"Sure, I'll come." Stuttering Bill Denbrough, who had not stuttered over a single word since leaving Derry for the final time, had not needed to think about whether he would go to Hawkins, Indiana. Things had been good for him the past six months or so. He'd written a new novel, and the manuscript was currently sitting on his agent's desk with a golden star sticker on as a HIGH PRIORITY JOB, a job well done. It would be published in the summer, and Bill had been assured it would be a best seller. Things with Audra had never been so good, he'd never so much as dared believe she could love him so completely, knowing everything, but she did and he was grateful.
It had been rocky at the start and Audra had been badly hurt, but the more miles Bill put between them and Derry, the better she'd been. She didn't blame him for anything, and greater still, she thought he was a hero of sorts. She didn't think he'd gotten his brother Georgie killed in '52 and she didn't think he'd gotten Eddie killed in '83. She'd whole-heartedly forgiven him for his brief affair with Beverly Marsh, accepting his honest apology and admission that he had believed it was his last night on earth and that he'd wanted to spend it feeling loved. Childhood love was not the same sort of intense, deep-set love, not like the love he had for Audra, but it was pure and good and had gotten him through that night. Sometimes he thought maybe he caught her watching him when he talked to women at parties, but that could have been his imagination, but (guilty, your guilty conscience Bill, because you love Beverly, you love her more and she knows it she can see) for the most part things were better than he had any right to expect.
"Who was that on the phone?" Audra rounded the corner into their open plan kitchen, wearing one of his smart shirts and nothing else. Bill wanted to reach for her, draw her close and maybe take her over the counter, but he didn't.
"Mike Hanlon." He tried to keep his voice level and pleasant, but she jerked her head up as though slapped by an invisible hand.
"Mike Hanlon? From... from before?"
"Ayuh." Good Jesus, there it was, he hadn't said that in years, not since he was a child, and he wasn't even going back to Derry and yet Mike had said it had started again and that was impossible but it felt the same.
"What did he want?" Her voice was thin and reedy but her gaze was intense. She was willing him to say there had been a death or a birthday invite or maybe Bev and Ben were getting married or anything she would take anything or even no news is good news, but-
"He's moved to an town in Indiana. Three kids have been killed in the last week and it looks like-"
"No, don't you dare say it Bill don't you dare!" Audra wailed, fisting her auburn hair in shaking hands and pulling. The sudden pain helped to focus her mind a little, which was goo, because she knew the next words out of Bill's mouth might well send her right over the edge into loonsville.
"I have to go, Audra. I don't think it's the same thing as before, not It, we killed It and I know that, but it's something. If Mike's asking us to come, then it's something, and I have to go."
"The others, too?" She asked, miserable. He'd made up his mind on the phone already, and Audra had no desire to go a few rounds with him. She'd tried that before and he'd left anyway.
"He's called Ben, and they'll come. I think Richie will, too."
"Not Eddie though, Eddie or Stan. They won't come. Can't because they're dead." She said it coldly, and took some satisfaction in the way Bill winced.
"It's as much for them as for Mike. If this is the same sort of thing, I didn't think there could be more than one It but maybe there can and it's killing kids, Audra. Little kids, like Georgie." The mention of Bill's dead kid-brother closed all avenues of protest for Audra. It was a weak move and they both knew it, but Bill had won by default.
"Fine. You go on, get yourself hurt or maybe killed doing a job that isn't yours. Don't expect me to follow you this time."
"You don't know what a relief that is,". Audra opened her mouth to yell, but the look on his face killed the words in her throat. His skin was ashy and sallow-looking, mouth set in a wavering, grim line angling towards a frown. "It was quite literally my worst nightmare, seeing you down in those tunnels. Having you in Derry. I would give my life to stop you going to Indiana."
"You might be giving your life anyway," she retorted quietly. Bill let that hang in the air for a moment, then approached his wife with cautious little steps.
"If I didn't go. If I abandoned my friends when they needed me, maybe letting more little kids die, would you truly be happy with that?"
"No. You wouldn't be you if you did that, and I can't be so selfish." The words hurt to say because they were true.
"You'll stay here, won't you?"
"I will," she mumbled against his shoulder, allowing him to pull her gently against him. She felt warm and safe in his arms, and made a mental note of how his boy curved against hers, because she felt she might never feel him hold her again.
"Call for you, Rich." Richie Tozier had been enjoying a midday scotch and cigarette break between segments when his manager held up a phone in the sound room. He rolled his eyes, but took the call.
"Richie Tozier, at your service. Or Kinky Briefcase, or Buford Kissdrivel, or-"
"Richie, it's me, it's Mike Hanlon."
"Ma-ike Hanlon as I live n'breathe." Richie's voice naturally sloped into the pickaninny voice from his childhood, a voice he hadn't done in earnest since he was eleven and at all since leaving Derry.
"Beep beep, Richie." It really was Mike Hanlon.
"What's going on, Mikey? I'm guessing this isn't so much a courtesy call."
"Not so much. There's no easy way to say it, but this is my third call today and I'm too tired to bring you into it gently. It's back, It's not dead, and I need your help." Richie had been expecting the words, and maybe even hoping for them. The cold certainty that settled around him was like a safety blanket he didn't know he'd been missing.
"Home, to Derry?" He asked softly.
"No. I'm in Indiana, in a town called Hawkins, it's-"
"Not Derry? My friend, you must be mistaken. It doesn't move, it is Derry for Chrissake, It isn't in Indiana."
"Look I know more about this thing than anyone else, I watched and studied it for my whole damn life while you all forgot. I know the signs, don't you wish I didn't? Don't you think I'd rather be doing anything else than calling you all here? There are three children dead here, limbs torn off, human-like bite marks, and faces like they've seen the worst thing in the universe and straight-up died of fear. You hearing me?"
"I hear you. I'll come, you know I will. Not because we promised and not because I think you're right, not yet. But because you asked, and you wouldn't lie."
"Friends don't lie," Mike replied, and wondered why the words sent a foreign chill down his spine, like someone else had said them from inside his brain.
Mike had intended to close the Library a little early to give himself time to gather what he'd need to convince the others. He needed to stop by the sheriffs department and find his deputy friend, and he needed to go home and get his newspaper clippings. He hadn't had much time to look into the history of Hawkins, but that was alright. He didn't think there was much to find, it wasn't a hidden cesspool like Derry. Up until the Byers boy had disappeared last November the town had been as squeaky clean as small-town America could get. The terrible feeling that somehow It had followed him here wouldn't stop picking at his brain, even though he had moved here after November. It still felt... related. Mike Hanlon had intended to close the Library a little early, but there was a group of kids huddled around the little occult shelf and they would not leave.
"Can I help you boys with something?" Four guilty faces spun to meet his, and he noticed with some surprise that the smallest of the boys was Will Byers.
"No, sir, no thank you." A boy with a mop of unruly curls and too-few teeth flashed him a grin.
"That's an interesting subject matter. Maybe not such good reading for boys like yourself. I might suggest the funnybooks in the young adult section."
"We'll look there too, thanks. We, uh, we were looking for stuff about vampires and werewolves and stuff, you know like horror books." This kid stepped a little forward from the others, sounded more sure of himself, and looked Mike in the eye. He reminded Mike of Stuttering Bill as he had been in 1958, the unspoken leader of the Losers Club.
"I think I'd be getting some complaints from your parents if I let take that stuff home, but I think I can show you a few things here, for a moment." Mike reached up past the occult shelf and pulled a few horror comics from the shelf. "These are for grown-ups really, they're comics but they're from adult horror books. Lotta gruesome pictures. Go on over to the desks and have a look." Mike handed the novel to the leader of the group and watched them slink off to a nearby table.
The door at the front of the Library opened with a little puff of warm spring air, and Mike Hanlon looked up. Beverly Marsh looked as good now as she had a year ago, maybe better. She had put on a little weight, and it suited her. The smile she was wearing looked comfortable and easy and that suited her too. Ben Hanscom suited her.
"Beverly! I didn't think you were coming!"
"Wild horses couldn't keep me away." After a pause, she added, "Neither could Ben, though he sure did try. It's good to see you, Mike."
"Glad to see you, wish you weren't here." She nodded in reply, then stepped forward to embrace him.
"Ben's just parking up. It was odd, walking up here, I had the strangest feeling, this library... it doesn't look like Derry Public, and yet..."
"I know. The towns have their similarities, don't they?"
"I like this Library a whole lot more, even without the glass corridor," Ben Hanscom had appeared in the doorway behind them, accompanied by Richie Tozier, who looked... tired, and peaky. No one looked all that frightened, it wasn't like last time. That's because they don't believe you, Mikey, they're just humouring you because you're alone and you're poor and you really got the SHORT STRAW in this game, Mike brushed these thoughts from his mind and stepped forward to shake first Ben's hand, then Richie's.
"Thank you for coming, both of you. Really. I have... I have a lot to show you, and I think after I do you'll want to stay."
"I hope you're wrong about that," Richie said with a smile.
"Would that I were. Either of you see Bill on your travels into town?"
"Nope. Bev and I flew into Indianapolis a few hours ago, and took a car from there."
"Ditto," Richie nodded.
"I don't know where in the world he's living at the moment, so I guess it could take a little while. Would you all like to sit in my office whilst I try to call him? Audra might know where he is."
"If you don't mind I'd like to look around. I don't get into Libraries much." Of course that was Ben.
"Sure thing. Mind out for those kids reading horror comics, though." Ben looked around the empty library and pointed to the block of desks. The horror comic, Salem's Lot, by Stephen King, had been left on the desk, open to a particularly gory scene.
"Huh. They could have at least put the book back. Oh well. Bev, Richie, you want a drink? I got some beers in the fridge."
"Sounds wonderful," Bev licked her bottom lip subconsciously.
"C'mon up." The three left Ben Hanscom to roam the shelves and went upstairs to wait for Bill.
They did not have to wait long. Bill arrived just as the sun was setting, still less than 24 hours since the telephone call.
"Bill my buddy!" Richie called from the first floor door of Mike's office. "Where in the name of our lord and saviour have you been?"
"California, same as you, trashmouth. Couldn't get a car from the airport, last one went to some faaam-OUS radio DJ, had to wait for a bus."
"The early bird catches the worm," Richie replied pleasantly.
"Everybody else here?" Bill asked, looking around as Ben emerged from the stacks where he'd been reading the back covers of some new travel books. Mike and Bev appeared behind Richie at the top of the stairs, and a look passed between Bev and Bill that was unreadable and made Ben flush with something like jealousy.
"Glad you're here, Bill. Could you shut that door behind you and bolt it?"
"Sure thing, Mike." Bill did as bid and then joined the group, who had congregated around the tables in the reading area.
"Give us the low-down, Mikey boy," Richie said solemnly, and Mike, though feeling a touch of irritation, grinned.
"We all know the pattern, and some of it's the same and some of it's not. We also know that the pattern can be changed by intervention, as we stopped the killings early in 1958 and stopped them, perhaps permanently in 1983. I know it has not been 27 years. I know that, so don't any of you say it. The rest of the pattern feels too much like truth to me, and I made a mistake last time, waiting for nine children to be killed before contacting you all. Three have died so far, and I won't allow there to be a fourth if I have something to do about it."
"I understand what you're saying, Mike. But It's dead. In 58 we knew it might not be, that's why we made the promise to come back if it started again. But It's dead now, it has to be."
Across the Library, wedged firmly and uncomfortably behind the occult shelves, were four boys holding their breaths with wide eyes and pale, shocked faces.
"I know that voice," Mike Wheeler, unofficial leader of the group, whispered. He slowly raised his head and peered through the gap between the tops of the books and the shelves. "It's him! It's Bill Denbrough, the guy who wrote that horror book I stole off my dad! Black Rapids!" The exclamation was a whisper, but the excitement was clear.
"How'd you know, Mike?" Dustin lisped.
"Saw him on Letterman talking about some film he did with his wife, she's that actress with the really red hair," Mike explained.
"Is that her?" Will was now looking through the gap, and he nodded toward Bev.
"I can't see, but I don't think so. Sounds different." They all accepted this immediately, because it was Mike who had said it and he knew these things.
"Is anyone else actually listening to what they're talking about?" Lucas cut in, a scathing look on his face. The others shut up and listened harder.
"The Demogorgon?" Dustin's eyes widened. "They're talking about the Demogorgon?"
"Or something like it. They're talking about those kids that have died."
"Do you think they know about the Upside Down? What do you think, Mike?" Mike had become very still and very pale as he listened to these strange adults talk about killing a monster. Nine people. Their monster had killed nine people, and they thought, at least the Librarian did, that it was the same monster who had come to Hawkins. If these adults knew about it, knew how to kill it... maybe they did know something about the Upside Down. Maybe they knew something about Eleven. Without really thinking it through, Mike Wheeler stepped out from behind the stacks in a move that took more unthinking courage than standing up to Troy or even the Demogorgon. Mike Wheeler stepped out from behind the stacks and put his faith in a group of grownups.
