Bill sat in the hall windowsill. The weak November sunlight glimmered in the dead rosebushes that brushed against the glass pane. From where he sat he could see the moving truck in the driveway, silent and unmoving, waiting patiently to take him from Derry for what he thought was forever.
Finally, he was going to be free.
Sure, he was going to miss all his friends (Eddie? Mike? Ben? Their names were fading quickly now and danced out of his memory like dust motes). But they seemed oddly immaterial now-- they belonged to a childhood that had been lived by someone else, not him. Bill was twelve now and the memories of the past two years now seemed like a dim blur. All except the lingering hurt that he had experienced at the hands of Henry Bowers and his two friends. And somewhere in his heart, even darker and more painful, was another ache...like a hole in his brain. Something missing. Something irreplaceable.
"Bill? I forgot a box of preserves down in the basement; will you go get it for me?" Bill's mother's voice said. His mother, too, seemed like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders when Bill's father informed them he had gotten a new job in Bangor. Maybe she, too, had that sense of hovering dread every time she walked through the streets of Derry. Now that dread would be gone forever.
"S-sure thing," Bill replied. Bill's stutter had lightened considerably over the past few months. Once they moved to Bangor, it would be gone completely. Neither of his parents would remember that he had suffered under its clutches for the better part of eleven years, and Bill wouldn't either.
The house was empty except for cardboard boxes stacked against the walls. It seemed strange walking through it now. He felt like a burglar sneaking into a stranger's home. Bill opened the door to the basement steps and stared down into the darkness below for a few dizzying seconds before fumbling for the light switch. There was a spat of orange sparks, but the light bulb was clearly dead. However, there was enough sunlight shining from the open door to see clearly, so Bill shrugged and headed down the steps.
Walking into the basement was like walking into a different world. The warm cheeriness of the house above him dwindled away, leaving the rotten chill of the dark basement and its spidery mysteries an inescapable reality. The light reflected off a small tin of Turtle Wax on the shelves lining the stairs like a winking eye-- See you again, kiddo. See you real soon.
Bill shuddered almost without knowing why and turned the tin around so the blank side faced him instead.
His eyes locked on a cardboard box labeled PRESERVES in black marker. He had the sudden desire to just leave the stupid box and run like hell, leaving the basement behind him forever. He willed himself to keep marching forward toward the box as if it were some kind of holy grail. Just get the box and get out of here. Hit the road so hard it hits back. Get back, Jack, don't come back.
Just as he stepped out of the rectangle of pale light shining from the open doorway, a white-gloved hand curled around his ankle.
"Bet you thought you killed me, huh? Well, surprise, Billy-old-boy. I'm thinking of sticking around. I'm thinking of sticking around a LOOONGGG TIME."
Bill's eyes flickered in the direction of the voice and he immediately regretted it. Pennywise grinned back at him from under an empty wooden shelf. Above that smile of yellow fangs were eyes that had been gouged out, leaving bloody voids. Its white greasepaint was cracked and old and smudged away in several places to reveal puckered, rotting gray skin. Past those jagged teeth and the cankerous black horror of the thing's mouth there glimmered a pestilential white light...a light that made the comfortable fog of Bill's obscured memories burn away, if only for a moment.
"You're nuh-nuh-not h-here," Bill whispered, barely audible.
"Oh, I'm always here," Pennywise rasped through his lips, painted gore-red. "Make sure to drop by and say hullo when you come back, Bill. And you'll come back. You'll AALLLL come back. It's gonna be one humdinger of a party! It's gonna be a GRAND OLD TIME!"
Bill let out a strangled scream and wrenched his ankle from Pennywise's grasp. He bolted for the stairs, the insane chuckling of the demonic clown still echoing after him even as he escaped into the well-lit hall and slammed the door behind him. Later he would tell his mother that he hadn't been able to find the box of preserves. And by the time the moving truck was halfway out of Derry with their lives inside it, Bill didn't remember what had happened in the basement at all.