Pennywise And I

Chapter one: Never Take Things From Strangers

October 1988

It rained heavily that one morning. the front yard was clouded in a thick coat of mist that Georgie could barely make out the walkway of their house while he drew a smiley face on the glass.

Bill, his brother was sick. Feeling bored and neglected, Georgie decides to ask bill to play with him but was even more upset when bill refused on account of his fever and headaches. Dismayed, Georgie continues to sulk by the window side. But then an idea came to him. He remembered how he had always wanted to play in the rain but his mother wouldn't allow it unless he had company.

"Billy, can you please come play outside?" He made a pouty face when he got his brothers attention.
"I'm sick." Was all he got in response to his question. He sighed.
" You're always sick. You're not getting any better and besides, maybe you need some fresh air," George tried to persuade his brother who seemed adamant on staying in bed all day long.
"Didn't you s-see the vomit coming out of my nose this morning?" Bill asked.
George instantly grimaced." That's nasty."
Bill snorted. "Tell me about it."

George continued to sulk beside the window, any hopes of him having a fun day was being washed down the window in restless streams.

He hears bill sighs from behind him and he grinned, knowing he had won.
"Ok. I-i'll make y-you a boat. You can use it to pl-play outside ok?"
Georgie nodded vigorously.

"Is it done yet?"

" No, ju-just a few more minutes."

" More like hours."

" Don't exaggerate. The b-boat will be finished in time." Bill was sitting up in bed, his back propped against a pile of pillows while Georgie sat and watched.

The soft sounds of mother playing für elise on the piano in the parlor and the rain swept restlessly against the bedroom window is all that could be heard as bill worked on the boat.

His cheeks were flushed with heat but he didn't seem as languid as he usually do. His fever must finally be receding.

Bill had finished the boat-but when George reached for it, bill held it out of reach. "N-Now get me the p-p-paraffin."
"What's that? Where is it?"
"It's on the cellar shuh-shuh-shelf as you go d-downstairs," he said. "In a box that says Guh-Guh-hulf . . . Gulf. Bring that to me, and a knife, and a b-bowl. And a puh-pack of muh-muh-matches."

"In the cellar?" Georgie asked, a bit of apprehension leaking into his voice.
"You want it to f-float don't you?"
He sighed and went obediently to get the thing. He could hear his mother playing the piano, not Für Elise now but something else he didn't like so well-something that sounded dry and fussy; he could hear rain flicking steadily against the kitchen windows. These were comfortable sounds, but the thought of the cellar was not a bit comfortable. He did not like the cellar, and he did not like going down the cellar stairs, because he always imagined there was something down there in the dark. That was silly, of course, his father said so and his mother said so and, even more important, Bill said so, but still-
He did not even like opening the door to flick on the light because he always had the idea-this was so unimaginably stupid he didn't dare tell anyone-that while he was feeling for the light switch, some horrible clawed paw would settle lightly over his wrist . . . and then jerk him down into the darkness that smelled of dirt and wet and dim rotted vegetables.
Stupid! There were no things with claws, all hairy and full of killing spite. Every now and then someone went crazy and killed a lot of people but there was no weirdo monster living down in their cellar. Still, this idea lingered. In those interminable moments while he was groping for the switch with his right hand (his left arm curled around the doorjamb in a death grip), that cellar smell seemed to intensify until it filled the world. Smells of dirt and wet and long-gone vegetables would merge into one unmistakable ineluctable smell, the smell of the monster. It was the smell of something for which he had no name: the smell of It, crouched and lurking and ready to spring. A creature which would eat anything but which was especially hungry for boy meat.
He opened the door that and groped interminably for the switch, holding the jamb in his usual death grip, his eyes squinched shut, the tip of his tongue poked from the corner of his mouth like an agonized rootlet searching for water in a place of drought.