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
Probably more. But only one like this. He had bought it for Audra in a Burbank leather-goods store while ‘Sausalito Summer Nights’ played on the radio in the back room.
‘Bill?’ Beverly’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him. Far away. Twenty-seven leagues under the sea. What was the name of the group that sang ‘Sausalito Summer Nights’? Richie would know.
‘I know,’ Bill said calmly into Richie’s scared, wide-eyed face, and smiled. ‘It was Diesel. How’s that for total recall?’
‘Bill, what’s wrong?’ Richie whispered.
Bill screamed. He snatched the matches out of Beverly’s hand, lit one, and then yanked the purse away from Ben.
‘Bill, Jesus, what — ‘
He unzipped the purse and turned it over. What fell out was so much Audra that for a moment he was too unmanned to scream again. Amid the Kleenex, sticks of chewing gum, and items of make-up, he saw a tin of Altoid mints . . . and the jewelled compact Freddie Firestone had given her when she signed for Attic Room.
‘My wuh-wuh-wife’s down there,’ he said, and fell on his knees and began pushing her things back into the purse. He brushed hair that no longer existed out of his eyes without even thinking about it.
‘Your wife? Audra? Beverly’s face was shocked, her eyes huge.
‘Her p-p-purse. Her th-things.’
‘Jesus, Bill,’ Richie muttered. ‘That can’t be, you know th — ‘
He had found her alligator wallet. He opened it and held it up. Richie lit another match and was looking at a face he had seen in half a dozen movies. The picture on Audra’s California driver’s license was less glamorous but completely conclusive.
‘But Huh-Huh-Henry’s dead, and Victor, and B-B-Belch . . . so who’s got her?’ He stood up, staring around at them with febrile intensity. Who’s got her?’
Ben put a hand on Bill’s shoulder. ‘I guess we better go down and find out, huh?’
Bill looked around at hull, as if unsure of who Ben might be, and then his eyes cleared. ‘Y-Yeah,’ he said. ‘Eh-Eh –Eddie?’
‘Bill, I’m sorry.’
‘Can you cluh-climb on?’
‘I did once.’
Bill bent over and Eddie hooked his right arm around Bill’s neck. Ben and Richie boosted him up until he could hook his legs around Bill’s midsection.
As Bill swung one leg clumsily over the lip of the cylinder, Ben saw that Eddie’s eyes were tightly shut . . . and for a moment he thought he heard the world’s ugliest cavalry charge bashing its way through the bushes. He turned, expecting to see the three of them come out of the fog and the brambles, but all he had heard was the rising breeze rattling the bamboo a quarter of a mile or so from here. Their old enemies were all gone now.
Bill gripped the rough concrete lip of the cylinder and felt his way down, step by step and rung by rung. Eddie had him in a deathgrip and Bill could barely breathe. Her purse, dearGod, how d id her purse get here? Doesn’t matter. But if You’re there, God, and if You’re taking requests, let her be all right, don’t let her suffer for what Bev and I did tonight or for what I did one summer when I was a boy . . . and was it the clown? Was it Bob Gray who got her? If it was, I don’t know if even God can help her.
‘I’m scared, Bill,’ Eddie said in a thin voice.
Bill’s foot touched cold standing water. He lowered himself into it, remembering the feel and the dank smell, remembering the claustrophobic way this place had made him feel . . . and, just by the way, what had happened to them? How had they fared down in these drains and tunnels? Where exactly had they gone, and how exactly had they gotten out again? He still couldn’t remember any of that; all he could think of was Audra.
‘I am t-t-too.’ He half-squatted, wincing as the cold water ran into his pants and over his balls, and let Eddie off. They stood shindeep in the water and watched the others descend the ladder.
1
It / August 1958
Something new had happened.
For the first time in forever, something new.
Before the universe there had been only two things. One was Itself and the other was the Turtle. The Turtle was a stupid old thing that never came out of its shell. It thought that maybe the Turtle was dead, had been dead for the last billion years or so. Even if it wasn’t, it was still a stupid old thing, and even if the Turtle had vomited the universe out whole, that didn’t change the fact of its stupidity.
