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"YOU CAN AMPUTATE legs, arms, but how do you- how do you amputate a waist?!"
Eddie was freaking out as they pulled up and around and into to the alleyway behind the pharmacy. He'd been rambling about AIDS and various other diseases the whole ride back from the Barrens, and Summer shook her head softly from where she was helping Bill settle Ben down on a couple of dirty crates in front of a large mural.
They were in the alleyway between the Quality Meats and the smaller, shorter pharmacy, behind which was a small abandoned looking building.
Bill stepped back, but Summer stayed beside Ben, keeping a steady hand on his shoulder.
"Richie, wait here," Bill said, and he looked over at Summer, still with her hand on Ben's shoulder. "S-Summer, you t-t-too, okay?"
Summer nodded, removing her hand from Ben and moving towards Richie to stand on the other side of him.
The three other boys raced toward the street, with Eddie turning his head to glance back at her.
Good luck, she mouthed at him, and he smiled for a split-second before turning back around.
"I'm glad I got to meet you before you died," Richie informed Ben loudly, and Summer elbowed him sharply in the side, causing him to let out a small cry of pain.
She was shaking her head in mild disappointment when she heard something.
"Hee hee," A faint giggle reached her ears.
Summer looked over toward the far end of the alley. A few feet away from where they stood, an entryway branched off into another alleyway between the pharmacy and the other building, this one much darker.
Summer stood, entranced by seemingly nothing. As she stared, vaguely wondering why couldn't move her eyes from the dark she shadows, she saw it.
A balloon.
It was a bright red, the color of her windbreaker that hung in the front hall closet at home. It hadn't come from any direction that she could tell. It was just there.
And it was floating. Gliding through the breezeless air in the alley. It didn't bob up and down or make the sort of whistling woosh that balloons make. It just moved, almost robotically straight.
It disappeared into the pitch black mouth of the alleyway.
Summer quietly wandered toward the alley just around the corner as Richie said something else that was probably wildly inappropriate to Ben.
