Mixtape (Ben Hanscom x Oc)

What scares you most

The summer heat had no mercy on the day we all met up again.
"I heard they found his arm chewed up near the sand pipe." Stan said looking at Edward Corcan's missing poster.
We all looked down at the ground trying not to let him affect us now that we had an idea of what had taken him.
"He asked to borrow a pencil once." Ben said breaking up the silence.
"Him and Betty were friends. She had the biggest crush on him." I said looking over at Richie who was attempting to play the band members trumpet.
"They were both good people." I said looking up at the poster.
Bill lifted the poster and we all saw Betty's poster.
"I-it's like she's been forgotten just because, Corcan is m-mm-m-missing." Bill said.
"Will it be like that? If when we leave Derry... I mean." I asked tears coming to my eyes. I was so, mad at the people who just forgot about Betty and Georgie and all those other missing kids.
"No it won't be like. We'll all remember each other. Promise." Stan said putting his hand on my shoulder.
"Swear?" I asked.
"What?" Stan asked staring at me.
"Swear it or it's not true." I said leaning into him.
"Swear." He mumbled. 
I looked back up at the poster and lifted it up. I pulled Betty's poster off the wall and folded it up. Me and Betty were friends and in this moment I swore to myself... I would never forget Betty.
"Is this ever going to end?" Stan asked and we didn't need it ask him what he meant we all knew.
Eddie came around the corner with two ice cream cones in his hands.
"What are you guys talking about?" Eddie asked coming around the corner.
"What they always talk about." Richie answered no giving is any time to speak. He took a cone out of Eddie's hand and lick off of it.
"I actually think it'll end, for a little while." Ben said.
We all knew that he had been studying again. I wanted to know what he meant but, I didn't want to find out that we would all have to find out that we would all died if we stayed in Derry.
"What do you mean?" Bev asked causing me to look at her and step closer to the group.
"So, I was going over all my Derry research, and I charted all the big events like the Ironworks in 1908, the Bradley gang in '35, and the Black spot in '62, and now kids being..." Ben glances over at Bill not wanting to say whatever he was gong to say might offend one of us "it happens every..."
"Twenty seven years." Bill finished Ben's sentence.
We all got quiet and looked around. We knew that if we said something it would be awkward. We all settled down on a bench and looked around. Stan sat on the back of the bench with Bev turned sideways on one side and Mike and Ben on the other. The rest of us sat around on our bikes and I sat on the ground next to my bike.
"So, let me get this straight. It comes out to eat kids for like a year and then what? It just goes into hibernation?" Eddie asked trying to understand all the information that had been thrown at him.
"Maybe it's like, what do you call them, cicadas. You know, those bugs that come out every seventeen years." Stan asked trying to find an example of an explanation.
"My grandfather thinks this town is cursed." Mike mumbled catching all of our attention.
"You can't be serious a curse is such bullshit. Right?" I said looking  at Ben for an answer needing a logical one.
"He says that every bad thing in town is caused by cone thing. An evil thing that feeds off the people in Derry." Mike explained looking at me and back at the ground.
"There's no way we all saw the same thing. You know that. We all saw something different." I tried thinking of a logical explanation.
"It was all just a dream." I said trying so hard to not believe in what they were saying.
"Maybe it knows what scares us most and that's what we see." Mike said.
"I... I saw a leper. He was like a walking... infection." Eddie said looking more scared than I  had ever seen.
"But you didn't because I isn't real." Stan said trying to get his head around it. "Not Eddie's leper or Bill seeing Georgie, or the women I keep seeing."
"Is she hot?" Richie asked trying to make a joke  at the wrong time.
"No, Richie she's not hot. Her face is all messed up. None of this is making sense. They're like bad dreams." Stan said starting to freak out. I stood up and walked around the bench to grab Stan's shoulders.
"It's gonna be okay." I said pulling him slightly closer to me.
"I don't think so, I know that the difference of the bad dream and real life." Mike said defending himself.
"Mike what did you see? You saw something too." Eddie said trying to break the silence.
"Yeah, you guys know that burnt down house on Harris Avenue?" He waited a moment and we all nodded, "I was on it went it burnt down. Before I was rescued my mom and dad were in the next room over from me. They were pushing and pounding in the door trying to get me... but it was too hot. When the fireman found them the skin on their hands had melted down to the bone. We're all afraid of something." Mike said looking down at the ground.
"You got that right." Richie said looking at the performance taking place on stage.
"Why Rich? What are you afraid of?" Eddie asked.
"Clowns." Richie said as he shook his head.
**********

We were all gathered in Bill's garage moving buckets and crates to sit on. Bill moved the map of Derry's sewers to the middle of the wall. Ben and I finished putting the last slide in the projector. Bill stepped back and we all looked ya the map.
"Look that where G-gg-Georgie disappeared." Bill said pointing at the sewer drain that was down the road.
"There's the Ironworks and the Black spot. Everywhere It happens it's all connected by the sewer. They all met up at the..." Bill said pointing on the map.
"Well house." Bill and Ben said in unison.
"That's the house on Neibolt Street." Stan said shaking his head.
"You mean that old house where all the hobos use to squat." Bev asked.
Eddie stares wheezing and he stood up as he started freaking out and taking puff off his inhaler.
"I hate that place I always feel like it's watching me." Bev continued to explain.
"That's where I saw it.. that's where I saw the clown." Eddie said standing up freaking out.
"Th-th-that's where it lives." Bill nodded. Eddie took a hit off his inhaler.
"I couldn't imagine anything wanting to live there." Stan said shifting his weight.
Eddie stood up and got in front of the projector.
"Can we stop talking about this? I-Ii-I can barely breathe! It's summer, we're kids, I can't breathe. I'm having a fucking asthma attack! I'm not doing this!" He exclaimed ripping the map off the wall.
"What the hell! Put it back!" Bill said in dismay.
Eddie shook his head continuing to freak out. Th slides starting to change all by there own.
"What's going on man?" I said hiding my face in Bill's back.
The projector kept showing us pictures of Bill and Georgie. It stop on a picture of Bill's entire family.
"What happened?" Bill asked as the picture zoomed in on Georgie's face.
"What the fuck is going on?" I yelled .
"Bill?" Stan asked.
The photo shifted and zoomed in on Mrs. Denbrough's face. The face shifted and changed into the damned clowns face.
"What the fuck is that? What is that?" Richie yelled grabbing onto Eddie and pulling him back.
"I don't fucking know!" Eddie yelled stumbling backwards. We were all standing at the back of the garage now except Bev .
"Turn it off. Turn it off!" Bev called. Mike kicked the projector onto the ground as I struggled to find the plug on the ground. It quieted down for just a few seconds. The moment we thought we were all safe the thing whatever It is bust through the picture and lunged at Bev. We all hurried to the door, Bev being to only one not with us. Mike and Ben opened the door causing bright light to shoot through the garage and the clown to disappear.
Bev ran towards us only to wrap her arms around Bill.
"It saw us. It saw us and It knows where we are." Eddie more or less yelled as he started to freak out again .
"It always has... s-so let's g-go." Bill said walking out the garage.
"Go? Go where?" Ben asked.
"Neibolt. That's where G-gg-Georgie is." Bill nodded.
"After that?" Stan asked obviously shaken up over the whole thing.
"Yeah it's summer, we should be having..." Richie said.
"It you say it's summer one more f-ff-fucking time!" Bill said. He looked at us one last time and grabbed his bike.
"Bill! You can't just go off by yours..." I said but I couldn't even finish my sentence by the time he was down the road.
"What the fuck man. We're going after him aren't we?" Richie asked stepping closer to our bikes just in case.
"That's up to you but, I think that we should." Bev said grabbing her bike.
"Alright it beats going home." I said grabbing my bike and petaling off. I could hear Bev trying to get the losers to follow me. I knew they would so I stopped at the stop sign to wait.
"Speak of the devil." Mike said catching up to me.
"They comin' ?" I asked looking at them.
"Is Bev crushing on Bill?" He asked smiling.
"Let's go we don't have all day." Bev said flying passed us on her bike.
"I guess that answers your question." I said smiling at Mike.