Rain pitter-pattered against the black top, running down the streets like a river. Many stayed indoors, even though it was a gentle spring shower. I pulled my bright yellow rain jacket closer to me, keeping my body dry from the onslaught of water falling from the sky.

It had been twenty-seven years since I was here in Derry, Maine... twenty-seven years since the disappearances of several children ages five to twelve.

The fact that I knew who was behind the killings haunted me. The choice that I made still caused nightmares. The reality that I have grown up, it still doesn't mean that I would... could ever forget.

I stop by one of the storm sewers, the place where I first saw the creature in a clown's disguise. I sit down on the walkway next to it, watching the water disappear down the drain. Before, I would have been scared about being near such a place, considering that I knew what lurked just a little ways beyond the metal grate.

I rapped my knuckles against the grate before speaking, "Penny?"

No answer.

I take a deep breath before continuing, "Hey Pennywise. I'm not sure if you remember me, but I'm the little girl who you let live a little over twenty-seven years ago... I figured I would come back and see how things are since I left."

I rest my hands on my legs and look down, half expecting to see a set of yellow glowing eyes glaring up at me for the darkness. Nothing... nothing but the eerie silence and pounding rain.

I sigh and speak again, "I know you're there, Penny, I've seen the news reports of children gone missing again... just like when I was seven."

Still nothing.

Maybe he... It thought I had forgotten and moved on, ready to forget about my experiences down in the sewers. I could only shake my head before standing and decided to head home.

"You came back?"

A shiver ran up my spine at the sound of the all to familiar dark intimidating voice. Memories of a demented smile and bright yellow-golden eyes came back as I slowly turned to see the monster that haunted my life since childhood.

He stood as before, slightly hunched forward, wearing that god-awful gray and red costume with bells on the sleeves and legs that I didn't recall seeing him in the last time. White pristine gloves were clenched at his sides and his feet pointed outward away from me. He also still had the big goofy red hair, the kind that would make any circus clown jealous.

His face was painted differently from the last time I saw him too. When I first met Pennywise, he had a white face with a big red nose and mouth and blue powder on his eyelids. He also had little black triangles under and above his eyes. Now, the red lips remained, but they were slightly smaller than around his whole mouth like before. He looked like he was wearing red lipstick, actually. At the edges of the lips, however, the red paint continued upward past his eyes, stopping just above his eye brows. The red nose was also smaller, more button-shaped than a big rubber one.

I shivered as he stared me down, as if he was studying me.

"Are you still afraid of me, little girl?" the clown asked.

I looked him square in the eyes, my features hardening, "Not anymore."

"But you're afraid of something... there's something about you that hasn't changed a bit since I saw you last."

"I grew up, did a lot of thinking," I smiled slightly, "And... well, I never really had the opportunity to make any friends. I kept thinking back to that day when you gave me a choice, to walk away or to succumb. That choice, as heavy as it laid on me as a child, is the reason I came back. I had... to see you."

Pennywise seemed confused about the whole ordeal, about a child he would've killed twenty-seven years ago standing before him.

We stood for a long while, the down pour slowly fading into a light drizzle as the clouds cleared to reveal the late evening spring sun. I spoke again slowly, "Did... Did you want to come home with me?"

It was kind of frightening, and very crazy as well as stupid I might add, having a child murdering creature in my apartment. But the way that Penny was moving about my home was rather intriguing.

When I opened the door to my apartment, it took him a few moments to enter, as if he was afraid of crossing boundaries into my home. Once he was in, though, he began to move slowly around the apartment, stopping and sniffing at a few things, such as the painted Dia de los Muertos skulls that lined my bookshelf, or would stare menacingly at the few family portraits that I still had.

I went to my fridge and pulled out a few plastic containers of raw meat and set them slowly on the coffee table near him. He turned and I watched as his pale blue eyes turned that frightening eerie yellow-gold color.

"If you're hungry-"

I didn't need to finish my sentence as the creature chowed down on meat, plastic, wood, and all, until there was nothing but a few remaining chunks and blood splattered on the floor.

He looked up at me. I think expecting me to be cowering against the door frame of my apartment. I guess I surprised him when I smiled and walked back to the kitchen. I turned the coffee maker on, making a small cup, as eyes watched from behind.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" Pennywise's dark voice asked again, seemingly more curious than nervous.

"Not anymore," I turned and gave his bloody face a smile, "I've seen you eat like that before, remember?"

He shook visible from head to toe, bells tinkling as he moved.

Memories flooded back of two kids in a sewer cave and a clown holding one hostage.

The sewers reeked of garbage and were infested by rats. What scared many people, however, were the strange occurrences that involved the disappearances of many children.

Currently, two children, a young boy and a young girl, were at the mercy of a great evil that lived there, beneath the town of Derry.

The little boy in the creature's grasp was crying, scared of what was hold onto him.

The monster was a clown in a multi-colored suit with a white-painted face and a big red rubber nose. From his mouth, the monster sported a set of very sharp teeth, which he was using to threaten them both with.

"I'll eat you all up!" the creature growled at the little girl who shook on the cavern floor near the the creature's hiding spot. Hundreds of thousands of corpses were piled up behind her while others floated above, trapped in a stupor by the creature's deadlights. The rot of the corpses and skeletons made the sewers reek even more than they already did.

The little girl curled into herself as the creature shook a white gloved finger at her, "Or... you can leave him with me and I'll set you free."

"Nononono!" the boy whimpered as the creature clutched him closer to his chest, teeth bared and drool dripping from its mouth.

The young girl slowly got to her knees. Her morality told her to stay and try to fight this thing. But, her fear of what would happen caused her to want to run away, to run home and to the safety of her family's arms.

The boy had been a bully to her since her arrival into Derry a few weeks ago and, with her legs and face covered in bruises from the attacks, she felt that darkness tell her that he deserved it.

She stood on wobbly legs and rushed for the exit, her heart-pounding in her chest and echoing in her ears. Horrid laughter followed before a terrified scream.

The little girl turned to look over her shoulder as the creature had expanded his jaw, lowering it all the way from where he stood to the floor and blinding the scared child with his deadlights. She forced her head to turn away as she climbed through the pipes of the sewers, disappearing into the darkness as a sickening crunch echoed off the chamber walls.

"Never thought I'd see the day when one of my victims would come crawling back," Pennywise's dark voice brought me back to the present, "Most especially you, Lizzy-bean."

I raised one of my eyebrows at the childhood name my parents called me by. I haven't been called that in years, particularly since I haven't seen my parents since I moved out on my own.

I take a sip of coffee before speaking, "I thought about that day for these past twenty-seven years, you know. I still can't decide why I did it."

"Well, I can't decide what made me decide to give you that option or why I didn't chase you down there."

My fingernails tapped against my ceramic mug, "I thought it was because you were full."

"Never full, always hungry."

"Except around me apparently."

Pennywise shook his head, "No... you smell different compared to the others. You don't smell like fear like the others. It's a smell I've never smelt before."

"And you allowed me to live because of that? My smell?"

He never answered because when I turned to look at him, he was gone.

We sort of fell into this unusual pattern, the two of us.

I would swing by the storm sewer and would be joined by Pennywise soon after. Sometimes he would be waiting for me.

After seeing each other, he would follow me home and I would lay raw meat on the countertop or coffee table, watching from a distance as he devoured it. Sometimes he ate everything, other times he would eat one or two pieces. However, on one occasion, he didn't eat anything, claiming he had eaten already.

I wasn't going to ask who. However, I did say, "I thought you were always hungry."

Pennywise laughed that terrible laugh I knew so well, "Today, Lizzy-bean, I'm full."

Then, we would talk. I discovered that he was a form of a dream-eating demon, who also loved to feast on children because it made the nightmares taste better. He also had cat-like qualities that made him more non-human than I already knew him as.

He would sniff around the apartment each and every time I brought him in. He would notice new things and ask about each item, especially if he was curious. When I explained the vacuum to him, Pennywise only shuddered again, "Don't turn that... vaccoom on."

"Vak-u-m, Penny, and you don't need to worry about me turning it on in your presence."

There were drawbacks to allowing a psycho-maniac child-eating clown in one's life, however.

I had to constantly clean my apartment, making sure to clean the blood stains from the carpet and had to replace my coffee table on several occasions. I didn't want people asking why my apartment smelt of blood, especially since the neighbors already thought I was crazy for keeping Halloween decorations up year round. I didn't want the scent of sewers embedded into the place, either.

I also had to keep plenty of meat stocked in both my freezer and fridge. I once didn't have anything to give to a very hungry Pennywise... so he ate one of my neighbor's annoying little Shih-Tzus, Princess. To keep any other local pets from disappearing, I bought three paper bags full of cow, sheep, and goat as well as chicken and turkey. Though, Pennywise seemed to prefer chops and steaks over chicken and turkey.

"Too lean," he answered when I asked about it, "I prefer them juicy and tender."

The final draw back, and my biggest problem, was that he knew where I lived, what times of the day I left, and when I would return.

I came home from work one day, deciding to have a Pennywise-free day, when there came knocking on the windows. I opened my shades to see a familiar smiling clown face pressed up against the glass.

"Hi Lizzie-bean! Wanna let me in to play?"

I opened the window as the smelly sewer creature crawled his way in before taking a seat on the floor. I was definitely not regretting changing the hardwood flooring to a carpeted one.

But, all in all, it wasn't bad having Pennywise around.

He was a great conversationalist and kept the time flowing by for me in the evening. He would tell stories about Derry before my time and even did a few tricks like juggling and cracking a few jokes I haven't heard since I was a kid. In exchange, I talked to him and explained things about the modern world.

And as the days passed and more kids disappeared, i couldn't help but feel somewhat at a loss. I knew Pennywise had eaten every last one of them and, yet, I couldn't find it in my heart to care.

But I should... shouldn't I?

It was the night of Halloween and I was ready for all the little trick-or-treaters that would be running down the halls of my apartment. I knew Pennywise would most likely be out, especially since this was his night for hunting.

I was slightly grateful that he told me in advance what he was going to do the previous night, especially since the town seemed slightly in tuned as to what was going on.

"Be careful, Pen," I told him before he vanished.

"You to, Lizzie-bean."

I was pouring my giant bag of candy into a bowl when i heard crashing outside the door. I walked over and opened it to see a small group of five men I've never seen before standing outside Mrs. Higgins' door.

Mrs. Higgins was an elderly woman who lost her husband some time last year. She was sweet little old lady, living in retirement by baking sweets and inviting many people over for tea. She let me call her "Ma" when I first met her, as I reminded her of her oldest daughter who, yes, disappeared several years ago.

The men looked to be about older teenagers, maybe one about twenty years of age, and they were wearing drawstring pumpkin masks, each one a different face carved into it. The leader rang the doorbell and when Mrs. Higgins opened the door, the leader of the group pulled a gun out and demanded she give them, not just all the candy, but all the money or they were going to shoot her.

I slammed the door, locking it before running to my phone to call the police.

Instantly, shots were fired, and my door gave way as three of the five men I saw over by Mrs. Higgins door entered my apartment. I heard screams as people were attempting to make a massive exit, especially mothers with their young children.

"Well well well, what do we have here?" one of the guys spoke as he entered my apartment and came forward, that dumb pumpkin mask smiling like a decaying corpse.

I reached behind my back and pulled a baseball bat out for where it rested by the telephone. I kept it there especially for emergencies like this.

I raised it above my head, growling, "You better run back to your mothers before I give you a good beating and put you in my stew for supper."

I was going to use the power of rumor to help me out this these three, especially since people already thought me crazy anyway.

But these jokers weren't joking around. Another shot was fired and I crumpled, clutching my leg where one of the guys shot my thigh.

"Nice one, Max," one of the guys chuckled, obviously the ring leader, and he pulled a switchblade out.

He knelt beside me and pressed the blade to my throat, "Okay, lady, tell us where your money is, or I'll give you something that I can't take back."

I spat as his face, "Go ahead, you little shit."

Then the lights started flickering before everything went out. I tried to move, but a big beefy hand held me down.

"You're not going anywhere, sweetheart."

"Neither are you," a familiar growling voice echoed in the room.

I couldn't contain my relief as I heard a sickening crunch as two screams filled the room. Thumping noises were heard and shots were fired again and again. More crunching followed before silence fell on my apartment.

I struggled to get up, but a familiar gloved hand pressed on my shoulder.

"Don't move, Lizzie-bean, I've got you."

One arm tucked under my legs as another wrapped around my waist. I could only imagine the state the room was in when wet lips pressed to my forehead, "Sleep, Lizzie-bean."

And I succumbed to the darkness.

I must've woke a little while later because I was back in the sewers with a very worried Pennywise looking over me. His lips and greyish-white ruffled collar were stained with blood as were his gloves and his shoes. His eyes still were the eerie yellow from when he ate and seemed that they hadn't turned back to their typical pale blue yet.

A large bandage was wrapped around my thigh where the bullet had entered and blood was still seeping through it. I attempted to touch it, but a gloved hand grabbed mine.

"Don't... don't touch it, Lizzie-bean. You could infect it."

I nodded, "Thank you for saving me."

Pennywise could only nod before turning away from me. It looked like he was ashamed of what he did, but I couldn't decide if he was mad or not.

"Hey," I touched his shoulder gently, "I'm fine, Penny. I'm still alive thanks to you."

He asked, "What have you done to me?"

"Excuse me?"

"Lizzie-bean..." the clown creature turned to look at me, his yellow-gold eyes peering right through me into my soul, "You have captivated me like no one else has. You are so kind, so refreshing from the fear I see every day. I still smell it on you, like everyone, but you also have a bitter smell. I still haven't figured it out yet."

I could only shake my head, "I don't know, Penny. I'll say, though, that since I've come back and found you, you've filled an empty hole that I've never noticed was in my heart."

"A heart?"

Then, he did something I could never forget.

His eyes rolled backward as his jaws spread open wide, as if to reveal his deadlights that I knew lurked somewhere beyond those death jaws. However, something was down there, blocking the hypnotizing lights. He coughed and out popped a heart... a bloody human heart.

It lay on the floor between the two of us as blood and saliva still covered the muscled organ. I most definitely was disgusted by what I had just witnessed, but was sort of... fascinated by what I thought he was going to do next.

Pennywise picked up the heart and offered the raw flesh to me, "Eat, Lizzie-bean."

I cringed slightly, but slowly bit into the organ and was pleasantly surprised to the sweet taste of honey that filled my mouth. I bit harder, tearing at the flesh of the organ and swallowing piece by piece.

Once the raw meat was in my stomach, the demented clown pressed his hands to my face, his long fingers wrapping around the back of my skull. His thumbs rested on each corner of my mouth before drawing lines upward.

The blood that was on my face from my feasting was drawn onto my pale skin, recreating the same painted face of Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

I couldn't help but smile fully at the creature as he grinned back, full sharp teeth and gums.

"There's a smile I know so well."