The Bath || Stenbrough

1985

tw: f slur (not used in a homophobic way really,) mentions of suicide

After all these years, riding on the back of Silver still feels incredibly euphoric. As I pedal across Witcham and Jackson street I feel a mix of intense nostalgia and fear. I see my old house. The one that was once filled with games, laughter, and beautiful piano music, yet also filled with anger, sadness, despair, and misfortune. Many people describe the feeling of going back to where they grew up as "comfortable," or "home," but this is anything but home. It never felt like home, even when I lived here. If anything the Uris's house was more "homelike" than my own. I picture a boy in a raincoat running down the steps in the rain. My poor, poor brother George. 

A child really does run down the steps though, with a skateboard under his arm. I glance at him, worried he'll trip, then bike away. I stop my bike and climb off just when I reach the sewers. I peer into them, seeing nothing but greywater. Millions of gallons of Derry pee. I chuckle.

I stop short of laughing when I remember how I peered into these sewers many years ago. Filled with despair and fright, my voice shaking, wanting nothing more than my brother back, I looked into these sewers and spoke in a trembling voice. I told it, I knew it was down there. I asked him why he took Georgie, out of all the kids. I manically shouted probably seeming insane to my neighbors. But as I got up the clown began to speak. It told me it was my fault, that I wasn't there.

 I believed it, I still do.

"Billy don't leave.." I hear an eerie, childlike voice, as I climb back onto Silver. I take a deep breathe and turn back around, facing the awful sewers again.

"Hello??" I ask, slowly stepping toward them. My hands shake and my heart races.

"Billy..." The voice, now sounding more like George said. I crouched down over the sewers, crawling toward them. "I'm still here!! Help me!!"

I crawled more towards the sewers, my mind racing. "Georgie!!" I exclaim as two childish hands rise to the top of the sewers, as if reaching out for help. The kid has yellow, rubbery sleeves. 

A raincoat.

"Help my Billy...." I slowly reach my trembling hand into the sewers telling him to take it. I tearfully chuckle, ecstatic to see my baby brother.

"He's coming..." Georgie shouts, terrified, yet still not grabbing my hand.

"J-J-J-Just t-take my h-hand!!" I yell, growing impatient, and scared for him.

"Billy please, he's coming!!" He shouts much louder, his voice filling with pain.

I continue trying to take his hand, but a  zombie like arm shoots up grabbing mine. I  scream as hundreds of baby-ish zombie hands grab my arm, pulling me down.

Into the sewers.

There is a demonic cackle. A truly evil, yet happy laugh. Happy to be killing? Happy to be killing me?

It is the most awful sound I have ever heard.

I lay there, on the road, with my arm halfway into the sewers shaking with fear. I pull, and pull, and pull, until finally I am released from the demons grasps. I fling across the road, looking in my hand. I see a flattened, dusty, paper boat. On the side it says "SS. Georgie." My eyes tear up and I wipe sweat from my bright red face. I hear more cackling, that of a baby, coming from the sewers. "I hate you!" I exclaim angrily, but soon breaking out in sobs. "I hate you...."

"Who you talking to?" I hear a voice behind me ask. I turn around to see the boy with his skateboard, who I recognize as the same boy from the restaurant whom Richie yelled at. I sprint up off the ground, yelling at him to move. I take his hand, running him to the other side of the road.