In the six months since Mike Hanlon had packed up his modest home in Derry, Maine, he'd made and benefitted from a lot of positive changes. He was sleeping better for one thing, and the deep-set creases under his dark eyes had faded a little, and his complexion was less sallow, his skin a richer, warmer brown than before. And who wouldn't sleep better, once finally free of the Monster, of Derry, of IT? Who wouldn't sleep a little easier and eat a little more knowing that such a horror show was finally over, credits rolled out, house lights up. Hawkins, Indiana was a lot like Derry, but not in any way that frightened him. It was a quaint town, still holding on to the cheerful charm of the 40s and 50s, despite the teenage greaseballs on motorcycles riding up and down Main Street, whistling at the girls who loitered around the Record Stop after school. Hanlon surveyed the street from the first floor window of his office in the Hawkins Public Library. He surveyed this scene with some reluctance, however. He himself had not rode a motorcycle down Main Street in Derry, whistling at girls or goofing off with his pals. His gang, The Loser's Club, had disbanded in 1958 when they defeated It the first time, and they had never again been whole. Stan Uris had slashed his wrists in the bathtub not twenty minutes after he'd called in '83. He'd read about it in the paper. Eddie Kaspbrak, god love him, had lost an arm to It during the final confrontation down in the sewers, and bled out in a sorta heroic way. But after all that, it had been over, and they'd all agreed it had been worth it. Mike, who had felt tied to Derry since the day he was born, left on the very day they emerged from the sewers. The job in Hawkins hadn't been planned; he'd never even heard of the place, but he was pointed toward the town by a Hawkins native, local teacher by trade, who he'd met on the greyhound out of Bangor. With just short of sixty dollars in his savings account, he figured it was a good idea to take any job offered to him.

The real similarities between Derry and Hawkins began in earnest in early spring of 1984. Mike had, of course, heard about the missing kids in 83, it had happened not long before he'd arrived in town, but one had been found alive and well and the other was a teen who had most likely run away. These were not tragedies to Mike Hanlon, who had seen the dismembered and disfigured corpses of his own classmates in 1958 and those of other local kids in 1983. To Mike Hanlon, a simple runaway was about as peaceful as it got. But in March 1984, the body of six-year-old Jamie Beckers washed up in the Hawkins quarry, minus his left leg and part of his right arm. There were bite marks around the ragged edges where his limbs had been pulled off. From the pictures he'd bribed out of a deputy at the Sheriff's department (up to your old tricks Mike is it starting again is it how) the boy's face had a stiff, glazed look that was more than familiar. Despite the missing limbs, Mike Hanlon was fairly sure the boy had died of fright.

"It can't be," he'd muttered lightly under his breath, sure his face was betraying the dawning dread he felt.

"Shouldn't be, small town like this, but there it is." The deputy caught a look at his face and shuffled his feet a little. "Say, Mr Hanlon, what do you want to look at those pictures for anyway? Aren't you a library man?" Mike had been prepared for this. Chief Rademacher back in Derry had regarded him first with suspicion and then with hostility when he'd started asking questions in '83, and the 'concerned citizen' bit would only get you so far.

"I've always had an interest in the macabre," Hanlon offered a grimace. "My friend, a good friend of mine is a horror writer, and I like to give him ideas when I can. His name is Bill Denbrough, if you've heard of him." The deputy reached a hand up to scratch his head, looking off to the side, but Mike had seen a brightness in his eyes. Bingo.

"That wouldn't be the fella who wrote 'The Black Rapids', would it? My wife liked that book a lot."

"The very same. Say, I think I'll ask him to come visit me here in Hawkins soon, stay a week or so. I'm sure he'd love to meet your wife, sign a few copies in person, what do you say?" The deputy was turning an unsavory shade of purple.

"Oh, ayuh, I think she'd like that a whole lot. You're a good guy, Mr. Hanlon." Mike felt the blood drain from his face and an unpleasant sensation like pins and needles prick up behind the skin on his cheeks at the use of that expression so often used in Derry. Ayuh. He hadn't heard it anywhere in Indiana before.

"It's no problem," he said, sounding smoother than he felt. "Any friend of mine is a friend of Bill's."

"A friend, yeah. We're friends. So I guess I don't mind you looking at those pictures, or passing the idea along to the writer. You'll tell him where you got the pictures for when he writes his book though, won't you? I think my wife would get a kick out of seeing my name in the credit line."

"Oh sure, sure I will." He wouldn't pass the name or the idea along, and any invite he did send Bill would be a summons back into the Hell they'd all been so certain had closed forever. He would not call Bill, or any of them, until and unless it became necessary. As before, he had to be 100 percent sure.

Only two days after the body of the Beckers kid washed up, Jenny and Jackie Kane, two beautiful twin girls of fourteen, were found mutilated in the stretch of woods out by the junkyard. They had been missing less than 24 hours, and had probably been killed on their way home from school. Their mother had not even reported their disappearance to the police because she'd gone to bed early the night before after taking some sleeping pills and had assumed they'd gone right to school in the morning without waking her. The bodies had been found by a couple of joggers around eight AM. The paper suggested animal attacks, but Mike knew better and wished he didn't. What he wouldn't give for a pack of feral wolves or a rabid bear. What he wouldn't give for a little normalcy. But there was none to be had, and with three dead in a matter of a few days, Mike Hanlon made a call.

"Hello, you've reached the office of Benjamin Hanscom. How can I direct your call?" The bubbly voice of Ben's receptionist lilted into the phone. It sounded alien against the bleak backdrop that had settled around Mike since he'd decided to make the call.

"I need to speak with Mr Hanscom on a private matter of some urgency."

"Who may I say is calling?"

"This is Mike Hanlon. He'll know the name."

"Alright sir, I'll see if Mr Hanscom is available. Hold please." Mike waited for the call-holding music, but the line clicked and Ben's voice came out of the speaker before it had a chance to start.

"Mike? Sheila said it was Mike Hanlon calling, is this Mike?"

"Yeah. Hi Ben. How's Bev?" Calling Ben Hanscom first was essentially killing two birds with one stone. After the final confrontation in Derry, Ben Hanscom had finally gathered the courage to ask Beverly Marsh on a date. After a painful pre-adolescent summer of longing and several decades of complicated relationships with red-heads who were not Beverly, all it had taken was a bloody showdown with a monster as old as time.

"She's good. We both are. Mike, it's not like I'm not glad to hear from you, but-"

"I know. Believe me, Ben, I wouldn't be making this call if I didn't have to. You know how I hate to be the bearer of bad news."

"Yeah. And yet you always seem to be left with that job." Ben sounded weary, but not frightened. Probably he thought something unfortunate had happened, maybe that Bill had a stroke or Richie's trashmouth had gotten him knifed over a botched mugging.

"I... there isn't an easy way to say this, because we didn't swear again and I know you won't want to hear it, but..."

"But what? Why are you bothering me?" There was a pitchy, panicked note to Ben's voice now. Perhaps he'd started to sense something... the fear.

"I think It's back. I don't think... I don't think we killed it for good." There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, and Mike would have thought he'd hung up if it wasn't for the low sound of Ben's breathing.

"You're in Derry?" He asked eventually, quietly.

"No. I'm in Indiana, in a town called-"

"Indiana? For Chrissake, Mike, what do you think you're playing at? It is dead, and It is dead in Derry. Indiana, jeeee-sus!"

"I know how it sounds! Maybe It's back and maybe it's something else, but there are three children dead here in the less than a week. Limbs missing, torn clean off, bitemarks that look almost human... but mostly it's their faces, Ben. The little kids faces. It's like they died of pure fright. Looking at them is so much like looking at Huggins and Criss in the tunnels. I... do you believe me?" Mike hadn't realised it before, but he was desperate for Ben to believe him and to come.

"Believe you?" Ben replied softly. His voice had changed, had taken on a soft, hollow edge. "After everything we've been through together, I believe you. Mike I wish I didn't. I wish you hadn't called, even if that meant I never heard from you every again in my whole goddamn life. Do you believe me?"

"Yes." It stung a little but Mike didn't allow it to hurt too much. He didn't blame Ben for that. And he couldn't feel too hurt, because he knew, by the sheer honestly in Ben's words and tone, that he would come. And if he would come, Bev would, and probably Bill too. Probably Richie, too.

"I'll come. I'll ask Bev, too, but I won't ask her to come, you understand me? This is not the same as before, I know that, because It is dead and we made sure It was, and we lost Eddie when we killed it, but I'll come because you're asking me to, and I'll help if I can. But I won't ask Bev to come, Mike."

"I appreciate that. I called you, not her. And I'll call Bill and Richie, but I'll leave you to talk to Bev however you want to, Ben."

"Alright." Ben sighed. "So you called me first. Last time you called Stan first, and he killed himself. I'm not going to do that, but it's a sure as shit bad omen that you called me first."

"I shoulda called Bill first."

"On that we can agree. Call him second. Where did you say you were?"

"I didn't. It's Hawkins, Indiana. I'm at the Hawkins Public Library."

"Jee-sus." Ben whistled low through his teeth. "Feels a lot like trying to see to the future through a funhouse mirror."

"Being a Librarian is what I'm good at, I make no apology."

"I know. I'll leave tonight, I need to explain to Bev and she's at work for now."

"That's alright. Look me up when you get here, or just come by the library. I'll wait for you."

"Alright. Bye, Mike. I... I guess I'll see you soon."

"I guess you will. Bye Ben." The line clicked off and Mike felt a feeling of loss wash over him. He had known Ben in one form or another for the whole of his meaningful life, and had trusted him implicitly, but as the call ended he had felt sure that Ben had just lied to him. About coming probably not, but about telling Bev? Maybe. Because Bev would come, Mike knew that and Ben probably knew it too. And coming here would be dangerous.