An asshole and A Loudmouth

Chapter Eight - Clowns and Maps

Ashley's POV

I sit down between Stan and Richie on the old, worn-down sofa as Bill puts the maps of the sewers up on the wall in front of the projector. Ben arrives and hands Bill a slide of old Derry's maps from the library to slot in and project on top, Eddie is fixing the projector and Mike shuts the garage door. Everyone gets settled as Bill marks out different places on the board and then steps back for us all to see. "Look," he points out the different places that he marked out on the map. "That's w-where Georgie d-disappeared, there's The I-Ironworks and the b-black spot." Bill points them out. "Everywhere IT happens, It's- it's all c-connected." "by the sewers." I finish Bills sentence for him. "And t-they all meet up a-at the-" "well house!" Ben cuts him off and Eddie looks around at us, scared. "It's the house on Neibolt street." Stan realises and Richie questions him. "You mean that old house where all the junkies and hobos like to sleep?" Eddie takes a big breath from his inhaler and I draw light, comforting circles on his back to try and comfort him. He looks terrified and close to tears. "I hate that place." Bev whispers to us. "It always feels like it's watching me." I agree with her on that one. "That's where I saw it. That's where I saw the clown." Eddie rasps his words and I can tell he's close to having a panic attack. "Th-that's where IT lives." Bill stutters and Stan agrees, "I can't imagine anyone wanting to live there." Eddie takes another big breath from his inhaler as bill stutters out his words. He's definable having a panic attack. I try to comfort him but he shoots up. "Can we stop talking about this? I-I-I can barely breathe! Th-this is summer, we're kids! I can barely breathe I'm gonna have a fucking asthma attack and I am not doing this!" He shouts at us while he turns around and rips the map off the wall. "Eddie calm down! It's ok, we're here! Nothing bad can happen to you, it's ok." I try to say in a reassuring manner but it ends up coming out kind of desperate and scared. Which I am but I don't want to make Eddie feel worse. "Famous last words," Richie whispers to me and I chuckle but groan internally because Eddie is really scared. "What the hell! Put the map back." Bill demands and Eddie shakes his head. "Mhm mhm." Suddenly, the slides start changing by themselves. Showing pictures of Bills family and ending up on one of Bills mother with her hair over her face. The slides change faster and faster until it looks like they're in a video. The more her hair flips, the more she grows to look like the clown. Everyone stands up and steps back and Richie and Eddie grab onto each other while Richie shouts "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" over and over and Eddie replying with "I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!" "Turn it off!" Everyone shouts at Bill who is frozen in place. Mike and I, in a desperate attempt, kick the projector over, scattering the slides all over the floor. The screen is blank for a while but then the clown shows up and the slides keep changing and it's still there until it goes dark and the clown has disappeared but then it jumps out of the screen and is charging towards Beverly. I run and push Bev out of the way and IT comes towards me instead. I back away and it comes closer and closer, it's mouth open and showing rows and rows of teeth like the ones I saw in my dream. Then Ben opens the garage door and light floods the room as the clown vanishes. I walk over and hug Ben, Richie, Stan and Bev as Bill walks out the garage door and towards our bikes telling us to come on. "Where Bill? Where are we going?" Ben and I ask. "Neibolt. That's where G-G-Georgie is." "After that?" Stan butts in and we all nod our heads, not wanting to face that clown again. "Yeah it's summer." Richie agrees with Stan and I comment on what Richie says. "Yeah, we should be outside." "If you say it's s-summer one more f-fucking time." Bill turns around and gets on his bike, riding to Neibolt and not caring if the rest of us follow him. I don't want to leave him alone so I run to my bike to come with him. He needs to know he's not alone.

A/N
Another short chapter sorry! I promise the next one will be longer, I just wanted to split them up!

Words- 814