Roland watched Stan incredulously as Eddie Dean held the boy, binding his arms down to his sides. Everyone else kept their distance, and Roland didn't condemn them for it. The wasteland was mute, aside from Stan's unintelligible shrieking, but the boy was so hysterical that no one could make out a word that he was saying. Even the trash mouth had nothing to say.
"Sugar, you need to calm down," Susanna spoke, trying to sooth the boy when he ran out of breath and stopped howling.
"I can't take it anymore!" Stanley shouted, his voice revived. "You have guns so what's the point of having them if you don't put them to use? Do it! Just do it, you motherfuckers!"
"Kid, we're not going to shoot you," Eddie Dean said, rolling his eyes.
"We've been out here for weeks, following this beam to a tower that Sara specifically told us not to go to. We're running out of food, there's no sign of us ever going back home, we keep getting calling cards from Pennywise, and this is never going to end!" Stan shouted. "I would rather die than see another one of those balloons again. It's the same thing over and over and over and over, and I can't take it anymore! We're never getting back to Derry! We are going to die out here, and at this point, I would prefer to do it sooner rather than later. Just shoot me right between the eyes already and leave me to die."
"No one is killing anyone," Roland said definitely.
"I don't want to go to the tower," Eddie Kaspbrak spoke up. "I don't want to die out here either."
"I don't want to see another balloon either," Ben grumbled. They'd encountered half a dozen red balloons, each with a nasty surprise inside. One had been full of hornets, another covered them in blood, one screamed and almost made them deaf, one was so traumatizing Ben didn't even want to think about it.
Each balloon had the same note. The kids all wanted to burn them, but Roland wouldn't let them. He said that paper was rare and precious in the world they were in. As long as the kids didn't have to see the notes, they didn't care either way. They knew what they said. Knew it by heart.
I hear you like poems
Fat boy, you do
So I've writ a lovely
Poem for you
No January Embers
No heart in your chest
Now sit your ass down
And read all the rest
Stay above ground
And children be wary
Don't talk to clowns
And stay far from Derry
Ben didn't like thinking about it, but whenever he wasn't walking or worried he was going to starve to death, those words swirled around his mind.
"Guys," Max said, trying to get their attention. Not that it was doing any good. Stan was still yelling at the gunslingers, telling them to kill him already. When no one acknowledged her, Max shouted, "Guys!" once more, just to ensure they had heard her.
This time, they went quiet and turned to look at her.
"What is it?" Roland asked.
Instead of answering, Max pointed at what had caught her eye.
It was another balloon, but this one wasn't floating towards them, and it wasn't red. It was green. It swayed back and forth in the breeze, almost beckoning them to approach.
"It's not coming towards us," El said, squinting and shielding her eyes so she could see it better.
"And it's green," Eddie Kasbrak said.
"It could be a trick," Jake said.
Max shook her head, a smile cracking her face. "No, it doesn't feel like the others."
"It doesn't feel like the others?" Stan repeated.
The kids glanced briefly at Stan before looking back at the green balloon. If he hadn't been so hysterical, he might have felt it too. It was different.
Before anyone could say a word to talk her out of it, Max started running towards the balloon. Her friends yelled at her to come back, but she didn't. She just kept running. Roland yelled at her to come back, but she didn't. Heaving an annoyed sigh, Roland ordered that the others stay there before he started running after Max.
Blue yipped excitedly before running after Roland and Max, just happy for a change in the routine. After that, everyone completely disregarded Roland's request. Eddie Dean pushed his wife in her wheelchair after the gaggle of children and Jake had gotten swept up in the need to run with a bunch of kids his age. The only one who didn't take off after the dog was Stan, who lingered back and considered if he should stay in the path of the beam on his own or go after his friends. Finally, the discomfort at being left alone, he put his head down and started sprinting after the others. By the time he reached them, he was winded and displeased, at least until he saw what the balloon was tied to.
"Roland...that door's not like the other doors," Eddie Dean said at last after they had all gotten a chance to look at the door.
"Do you think it's some kind of a trap?" Ben asked, gently toeing a rock towards the door.
"Who cares?" Stan exclaimed, jolting forward toward the door embedded in the earth. He just wanted out of the wasteland, and if whatever was on the other side of that door killed him then it was just as well.
Before he could get to the door, Roland caught him by the shoulder and held him in place. "What happened to everyone staying put?"
"Uh, Roland, I think we have other issues," Eddie Dean said, gesturing over his shoulder to whatever it was that had caught his attention.
They all looked up to see a figure, far off in the distance, but too close for comfort, dressed in bright yellow and walking lazily toward them.
"Who the fuck is that?" Richie asked.
El narrowed her eyes and shook her head at the figure. "Bad."
"We need to go," Bev said. "We have to get in the clubhouse."
"Clubhouse?" Roland repeated, not taking his eyes off the yellow figure. "You know this door?"
"Yeah, we know it," Eddie said. "But if it's a trap I'd rather stay out here."
"You don't want to get mixed up with what's on our tails, sugar," Susanna said. "If this is your way home I think you'd better take it."
"Let's go already!" Stan shouted, moving towards the door again. This time, Roland let him go and watched as the boy threw open the door and jumped inside. No one else was as eager as him, which was an unusual shift.
The kids exchanged glances and said their goodbyes before going after them. Ben helped Bev and Max in before going through the door himself. Eddie went after that. Roland and Jake were waiting to help Richie and El into the door. El and Richie weren't as eager to leave, looking at the man in yellow walking towards them. He was still far away enough that he was a dot on the horizon, but they were being followed. Richie felt in his gut that whatever was on them was no good. He didn't need Eddie Dean to tell him, but Eddie Dean told him anyway.
El went first, and Rich followed. Once his feet touched the ground, which was hard and flooded up to his ankles, he looked up at the open door and called for Blue to come after them. Blue was just in his line of sight when the door swung down of its own volition and slammed shut.
Riche shouted in protest before getting up on his toes to try and shove the door back open again, but it was no good. The door was gone, and so was Blue. For the first time in weeks, he was dreading rather than dreaming of seeing Sara again. She would kill him when she found out that Blue got left behind. He wanted to cry, not just for Sara. He loved Blue as much as Sara did. There wasn't time for that now, though.
It was dark, smelled literally like shit, and they had no idea where they were.
"Blue!" Stan called from somewhere ahead of Richie. "Come here, Blue!"
"Blue's gone, you asshole," Richie snapped. "The door shut before she could get in here."
No one had anything to say to that. They had all loved Blue, in their own way. Someone was crying gently. If Richie had to guess he'd say it was Bev. He was right, but that wasn't important.
"Where the hell are we?" Max asked, wanting to focus less on the group's lost dog and more on getting the hell out of the hole they were in.
"Downtown, about a block away from the pharmacy," Eddie said, without hesitation. "Back under Derry."
"How the fuck do you know that?" Max asked, surprised that he was so specific and sure of himself.
"If anyone knows where we are it's Eddie," Bev said. "Boy has a map in his brain, I swear to god."
"Everyone, get behind Eds and let's get out of here," Richie said, sounding decades older than he was.
They linked arms so that no one would get lost before they started heading in the direction Eddie had deemed the correct way out. Ben held up the line for a moment. He thought he had heard something. It was crazy, of course, but he thought he heard someone singing Should I Stay or Should I Go by the Clash. However, the singing stopped before he could think about it too much. He wanted to find the source of the singing, but he couldn't follow a song if it wasn't playing anymore.
He heaved a sigh and pressed on. They walked for hours, it seemed, before there was finally something ahead of them that wasn't shadows and shit water. It was light. Max pointed it out first and, in one voice, they cheered and hollered that there was light at the end of the tunnel. The nightmare was over.
They ran as fast as they could, out of the black and into the blue.
Behold, they're back. Also, close encounters of the sewage kind, because I'm an asshole. Don't forget to review, love ya bye!
