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
ever going to find him down there.’ Or Eddie either, I thought but did not say.
‘No, I suppose not,’ Bill said. ‘And when she goes back, I’m betting Ben will go with her. And you know something else? Something really crazy?’
‘What?’
‘I don’t think she really remembers what happened to Tom.’
I just stared at him.
‘She’s forgotten or forgetting,’ Bill said. ‘And I can’t remember what the doorway looked like anymore. The d-doorway into Its place. I try to think of it and the craziest thing happens — I get this ih-image of g-g-goats walking over a bridge. From that story «The Three Billy Goats Gruff.» Crazy, huh?’
‘They’ll trace Tom Rogan to Derry eventually,’ I said. ‘He’ll have left a paper trail a mile wide. Rent-a-car, plane tickets.’
‘I’m not so sure of that,’ Bill said, lighting a cigarette. ‘I think he might have paid cash for his plane ticket and given a phony name. Maybe bought a cheap car here or stole one.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh, come on,’ Bill said. ‘Do you think he came all this way to give her a spanking?’
Our eyes met for a long moment and then he stood up. ‘Listen, Mike . . . ‘
‘Too hip, gotta split,’ I said. ‘I can dig it.’
He laughed at that, laughed hard, and when he had sobered he said: Thanks for the use of your place, Mikey.’
‘I’m not going to swear to you it’ll make any difference. It has no therapeutic qualities that I’m aware of.’
‘Well . . . I’ll see you.’ He did an odd thing then, odd but rather lovely. He kissed my cheek. ‘God bless, Mike. I’ll be around.’
Things may be okay, Bill,’ I said. ‘Don’t give up hope. They may be okay.’
He smiled and nodded, but I think the same word was in both of our minds: Catatonic.
June 5th, 1985
Ben and Beverly came in today to say goodbye. They’re not flying — Ben’s rented a great big Cadillac from the Hertz people and they’re going to drive, not hurrying. There’s something in their eyes when they look at each other, and I’d bet my pension-plan that if they’re not making it now, they will be by the time they get to Nebraska.
Beverly hugged me, told me to get well quickly, and then cried.
Ben also hugged me, and asked for the third or fourth time if I would write. I told him I would indeed write, and so I will . . . for awhile, at least. Because this tune it’s happening to me, as well.
I’m forgetting things.
As Bill said, right now it’s only small things, details. But it feels like the sort of thing that’s going to spread. It could be that in a month or a year, this notebook will be all I’ll have to remind me of what happened here in Derry. I suppose the words themselves might begin to fade, eventually leaving this book as blank as when I first picked it up in the school-supplies department at Freese’s. That’s an awful thought and in the daytime it seems wildly paranoid . . . but, do you know, in the watches of the night it seems perfectly logical.
This forgetting . . . the prospect fills me with panic, but it also offers a sneaking sort of relief. It suggests to me more than anything else that this time they really did kill It; that there is no need of a watchman to stand and wait for the cycle to begin again.
Dull panic, sneaking relief. It’s the relief I’ll embrace, I think, sneaking or not.
Bill called to say he and Audra had moved in. There is no change in her.
‘I’ll always remember you.’ That’s what Beverly told me just before she and Ben left.
I think I saw a different truth in her eyes.
June 6th, 1985
Interesting piece in the Derry News today, on page one. The story was headed: STORM CAUSES HENLEY TO GIVE UP AUDITORIUM EXPANSION PLANS. The Henley in question is Tim Henley a multi-millionaire developer who came into Derry like a whirlwind in the late sixties — it was Henley and Zitner who organized the consortium responsible for building the Derry Mall (which, according to another piece on page one, is probably going to be declared a total loss). Tim Henley was determined to see Derry grow. There was a profit-motive, yes indeed, but there was more to it than that: Henley genuinely wanted to see it happen. His sudden abandonment of the auditorium expansion suggests several things to me. That Henley may have soured on Derry is only the most obvious. I think it’s also possible that he’s in the process of losing his shirt because of the destruction of the mall.
But the article also suggests that Henley is not alone; that other investors and potential investors in Derry’s future may be rethinking their options. Of course, Al Zitner won’t have to bother; God retired him when downtown collapsed. Of the others, those who thought like Henley are
