Mike Hanlon. Hearing the name sent a chill through her.
"Mike... oh my gosh... how are you?"
There was a brief pause and then a sigh on the other line. "Jessica. It's come back." Mike paused again. "How much do you remember?"
Then it hit her like a ton of bricks. Derry. The clown. Neibolt Street. Richie. She hadn't thought of him in years. But it was flooding back. He was her first love. Her first... a lot of things.
"Umm, its coming back to me..." Jessica replied, still partially caught up in her thoughts.
"Will you come then? Back to Derry?"
That face. Horrifying clown face. She could now remember it like it was yesterday. Chills ran down her spine.
"Yes, of course I'll come". She answered with a shiver.
"Are you still with Richie, is he there with you?" Mike asked, wondering if he'd have to make one less phone call.
"No... no I haven't seen him... since I was 16 I think..."
She remembered the last time she saw him. His dark brown eyes looked down at her from under his curly mop of raven black hair. She saw the smattering of freckles on his nose and cheeks she loved so much. And those thick lensed glasses that she liked to steal from him. He pretended it pissed him off, but Jessica knew he thought it was adorable.
Normally he was all jokes and laughs, but at that moment the look on Richie's face broke her heart.
Her father had been hired on at a new law office in Boston and her family was leaving that day.
Jessica and Richie were the last two of the Loser's Club left in Derry, and in all honesty they thought nothing could ever tear them apart. They were starting to plan their lives together, and six months before Richie had even proposed.
But here they were, saying goodbye. When Jessica had first learned of her dad's new job she thought maybe she and Richie could make a go at a long distance relationship. But then reality set in and they realized this was the end of their love story.
Jessica held on tighter to Richie and put her head on his chest, then looked up at Richie again for one last kiss.
They were broken from their embrace by her father honking the car horn, and Jessica remembered her family was waiting for her in the station wagon, and the engine was running.
She looked into Richie's eyes once more, tears streaming down her face.
Richie was the first one to speak. "I love you" was all he said. No other words needed to be spoken. His sad eyes said it all.
She let go of his hand and walked towards the car, looking back at him longingly. "I love you too, more than you'll ever know."
And with that she got in the car and closed the door and the car pulled away from the curb, away from Richie, away from the love of her life.
Jessica assured Mike she would come back to Derry as soon as possible and hung up the phone. She looked around her large condo trying to think of what to do first. She saw her bedroom door and decided to go pack a bag of clothes and other necessities, and then she'd look online for a flight to Derry.
As she was pulling some shirts out of a dresser drawer she looked up and saw her jewelry tree, she got it to keep her many necklaces (which she never seemed to wear but collected anyways) neat and tidy. One necklace in particular caught her eye. It was a simple gold chain with a gold ring hanging off it. The ring itself was also rather plain, it was just a gold band with a pretty floral pattern with lilies engraved in it. She ran her finger along the engraving. She couldn't remember where she got the ring, but felt the need to bring it with her. She took the necklace with the ring off its hook and put it in a small pocket in the overnight bag she was packing. She then quickly pulled open a few other dresser drawers to pull out more items she needed for her trip.
When she was done packing she jumped on her laptop and did a quick google search for flights to Derry, Maine from Seattle, Washington. She looked down at the clock on her computer screen, it was 9:35. If she got out to the airport right away she could catch a red eye and be at Bangor International by 8am. She booked her flight and then made a call to her assistant Laura from her interior design studio Design by Jessica and let her know she would be leaving for a few days. Laura had been concerned with the sudden need for the trip but let Jessica know she'd try and hold down the fort until Jessica returned.
If she returned.
It was the summer of 1989, and Jessica was riding over to her dad's office to bring him his lunch he had forgotten at home. She parked her bike and walked in through the front door of the office, the bells on the door jingling to let the staff know someone had come in. The front of the building where the receptionist Frieda sat was unusually empty. She was always on hand to take phone calls which came in quite frequently. But there was no Frieda, and the phone was silent.
"Dad?" She called. "It's Jessica, I've got your lunch."
No response, just chilling silence. Then she heard a rustling sound come from the back of the office, near Mr. Lancaster's, her dad's bosses, office. Mr. Lancaster always gave Jessica the creeps. The way he stared just a little too long, with that creepy smile.
Jessica slowly walked down the hall between the two rows of cubicles, towards Lancaster's office. When she got to his office door she walked in hesitantly. It was empty too. She approached his desk, looking at various documents he had layed out.
"Ahhh, if it isn't little Miss Sanders, how nice it is to see you." Came a voice behind her. Jessica spun around. It was Lancaster standing in the office doorway, sporting his usual creeper smile.
"I-I just came to bring my dad his lunch, where is he?" Jessica asked.
Lancaster walked over to the young girl and put his hand on her shoulder.
"Aren't you sweet. Well you see I asked him to run an errand for me. He shouldn't be too long." He said, now squeezing Jessica's shoulder slightly. 'Why don't you have a seat and tell me about how your summer is going."
Jessica thought for a second, she could just get out of Lancaster's office and leave the lunch on her dad's desk. Dad surely wouldn't mind if she didn't stick around.
"Thanks Mr. Lancaster, but I think I'll just put this on dad's desk now, I have to go meet my friends soon." Jessica replied. Suddenly Lancaster's hand was squeezing her shoulder tightly, painfully even... she looked down and his hand now had a white glove on it. She turned slightly and saw there were now orange pom poms on his suit jacket where the buttons should be. And finally she looked up at his face, but it wasn't Mr Lancaster she was looking at, it was a creepy looking clown with a white face and fiery red hair.
Is this the clown Bill had seen? The thing that had killed Georgie?
"Oh please don't leave, I can take you to the other children, and there you can float like them! They all float Jessica AND SOON YOU WILL TOO!" The clown laughed, opening his mouth to expose razor sharp teeth.
Suddenly she heard the front door to the office open, and the door bells jingling, and the clown suddenly disappeared. Jessica ran out of the office and towards the front door accidentally dropping her dad's lunch on the ground without noticing, she turned to look behind her to see if the clown had returned. She ran straight into someones arms and let out a scream. She looked up, but it was just her dad, looking concerned.
"Jessica, what are you doing here? You look like you've seen a ghost." Her dad asked, pulling her into a hug.
Jessica looked up at her dad. He smiled at her and suddenly she felt a bit better. "You forgot your lunch at home, so I brought it here and Mr. Lancaster..."
Her dad laughed. "Honey, Mr. Lancaster isn't here. He doesn't work on Mondays. You know that."
Jessica's eyes widened "But I thought..."
Still laughing her dad hugged her again. "So where did my lunch go? You didn't forget it too did you?"
She looked down the hall and saw it laying near Mr. Lancaster's office. "Oh I dropped it when I heard the front door open, I didn't know it was you." Jessica explained.
She ran over to Lancaster's office to grab the lunch and happened to peak inside. On the ceiling was written "THEY ALL FLOAT JESSICA" in what looked like blood. She gasped and quickly picked up the lunch and ran back to her dad, handed it to him quickly, and ran out of the office without another word. Jessica had never felt more relieved to be outside.
She grabbed her bike, hopped on, and took off as fast as she could. She continued through town and found herself outside a familiar house. She unceremoniously dropped her bike on his lawn and frantically knocked on the front door. Soon after Richie opened it, and Jessica thrust herself into his arms.
"What's doing, doll? Missed me that much, eh?" Richie said with a laugh, but when he looked down and saw the look of horror in her eyes he changed his tune. "Jess, what happened?" Then he felt her start sobbing.
Richie let Jessica in and curled up with her on the couch in the front room. She tearfully explained what happened at her dad's office and he listened intently.
"Wow, when Bill told us about seeing a clown and Georgie in his basement I thought he was just losing his shit, but maybe there's something to this after all."
"I'm so scared Rich. This is what killed Georgie and all those other kids. Are we next?" Jessica cried, looking up into Richie's eyes.
Richie put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up. "No one will hurt you Jess, I won't let them." He looked into her eyes, hoping to somehow reassure her she was safe. Then he closed the gap between them and kissed her lovingly. Jessica returned the kiss, and then lay her head down on Richie's chest.
She hoped he was right.
Jessica snapped out of the memory and looked at her phone, realizing the time, and quickly made another call, this one to a cab company.
The flight to Derry wasn't crowded and she had the whole row of three seats to herself. She sat back and tried to get comfortable, well as comfortable as you can in a airplane seat. Then pulled out a book from her purse that she brought to read on the plane, she could never seem to sleep on planes, but couldn't stay focused on it. Her mind kept wandering. To him.
The fall of 1991 was unusually warm so she had left her bedroom window open to hopefully cool down a bit before going to bed. Sitting at her desk she was trying to finish up her English homework. She had on a old t shirt of Richie's that she swiped off him to sleep in and a pair of pajama shorts. Jessica heard a knock near her window and her boyfriend came tumbling through it soon after and into her room.
"Shhhh! Richie, my parents are asleep, they'll kill you if they find you in here!" Jessica whispered loudly.
Then she saw it, the black eye, it was a little hard to see it under his glasses at first, but now it was obvious. She ran over to Richie and hugged him and then carefully examined his eye, taking off his glasses and placing them on a table near her window. She looked up into his beautiful brown eyes and wondered how anyone could hurt such a sweet boy. It broke her heart.
"I guess Went wasn't so pleased when I suggested he should run a comb through his ear hairs, they're starting to get a little bushy." Richie explained with a laugh.
"So he kicked you out again, huh?" Jessica surmised.
"Oh yeah, he popped me a good one in the face and sent me packin'. Maggie was there too but she was so drunk she could barely hold her head up let alone defend her only son... so yeah. Here I am. Again. Mind sharing a bunk with your annoying ol' boyfriend there sweetness?" Richie asked.
Jessica just continued looking in his eyes, and wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on her tip toes and kissed him with all the love and passion she felt for him, and moved him towards her bed. She pushed him down so he was sitting, and the slowly pulled off her t shirt, all the while never looking away from his eyes.
Richie gasped at the sight. "Babe, are you sure?" He asked, slightly stunned.
"Yes Richie I want you." Jessica breathed, and then sat down straddling Richie's lap, capturing his lips in another kiss and the pushed him so he was lying on the bed.
When Jessica arrived in Maine promptly at 8am she caught cab and headed over to Derry, checked in at the Derry Townhouse, and dropped off her overnight bag. Then she left to go for a walk to explore the town, noticing all the changes. One thing that hadn't changed however were the Curfew signs, still set for 7pm, and the amount of lost children posters posted on telephone poles. It seemed like there were more this time around. IT was hungry.
She wandered over to her dad's old office, which she discovered happily had been converted into a coffee shop. She was in dire need of her morning caffeine, she couldn't stand plane coffee, so she got herself a latte and a scone in a bag to go, so she could continue her tour of Derry. Then she walked over a park and sat down at a bench to enjoy her drink and the fresh air. Once she was finished the coffee, she went to unwrap her scone, but it wasn't a scone at all. It was a piece of rotten raw meat covered with maggots. She screamed and threw the package on the ground and noticed there was also a note with the meat. She got up off the bench knelt down and tried to pull out the note without touching the meat and maggots. She unfolded it. "Turn back before it's too late. You'll die if you try!" It read. She dropped the note and backed away from it, tears beginning to stream down her face.
After she has calmed down and took a nice stroll by her old home, and Richie's old home she checked the time on her phone. It was 12:45pm and she was to meet the others for at Jade of the Orient at 6pm, and she wanted to have a little nap, get cleaned up and changed before dinner so she headed back to the Inn. When she walked inside she found herself looking into the brown eyes of someone she hadn't seen since she was 16.
It was Richie, and he was just as handsome as she remembered him, if not more so. She ran over to him and immediately wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him desperately. When they finally broke away for air Jessica leaned over to Richie's ear.
"Did you get a room yet?" She asked, breathily.
"No." He replied.
She pulled out her inn room key and handed it to him. "Take me to my room." She pleaded.
He took her hand and they quickly made their way to her room. The second she closed the door and locked it Richie pushed her up against it and kissed her like he needed her kisses like he needed oxygen.
"I missed you... so much..." Jessica mumbled between kisses.
"I'm never letting you go ever again." Richie said while starting to kiss his way down her mouth to her neck, where he remembered it made her moan.
"Never again." Jessica echoed. "I'm yours forever."
"Forever." Richie whispered. Then he moved his lips down her neck and towards the neckline of her blouse, taking his time kissing her, memorizing her again. Enjoying every sigh and moan that fell from her lips.
"No teasing, I want you now." Jessica begged.
Richie didn't argue with that.
They pulled off each other clothes in a mad rush, desperate to be joined again.
Their lips connected again, and they moved towards the bed, Jessica falling onto it with Richie following her.
The two let out a collective sigh of relief as Richie entered her, slowly, giving her a chance to adjust.
Jessica mewled. "Mmmm so perfect... Richie..."
"So tight and sweet for me... I've missed this, missed you baby" Richie whispered in her ear, kissing down her neck nibbling, and leaving a mark.
"Faster, pleeease Richiiie. Harder!" Jessica moaned meeting Richie thrust for thrust.
Richie picked up the pace. "Oh god this feels so amazing, I don't know if I'm gonna last." He reached his hand down and rubbed her clit.
Jessica cried out, feeling her climax fast approaching. "It's ok baby, come for me." She breathed in his ear, nibbling on his ear lobe.
And then Richie let go and came harder than he ever had in his life, Jessica following in tandem and equal intensity.
They looked in each others eyes, just breathing, and taking in the moment. They hadn't thought of each other in years before last night, but now it was like they had missed each other every second they were apart.
Richie kissed her forehead, and then reluctantly pulled out and lay next to Jessica pulling her into his arms. The two fell asleep shortly after.
An hour or two later Jessica woke up, still in Richie's arms. He stirred soon after and looked down into her eyes.
"Whatcha thinkin' about, beautiful?" He asked.
Jessica sat up a bit, putting her chin on Richie's bare chest. "Do you remember how we first met?" She asked, running her hands through his still dark and luscious curly hair.
"Hmmm... refresh my memory." He replied, giving her a little kiss on her forehead.
She closed her eyes, loving the feel of his lips, it didn't matter where they were, she loved them.
"Well we were 11 and I had just moved to Derry. I was on my way home from school one day when Henry Bowers and his bitches cornered me near old lady McClelland's house. You saw them and came up behind them..."
"Oh yeah and I told Henry he must be pretty desperate if he's going for middle school chicks. No offense to you of course." Richie said with a smile.
"Yeah, I know, you were just trying to get his attention, I didn't mind. He turned around and then you punched him in the nose and he went down. You broke his nose! I don't know how you did it, cause let's face it, Henry was a lot bigger than you, but he went down like a ton of bricks. His goons went to go check him and pulled him up and took off like a bunch of scaredy cats. Scared of an 11 year old..."
"11 and three quarters, thank you very much." Richie sassed.
Jessica just rolled her eyes and giggled. "And you gallantly walked over to see how I was."
"Always the gentleman for M'lady." He grabbed one of her hands and kissed it.
Jessica sighed dreamily. "And you looked into my eyes and it was at that moment I fell in love with you." She touched his cheek and kissed him softly. "I fell so deeply in love with you."
Richie smiled. "I still have no idea why. I mean look at the other guys... there was Big Bill, Stanley... or should I say Stud-ley the man, then Haystack came along who always had a way with words, and Wise old Mike with those nice eyes. Oh hell Eds was more of a catch than me... even with his two fanny packs and insane mom breathing down his neck. I was just a Trashmouth."
"Yeah, but none of them were you. You were who I wanted. Who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with..."
"And you probably would stayed with me if your dad and his infinite wisdom hadn't moved you away. I wanted to marry you. Have kids with you." Richie interrupted.
Jessica's face lit up. "The ring!" Then she got up and ran over to her overnight bag.
"What's wrong, doll? You're not leavin me are ya? Slam, bam, thank you Richie."
Jessica continued riffling through her bag and finally came upon the tiny zippered pocket and pulled out the ring on the chain. She turned around and lay back down with Richie. "No, silly." She laughed, swatting his chest lightly. "Do you remember this ring?" She held up the gold band and Richie took it in his hand, feeling along the floral engraving with his finger.
"I gave this to you." Richie said, remembering suddenly.
"Yes, we were at the Quarry one afternoon. We had gone for a swim and you pulled the ring out of the pants you had left on the quarry rocks and got down on one knee. It was so perfect." Jessica went on looking at the ring.
Richie scratched the back of his neck. "I may or may not have stolen this ring from my mom. I woulda taken one with a diamond, cause she had two, but she might have noticed it missing and then killed me. Or had my dad do it or something. Plus this one has lilies on it, and they're your favorite flower."
Jessica felt tears forming in her eyes and she wrapped her arms around Richie's neck. "I love you so much." She sniffled.
Richie wrapped his arms around her and whispered "I love you too, more than you'll ever know."