WOUNDS ♚ henry bowers [it]

s e v e n

I didn't tell the guys about what happened earlier with Victor, mainly because I didn't want to worry them, but also because I really did not feel like explaining the whole Henry situation to them. First, they'd freak out about me having always felt this connection towards Henry, second, there's (apparently) a small chance that he might feel the same way, and third, the fact that Victor basically threatened me.

When I had come back after, the guys and Beverly were all out of the water and sitting on the rocks talking about Derry history. Then that's how we all ended up here, in Ben's room.

The walls were covered in pictures and maps. "Woah, woah, woah, wow." Richie said, checking out the room. We all scattered around, touching and examining.

"Cool, huh?" Ben said, a slight smile on his face. He really is interested in this kind of stuff.

"No, nothing cool." Richie picked on Ben, poking at a black-and-white picture taped to the wall. "Well, this is cool. Wait, no, it's not."

I walked over to the corner of the room. stepping over some dirty laundry on the floor. I held onto an image, looking it over. It was a big open field, surrounded by trees. In the middle of the field, a small strip of trees cut down the middle. It almost looked like the land Henry and I share, if I didn't know any better I'd say it was our land. On the left side of the field, lay a burned down house. Then I saw it, there was something floating in the middle of the house's black, charred ashes. When I looked closer, it was a red balloon.

I gasped and blinked a couple of times, not believing what I was seeing. When I opened them back up, the balloon was gone. Confused, I walked away from the picture and back to the group thinking that it must've been some weird hallucination.

"The only clue was a trail of clothes leading to the well-house." I walked over to hear Ben saying.

"Jesus, we can go on 'Unsolved Mysteries'."

"Where was the well-house?" Bill asks. I could practically see the gears turning in his brain.

"I don't know. Somewhere in town, I guess." Ben shrugs, "Why?"

Bill shakes his head, "Nothing." Lie.

. . . . .

"I need to show you guys something." Beverly said as we all pulled up to her apartment, on our usual bikes. "My dad will kill me if he finds out I had boys in my apartment." She says as Bill and Ben begin to go up the stairs to follow her to her apartment.

"W-we-we-we'll leave a lookout. Richie, stay here." Bill tells Richie, looking back at him from up the stairs.

Richie scoffs, "Woah, woah, woah. What if her dad comes back?"

"Do what you always do. Start talking." Stan speaks.

Richie sighs as all the guys follow Beverly. I was gonna follow, but decided to stay with Richie.

"It is a gift!" Richie yells toward Stan, but they were already out of sight. He looks over at me, "You can go, ya know."

"Yeah, I know." I drop my bike to the ground. "Thought you'd want some company though." I smiled at him, and he smiled back.

. . . . .

Richie and I sat there for almost an hour. To pass the time, we talked about random things like new TV shows and rock music, then we rode around the street for a while, and now we were back to being parked by the set of stairs the others disappeared up at. A thought crossed into my mind.

I should tell Richie. Not about Henry, but at least about the Victor thing, and maybe (possibly) about that clown that I saw almost a week ago now. I mean, Richie is my best and closest friend. I trust him with anything, so why shouldn't I be able to trust him about this? But what if Richie starts questioning me about why Victor would think there's something going on between me and Henry? Then I'll just lie and say it's just Victor being his crazy, lunatic self. Why would I lie though? There really is nothing going on between Henry and I... is there?

I clear my throat, "Um, Richie?"

"Yeah?"

I fiddle with my fingers nervously, looking down at the ground. "There's something I sho-"

I was interrupted by loud footsteps bounding down the stairs. Followed by four others.

. . . . .

"Could you idiots have taken any longer?" Richie complained as he rode around our little gang, circling us.

"Shut up, Richie."

"Hey, I wasn't the one scrubbing the bathroom floor imagining that her sink went all Eddie's mom's vagina on Halloween." Richie rolled his eyes.

"She didn't imagine. I saw something too." Bill spoke up.

"You saw blood, too?" I asked, us all slowing down our bikes until we came to a complete stop in the middle of the road. Each of us stared at Bill, awaiting his next words.

"Not blood," Bill gulped. "I saw G-G-Georgie." His face drops, "It seemed so real. I mean, it seemed like him, but there was this..."

This was my time. I had to speak up, I had to get this thing off my chest. "Clown." I finished for Bill, and he looked at me in a sort of surprising way. Probably wondering about what I had seen.

Eddie nods his head, "Yeah, I saw him too."

Richie looked at all of us as if we were crazy, "Wait, can only virgins see this stuff? Is that why i'm not seeing this shit?"

That's when we looked over and saw the car. A blue Firebird, exactly like the one the Bowers gang rode around in, parked (by parked I mean halfway on the street and the other half on the grass) on the side of the street. Right next to the tree line.

"Oh shit, that's Belch Huggins car." Eddie announces.

Not wanting to start anything (more like confront Henry–especially in front of Victor) I tell them, "We should probably get outta here."

"Yes." Stan agrees.

"Wait, isn't that the home schooled kid's bike?" Beverly asks, looking at the rusty bike thrown down next to the car.

"Yeah," I recognize it. "That's Mike's." Mike lives about a mile to the right of my house. I actually pass the dirt road that leads to his farm house to get to my own. So it went Mike's house, mine, then Henry's (each being a mile apart). We are the only three that live that far outside of town.

"We have to help him." Beverly says, getting off her bike.

"We should?"

"Yes!" She runs off toward the woods, past the Firebird and rusty, silver bike. All the guys get off their own bikes and begin to follow her.

Oh, fucking hell.