"I have to go,too," I spoke up, my voice barely above a whisper. "My mom's waiting for me." It was only half the truth.
I went around the circle, giving each of my friends a tight hug, saving Ben for last. I tried desperately to keep the tears from...
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•°Corinne's POV°•
We found Bill standing frozen before a small figure near a mountain of junk. My grip on Ben's arm tightened. It was Georgie. He looked exactly as he had in all the photos, wearing his iconic yellow raincoat, but his face was pale and streaked with tears.
"Take me home, Billy," Georgie pleaded, his voice a heartbreaking whisper. "I wanna go home. I miss you. I wanna be with mom and dad."
Bill sobbed, his whole body shaking. "I want more than anything for you to be home with mom and dad. I miss you so much." His voice was thick with a pain I could barely comprehend. He took a step closer, and my heart hammered. This was a trick. It had to be.
"I love you, Billy," Georgie stated, tears streaming down his face.
"I love you too," Bill whispered. Then he stopped. His expression hardened through the tears. He raised the bolt gun he was holding. "But you're not Georgie."
He fired.
The click of the firing pin was deafeningly loud in the cavern.
The thing that looked like Georgie shuddered and collapsed to the ground. It began to twitch and convulse, horrible, wet grunting noises erupting from its small form. The crying morphed into screaming as the yellow raincoat melted away, replaced by filthy, ruffled cloth. The body distorted, stretching and popping sickeningly back to its true, monstrous size.
Pennywise sat up, then lifted to its feet in one jerky motion. Its body seemed to hang from its bones, a grotesque puppet. We all tensed, a unified front of fear and defiance.
"Kill it, Bill! Kill it!" Eddie was the first to find his voice, shouting the command we all felt.
"Shit. Kill it, Bill! Kill it!" Richie joined in. "Kill it!" "Kill it!"The chant rose from all of us—a desperate, angry roar.
But a cold knot of certainty formed in my gut. This was wrong. You couldn't kill fear with a weapon.
"It's not loaded!" Mike yelled, but his voice was swallowed by our screams.
"Do it now, Bill!" Richie shrieked.
Bill, driven by our cries and his own rage, pulled the trigger again. Click. But on Pennywise's forehead,a hole appeared as if a real bullet had struck home. The clown grunted, sniffing the air like a wounded animal.
"Holy fuck!" "Oh shit!"
Pennywise bent backward at an impossible angle, shuddering violently. The wound on his forehead sealed itself shut. With a guttural growl of pure fury, he launched himself at Bill.
"Bill, watch out!" Richie warned. Ben pushed me behind him, shielding me.
Pennywise was on top of Bill in an instant. The only thing stopping those razor-sharp teeth from tearing into Bill's throat was the bolt gun Bill had jammed into its mouth.
