easy to hate u, better to love u 》 bill denbrough

t e n

the bike ride to bill's house was practically silent. when we got there he led us to his garage. i was the last one to walk in. before i actually went in, i turned to him. “you saw georgie?” i asked.

“i d-don’t wanna t-t-talk about i-it r-right now.”

i nodded and walked in. he closed the garage door and walked to the projector in the center of the room where everyone was sitting around. he put a new picture in for it to project: a map of derry. it lined up with the map of derry’s sewer system which was already hung on the wall. 

“okay. look,” bill began. “that's where g-g-georgie disappeared. there's the ironworks. and the black spot. everywhere it happens, it's-it’s all connected by the sewers. and they all meet up at the…”

“the well house,” ben said, interrupting bill. 

“it's in the house on neibolt street,” stanley added

“you mean that creepy-ass house where all the junkies and hobos like to sleep?” richie asked. eddie puffed his inhaler.

“i hate that place. it always feels like it's watching me,” beverly said. 

“maybe it’s all the creepy junkies and hobos looking at you,” i joked. no one laughed. i cleared my throat and looked intently at the map. “i always avoid it.”

“that's where i saw it. that's where i saw the clown,” eddie told us. 

“th-that-that's where it lives.”

“i can't imagine anything ever wanting to live there,” stanley said. 

eddie jumped up in front of the projector, panicking. “can we stop talking about this? i can barely breathe. this is summer. we're kids. i can barely breathe. i'm up here having a fucking asthma attack. i'm not doing this.” eds pulled down the map.

“what the hell? put the map back,” bill ordered. 

“mmm-mmm,” eddie refused. 

the projector started switching images entirely on its own. everyone became extremely confused. eddie began walking away from the projector. 

“what happened?” bill asked. 

“what's going on?” asked stanley. 

“what the fuck?” i mumbled to myself. 

“i got it. hold on. guys,” mike said. 

the projector continued to flip through pictures of bill and his family until it finally chose one and stopped on it.

“georgie,” said bill. 

“bill?” stanley asked. 

the projector began zooming into georgie in the picture it had stopped on. it then transitioned to zooming in on the woman holding georgie’s hand. the projector was clicking so fast it began to look like a movie. the woman’s bright orange hair was being blown into her face. the projector clicked even quicker and the woman’s hair was blown out of the way to reveal a disturbing clown. the clown the others saw.  

“what the fuck?”

“it's it!”

“what the fuck is that? what the fuck is that?” richie screamed. 

“i don't fucking know!” eddie screamed back. the projector continued. 

“turn it off!” i screamed.

turn it off!” beverly agreed.

“yeah. yeah, turn it off. turn it off!” richie yelled. 

mike kicked over the projector and knocked everything out of place. we all let out a breath of relieved air. everyone gasped again when the projector continued to flip between pictures. again the clown flashed on the wall. the pictures were blurry, and after a few clicks of seemingly the same picture, the clown disappeared. for a moment, i thought it was over. then the clown jumped at us. it came to life and its body was in the garage with us. it looked like he had crawled through the wall. it’s many teeth were sharp. i screamed, along with everyone else, at the jump. it turned to stanley. 

“run, stanley!” richie advised.

the clown continued into the garage and crawled towards beverly. everyone was falling over in fear, quickly getting up so we wouldn’t end up circus food. 

“what is it?” eddie asked. 

“what the fuck?” richie exclaimed. 

it backed beverly into a corner. the clown reached for her. she covered her eyes in preparation for her fate. before it could actually grab her, ben and mike shoved open the garage door, restoring light to the room. beverly pulled her hands down to see that it was no longer there. 

“thanks, ben,” beverly walked over to him. then she went to bill and hugged him. i looked around at the rest of the group.

“it saw us. it saw us, and it knows where we are,” eddie said, breathing heavily, along with the rest of the group. 

“it always did,” bill said, walking out of the garage towards where we had all tossed our bikes. “s-so, let's go.”

“go? go where?” ben questioned. 

“neibolt. that's where g-g-g-georgie is.”

“after that?” stanley asked, shocked at the idea. 

“what the fuck have you gotten me into, denbrough?” i asked. 

“yeah, it's summer. we should be outside,” said richie. 

“if you say it's summer one more f-fucking time…” bill hopped onto his bike and left towards neibolt. 

“bill! wait!” i called after him.