We're getting closer to the chapters I'm most excited to write! I enjoyed writing this one, especially the ending. Part of me can't wait to reach the second half of this fic, but then the other half knows that I'll be closer to finishing it - which I'm kind of dreading, seeing as I'll basically be done with Kimmy's story. Endings suck, but it's also satisfying to finish something that I've been working on for ages.
Oh! I'm getting a new tattoo Wednesday night. It's going to be what Eddie has on his cast. I'll post a picture of it on my personal Tumblr once I get out of my appointment. I'm so fucking excited, and also worried about what it'll feel like. It's not my first tattoo, but it's still kind of nerve-wrecking not knowing if it'll be more like 'oh, my god, why?!' or 'eh, it's not that bad.'
Disclaimer: I don't own IT. Stephen King does.
Since the moment he arrived at the Quarry, Stan had been unable to tear his eyes off of Kimmy. (Well, mostly - the tremendous drop that he'd stood on top of was a bit difficult to look away from once he remembered how breakable his bones were.)
At first, while they walked down to the bottom, he felt his skin begin to flame at the ghostly feeling of proximity. Her hair, which he'd always seen in a ponytail, rippled down her back in dark waves. He could smell her shampoo, a faint floral scent that reminded him of spring, each time a few strands gently blew in the wind.
Then he couldn't stop admiring how peaceful she looked as she floated in the middle of the Quarry - every inch of her body relaxed, eyes closed, lips formed in a happy smile. She had looked like an ethereal elf, her brown locks dancing around her head like the thin fingers of a leafless tree.
Eventually, all seven of them gathered around Richie's boombox to dry out, listening to the least boring station Derry had. Even though it did have the tendency to play the same ten songs on repeat for months on end, it did occasionally throw in a long-forgotten hit from years prior. They'd just finished the last of the gooey chocolate chip cookies Kimmy had baked for them - bellies filled with sticky sweetness, the tips of their fingers covered in the remnants of melted chocolate and light brown crumbs.
"Is this what an orgasm feels like? This has to be what an orgasm feels like," Richie had crudely stated, mouth still filled with the dessert.
This of course had earned a narrowed glare from Stan, as well as a protest at how disgusting he was and that he'd 'ruined cookies forever' from Eddie.
Kimmy and Beverly had laid out their towels upon the bumpy ground to sunbathe, the latter of whom had put on a pair of cat eye sunglasses while the other had laid down upon her stomach, the side of her head resting on top of her folded arms.
The boys had found themselves staring, transfixed, at the girls (mostly Beverly, seeing as Kimmy had come dressed in an oversized T-shirt that reached the bottom of her knees). For understandable reasons, Ben was the only one who didn't gawk at Kimmy. (Stan would have felt incredibly uncomfortable if he did.)
Although none of them considered Kimmy unattractive, Beverly was much more developed than her. In fact, if someone who didn't know either of the girls saw them standing side-by-side, they would instantly think that the redhead was older.
Stan was the only one who didn't look away from Kimmy for more than a second, gazing at every inch of her. She looked so different yet very much the same, a not completely accurate reflection of the person he was used to seeing. Her legs were much more toned than they appeared a majority of the time - not quite thin, not quite muscular. Even her shirt, which clung to her curves like saran wrap, hinted that she wasn't as tiny and shapeless as her schoolmates had implied.
He couldn't see her face, but he could see the back of her head. It would richly shimmer like copper every now and again. Stan wondered what her hair felt like, if it was soft or smooth or something entirely different. If it felt anything like it smelled, it had to be amazing. Just like the rest of her.
The boys would have gawked at the girls longer if it weren't for the faint sound of. . . snores? Coming from Kimmy, her back slowly rising and falling with each breath she took.
"Wait. Is she asleep?" asked Richie, dumbfounded. "Oh, my god, she is!"
Beverly, not as unaware of her surroundings as they had thought, lazily turned her head in Kimmy's direction. A wide smile spread across her freckled face, finding her ability to sleep seemingly anywhere amusing.
"Just listen to her snore! She sounds like my old man," continued Richie. "How the hell did she manage to feel comfortable on a bunch of rocks?"
"You'd be surprised," interjected Ben, the bandage Eddie had placed over his wound a blinding white, as he smiled fondly at his sister. "This isn't the first time she's slept on rocks."
"I'm sorry, what the fuck did you just say?"
Nudging the teen beside her a few times, Beverly was able to wake Kimmy up. Startled, she jerked her head up, a snore caught in her throat. Her hair, still a bit damp, stuck to her face. There was even a trail of drool making its way towards her chin.
"Wha -"
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty!" Richie teased in a booming voice, poorly masking his giggles as she squinted at the group with drowsy confusion. "Piss off any dragon ladies?"
Kimmy sat back on her butt, legs crossed, as she hurriedly fixed her face. Stan watched as she ran her fingers through the hair around her temples, mesmerized by how smoothly it fell behind her ears.
Glancing downwards, Richie managed to catch a glimpse at the contents of Ben's backpack. Reaching into it with greedy curiosity with one hand and bringing up the other to serve as a make-shift microphone, he announced in a tone similar to an old timey disc jockey, "News flash, Ben: school's out for summa!"
"Hey, hands out where they don't belong," chided Kimmy as she made her way towards them, bare feet pounding heavily on the ground, until she stood before the noisy boy.
She snatched the object he had before swiftly putting it back where it belonged, moving the bag closer to Ben, making it painfully clear that he needed to mind his own business.
"Okay, okay. Geez."
"It's not school stuff," said Ben, shifting his things around, cheeks turning a light shade of red as he avoided looking at the boy who'd invaded his privacy.
Still not quite catching on to what the siblings were trying to get through to him, Richie pointed a thin finger at Ben's backpack, his mind set on whatever else had caught his attention. "Then what's in that folder?"
The Hanscoms shared a look, one that held an hour-long conversation in matter of seconds, before they nodded their heads in agreement. While Ben slowly took out what Richie had referred to, Kimmy settled down between him and her brother. She wrapped her arms around knees, pressing them tightly to her chest, shoulder inches away from his best friend.
Stan couldn't help but feel his jealousy return, viciously eating away at him with. Watching how easy the two got along, as if they'd known each other far longer than a few days, made his worry return - a nasty voice telling him that she liked everyone but him, that she was only pretending to be his friend because she pitied him.
He knew that Richie wouldn't do anything, that he wouldn't pursue Kimmy. He might have been a troublemaker, getting himself into situations that sometimes got him socked in the mouth, but he was also Stan's best friend. As in knew-each-other-since-they-were-in-diapers best friends. Not when he made it painfully clear to Stan whenever they were alone that he was keenly aware of his feelings for Kimmy.
"I know you wanna kiss her," Richie had said to him the other day, waggling his nearly-black brows up and down in a suggestive manner.
Stan, of course, had been rather flustered. While his stomach twisted into excitedly nervous knots, he'd sent him the stop-talking glare he had mastered over their many years of friendship. "Richie, I swear to -"
"Come on, Stan the Man. Live a little."
"You're the one who told me I'm not her type."
"I was joking. . . sort of."
Opening the dark green folder, fingers pinching its corners, Richie peered at the top photos with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. "What's with the history project?" he asked.
They were a couple copies of front-page newspaper articles, dated decades before any of them were born. One was of a factory explosion that happened during an Easter egg hunt, which had resulted in the death of 102 Derry residents. Stan had learned about this back in sixth grade (it had been his history teacher's funny way of giving them 'something to think about' while on spring break). The other was about some murderous robbers who'd been shot repeatedly by the police, an event that he had never heard about despite the headline "MASSACRED IN BROAD DAYLIGHT" being written in bold, black letters.
"Oh," said Ben, brown gaze slightly larger than normal, having not expected to be asked more about his research. He shifted further back in his seat as Richie stretched out his arm to pass to an awaiting Bill the folder, whose pointed blue eyes had silently demanded that he be the one to look at it next. "When Kimmy and I first moved here, I didn't have anyone to hang out with, so I just started spending time in the library."
"You went to the library? On purpose?"
"Oh, I want to see," Beverly said with excitement, walking towards the others with a little pep to her steps.
She happily sat next to Bill, knees angled towards him. Her hair, Stan had noticed not that long ago, had recently been cut. It looked uneven, but somehow cool and eddy at the same time. Stan could never do something like that. He'd over think things, like how he was not qualified in the slightest to cut his own curls, that his barber (whose dominant hand had recently begun to shake) was the one who knew what he was doing. Either way, the do-it-yourself look worked surprisingly well for her.
"It's not as bad as you think it is, Richie," piped up Kimmy, glossy gaze drooping as if she were close to falling asleep again. "It helps you focus on things."
"Wow, that doesn't sound boring at all."
While Kimmy rolled her eyes, Stan asked, "What's the Black Spot?" hoping to move things along.
It was an article he had briefly noticed before Bill got ahold of the folder. A charred brick building had started back at him, as if begging him to feel its anguish and loss. He'd never heard of it, even though it had to have existed in Derry at some point.
"The Black Spot was a nightclub that was burnt down years ago by that racist cult," explained Eddie, his voice soft.
Searching the deepest parts of his mind and coming up empty, Stan asked, "The what?"
"Don't you watch Geraldo?" Eddie questioned with disbelief.
How could Stan not know, Eddie wondered, about this particular tragedy that happened back in the 60's? It was almost like he wasn't aware of the infamous past that Derry had. Then again, the present wasn't very good, either. The Hanlons hardly came into town due to how many racist residents there were, and then there were those who didn't like the Jewish community - a community that Stan was a part of.
It was then that Eddie realized he didn't know much else about Derry's history, not as much as he knew he should. Why was that? His mom always told him about how dangerous the world was. He even made sure he was always prepared for illness and injury. Eddie always carried fanny packs filled with his prescriptions, his inhaler if he ever had an asthma attack, and wipes to clean his hands if he for some out of character reason touched a particularly disgusting thing.
"I didn't know much about it, either, until Ben found it a few months back," said Kimmy, smiling reassuringly at Stan. "It's crazy what you can find once you do some digging."
Eddie and Richie noticed that Stan fingers kept repeatedly intertwining, as if he had caught a firefly but didn't know how to hold it. Seeing how their most grown-up friend melted under each word Kimmy directed at him, the over-cautious boy shared a knowing look with the glasses wearing teen who was the most adamant about Stan confessing his feelings. The poor guy had it bad, looking at her longingly from afar and turning into a giddy (well, giddy for Stan) mess whenever she so much as glanced his way.
Behind his thick lensed glasses, Richie's giant eyes sent Eddie the Look, widely expectant and asking for permission to take it a step further. He hardly ever listened to anyone, always going with his gut and speaking his mind, despite how unwanted it might be. But with this particular situation, he had dialed it down a little, valuing his friendship with Stan enough not to cross a line that couldn't be uncrossed. Eddie might have had something to do with this, making sure that he made his opinions on the matter clear if Richie ever asked - wordlessly or not - if he should keep going or stop.
Shaking his head, Eddie mouthed, "No."
Richie mouthed back an exasperated, "Why not?!"
The four of them had been so preoccupied with what was going on between them that they didn't notice the conversation happening between the other three, one that was heavy with pinning, unspoken desire, and the awkwardness of teenage affection.
"Your hair. . . ." began Bill, trailing off as he struggled to finish the sentence.
At the sound of his voice, Beverly perked up, a hopeful look shining in her eyes as she patiently waited for Bill to finish what he wanted to say.
"Your hair is beautiful, Beverly," finished Ben, smiling as if he'd correctly answered a Daily Double.
While Bill tensed, fists clenching and unclenching in aggravation, Beverly's face fell in disappointment - the flame that had begun to spark to life within her weakening until it was hardly noticeable.
"Oh," she said, brushing some loose locks away from her cheek. "Right. Thanks."
The air had become thick with uneasiness, the weight of it rudely pressing down on them. It was the first time that day where things felt as if they had derailed horribly. For a moment, it seemed like none of them would be able to lug it back on track.
Stan should have known better.
Richie was an expert of bringing life back into a conversation, be it through a poorly timed joke or a topic of discussion that was distracting enough to help them forget why they'd stopped talking to begin with.
"Why is it all murders and missing kids?" Richie asked, having gotten his hands back on the folder stuffed with Ben's research.
What?
Leaning in, sight now pinned to the articles that had been referred to, Stan felt himself give into his morbid curiosity.
How come all of these horribly tragic things were treated as if none of them had even happened? That it was all a dream, fading more and more with each passing day until it was nothing more than a long-forgotten nightmare?
None of it made sense.
Surely the adults would mention this in passing from time to time, that the police would give them occasional reminders to be careful around this or that - lest they find themselves repeating a tragedy that shouldn't have happened to begin with.
A different kind of heaviness filled the air. Things felt dire. It had sucked out any and all sound, aside from their beating hearts, as they listened to Ben explain, "Derry's not like any town I've ever been in before. They did a study once, and it turns out people die or disappear six times the national average."
"You read that?" Beverly asked quietly, as if afraid that someone dangerous was listening in on their conversation - ready to pounce, to angrily berate them for talking about things they didn't understand.
From the corner of his eye, Stan watched Kimmy as she blankly stared at the ground, a thousand and one thoughts - ranging from sorrowful to angrily questioning the grand scheme of things - flash within the depths of her eyes.
Zelda.
She'd probably helped Ben look for the study he'd referred to. He couldn't imagine what had crossed her mind the moment they found it, looking at a fact that made Zelda's disappearance even more frightening.
Reaching out, Stan slowly placed his thumb on top of her inner forearm, his remaining fingers resting lightly on the side of her arm. He gently yet firmly pressed them into her warm skin before rubbing small, calming circles across it.
This wasn't the first time he'd done this.
There'd been times where Kimmy had come to their weekend hangout distressed, usually relating to family and/or school drama. One of the many things he'd learned about her during their almost year-long friendship was that she was a remarkably sensitive person. What may seem minor to some could very well be a big deal to her if her heart was in it - be it a cruel comment sent her way or feeling as if she'd been given a lack of space when she wanted to take a breather.
He honestly didn't know why he had started doing it. All he knew was that a force had tugged at him to reach out to her, to make sure that she didn't get lost in her head. It had been shocking at first, surprise passing between them like a tingle of electricity. Aside from that, Kimmy had responded to this gesture positively, always sending him a smile of gratitude.
This time was no different.
As this action had a tendency to do, the tension in her body began to deflate, the invisible pressure lifting itself off of her and fading into nothingness.
"And that's just grown-ups," Ben continued, his words pulling the others closer to him as if he'd thrown a lasso around their waists. "Kids are worse. Way, way worse."
This. . . wasn't the first time a scary amount of kids went missing? There had been other times? Why hadn't he heard about this until now? The town couldn't forget something as major as this. There was no way that would happen. Not in a million years. And yet, why did he feel like it was exactly what it sounded like?
As if it would lighten the mood, Ben added in a more chipper tone, "I've got more stuff if you wanna see it."
That didn't sound great, all things considered. If Ben had more research, then that could only mean one thing: this was the heftiest news any of them had ever heard.
Eddie was the one who was able to properly express how Stan felt about the whole situation, shaking his head rapidly as his eyes filled with uncertainty.
"Great," Richie said, handing the folder back to Ben. "What else do you got?" he asked, dramatically flicking his gaze towards Ben's backpack.
"It's at our aunt's place," Kimmy lowly replied, as if it were an unreachable destination.
"But she might be okay if you come over," clumsily tagged on Ben, earning an are-you-for-real look from his sibling. "As long as we don't make a lot of noise and stay in our room, we should be okay."
"Benny," she warned, sending him a sharp stare. But when he sent her a pleading look, one that made him look like her was seven instead of thirteen, the lines that had made an appearance on her face began to soften. A weary sigh left her. "Fine," she mumbled, almost inaudible. "Let's go."
And with that, the teens began to dress, the wheels of their bikes soon producing a cloud of dust as they left the Quarry behind.
When they arrived at their next destination, Ben's eyes widened in realization before dashing inside the house.
As Kimmy had expected, they weren't alone.
"Ben? Kimmy? Is that you?" called out her mom from the living room.
Kimmy took a few steps forward until she stood before the doorway, hesitatingly peeking into the spotless room. Her mother was in the middle of getting up from the couch, her current needle-work progress (one that had the moon and some yellow stars as the main focus point) resting off to the side.
Her mother looked beautiful today, Kimmy noted. Her dirty blonde hair was pulled back into a bun while her best casual dress neatly rested just above her ankles. It was a deep maroon color with shiny black buttons, with fabric that looked flawlessly weightless.
When Kimmy was a little girl, she was convinced that her mom was a secret prima ballerina, with her long and elegant limbs that had a tendency to move gracefully with each step she took. Her eyes were the same shade as Ben's - a deep, kind brown that made you feel safe. Too bad Kimmy hadn't felt that way since they moved here.
"Hi, Mom," Kimmy said, weakly waving. "Is, uh, Aunt Jean?
"No. She's at the market." That's when Mom noticed the group of restless teens standing behind her daughter. "Are these your friends?"
She peered behind her shoulder, gaze crossing over each face inches away from her. "Um, yeah. Yeah, they are. Is it alright if they come up to our room for a bit?" When a look of uncertainty crossed her mother's features, Kimmy added, "I promise that they won't be here long."
Though it didn't appear to quite reassure her, it was enough for her to eventually say, "As long as they're not here for more than an hour."
Jerking her head towards the stairs to get the others to follow, Kimmy hurriedly called out, "Thanks, Mom!"
Upon entering their room, she noticed Ben "casually" leaning against their closest door, chest puffed out as if he were trying to impress a herd of pretentious know-it-alls. Shifting her gaze towards her bed, she noticed that some of the clothes she had laying out were missing, as was the folded Michael J. Fox poster Ben had found in a teen magazine and some other articles of dirty clothing he hadn't had the chance to put into a hamper.
So that's what got his panties in a twist.
Kimmy could have cared less if their room was a mess, which was mostly a product of the lack of friends they invited over. Come to think of it, she couldn't remember the last time they had company. Frequently moving around had the tendency to prevent them from making any lasting friendships.
Richie and Eddie's rapid chatter about god knows what began to quiet down as they slowly entered the bedroom, peering at the walls with disbelief.
Aside from the walls closest to Kimmy's bed, every inch of the room was covered in Ben's research. Newspaper articles circled in red, maps throughout the decades that had strings of yarn placed over them, notecards that held messily written questions, drawings of some of Derry's most historical events. There were even some of the missing kids' posters that had popped up throughout the year.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Richie choked out, stepping further into the room. "Wow."
Taking his response as purely keen interest, Ben said, "Cool, huh?"
"No. Nothing 'cool," said Richie, causing Ben's face to fall in disappointment. That's when he noticed Kimmy's side of the room. "This is cool, though."
He had spotted her mess of decorations that had been put up with careful precision and thought. Posters from various artists (Queen, Wham, David Bowie, Prince), the faded The Lonely Trail poster her dad had gotten her for Christmas a couple years prior, charcoal sketches of her favorite American destinations, and crisp polaroid pictures that spanned back to the early 80's.
Having plopped down on her poorly made bed, where she casually leaned back against the headboard, Kimmy said, "Thanks, but keep looking."
Making a show of doing what the older girl told him, Richie turned his attention to the closest collection of findings. "Well, this is cool, right here," he said, referring to a sketch of the town's oldest neighborhoods. "No, it's not cool."
A gasp of shock came from him as a pillow hit his stomach, sending his hands up a second too late to serve as a force of protection.
"Hey, hey, hey!" he protested, sloppily tossing the pillow back at her. "I looked, I looked!"
A brief chuckle came from Stan, who stood before a collection of letters that were sticky tacked to the walls.
"Whose side are you on, Stanley?" questioned Richie, readjusting his glasses.
"At the moment," - answered Stan, glancing Kimmy's way - "hers."
Kimmy felt like a cat who'd finally managed to catch a pesky canary. "Ha!"
"No fair! I've known you longer," Riche whined.
"Exactly," was Stan's cheeky response.
With an intense glare, Richie said in exasperation, "Unbelievable."
Sight now focused on what he'd been looking at before the exchange, Stan peered at what had stuck out to him with a raised brow. "What's that?" he asked, pointing at a collection of pages that looked like a contract.
Bouncing off of her shitty mattress, the springs loudly squeaking, Kimmy made her way over to Stan. "The charter for Derry Township," she answered, coming to a stop by his left shoulder. "Derry was a beaver trapping camp before it officially became a town."
"Still is, am I right, boys?" interrupted Richie with an I'm-totally-witty grin, hand proudly held up for a high-five.
The response he got from the others was the complete opposite of what he had been expecting.
While most of the group looked at him with disgust, Eddie's mouth had opened wide, gapping at the ever so wonderfully made remark. Stan shook his head in warning, making it clear that there was no way in hell no one would agree with him.
"Anyway," said Kimmy, bringing the conversation back on track. "Ninety-one people signed it, which is how Derry came about. But. . . ."
This was always the part that freaked her out, the one that made her skin crawl until it was made of pins and needles. She remembered how she'd hoped Ben had read it wrong, that her mind wanted to give her a good scare. It was too much like a spooky story that someone had made up in order to get troublesome little kids in-line.
"But what?" Eddie shakily asked, as if he could feel the uncertainty she felt.
"Well," began Ben, noticing how unnerved his sister looked, which he couldn't fault her for. Everything about the creation of this town was too awful to be real, a twisted fairy tale. "Later that winter, they all disappeared without a trace."
"The entire camp?"
"There were rumors of Native Americans, but no sign of an attack. Everybody thought it was just a plague or something. But it's like one day everybody woke up and left. The only clue was a trail of bloody clothes leading to the well house."
"Jesus," Richie breathed out, anxiously rubbing his temples. "We can get Derry on Unsolved Mysteries."
"You're telling me," agreed Kimmy, pulling and pulling and pulling the bottom of her T-shirt, still wet from their time at the Quarry. Some of the water faintly stuck to her palms, cooling and warming them in a bizarre harmony.
"Let's do that. You're brilliant," Eddie remarked, acting as if this was the best idea in the existence of ever.
Nodding his head, all business, Richie said in a serious tone, "I might be."
This only sent the teens into a frenzy as they discussed the possibility of this happening - which, to them, seemed highly likely, if the research Ben had compiled was anything to go by.
("We need to send this in ASAP.")
("No way. We need to gather more evidence first.")
("Like what? The bloody clothes he was talking about?")
("There's no way we can get our hands on those. They're long gone by now.")
Their animated chatter was interrupted by Bill's still, quiet voice, "Where was the well house?"
"I don't know," admitted Ben, shrugging his shoulders in uncertainty. "Somewhere in town, I guess. Why?"
As Bill stared up at the muddled of paper, the gears in his head beginning to spin into overtime, Kimmy had a feeling that he might have begun to figure something important out, something could lead to a lot of unanswered questions that they needed to unearth.
"Nothing," he said, not sounding the least bit convincing.
Whatever it was that Bill had begun to piece together, Kimmy wished for him to solve it soon. Not just for their sake, but for the missing kids' - for Zelda's - sake, too.
Perhaps, she realized, he would be the one who got them a step closer to finding out what happened to those they had lost the past year.
After all, he was the leader, and leaders were supposed to know what they were doing.
She just hoped that she wasn't putting her faith in the wrong person.
As promised, they began to disperse not long after arriving. They all sluggishly made their way outdoors, the heat of the sun seeped deep into the marrow of their bones, the day's events finally beginning to catch up with them.
The siblings had led them back to the collection of bikes. Only one of them stood, leaning into its kickstand, while the others were piled into a heap of colorful metal. Kicking it back into place, Stan straddled his bike while the rest of his friends picked up their bikes.
"Today was fun," offered Beverly.
"If you consider murder mysteries 'fun,' then it definitely was," snarked Richie.
"Beep, beep, Richie," Bill said.
"I'm just saying. The last thing I expected was to find out that a lot of sketchy shit has happened here."
"He's not wrong," Stan agreed, gripping his handles, the skin over his knuckles stretching each time he clasped them. "Most of us have lived here our entire lives, but this is the first time I've heard about a lot of this."
That didn't make any sense to Kimmy. She really hadn't given this fact much thought until Stan brought it up. It was incredibly strange that none of them had more than an inkling about the darker history of their hometown. Wouldn't they have at least heard the names of these events, if not some of the details? Stan and Eddie were the only ones who knew bits and pieces about certain events, but even that was surprisingly slim.
Perhaps Derry was tired of facing more tragedies that never seemed to cease, choosing to instead pretend like nothing ever happened. That any and all things that deviated too far from the norm were not worth further investigating.
Then again, Ben was right about one thing: Derry stood out among all of the other places they lived, and not in a good way.
There had been adults in the past who could care less about them, but that hadn't been every single person they ran into. Deep within the pit of her gut (be it in Houston or anywhere else), when Henry and his goons beat the living shit out of her and Ben, Kimmy knew that someone would have stopped to make sure they were okay.
And then there was the feeling that she was always being watched, that a pair of eyes hungrily burned her flesh. If she ever gave notice to this, her chest would feel heavy. It felt like an animal was viciously digging itself next to her heart. She would peek over her shoulder in a panic only to find that she was alone, that it had most-likely been a figment of her imagination.
The teens shared uneasy looks, their breaths shallow.
What could possibly be the reason behind all of this? And, if there was a way to stop all of this, how come it was still happening?
Bill, ever the head-strong leader, was the one who succeeded in pulling them out of their thoughts. "We s-should get going." No one argued, nor did they protest when he added, "We'll meet back here tomorrow. Around ten."
With a final nod of agreement, the group began to disperse, biking away in different directions, calling out their good-byes.
Before the last to leave could get too far away, Kimmy said slightly louder than normal, "Stan!"
Stopping his bike, fists pressed against the breaks as he used his feet to help, turned his head until they were able to lock eyes, brows drawn together in confusion.
The tip of Kimmy's foot drew small circles in the ground, some of the grass sticking to her sneaker. "I, uh, just wanted to say thanks. For everything you've done for me today."
Blinking, as if trying to peer at a glowing green light across a vast lake, that tiny smile of his - one she had gotten the chance to know so well over the past several months - appeared.
She really did like his smiles. They weren't too noticeable, as if they didn't want to draw in any unwanted attention. Shy, even. It was his eyes, though, that shone the most. Tender, twinkling with emotion that he wasn't able to verbally express. Kimmy especially liked his smiles when she was the reason behind them.
Stan was an old soul, so careful and uncertain about a great many things. But his sense of humor, one that was dry and full of sass, never failed to amuse her. Some of the supposed jokes he occasionally told weren't even that funny. His airy giggles - as if he found it the punchline side-splittingly hilarious - were always the push she needed to join him, sending them into a fit that took what felt like ages to come out of.
"No problem," Stan said, shaking Kimmy from her pondering.
Crossing her arms across her chest, balling her palms as if they had shirt sleeves pulled roughly around them, she sent him another smile of appreciation. "See you tomorrow, Stan."
Another moment passed on by before Stan, as if waiting for her to add on to the statement, nodded his head in confirmation and returned to what he'd been in the middle of doing before she had stopped him.
It was then that the feeling from the Quarry returned, relentlessly gnawing at her.
As she watched him turn the corner, gliding away until she could no longer see him, this very thought gradually disappeared until it was the furthest thing from her mind. It returned days later, not once, but twice. Once in a moment of comfort. Another in a time of great fear, one that drew the friends even further into the most dangerous forgotten secret of Derry.
The next couple of chapters are going to focus on the other Losers' first encounter with Pennywise, so we won't be seeing Kimmy for a bit. Buttttt, we get a little Reddie moment in the next chapter, which I'm in the middle of writing.
Until next time, see you later :)
