’t take very good care of
(him)
it.
He stopped for a moment, frowning, trying to remember just what had happened to Silver. Had he sold it? Given it away? Lost it, perhaps? He couldn’t remember. Instead, that idiotic
