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
kid. They did the deal; the kid scribbled him a bill of sale which Tom stuffed indifferently into his overcoat pocket. He stood there and watched the kid take off the LTD’s Maine plates.
‘Give you an extra three bucks for the screwdriver,’ Tom said when he was done.
The kid looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, shrugged, handed the screwdriver over, and took the three ones Tom was holding out. None of my business, the shrug said, and Tom thought: How right you are, my good little buddy. Tom saw him into a cab, then got behind the wheel of the Ford.
It was a piece of shit: transmission whiny, universal groany, body rattly, brakes slushy. None of it mattered. He drove around to the long-term parking lot, took a ticket, and drove in. He parked next to a Subaru that looked as if it had been there for awhile. He used the kid’s screwdriver to remove the Subaru’s plates and put them on the LTD. He hummed as he worked.
By 10:00 P.M. he was driving east on Route 2, a Maine roadmap open on the seat beside him. He had discovered that the LTD’s radio didn’t work, so he drove in silence. That was all right. He had plenty to think about. All the wonderful things he was going to do to Beverly when he caught up with her, for instance.
He was sure in his heart, quite sure, that Beverly was close by.
And smoking.
Oh my dear girl, you fucked with the wrong man when you fucked with Tom Rogan. And the question is this — what, exactly, are we to do with you?
The Ford bulled its way through the night, chasing its high beams, and by the time Tom got to Newport, he knew. He found a drugs-and –sundries shop on the main drag that was still open. He went inside and bought a carton of Camels. The proprietor wished him a good evening. Tom wished him the same.
He tossed the carton on the seat and got moving again. He drove slowly on up Route 7, hunting for his turnoff. Here it was — Route 3, with a sign which read HAVEN 21 DERRY 15.
He made the turn and got the Ford rolling faster. He glanced at the carton of cigarettes and smiled a little. In the green glow of the dashlights, his cut and lumpy face looked strange, ghoulish.
Got some cigarettes for you, Bevvie, Tom thought as the wagon ran between stands of pine and spruce, heading toward Derry at a little better than sixty. Oh my yes. A whole carton. Justfor you. And when I see you, dear, I’m going to make you eat every fucking one. And if this guy Denbrough needs some education, we can arrange that, too. No problem, Bevvie. No problem at all.
For the first time since the dirty bitch had bushwhacked him and run out, Tom began to feel good.
6
Audra Denbrough flew first class to Maine in a British Airways DC-10. She had left Heathrow at ten minutes of six that aft ernoon and had been chasing the sun ever since. The sun was winning — had won, in fact — but that didn’t really matter. By a stroke of providential luck she had discovered that British Airways flight 23, London to Los Angeles, made one refueling stop . . . at Bangor International Airport.
The day had been a crazy nightmare. Freddie Firestone, the producer of Attic Room, had of course wanted Bill first thing. There had been some kind of ballsup about the stuntwoman who was supposed to fall down a flight of stairs for Audra. It seemed that stuntpeople had a union too, and this woman had fulfilled her quota of stunts for the week, or some silly thing. The union was demanding that Freddie either sign an extension-of-salary waiver or hire another woman to do the stunt. The problem was there was no other woman close enough to Audra’s body-type available. Freddie told the union boss that they would have to get a man to do the stunt, then, wouldn’t they? It wasn’t as if the fall had to be taken in bra and panties. They had the auburn-haired wig, and the wardrobe woman could fit the fellow up with falsies and hip-padding. Even some arse-pads, if that was necessary.
Can’t be done, mate, the union boss said. Against the union charter to have a man step in for a woman. Sexual discrimination.
In the movie business Freddie’s temper was fabled, and at that point he had lost it. He told the union boss, a fat man whose BO was almost paralyzing,
