"Why I hear you screaming?
Tonight all the monsters gonna dance
We're comin' to get ya!
We're comin' to get ya!
Callin' all the monsters…"
—Calling all the Monsters, China A. McClaine
Unlike the boys, Katherine hadn't entered the caverns beneath Derry through the well house back in the 80s, in fact, she didn't even remember how she had gotten there. One moment she had been in her cell in the orphanage, the next she was tiredly traipsing around the sewers like a drowned rat. It hadn't been fun. Actually, the last time she had been in the Neibolt house was during the first time the kids had entered only to face certain fears when they had scraped against the surface of the true horrors IT could control. It had been scary then, and it was scary now, time didn't seemed relevant as she crept after the other Losers through the dark house.
Floorboards creaked dangerously underfoot like they would break at any moment, doors swung on their hinges as they barely held on and the whole entire house seemed to groan as it leaned precariously to and fro in a non-existent breeze. The dark was only pierced by the single beams of light that shone from their torches as they ducked under overhanging cobwebs and coughed out clouds of dust. Black acidic tar bubbled down the staircase and dribbled down the walls in great big oozing clumps in that stereotypical horror movie trope. All it was really missing was the blood on the walls telling them they were going to die, or to get out by the demon/vengeful spirit that lived there.
"Well" Richie sassed as his torchlight came to rest on the bubbling stairs, "I love what he's done with the place"
"Beep beep, Richie" Beverly muttered, easily falling back into old habits. Bill moved first, heading out of the foyer and into the kitchen where the hole in the ceiling and broken table from Ed's fall (back in the 80s) still remained. The others followed soon after, their torches sweeping this way and that as their hearts pounded in their chests. Katherine noticed that everything seemed to have been left untouched from how they had left it last. The only difference now, was that time had placed dust on every single surface and eroded away most of the appliances still intact, that is except for one item.
"Ooh look!" Katherine skipped over to the crystalline bowl of pristine sweets sitting out on the counter, much as they had been twenty-seven years ago. "The sweets are still here!"
"Don't you dare eat them!" Ed snarled, pointing a finger at the young hunter.
"What? It's just a sweet, Eddie" Katherine smiled, feeling like she was reciting a script of some kind.
"Oh no! We are not going through this again!" Ed jumped forth and snatched the bowl from the counter before she could pluck one from the pile. Moving over to the broken window, he chucked the entire thing outside.
"Was that really necessary?" Katherine raised an eyebrow at Ed when she heard the glass bowl shatter outside. Ed pointedly glared at her.
"Hey, that's the basement, right?" Richie stifled a grin at their little show and pointed his torchlight over towards an open door that led to an adjoining staircase. Bill went to investigate, leaving the others to inspect the old room.
He had barely put a foot on the stairs before Ben cried out in pain and dropped his torch to the floor where it rolled away, leaving him in the dark and in pain. "Ben?" Beverly worriedly called out as she and Mike raced back into living room where Ben collapsed into their arms. At the same time, Katherine, Ed, Richie and Bill were left stranded in the kitchen as the rickety door between the two rooms slammed shut; somehow locking itself despite the keyhole being stuffed with old cigarette butts.
"No! No! No! Ben! BEN!" Bill and Ed pounded on the door, trying their best to get through but to no avail. Katherine's worry's for her friend were soon cut short however by the banging coming from the fridge. Torchlight snapping over to the dirty and humming appliance, Katherine tensed as she shared a look with the men in the room.
"That can't be good, right?" Richie commented with a tinge of hysteria. Hands wandered to the angel blade strapped to her thigh as the fridge rattled and rocked violently against the old floorboards. Here we go! Sucking in a deep breath, Katherine prepared herself for what she could've sworn was trying to get out.
When the fridge door did swing open, it revealed something that made Katherine pause. It was all jumbled up and dirty tucked away in an impossibly twisted position, but it was undoubtedly a person in the fridge—a kid, if she'd had to guess from the size of them. "Eurgh!" Ed gagged, as the head of the kid rolled slowly upwards from its impossible position to grin at them.
"It's Stan?" Richie puzzled as if he couldn't quite believe it. Next door, the sounds of Ben's screams continued to howl, but they were drowned out by their neighbours' confusion at what they had discovered in the fridge.
"AHHHHHH!" Stan suddenly screeched, scaring the Losers.
"OH MY GOD!" Richie jumped in shock at the sudden noise. But it escalated further still; Stan's screams didn't stop until his head rolled forward and right off of his body.
"He's lost his head!" Katherine squeaked as she jumped out of the way of the rolling skull that barrelled forth like a bowling ball. Tears rolled down her cheeks at the sight of her pseudo brother; it was hard for her to remember that this was IT's doing. "I don't think that's what they mean, when they say 'heads will roll!"
"Not the time, Kat!" Richie scolded as he too jumped out of the way. All three men, sandwiched themselves against opposite walls of the kitchen as Katherine jumped up onto what remained of the counter.
"Oh, like you can talk!" She snapped little hysterically. Eventually Stan's head came to a stop in front of a dusty upturned drawer, and his eyes (which had rolled up into the back of his head) rolled back down into place. A look of sereneness overcame him, almost like he was enjoying the stream of moonlight that fell though the hole in the ceiling. Until his beaten and decaying face sat up on his stumpy neck and turned towards Bill.
"I'd still be alive if it wasn't for you, Bill" Stan accused the man.
"No, no, no!" Bill mumbled, stumbling away from the grotesque head of his childhood friend. Katherine winced at the sound of something crackling beneath his skin as something moved beneath it.
"Richie, what's happening to me?" Stan whimpered.
"Uh…" Richie shook his head in wide-eyed confusion as several spindly legs covered in blood and brain matter burst out from the sides of his head and propped him up like an arachnid.
"You've gotta be fucking kidding!" Richie cursed .
"It's a spider, it's a spider!" Katherine whimpered hysterically, scrambling back as far as she could go, "He's a spider! Why's he a fucking spider?!"
"Your scared of spiders?" Richie turned on a paling Katherine who looked ready to high-tail it out of there, "You're in pest control, how are you scared of spiders?!"
"I don't do spiders!" Katherine cried as spider-Stan laughed jovially.
He was still for a moment and everyone seemed to hold their breaths as they waited for IT to make its next move. And then all at once, he attacked. Stan was a jumble of gnashing fangs and hairy spider legs that ran in a creepy akimbo movement around the kitchen; going first towards Richie who dove out of the way with a yelp, Stan moved next to Ed who's high-pitched scream made Katherine picture him in pigtails and a little pink dress—something that would have made her laugh given any other situation.
As it was, she screamed just as high and loud when Stan turned on her next. "AHHHHHH!" Katherine screamed as she leapt from the counter, only just missing the jumping head as it leapt for her and disappeared down some crack. "OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod!" Practically falling into Bill's arms, she rambled at high speeds as her heart jackhammered in her chest.
"Are you alright?" Bill asked, gripping tight to her arms.
"He's a spider!" Pale and shaking, Katherine spun out of Bill's hold before spinning in tight circles with her torchlight flashing to and fro as she tried to locate the spider-Stan. "Why is it always the fucking spiders?!"
"Uh, guys?" Ed had squashed himself into one of the corners until he was practically part of the wallpaper. "W-where did he g-go?"
"Ed?" Richie moved over to the man trembling the corner, "You okay, man?"
"Um…I—" Ed was quickly cut off however by a thick trail of drool that slipped from the rafters like slime and dropped at their feet. Following the trail of saliva upwards, all eyes went to the grinning arachnid hybrid in the rafters.
"Oh, there he is" Richie stated, his tone completely casual.
At least until spider-Stan leapt from the rafters and clung to his face like a parasite. Screams of terror filled the room as Richie collapsed backwards onto the musty kitchen floor. Ed remained sandwiched into the corner and Katherine appeared frozen like a deer in the headlights as the pair watched Bill try's best to wrangle the creature trying to maul off of Richie's face. A Voice that was not her own whispered delectably horrible things in her head, one particular Voice that she had not heard in a long time and one she had hoped to never hear again.
"Death! Death! Let it all rain down!
Death! Death! Bring it all over town!
Give me your fears!
Give me your fright!
Try no matter how hard,
You won't escape my might!"
Voice cackled inside her head, the eery tune reminding her of the nursery rhyme, Ring-a-Ring-a-Rosie. It painted pictures of horrific nightmares, ones which threatened to overwhelm her. Faintly she could hear Bill yelling at the pair of them to help, but she couldn't seem to see passed the glazed over eyes nor hear passed the ringing in her ears—or was that Voice? Her breath came in rasping gasps, and her legs felt like they were glued to the floor. She'd fought demons & angels, wendigos & vampires, werewolves & djins without a care in the world…but this? This right here is what set her on edge—returning to a nightmare she had long since buried.
"I'll paint the town red with your guts and entrails!
I'll paint the town brown with your shit and acrid smells!
You'll never escape me, oh little lost soul!
You'll never escape the Devil's hellhole!"
Bill appeared to be fighting a losing battle against spider-Stan; every time he pulled the creature free of Richie's screaming face, the beastly creature would just force itself forward once more. For just a head, it appeared to have a fair amount of force behind its swing. Somehow, a combination of Richie's screams of terror and Bill's yells at the two were enough to jolt Katherine out of her reverie, pushing Voice back just far enough for her to take action. Striding forth on shaky legs and panting as if she had just run a marathon, Katherine whipped out the angel blade from its holster and slammed it through the back of Stan's head, shoving the silver blade right up to its hilt.
Everything seemed to fall still. Absentmindedly she noticed the kitchen door banging open as the others entered the room, but their entrance fell on deaf ears. Richie's terrified screams cut short with a squeak as her blade stopped mere millimetres from the tip of his nose and he stared at it with eyes blown wide behind his coke-bottle glasses. Grasping the hilt in two hands, Katherine gave a sharp twist as she pushed the blade in further, only satisfied when the squelching from the head was the only noise coming from it.
Her gasping pants had quietened as Beverly and Mike raced after Ben (who was seemingly okay) into the kitchen and with another quick tug of the blade, she pulled it free of the now still spider-Stan's head. Blood dribbled upwards like flower petals as it had done twenty-seven years ago, and Bill stared at her through the droplets with the annoyed expression of an elder sibling. Not taking any chances, he palmed the creature and launched it across the room where it slammed against the wall next to the fridge and slumped to the floor.
Forgoing to clean the blade, Katherine shakily slid it back into its holster on her thigh and hurriedly wiped her sweaty hands on her jeans as she tried to not overthink the fact that she had just skewered Stan like a kebab. All eyes turned to watch as spider-Stan sluggishly pulled itself along the floor towards the darkened stairway. Once shadowed by the dark with only his blue eyes illuminated, he flashed the Losers a wicked taunting grin before rushing down the stairs towards the basement.
"I-is everybody okay?" Beverly moved first, helping Richie to clean and patch himself up. In the same instance, Bill angrily launched himself at Ed who hadn't moved an inch.
"He c-could've f-fucking died, man!" Bill grabbed onto Ed's shaking form and pulled him close, shaking him like a ragdoll. "You k-know that, right? Georgie's dead! And the kid's dead! Stanley's dead! Y-y-you want Richie too?! You want Richie too?!"
"I don't want—!" Ed cried around huffing breaths, "I don't! I don't! Please don't be mad Bill…" Bill's expression softened as he pulled back to see tears streaming down his friend's cheeks, "I…just scared"
"Th-that's what he w-w-wants, right?" Bill replied, "D-don't give it to him"
"What about you, Kat?" Bill turned to her, "Why'd you freeze?"
"I stabbed Stan…" Katherine whispered with a tinge of hysteria. Her lips seemed to move of their own accord and her sweaty hands rubbed against each other in an effort to calm herself, as she replied "Stabbed Stan, stabbed Stan, stabbed Stan, oh God! Gone, gone, gone…"
"Kat?" Ben hedged, coming up next to the rambling woman. Katherine felt guilty when she saw a flash of hurt quickly appear on his face when she flinched at his touch. It was soon gone however, and replaced with a look of concern. Not wanting to meet the worried and/or concerned gazes of the others, she pushed herself into his arms and gripped tight to his shirt like a scared child; his arms quickly snapped up and wrapped themselves around her shoulders.
"…Don't like spiders" With her face pressed into his stomach, she mumbled into his shirt.
"I can see why" Richie commented as he slowly sat up with some help from Beverly.
"Beep beep, Richie" Beverly murmured.