Mike had told us about a ritual that we had to do in order to kill Pennywise and so we were all heading right into the deepest parts of the sewer where we had battled Pennywise all those years ago. I hung at the back next to Eddie-we had always stuck together as kids-and he wheezed beside me. He lifted an inhaler to his lips and took a deep breath in.
"Come on, dude..." I rolled my eyes to him as everyone jumped at the sudden sound.
He sheepishly returned the inhaler to his pocket and we all carried on walking.
We walked through various tunnels and doorways until we reached a small room, and Bill, Eddie and I continued through as Ben, Bev and Mike stopped.
We had barely noticed that we'd gone into another room and only noticed as we heard Ben shout and the door slammed behind us. We turned around to try and get back through but flinched as we heard somethingnrattle behind us. We turned round to see a fridge that was oddly placed against the wall in the middle of the room and we all stared at it.
We watched in terror as the door slowly opened and revealed Stan inside, contorted and decaying, and I cowered back as he shouted at us. We all backed away as his head fell off and rolled out of the fridge towards us.
"Richie... what's happening to me?" The head began to sprout legs from its cheeks and soon it was looking more like a spider than a head. I felt my body start shaking and I gulped.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding..." I backed against the wall as it let out a cackle. It suddenly ran straight for us and scrambled around to try and hit it away.
"I wanna go home... I wanna go home..." Eddie murmured from the corner of the room and I felt like I had to protect him. The head scuttled off once it had been hit and I turned to my friend. I walked over slowly, panting and shaking.
"Are you okay?" I asked the trembling man just as a string of saliva dripped in between us. I looked up and saw the head grinning down at me.
"Oh there he is..."
The head pounced, knocking me onto my back, and tried to bite my face. I shouted as loud as I could and tried to push it away, and I could hear Bill trying to wrench it away and shouting at Eddie to get the knife. Poor Eddie stood on the spot continuing to chatter "I wanna go home... I wanna go home... I wanna go home..."
It was clear that we werent going to get any help from him and I was thankful that Ben appeared and stabbed it just as it's teeth were inching towards me.
I coughed and spluttered as Ben helped me up and saw Bill storm over to Eddie, grabbing him by the collar, "he could have f-fucking died, man, y-you know that right? Georgie's dead, the kids dead, S-stanley's dead, you want Richie too? You want Richie too?!"
"I don't... I don't... please don't be mad, Bill... I was just scared..." Eddie pleaded and Bill let him go.
"That's what it wants, right? Don't give it to him."
I walked up to Eddie and pulled the sleeve of his shirt so he would follow, "come on, man, let's go."
He didn't speak to me as we ventured on, and we soon reached a hole in the ground that Mike was convinced we were supposed to clamber in to. We watched him go and Eddie shook his head at me, "I can't... y-you saw what happened up there..." he stammered, "I was gonna... I was gonna let you die... I froze up... if you let me go down there with you I'm gonna get us all killed..." he took his inhaler out of his pocket and took a deep breath into it.
I snatched his arm and tried to take it off of him, "give me that, let it go," I fought him a little before shining my torch in his eyes and he let me have it. "You don't need it. You're braver than you think. Okay?" I patted his face, forgetting about the knife wound, and he flinched. "Sorry."
"But-"
"If I can be brave, you can be brave... right?" I looked into his eyes and he closed his mouth and nodded quickly.
He was reluctant but clambered down with the rest of us after that and I felt proud of him for facing his fear.
As we neared an entrance to another tunnel, we all stopped dead. I recognised it... this was the place where we'd seen the children floating... where Bev had seen the deadlights... where we had fought Pennywise.
The others continued on but Eddie just stood and shook his head, "nope, I can't do it."
"Come on, it'll be okay," I whispered, "we have each other, we'll be okay."
I reached out to help him along but he misjudged my actions and snatched for my hand.
I was a little taken back but walked forward and he followed a little behind me, his fingers gripping my hand like a vice. I felt my stomach jump a little as we walked together and tried not to think about it as the sewer water rose to our ankles.
"I dont want to be here... I dont want to be here..." Eddie mumbled under his breath and I gave his hand a squeeze.
I didn't want to fucking be here either.
