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
call her the instant she came back, no matter how late it was.
The desk clerk repeated the message. Kay went upstairs and took another Valium. She lay down and waited for sleep. Sleep didn’t come. I’m sorry, Bev, she thought, looking into the dark, floating on the dope. What he said about my face . . . I just couldn’t stand that. Call soon, Bev. Please call soon. And watch out for the crazy son of a bitch you married.
5
The crazy son of a bitch Bev had married did better on connections than Beverly had the day before because he left from O’Hare, the hub of commercial aviation in the contin ental United States. During the flight he read and reread the brief note on the author at the end of The Black Rapids. It said that William Denbrough was a native of New England and the author of three other novels (which were also available, the note added helpfully, in Signet paperback editions). He and his wife, the actress Audra Phillips, lived in California. He was currently at work on a new novel. Noticing that the paperback of The Black Rapids had been issued in 1976, Tom supposed the guy had written some of the other novels since then.
Audra Phillips . . . he had seen her in the movies, hadn’t he? He rarely noticed actresses — Tom’s idea of a good flick was a crime story, a chase story, or a monster picture — but if this babe was the one he was thinking of, he had noticed her especially because she looked a lot like Beverly: long red hair, green eyes, tits that wouldn’t quit.
He sat up a little straighter in his seat, tapping the paperback against his leg, trying to ignore the ache in his head and in his mouth. Yes, he was sure. Audra Phillips was the redhead with the good tits. He had seen her in a Clint Eastwood movie, and then about a year later in a horror flick called Graveyard Moon. Beverly had gone with him to see that one, and coming out of the theater, he had mentioned his idea that the actress looked a lot like her. ‘I don’t think so,’ Bev had said. ‘I’m taller and she’s prettier. Her hair’s a darker red, too.’ That was all. He hadn’t thought of it again until now.
He and his wife, the actress Audra Phillips . . .
Tom had some dim understanding of psychology; he had used it to manipulate his wife all the years of their marriage. And now a nagging unpleasantness began to nag at him, more feeling than thought. It centered on the fact that Bev and this Denbrough had played together as kids and that Denbrough had married a woman who, in spite of what Beverly said, looked amazingly like Tom Rogan’s wife.
What sort of games had Denbrough and Beverly played when they were kids? Post-office? Spin-the –bottle?
Other games?
Tom sat in his seat and tapped the book against his leg and felt his temples begin to throb.
When he arrived at Bangor International Airport, and canvassed the rental-car booths, the girls — some dressed in yellow, some in red, some in Irish green — looked at his blasted dangerous face nervously and told him (more nervously still) that they had no cars to rent, so sorry.
Tom went to the newsstand and got a Bangor paper. He turned to the want-ads, oblivious to the looks he was getting from people passing by, and isolated three likelies. He hit paydirt on his second call.
‘Paper says you’ve got a ’76 LTD wagon. Fourteen hundred bucks.’
‘Right, sure.’
‘I tell you what,’ Tom said, touching the wallet in his jacket pocket. It was fat with cash — six thousand dollars. ‘You bring it out to the airport and we’ll do the deal right here. You give me the car and a bill of sale and your pink-slip.
I’ll give you cash money.’ The fellow with the LTD fo r sale paused and then said, ‘I’d have to take my plates off.’
‘Sure, fine.’
‘How will I know you, Mr — ?’
‘Mr Barr,’ Tom said. He was looking at a sign across the terminal lobby that said BAR HARBOUR AIRLINES GIVES YOU NEW ENGLAND — AND THE WORLD! ‘I’ll be standing by the far door. You’ll know me because my face doesn’t look so hot. My wife and I went roller-skating yesterday and I took one hell of a fall. Things could be worse, I guess. I didn’t break anything but my face.’
‘Gee, I’m sorry to hear that, Mr Barr.’
‘I’ll mend. You just get the car out here, my good buddy.’
He hung up, walked across to the door, and stepped out into the warm fragrant May night.
The guy with the LTD showed up ten minutes later driving out of the la te-spring dusk. He was only a
