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
as she had fired at the cans in the dump on the day they had all taken turns to see who was the best.
There was time for Ben to think Oh Beverly if you miss this time we’re all dead and I don’t want to di e in this dirty bathtub but I can’t get out. There was no miss. A round eye — not green but dead black — suddenly appeared high up in the center of Its snout: she had aimed for the right eye and missed by less than half an inch.
Its scream — an almost human scream of surprise, pain, fear and rage — was deafening. Ben’s ears rang with it. Then the perfect round hole in Its snout was gone, obscured by freshets of blood. It was not flowing; it gouted from the wound in a high-pressure torrent. The freshet drenched Bill’s face and hair. Doesn’t matter, Ben thought hysterically. Don’t worry,Bill. Nobody will be able to see it anyway when we get out of here. If we ever do.
Bill and Beverly advanced on the Werewolf, and behind them, Richie cried out hysterically: ‘Shoot It again, Beverly! Kill it!’
‘Kill It!’ Mike screamed.
‘That’s right, kill It!’ Eddie chimed in.
‘Kill it!’ Bill cried, his mouth drawn down in a quivering bow. There was a whitish-yellow streak of plaster dust in his hair. ‘Kill It, Beverly, don’t let it get away!’
No ammo left, Ben thought incoherently, we’re slugged out. What are you talking about, kill it? But he looked at Beverly and understood. If his heart had never been hers before that moment, it would have flown to he r then. She had pulled the sling back again. Her fingers were closed over the cup, hiding its emptiness.
‘Kill It!’ Ben screamed, and flopped clumsily over the edge of the tub. His jeans and underwear were soaked against his skin with blood. He had no idea if he was hurt badly or not. Following the original hot sizzle there hadn’t been much pain, but there sure was an awful lot of blood.
The Werewolf’s greenish eyes flickered among them, now filled with uncertainty as well as pain. Blood poured down the front of Its jacket in freshets.
Bill Denbrough smiled. It was a gentle, rather lovely smile . . . but it did not touch his eyes. ‘You shouldn’t have started with my brother,’ he said. ‘Send the fucker to hell, Beverly.’
The uncertainty left the creature’s eyes — It believed. With lithe smooth grace, It turned and dove into the drain. As It went, It changed. The Derry High jacket melted into its pelt and the color ran out of both. The shape of Its skull elongated, as if it had been made of wax which was now softening and beginning to run. Its shape changed. For one instant Ben believed he had nearly seen what shape It really was, and his heart froze inside his chest, leaving him gasping.
‘I’ll kill you all!’ a voice roared from inside the drainpipe. It was thick, savage, not in the least human. ‘Kill you all . . . kill you all . . . kill you all . . . ‘ The words faded back and back, diminishing, washing out, growing distant . . . at last joining the low throbbing hum of the pumping machinery floating through the pipes.
The house seemed to settle with a heavy sub-audible thud. But it wasn’t settling, Ben realized; in some strange way it was shrinking, coming back to its normal size. Whatever magic It had used to make the house at 29 Neibolt Street seem bigger was now withdrawn. The house snapped back like an elastic. It was only a house now, smelling damp and a little rotten, an unfurnished house where winos and hobos sometimes came to drink and talk and sleep out of the rain.
It was gone.
In Its wake the silence seemed very loud.
10
‘W-W-We guh-got to g-g-get ow-ow-out of this p-place,’ Bill said. He walked over to where Ben was trying to get up and grabbed one of his outstretched hands. Beverly was standing near the drain. She looked down at herself and that coldness disappeared in a flush that seemed to turn all her skin into one warm stocking. It must have been a deep breath indeed. The dim popping sounds had been the buttons on her blouse. They were gone, every single one of them. The blouse hung open and her small breasts were clearly revealed. She snatched the blouse closed.
‘Ruh-Ruh-Richie,’
