Children often look peaceful when they sleep. They have yet to know the burden and woes of adult hood. Still innocent to the world's events around them.
But not in Derry. Never in Derry.
You would think my actions would be to blame. Bringing their deepest nightmares to life. Hunting them till they're just ripe with delicious fear and ready to be eaten. You would be right to a point. But what the humans won't admit is it is themselves that create the worst nightmares for the children of Derry.
I still have yet to know for sure if it is just them or my very aura seeping into the very cracks of the town that cause it, but many of the humans began to putrefy from the inside. Their morals decay and rot away leaving a whole different type of monster in it's place. The Losers themselves have met their sort often or live with them everyday. Seeking care and comfort from outside of their own homes in the friends they have made.
Others have chosen poorly. They seek out to harm others like they have been harmed. To spread their rot and infect the healthy with their disease.
Henry Bowers is such a disease. Easy to control and use.
This is how humans themselves can be monsters and tear away the innocence of their own young so easily for their own selfish reasons.
I stood, silently watching Billy Denbrough as he slept. A look of peace and ease on his face. Was his unrest due to my actions or of others? I couldn't afford to watch and ponder on such things. That was reason I was here already as soon as the bus arrived in Derry.
I had to make sure the children were safe and gather them as soon as possible.
I would have rather have spread my conscious about and checked each of them at once, but that would be foolish. As much as I could tell where someone was in that manner, it could easily be used to detect me if they know what to look for. I had used this skill many times to watch the Losers before. Appearing in images, watching them without them ever the wiser.
I couldn't afford using it now in cause the intruder would sense me. I had to stay hidden for the time being. So I would have to use the mortals way of checking. In person.
I knelt by Billy's bed, watching him a moment more to make sure I hadn't woke him. I didn't wish to startle him and the fresh scent of fear could be triggering even know. Pleased that he was still a sleep, though looking more distressed then before, I turned the boy's small lamp on his side desk on. Hopefully it would be less frightening to see him in the light and not hovering in the dark. I was not sure if I could keep my emotions in check with the conversation that would follow. My eyes being very telling and often a tendency of glowing. The darkness would give that away quickly. Hopefully with a light source it would be a bit harder to tell if I tried hard to keep my emotions under control.
Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I reached forward to gently as possible shake Billy awake. I was surprised to find I had to get rather rough to finally get him to wake. He had begun to look all the more distressed as I had tried to wake him and with the final shake he woke up wide eyed and gasping.
The short whiff of the smell of fear and confusion came radiating off him, causing me to turn and cover my nose and mouth as I tried to block the scent and calm myself. I chocked on the air around me as tried to get fresh untainted air into my nose or mouth. Thankfully the scent faded as Billy took in his surroundings, the opposite of what I expected when he woke. I felt a calm come off of him as he felt his eyes land on me.
"Bobby…" he didn't ask, as more confirmed that it was me knelt beside his bed.
"Are you okay?"
I turned and looked at him shocked. Billy was more concerned of my well being then how I could possibly have gotten to the point I was in his room. I swallowed the little saliva that had collected in my mouth and turned to him with a nod, "As much as I can be right now."
There was an awkward pause between the both of us as we waited for the other to speak. Billy ending up to be the first to break the still.
"I've been worried about you… we all have been."
He obviously saw the my skepticism on my face as he continued.
"We may have not know you and … and Linda long, but you both mean something to us. Not… not many adults have seen what we have and … and well… admit or remember seeing it. IT usually makes them forget… makes them look away… It… it's nice to not be alone and know IT doesn't have control over all the adults."
Billy wasn't wrong. All the adults that had grown up in Derry turned a blind eye as the ones before them. That was the control I had over this town. The longer you lived here, the easier it was for me to control the mind. These children were an exception. An abnormal exception. As hard as I might try to have them forget what they saw and be kids, these few wouldn't. The Shine kept them from doing it. My brother's help and influence helped them from doing it.
"You didn't ask how I got here though Billy…" He spoke softly, trying not to make what I said sound like a threat. I didn't look at him right away after saying it. Staring at his drawing pad he had left on the side table under the lamp. An unfinished piece with a pencil on top of it, fittingly a drawing of a turtle. I couldn't help the chuckle that left me at seeing that. It sounded sad and if not a bit unhinged. I sighed shaking my head and finally looking at Billy. I had expected to see a look of fear and the scent to follow, but he had neither when my eyes fell on his face. It was a look of concern.
"After what we all saw before they took you away… I sort of expected you'd find a way back… the others have been worried… for multiple reasons connected to that and the fact that someone set you up… We all know you didn't kill Linda… You were with us when it happened… We saw what happened to you when…." Bill stopped and looked at me with guilt, "I'm sorry I didn't mean to…" He leaned over and pulled the side table's draw open and pulled out a handkerchief, handing it to me quickly.
I looked at it confused before I felt and saw the wet drops hit hit the cloth he held out to me. I reached up to feel that it was coming from my eyes. I felt confused at first. To have such an emotion creep up on me. I had pretended for so long I didn't feel such emotions outside of my human disguise. Only letting rage, hunger and satisfaction of the hunt fill me. A monster had no need for such emotions and yet here I was crying from the grief I tried hard to push away.
I took the handkerchief and whipped the tears away, muttering a quiet thank you.
"I'll be …" To say fine would be lie. I wished to rage, destroy and tear apart the one that had done this. To feel gratification in my actions, but after that, the sadness I pushed away would return. It would eat away at me for the next twenty seven years as Bobby and back into rage as my full self as Pennywise.
"I'll get revenge for Linda. After that… I can't say for sure."
Billy nodded understanding. Of course he would. I had taken his little brother from him and he sought out answers. Trying with all his might and with all hope he would find Georgie alive and well. When he had found out that Pennywise had taken his brother from him, he set out to stop me from doing that to anyone again. He know too well the need for revenge.
"You should be just as worried as the others about me Billy… Things… things happened after I left Derry that can't be undone. Things no one will know the truth behind, but I'm sure you and the others can guise why."
He looked off in front of him in thought before looking to me again, "Were any of them innocent?"
That took me off guard for a moment as I looked back at him shocked by the question, but shook my head. He knew what I was getting at when I said I had done 'things'. To him I was slowly being possessed by Pennywise. Pennywise feed off fear and flesh. He'd put it together that if things kept going as they were that would soon follow. He was a smart boy. He had always seen what others looked away from and pretended wasn't happening.
"Not a single one."
He sighed deeply, looking troubled, "Are you alright?"
Again his care for me catching me off guard.
"For now…"
We sat in the dark until I no longer felt the tears forming. I offered the handkerchief back, Billy taking it and tossing it into a laundry pile on his floor.
"We'll have to tell them at some point… but for now I don't think it would be a good idea to tell the rest of the Losers about that."
He was right, it would only cause them to fear and worry, loss focus on what was needed to be done.
"I agree… I won't ask you not to tell them about it… I'll even admit to it… but until we find out who framed me and killed Linda, we have to stay together. Are the others safe? They haven't been harmed have they?"
Billy shook his head and smirked at me, "Nah. Though we've been trying to figure it out while you've been away." He leaned over the edge of the bed and pulled out note pad from between the mattress and box spring.
"We've been writing down anyone that seemed fishy, had motive, or new to Derry. Been keeping an eye on a few of them, but no one stands out but one."
He handed me the list. It had been short to begin with and each name that hadn't panned out Billy had crossed out. That is all but one.
Officer Aubrey Alaister.
