THE GHOST IN YOU - IT [2]

chapter fourteen

Smack!

Victor's body painfully collides with the ground, knocking the wind right out of him. He involuntarily groans. The metallic taste of blood coats his tastebuds, telling him he bit his tongue on the fall down. Dirt coats his cheek and the entire frontside of his body. As much as his eyelids want to gravitate downwards, he forces them up and examines his surroundings. Upon seeing he's back in Derry, he shoots up in a fit of panic.

"Jaime?" He calls, whipping his head around. Trees line his vision while the sky above is a rich indigo. Victor quickly realizes he landed next to a car, a beaten up car at that. A car likely as old as his grandparents.

"Fuck." He curses when he realizes he's in the Derry junkyard. He hadn't been here since he had seen what Patrick did to Henry, or at least tried to do.

"You're one big fucking pussy, you know that?!" Victor shouts at the sky, fists clenched at his sides. "You stupid fucking clown--"

"Vic! Victor, help!"

The moment Victor hears the voice he's searching around, eyes fleeting between the old cars and other rubbish in the junkyard. Despite it visibly being nighttime, or if nighttime even existed in whatever realm of the universe he had ended up in, he can see just fine. As if it was light out. He weaves between the cars hopelessly.

"Jaime, where are you?" He asks, tone cracking in exhausted sadness.

"In here, Vic, in here!" She replies in a muffled voice.

"I-I can't find you..." He wipes his wet eyes with the back of his hand.

"Victor!"

It's only then that he notices the trembling of the old refrigerator near the edge of the junkyard, almost completely concealed by overgrown green shrubbery. He wastes no time in rushing over there as fast as his feet will take him. From inside, his sister cries, pounding her fists on the door.

"I got you, I'm gonna get you out!" He tells her frantically. When the handle doesn't budge under his force, he pulls harder, left foot resting against the part of the fridge that didn't happen to be the door. He tugs and tugs and tugs until finally the latch snaps free. Victor falls back in the dirt as the door swings open. He blinks slowly, watching a dark figure emerge from inside. When it steps out from the shadows, he soon is rudely met with the fact that that is not his sister, rather it is Patrick Hockstetter.

"Hm. That was sweet." Patrick coos, stepping forward. Victor scoots back in the dirt, glaring up at the boy, who now appears normal, as opposed to earlier, when he was a ghoul. "Too bad she's not actually here, huh?"

"Where the fuck is my sister, you asshole?" But Victor's questions are met with nothing but snickers. Before he can even rise to his feet, two pairs of hands land on each of his shoulders. He's pulled up forcefully, causing him to thrash against the two bodies.

"Fucking settle down." A fifteen-year old Henry Bowers spits in his left ear. To his right, Belch Huggins grunts in agreement.

"Fuck both of you! You're not real!" He tells them, scowling when they only laugh at his struggles.

"Bold words coming from a powerless man." Patrick grins, hunched over as he twirls his knife between his fingers.

Victor has trouble wrapping his head around this not being real, especially since it parallels so well with the events that occurred just a couple weeks before Hockstetter went missing. Everything is shockingly accurate, right down to the scent of Bowers' Juicy Fruit gum pervading his nostrils and the feeling of Belch's fingernails digging into his skin. He writhes more harshly when Patrick begins stepping forward.