Where All The Children Go (IT Fanfiction)

10. MRS. GALENTI THE ZOMBIE

Roxanne was positive her family house was now haunted. 

The house had began to feel haunted the weekend, six months ago, her father renovated their home into a funeral house after closing down the business in town due to elevated rent prices. Roxanne couldn't describe the feeling specifically, but it was like the house now understood that it had become a place of evil, a home of death, and it started existing as such. The hallways were darker. The staircase was scarier. Roxanne hadn't gone up or down them without sprinting during the night in ages.  

The worst part of course was the morgue that resided in the basement. It positively radiated death and darkness. Of course the constant in-and-out of corpses added to that atmosphere.

It was the morning, two days after the Henry Bowers incident by the bridge. Roxanne slept in three extra hours. The bruises along her arms and legs had turned into a mish-mash of red, blue and black. Eddie's antiseptics had helped but not much, they were still as sore as they appeared. By the time she stamped down the stairs, it was well after noon. She opted for a T-shirt and black jeans. Ben, Beverly, Emma and the "Losers" (as they called themselves) would be coming to her house in a bit, then going down to the quarry together.

She paused on the way to the kitchen. The basement/Morgue door was wide open. 

Roxanne stared. Her father was very vigilant about having the morgue door closed at all times, so seeing it ajar was a bit unsettling. Out of curiosity Roxanne stepped towards the door and was startled by the woman standing inside, with her forehead against the wall, clawing at the paint. After a long moment, Roxanne hesitantly reached out. "Excuse me, did you have an appointment with my father? are you all right?"

At the sound of her voice, the woman, whom Roxanne could now recognize as Mrs. Galenti, a sweet old woman who owned a bakery in the market area, turned her head. Her skin had a sickly jaundiced pallor to it, her eyes glazed over. She stared, swaying from side to side in a stilted trance-like manner. That wasn't what made Roxanne's heart plummet to her toes though. It was the fact that Mrs. Galenti had died about a week ago. Her family had brought her in to be embalmed and dressed at one point. She had been buried a few days ago. Yet she was standing in front of Roxanne.

She groaned, the jerky motion causing the line of drool hanging from her mouth to swing from side to side. She cocked her head as though trying to figure Roxanne out. Roxanne took a cautious step back, her heart felt like a sledgehammer was pounding against her rib-cage. Her boots made a squeaking noise on the white tiles and knocked Mrs. Galenti out of her stupor. Her lips curled in a snarl. Then she lunged at her, jaws snapping.

"What the-" Lucky, the woman moved slowly and Roxanne sidestepped to the left, leaving her to stumble clumsily onto her stomach. Some papers on a movable counter fluttered to the floor while Ms. Galenti floundered around. Roxanne threw out her hands and let out a scream.

The woman glared up at her, this time vocalizing a guttural growl that sent shivers up Roxanne's neck. Mrs. Galenti jerkily dragged herself up. Fear practically crippled Roxanne's nerves. She edged around her, careful to keep her distance, and ran out the morgue door into the hallway.

She put all her weight into pushing the door closed, but the creature was over twice her size. She heaved the door open, tumbled outside, and took Roxanne down. The air whooshed painfully from her lungs. Mrs. Galenti pressed against Roxanne, her jaws snapping like she wanted to swear-to-God eat her.

Holy fuck, Roxanne's been scared in her life before, but this went beyond terror. When folks talk about fight or flight instincts, it's really fight and flight instincts. Everything she'd learned from the minimal self-defense classes they'd once done for gym a while back was forgotten as she held her forearm against Mrs. Galenti's neck while kicking and pushing with everything she had to get out from under the corpse.

Her arm shook under the weight. With a surge, she rolled the undead woman off of her and shoved away. But the thing grabbed at her, her fingers snagging Roxanne's shirt and taking most of a sleeve with her with a loud rip. With nothing left to pull, the back of it's head collided into the wall with a solid smack.
Roxanne booked it for the front door, screaming at the top of her lungs all the way. "Help!" she yelled, her boots squeaking across the floor.

She yanked the door open and ran straight into a chest. Still shrieking hysterically, Roxanne battled against the arms that were trying to hold her still. "Roxanne! stop! stop! It's me!"

The familiar voice made Roxanne stop struggling long enough to see that her attacker was only Ben. His face a mix of confusion and concern. Looking over his shoulder, she saw the others standing just behind him. All having varying degrees of what the hell scrawled across their faces.

"We have to run! there's something behind me trying to eat me!" Roxanne cried, her hands clenching Ben's shirt.

Simultaneously, everyone shuffled into her house to get a glimpse of what put the fear of seven hells in Roxanne. Roxanne followed them in trying to stop them, what part of It's trying to eat her didn't they understand? 

But she paused when she saw the hall empty. All the commotion and wreckage they'd caused in the scuffle and thick brown blood that had been dripping from Mrs. Galenti or whatever that thing was, was no where to be seen. Even the sleeve of her shirt was whole again. It was like nothing happened. The morgue door was firmly latched. 

Terror froze Roxanne's muscles. This didn't make any sense! She could still smell the putrid breath, feel It's cold hands. But the clean, quiet house contradicted anything of that nature occurring.
"Maybe you hit your head harder then we thought?" Eddie said, glancing at her with sympathy. "Maybe we should have taken you guys to an actual doctor..."

"Or a shrink." Richie murmured, circling his right index finger near his temple. 

"What the hell?" Roxanne breathed and swung around to face Ben. "I swear something was here! It was Mrs. Galenti, she was zombie like and growling-"

"W-w-wait, Mrs. Galenti?" Bill asked, stepping forward slightly. "The o-old lah-lady w-who died l-l-like a week ago?"

"Yes!" Roxanne huffed, looking at the skeptical faces that surrounded her. "I'm not crazy!"

"No one's calling you crazy." Beverly said soothingly, "but you do realize what you're saying right?"

Roxanne didn't reply. What could she say? Even to her own ears she sounded completely off her rocker and she was the one who experienced it only two minutes ago. 

So finally agreeing that it was probably just left over trauma from the Bowers gang thing, the group biked down to the quarry. But deep down, they knew It was much, much more than that. And It was only the beginning.