Chapter 4
Part I
Eddie's screams echoed throughout the deepest chasms of Derry's sewers. Even Ben, Beverly, and Mike couldn't ignore it as they traveled further into the heart of the disgusting, reeking kingdom of It. As soon as she heard the screams, Beverly stopped walking and her face became ashen.
"What's wrong, Bevvie?" Ben asked as he reached for her hand.
Beverly flinched away and looked around, as if trying to find the place where the screams had originated. They were weaker now, somehow failing. "RICHIE!!! WAKE UP AND HELP MEEEE!!! PLEEEEEASE!!!"
Everyone's face fell and they glanced at each other. Mike gasped and the all too familiar panic began to set in. Ever since they had first entered the sewers, there had been a horrible panic in the back of his brain that he couldn't stand. He couldn't fight it, couldn't ignore it any longer, and at the sound of Eddie's screams it brimmed over the edge and became impossible to hold back.
"Oh my God, where's Eddie? What's wrong? Oh my God, what if It got them?!"
Ben, although he was equally as scared, grabbed Mike's arm to keep him from running, and said in the calmest way that he could manage. "Mike, you gotta calm down and stop yelling, okay? You gotta...we gotta..."
"But Ben, they're in trouble!" Beverly sobbed, "We can't just stay calm! We have to do something!"
"We can't!" Ben cried. Tears had began leaking down his chubby cheeks.
"But what do we do?!" Mike howled.
"I...I don't know!" he began sobbing now. Beverly sniffled and wrapped her arms around him—or tried too. Ben was a fairly chubby boy.
"We can't just stand here and do nothing. We have to keep going. We have to look for them." she whispered. Ben nodded.
"Yeah, we have to keep going." and he broke away from Beverly and turned to Mike. "We have to keep going, but we can't leave Eddie and Richie. What do we do?"
"You're askin' me?" Mike honest to God couldn't believe that they were asking a black kid such as himself for advice. Beverly nodded.
"Yeah, Mike. We need you."
Mike didn't say anything at first; he took a fair two minutes to think the situation over before he finally decided to speak. Finally he said, "I'll double back and look for Eddie. Ben, you and Bev can go and try to help Richie. When we find him we'll have to find Bill and then It and kill It once and for all."
Ben and Beverly nodded. Mike gave them a reassuring smile. "Good, and if we don't find them we'll have to get outta here quick."
"Okay." Beverly and Ben said together. In a second they had all gone their separate ways.
Part II
"Beverly, you're shaking."
Beverly, her voice cracking and unsteady, whispered cautiously, "Sorry, Ben. I can't help it." she sighed and flashed the flashlight at the sewer wall. "Where do you think that Bill is? Oh, I can't stand to think that he might be hurt..."
"I'm sure that he's fine, Bevvie. We just have to keep looking is all." Ben reassured her. She nodded and grabbed for his hand. Unlike Bill, Ben didn't try to shake her off, although he did seem a fair bit embarrassed. Still, this somehow comforted Beverly as she and Ben made their way through It's lair.
They rounded the corner of a tunnel and suddenly Ben stopped walking. He looked around and reached for Beverly's flashlight. She gave it to him and watched the golden light dart from wall to wall, then down at the water that steadily flowed at their feet. "What's wrong?" she leaned close to Ben and asked quietly.
She saw him press one of his plump fingers to his lips and motion for silence. Beverly obliged, but when she saw a sudden rippling in the water that flowed beneath them, she let out a shrill scream. Ben's eyes grew wide and he aimed the flashlight to where she was pointing. "What? What is it, Bev?"
"I saw a pair of eyes!" She howled as she backed away and hid behind him. "A pair of great, red eyes! They were staring at us, Ben!"
He took a few steps forward and squatted down so that he was a few inches away from the flowing surface of the greenish, foul water. Beverly stayed behind. "What do you see? What is it?"
Ben shook his head. "There doesn't seem to be anything wro--"
In an instant Ben was gone, leaving only ripples and a large splash of water in his wake. Beverly gasped and backed away; It had taken the flashlight along with Ben, so it was utterly and hopelessly dark. Beverly began to pant as she backed away, her hands waving about, trying to feel their way around the endless and winding sewers.
Ben is gone...oh, dear Lord, what am I going to do now? I wish that Bill were here...well, I wish that we had never separated to look for Stanley...
Although Beverly hated herself for thinking this, it was a true. It was a dismal fact that she chose to neither rejoice over or grieve over. Instead, she just tried to concentrate on backing away from whatever direction she thought that It had taken Ben. "B-Ben? Are you still there?"
There was no response, so Beverly allowed herself to cry as she tried to feel her away out. It was then that her hand closed on something loose and wrinkling, almost like the fabric of clothes. She let out a relieved little sigh, thinking that it was Ben, but her heart dropped as she heard the voice of the person in the world that she feared the most: "Well hey there, you little bitch. I didn't think that I'd find you down here all alone in the dark, but just before your friend's light went out, hey, whadda know? There you were, clear as day, and there he wasn't...and here I am."
Beverly gasped and tried to run away, but a strong hand fell on her shoulder and held her there. "P-Please, just leave me alone. I promise that I'll never say another rotten word about you or run away when you try to hurt me, just please--"
In the darkness she felt Henry's breath warming her cheek as he leaned close and whispered, "You think that I'm really going to fall for that? Huh? Do you? No, not after that day in the dump..." his voice trailed off, but when he heard Beverly let out a terrified little squeal he continued. "Yeah, I saw you outta the corner of my eye. I knew that you were watching me and Hockstetter, and you know what?"
Beverly didn't answer so Henry let out a roar of frustration and shook her. Shakily she sputtered out, "I...I d-don't know."
"After I knocked his block off I glanced over and saw you hiding in one of the fucking rusted cars, and that's just one of the reasons—just one of 'em—that I'm gonna kill you right now..."
The way that Henry had delivered this threat almost sounded comical, but Beverly could not find it in her to laugh, and as the cold steel of Henry's knife forced its way through her skin, she was sill wondering what had happened to Ben Hanscom.
Lord, I hope that he's okay...I hope that...
And out of the deepest, perhaps the most unexplored, and otherwise forgotten depths of her mind, she remembered a poem that she had received earlier that summer.
Your hair is winter fire.
January embers
my heart burns there, too.
And as the sickeningly warm blood began to flow down her torso, she almost smiled. Had it not been for the excruciatingly intense pain that was ripping through her at that moment as Henry stabbed her again and again, Beverly might have felt at peace in her final moments.
Just before what little life was left in her drained out along with the rest of her blood, the dreamlike state of the world returned to normal, and the haiku slipped from her thoughts; she was back in It's rotting, stinking lair, and when Henry was done, It would find her dead and decaying body and feast. Henry Bowers was going to kill Bill, and distantly, so very distantly, she heard Belch Huggins let out a truly disgusting burp.
Yes, this is how it was meant to happen. Was her final thought.
