RAPTURE ! ( it )

twelve.

RAPTURE !

012. ' the losers club vs. the
bowers gang '

IT WAS LATE THE FOLLOWING MORNING that a knock rose and fell against the front door.

Amelia, who had settled herself on the sofa with no desire to sleep that night in her bedroom, was jarred awake by the subtle noise. She had been barely asleep, though, so the sound provoked her quickly. She slowly leaned her head from the cushion with a blanket snug around her frame.

Craning her neck, the girl peeked in direction of the line of windows at the side of the front door, and found a pacing boy out on the porch. Her eyebrows fell into a furrow as she slid off the sleek leather of the couch, flinging aside the plush blanket before she dubiously strode to the doorknob. Who was out there now? she pondered midstep with a slight roll of her eyes.

Her dad would have a fucking aneurysm if he noticed another boy on their porch.

Her fingers curled around the cool, curved metal when she wrenched open the door with a little whoosh. The subtle commotion behind him caused the boy to whirl around with a jolt in his step. An unmistakably, unnerved Bill stood on the other side of her screen door in moments, fumbling with the corner of his flannel and looking back to her in a desperate glance.

"I-I-I suh-suh-saw him," her friend muttered through the screen, barely audible to her as she hoisted a few fingers to the hook of the handle. His chest heaved slightly as he murmured further with a worsening stutter, "G-G-Georgie."

"Where?" Amelia found herself questioning quickly, easing open the screen door and stepping out alongside the troubled boy.

His tearful, dark eyes drifted down to her. "I-I-In the buh-buh-basement of my house luh-luh-last night. I-It was him, Lia. I-I-It was h-him." His hands mashed against his face, as if attempting to block out the memory.

Amelia, who was still hazy from the fever medicine she had downed last night, weakly clasped his trembling forearm in comfort.

"I've s-seen him t-too, Bill," she then confessed softly to him as he drooped his shoulders, "S-So many times. And h-he isn't alone when I do."

"C-Clown," the boy murmured almost immediately and he tensed underneath her grasp, "T-T-There was a c-clown in the wuh-wuh-water next to G-Georgie." Tears swarmed in his sad eyes now.

"H-He's the one that...that..." Amelia's voice hitched on a sob and she hurriedly wiped away her own tears with the back of her palm. It was taunting Bill now - and soon It would pursue the entire group of them; consuming them until they toppled over the edge. She knew that instantly.

"I-I-I figured," Bill whispered but barely, rubbing away the wet contrails on his face, "W-W-What about everyone e-else? H-Have they seen a-anything?"

Amelia hardly nodded and sank her hand from his arm too quickly, the terror of yesterday renewing a shudder at her core.

"W-W-W-We need to go buh-buh-back," he stated, stutter severer than ever and gaze wavering as it strived to settle on her.

"Where?"

"To...to the B-Buh-Barrens."

➯

"THIS IS MESSED UP IDEA," Eddie groused as they pedaled down the car-lined street in the path of the Barrens, "So messed up, you guys."

"Why are we even going?" Beverly inquired the evident question that everyone, apart from Bill and Amelia, maintained at the front of their minds. Her short, red hair surged back in the subtle, humid air as she turned her head to Bill, "Huh, Bill?"