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
W-We’re nuh-hot e-ever supposed to g-g-get up a-again.’
They looked at him, their eyes hurt and afraid. No one said anything.
Henry’s voice, fury masquerading as mockery, floated down: ‘We can wait up here all day, you guys!’
Beverly had turned away and was looking back along the bore of the inflow pipe. The light grew diffuse quickly, and she could not see much. What she could see was a concrete tunnel, its lower third filled with rushing water. It was higher on her now than it had been when they first squeezed in here, she realized; that would be because this pump wasn’t working and only some of the water was exiting on the Kenduskeag side. She felt claustrophobia touch her throat, turning the skin there to something that felt like flannel. If ht e water rose enough, they would drown.
‘Bill, do we have to?’
He shrugged. It said everything. Yeah, they had to; what else was there? Be killed by Henry, Victor, and Belch in the Barrens? Or by something else — maybe something worse — in town? She understood his thought well enough now; there was no stutter in his shrug. Better for them to go to It. Have it out, like the showdown in a Western movie. Cleaner. Braver.
Richie said: ‘What was that ritual you told us about, Big Bill? The one in the library book?’
‘Ch-Ch-Chüd,’ Bill said, smiling a little.
‘Chüd.’ Richie nodded. ‘You bite Its tongue and It bites yours, right?’
‘Ruh-ruh –right.’
‘Then you tell jokes.’
Bill nodded.
‘Funny,’ Richie said, looking into the dark pipe, ‘I can’t think of a single one.’
‘Me either,’ Ben said. The fear was heavy in his chest, almost suffocating. He felt that the only thing keeping him from just sitting down in the water and blubbering like a baby — or just going crazy — was Bill’s calm, sure presence . . . and Beverly. He felt he would rather die than show Beverly how afraid he was.
‘Do you know where this pipe goes?’ Stan asked Bill.
Bill shook his head.
‘Do you know how to find It?’
Bill shook his head again.
‘We’ll know when we’re getting close,’ Richie said suddenly. He drew a deep, trembling breath. ‘If we have to do it, then let’s go.’
Bill nodded. ‘I’ll be f-f-first. Then Eh-Eddie. B-B-Ben. Bev. Stuh-han the M-M-Man. M-M-Mike. You luh-last, Rih-Richie. E-Everyone k-k-keep one h-h-hand on the shuh-houlder of the p-p-person in fruh-fruh-front of y-y-you. It’s gonna be d-dark.’
‘You coming out?’ Henry Bowers shrieked down at them.
‘We’re gonna come out somewhere,’ Richie muttered. ‘I guess.’
They formed up like a procession of blindmen. Bill looked back once, confirming that each had a hand on the shoulder of the person ahead. Then, bending forward slightly against the rush of the current, Bill Denbrough led his friends into the dark where the boat he had made for his brother had gone almost a year before.
1
Tom
Tom Rogan was having one fuck of a crazy dream. In it he was killing his father.
Part of his mind understood how crazy this was; his father had died when Tom was only in the third grade. Well . . . maybe ‘died’ wasn’t such a good word. Maybe ‘committed suicide’ was actually the truth. Ralph Rogan had made himself a gin-and –lye cocktail. One for the road, you might say. Tom had been put in nominal charge of his brother and sisters, and then he began to receive ‘whuppins’ if anything went wrong with them.
So he couldn’t have killed his father . . . except there he was, in this frightening dream, holding what looked like a harmless handle of some sort to his father’s neck . . . only it wasn’t really harmless, was it? There was a button in the end of the handle, and if he pushed it a blade would pop out and go right through his father’s neck. I’m not going to do anything like that, Daddy, don’t worry, his dreaming mind thought just before his finger jammed down on the button and the blade popped out. His father’s sleeping eyes opened and stared up at the ceiling; his father’s mouth opened and a bloody gargling sound came out. Daddy, I didn’t do it! his mind screamed. Someone else —
He struggled to wake up and couldn’t. The best he could do (and it turned out to be not very good at all) was to fade into a new dream. In this one he was splashing and slogging his way down a long dark tunnel. His balls hurt and his face stung because it was crisscrossed with scratches. There were others with him, but he could only make out vague shapes. It didn’t matter, anyway. What mattered were the kids
