Grass Dyed Red | IT 2017

ii.

June had come quicker than expected, with 2 more kids now missing. Bill had been miserable all year since the day Del and Maple went missing, despite the rest of the group's efforts to cheer him up. He just wanted to hug Delvina one last time. He hadn't stopped trying to find a plan or something. He pulled up a map of Derrys sewer system, and connected the dots to where the twins, the other 2 missing kids, and Georgie were last seen. All by a sewer.

He pulled open his garage door, grabbing his backpack and heading to school. He met up with all the boys, and road their bikes to school. After school, the boys met up again, dumping all of their school books into the trash, as it was officially summer. The first summer without Georgie and Del. The group wasn't completely the same ever since Del disappeared.

Richie had lost a lot of his sense of humor, causing the group to not laugh as much. Richie and Del were close, despite Richies cringy jokes about hooking her up with someone, so he wasn't the only one not a virgin. She always explained why she was waiting for the right person, and that he should just give up. He never did.

Eddie had started becoming more germaphobe, and carried around 2 fanny packs now instead of one. His mother made sure he was home by curfew after the twins were gone, and he started doing more research in germs, worried about what they would've gone through. He always carried Dels anxiety medication, and an extra inhaler he had for her with her initials on it. Everyone knew she had trouble breathing if she got too scared, but her parents never got her checked for asthma.

Stan became more self confined. He stopped being super open, and liked to be alone, but nearby others. Him and Del always went bird watching early in the morning and at night, no matter the season or day. She always made sure they did it at least once a week. Stan felt like it was his fault for Dels disappearance. The morning she vanished, they were bird watching and she spotted something odd that triggered her. She never told him what, but asked if he saw what was over there. When he looked he saw nothing. Stan stills thinks whatever she saw took her and her sister, but nobody really believes him.

Bill. Bill blames himself for everything. He feels as whatever took Georgie took the twins, the people he cared about most were gone, and he thought he was to blame. He feels as if he had gone with them instead of the boys, or had called his parents from the school to give them a ride in theirs van, they'd be fine. Del would be in his arms, under a blanket, eating popcorn while watching a movie by his fireplace. Maple would be thriving with her popularity with some stupid yet funny project for science. It was a for a project where we made something resembling our emotions when we first got to the middle school. She had made a statue of liberty out of model magic holding up the middle finger, with a gold ring on it. She never got to present it.

They all felt responsible for them, and had slowly fallen apart bit by bit. Day by day. Week by week. If only they had known about the great evil that had them, that was lurking under their feet for billions of years, maybe they wouldn't have thought it was their fault.

"How's it work?" Richie questioned while Eddie zipped his backpack zipper up. "They slice part of his penis off." Eddie says gaining a small chuckle from the two boys, a small smirk from Bill, who's still thinking about having them all go to barrens to look for the missing kids.

"That can't be true. He'd have nothing left..." Richie says gaining another small chuckle but a evil glance from Stan. Eddie quickly a grabs his inhaler, a takes a puff. He puts it back into his fanny pack, next to Dels causing a small wave of sadness.

"That's a real knee-slapper, Richie. So funny I forgot to laugh." Stanley says while Richie decides to be smart with him to piss him off a little. "So which is it? Knee-slapper or you forgot to laugh?" Nobody replies to his comment that he found hilarious, so Bill quickly speaks up.

"For serious, Stan. Wh-what happens?" Everyone's eyes avert over to Bill, who's looking at Stan next to him. "I don't know, I read some stuff from the Torah and make a speech and then suddenly I become a man."
Richies eyes go wide in confusion and shock.

"That sounds like a lot of work. I became a man by banging Ed's mom!" Rich says looking for a high five from the group that he didn't receive. "Richie. Gross." Stanley says with a disgusted look on his face.

The mother of Dorsey Corcoran, sleepless and desperate, scans the throngs of departing kids. Her desperate eyes fall on Bill, Richie, Eddie and Stanley. They avert their stares to the desperate mother looking for her son, one of the missing kids.

"She actually expecting to see him?" Stanley questions while they all continue to look at her, police officers behind to prevent her from doing something stupid. "Like, Dorsey Corcoran's been hiding in Home Ec the last three weeks."

"You think they'll find him?" Bill asked, the boys shrugged but Richie felt liable to making a joke again."Sure they will. In a ditch. All decomposed, covered in worms and maggots and smelling like Eddie's Mom's va-"she Richie get cuts off and is thrown down on the pavement by Travis Bowers. His glasses fall off and a pile of comics and video game magazines spill from his back pack he hadn't zipped up.

"Sorry chode. Didn't see you." The taller boy says. Him and his two friends always messed with the group, but always made sure to flirt or sexualize Del. She wasn't here to stand her or the others ground like always so they took advantage of the losers.

Travis kicks the glasses away, and one of the other boys named Victor grabs Stanley's yarmulke and tosses it into the window of a departing bus. Belch burps in Eddie's face, as Richie searches for his glasses, and finds them near the trash. Just as the three boys started to walk away, Bill had something to say

"You suck, B-B-B-B-Bowers!" Travis and his ignorant friends turn around. They stare at Bill menacingly. "You s-s-say something, p-p-pussy?" Everyone around them stops and watches, waiting for Bill to respond. Eddie gives Bill a look to shut it, so he does. "Yeah, thought so. You got a free ride this year because of your little brother and that stupid little bitch of yours. But ride's over, Denbrough." He starts to move toward Bill, but catches sight of Chief Borton. Or more importantly, officer bowers, Travis' father. "She's not a bitch!" He yells while looking up at him.

Travis looks back at Bill and the others as the tension builds up. He steps back, giving the Boys some room to breathe. But not too much.
"This summer's gonna be a hurt train, for you and your faggot friends. Del the devil got what she deserved." He said one last time before crossing the street to his friends car after wiping his saliva onto Billy cheek. Bill was fuming. He was mad and angry but also sad. He helped up Richie, and told his friends the plan to meet at Barrens. They weren't really sure about it, but they went along with it anyway just to comfort their grieving friend.

Don't get me wrong, all of the boys were grieving, but Bill was closets with the girl, and knew her 2 years long than the others. They had a special connection that the others didn't have. Bill was her best friend. She was his.