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
cynically or not, he realized she was trying to use them that way now . . . and she was succeeding.
He couldn’t let her. It would be too easy to think of how lonely it was going to be, sitting in a seat on that train as it barrelled north toward Boston through the darkness, his suitcase overhead and his tote-bag full of nostrums between his feet, the fear sitting on his chest like a rancid Vicks-pack. Too easy to let Myra take him upstairs and make love to him with aspirins and an alcohol-rub. And put him to bed, where they might or might not make a franker sort of love.
But he had promised. Promised.
‘Myra, listen to me,’ he said, making his voice purposely dry, purposely matter-of-fact.
She looked at him with her wet, naked, terrified eyes.
He thought he would try now to explain — as best he could; he would tell her atibut how Mike Hanlon had called and told him that it had started again, and yes, he thought most of the others were coming.
But what came out of his mouth was much saner stuff.
‘Go down to the office first thing in the morning. Talk to Phil. Tell him I had to take off and that you’ll drive Pacino — ‘
‘Eddie I just can’t! ‘ she wailed. ‘He’s a big star! If I get lost he’ll shout at me, I know he will, he’ll shout, they all do when the driver gets lost . . . and . . . and I’ll cry . . . there could be an accident . . . there probably will be an accident . . . . Eddie . . . Eddie you have to stay home . . . . ‘
‘For God’s sake! Stop it!’
She recoiled from his voice, hurt; although Eddie gripped his aspirator, he would not use it. She would see that as a weakness, one she could use against him. Dear God, if You are there,please believe me when I say I don’t want to hurt Myra. I don’t want to cut her, don’t even want to bruise her. But I promised, we all promised, we swore in blood, please help me God because I have to do this . . . .
‘I hate it when you shout at me, Eddie,’ she whispered.
‘Myra, I hate it when I have to,’ he said, and she winced. There you go, Eddie — you hurther again. Why don’t you just punch her around the room a few times? That would probably be kinder. And quicker.
Suddenly — probably it was the thought of punching someone around the room which caused the image to come — he saw the face of Henry Bowers. It was the first time he had thought of Bowers in years, and it did nothing for his peace of mind. Nothing at all.
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them an d said: ‘You won’t get lost, and he won’t shout at you. Mr Pacino is very nice, very understanding. ‘ He had never driven Pacino before in his life, but contented himself with knowing that at least the law of averages was on the side of this lie — according to popular myth most celebrities were shitheels, but Eddie had driven enough of them to know it usually wasn’t true.
There were, of course, exceptions to the rule — and in most cases the exceptions were real monstrosities. He hoped fervently for Myra’s sake that Pacino wasn’t one of these.
‘Is he?’ she asked timidly.
‘Yes. He is.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Demetrios drove him two or three times when he worked at Manhattan Limousine,’ Eddie said glibly. ‘He said Mr Pacino always tipped at least fifty dollars.’
‘I wouldn’t care if he only tipped me fifty cents, as long as he didn’t shout at me.’
‘Myra, it’s all as easy as one-two-three. One, you make the pickup at the Saint Regis tomorrow at seven P.M. and take him over to the ABC Building. They’re retaping the last act
of this play Pacino’s in — American Buffalo, I think it’s called. Two, you take him back to the Saint Regis around eleven. Three, you go back to the garage, turn in the car, and sign the greensheet.’
That’s all?’
‘That’s all. You can do it standing on your head, Marty.’
She usually giggled at this pet name, but now she only looked at him with a painful childlike solemnity.
‘What if he wants to go out to dinner instead of back to the hotel? Or for drinks? Or for dancing?’
‘I don’t think he will, but if he does, you take him. If it looks like he’s going to party all night, you can call Phil Thomas on the radio –phone after midnight. By then he’ll have a driver free to relieve you. I’d never stick you with
