Day Four
April 4, 1906

The light in the wagon faded as the sun began to set, and Bob did not move from his bunk. He stayed curled up, his back to the door, even as his tears dried on his cheeks and his sobbing tapered off into sniffling before quieting completely. Nature's call forced him to eventually get up and try the door, but it refused to budge, the handle not turning an inch, no matter how hard he twisted it. He used the chamber pot in the corner of the room before he returned to his bed.

Mr. Shrine had yelled at him, had hit him. He couldn't recall the man ever acting in such a way before. Why? It was because he had wrecked the show, right? But he hadn't meant to do that! It was because of that... whatever that thing had been. He shivered at the memory of it, staring at him, and his head ached.

That was it, he somehow knew with a clarity that he couldn't explain. That thing, It, was what was wrong with Derry.

He should leave; they should all leave. Forget the circus and just leave.

Mr. Shrine (He shivered again at the memory of the slap.) would never agree to it though. He'd made it clear that they had to stay the week through.

Maybe, Bob thought, he could just go himself? Take Wilhelmina and just walk away?

But, where would they go? What would they do? The circus was the only life that either of them had ever known. And people like him weren't well liked by others. He squeezed his eyes shut as a lifetime of insults and abuse from strangers ran through his mind. Leaving the safety of the circus would be dangerous for him, and by extension, for Wilhelmina.

But if they couldn't leave, what were they to do?

He had no answers.

There was nothing to do, nothing to do but lie there and wait. He sighed as his cheek throbbed from the blow it had taken, and he scrubbed at his eyes as more tears threatened to fall. Stop that, he told himself. You're not a baby. You're a grown man, so you need to find a fix to this problem.

A laugh bubbled up out of him. Problem? He was being stalked by some creature that apparently only he could see, and Mr. Shrine had gotten angry enough at him to strike him, something that had never happened before. Problem did not come close to describing what was happening to him. The laugh ended on a sob, and he hid his face in his pillow and hugged it to him. His makeup smeared all over it, but he did not make any move to wash it off or get out of costume. As the orange light in the wagon faded to the darkness of the oncoming night, Bob was finally able to drop off into an uneasy sleep.

OOOOOO

A banging sound startled him awake, and he sat up so quickly that his head thumped hard against Wilhelmina's bunk above him. He rubbed his head as the banging came a second time. It was the door, he realized, someone was knocking hard at the door. He sat up and rubbed at his head just as it opened and Lou stepped in.

"Where the hell have you been, Bob?" he asked as he walked in. "Everyone's looking all over for you, and -" The man stopped as he seemed to finally see Bob sitting there on the bunk.

"You look like hell, Bob. What the hell happened to you?"

Bob just stared at him. Everyone had seen what had happened during the show, right? And then Mr. Shrine had.. had...

"Bob?"

"Mr. Shrine told me to stay here." Bob mumbled as he looked at the floor between his feet. "He said that I had to stay in here until he told me I could leave."

There was a few seconds' silence. "That... can't be right." Lou said, confusion in his voice. "Mr. Shrine checked on you after you were carried out of the ring, and he's been busy since then. He didn't even leave the big top until early this morning. He asked the doc about you, but he hasn't been anywhere near your wagon."

Bob looked up at Lou. "But he was here! I saw him! I talked to him! He.. he.. he hit me, Lou!"

Lou stepped closer to him. "He hit you? Why would he do that? He's never once raised his hand to you before."

Bob let his gaze drop back down to the floor. "He slapped me, and then he yelled at me and told me not to leave here until he said I could. Then he locked me in here."

"Bob," He looked up at Lou again to see the trapeze artist shaking his head, "that door doesn't have a lock on it. It never has. None of the wagons have a lock on the inner door."

"But -"

"Come and look for yourself if you don't believe me. While you're doing that, perhaps I should go find the doc again. Something hasn't been right with you, so maybe you shouldn't do your act later."

Bob felt his head seize at that. "No, don't do that! I'm fine!" He stood up. "I'm okay, really!"

The look of disbelief on Lou's face was clear enough that Bob had no trouble reading it. The trapeze artist and the clown stared at each other for several seconds before Lou sighed and let his shoulders slump.

"Fine." he said. "I've got too much to do to go chasing after the doc. Just... keep an eye on yourself, yeah? You haven't been right since we came into this damned town, even worse than you normally are. Hating Derry has never made you pass out in the middle of a show before, you know. You scared the hell out of everyone, and I'm damned glad that Wills wasn't watching when you went down."

Bob felt cold; he hadn't even thought about his daughter. "Is she all right?"

Lou nodded. "She spent the night with Mary. We just told her that you were sick." He pulled out his pocket watch and looked at it. "Your show is due to start in less than an hour. You might want to get yourself sorted soon, before Wilhelmina gets over here."

Lou stepped out, and Bob found his eyes drawn to the door as it opened and closed.

There was a latch, but no lock. There never had been one.

His makeup was a mess, smeared across his face and missing in several areas. He washed it off and reapplied it. His costume was rumpled and wrinkled from being slept in, and all he could do was use his hands to smooth it down as best he could.

Small footsteps sounded on the wood behind him -

"Papa!"

- and he felt Wilhelmina impact him from behind. Her arms wound around him and squeezed, and he closed his eyes and covered her hands with his own.

"Are you all right now, Papa?"

"I'm fine, Wills." Her arms dropped, and he turned around and knelt down in front of her. She leaned in, kissed the red tip of his nose, and then skipped out of the room to make sure the calliope was ready to go.

OOOOOO

Pennywise listened to the murmuring crowd as he waited for his show to start. The wall of the wagon was still up, and Wilhelmina was out back on the calliope. No one could see him yet, but still, his stomach churned, and he was sweating under his costume, despite the cool weather.

"Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls!" began his introduction. "Step right up! You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cheer, you'll diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie..."

The crowd's murmurings grew louder as the voice became distorted, and Pennywise shivered as it morphed into something that sounded as thought it came from the devil's mouth. It then went silent, and for a moment all that he could hear were the voices of the people outside. Then the wall dropped down, and he jumped at the sound of it banging to the ground. A few people in the crowd shrieked and jumped back, there was a few seconds' silence, and then Wilhelmina started to play.

Bob shook his head and started to dance as always, but the crowd did not react. There was no cheers, applause, or laughter. He did not hear the sound of coins raining down around him. The people in front of him were just silent.

A red object whipped by him, and he heard a splat as it hit the backdrop of the stage. Someone in the crowd laughed, and a second later, another object whizzed by. This one hit the backdrop with a solid thunk, and Bob stopped in mid-step and turned to look just as the rock rolled to a stop by his feet. He turned to face the crowd and found his eyes drawn to the shadow that was flitting through the people.

"Freak!" a man shouted, and he hurled a small, white object at Pennywise. The clown was rocked back a step when it smacked solidly in the middle of his forehead and broke open. Egg yolk ran down his face as the crowd erupted in laughter.

The shadow paused, and Pennywise felt its gaze upon him. Laughter sounded in his mind as those lights appeared once more.

"Pumpkin head!" shouted a child, and Pennywise vaguely recognized the voice as belonging to the one who had stolen his penny balloons. A red, round, squishy object impacted his left shoulder and splattered across the top of his costume. The shadow darted away, laughing along with the jeering crowd.

"Monster!" Another egg sailed by, narrowly missing his head.

"You should have been drowned at birth!" A apple, half rotten, smacked into the center of his chest, which made him stumble backwards another step.

The shadow came to stand at the front of the crowd, and Pennywise felt his head swim as those orange lights stared at him. There was an angry buzzing, the creature laughed again, and rotten fruits and vegetables began to rain down upon the stage.

"Freak!"

"Why don't you just kill yourself!"

"No one likes you anyway!"

"You're scaring the children!"

"Moron!"

"Retard!"

"Get out of our town!"

Pennywise cowered and held his arms up in a feeble attempt to protect his face as he was hit and splattered by a shower of rotten food.

"Stop!" he wailed. "Why are you doing this!"

I thought you liked me?

"Hate you!"

A moldy tomato smacked into his left ear, and its cold, slimy innards smeared across his hair and head.

"No one wants you!"

The sound of his heart breaking was audible to him as a low rumbling, and the crowed roared with laughter as Pennywise burst into tears and fled the stage. He reached for the door to the living area, shoved it open, and dove in. A browned head of lettuce, a mold encrusted potato, and another apple rained through the doorway before he slammed the door closed. He heard the calliope stop through the open window.

From the other side came the sounds of more things smacking into the door as he sank down to the floor, curled up with his face hidden in his arms and cried.

"Aww, is the clown crying?" came a mocking voice from outside, followed by more laughter. "The poor baby!"

"Alright, that's enough!" came a commanding voice that made Pennywise curl up even further as his heart stuttered in his chest. "All of you clear out of here! The show's over!"

The mocking voices and laughter began to fade and move away, as two new sets of footsteps sounded on the wood floor of the stage.

"Bob?" Mr. Shrine called out as he knocked on the door. "Are you all right?" He knocked again. "Open the door, Bob."

Pennywise shook his head as a second voice joined the ringmaster's. "It's safe to open the door now." Amos said through the wood. "You can let us in."

"No!" Pennywise wailed. "You'll just hit me again!"

"Hit you? I've never done that, and you know it. Now open the door."

"No, go away!"

"Bob, please -" Amos began.

"GO AWAY!"

The door rattled, but Pennywise only pressed himself back against it and wedged it shut. "I said go away!"

"C'mon, just open the door." Mr. Shrine said. "We just need to know if you're all right."

"I'm fine! Now go away! I don't want you here!"

"Bob -"

"LEAVE!"

Silence from the other side of the door, followed by a sigh.

"Let's go, Amos."

"Are you sure, Mr. Shrine? What if -?"

"We'll close up the wagon and check back on him later, once he's had a chance to calm down."

Silence, and then another sigh. "Alright," Amos conceded. There was a tap against the door. "We'll be back later, Bob, I promise."

Pennywise heard them walk away from the door, followed shortly thereafter by the sound of the side door pulled pulled up and latched closed. He then heard them walk out of the wagon, and closed the door.

Finally alone, Pennywise buried his face in his arms and cried.