Hullo guys!
Sorry I haven't posted in quite a bit. I haven't really been on, because I didn't have wifi for this whole weekend. I just realized that I haven't really put any author's note kind of stuff at the beginning of this story. I usually do, or did, on my fictionpress account, at least. Well, here it is. My first little note. Hope you like chapter 4! Little bit longer than the rest, which I think/hope is a good thing.

Anyhow. Read on...

XOXO,

-StandingByChambers

Chris slipped as quietly through time towards the lunch table as possible. Teddy and Vern's backs were towards him, but Gordie was facing him, and smiled when he saw the funny expression upon his friend's face. He was avoiding Vern and Teddy, and making a fool of himself for the purpose of Gordie's entertainment.

"What?" That was Teddy. "What's so funny?"

"Hey!" A voice came from behind. It was Chris, looking happy and slightly nervous at the same time. He sat down at their table, which was positioned at the back left of the small lunchroom.

"Well, would you look who it is?" Teddy said, folding his hands in front of him and placing them on the table with a placid kind of annoyance. "Chambers. The kid who didn't come to shop class today. Where the hell were you, man?"

"Yeah! We had to listen to Mr. Wilson talk about 'the art of wood' for forty-five minutes straight without you." Vern cut in. His pudgy face was somehow slightly discolored.

"Yeah, about that…" Chris rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. Man, they were going to be pissed. "I…I kind of joined the college courses with Gordie."

The shocked look on the two boy's faces were just enough to make Chris take back everything. "Don't get me wrong-It's not like I don't want to hang with you guys and talk about 'the art of wood', but it's just that…" Chris fumbled with his words. "How do I put this…Look, I've got this thing. It's called a last name. My last name. Chambers. And…I kind of have to prove to everyone in this goddamn town that it doesn't define me. Before it's too late."

Vern and Teddy just stared at him blankly.

"Well," Teddy said finally, "You're sure as hell starting to sound like one of those college course smart asses to me already. I'm telling you; keep this up and mid October, you'll be coming in wearing a suit and tie."

The others snorted.

Teddy began to pull out a cigarette.

"Shit, Teddy, put that away!" Chris quickly slapped his friend's hand away from his jacket pocket before anyone saw.

"The hell was that for?" Teddy asked incredulously, his eyes wild.

"You can't smoke in school, Ted." Chris said, giving him a dark look that asked Teddy why in God's name would he think it was okay to take a smoke with teachers looking over your shoulder every five minutes. Vern cracked up. "It's not summer anymore."

Teddy rolled his eyes, but obliged.

"Whatever you say, pop." He muttered.

"Anyways!" Vern broke the silence after a few moments. "What the hell are we going to do about the…you know…"

"Oh, shit, right." Gordie slapped his forehead. "I say we call into the station right when we get out. My place."

"But I'm not allowed in your place, remember?" Chris said with a slight groan.

Gordie sighed. Out of all the boys Gordie hung out with, Chris was most likely the most hated out of the lot, mostly because of his being branded a thief from that time in grade school when he stole the milk money.

"But it's alright." Chris added quickly, "I can go in through the back door or something."

"Naw, man," Teddy said, "Let's just go right to the station and tell them!"

"You sure?" Vern said.

"Sure as shit!" Teddy replied. The others cracked up. Teddy just looked at them blankly, as if what he had just said was completely serious.

"Alright." Gordie said in a settling tone, "We'll do that. Meet right outside of the school after class." Gordie's gaze shifted over to Chris, but his friend he wasn't listening.

Gordie punched Chris's shoulder.

"Chris." Gordie called out to him, but his eyes were glued on something across the room. "Chris?" Gordie waved his hand in front of his friend's face, "Chrissssss…Chris!"

"What?" Chris finally snapped out of it.

"Are you good with that?" Gordie asked, craning his neck towards him as if to say 'Remember? The conversation we just had?'

"With what?" Chris wouldn't pry his eyes away from whatever he was looking at.

"Jesus…" Gordie muttered.

"What the hell'r you looking at, Chambers?" Teddy demanded bluntly, taking no feelings into account. "Heh?" He swiveled around in his seat to look in the direction of Chris's gaze, and so did Vern.

Bonnie Swan looked down at her plate abruptly, but the message was turned, exaggeratedly slow.

"Bonnie. Fucking. Swan?" He said, a look on his face like he had just been smacked.

"Well….I mean, I don't-"

"Man, she's a View chick. You can't like Bonnie Swan! She'll eat you alive! Plus, she'd never like one of us." They all knew what he meant by 'one of us'. Middle to lower class. All the kids from the View, the nearly separate part of Castle Rock where the richer people lived, almost never crossed paths with them. Nonetheless, Teddy had absolutely no control and was totally out of place.

"Gee, thanks." Chris looked down at his hands. "I don't even like her. She's just…staring at me." Chris checked again to see if her dark eyes were looking his way. They weren't.

"Yeah, of course. A Swan falling for a Chambers." Teddy scoffed, sarcasm thick in his tone. "Likely."

Gordie leaned over the table and punched him in the shoulder. Teddy glared at him.

"Ha. Thanks for reminding me, Duchamp." Chris muttered. He looked to his right, his left. "Awe, shit. Forgot my lunch at home." He frowned, thinking about what to do.

"Just buy some." Vern suggested, and the rest cackled with laughter. Nobody would even dare touch the school lunches, and, plus, all four of them knew that they didn't simply carry lunch money around with them. Actually, they didn't carry money in general.

"Hey," an idea sprang in Chris's mind, "Bet I can run home and come back before lunch is over."

The other three exchanged looks to each other.

"I ran all the way hoooome!" Vern, Teddy and Gordie howled in terrible three part harmony, "Just to say I'm soooooryyyy!"

Chris chuckled.

"No, seriously, guys." He said with a slight smile lingering on his lips, "Lachance, come with?" He asked. His eyes secretly pleaded him to.

"Yeah, sure." Gordie said, jumping up from his seat. "Be back soon."

Teddy and Vern turned in their seats and watched them go.

"Yeah, sure!" Teddy called after them, "Leave us here! Real great friends you are!"

"Screw them…" They heard Vern mutter.

But there were other things being said. Other things being said that Chris and Gordie could hear prickling at their ears. Judging by what they could pick up, word had most definitely gotten out that Chris was now taking the college courses.

The way Gordie saw it, the student body was like a big, fat shark, or an alcoholic man with no control. There was one person, or maybe a few people, or a couple of certain points from which gossip and rumors flowed. The rumors and gossip were to the school as a six pack of beers were to that alcoholic man, or like a dolphin to that shark. They just ate and ate and ate. They consumed this kind of stuff. Basked in it. And when the gossip ran out, they just made up shit. Anything. Everything! The sad thing was, Chris was most definitely one of those points where that stuff came from. Gossip just flowed from him. But it wasn't like he spread it. He made it. He was the gossip. He was their prime idol. Their slave. Everything he did, any time he got in trouble, word spread like wildfire. He was a pulse point. Anything he did just gave that alcoholic more stuff to get drunk on. And right now, his joining the courses was like a gallon of wine for those little assholes.

Chris and Gordie slipped out of the school and into the hot, summer air. It was easier than they had perceived, to simply leave the place. Nobody stopped them.

It was hot outside. Hotter than it was that morning. The bright sun hung high up in the sky, a glittering ball of fire that, when it struck one's skin, would send beads of sweat running down your face. It was the kind of heat that would radiate off the pavement in water-like strands.

The two boys set out, walking as fast as they could through the grueling heat.

"Can't believe they killed him." Chris muttered, shaking his head in disbelief, "I always knew that Ace and Eyeball and the rest were bad, but I never knew that they would ever...you know…"

"Yeah." Gordie said. "It seems kind of impossible...I mean, what could Brower have seen and heard and stuff? He doesn't even live in Castle Rock."

Chris sighed.

"I have absolutely no never even did anything….that bad…"

Gordie and Chris exchanged a look before they both snorted with laughter. There were many things that the Cobras had done that was bad enough that if someone had overhear, they'd want them shut up. The only thing was, murder pretty much stomped every bad thing that the Cobras had ever done.

"How could they have gone as to do that? What could have possibly been so bad?" Gordie thought out loud.

"I don't know. All I know is that if they find out what we know, we'll be dead."

The two boys walked in the sweltering summer heat all the way across town to Chris's house. The two looked up at the little white house, which had obviously seen better days. It's cream-tinted paint was peeling off to reveal the matchbox-thin wood exterior.

Gordie had only been in Chris's house a few times in his lifetime. He'd seen it, but it was only on rare occasions like this one that Gordie actually set foot in the dusty old place, which reeked of alcohol and the slight undertone of mildew.

"You think your dad'll be there?" Gordie asked, still looking up at the place. Gordie would never admit it to anybody-ever-but he was actually a little scared of Chris's dad. He had an out of control temper, a crude manner and, as far as he could remember, Gordie had never seen Chris's old man sobered up. Tell the truth, Gordie never really saw Chris's dad around at all. He was almost always too drunk to keep a job for longer than a month, so he never exactly came out of the house very much, save for special things like funerals and such, where he was forced to take a shower and put away the bottle for at least a little bit.

"Definitely." Chris said with a laugh, shoving his hands in the pockets of his old jeans, "Probably still snoring on the couch like he was since one in the morning."

Gordie's eyes wandered to the side of his friend's face. The bruise had been there all day, but Gordie now saw the goriness of it. It was a black and blue mark, sprinkled with red where the impact of whatever had hit him cut the skin, swirled with a grotesque shade of yellow, green and purple.

Chris looked over at Gordie, and attempted to hide the wound, but it didn't work. It isn't precisely easy to hide a giant bruise on your face. So he just began to walk towards his house.

Gordie didn't follow at first. He was just lost in thought.

Chris's dad hit him.

Well, Gordie already knew that. He always had. Chris was always being beat up. He always had bruises like that. Sometimes his mom had to call in and say he was sick because he was too cripple to go to school.

"Wait, Chris!" Gordie called, jogging to catch up to him as he trekked across the dead lawn.

Chris turned. It was obvious he was trying to hide the hurt in his chest.

"Hey." Gordie looked him straight into his eyes. "You don't have to hide that from me. I'm your best friend."

Chris looked down, and then back up again into Gordie's brown eyes.

"I know." He mumbled, and continued to walk.

"Chris." Gordie said, catching him by the arm, "If…I know it's hard. Obviously. It's just…if you ever need any help. Anything-"

"Yeah, Gordo." Chris sent him a feeble smile, "But I'd be calling your sorry ass over to my place every half an hour, though-"

"Don't say that." Gordie gripped his arm tighter as he tried to turn away, "Don't say that. I'm just a lucky-ass bastard that I don't get beat every day, but I swear to God, Chris, if ever in your life you need a place to hide…I'm here."

"I know." Chris said. He was almost not presence in the air. "I've always known. I've always know you'd be there for me. Your parents, on the other hand-"

"Fuck my parents!" Gordie threw his hands in the air. "You need help, you need to get away, well then they can just fall off a cliff for all I care."

Chris smiled. A sad little smile, sending a little bit of a lift across his entire face.

"You're my best friend, man." Gordie croaked, "They can't change that."

Chris smiled a little wider and ruffed Gordie's hair.

"Let's go get my shit before dad craps a mountain if he catches us out here." Chris said, and the two inched cautiously towards the house.

Chris's house was just as Gordie remembered it to be; musky and scented of his father's beer. The scent was overwhelming, and Gordie tried his best to hold in a cough.

The boys looked around the dusty place. In front of them was the living room, with their old TV and the worn-out couch, which was covered in dirt and grime and other things of unknown origins. To the left was the dining room, which consisted of a beat-up old table and four mis-matched chairs. Behind that was the kitchen, but neither boys could make out what horrors that could possibly bestow, for the lights were off. Between the living room and the dining room, a set of old stairs that lead up to the bedrooms, on the side of which was a hallway, a single light flickering to light the way down the wall-papered walls. That hallway, Gordie guessed, lead to the door to the basement or a closet or bathroom or something. He really couldn't tell what was at the end of it. There was simply an ugly-looking door standing there like a body guard.

"Wait here." Chris said in a loud whisper, and crept towards the kitchen. Instantly, he was engulfed in the darkness. Chris flicked a light on somewhere beyond the dark room. Gordie could hear his footsteps hit the creaky wood floors.

Chris's dad hit him.

The thought popped up in Gordie's mind before he could even stop it. It kept coming back, poking at the back of his brain. The thing was, it was like Chris felt as if he couldn't do anything about it. He felt like it was a fate created by God. Something that he couldn't change.

Chris

(Chris's)

Felt

(Dad)

Completely

(Hit)

Powerless

(Him)

There was a crash. A loud crash, coming from the end of the dark hallway. Gordie swiveled his head around, just in time to see the door at the end of the hallway burst open, to revile a man. He was a large, burly man in a stained white shirt, and a line of stubble across the bottom half of his face, making it clear to Gordie that he hadn't shaved in days. His hair was of a dark blond, greying at the roots. A half-empty bottle of cheap beer lolled back and forth, hanging loosely at his side, the neck of it pinched dangerously between the man's beefy thumb and forefinger. His blood-shot blue eyes widened when he saw Gordie.

And this must be Mr. Chambers.

"H-hey!" The man yelled, just as Chris stumbled out of the dark kitchen, a brown paper bag in hand, "Hey!"

Gordie's whole body was paralyzed for only a few moments before he turned and ran. He didn't even look back.

Gordie bolted out of the door and down the lawn.

He scaled the picket fence that surrounded the Chambers's property with little difficulty, the grey soles of Gordie's Converse shoes hitting the pavement with a loud slap. That slap seemed to be the only thing he could hear over the sound of Chris's father shouting. He didn't even know if Mr. Chambers was following him or not. He simply ran.

After about two blocks of running, Gordie stopped to take a breather. His chest was heaving, his throat raggedy and his face wan and pasty, the blood drained from it's skin. Sweat stuck his dark hair to his forehead and the back of his neck. He looked down the street. Mr. Chambers wasn't even chasing him. He might as well have never been, but Gordie had been stuck in a trance of terror. He felt the same kind of desperate, uncontrollable fear that he had that day in the junkyard when Chopper had chased him.

In hindsight, Chris knew it was stupid bringing Gordie to his house. He already had known it was stupid to bring himself there, but to bring Gordie, well….

Chris felt so small, standing there in the living room, looking up at his father's furious eyes.

"Heyyyy dad." Chris said in a small voice.

"What are you doing here?" Mr. Chambers's voice was dark and deep. His breath was weirdly warm and smelled like beer.

"I just…" Chris held up the paper bag, "Forgot my lunch."

Chris's father looked at him for a bit.

"And you had to bring that Lachance kid around here with you?" Mr. Chambers questioned.

Chris struggled for an answer.

"I got into the college courses!" Chris mumbled cheerfully, changing the subject.

"College courses, ay?" Mr. Chambers raised an eyebrow in an amused way that made Chris fume, "And how did you do that?"

"I just…" Chris thought for a second. "I asked. They thought I was smart just let me in."

"So what are you going to do there? Learn some math and stuff? What's that to me?"

"I'm…I'm going to better my life." Chris looked down.

"Better your life?" Mr. Chambers's voice was rising, his face turning a putrid cream-red of ketchup mixed heavy cream, "What for?"

"I…" Chris stumbled with his words, "I want to go to college. I can live a better life."

"Collage!?" Mr. Chambers burst out laughing. "I ain't payin for any goddamn collage. Fuckin expensive. Fuckin useless. You'll never be any more than you are now. Useless."

"That's not true." Chris advanced on his father, "I'm going a better way now. I'm going on a different road. And every step leads further and further away from you and Eyeball and this entire fucking town!"

Mr. Chambers scoffed.

"Do you really think that any college is going to give a kid with your last name a scholarship to anywhere? You really think they're going to let a Chambers into Yale?"

Chris narrowed his eyes.

"That's just it." He spat. "That's where you're wrong. This little shit of a town is like your world. And in this little world, our name is jinxed. But outside of here, nobody knows who we are. The name Chambers means absolutely nothing to anyone outside of this place. You just can't see that because you are just too ignorant. And I think that you like being a Chambers. You like being able to have an excuse to get drunk and stay in here all day. You can just say it's fate. But maybe I don't want to have an excuse. Maybe I don't want to have my mistakes pre-made for me. And maybe, just maybe, I want to actually have a life, instead of just blaming it on my father, and his father, and his father, all the way back to the first fucked up Chambers ever created. And god forbid that I leave this town and try to make something of myself."

And he was gone. He slammed the door behind him and walked down the street until he met Gordie a couple blocks down.