Chapter 5: Nightmares Of Revelation
After the murders of the Drake brothers that brought the body count to four dead children in just over two weeks, Derry was polarized in fear of what had happened and also what was still to come. To a traveler passing through the town, Derry would have appeared to be a ghost town of sorts. For a week after the latest deaths, the schoolhouse was closed and parents kept their children indoors at all times for the most part. As it was, Thomas stayed inside mostly and helped his mother clean and keep the family cabin in order. Normally he would not have been asked to do what was at the time considered women's work, but the situation of missing and dead children had necessitated that all precautions were taken. Thomas was not allowed to go anywhere by himself, and he went with his father whenever they had to go into town for anything. His father also began to carry a double-barrel shotgun slung over his shoulder at all times. To say that everyone in Derry was on edge was certainly an understatement.
Late one night while Thomas was tossing and turning in his sleep, he had a nightmare related to the events happening in Derry. The nightmare, or perhaps more accurately a vision, revealed the culprit that was terrorizing and killing the children of Derry. In the dream, Thomas awoke in his room to the sounds of bumping and muffled sounds and voices coming from his parent's room which was beside his room. He quietly got up and opened the door to his parent's room just a slight bit, and he saw a scene that immediately turned every drop of blood in his body ice cold. His mother was sitting on the bed in the nude on her hands and knees with her head in the lap of a man who was not his father. It was the sight of the man that drew Thomas' attention. The man sitting on the bed with his mother appeared to be a circus clown. The clown was very tall and his boot-clad feet hung over the edge of the bed and his frame filled the side of the bed he was on. He wore a white jumpsuit with red trim, similar to what a circus clown or a jester would wear, and around his neck was a large ruffled whitish-colored collar. His face was painted white with red lips and a red nose, and red lines ran from the corners of his lips up the sides of his face to just above his eyes. His hair was an reddish-orange color and it was situated in wavy tufts along the sides and back of his head, and his forehead was somewhat large and not covered with hair. As Thomas continued to stare he realized that his mother did not just have her head on the clown's lap, but that she was performing some type of lewd sexual act on the clown which Thomas had no knowledge of. She had the clown's penis in her mouth and was gagging and slurping on it as if she was starving with hunger and it was some kind of delicious food. Thomas felt tears streaming down his face and turned away, feeling sick to his stomach and not wanting to look anymore. When he finally looked back, the scene had changed somewhat. The woman on the bed was no longer his mother, but now appeared to be an old woman with leprosy or some other horrible skin disease. The old hag was covered in large sores and scabs that oozed a yellowish pus that had the smell of rotting meat and feces. The old woman continued to slurp on the clown's privates with eagerness, but the clown itself had also changed. It's jumpsuit, collar, and face were smeared with drying blood and its mouth was stretched and open very wide to reveal a set of huge white razor-sharp teeth. The clown laughed in a ragged and throaty tone and spoke to Thomas...
"Little Thomas, little weak and insignificant Thomas, look now upon the face of the harvester of souls! I have many names, as many as there are grains of sand on a seashore. This mask which you look upon now is the one I use most often when I hunt my prey, and as such, you will know me by the name of Pennywise The Dancing Clown. I am the Eternal Destroyer and Devourer of all that you love, little insignificant worm! You are my prey, just like all the others, and soon your flesh will fill my belly and your entrails will wrap around my fingers just as my presence wraps around this town! There is no use to run and try to hide, for it will do you no good- I am eternal, child! I am the eater of worlds, and of children! And you will be next little Thomas!"
And with that, the clown leaned its head back and unleashed a horrific and cackling laugh that pierced Thomas' eardrums like hot needles. The old woman on the bed laughed and pointed at Thomas, and as she sat up on the bed and stared at him, he was sickened even further to see her diseased and sore-covered mouth open to reveal rotten brown teeth and a very long and swollen tongue that unrolled out of her mouth like a rug. Also out of her mouth spilled a flood of stinking vomit that contained a large amount of ticks, beetles, and maggots. The smells in the room were as unbearable as the awful vision he had seen, and with that Thomas slammed the door shut with all of the force he could muster.
The sound of the door slamming snapped Thomas awake, and as he sat up and looked around his room, he realized that he was safe in his own bed and everything was back to normal. He got up and went to his parent's room to check, and sure enough his father and mother were just fine and fast asleep. As he laid back down in bed and closed his eyes, he could still hear the awful laughing of the monstrous and evil clown...
