It

let us talk while we still can
Its human voice fading the way the Bangor radio stations faded when you were in the car
and travelling south. Bright, flaring terror filled him. He would shortly be beyond sane communication with It . . . and some part of him understood that, for all Its laughter, for all Its alien glee, that was what It wanted. Not just to send him out to whatever It really was, but to break their mental communication. If that ceased, he would be utterly destroyed. To pass beyond communication was to pass beyond salvation; he understood that much from the way his parents had behaved toward him after George had died. It was the only lesson their refrigerator coldness had had to teach him.
Leaving It . . . and approaching It. But the leaving was somehow more important. If It wanted to eat little kids out here, or suck them in, or whatever It did, why hadn’t It sent them all out here? Why just him?
Because It had to rid Its Spider-self of him, that was why. Somehow the Spider-It and the It which It called the deadlights were linked. Whatever lived out here in the black might be invulnerable when It was here and nowhere else . . . but It was also on earth, under Derry, in a form that was physical. However repulsive It might be, in Derry it was physical . . . and what was physical could be killed.
Bill skidded through the dark, his speed still increasing. Why do I sense so much of Its talkis nothing but a bluff, a big shuck-and jive? Why should that be? How can that be?
He understood how, maybe . . . just maybe.
There is only Chüd, the Turtle had said. And suppose this was it? Suppose they had bitten deep into each other’s tongues, not physically but mentally, spiritually? And suppose that if It could throw Bill far enough into the void, fa r enough toward Its eternal discorporate self, the ritual would be over? It would have ripped him free, killed him, and won everything all at the same
—   you’re doing good, son, but very shortly it’s going to be too late It’s scared! Scared of me! Scared of all of us!
—   skidding, he was skidding, and there was a wall up ahead, he sensed it, sensed it in the dark, the wall at the edge of the continuum, and beyond it the other shape, the deadlights —
—   don’t talk to me, son, and don’t talk to yourself — it’s tearing you loose, bite in if you care, if you dare, if you can be brave, if you can stand . . . bite in, son!
Bill bit in — not with his teeth, but with teeth in his mind.
Dropping his voice a full register, making it not his own (making it, in fact, his father’s voice, although Bill would go to his grave not knowing this; some secrets are never, known, and it’s probably better so), drawing in a great breath, he cried: ‘HE THRUSTS HIS FISTSAGAINST THE POSTS AND STILL INSISTS HE SEES THE GHOSTS NOW LET ME GO!’
He felt It scream in his mind, a scream of frustrated petulant rage . . . but it was also a scream of fear and pain. It was not used to not having Its own way; such a thing had never happened to It, and until the most recent moments of Its existence It had not suspected such a thing could.
Bill felt It writhing at him, not pulling but pushing — trying to get him away.
‘THRUSTS HIS FISTS AGAINST THE POSTS, I SAID!
‘STOP IT!
‘BRING ME BACK! YOU MUST! I COMMAND IT! I DEMAND IT!’
It screamed again, Its pain more intense now — perhaps partly because, while It had spent Its long, long existence inflicting pain, feeding on it, It had never experienced it as a part of Itself.
Still It tried to push him, to get rid of him, blindly and stubbornly insisting on winning, as It had always won before. It pushed . . . but Bill sensed that his outward speed had slowed, and a grotesque image came into his mind: Its tongue, covered with that living spittle, extended like a thick rubber band, cracking, bleeding. He saw himself clinging to the tip of that tongue by his teeth,