Chapter 3: The Freakiest Show

"But her friend is nowhere to be seen

Now she walks through her sunken dream

To the seat with the clearest view

And she's hooked to the silver screen"

-David Bowie, "Life On Mars?"

The next morning, a Sunday, started off rather ordinarily. Carol got up, ate her breakfast, watched television, got dressed, and hung out around the house with nothing particular to do. Mostly, she was just waiting for the clock to strike ten, for that was when she would leave home to go to the Aladdin with her friends. To pass the time, she drew in her sketchbook, listened to some music, and did small chores around the house out of sheer boredom. One of these included taking Spock out on a walk down the street and back at nine o'clock.

When the kitchen clock read nine, Ethel called upon her granddaughter to do this chore. Carol, putting on her shoes and grabbing Spock's leash, headed out the front door with her pet trotting along beside her. They would walk down the street, wait for him to do his business, and then they would return. This task took usually no more than twenty minutes. It was an every day routine that was normalcy to Carol.

As she walked the small dog down the road, she basked in the traces of the crisp morning air before the approaching humidity of the day overpowered it. The sun was shining through the gathering clouds, and while it was still incredibly warm for being so early, it was not as intense as the day before. Mike must've been right, she thought, remembering her encounter with the farm boy.

Earlier that morning, when she had first woken up before seven, she stole a glance out her window to see the sunrise bathing the approaching clouds with fiery hues of reds and purples. It was a truly astonishing and breathtaking sight to observe, and Carol's sleepy, disoriented eyes had been filled with awe.

Red skies at night, sailor's delight. Red skies at morning, sailor's take warning. That had been a favorite phrase of her father's which she had recalled upon seeing the crimson clouds, so vibrant a scarlet that they almost appeared to be splotches of blood on the pink morning sky.

As the duo proceeded down the block, the imagery of blood conjured an unwelcome image into Carol's previously tranquil state of mind. The instance of the bodily fluid rising in the toilet after she had flushed her vomit down the drain was not easily forgotten, and several times in the two days since she had inspected her bathroom up and down to uncover any signs pointing to the cause of the occurence, but to no avail.

Needless to say, she had become much more cautious and wary whenever she was in there. When going to the bathroom, she sat the opposite way on the toilet that one would normally do, so she had a clear view of the bowl of water. That way, she could ensure herself that no blood (or anything else) was rising up to meet her.

In the middle of her train of thought, Carol suddenly felt a sharp jerk on the leash as Spock abruptly stopped his steady trot, paws rooted to the pavement.

"Spock?" she asked. As if her dog could answer. She yanked on the leash to get him to move. "Spocky, let's go!"

But he didn't budge, a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat instead.

Spock never growled. Ever.

"Spock?" she pressed, more unnerved the second time she said it. She took a few paces toward her pet, who stood rigid and growling, a thundering, ragged purr that resonated aggressively from his bared teeth. The bull terrier's almond-shaped brown eyes were fixed intently on a sewer grate, his ears perked up in alertness.

Well, that's creepy as fuck.

She continued to inch her way toward her dog, whose growl was intensifying. His short hair, cropped closely to his skin, was standing up.

He's scared, she realized. And that gave her the reason to be scared, too. Hell, she was scared shitless.

As Carol reached out a hand tentatively to snatch her dog's collar, Spock burst out into a series of short, sharp barks, jumping away from the sewer grate with his ears flattened and his back arched. It startled her so much that she lost her grip on his leash.

"Spock! Settle down!" She regained her hold on the leash and tugged with all her might, praying she had the strength to make him move. Spock was going wild, his barks increasing in volume and his tail tucked between his legs. "Spock, calm down! You're going to wake the neighbors!" She threw wild looks over her shoulders, hoping no one was observing the scene.

Eventually, Carol finally managed to make progress in dragging the aggravated canine away from his position, marching off in the direction they had come. He was still barking, turning his head around to glance at the sewer. She too followed his crazed eyes to the gaping black square hole in the side of the curb.

What could Spock sense that she couldn't?

Except, she could sense something. Maybe not as strongly as her canine companion, but she felt something unnatural was lurking down there. Something nefarious.

Something hungry.

"Come on, Spocky," she urged, more gently. "We're going home bud, okay?"

The terrier whined in response. Although his barking had ceased, he was clearly still on edge, short hairs rising along his spine.

They returned back to the Perkins residence safely, but Carol still kept throwing glances over her shoulder, as if to double check nothing or no one had followed them home. She quickly entered the house, locking the door securely and peering out the living room window through the curtains.

The street was empty, just as it was before.

"What are you looking for, Carol Denise?" she heard her grandmother's voice question from behind. She was standing at the other end of the room, observing the younger with interest.

"Nothing," she lied, tearing her gaze away from the glass pane. "Spock saw something in the sewer while we were on our walk."

"Oh?" Ethel replied. "What did he see?"

A monster, Carol wanted to say. Something evil. But she wouldn't allow it. Her mouth just couldn't form the strange words that she conjured so easily in her brain. "I don't know."

"It was probably just some poor animal that got stuck down there," her grandmother reasoned, casting the teen a small smile before heading for the kitchen, leaving her alone in the living room.

How could you, Grandma? Carol longed to scorn and wail simultaneously. How could you turn a blind eye to what lurks in this dirty town? Can't you feel it? The hunger? The fear? The evil? Am I the only person alive who can? I need someone to, because I don't understand it! But her mouth was clamped shut and her feet were planted to the carpet.

Suddenly remembering her date she and her friends had planned later that day, Carol glanced down at her watch. It was almost nine-thirty, which meant she had to get going soon if she was going to catch whatever feature they were expecting to see.

Rushing to her bedroom, she grabbed her pack (already stuffed with the items and money she would need) and slung it over her shoulder. She felt a mix of emotions, a rush of excitement, anticipation, and foreboding. Even though it had been only two days since the end of seventh grade, it would be the first time she would see her friends that summer.

"Hey Gran!" she called as she headed for the door, hoping the woman could overhear. "I'm heading to the theater now! I'll be back by one!"

She barely registered her grandmother's response of "Okay sweetie, have a good time!" before she was already climbing on Stardust. However, as she pedalled down the driveway, she noted that the bike felt slower, dragging across the concrete even when she applied more force to the pedals.

"You've got to be shitting me," she muttered to herself, getting off the bike to inspect the tires. Yep, just as she had expected: a flat in the front wheel.

"Son of a bitch!" she swore, annoyed. She wasn't exactly an expert at blowing up tires, and besides, she would be late to the movies if she attempted. Defeatedly, she walked Stardust back up to its lying position, useless without two fully inflated tires. She would have to walk the whole way into town if she wanted to meet up with her buddies.

"This bites." Sighing and readjusting her pack slung on her shoulder, she proceeded down the street hastily to avoid being late.

On her way into town, Carol observed the sky above, which was becoming more clouded and gray as the minutes passed by. She was deeply relieved by this, for it meant that the concealment of the sun would make the day less scorching. Derry's streets and sidewalks were not as crowded as the day before, most likely because children desired to play outside when the weather was more appealing.

When the Aladdin came into view, Carol scoured the surrounding area for any of her friends' faces. Her search proved in vain however, and she concluded that they were probably waiting inside, where it was air-conditioned and cool. With that thought, she stepped inside the glass doors, where she immediately entered the arcade.

The arcade hall was a favorite hangout for many prepubescent children in Derry, dozens flocking to the colorful machines with quarters and other varieties of currency clenched in their fists or stuffed in their pockets. She could hear the sounds the games emitted as kids eagerly handled controls and pressed buttons, eyes glued intently to the illuminating screens.

A few feet away, Estelle and Priscilla were waiting patiently by a game of Dig Dug.

Just them? She walked up to where the two girls stood. "Hey." She glanced around some more to make sure she wasn't missing something obvious. "Where is everyone?"

"Tabitha can't come," Estelle answered. "I don't know about Deborah."

"What about Marcie?" She had kind of suspected that Tabs and Debs wouldn't come, based on their conversations that they had Friday, but Marcie? She had been one of the original people who wanted to go…

"She had to leave town last night for a family emergency," her friend replied. "Something about her aunt."

"Oh, okay then." Carol pretended to appear nonchalant at the news as her spirits dropped from crushing discouragement, all high hopes that she had for their get together diminishing like dust slipping through her fingers. What, did she actually think they were all going to be there? No, she did not, but it had been nice imagining that they would. Even if Marcie couldn't really help it, the group still felt like there was a gaping hole left without her, the same going for Tabitha and Deborah.

In a procession of silence, the trio of girls made their way through the arcade hall to the main lobby, paying upfront and buying a tub of popcorn before proceeding to the showing that they paid to see.

As they entered the dark theater and filed one by one into the red carpeted folding seats, the gargantuan movie screen illuminated the eager faces of the viewers as the roll of film began to play.

Estelle and Priscilla were already shoving the buttery, crunchy contents of the popcorn tub into their mouths as Carol's eyes were drawn to the front, a type of horror flick she liked to call a "creature feature" starting off with an eerie theme playing in the background. Listening intently as the movie played, she surreptitiously snuck a handful of popcorn as a long ago memory reentered her mind.

The moment reminded her of the time when she was ten, going to a drive-in theater on Halloween to see reshowings of older "creature feature" films for no more than a dollar. She was not a fan of trick-or-treating, for the idea of taking sugar from complete strangers always seemed dangerous and foreign to her, so she had spent the majority of her holiday night there watching horror movies. She couldn't recall all the names of the films she had seen, but one that stuck out to her the most was a zombie movie from the seventies called Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things.

She had had nightmares for days after that night. The walking corpses in the movie had been so terrifying, so horrific, and she had been mortified to the very core of her ten year old bones. Not that she didn't like the movie, it was good, but the undead had left her so unnerved. She had sworn she would never see another zombie movie again after that, and yet she had still watched Night of the Living Dead for the first time a month later.

Carol got nightmares often, just as any kid did, but it was the ones about the undead coming back from the grave that always had her waking up with chills numbing her skin, heart pounding wildly. She would picture their milky, lifeless eyes, bloodstained teeth and nails, decaying skin, and emaciated figures as they shambled after her, morbid moans resonating in the otherwise silent air. They were dead, yet they were moving, and they wanted her, they craved her flesh and brains, and she ran as far as she could go.

And each time, no matter how fast she ran, they always caught her. Each time, she would feel their teeth sink into her. She would wake up thinking, I died, and she could swear she felt pain from where her flesh had been torn from her bones.

It made her wonder what was causing the disappearances of the missing kids in Derry. There were some talks of a serial killer, children getting lost in the woods or drowned in the river, and some suggested that the events weren't connected at all. But Carol had always been open-minded, and her imagination conjured images of children dying agonizing deaths out in the wilderness of small-town Maine, their cries of help and screams of terror unheard as they died, never to be seen again and forgotten by those of Derry.

She didn't want to be one of those kids. She thought of the little Denbrough boy, Betty, Donna, and all the others. She imagined Donna screaming in the Barrens as someone, or something, dragged her off into the shadows.

Despite the theater being relatively freezing, as most were, Carol found perspiration dripping down her forehead and onto her cheeks. Her heart was racing, thudding in her chest so hard she feared Estelle or Priscilla could hear it over the sound of munching popcorn and the movie playing before them. She kept her eyes fixed to the screen, desperately trying to ignore the waves of nausea tossing around in her stomach.

I'm no different than those zombies, she thought, anxiety settling in, her breath quickening. I just walk the Earth, just existing, like a ghost with flesh.

She felt a jolt inside of her as her insides churned. Her hands were trembling and her eyes stung.

I'm dead, I'm a dead girl walking.

Another lurch drained all the blood from her face. Breathing heavily, she managed to get out a strangled "I think I'm gonna be sick!" to her friends before she stumbled out her seat, scrambling as fast as she could towards the restroom.

She reached the doors, bursting through them, not caring if their were people occupying any of the stalls as she rushed into the first empty cubical she spotted. She slammed the door shut behind her before her knees gave out beneath her, barely having enough time to pull her hair back as she heaved her breakfast into the public toilet. It felt like she was retching forever, although it was only a few seconds of her stomach convulsing, sending the remains of her meal and snacks up in the form of vomit.

When it was all over, she stared at the mess she had created in the bowl of the toilet. Then Carol began to cry, all the tears she withheld from her stress and anxiety breaking free in soft, choking sobs. She was embarrassed, she was sick, and she was alone.

She didn't hear the cubical door on the other side of the restroom open, nor the sound of feet as they softly made their way towards hers. She only vaguely registered the faint tapping of knuckles on the stall door, and a hesitant, nervous voice ask, "Hey, are you okay in there?"

"I'm fine," Carol replied, beginning to regain a little of her composure back. She had stopped crying, but the tears had not run dry and her voice cracked.

"Okay…" There was an agonizing pause as the person on the other side (it didn't sound like any of her friends) did not make a move away from the door. Then the voice, even more hesitant and unsure, offered, "Do you need help? I mean, do you want me to come in?"

Honestly, Carol didn't even care. Sure, she looked and felt like shit, but she didn't want to have to deal with the awkwardness if she said no. She could always say, Leave me the fuck alone, but she just wasn't in that kind of mood. "Yeah, if you want," she said, flushing her upchuck down the toilet. There was no way she was letting the person see that.

The door, which she had left unlocked in her hurry, gently opened, and Carol turned around to see who the stranger was. It was a girl her age, with long, wavy red hair tied back in a ponytail, a face delicately dusted with freckles, and blue-green eyes that shimmered with concern. It was Beverly Marsh, the girl who was rumored to do any boy in the school for free, the girl who snuck out of class to smoke a cigarette in the bathroom, the girl who most girls observed with a mixture of hate and envy.

Carol had never talked to her before, their interaction never breaching the limit of exchanging polite smiles once or twice when making eye contact in the hallway. She had heard the rumors, yes, but did she care? No. Why was it her business if Beverly slept around with boys? It didn't affect herself, so why did it matter if the rumors were true or not?

"Hey, you don't look so good," Beverly commented, her frown deepening and her eyes widening. "You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah," she lied, wiping some of the sweat off her face and hoping no vomit stained her lips. "I just got sick, that's all."

"Oh," the redhead replied, her face clouding with doubt as she appeared to be reconsidering her decision to come in there. Then she stared at Carol closely, recognition lighting up her sharp gaze. "You're in my grade, aren't you? I feel like I saw you around a lot."

"Yeah, we are. We had English together, I think."

"That's what I thought," she said, taking a seat on the ground tentatively beside her in the cramped space. "I'm Beverly, by the way. Beverly Marsh."

"I know," Carol responded. "I hear your name a lot."

Beverly's smile faltered slightly. "Oh." She could see the apparent disappointment and frustration in her eyes, even though she tried to appear collected. "You've heard the rumors, I guess."

She shrugged, knowing instantly she hit a nerve. "I don't really even care what people say about you. I'm not one of those girls that listens to gossip, if that's what you're wondering."

That seemed to brighten the other girl a little bit. "Oh. Well, good." She gave a small, slightly self conscious smile. "I thought you were gonna be one of those girls that hates me just because they think I'm a slut."

"No," Carol said. Then, she asked, "They aren't true, are they?"

"No, they aren't." She sighed deeply, as if the weight of the rumors was too much to bear. They probably were. "I've only kissed one guy in my whole life, in fact. And it was for a play."

She nodded, not at all surprised at the information. Deep inside, a part of her always knew that Beverly Marsh wasn't promiscuous. Girls like Greta Bowie and Sally Mueller just envied her looks, desperate to ruin another girl's reputation because she had something they didn't.

Beverly stared at her apologetically. "I don't know who your are," she admitted. "What's your name?"

Carol laughed a little. Of course she didn't know her. Just because they had one class together the previous school year didn't mean she'd remember her. "It's Carol," she said.

"Nice to meet you, Carol," Beverly greeted, before her tone and face became more serious after a brief hesitation. "Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question? Like, a personal one? If it isn't too much trouble, that is."

"Sure…?" She didn't know what the other girl was getting at, but something about her wanted to help her, so she listened.

She chewed on her bottom lip in silence as she thought of the correct way to put her words. "I… um, just got my period? And I don't know what I'm supposed to do?"

Oh- wait, what?

The look on her face must've displayed it all, because Beverly averted her gaze, deeply embarrassed and self conscious. "Sorry. It's just… I don't have any friends, so I don't know what other girls do."

Carol kind of just looked at her in disbelief, trying to think of something to tell this girl she had just met. Inwardly, she wanted to question her why she couldn't ask her mother, who could probably explain it better than her. But then again, maybe her mom wasn't around, like Carol's own mother.

"Uh… well, I'd get some pads or tampons first," she started. "That's what you use to absorb the blood so you don't bleed through."

"I know that part," Beverly told her, "but what do you do if you don't have those things and you don't have enough money to buy some today?"

Well, this is getting too complicated. "Well, just stuff some padding like toilet paper in your underwear and change it periodically until you can get some. When I got mine, I was at school, so that's what I did until I got home." Carol cringed as she recalled the time when she was twelve, getting up from her lunch table to see a spot of blood on her seat. She nearly had had a panic attack.

"Oh," the ginger girl responded quietly. Then her face brightened into a visage of relief and gratitude. "Thank you so, so much, Carol. I- I was completely lost, to be honest."

"No problem," Carol assured her, a small smile appearing on her pale face. It felt good to know that she had helped someone so lost and confused, even if people did not bother to do the same to her. Additionally, there was something about Beverly that made her feel like she could open up to her, something safe and secure, as if they had been best friends since birth. Though they had just met, a mutual trust and likeness had been established between the two girls.

"Seriously, this means so much to me, you don't even know," Beverly insisted. "Thank you for being so helpful." She gave a tiny laugh that sounded like birds singing. "I know this is such an awkward place to be having 'the talk'."

There was something in the way her eyes lit up and the humor in her voice that made Carol laugh, too. "Well, what place more appropriate than the bathroom?" She thought, First Mike, now Beverly. Maybe other people aren't so bad, after all.

"Yeah," Bev jokingly agreed, changing the subject abruptly, as if she just remembered something important. "Well, I better get going soon. My dad will want me back home." Her voice darkened a little at the mention of her father, the other girl noted. Then, she added, "Thanks for everything."

"Sure thing," Carol told her. "I better be going, too. And thanks for checking in on me, by the way."

"No problem," Bev assured with a grin. "Call it even, Steven."

The two girls smiled at each other. Then, as if some unsaid code word had been passed between them, the two girls hugged goodbye, despite having only met.

Carol felt comfortable and grateful as they embraced on the restroom floor, ignoring Her Rule for the time being. Hugging Beverly felt the same as hugging friends she had known for years. Her hair smelled of cheap old cigarette smoke.

Getting up from the tiled floor, Beverly gave her a final smile as she went for the stall door. "Bye Carol," she said, giving her a final small smile.

"Bye Bev," she responded, watching as the other girl exited the restroom. Getting off the grimy floor herself, she headed back to the movie where her friends were.

Outside the restrooms, she spotted Estelle and Priscilla pacing around, anxious and whipping their heads around with searching eyes. Upon seeing her, they hurried towards her with worried expressions.

"Dude, where were you?" Estelle pressed, her brown eyes wide. "You were gone forever!"

"We thought you went outside or something," Priscilla added, holding Carol's pack in her hands, which she had left in her seat.

"Guys, I'm fine," she assured them, putting on her best nonchalant persona. "I just got a little sick, that's all." She glanced back to the screening doors. "How much of the movie did I miss?"

"About ten minutes," Priscilla answered, handing her pack back to her. The trio headed in the direction of the showing room doors.

"Bye the way, we bought more popcorn as we were waiting for you to show up," Estelle added as they made their way back to their seats.

And once again, Carol was enveloped by the darkness and illuminated by the silver screen.

…

After their movie had finished, Carol bid farewell to her two pals and proceeded her journey home by foot. The sky above had clouded over completely, turning it a pale shade of gray. It was slightly cooler because of this, yet the air was still thick with heat and humidity.

It was rather silent as she marched on, pack slung over her shoulder, nothing but the sound of her faint humming of "Under Pressure" now and then. Carol was lost in thought, ruminating about all of the bizarre events that had taken place in the past three days: the toilet, Spock's outburst, the sewer grate, her own sense of dread.

She hardly registered her legs taking a left onto Neibolt Street.

Her train of thought taking a stop, she glanced up to realize she was on a seemingly deserted road. Well, this isn't the way I came.

She knew of Neibolt Street, but it was rather far from her own house. How'd I get here? She glanced around, searching for any signs pointing her in the direction of a more familiar street. Oh God, please don't tell me I'm lost.

Yes, that's exactly what she was.

Well, shit.

There were no houses in sight except for one especially decrepit one, yard overgrown by weeds and grass waist heigh. Behind the house, there was a thin line of woods, and through the trees, she could see the faint metal wires of a fence. If she was on Neibolt Street, then that meant she was all the way over by the trainyard.

She had two options: go back the way she came and figure out what streets she should take to backtrack, or go through the backyard and over the fence, hoping that there were housing developments behind it.

Risk getting lost or go past the creepy hobo house? Yeah, no thanks. She had her pocketknife in her pack, but she was also wearing shorts, and the grass was probably ridden with poison ivy and ticks. And she did not need that.

She began to turn around back up Neibolt when something caught her eye.

Out by the treeline behind the house was the faint figure of a person. They were just standing there, whoever they were, and slowly shuffling their feet. Carol squinted her eyes to get a better look. She guessed it was a hobo or maybe a druggie, but then she noticed the person's familiar features.

Long, strawberry blonde hair. A striped navy blue shirt with the sleeves cut off. Jean shorts.

Donna?

Hesitantly, she called out, "Donna?" She took a few steps forward until she was out the house's looming, rusty fence. "Donna?" she called a second time, slightly louder.

It sure looked like Donna.

She entered the front yard and made her away around the house. The girl back there was not moving much at all, and Carol vaguely wondered if they were hurt.

Maybe I should call the cops, she thought, then brushed it off. Like they would care.

As she hiked through the waist high weeds, poison ivy and ticks briefly forgotten, a jumble of thoughts began racing through her mind.

It definitely looks like Donna.

(Run away.)

I was so sure she was dead.

(Run, you fool.)

What the hell?

(RUN, GODDAMMIT! RUN!)

She was only a few yards away from the girl, and she realized with a jolt that it was Donna. She was wearing the same outfit that she had dressed in the day of her disappearance, her long hair tied back in a ponytail. But she did not look well at all, her skin so deathly pale it was almost gray, splatters of blood staining her striped shirt. In fact, the closer she got, the less sure she was that this teenage girl was really her friend, a doppelganger instead.

"Donna…?" she whispered, her voice filled with fear and uncertainty. A prickling sensation had begun to intensify in the back of her neck.

Donna turned her head around to face her, and that's when all of Carol's suspicions and fears became the truth. Her heart was abruptly yanked down to the pit of her stomach, where it continued to fall infinitely.

Her blue eyes were glassy, staring back blankly and lifeless from her skull.

Carol's mouth had just begun to form the words What the hell?! when more figures started to pour out of the treeline, emerging from the concealing shadows of the surrounding woods. A little boy in a yellow slicker and galoshes bathed in blood stood out brightly in contrast with the rest of his surroundings, his right sleeve dangling limply from where his arm had been torn from his body. It was George Denbrough, who had gone missing in October two blocks from her house.

It's him, oh fuck, and it's-

Veronica Grogan. And Steven Perry. And Cheryl Lamonica.

Oh God, it's all of them-

And Vera Evans. And Matthew Clements. And Olive Piermont. And Danny Lang. And Maureen McAllister. And… and… and…

It's all the missing kids. Oh fuck. Oh shit.

They were dead, undead, like the zombies in the George A. Romero movies. They would grab her and tear the flesh from her bones and eat her all while she was still alive, just like in Night of the Living Dead.

"Holy shit!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. All of her rationality dissipated and left her disoriented and hysterical. "Holy shit! Holy shit!"

She didn't even think as her legs carried her away, and she sprinted as fast as she could through the overgrown backyard on Neibolt Street, her panic and hyperventilating depriving her of the breath necessary to give her the endurance to run back home.

I'm the fastest girl in all of Derry, a voice echoed in the remaining rational portion of her brain. But that inner thought of self-assurance was immediately forgotten as hysteria set in, conquering her mind like a virus.

They were coming after her, moaning, bony legs moving forward awkwardly and rotting arms reached out. She shot a look over her shoulder as she ran, and she could see the dirt under their fingernails from where they had dug up out of their graves.

Come back, Carol… they seemed to say. We've been hungry…

Suddenly, a child's hand shot up out of the dirt, gripping her ankle with inhuman speed. Carol shrieked in stunned terror as she crashed down onto the Earth, whipping her head around to be face to face with Betty Ripsom as she crawled out of the ground, nails digging into her ankle. Betty's dark brown hair was matted with dirt, her eyes milky and sunken into her skull, which was prominently showing underneath her rotting skin.

Carol screamed and screamed, yanking her leg as hard as she could to escape the dead girl's grasp. It was in that moment that she knew she was going to die. The others would catch up to her, and their would be no escape. The last thing she would feel would be their nails piercing her skin and their teeth sinking into her soft flesh as they tore into her, and she would be screaming as blood poured down her face and into her eyes but nobody would come, and when they searched for her remains all they would find would be some bloodstained grass and her pack. Carol was going to die alone as she was eaten alive, dismissed as missing like the other vanishing children and soon forgotten by everyone in their dirty little town.

With a strong jerk, she managed to wrench free of Dead Betty's grasp, just as the undead corpse pulled herself out of the ground entirely, Carol's right shoe in her hand. She scrambled to her feet, ankle throbbing and already bruising. Dead Betty was crawling after her, her free arm reached out for her as she propelled herself forward. Her bottom half wasn't there, her intestines trailing out behind her like limp streamers where her legs should've been.

Carol made a loud exclamation of horror and revulsion, her stomach swimming.

"Thanks for the shoe, Carol!" Dead Betty growled, her voice almost inaudible. "Now gimme your legs!"

"Oh, hell no!" she screamed, ignoring the dead girl as she kept on running, almost to the street where she could run to the safety of her house. When the moans of the zombie children stopped and were replaced by giggly laughter instead, she risked a glance back over her shoulder.

A clown was dead-on sprinting after her, the dead missing kids nowhere in sight, and she realized with horror that this was the same clown she had seen in November on her way back from Tabitha's Halloween party. Except its now slowly decomposing face was contorted with maniacal delight, a sinister Chesire Cat smile widening to reveal pointed, razor-sharp teeth.

"Carol, there's something floating! There's something floating in my tummy!" And then it began to gag, retching with its eyes comically wide as it vomited up chunks of flesh, splattering its silver costume with gory splotches.

"What the fuck?!" she shrieked, beyond freaked out at the horrific sight. She gave a final surge, her fear and adrenaline giving her the strength and speed to make it to the pavement and bolt up the street. The clown's laughter echoed behind her.

She ran and ran, never looking back.

AN: Well, here's chapter three! For those wondering, the theater scene was inspired by Beverly's "date" with Richie and Ben in the novel, where they also go to the movies and see a "creature feature" about a teenage Frankenstein and a teenage werewolf (the latter of which It takes the form of when Bill and Richie go to Neibolt).

Also, Carol finally had her first official encounter with Pennywise! The part with Betty Ripsom's undead corpse grabbing her shoe was added last minute, but I felt it made the scene all the more creepier and terrifying to Carol.

On a more pleasant note, Carol finally got to meet Beverly! I feel like both girls were there for each other in their moments of vulnerability, despite barely knowing each other. I am looking forward to writing more about their friendship!

Anyway, hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading! I plan on releasing Chapter Four sometime during the middle of next week.

Hermione Romanoff: Glad you enjoyed! Halloween is also one of my horror films, along with Night Of The Living Dead, Psycho, The Shining, and The Blair Witch Project (and It of course!). It also has one of the best horror scores of all time, in my opinion. As for pairings, I will talk about possible pairings at the end of the next chapter.

~ Robin M.