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
Bill thought, and shivered.
This section of the sewer system had fallen into disuse; Richie thought the reason why was pretty clear. The waste– treatment plant had taken over. Sometime during the years when they were all busy learning to shave, to drive, to smoke, to fuck around a little, all that good shit, the Environmental Protection Agency had come into being, and the EPA had decided dumping raw sewage — and even gray water — into rivers and streams was a no –no. So this part of the sewer system had simply moldered, and the bodies of Victor Criss and Belch Huggins had moldered along with it. Like Peter Pan’s Wild Boys, Victor and Belch had never grown up. Here were the skeletons of two boys in the shredded remains of tee-shirts and jeans that had rotted away to rags. Moss had grown over the warped xylophone of Victor’s ribcage, and over the eagle on the buckle of his garrison-belt.
‘Monster got em,’ Ben said softly. ‘Do you remember? We heard it happen.’
‘Audra’s d-dead.’ Bill voice was mechanical. ‘I know it.’
‘You don’t know any such thing! ‘ Beverly said with such fury that Bill stirred and lo oked at her. ‘All you know for sure is that a lot of other people have died, most of them children.’ She walked across to him and stood before him with her hands on her hips. Her face and hands were streaked with grime, her hair matted with dirt. Richie thought she looked absolutely magnificent. ‘And you know what did it.’
‘I nuh-never should have t-t-told her where I was guh-going,’ Bill said. ‘Why did I do that? Why did I — ‘
Her hands pistoned out and seized him by the shirt. Amazed, Richie watched as she shook him.
‘No more! You know what we came for! We swore, and we’re going to do it! Do you understand me, Bill? If she’s dead, she’s dead . . . but It’s not! Now, we need you. Do you get it? We need you!’ She was crying now. ‘So you stand up for us! You stand up for us like before or none of us are going to get out of here!’
He looked at her for a long time without speaking, and Richie found himself thinking, Come on, Big Bill. Come on, come on —
Bill looked around at the rest of them and nodded. ‘Eh-Eddie.’
‘I’m here, Bill.’
‘D-Do y-you still ruh-remember which p-p-pipe?’
Eddie pointed past Victor and said: ‘That the one. Looks pretty small, doesn’t it?’
Bill nodded again. ‘Can you do it? With your a-a-arm broken?’
‘I can for you, Bill.’
Bill smiled: the weariest, most terrible smile Richie had ever seen. ‘Tuh-hake us there, Eh –Eddie. Let’s g-get it done.’
5
In the Tunnels / 4:55 A.M.
As he crawled, Bill reminded himself of the dropoff at the end of this pipe, but it still surprised him. At one moment his hands were shuffling along the crusted surface of the old pipe; at the next they were skating on air. He pitched forward and rolled instinctively, landing on his shoulder with a painful crunch.
‘Be c-c-careful!’ he heard himself shouting. ‘Here’s the druh-hopoff! Eh –Eh –Eddie?’
‘Here!’ One of Eddie’s waving hands brushed across Bill’s forehead. ‘Can you help me out?’
He got his arms around Eddie and lifted him out, trying to be careful of the bad arm. Ben came next, then Bev, then Richie.
‘You got any muh-muh-matches, Ruh-Richie?’
‘I do,’ Beverly said. Bill felt a hand touch his in the darkness and press a folder of matches into it. ‘There’s only eight or ten, but Ben’s got more. From the room.’
Bill said, ‘Did you keep them in your a-a-armpit, B-Bev?’
‘Not this time,’ she said, and put her arms around him in the dark. He hugged her tight, eyes closed, trying to take the comfort that she wanted so badly to give.
He released her gently and struck a match. The power of memory was great — they all looked at once to their right. What remained of Patrick Hockstetter’s body was still there, amid a few lumpy, overgrown things that might have been books. The only really recognizable thing was a jutting semicircle of teeth, two or three of them with fillings.
And something nearby. A gleaming circle barely seen in the match’s guttering light.
Bill shook the match out and lit another. He picked it up. ‘Audra’s wedding ring,’ he said. His voice was hollow, expressionless.
The match went out in his ringers.
In the darkness he put the ring on.
‘Bill?’ Richie said hesitantly. ‘Do you have any idea
6
In the Tunnels / 2:20 P.M.
how long they had been wandering through the tunnels under Derry since
