blackbird • stanley uris

thirteen.

Clowns

"Hey, guys!" I call out as I see a few members of the Losers Club standing next to a wall reading a few missing posters.

"Lilly! Are you okay?" Beverly asked stepping closer to me. "Stanley said you were with Henry!"

"I was just checking he was okay." I replied, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Because you love him?" Stanley spat at me with bitterness. "Yeah, I heard your conversation with him." He answered once he saw my confused look.

"As a friend, Stanley!" I growled out, anger boiling through my veins.

"What you guys talking about?" Eddie walked around the corner with two ice cream cones in his hands. "Oh, hey Lilly."

"What they always talk about." Richie answered as he walked over, taking one of the cones off of Eddie and taking a bite from it.

"I actually think it will end, for a little while, at least." Ben said while nodding his head at the missing posters.

"Can I have a bite of that?" I whisper to Richie. He nods his head and passed me his ice cream cone. "Thanks." I take a giant bite out of the frozen cream and pass it back.

"You just ate most of it!" Richie gasps. I giggle at his horrified look and shrug my shoulders.

"What do you mean?" Beverly asked Ben, ignoring Richie and I.

"So I was going over all of my data research and I charted out all of the big events." Ben stated. "The Ironworks explosion in 1908. The Bradley Gang in '35 and The Black Spot in '62. And now kids are being..."

"I realised that this stuff seems to happen every-" Ben said.

"-27 years." Bill looked up as he spoke, the realisation clouding his eyes. We all walked over to a near bench, I personally sat next to Stanley even though he was mad at me.

"Ok, so let me get this straight. It comes out from wherever to eat kids for like a year and then what?" Richie asked, still trying to wrap his head around this. "It just goes into hibernation?"

"Maybe its like...what do you call it?" Stanley started, looking down as he thought hard.

"Cicadas?" I suggested. He nodded his head at me thankfully before going back on to what he was trying to say.

"Yeah, you know, the bugs that come out every 17 years." Stanley finished, glancing around at us all.

"My grandfather thinks this town is cursed." Mike spoke up. "He says that all the bad things that happened in this town are because of one thing. An evil thing that feeds off the people of Derry."

"But it can't be one thing. We all saw something different." Stanley comments. The memories of all my encounters with It burned brightly in my mind. I tried to shake these memories away but they wouldn't go. Stanley noticed this and placed a comforting hand on my shoulder.

"Maybe. Or maybe It knows what scares us most and that's what we see." Mike swallowed back a lump in his throat.

"I-I saw leper." Eddie said fearfully. "He was like a walking infection."

"But you didn't. Because It isn't real. None of this is. Not Eddie's leper or Bill seeing Georgie or Lilly being locked in a tight space or the woman I keep seeing." Stanley sighed at the thought of his fear. I wrapped my arms tightly around his waist, he wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in tighter. "I am still mad at you." He mumbled.

"I do not care." I whispered back, closing my eyes and relaxing my body.

"Is she hot?" Richie asked curiously.

"No, Richie. She's not hot. Her face is all messed up. None of this makes sense." Stanley snapped. "They're all like bad dreams."

"I don't think so, I know the difference between a bad dream and real life, okay?" Mike said. We all glance at each other, all scared to say the least.

"What did you see? You saw something too?" Eddie asked Mike curiously.

"Yes. You guys know that burnt down house on Harris Avenue? I was inside when it burned down. Before I rescued... my mom and dad were trapped in the next room over from me. They were pushing and pounding on the door trying to get to me. Hurry up, son! I'm burning! But it was too hot. When firefighters found them the skin on their hands melted down to the bone." Mike recalled his memory. I felt the tears stinging my eyes at the horror he went through. I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"We're all afraid of something." I spoke up, my voice shaking with fear.

"Got that right." Richie said, avoiding eye contact.

"Why Rich? What are you afraid of?" I asked him. He took once glance behind us at the dressed up man on stage before looking back at me.

"Clowns."

A/N SURPRISE! Kinda...maybe not really...
Anyway there is a new chapter for you all, enjoy!

Til next time,
- I x