The One Who Got Away
I ran through the mucky sewers trying with all my might and desperation to escape. I screamed and yelped while I lifted my legs up, stepping foot over foot through the raw sewage. I had to get away. I had to
"Help!" I screamed out.
I doubt anyone would hear me all the way down here anyway. But it was worth a shot.
I had already had a bad head wound and I could feel the blood dripping down my face turning my vision from clear to red.
I wiped away the blood, but not before I tripped over a rusted tricycle.
I stumbled a bit but I reached out and grabbed the wall for support but unfortunately the wall was covered in slime. I slipped and fell face first down in the gray water.
I lifted myself up and spat out the water from my mouth. I started gagging because I knew I was going to throw up whatever had dared to go down my throat.
Then I heard it. A loud cackling laugh. It was behind me.
I dared to look behind me and I saw a white gloved hand grip the side of the pipe I had just ran through. It was him; that clown. The one who had taken me to begin with.
"No!" I screamed again. Getting up I bolted forward and again, the chase was on. I was scared beyond belief. I felt my entire body shaking in fear.
My fear must have blinded me because tt was then I ran smack dap into a metal gate.
"Fuck!" I yelled. I banged on the gate and pulled and pushed with everything I had but it wouldn't open. I looked for a lock and it was there down in the right hand corner rusted shut.
I kicked the gate but then that only gave me a throbbing pain in my right ankle.
I silently cursed to myself thinking I had just sprained it.
I didn't waste any time in going back the way I came. I had come straight and I noticed there was an opening I had passed.
I limped back and took that hard right and limped forward.
I pushed my long black hair out of my face while I could see daylight away ahead.
"I'm going to get you," came a sing song voice from behind me.
"No," I whispered silently and continued to limp forward. I was getting so close. I could feel the cool air on my face and I knew I was almost at safety. I was now shaking in anticipation that I was so close to freedom.
I was then running despite the pain I had felt in my right ankle.
Almost there, I thought.
"Almost there", I said to myself knowing I could get help once I hit the main road. Someone had to stop to help me.
Then about five feet away a white gloved hand came around the corner and slithered its' way around my neck. I felt myself being hoisted up by the throat then I hear the crackling menacing laughter of the clown. He was right there in front of me, holding me in the air.
I screamed and took hold of his wrists trying to pry him off.
It was very hard to breathe.
"Let go," I choked out.
"Thought you could get away?" he asked me.
His face was enough to scare anyone, adult or child.
It was pure white like a ghost but his eyes are what stood out. They were as gold as amber.
It wasn't normal. He wasn't normal. He was a monster.
"Let go," I choked out again and I started kicking in any effort for him to release me.
I felt his grip get tighter and I started coughing. I was starting to see stars in front of my eyes.
"No, I need to feed. I need to eat," he said.
Realization and fear are what crept up my spine besides the shivers I had now had. I also had anger overcome my fear for the time being. I was a human being not a main course.
"Starve," I growled out before I spat in his face and bit down on his fingers hard, that I could feel them breaking beneath my teeth.
Pennywise scrunched his face in pain.
The action had temporarily caught him off guard and he lost his grip, sending me falling back down in the gray water.
I didn't hesitate and I was up and ran for the sewer opening.
Pennywise was fake crying but then popped his fingers back into place He turned his head like a cobra ready to strike. He pursued me as his laughter echoed throughout the drains.
It was then I made it out of the sewer and I ran into the woods. The sun was starting to set and I needed to find the road fast.
I ran left and right as fast as I could ignoring my throbbing head and now swollen ankle.
I stopped to catch my breath looking around for any sign of that clown. He sure stood out like a sore thumb with that off gray Victorian clown suit and white makeup.
I then heard the sound of traffic nearby and then I ran again.
"Hey! Stop! Please!" I yelled as I saw a white car pass by.
"Please stop!" I call out again.
I ran onto the road and panted on the pavement.
"Help me!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. I started crying.
It was no use. No one could hear me. I was here on a road in the middle of nowhere and I was being hunted.
I collapsed both from exhaustion and pain. I let some tears free fall down my cheeks washing away the fresh blood that continued to cascade down my face.
I took a quick look at myself. My white shirt was torn, my blue jeans were ripped and my sneakers were soaked from the sewer water. I was a wreck.
My arms were scratched up bigtime. I knew I was going to need stitches. My knees were also bleeding.
I heard a crunch of branches from behind me and I gasped looking around the foliage.
It was then I decided I wasn't going to stick around and wait for the clown to take me again so I started limping back the way I hoped town was.
Being only 15 I wasn't that good at directions so I hoped town was in the direction I was going. Even though I had lived in Derry all my life the roads leading in and out of the town were still confusing for me.
That's how I got lost in the first place after trying to go for a hike before sundown. That's when I was taken by surprise when I was following a small girl I had recognized from a missing poster in town. I had followed her down to the sewer but it was all a lure. A trap. That's how I got into this situation in the first place.
I was broken out of my thoughts by a chill that swept the air I realized I wasn't doing anything to save myself.
It was getting darker and darker and I had only moonlight to help me back to town.
My head wound was causing me to stumble and sway. I knew I had lost too much blood.
Then I fell.
I really thought I was going forward but instead I swayed my body right off the road and into a ditch on the side of the road.
I lifted myself up and I could hardly open my eyes.
"You'll float too," came a voice from ahead.
I slowly opened my eyes and I thought I saw a child holding a red balloon standing a few feet away from me.
"You'll float too. We all float down here," he said.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"You'll float too," he said then he disappeared into the darkness of the woods.
I crawled out of the ditch and I felt a liquid on my stomach. I must have fell into the water.
I wiped the water off but then the moonlight gazed down on me. Then I started whimpering
It wasn't water. It was blood.
"No No. this isn't real," I said trying to calm myself down.
"This isn't real. No," and I shut my eyes shaking my head trying to break the illusion.
"Oh believe you me, it's real," said a voice from in front of me.
I opened my eyes and looked up right into the ember eyes of the clown.
Before I could scream he put his gloved hand over my mouth and lifted me up as if I was a toy.
I let out a muffled scream.
He pulled me so I was facing the road. I felt his chest on my back and never once did his hand leave my mouth. I struggled with everything I had despite how weak my mind and body was.
He was so much taller and stronger than I was so even if I fought I had no chance of winning.
"Look what you did," he said pointing to the ditch.
I looked to the ditch and I saw a small child no older than ten years old, ripped to pieces. It was his blood I was currently wearing on my shirt and jeans.
I let out another muffled scream. My body shook in anxiety and fear.
I almost gagged at the sight of a mutilated child.
Pennywise used his left hand and pointed at the child.
"You did this. If you hadn't tried to escape that child might have lived. He would be home safe all comfy and cozy with his mommy and daddy. Because of you his life was cut short so now they will find his body in the morning and blame it on an animal," he growled through his sharp teeth.
Some of his drool landed in my hair, but I didn't notice.
I was silently crying. I was crying because I had actually knew that child. His name was Edward.
The moonlight was gone and so was the image of Edward lying in the ditch dead.
"Oop. Time to go. Time to float," said Pennywise.
Pennywise tightened his grip on me and started pulling me back towards the sewer.
I had a burst of adrenaline as my survival instincts kicked in.
"No! Let me go you son of a bitch!" I screamed though his hand.
Pennywise didn't pay any attention at my struggling and just pulled me along through the woods by my neck. Branches and thorns tore at my already torn clothes. I fought with everything I had left in me but it was no use. He wasn't letting me go.
He released my mouth when we got to the entrance to the sewer.
I gasped but it was in vain.
"You can scream all you want. No one is going to hear you down here," he said.
He pulled me back down to his lair of garbage and floating children.
"Why are you doing this? What are you?" I asked as he pulled me closer and closer to his lair.
"It's none of you concern," said the clown maliciously.
"You're the one who's going to kill me so I think I have the right to know," I say as we entered his home lair.
I glanced up at the floating children. I knew I was going to be one of them.
Pennywise spun me around and pulled me into an embrace almost as if he was going to dance with me.
I gasped loudly, looking right into his eyes. Not only were they scary but also entrancing being patterned out in red lines leading down to his massive lips. He pulled me down and sniffed me.
"You're so innocent for someone of your age. You're going to taste the best out of them all" he said.
I knew what he was talking about. My innocence for being a teenager. Almost everyone else was messing around but me in school.
"I hope I give you the shits," I say.
Then Pennywise smiled at me.
"Bon appetite," he said then he bit down on my neck. I screamed in absolute pain and started to choke and gag on my own blood. He ripped a huge piece of my neck out, skin and all.
Then my mouth filled with blood. I looked at Pennywise and spit the blood in his face before he let me go and I fell down to the bottom of the garbage tower, clutching my throat feeling my life drain out of me as my blood did.
The clown had won.
I smiled sweetly while feeling my life lead my body.
At least now I can be with my grandmother, I thought
Then I died.