the lies continue on

Chapter Eight

I convinced Richie to stay for the remainder of the fight. Night fell and we made our way to the library, just as Mike had told us. When we reached the inside, neither of us saw any sight of Mike. Did something go wrong in his plan? Maybe we were just early. The sound of shattered glass then entered both of our ears. We ran to the source of it to find my brother tackling Mike to the ground with a knife in his hands.

    "Fuck" Richie whispered. I quickly looked around for something to use. My eyes spotted the emergency fire axe and lit up. I punched the glass with my hand and retrieved the axe myself before placing it in Richie's hand. "Wait, what?! This is insane, Y/n. I'm not about to kill your brother."

    "He's not my brother!" He hadn't been my brother for 27 years. That thing about to kill Mike was nothing more than a monster. A mindless drone for the clown. "Do it". He didn't budge. He wasn't going to do it. I groaned and took back the axe. With quick pace in my step, I ran to Mike and swung the axe right into Henry's head just in time. He fell over dead in a matter of seconds and I struggled to catch my breath. I couldn't believe I had just killed Henry. "Are you okay?" I asked Mike as I offered my hand to help him up. Just as he got back on his feet, Bev, Ben, and Eddie joined us. Bev let out a spine chilling scream when she saw Henry on the floor. I noticed Bill still wasn't here.

"Where's Bill?" I asked. When no one answered, my fear intensified. He was still at the fair. I quickly took out my phone to call him. Thankfully he picked up within the first few rings. "Bill, what's going on? We're all at the library."

"He took the kid, Y/n." He explained. My heart broke for him. This would only add to his guilt. "He took the little kid right in fucking front of me."

"It's okay. It's okay. Look, just come to the library. We can figure this out."

He cut me off. "No. I'm gonna go kill it."

"Bill, don't you fucking dare." I threatened. "Don't do anything, we'll figure this out..."

He continued to talk overtop of me. "I don't want any of you to g-get killed with me. Especially you, Y/n." With that, he hung up.

My hand shook as I lowered my phone down. Everyone looked at me wondering what had happened on the call. "He's going to fight It alone."

Mike groaned in anger. "It's about the group. The ritual doesn't work without the group."

Ben asked, "Y/n, did he tell you where he was going?"

"Where do you think?"

    I drove us all there surpassing the speed limit the entire time, but in this case it really didn't matter. Thankfully we got there just in time. Bill hadn't gone into the house yet. "Bill!" I called out as as I ran before him.

"No!" He yelled at us. "I s-started all this. It's my fault that you're all here. This curse, this fucking thing that's inside y-you all. It started growing the day that I m-made you go down to the Barrens because all I cared about was finding G-Georgie. Now, I'm gonna go in there, and I don't know what's gonna happen, but I can't ask you to d-do this."

"Well, we're not asking you either." Bev explained.

"We didn't do it alone then, Bill." Mike began. "So we're not gonna do this alone now."

"Losers stick together." Ben added.

"This isn't up for negotiation." I told him.

Everyone fell silent after that. I don't know what we were waiting for and thankfully Eddie brought this up. "So, does somebody want to say something?"

Bill brought up, "Richie said it best when we were h-here last."

"I did?" Richie was so lost and tried to think of all the stupid shit he said that day. "'I don't wanna die?'"

"Not that" I shook my head.

"'You're lucky we're not measuring dicks?'" We all flashed him a look. "'Let's kill this fucking clown?'" Ding-ding-ding. We all smiled in relief that he remembered. "Let's kill this fucking clown" He said with more assertion.

Song - "It's Stan : Benjamin Wallfisch"

    We all made our way into the house and began to look around. I stuck by Bill's side majority of the time. Silence was all we could hear for the first few minutes before Ben cried out in pain. When we all turned around to try and help him, Bill, Eddie, Richie, and I were locked into a room separate from Ben, Mike, and Ben. We pounded on the door, but it was no use.  Our shouts came to a halt as we heard noise coming from the fridge in the corner. It was like something was inside of it. It rattled and rattled as our fear grew by the minute. Before we knew it, it finally popped open to reveal a boy shoved inside. His limbs were broken to fit in the small compartment. When he lifted his head, it was only then that I realized who it was.

Stanley.

    I screamed and buried myself in Bill's embrace. This wasn't the real Stanley though. It was a monstrous version of his younger self. The monster let out a shrill scream before its head disconnected from its body and rolled towards us. We quickly stepped back. Eddie and I were about to throw up by the looks of it. Bill never let go of me.

    The monster then spoke up, "I'd still be alive if it wasn't for you, Y/n." I knew it wasn't the real him, but it was his face and it was his voice that made everything ten times worse. "Nice to know you love me enough to move onto my best friend." His words seemed to cut me like a knife. "So much for Darcy and Knightley."

    Before he could say anymore, spider like arms grew out of the side of his face. He screamed in pain causing the rest of us to scream in fear. "You've got to be fucking kidding me." Richie sighed as the "spider Stan" laughed wickedly before attacking us. He chases us around, threatening us with his sharp teeth. Bill punched him to another side of the room. When we checked to see where he had fled to, he was gone. Rich and I looked back to see Eddie frozen to the corner.

"Eddie, are you okay?" I asked.

"I..." his voice trailed off as the saliva from the monster dripped down from above us. We all looked up to come face to face with him again.

"Found him." I said before he jumped down onto Richie's face and tackled him to the ground. Bill and I both struggled to pull the spider off of Richie, but it was harder than we anticipated. We needed more help. I looked back to see a knife sitting not far from Eddie. "Eddie, get the knife!"

"God damn it, Eddie, get the knife!" Bill yelled.

He didn't move from the corner.

    Before we knew it Ben broke down the door, retrieved the knife, and plunged it into the spider's head several times. He finally let go of Rich and Bill threw him to the ground, crawling away into the dark.

"Is everybody okay?" Bev asked as she helped Rich up from the ground.

    Bill let his anger get the best of him and grabbed Eddie by the collar of his shirt. "He could have fucking died, man! You know that, right? Georgie's dead. The kid's dead. Stanley's dead. You want Richie, too?!" Eddie tried to explain that he didn't wanna lose Rich either, but Bill continued to yell at him.

"Bill!" I shouted as I grabbed his arm. He finally let go of Eddie.

"Please don't be mad, Bill." He said as I wrapped my arms around him for a hug. "I was just scared."

Eddie had always been like a little brother to me. I hated to see him like this. "No one's mad at you, Eds" I whispered.