ottle back in the glove compartment. Its neck chattered briefly like teeth. And he saw a paper where the bottle had been. He took it out and unfolded it, leaving bloody fingerprints on the corners. Embossed across the top was this logo, in bright scarlet:
Below this, carefully printed in capital letters:
Their room numbers. That was good. That saved time. "Thanks, Be--"
But Belch was gone. The driver's seat was empty. There was only the New York Yankees baseball cap lying there, mold crusted on its bill. And some slimy stuff on the knob of the gearshift.
Henry stared, his heart beating painfully in his throat . . . and then he seemed to hear something move and shift in the back seat. He got out quickly, opening the door and almost falling to the pavement in his haste. He gave the Fury, which still burbled softly through its dual cherry-bomb mufflers (cherry-bombs had been outlawed in the State of Maine in 1962), a wide berth.
It was hard to walk; each step pulled and tore at his belly. But he gained the sidewalk and stood there, looking at the eight-floor brick building which, along with the library and the Aladdin Theater and the seminary, was one of the few he remembered clearly from the old days. Most of the lights on the upper floors were out now, but the frosted-glass globes which flanked the main doorway blazed softly in the darkness, haloed with moisture from the lingering groundfog.
Henry made his laborious way toward and between them, shouldering open one of the doors.
The lobby was wee-hours silent. There was a faded Turkish rug on the floor. The ceiling was a huge mural, executed in rectangular panels, which showed scenes from Derry's logging days. There were overstuffed sofas and wing chairs and a great fireplace which was now dead and silent, a birch log thrown across the andirons--a real log, no gas; the fireplace in the Town House was not just a piece of lobby stage dressing. Plants spilled out of low pots. The glass double doors leading to the bar and the restaurant were closed. From some inner office, Henry could hear the gabble of a TV, turned low.
He lurched across the lobby, his pants and shirt streaked with blood. Blood was grimed into the folds of his hands; it ran down his cheeks and slashed his forehead like warpaint. His eyes bulged from their sockets. Anyone in the lobby who had seen him would have run, screaming, in terror. But there was no one.
The elevator doors opened as soon as he pushed the UP button. He looked at the paper in his hand, then at the floor buttons. After a moment of deliberation, he pushed 6 and the doors closed. There was a faint hum of machinery as the elevator began to rise.
Might as well start at the top and work my way down.
He slumped against the rear wall of the car, eyes half-closed. The hum of the elevator was soothing. Like the hum of the machinery in the pumping-stations of the drainage system. That day: it kept coming back to him. How everything seemed almost prearranged, as if all of them were just playing parts. How Vic and the ole Belcher had seemed . . . well, almost drugged. He remembered--
The car came to a stop, jolting him and sending another wave of griping pain into his stomach. The doors slid open. Henry stepped out into the silent hallway (more plants here, hanging ones, spiderplants, he didn't want to touch any of them, not those oozy green runners, they reminded him too much of the things that had been hanging down there in the dark). He rechecked the paper. Kaspbrak was in 609. Henry started down that way, running one hand along the wall for support, leaving a faint bloody track on the wallpaper as he went (ah, but he stepped away whenever he came close to one of the hanging spiderplants; he wanted no truck with those). His breathing was harsh and dry.
Here it was. Henry pulled the switchblade from his pocket, swashed his dry lips with his tongue, and knocked on the door. Nothing. He knocked again, louder this time.
"Whozit?" Sleepy. Good. He'd be in his 'jammies, only half-awake. And when he opened the door, Henry would drive the switchblade directly into the hollow at the base of his neck, the vulnerable hollow just below the adam's apple.
"Bellboy, sir," Henry said. "Message from your wife." Did Kaspbrak have a wife? Maybe that had been a stupid thing to say. He waited, coldly alert. He heard footsteps--the shuffle of slippers.
"From Myra?" He sounded alarmed. Good. He would be more alarmed in a few seconds. A pulse beat steadily in Henry's right temple.
"I guess so, sir. There's no name. It just says your wife."
There was a pause, then a metallic rattle as Kaspbrak fumbled with the chain. Grinning, Henry pushed the button on the switchblade's handle. Click. He held the blade up by his cheek, ready. He heard the thumb-bolt turn. In just a moment he would plunge the blade into the skinny little creep's throat. He waited. The door opened and Eddie
10
The Losers All Together/1:20 P.M.
saw Stan and Richie just coming out of the Costello Avenue Market, each of them eating a Rocket on a push-up stick. "Hey!" he shouted. "Hey, wait up!"
They turned around and Stan waved. Eddie ran to join them as quickly as he could, which was not, in truth, very quickly. One arm was immured in a plaster-of-Paris cast and he had his Parcheesi board under the other.
"Whatchoo say, Eddie? Whatchoo say, boy?" Richie asked in his grandly rolling Southern Gentleman Voice (the one that sounded more like Foghorn Leghorn in the Warner Brothers cartoons than anything else). "Ah say . . . Ah say ... the boy's got a broken ahm! Lookit that, Stan, the boy's got a broken ahm! Ah say . . . be a good spote and carreh the boy's Pawcheeseh bo-wud for him!"
"I can carry it," Eddie said, a little out of breath. "How about a lick on your Rocket?" "Your mom wouldn't approve, Eddie," Richie said sadly. He began to eat faster. He had just gotten to the chocolate stuff in the middle, his favorite part. "Germs, boy! Ah say . . . Ah say you kin get germs eatin after someone else!" "I'll chance it," Eddie said.
Reluctantly, Richie held his Rocket up to Eddie's mouth ... and snatched it away quickly as soon as Eddie had gotten in a couple of moderately serious licks.
"You can have the rest of mine, if you want," Stan said. "I'm still full from lunch."
"Jews don't eat much," Richie instructed. "It's part of their religion." The three of them were walking along companionably enough now, headed up toward Kansas Street and the Barrens. Derry seemed lost in a deep hazy afternoon doze. The blinds of most of the houses they passed were pulled down. Toys stood abandoned on lawns, as if their owners had been hastily called in from play or put down for naps. Thunder rumbled thickly in the west.
"Is it?" Eddie asked Stan.
"No, Richie's just pulling your leg," Stan said. "Jews eat as much as normal people." He pointed at Richie. "Like him."
"You know, you're pretty fucking mean to Stan," Eddie told Richie. "How would you like somebody to say all that made-up shit about you, just because you're a Catholic?"
"Oh, Catholics do plenty," Richie said. "My dad told me once that Hitler was a Catholic, and Hitler killed billions of Jews. Right, Stan?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Stan said. He looked embarrassed.
"My mom was furious when my dad told me that," Richie went on. A little reminiscent grin had surfaced on his face. "Absolutely fyoo-rious. Us Catholics also had the Inquisition, that was the little dealie with the rack and the thumb-screws and all that stuff. I figure all religions are pretty weird."
"Me too," Stan said quietly. "We're not Orthodox, or anything like that. I mean, we eat ham and bacon. I hardly even know what being a Jew is. I was born in Derry, and sometimes we go up to synagogue in Bangor for stuff like Yom Kippur, but--" He shrugged.
"Ham? Bacon?" Eddie was mystified. He and his mom were Methodists.
"Orthodox Jews don't eat stuff like that," Stan said. "It says something in the Torah about not eating anything that creeps through the mud or walks on the bottom of the ocean. I don't know exactly how it goes. But pigs are supposed to be out, also lobster. But my folks eat them. I do too."
"That's weird," Eddie said, and burst out laughing. "I never heard of a religion that told you what you could eat. Next thing, they'll be telling you what kind of gas you can buy."
"Kosher gas," Stan said, and laughed by himself. Neither Richie nor Eddie understood what he was laughing about.
"You gotta admit, Stanny, it is pretty weird," Richie said. "I mean, not being able to eat a sausage just because you happen to be Jewish."
"Yeah?" Stan said. "You eat meat on Fridays?"
"Jeez, no!" Richie said, shocked. "You can't eat meat on Friday, because--" He began to grin a little. "Oh, okay, I see what you mean."
"Do Catholics really go to hell if they eat meat on Fridays?" Eddie asked, fascinated, totally unaware that, until two generations before, his own people had been devout Polish Catholics who would no more have eaten meat on Friday than they would have gone outside with no clothes on.
"Well, I'll tell you what, Eddie," Richie said. "I don't really think God would send me down to the Hot Place just for forgetting and having a baloney sandwich for lunch on a Friday, but why take a chance? Right?"
"I guess not," Eddie said. "But it seems so--" So stupid, he was going to say, and then he remembered a story Mrs. Portleigh had told the Sunday-school class when he was just a little kid--a first grader in Little Worshippers. According to Mrs. Portleigh, a bad boy had once stolen some of the communion-bread when the tray was passed and put it in his pocket. He took it home and threw it into the toilet-bowl just to see what would happen. At once--or so Mrs. Portleigh reported to her rapt Little Worshippers--the water in the toilet-bowl had turned a bright red. It was the Blood of Christ, she said, and it had appeared to that little boy because he had done a very bad act called a BLASPHEMY. It had appeared to warn him that, by throwing the flesh of Jesus into the toilet, he had put his immortal soul in danger of Hell.
Up until then, Eddie had rather enjoyed the act of communion, which he had only been allowed to take since the previous year. The Methodists used Welch's grape juice instead of wine, and the Body of Christ was represented by cut-up cubes of fresh, springy Wonder Bread. He liked the idea of taking in food and drink as a religious rite. But following Mrs. Portleigh's story, his awe of the ritual darkened into something more potent, something rather dreadful. Simply reaching for the cubes of bread became an act which required courage, and he always feared an electrical shock . . . or worse, that the bread would suddenly change color in his hand, become a blood-clot, and a disembodied Voice would begin to thunder in the church: Not worthy! Not worthy! Damned to Hell! Damned to Hell! Often, after he had taken communion, his throat would close up, his breath would begin to wheeze in and out, and he would wait with panicky impatience for the benediction to be over so he could hurry into the vestibule and use his aspirator.
You don't want to be so silly, he told himself as he grew older. That was nothing but a story, and Mrs. Portleigh sure wasn't any saint--Mammasaid she was divorced down in Kittery and that she plays Bingo at Saint Mary's in Bangor, and that real Christians don't gamble, real Christians leave gambling for pagans and Catholics.
All that made perfect sense, but it didn't relieve his mind. The story of the communion bread that turned the water in the toilet-bowl to blood worried at him, gnawed at him, even caused him to lose sleep. It came to him one night that the way to get this behind him once and for all would be to take a piece of the bread himself, toss it in the toilet, and see what happened.
But such an experiment was far beyond his courage; his rational mind could not stand against that sinister image of the blood spreading its cloud of accusation and potential damnation in the water. It could not stand against that talismanic magical incantation: This is my body, take, eat; this is my blood, shed for you and for many.
No, he had never made the experiment.
"I guess all religions are weird," Eddie said now. But powerful, his mind added, almost magical . . . or was that BLASPHEMY? He began to think about the thing they had seen on Neibolt Street, and for the first time he saw a crazy parallel--the Werewolf had, after all, come out of the toilet.
"Boy, I guess everybody's asleep," Richie said, tossing his empty Rocket-tube nonchalantly into the gutter. "You ever see it so quiet? What, did everbody go to Bar Harbor for the day?"
"H-H-H-Hey you guh-guh-guys!" Bill Denbrough shouted from behind them. "Wuh-Wuh-hait up!"
Eddie turned, delighted as always to hear Big Bill's voice. He was wheeling Silver around the corner of Costello Avenue, outdistancing Mike, although Mike's Schwinn was almost brand-new.
"Hi-yo Silver, AWAYYYY!" Bill yelled. He rolled up to them doing perhaps twenty miles an hour, the playing cards clothespinned to the fender-struts roaring. Then he back-pedalled, locked the brakes, and produced an admirably long skid-mark.
"Stuttering Bill!" Richie said. "Howaya, boy? Ah say . . . Ah say . . . how aw you, boy?"
"I'm o-o-okay," Bill said. "Seen Ben or Buh-Buh-heverly?"
Mike rode up and joined them. Sweat stood out on his face in little drops. "How fast does that bike go, anyway?"
Bill laughed. "I d-d-don't nuh-know, e-exactly. Pretty f-f-fast."
"I haven't seen them," Richie said. "They're probably down there, hanging out. Singing two-part harmony. 'Sh-boom, sh-boom ... ya-da-da-da-da-da-da ... you look like a dream, shweetheart.'"
Stan Uris made throwing-up noises.
"He's just jealous," Richie said to Mike. "Jews can't sing."
"Buh-buh-buh--"
"'Beep-beep, Richie,' " Richie said for him, and they all laughed.
They started toward the Barrens again, Mike and Bill pushing their bikes. Conversation was brisk at first, but then it lagged. Looking at Bill, Eddie saw an uneasy look on his face, and he thought that maybe the quiet was getting to him, too. He knew Richie had meant it as a joke, but it really did seem that everyone in Derry had gone to Bar Harbor for the day . . . to somewhere. Not a car moved on the street; there wasn't a single old lady pushing a carrier full of groceries back to her house or apartment.
"Sure is quiet, isn't it?" Eddie ventured, but Bill only nodded.
They crossed to the Barrens side of Kansas Street, and then they saw Ben and Beverly, running toward them, shouting. Eddie was shocked by Beverly's appearance; she was usually so neat and clean, her hair always washed and tied back in a pony-tail. Now she was streaked with what looked like every kind of gluck in the universe. Her eyes were wide and wild. There was a scratch on one cheek. Her jeans were caked with crap and her blouse was torn.
Ben fell behind her, puffing, his stomach wobbling.
"Can't go down in the Barrens," Beverly was panting. "The boys . . . Henry . . . Victor . . . they're down there somewhere . . . the knife . . . he has a knife. . . ."
"Sluh-slow down," Bill said, taking charge at once in that effortless, almost unconscious way of his. He glanced at Ben as he ran up, his cheeks flushed bright, his considerable chest heaving.
"She says Henry's gone crazy, Big Bill," Ben said.
"Shit, you mean he used to be sane?" Richie asked, and spat between his teeth.
"Sh-Shut uh-up, Ruh-Richie," Bill said, and then looked back at Beverly. "Teh-Tell," he said. Eddie's hand crept into his pocket and touched his aspirator. He didn't know what all this was, but he already knew it wasn't good.
Forcing herself to speak as calmly as possible, Beverly managed to get out an edited version of the story--a version that began with Henry, Victor, and Belch catching up to her on the street. She didn't tell them about her father--she was desperately ashamed of that.
When she was finished Bill stood silent for a moment, hands in his pockets, chin down, Silver's handlebars leaning against his chest. The others waited, throwing frequent glances at the railing that ran along the edge of the dropoff. Bill thought for a long time, and no one interrupted him. Eddie became aware, suddenly and effortlessly, that this might be the final act. That was how the day's silence felt, wasn't it? The feeling that the whole town had up and left, leaving only the deserted husks of buildings behind.
Richie was thinking about the picture in George's album that had suddenly come to life.
Beverly was thinking about her father, how pale his eyes had been.
Mike was thinking about the bird.
Ben was thinking about the mummy, and a smell like dead cinnamon.
Stan Uris was thinking of bluejeans, black and dripping, and hands as white as wrinkled paper, also dripping.
"Cuh-Cuh-Come oh-oh-on," Bill said at last. "W-We're going d-d-down."
"Bill--" Ben said. His face was troubled. "Beverly said Henry was really crazy. That he meant to kill--"
"Ih-It's nuh-not theirs," Bill said, gesturing at the green dagger-shaped slash of the Barrens to their right and below them--the underbrush, the choked groves of trees, the bamboo, the glint of water. "Ih-Ih-It's not their pruh-pruhhopperty." He looked around at them, his face grim. "I'm t-t-tired of b-being scuh-schuh-hared by them. We b-b-beat them in the ruh-rockfight, and if we h-h-have to beat them a-a-again, we'll duh-duh-do it."
"But Bill," Eddie said, "what if it's not just them?"
Bill turned to Eddie, and with real shock Eddie saw how tired and drawn Bill's face was--there was something frightening about that face, but it wasn't until much, much later, as an adult drifting toward sleep after the meeting at the library, that he understood what that frightening thing was: it was the face of a boy driven close to the brink of madness, a boy who was perhaps ultimately no more sane or in control of his own decisions than Henry was. Yet the essential Bill was still there, looking out of those haunted scarified eyes ... an angry, determined Bill.
"Well," he said, "whuh-whuh-what if it's nuh-nuh-not?"
No one answered him. Thunder boomed, closer now. Eddie looked at the sky and saw the stormclouds moving in from the west in black thunderheads. It was going to rain a bitch, as his mother sometimes said.
"Nuh-nuh-how I'll t-t-tell you what," Bill said, looking at them. "None of you have to guh-guh-go w-with me if you d-don't want to. That's uh-uh-up to you."
"I'll go along, Big Bill," Richie said quietly.
"Me too," Ben said.
"Sure," Mike said with a shrug.
Beverly and Stan agreed, and Eddie last.
"I don't think so, Eddie," Richie said. "Your arm's not