A/N: This hurts me more than it hurts you.

Reviews pay my bills.


March 12th, 1966 – March 13th, 1966

It crouched upon the bed and licked blood from Its chitinous fingers. The toddler had been small, but it would be enough to stave off Its appetite for a little while. His parents would awaken to find his bedsheets bloodied and their child missing, inexplicably. No windows open, no locks broken. Just gone. It sensed Susan waking up as It crunched bone between Its teeth; she was accustomed to rising early for school, and the chill of the sewers had her restless before the sun was up. It brought the circus back before she became fully conscious.

When It returned, she was sitting up in her bed of hay, blonde hair a rat's nest around her head and blue eyes blinking sleepily.

"Where were you?"

"Out and about."

"I should probably be getting home."

"Aren't you hungry?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"What would you like?"

"Do you have pancakes?"

"Susie." Pennywise cocked Its head at her. "I can have anything."

A child-sized table and chair grew from the dirt floor of the circus grounds. On top of the table sat a plate of syrup-drenched pancakes, a fork, and a cup of milk. It knew she didn't like orange juice.

"Thanks." Susan plopped into the chair and yawned widely. "Are my parents worried?"

Behind her back, Its painted face stretched into a grotesque, sharp-toothed grin. "They haven't noticed you're missing yet."

Susan paused, fork spearing a soggy chunk of pancake. "Really?" Rather than appearing hurt, her brow furrowed suspiciously. "Mommy always gets me up for school. She even notices if I sleep in for five minutes."

"I don't know what you want me to tell ya, kid. Maybe they just need a little more time to fully appreciate how important you are to them."

Susan turned to frown at It. Its baby blues rolled in different directions, Its buck teeth worked at Its bottom lip. The picture of innocence.

"Why don't you stay the day? Consider it like a snow day."

"Well…"

"Please?" It pursed Its lips into a pout. "I have ring toss. And balloon burst. And sand art."

Susan beamed, glad to be wanted, glad to have her company desired. Its offers of games to play was secondary. The fact that she had made it through the night unscathed allayed some of her residual worries about Pennywise. "Ok, I'll stay!"


While Susan was absorbed in tossing ping pong balls at a cluster of fish bowls with cherry-red fish of indeterminate species inside, It snuck away. It stepped out of an alley next to Derry's corner drugstore in another of Its common forms, the human Robert Gray. Next to Pennywise, Gray was Its favorite.

Gray adjusted the lapels of Its conservative, charcoal-grey suit and took a cigar from Its breast pocket. Lighting the cigar with a snap of Its fingers, It started down the sidewalk, toward Susan's home, polished black dress shoes clicking on the cement. It was close to noon, the party should be in full swing.


Susan's mother (Henrietta), sitting on the porch, was the first to notice that there was a strange man standing on the sidewalk outside their house. He was stylishly dressed, tall, slim. His dark hair was carefully styled in a sharp sidecut, and although he was across the street from Henrietta, the man seemed to be holding back a smile, lips curling around the cigar they held. He stood, looking at the two police cars in the driveway, looking at Henrietta's flushed and tear-streaked face. His gaze moved to the wall of the house, as if he could see what was happening within.

An odd instinct stirred Henrietta. She rose with a wet sniffle and descended the porch steps, smoothing her wrinkled, slept-in dress. She crossed the yard, then the street, stopping before the man. She remained out of arm's reach. He towered over her, a full six inches taller than her Jeremy.

He was definitely fighting back a smile, unsuccessfully.

"Did something happen?" It asked, pinching the cigar between Its slender fingertips.

"Who are you?"

Robert's large green eyes seemed to flash, or spark, or crackle, or some combination of the three. "It's so hard to keep an eye on kids these days. You turn around for one second and they're gone right into thin air. Like smoke."

"Who the hell are you?"

"Jeremy made it back? He would have been able to speak to the police sooner if he wasn't galivanting with that little whore, am I right?" There was laughter in his voice.

"What the fuck?"

"Best of luck to you both. Hopefully Susan turns up."

"Who are you?! What did you do with Susan?!" Henrietta lunged at Robert, fingers curled into claws. It stepped back out of her reach. "Jeremy!"

Two women emerged from Susan's house, worry writ large upon their faces. Her friends, come to comfort her, who had given her a moment of peace on the porch and now saw her accosting an innocent bystander.

Robert lowered Its voice to a whisper. "She wanted to see the circus."

Henrietta dug her sharp pink nails into Robert's lapels and dragged It down to her level.

It dropped Its cigar, and Its chuckle echoed in Its throat behind Its tightly-pressed smile. Robert's eyes cut through her, down to her soul. "You're right to blame yourself. Maybe if you hadn't been drinking, you would have noticed her absence sooner."

"I swear to God, if you've laid a hand on her –"

"Henri!" The women grabbed Henrietta and pulled her back. Robert straightened Its suit, smile gone, brow furrowed with concern. One of the friends began to sputter an apology, but Robert waved her off.

"It's fine, no harm done."

"You bastard!" Henrietta spat.

"Henri!"

"I'll be going. I'm sorry, I don't know what I've done to upset her."

Henrietta's friends were still physically restraining her from attacking Robert. "I'll find you, you piece of shit, and whatever you've done to my daughter –"

"I assure you, I have nothing to hide," Robert insisted. "I'll be happy to cooperate with the police, if it makes you feel any better. Here's my card." It took a business card from inside the inner pocket of Its suit jacket, which one of Henrietta's friends plucked from Its fingers with a look of apology.

"Sorry about all this," the other friend said. They began to drag Henrietta away. Robert gave her a curt nod and walked back down the sidewalk.

"No! He knows about Susan! He laughed at me!"

"Henri, he wasn't laughing. Come on now. Let's get you inside."

Henrietta tried to tear her arms free. "He's getting away!"

"He gave us his card. We'll have the police send someone over. It has his name and work address. Look."

The card was waved in front of Henrietta's face. The cardstock was dirtied to a greyish white, and framed in red. The swirling, silver letters read:

Pennywise the Dancing Clown

Entertaining the People of Derry Since 1723

29 Neibolt Street, Derry, Maine

Henrietta was too stunned to offer any further resistance as she was towed into her home. The card disappeared after she set it on her nightstand. She did not bring up the incident to her husband, and her friends thought it prudent not to burden him with additional worries about his wife.


"Are my parents worried?"

"They've noticed you've gone, but they think you're playing a trick on them."

Susan wrinkled her nose. "You sure? They have to think something is up by now."

"Guess you'll just have to stay…"

Susan frowned, bag of popcorn in her hand forgotten, unease back. She decided that she would leave the next time It disappeared on one of Its mysterious trips, God knew where It went.

It kept a corner of Its mind watching her when It left to torment an old lumberjack with memories of his dead wife. Susan was still in the grip of the circus illusion, wandering around in circles in the bowels of the well house. She was looking for a way out, but she wouldn't find it within the billowing, shadowy tent. Not while It still had control over her. The sides of the tent were smooth, and pegged tightly to the dirt, no entrance flap to be found. She attempted to punch her tiny fist through the fabric, but it was unyielding. When It returned, she did not mention her attempts at escape.


Susan's second morning below 29 Neibolt Street dawned with Susan's statement that she wanted to be taken home to get ready for school. She began to gather up her bedding.

"I'd rather you didn't leave just yet. Stay. Have some fun. Eat some cotton candy." It conjured a stick of cotton candy with the old snap-behind-the-ear trick and handed it to her.

In a burst of temper, Susan threw the candy to the ground and yelled, "I'm not having fun!"

"You. Will. Stay. HERE." Its eyes flashed a sickly, evil yellow; needle teeth sprouted from Its gums.

Susan fell back and sprawled on grass tamped down by countless, imaginary, circus-going feet. Terror wafted across the space between them, making It salivate, making It hungry. The curves of Its painted-on smile began to bleed, drops of red paint rolling upwards from the cheetah slashes through Its eyes; claws ripped at the fingers of Its greyish gloves.

"I'll be back in a jiffy."

With a pop, Pennywise was gone. Susan let out a soft sob and got to her feet. She wrapped her arms around herself and shuffled to go sit near the stage, where the show continued in full swing, leaving the cotton candy forgotten.

It returned to Its crafted circus tent later in the evening. Hoping that Susan would have fallen asleep. She had not.

"I want to go home."

"Stop saying that, please."

"I don't want to be here."

"Right now I don't care what you want, Susie."

"I'll scream."

"You tried that already. No one heard you."

"But you'll hear me." Hunger had made her recalcitrant.

Its face twisted into an exaggerated grimace. "I have another idea." It put Its hands on Its knees and leaned close. "How about you play nice –" Its pupils grew to slits and Its mouth stretched into a sharp-toothed grin, "– and I don't eat your face."

"If you were going to hurt me, you would have already." Susan was sharp. Sharper than It had anticipated. "You aren't going to do anything to me. I don't think this is real. Any of it."

The circus evaporated like an exhale of condensation on a windowpane. The whites of Pennywise's eyes turned crimson, Its lips pulled back in a snarl and Its brows lowered into a scowl. Susan hesitated for only a moment as she took in the cistern around her. The filthy frozen puddles, the tower of junk, the shadowed tunnels. She didn't look too hard, knowing she would lose her nerve. Fear trembled at the edge of her mind, but she remained firm.

"I'm leaving." Susan set her jaw, gripped the straps of her backpack, turned, and ran. She chose a tunnel at random.

Its shriek of rage echoed after her, and she could hear It pursuing her. Crunching thin layers of sewer-water ice, scratching along the tunnel wall, clicking and buzzing and screeching. She no longer feared It above all else. More than It, she feared never seeing her family again, never sleeping in her own bed again, never going to class again. She missed her toothbrush, and her front door, and her mother's pancakes, and her father's cologne. And so she ran. She did not flee in terror; she forged ahead in determination. She would go home. She would leave the clown.

She did not look back, and so she did not see her death. It lunged, jabbing out with a long, crablike limb.

She no longer feared It. It, the immortal evil, the lurking terror, the nightmare come true.

It had pampered her, catered to her whims, entertained her.

It had been too caught up in Its… pathetic desire for something of what humans had that It lacked. Too caught up to see the danger growing under Its nose, too distracted to see that Its advantage was slipping, that Susan was learning.

It had grown soft.

The claw speared through Susan's backpack and chest and pinned her to the cement. The sound of the impacted reverberated through the tunnel. She died instantly, heart and spine destroyed.

For a long moment the spiderlike abomination hunched over Susan's corpse. It removed Its limb from her body with a soft sucking sound. Her blood seeped into the grey water. Gloved fingers formed at the ends of the crabbish leg, stretched out and gripped Susan's shoulder and turned her over. Its fingers ran along her torn breastbone, swept wet blonde hair from her blank face, traced her pink scar.

It wished she would have listened to It. Sharp Susan. Too sharp for her own good. Then It squashed that thought immediately. It scooped her up in Its mandibles and carried her back to the cistern. Her meat would not go to waste.


It remained awake for six months more, stalking and tormenting and consuming the people of Derry, crescendoing in a final act of violence caused by Its presence in the very fabric of the town: a gas station robbery – turned hostage situation – turned shootout. One of the hostages was never recovered. Appetite satiated, It retreated belowground to sleep. But not before It did two things:

First, It slipped back into the skin of Robert Gray and walked down to Susan's house in the dimming light of early evening. The police cars were long gone, questions asked, avenues of investigation exhausted. One parent remained home at all times, in case Susan returned or a captor called to demand ransom. It listened with Its vast consciousness, and heard Henrietta and Jeremy planning another search through the woods for Susan's remains. Robert left without drawing attention to Itself.

Second, It retrieved Alex's train from where it moldered under decades' worth of leaves and soil, and Susan's bear from her cold, stale bedroom. It set Its trophies (mementos? tokens? remembrances?) at the base of Its tower of junk. As a reminder. Precisely of what, It didn't dwell on.

And It slept.