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
cabinet standing ajar above it, disclosing empty shelves. There were small rust-rings on these shelves, where bottles had once stood.
‘I wouldn’t get too close to that, big Bill!’ Richie said sharply, and Ben looked around.
Bill was approaching the mouth of the drainhole in the floor, over which the toilet had once sat. He leaned toward it . . . and then turned back to the others.
‘I can h-h-hear the pub-pumping muh-muh-machinery . . . just like in the Buh-Buh-harrens!’
Bev drew closer to Bill. Ben followed her, and yes, he could hear it; that steady thrumming noise. Except, echoing up through the pipes, it didn’t sound like machinery at all. It sounded like something alive.
T h –T h – This is w-w-where It cuh-cuh – hame fr –from,’ Bill said. His face was still deadly pale, but his eyes were alight with excitement. ‘This is w-where it cuh-hame from that d-d-day, and th-hat’s w-w-where it a-a-always comes fr –rom! The druh-druh-drains!’
Richie was nodding. ‘We were in the cellar, but that isn’t where It was — It came down the stairs. Because this is where It could get out.’
‘And It did this? ‘ Beverly asked.
‘Ih-It was in a h-h-hurry, I th-think,’ Bill said gravely.
Ben looked into the pipe. It was about three feet in diameter and dark as a mineshaft. The inner ceramic surface of the pipe was crusted with stuff he didn’t want to know about. That thrumming sound floated up hypnotically . . . and suddenly he saw something. He did not see it with his physical eyes, not at first, but with one buried deep in his mind.
It was rushing toward them, moving at express-train speed, filling the throat of this dark pipe from side to side; It was in Its own form now, whatever that might be; It would take some shape from their minds when It got here. It was coming, coming up from Its own foul runs and black catacombs under the earth, Its eyes glowing a feral yellowish green, coming, coming; It was coming.
And then, at first like sparks, he saw Its eyes down in that darkness. They took shape — flaring and malignant. Over the thrumming sound of the machinery, Ben could now hear a new noise — Whoooooooo . . . A fetid smell belched from the ragged mouth of the drain-pipe and he fell back, coughing and gagging.
‘It’s coming!’ He screamed. ‘Bill, I saw It, It’s coming!’
Beverly raised the Bullseye. ‘Good,’ she said.
Something exploded out of the drainpipe. Ben, trying to recall that first confrontation later, could only remember a silvery-orange shifting shape. It was not ghostly; it was solid, and he sensed some other shape, some real and ultimate shape, behind it . . . but his eyes could not grasp what he was seeing, not precisely.
Then Richie was stumbling backward, his face a scrawl of terror, screaming over and over again: ‘The Werewolf! Bill! It’s the Werewolf! The Teenage Werewolf.’ And suddenly the shape locked into reality, for Ben, for all of them. Richie’s It became their It.
The Werewolf stood poised over the drainpipe, one hairy foot on either side of where the toilet had once been. Its green eyes glared at them from Its feral face. Its muzzle wrinkled back and yellowish-white foam seeped through Its teeth. It uttered a shattering growl. Its arms pistoned out toward Beverly, the cuffs of Its high– school letter jacket pulling back f r o m Its fur-covered arms. Its smell was hot and raw and murderous.
Beverly screamed. Ben grabbed the back of her blouse and yanked so hard that the seams under the arms tore. One clawed hand swept through the air where she had been only a moment before. Beverly went stumbling backwards against the wall. The silver ball popped out of the cup of the Bullseye. For a moment it glimmered in the air. Mike, quicker than quick, snatched it and gave it back to her.
‘Shoot it, baby,’ he said. His voice was perfectly calm; almost serene. ‘You shoot it right now.’
The Werewolf uttered a shattering roar that became a flesh-freezing howl, Its snout turned up toward the ceiling.
The howl became a laugh. It lunged at Bill as Bill turned to look at Beverly. Ben shoved him aside and Bill went sprawling.
‘Shoot It, Bev!’ Richie screamed. ‘For God’s sake, shoot It!’
The Werewolf sprang forward, and there
