For Those Who Are Afraid

Chapter 3.

"Kill them all. Kill them all. Kill them all."

"Hey Henry, you good man?"

Henry jumped, the beer that hung limply in his hand spilling onto his jeans. Hissing, he glared down at the now-forming dark spot as the fabric quickly absorbed the liquid. Great. It was right on his crotch too. Three pairs of eyes stared at him from around a crackling fire pit, two filled with soft worry the other passing amusement. Each boy had a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Henry glanced down at his smoke. It resembled a small smoldering grey worm that was squirming free of a white cocoon, trying desperately to escape and fall to the ground. Henry brought it to his lips and sucked in, dissolving more of the white encasing and causing the worm to crawl farther, it's body alive with red and orange embers that breathed with him.

"Henry! Did we lose you again?" a short sun-kissed blonde seated to his right playfully nudged him. Henry sighed, forcing a smile before meeting Vic's eyes. Just keep shoving it down.

"No, I'm here. You assholes just aren't saying anything interesting."

"I think he's already drunk. That's only like your second beer, right Henry?" Patrick Hockstetter, a lanky boy who stood a good foot above Henry sneered, causing Henry's neck hairs to stand on end. His face was shaped like a crescent moon and it always upheld the same plastered on smile that made Henry's knuckles itch to connect with it. "Are we going to have to carry you home, baby?" Patrick knew just how to crawl under his skin and pick at his nerves. It was like he had his fingers buried in Henry's brain at all times and was just constantly scratching at it with jagged nails. Rather than give him any sort of verbal affirmation Henry answered Patrick with a withering glare, making that ever-present smile stretch farther across his pale bony face.

"So are we just going to hang around here doing jack shit or are we going to go have some fucking fun, guys?" Vic took a large swig, emptying his beer before throwing the can onto the ground. "I don't know about you idiots, but I feel buzzed and ready to get up to some dumb shit."

"Don't we do dumb shit every day?" The last boy of the group, Reginald... or Belch, as he was more commonly called, retorted. "We're all kind of tipsy and I don't want to risk wrecking my car."

Victor scoffed and flopped back in the grass. "You're such a buzzkill Belch! We've never wrecked your car before!"

"Yeah but we've come close! And I don't have the money to fix her if we do."

Rolling his eyes, Henry stared into the fire pit, watching the dancing flames shake and crackle to a silent beat. Writhing, contorting, and doing the peppermint twist. The sound of his friend's debating echoed in the back of his head. It felt as though he was hearing them through miles and miles of water and was sinking further still. The conversation didn't interest him anyways. What did it matter what they did? In the end, Henry would be right there next to them taking part in the destruction and that was all that concerned them. As long as he was there to be a dominant presence, something to make them feel controlled and safe in their own unraveling chaos it didn't matter how numb Henry felt. No, numb wasn't the right word. He shifted forward, the orange light dancing in his eyes. Rotting. That was more accurate. It felt like at the very center of Henry Bowers he was decaying, being eaten away and turned into a hollow void lined with mold and disease. Every morning he was aware that it was bigger, whittled away at by a seemingly never-ending night of nightmares- if he slept at all.

"We could go swimming!" Belch piped up, knowing the request would probably fall upon deaf ears, but hopeful nevertheless.

"All you babies want to do is swim. Let's go fucking tagging or light some shit on fire! Something not boring." The tall moon-faced boy looked like he was practically pissing himself, twitching and shifting in his seat, his already grating voice getting whinier by the second, digging into Henry's ears, chipping at that hole in his chest. "Come ooooon guys I want to cause some fucking chaos!"