This is my first fan fiction using this site, I hope you enjoy it. Go check out my other IT fan fiction on Wattpad called A Story Set In Derry which is the prequel to A Story Set 27 Years Later.
Chapter 1
I dug my fingernails into Its eyes, plunging them into the honey yellow iris, the creature screamed, a mighty roar that shook the whole sewer system. It stumbled back, clawing at its own face as lines of sticky, black blood ran down its cheeks. I scrambled backwards away from it, and suddenly it's form began to change. Shifting from the ginormous doll to a mummy, my nose became filled with the musty smell of its bandages and I felt my stomach churn. It shook its head, which had already begun changing into something else, the twisted head of the lady from Stan's painting.
It's arms stretched towards me, dusty and infected. My heart skipped a beat and I could hear my own breathing developing into a panicked pant. It was almost running at me now and I had scrambled back as far as I could, the cool wall of the sewer pressed into my spine and I screamed coarsely as sharp fingernails dug into the sides of my head and an abundance of glowing, yellow orbs filled my vision.
The darkness of my room caused me to panic as I bolted upright in my kingsized bed. My hand scratched around hastily on the bedside table until it came across the golden chain dangling down from the designer lamp. A ching echoed around the room; filling it with a hazy white light.
My eyes took a few seconds to adjust before I full shook my panic, the back of my throat felt like sand paper and my cheeks were wet with trails of tears. It's just a nightmare, I thought.
Bring! Bring! I looked towards the bedroom door as the phones monotonic tone drifted through the hardwood. I pulled back the comforter and slipped into my slippers which lay by my bed in a squiffy pair. Slowly, I dragged my dressing gown off of its brass hook and opened my door into the hallway. My feel trudged carefully down the staircase. The phone, which was kept just beside the stairs was still ringing when I got to it and held it up to my ear.
"Y/N?" A voice cooed down the phone, I rubbed my eyes tiredly as I waited for them to respond.
Nothing.
"Uh, Hello?" I muttered groggily.
"Ah, your still there. I thought I had the wrong number for a second there!" The person on the other end exclaimed followed by a sigh.
"I'm sorry but who is this again?" I asked, knowing fully well that the person hadn't introduced themselves yet.
"Oh, right, it's Mike. Mike Hanlon." He repeated and my eyes widened.
"No! The Mike Hanlon as in, homeschooled Mike from Derry!" I yelled a little too loudly, which caused me to cover my mouth and shrink into myself a little.
"Yeah, it's me. How have you been?" I let a tiny smile break out across my face.
"I've been well, how about you? And also why are you calling me at 3 in the morning?" I asked, letting a flood of questions spill out of my grinning mouth.
"I'm good but the news I have is bad. I have already called the others, Y/N, It's back. And you promised to come back if It ever came back so here we all are again. Also I forgot that there was a time difference between Derry and wherever you said you live now." He laughed, but it sounded more like a tired sigh of relief. "So I guess I'll see you back here with the others at the weekend."
"What do you mean others?" I pushed with a sceptical look on my face.
"Oh, you know, Beverly and Richie. Bill and Stan." Mike responded, he sounded worn out.
"Eddie Kaspbrak?" I asked gently, something rustled on the other side of the phone which put me on edge as I glanced around the dark hall behind me, illuminated by the faint glow of my lamp only.
"Yep, I do believe he said he was coming, although he's married now. Could you believe that? And Stan, he's married too. I'm sure you already know about Bill though, being as famous as him and his wife are." Mike exclaimed. He seemed to be getting engrossed in the conversation a little more than he may have wanted to.
"Yeah," I said cutting him off abruptly, "That's real nice and all Mike but it's still 3am and I'd like to get back to bed before I have to go to work if that's alright with you."
"Oh! Sure, sorry for waking you. I'll see you on Friday night."
"See you, Mike." I said tiredly before pressing the phone back into its slot in the dialling box.
A small cream on the landing pulled me to attention and I looked up to see a 20 year old boy looking down at me; his brown eyes wide and inquisitive. He was dressed in an old t-shirt that had Nightmare Truck plastered across the front and his ripped jeans were way to big for someone of his size. Small, blondish brown ringlets of hair curled down from his scalp while some stuck out in random directions.
"Mom? Are you alright?" He asked carefully, his arms were crossed slackly across his body, presumably to hold them up.
"I'm fine Levi. Go back to bed." I called up to him, gesturing with my hand for him to go back to his room.
"Who was it?" He inquired.
"Just one of my friends, honey."
"Why are they calling at 3am?"
"They live in a different province so it's earlier for them." I explained, he nodded tiredly and then turned to go back to his room.
"Hang on Levi!" I called after him.
"What mom?"
"Could you look after your brother for me this weekend? I have somewhere to go."
"You mean my half brother, but sure, I'll look after Charlie. Hang on! Where are you going?"
"Back to my hometown, Derry and I don't want you or Charlie there. It's bad news Levi and I don't want you near there ever."
"Alright mom, I'm going back to bed." He muttered as his feet shuffled back down the hall to his room.
I was about to climb the stairs back to my room but something pulled me back to the phone and I found myself dialling in a familiar number.
As the call connected a woman's voice greeted me.
"Hi, this is the Uris household. Patty speaking."
"Hi Pat, may I speak to Stanley?" I asked patiently and I could hear her shouting him in the background. Seconds later I heard her transfer the phone over to him.
"Hi Stan, I presume you got Mikes call too, are you going back to Derry? I'm not sure whether o should leave Levi and Charlie."
"I don't think so Y/N, but you need to. Eddie needs to know about Charlie, just like I know that Levi is my son. That reminds me, can you tell Levi that I love him." Stan's voice was hollow and meaningless, like he was under the influence of some zombie drug. Not utterly there.
"Why do you say that? You could just tell him that yourself."
"I just want him to know."
"Alright. Are you ok Stan? You seem distant."
"I'm fine."
"Ok, see you in Derry, oh and Stan..."
"What?"
"I still love you."
"I know, Y/N, I know. I'm glad that I could know someone like you."
The phone line went down and the robotic beep on the other end of the phone indicated that he had placed the phone back down on its dialling box.
With his last words turning over and over in my head I climbed the stairs and shut the door to my bedroom behind me before snuggling down into bed and falling into a deep dreamless sleep.
I woke up to the sun radiating off of my face, a bird was chirping outside of my window and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. My foot dropped out of the bed sideways and dragged me to my feet, I wobbled over to the window and grabbed the curtains trying to draw them shut in my groggy state. Suddenly I stopped, this could be the last day that I get to see anything like this, my hands shook as I tugged them back over, allowing the sun rays to soak into skin.
I went downstairs and poured some cereal into a bowl, Levi came down the stairs slowly as I plunged the spoon into my bowl.
"Morning." I smiled.
"Are we gonna talk about your mysterious phone call?" He asked, looking over at me sideways. "Or are we just gonna pretend that everything is normal and your going back to your hometown for no reason?"
"It wasn't mysterious I told you who was calling." I responded.
"Ok, but why do you suddenly need to rush off to Derry, or wherever it was." Levi said quizzically, one of his eye brows was raised higher than the other and my brain imagined it flying away.
"I'm going to a reunion with my childhood friends." I responded, cramming a spoonful of brightly coloured cereal into my mouth.
"Fine, then answer me one question. Is Charlie's dad going to be there?"
"I don't know for sure Levi, it's hard to tell he's very busy now." I stuttered, trying hard not to spit my cereal out onto the polished laminate floor.
Levi shook his head and walked off down the hall, "I'm going to get ready for uni. You can wake up Charlie if you want me to take him to school." Levi moaned as he left the room.
I placed my cereal bowl down on the kitchen counter flamboyantly and left the room with a sigh.
I pushed open the light blue door gently, revealing a minuscule bed, a small lump underneath the jungle themed comforter shuffled away from the wall that the bed had been pushed up against and finally a hand peeked out from inside. I moved across the room slowly, avoiding the scattered toys and attempting not to tread on a dreaded piece of Lego.
I gently sat on the side of the bed and pulled back the covers to reveal the face of a sleeping boy. His curly brown hair sitting neatly on the top of his head, an abundance of freckles dotted his face and his eyes were scrunched closed leaving just his thin, rose coloured lips slightly parted in his slumber.
"Charlie? It's time to get up for school, sweetie." I cooed, not wanting to disturb his delicate sleep but desperately needing to. Charlie's button nose scrunched up and then his eyes flicked open to reveal deep brown iris' that glinted in the sun.
He snuffled and then decided I was right, a few minutes later after I had fixed my hair and Charlie had got dressed.
I said goodbye to Charlie and Levi before leaving for work.
Once I arrived I was met with piles of paperwork, stacked high up on my wooden office desk. As the hours ticked by I worked through the papers with my fountain pen, reading each one in turn and finalising them with my signature. As I signed out of the office I looked back upon the rows of compact offices, if this is the last time I see this place then good riddance, I thought to myself. A smirk crept onto my face as I pushed open the door and emerged into the mild summers air.
As I rushed into the house to collect my bag I caught sight of the phone, my hand was again guided towards it and I picked up the red telephone I dialled Stanley's number. Beep! Beep! Beep! The phone signalled that the other end was either busy or disconnected so I slammed it back down onto the box as I rushed out of the front door, leaving a message along with 70 dollars on the counter so that Levi could take Charlie to the zoo and buy them both a pizza for tea.
I listened to the radio on the way up to the airport which was 30 minutes away from my house, I turned the dial until I found a frequency and waited for the speakers to blare out some form of new music but what the speakers did say shocked me.
"Your listening to the Rich 'Records' Tozier evening show, I'm hear everyday from five to six. Today we have an entraining story from none other than Buster Bumblekiss."
I listened to Richie's scratchy but homely voice droning on about a murder in his most recent crime story and as I approached the airport I found myself reluctant to turn it off.
I took my seat on the plane after stowing my bag in the overhead storage lockers and watched as the air hostess' checked that they were all shut. My fingernails dig into the glossy leather as the plane tipped backwards to take off from the runway. Once we were securely in the air, some members of the crew came round with a tray of drinks and I read the whole of the book "The black river rapids" which I had picked up from the duty free in the air port. It was the only book that I could find in the whole shop with the author Bill Denbrough and I tucked it into my bag once I had finished reading it, intent upon the idea that Bill could sign it for me and then I could gift it to Levi to help him with his creative writing degree or even convince Bill to come up to Chicago to discuss writing with him.
At some point during the flight my eyes closed and I drifted off the the gentle humming from the engine of the jumbo jet.