IT Chapter 1 - Continued Ending 🎈

Chapter 4 - Clubhouse Reminiscing

The hatch to the clubhouse opened and the others came in, talking quickly amongst themselves, clearly worried about something. Eddie jumped out of the hammock, not wanting the others to think anything weird was going on. Richie stayed in place, but both of their jaws dropped when they saw the state of one of their friends.

"Holy sh*t, what happened, Stan?" Richie asked, his breathing pace picking up.

The others moved out of the way, letting Stanley Uris step forward and sit beside Richie. He had a black eye, a rather deep cut on his cheek and his hair was a mess, unlike his usual combed curls. Richie and Eddie looked at each other. They both had their suspicions about what happened, and Ben only confirmed them.

"We ran into Bowers," Ben said, exhaling in relief that they were safe.

This was exactly what the two boys had expected to hear. At least Bowers didn't know about their secret underground clubhouse in the woods.

"So that's why it took you so long?" Eddie questioned, not making eye contact with Ben, and inspecting Stan's wounds instead.

"Yeah."

"Eddie, do you have your medical kit?" Bill asked, not at all worried, as Eddie always carried his fanny pack around wherever he went – except today, he had left it on the kitchen table.

"For the first time ever, no," Eddie started to panic. 'The one time I don't have it, Stan gets beaten up. Good going Eds,' he thought.

"What are we going to do about Stan?" Mike asked the obvious question.

Eddie focused on a spot on the ground, thinking for a few moments, until he remembered something.

"Oh!" he said, so loud, Richie jumped and almost fell off the hammock again. It's a good job he didn't, because he would have most likely brought Stan down with him.

"Jeez, Eds!"

"Sorry, didn't mean to shout...I just remembered something. I always leave my second fanny pack in here in case I ever need it."

"You still haven't told us why you have two in the first place," Richie mentioned.

"Do you have all day for me to talk about how my mom forces me to?" Eddie snapped back, rushing over to the drawers and pulling a black fanny pack from inside.

"I mean, if it's about your mom, I'm all ears," Richie said, proud of his joke. Eddie turned and glared at him.

"Beep beep, Richie," everyone said in unison.

Eddie pulled out a bottle of water and poured it on a paper towel, then placed it over Stan's black eye to stop it from swelling up.

"How much stuff have you got in that f*cking thing, Eds?" 

Eddie simply rolled his eyes at Richie and turned his attention back to Stan.

 "Stan, are you okay?" Eddie checked on him before he got to work cleaning his cheek. 

"Not exactly..." Stan mumbled.

"How did you escape Bowers?" Richie put his hand on Stan's shoulder.

Ben explained what happened, "We ran past the Kissing Bridge. Bowers and his goons are so dumb, they thought we had jumped over the side of it, and fell down the hill themselves."

"Ha!" Richie blurted.

"We did get the chance to check out some of the carvings while we were hiding, though," Mike added.

Richie's expression changed immediately. His eyes widened and he started shaking slightly. 'No...they can't have seen it...can they? Even if they did, they wouldn't know it was me, it only says R+E, it's not like our names are on there,' he calmed himself down.