"I've realized that..." he started, then took a shaky breath. "Earlier today, when Stanley pulled you aside... seeing you two so close and secretive, I hated it." The words tumbled out in a rush. "I don't like how others make you smile..." He traile...
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*•°Third Person's POV°•*
"No, I love being your personal doorman, really. Could you idiots have taken any longer?" Richie asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he pedaled alongside his friends. Vanessa rolled her eyes, the lingering image of the blood-soaked bathroom making her patience thinner than usual.
"All right, shut up, Richie," Stan snapped.
"Yeah, shut up, Richie," Eddie echoed.
"Oh okay, trash the Trashmouth, I get it. Hey, I wasn't the one scrubbing the bathroom floor imagining that her sink went all Eddie's-mom's-vagina on Halloween," Richie retorted.
Vanessa's hand twitched with the desire to smack him, but she knew it would only fuel his performance.
"She didn't imagine it." Bill's voice cut through the bickering, quiet but firm. They all slowed, turning to look at him. "I... I saw something too."
"You saw blood too?" Stanley asked, confused.
Bill shook his head, his eyes distant. "Not blood. I saw G-g-g-georgie. It seemed so real."
A cold silence fell over the group. Vanessa remembered the thing in the field wearing her father's face, the monstrous clown. A shiver traced her spine.
"I mean it seemed like him, but there was this..."
"The clown," Eddie finished, his voice barely a whisper.
A series of slow, grim nods passed between them. A silent, horrifying confession. Eddie looked at Vanessa, noticing the subtle tremor in her hands where they gripped her handlebars.
"Nessa," he said, his voice soft with concern. "Did you see something too?"
She kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead. "M-my father," she mumbled, the words thick with terror. "I saw my father."
The admission hung heavily in the air.
"Wait, can only virgins see this stuff?" Richie interjected, his timing as impeccable as it was inappropriate. "Is that why I'm not seeing this shit?"
The tension broke, their attention mercifully diverted. But Eddie's fear remained, a cold knot in his stomach-for himself, for his friends, and especially for Vanessa.
The sound of loud, crude laughter and the rumble of a familiar engine cut through their thoughts. "Oh, shit! That's Belch Huggins' car," Eddie pointed toward the town dump. "We should probably get outta here."
"Yeah," the others agreed in unison, already turning their bikes.
"Guys, wait!" Vanessa called, her sharp eyes catching a detail they'd missed. "Isn't that Mike's bike? You know, the homeschooled kid?" She pointed to a bike lying on its side near a pile of trash.
