Chapter Three: Warnings

For Bill Denbrough, writing was a release. Whenever he had mountains of free time and no way else to spend it, he would withdraw into his room, take out a pencil and a book of blank paper. He would sit there and write until either the outside world interfered, or his hand started cramping. Stories were spun and woven with the expertise and care of a loom creating sheets of patterned cloth. Bill poured little bits of himself into every story, keeping himself emotionally invested in the events described or the characters, motivating him to keep the story going. The content and overall tone fluctuated and shifted based on his emotions, and what was happening in his life. It was like having a diary, only a diary where you had to read between the lines to figure out what Bill was actually thinking. Altogether more private and secret, something that Bill appreciated.

Today was a Saturday morning. As was custom, he'd rung up all the other members of the Losers club to see who was free. He wasn't able to get through to Richard Tozier. Eddie Kaspbrack had a doctor's appointment. Stanley Uris had a family commitment. In fact, very few were free, only a couple who Bill didn't know very well. So, he gave up on spending the day out with his friends, instead committing himself to an entire day of writing in peace and quiet.

Peace and quiet that was quite unachievable, as a Saturday meant the whole family was home for the day, and with it, the usually associated stress levels. While Bill loved his mother's piano playing, listening to the clunky instrument play Für Elise or Mozart or Beethoven for hours on end, repeating like a broken record, certainly set his teeth. While Bill loved his father, Zack Denbrough had the habit of dragging Bill along to help him run errands, or to receive tutorials on how to fix a roof or paint a wall or tune the piano. Zack would most certainly have dragged George along to his own share of "father-son moments", aside from his wife's insistence that George was too young to be fiddling with repair tools. While Bill loved his brother, after an extended period of time, in which the boy pranced up and down the hallway outside Bill's room while letting out Native American war whoops, Bill almost started wishing that George would just slip and fall down the stairs. It would certainly make for an interesting interruption to the monotony of life. Not that he wanted George to break his neck or anything. Just an arm or a leg would do.

It was a relief, therefore, when the normal ambiance came to a halt, first when George stopped playing in the hallway, and then when the piano chords broke off abruptly a short while later. Unfortunately, George came crashing through his door within minutes, heralding the end of Bill's writing for the foreseeable future.

"Hey, hey, hey," George bounced excitedly.

Bill held up his hands to ward off the ball of energy. "Wuh-wuh-what the h-h-heck, Juh-Juh-Georgie?"

George was speaking almost too fast to be understood, blithering like a madman.

"S-s-slow down," Bill said as he grabbed his brother's shoulders. "Tuh-take a deep breath."

The wind of George's exhale tickled Bill's face, while his chest rose and fell. "Mom said I could go over to William's house today."

It could be considered to be a little confusing: George had a brother named William, as well as a friend with the exact same first name. George always differentiated between the two by calling his brother "Billy" and his friend "William".

"Okay," Bill responded, thankful that his stutter had decided to recede. It was a very fickle beast, evident when it immediately returned in his next sentence. "How d-does th-this involve me?"

"Well, Mom wants you to take me over and keep an eye on me."

Bill frowned with frustration. George nodded when he saw the expression on his brother's face.

"I know. It's a little para . . . para . . . uh, para . . ."

"Puh-puh-paranoid?" Bill suggested.

"Yeah, that's it. Paranoid. But I think she's concerned. About–," he lowered his voice, "the disappearances."

Bill shuddered, as if cold hands had touched his skin. How many where there now? At least four that had been reported in the newspapers. First was that boy Harley Samwood, a week and a half ago now. Then the numbers had increased steadily. Cheryl Lamonica was next, within three days. Both of the disappeared were teenagers, so it wasn't until the next one, Greta Bowie, one of the girls in his year level at school, that Bill felt a connection to the event. Next was even closer to home; Victor Criss, a member of Henry Bowers' group of bullies. Although Bill wasn't particularly sorry to see him gone, having received more than a couple of bruises from Victor, the proximity to his own life was unsettling. Rumours and speculation were running riot around the town. A serial killer was always the first theory, especially now that the number had climbed, and the possibility of a coincidence was low. The police had no comment to make on the matter, aside from the assertion that they were still searching for all of the missing. In addition to being terrified, Bill also found the whole situation fascinating, in a sort of horrible way, that he was living through what could potentially be the real-life equivalent of a crime story. Every time he opened the newspaper or looked at the missing posters in public areas, he was filled with anticipation of not knowing whether he'd see a new face, another name added to the list of the disappeared.

"I see," Bill murmured in response to his brother. "Wuh-where's the house?"

"West Broadway. Number 16."

"Alright. Juh-juh-just let me get muh-my shoes and juh-jacket on."

It was not long before the two brothers were standing outside their house. George was wearing the same yellow slicker he'd worn the day he'd gone out with the newspaper boat, with the hood thrown back this time, exposing his golden-brown hair. Bill's coat was dark, only a shade or so darker than his hair.

"Ruh-ready?" Bill asked and received a nod in response. "Right. Let's guh-go."

Bill would have preferred to take his writing with him, but he felt that doing so would have defeated the purpose of his accompanying George. Besides, his stories were born and nurtured in his bedroom, and it felt like they should stay there, until the world was ready to see them.

Their path led south first, down Witcham Street, before a sharp turn at the intersection with West Broadway sent them northwest. From there, it was a straight shot to Number 16. The trip did take them past the house of Greta Bowie. Although it did not look any different from any other time Bill had been past there, a new air seemed to hang over it, as if the girl's body was present at the property, concealed in the grass or the dirt under the house. For all anybody knew, maybe she was.

A short walk down the street was the home of George's friend. It was conspicuously different from all the other houses on the street, more similar in style to Bill's house than the Victorian architecture that made up the rest of the boulevard. Bill remembered hearing Greta Bowie and her friend, Sally Mueller, complaining about a house on the street which was an "eyesore" and should be "removed", in their opinion. This must be it. There was a slightly shabby look about the house, as if the family could only just afford to live there, and there was a large tree out the front covering most of view of the roof from the road. As the brothers stepped off the road and onto the footpath, a voice called to them.

"Hallo!"

Both jolted in shock, but George recovered quickly. "William! Where are you hiding?"

"Up here."

Looking upwards, Bill spotted an inconsistency in the tree. A faded white and brown sneaker was poking out from between the branches and orange autumn leaves. That section of the tree ruffled and shook, and then a lanky boy the same height as George slipped between the branches and landed in a crouch on the ground. He bounced up to his feet and brandished something pointed and wooden at Bill's face.

"I've got you now, blasted Peter Pan!"

Bill found himself staring at a singular light-blue eye. There was only one that he could see, because the other was covered by a patch of black fabric, tied to the boy's head with a string that ran around his skull. The object in his hand was a sword assembled from a couple of pieces of wood.

George burst out with laughter at the expression of shock his brother was wearing. By the time he was finished, the other two were still staring at each other. "William, this is my brother, Billy."

William swapped his sword to his left hand and dropped it to his side. Then he held out his right hand for a handshake. "Hallo, Bill. It's always fun to meet another William."

Bill nodded uncertainly as he took the younger boy's warm hand in his own. He'd only heard him speak twice, and yet he'd already picked up the strong British accent in his voice.

As George clapped his arm around his friend's shoulder, William peeled the patch off his own eye, revealing another healthy blue iris. "Everybody calls you "Stuttering Bill". Do you really have a stutter?"

Bill nodded, suddenly self-conscious about his speaking difficulty.

"It's okay. I think stuttering is cool."

Getting over a moment of surprise, Bill quickly replied, "It's not."

William shrugged, before jamming his sword into his belt. "Mum's inside if you need to talk with her."

Without waiting for a response, the boy shrugged out of George's arm and pounced up the tree like a squirrel, quickly disappearing from sight within the branches.

"Wait, where's my sword?" George asked.

"Inside the house, leaning against the wall in my room," came William's voice from somewhere within the leaves.

George was gone in an instant, leaving the front door swinging open slowly in his haste. Bill sat down on the worn wooden front steps that led up to the door, rested his arms on his knees, and watched the street in front of him, while his brain wandered aimlessly. It was easy to spot where William was hiding in the tree, from the shaking of the branches. A couple of times his face emerged from the foliage, the first time to gaze up the street, and the second time looking straight at Bill with a curious and thoughtful expression.

It was evident that George was having some difficulty locating the sword, as it was several minutes before he re-emerged from the house. When he did so, he almost tripped over Bill, but managed to avoid doing so at the last second.

Bill knew he was supposed to be supervising George, but it was immensely brain numbing to watch two six-year-olds playing around and in a tree, whooping and squealing. He just consistently found his mind wandering to other topics. His writing was the primary one, but from time to time he'd circle back to the four missing kids. Eventually, the new tangents and storylines he was creating started to get muddled and fouled by the four faces and four names.

They say that if you sit somewhere long enough, everyone in the world will pass by you. This proverb proved somewhat truthful, as Bill observed, when up the footpath came Richard Tozier, conspicuous in his spectacles and bright t-shirt.

Bill let out a whistle to catch his friend's attention. "Hey, Richie!"

The grin was wide on Richie's face as he sauntered over. "Hey, Bill. What's cooking?"

In answer, Bill jerked a thumb in the direction of the tree, where William was hanging upside down from a branch, bashing swords with George while they both screamed battle cries. "So, whu-whu-what brings you down to this suh-side of town?"

"What?" Richie said, mockingly mortified at the query. He blinked his eyes very widely. "Can't I just go out for a simple stroll?"

"Th-th-the disappearances," Bill responded with a cough.

"I'm not going to go missing," Richie asserted confidently, giving Bill a tap on the forehead with his finger. "Without me, there would be no laughter from here to Castle Rock."

"You wuh-wish," Bill retorted, slapping Richie's finger away before rolling his eyes. "And y-you haven't answered my que-que-question."

"I don't know, Bill." Richie stuck his hands in his pockets as he spoke loftily. "Maybe I just decided to take a walk over here because I just wanted to take a look at a certain house."

"Guh-Greta's?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

Bill peered down the street. Under the dim light from the blanket of grey clouds overhead, the road seemed to stretch and distend, like a straight pathway to hell.

"Isn't it private puh-property?" he asked.

"Aw, c'mon." Richie pushed his glasses up on his nose. "Do you really think that they would care about a couple of boys poking around?"

"After wuh-what huh-huh-happened to their daughter? Ab-buh-buh-solutely." Bill frowned. "Wait. You s-said 'a couple'."

Richie grinned, moving his face uncomfortably close to Bill's. "You can't hide from me, Big Bill. I can see it in your eyes. You want to go snoop around that house so badly I bet it's gnawing away at you that you have to watch these two play pirates."

"G-get off," Bill grunted, pushing Richie away roughly. "So wuh-what? What if I d-do?"

"Two heads are always better than one. Even your pea-sized brain." In response, Bill aimed a kick at Richie's knee, that he easily dodged. "C'mon, Bill. Let's ditch these two and go corpse-hunting."

"She's not d-d-dead, Richie."

"You don't know that. Nobody knows that. Because she's vanished. But we're gonna find out, today. We're gonna find out what really happened to her. We're gonna be the only people in Derry that know the truth about what happened to Greta Bowie. Now, what's the name of the kid over there who's gonna pass out from all the blood rushing to his head?"

Richie's monologue sounded far too excited in Bill's opinion.

"Th-that's not what huh-happens when you s-stand upside-down," he tried to explain, but gave up. "His name's William."

"Hey, William!" Richie called. The boy looked up, or down from his own perspective, while his shirt suddenly came untucked from his pants, fell down, and collected at his chin. "I just heard your mother: she's made you and Georgie some hot chocolate and cookies!"

George came charging towards them immediately. Bill had to leap to his feet to avoid a collision. Meanwhile, William released his hold on the tree and crashed to the ground. He was completely fine though, jumping up and running after his friend.

As soon as the door slammed shut, Richie grinned at Bill. "Let's go."

On the walk back down West Boulevard, Bill tried to remember all the information he could that had been reported about Greta's disappearance. As a rich family, the Bowies would no doubt have tried to keep the whole affair hush-hush, all for the sake of preserving their irrefutable image. As often occurs, of course, somebody talked to the reporters, and the whole story got out.

Greta had disappeared one day, while playing with her new puppy in the backyard. She was out of sight for a solid period of half an hour. Like with the other three missing, the police went searching up and down the town, from Strawford Park to the Train Yards, perhaps with slightly more vigour and energy considering the identity of this particular missing individual.

"D-do you think th-they'll buh-be home?" Bill asked as they walked along in front of the grand yet gloomy house.

Richie shrugged. "Even if Old-Man-Bowie loved his daughter only a microbial amount, it's only been five days since she vanished. For appearance's sake, he has to be out searching, at least until the official mourning period starts. That just leaves the mother, who I'm sure is too distressed to notice us."

"Buh-buh-beep-beep," Bill muttered. "So, how are wuh-we gonna d-do this?"

"Climb the side gate, of course." Richie took off at a run, scrambled up the wooden frame, and vaulted over. Bill sighed, before following at a slightly slower rate.

The backyard was decidedly bare, with only a flower garden along the back fence to provide a break in the unremarkable grassy flooring.

"Keep your eyes peeled for bodies," Richie advised excitedly, although Bill knew that if Greta's body was somewhere easy to spot, the police would have found it in their many sweeps. Richie ran up to the back fence, leaving Bill to cast around the edge of the house itself. He moved in a slight crouch, keeping as far out of view of the windows as possible, while he searched for footprints or anything suspicious. He poked at a small mound of dirt, but it was only a dormant ant hill. There was something sticking out from a miniscule depression underneath the crisscross wooden frame, that supported the back porch and gave it an aesthetically pleasing look. When he drew it out, it was revealed to be one of Greta's dolls, discoloured and infected with dust, probably abandoned and forgotten for a long time prior to when she went missing. Bill quickly slipped it back into its place.

Something small, brown, and furry scampered out of a box on the porch, tumbled down the stairs, and galloped over to Bill's feet, hopping eagerly, and whipping a small furry tail from side to side.

"Huh-hello there," Bill greeted, kneeling down, and opening his hand towards the puppy. It was smaller than a loaf of bread and did not make so much as an excited bark. He gave it a gentle scratch in the thin fur that clung to its flanks. "You've puh-probably been on your own since Guh-Guh-Greta went muh-missing."

The puppy yawned, flicking its tongue out, before flopping onto its side and waiting expectantly for a belly rub. As Bill granted its wish, a thought came to his mind. "I buh-bet you s-s-saw wuh-what happened to Guh-Greta."

It blinked its adorable, wide eyes up at Bill in a mixture of both understanding and confusion.

"Hey, Bill!" The call was delivered both loudly and quietly at the same time. Bill saw Richie waving for him to come over, so he complied, jogging over through the grass. The other boy pointed at something on the wooden fence. "Look at that."

From a distance, it just looked like a discoloured patch of the timber, one or two shades darker than the rest. Up close, however, it was clear that it was a splatter of something pitch black, as black as a void that was swallowing up any light foolish enough to try and illuminate it. All around it, the wood was bubbling and cracking, in some places even smoking with grey vapour.

"D-d-don't touch it," Bill warned.

Richie rolled his eyes. "I'm not stupid. I think I know when something's bad for my health. Anything with a stench like this is certainly hazardous."

It smelt like the wind had changed direction arbitrarily and blown the putrid air that hung over the town dump up here. Decomposing fruit was prominent, along with the acrid smell of metal and rusting metal. Somewhere there was also a bit of biological waste, adding to the melting pot of foul odours.

The only thing was, as Bill realised with a shiver, that today was a windless day. The smell was definitely coming from the black substance.

"Wuh-well, it's not tar," Bill mused, pinching his nose shut to keep the stench out.

After a moment of glancing around, Richie picked up a twig from the ground. Holding it with the care of a lighted match, he prodded twice at the roughly circular area. He withdrew quickly, as the twig started to smoke and emit a hissing sound on contact. Some of the black stuff clung to the tip like mucus. Richie quickly threw it away into one of the rose bushes.

Then they both heard the sound that they had been most afraid to hear: the click and clunk of a door knob turning. They immediately threw themselves to the ground, hoping the bushes would conceal them.

Like the door knob, the sound of the hinges squeaking carried clear across the yard.

"Sweetie!" a woman's voice called. There was a short bark from the puppy, which gambolled across the yard and scrambled up the back steps. Bill heard the woman murmuring to the dog for a second, before the door swung shut again.

"I th-think we've seen enough," Bill whispered firmly to Richie. "Let's guh-guh-guh-get out of here."

There was no argument for once on Richie's part, and the two boys stole across the gloomy yard back to the side gate. As before, Richie went first: up and over in a matter of seconds. Bill paused at the top, perched with one leg on either side. His eyes searched the yard, back towards the strange patch of mucus on the back fence. When he found it, he saw something that almost made him fall off the gate.

There was something peeping through the black blemish. All he could see were a pair of shiny disks, as if someone had pressed two silver coins into the substance. Bill couldn't tear his eyes away from those two pinpoints, finding his whole body frozen in place like prey in the gaze of a predator.

"Bill!" hissed Richie. Bill's head jerked out of the trance and he looked down at his friend. "What's the hold up?"

Looking back at the dark blotch, the silvery disks were gone. The mucus was once again a solid black. Bill rubbed his eyes before hopping down.

"It wuh-wuh-was nothing," he replied, hoping his eyes had just been playing tricks on him.

Richie took off at a jog down the street, muttering something about getting home on time. Bill followed at a slightly slower pace, making his way back to William's house. He found George sitting on the front steps of the house when he got back, hugging his knees and staring blankly at the ground in front of him.

"Tuh-time to go?" Bill suggested. George looked up and nodded. Bill held out his hand, and George took it as he stood up.

"Where did you go?" he asked.

"I juh-just went up the s-street with Richie," Bill answered.

"William's mother hadn't made hot chocolate or cookies," George reported flatly. "She only did when we asked."

"I'm sorry, Juh-Georgie," Bill apologised. "It was Richie's idea."

George sniffed twice. "Well, it wasn't very nice."

He suddenly froze, tensing his hand in Bill's. His older brother gave him a questioning glance.

"Look," he whispered, his finger pointing shakily at something across the road. Turning around, Bill spotted the figure of a man standing on the other side of the street. His arms dangled at his sides, while he was staring straight at the two brothers. When their eyes met, Bill saw a crocodile smile stretch over the man's face, before he lifted up a hand in a wave, and began to stride away down the street.

Bill shivered. "Who was that?"

"That was Mr Lawrence," George replied. "He rescued my boat for me."

"Uh-huh," Bill said, nervously watching the departing figure. After the twin events he had witnessed, at the Bowie residence and just a few seconds ago, Bill had no desire to stay outside any longer. "We ruh-really should get home."