17

Shoutout to CDsis. Thank you for following me!

22nd December, 1985

We need to spy on them, Tom Riddle insisted. They were back underneath the ground, in the sewers. They've got some sort of upper hand now, I can feel it.

The clown shrugged. Go ahead.

Tom felt Pennywise release his hold on their shared body and he let Pennywise lose his shape. They splashed onto the ground, and they slid through the pipes. It took a few guesses before they figured out where the kids must be.

Process of elimination. They've got to be at the Tozier boy's house.

MAN, I loved Trashmouth. Didn't have to change outta my favourite form 'round him, could just scare him as ol' Pennywise. Pennywise touched a few of the bones poking out. The left pelvis and a considerable amount of spine carved straight through the skin, twisted and disgusting.

Tozier's fear will taste so good… Tom flinched.

Unfortunately, for horcruxes to work, there was a certain… task, that a wizard had to perform. Pennywise caught the thought and grinned.

Oooh, Tommy's a BAD BOY, he crowed. Tastes like chicken, right?

Shut up. He shot up the pipe, Pennywise talking to him all the while.

What can you see?

Wait…

Tom bubbled out of the tap in the bathroom, and scanned the room. He slid out of the basin; voices came from ahead.

`Eew, stop dipping that…'

`Come on, frankfurter in pudding? I'm a visionary. Vi-sion-ary.'

They're… playing? Happy? It would be a cinch to defeat these kids if that was what they were doing.

No, we can't just defeat them… gotta BREAK 'em, Tommyboy, did it with Stan, can do it with this lot. What do we have here? Hmm, new one. Pennywise focused their eyes on an older girl.

She's not from Derry? Asked Tom, surprised.

No, that girl is not. The girl with purple hair sipped water leisurely. New blood. Fresh. Excellent.

Once you have your revenge, you get me back to Hogwarts?

Wasn't that the deal?
Tom didn't entirely trust this thing, but still retreated back down the pipe.

Pennywise thought it would be good to attack on Christmas Eve. That would certainly break them, to ruin Christmas.

0

Eleven looked down at Holly.

She seemed so innocent. Too skinny, maybe, but the little girl had retained a toddler-like roundness. Mike's sister. Eleven smoothed back some hair from Holly's face. It was greasy and sticky.

Suddenly, the surge of emotions she'd felt over the day caught up to Eleven. Yawning widely, she lay down on a pile of blankets and fell asleep almost immediately. She was woken up several hours later by the answerphone machine.

Beep, Beep- Richie, this is your mother. We have to stay for a bit. Complications, you see, cuz honey, we're dead too. Yes. Something came for us in the night. Tore our heads off and spilled our guts. It tickled us 'till we were screaming…

Richie stared at the answer machine in horror.

Beep Beep, Richie, Beep Beep cuz here comes PennyRiddle! Come and FLOAT!

Static, filling the room, getting louder and louder. Eleven, overwhelmed, clamped her hands to her ears until it suddenly stopped with a deafening click.

`Don't listen to it,' Bill said immediately. `Pennywise lies to s-scare us, you nuh-know that.'

`But what if it was true? It could have got my mom and dad, it could have got them…' Richie sounded on the verge of tears.

`What's coming out of the phone?' Mike H asked suddenly, bolting upright and pointing at it.

Thick, viscous substance oozed out of the holes.

`Break the phone. Break it now, Eleven!' Kali yelled. Eleven focused all her power not on PennyRiddle but on destroying the Tozier's phone. A shower of sparks exploded from it and it fell off the wall, wires dangling. For good measure, Eleven tore through those as well. The plastic phone hit the wooden floor, casing breaking apart on impact.

The black stuff was gone.

`It didn't want to attack us again,' panted Mike. `Just scare us. Like you said.'

It was only only two days until Christmas Eve. And due to lack of forethought and ravenous hunger, Max, Will, Mike, Dustin, Holly and Lucas had devoured most of the food in the Tozier kitchen. The rest had gone to Kali, Eleven and the Losers.

The upshot was, the only food left in the house was a few candy bars Richie had been coerced into giving up.

`What time is it?' Beverly asked. Max checked her watch.

`Nearly seven in the morning.'

`So the supermarket's gonna be open. Who wants to go?'

Understandably, there was silence. Their sense of safety was completely compromised just by being inside the house… wandering freely out into the open? That was begging Pennywise to kill them. They were certainly soaked in their own fear by then, he'd smell them a mile off.

`I'll go,' offered up Eleven timidly.

`Absolutely not!' Mike barked, at the same time as Dustin pointed out Eleven and Kali were their greatest chance.

`No one take this the wrong way,' Dustin said, edging round the words,`but we need someone less important.'

`I can go,' Max said simply. `The turtle didn't say anything about me.'

`Uh, no.' The words came out sharply. Lucas seemed a little abashed and backtracked. `If anything happened to you, I don't know what I'd do. Stay here, me and Dustin can go.'

`Lucas. I'm not gonna stay here. You think I can't handle myself?'

`Well, yeah, of course you can, but… Fine. If you're going, I'll come too.'

0

Lucas and Max left the door looking apprehensive.

They came back in shaking like leaves, carrying bags with tear holes all through them, half an hour late.

`What happened?' Demanded Eleven, her voice high with fear.

`What do you think?' Max spat, before putting down her bag and flopping onto a mattress. `It came for us. Had to run through the Barrens to get away.'

`M-My sister and my mom, it- it came for them,' stammered Lucas. `I saw them, Erica was- she was blinded and mom-'

He stopped talking and started gagging.

`I saw my stepdad and Billy,' Max said hoarsely. `They kept saying I was gonna pay…'

`It's okay, it wasn't real,' Beverly said comfortingly, patting her shoulder. Max shuddered.

`It felt real.'