It

happening to the others? Or something like it? She ought to warn them. They had hurt It, and perhaps now It was taking steps to assure Itself they would never hurt It again. And, really, where else was there to go? They were the only friends she had. Bill. Bill would know what to do. Bill would tell her what to do, Bill would supply the what next.
She stopped where the Seminary walk joined the Kansas Street sidewalk and peered around the hedge. Her father was truly gone. She turned right and began to walk along Kansas Street toward the Barrens. Probably none of them would be there right now; they would be at home, eating their lunches. But they would be back. Meantime, she could go down into the cool clubhouse and try to get herself under some kind of control. She would leave the little window wide open so sh e could have some sunshine, and perhaps she would even be able to sleep. Her tired body and overstrained mind grasped eagerly at the thought. Sleep, yes, that would be good.
Her head drooped as she plodded past the last bunch of houses before the land grew too steep for houses and plunged down into the Barrens — the Barrens where, as incredible as it seemed to her, her father had been lurking and spying.
She certainly did not hear footfalls behind her. The boys there were at great pains to be quiet. They had been outrun before; they did not intend to be outrun again. They drew closer and closer to her, walking cat-soft. Belch and Victor were grinning, but Henry’s face was both vacant and serious. His hair was uncombed and snarly. His eyes were as unfocused as Al Marsh’s had been in the apartment. He held one dirty finger pressed over his lips in a shhh gesture as they closed the distance from seventy feet to fifty to thirty.
Through that summer Henry had been edging steadily out over some mental abyss, walking on a bridge that had grown relentlessly more and more narrow. On the day when he had allowed Patrick Hockstetter to caress him, that bridge had narrowed to a tightrope. The tightrope had snapped this morning. He had gone out into the yard, naked except for his ragged, yellowing undershorts, and looked up into the sky. The ghost of last night’s moon still lingered there, and as he looked at it the moon had suddenly changed into a skeletal grinning face. Henry had fallen on his knees before this face, exalted with terror and joy. Ghost-voices came from the moon. The voices changed, sometimes seemed to merge together in a soft babble that was barely understandable . . . but he sensed the truth, which was simply that all these voices were one voice, one intelligence. The voice told him to hunt up Belch and Victor and be at the corner of Kansas Street and Costello Avenue around noon. The voice told him he would know what to do then. Sure enough, the cunt had come bopping along. He waited to hear what the voice would tell him to do next. The answer came as they continued to close the distance. The voice came not from the moon, but from the sewer-grating they were passing. The voice was low but clear. Belch and Victor glanced toward the grating in a dazed, almost hypnotized way, then back at Beverly.
Kill her, the voice from the sewer said.
Henry Bowers reached into the pocket of his jeans and brought out a slim nine-inch-long instrument with imitation-ivory inlays along its sides. A small chromium button glittered at one end of this dubious objet d’art. Henry pushed it A six-inch blade popped out of the slit at the end of the handle. He bounced the switchblade on his palm. He began to walk a little faster. Victor and Belch, still looking dazed, increased their own walking speed to keep up with him.
Beverly did not hear them, precisely; that was not what made her turn her head as Henry Bowers closed the distance. Bent-kneed, shuffling, a frozen grin on his face, Henry was as
silent as an India n. No; it was simply a feeling, too clear and direct and powerful to be denied, of
3
The Derry Public Library – 1:55 A.M.
being watched.
Mike Hanlon laid his pen aside and looked across the shadowy inverted bowl of the library’s main room. He saw islands of light thrown by the hanging globes; he saw books fading into dimness; he saw the iron staircases making their graceful trellised spirals up to the stacks. He saw nothing out of place.
All the same, he did not believe he was alone in here. Not anymore.
After the others were gone, Mike had cleaned up with a care that was only habit. He was on autopilot, his mind a million miles — and twenty-seven years — away. He dumped ashtrays, threw away the empty liquor bottles (putting a layer of waste over them so that Carole