Chapter 45: Blast from the Past
The bell has rung, signalling the end of the day, much to the relief of its many students. The once-empty halls fill with noise as students hurry to gather their belongings and begin the journey towards imminent freedom.
The three remaining friends of the Loser's Club who still enjoyed hanging out meet up at Bill's locker. Bill stuffs his sketchbook and coloured pencils, as well as a few felt-tipped pens, into his bag.
"When are you going to tell us about this big secret project you're working on?" Beverly asks.
"N-Not until it's all p-planned out," Bill says.
"You're not exactly subtle with your planning," she jokes, removing the cigarettes and lighter from her back pocket. "You spent the entirety of Biology sketching swords in the margin of the textbook. You know that Mr. Rolland is going to kill you if he finds out."
"F-Fortunately it's only in pencil," Bill says. "E-Easy e-erase."
"But why won't you tell us about it," Ben asks. "We're your friends."
"B-because I want to m-make sure that it's a…a really g-good idea b-before I share it."
"Why? You think that we won't like it?" Bev asks.
"Yeah, it's not like we're not Richie, we're not going to shit all over it," Ben adds. "Plus, we know you're a great artist Bill."
"One of the best I've ever seen," Beverly adds with a smile.
Bill's face flushes slightly and he returns the smile. Ben swallows his jealousy and the twinge of anger at witnessing this exchange and turns back to the conversation to continue boosting his friend's confidence, despite being rivals for Beverly's affection.
"And one hell of a storyteller," he grimaces, grinding his teeth slightly.
"Yes." She agrees.
"Th-Thanks guys, that means a lot, but W-Will and I w-want to make sure it's-s good before sharing. He's not-t sharing w-with his friends either."
"Is that the Will in our Bio class?" Ben asks. "The one with the bowl cut?"
"You're one to talk," Bev teases, mussing his hair that sometimes fell into that style.
Ben turns beet red and moves his bangs out of his face to avoid the comparison.
"Y-Yeah."
"Did you know that in 1983, he went missing and was lost in the woods for a week?" Ben says.
"Really?"
"Yeah, it was a whole big thing for Hawkins. I read about it in the library when I was going through their archives to learn more about the town, including that research lab just outside of the area. They thought he had fallen into a ravine at the quarry and… died, but he was actually lost in the woods. Nealy froze to death."
"Remind me to never go hiking in those woods alone," she shudders.
"And that lab got in trouble and shut down for chemicals leaking into the surrounding area and killing another student, Barbara Holland," Ben continues.
"Is her picture in the front hall in the trophy case?" Bev asks.
"That's her. It was a freak accident, but it's nice to know that she's still being remembered… anyways I'll see you guys later," Ben says.
"Where are you going?" Bev asks. "Isn't Book Club on Tuesdays and Thursdays?"
"It is, but I promised Mr. Clarke, the middle school science teacher that I would be one of the high school representatives for the A/V club."
"B-but you know nothing ab-bout A/V," Bill points out.
"Which is why I'm willing to learn… besides. This kind of extracurriculars looks good on college applications" he replies before heading across the school toward the back entrance.
Bill and Bev look at one another.
"W-We're only in Ninth Grade and he's already thinking about college."
"Always looking towards the future," Bev says. "Can't really blame him. Anyways. I'll see you later." She puts the cigarette between her lips and heads out the back to find a picnic table to sit and smoke on.
The sun shines down on Ben as he goes across the field to Hawkins Middle School. He walks through the halls, decorated with pawprints to represent the school's mascot the cubs. Ben found the connection between the cubs and the tigers of the high school quite amusing. What would the elementary school be? The Paws? He finds the science class and knocks at the door.
"Mr. Clarke?" he says.
"You must be Benjamin," the science teacher smiles, standing up to greet the student. He offers his hand, which Ben shakes politely.
"That's me. But you can just call me Ben."
"All right then Ben. I'm so glad that you've offered to help run the A/V club."
"It's my pleasure," he says.
"Allow me to show you the Heath HAM Shack," the teacher says enthusiastically.
Ben looks a little bewildered by the final three words of the sentence but just nods before following Mr. Clarke down the hall.
"So I hear you're originally from Derry."
"I am, but I lived in Colorado before that."
New kid all over again, he thinks to himself.
"Oh, I love Colorado, such amazing geography to study. The mountain ranges, the minerals…"
Definitely a science teacher, Ben smirks.
"Anyways, sorry I got sidetracked there. It's always helpful and greatly appreciated to have some old and new faces to keep this club going."
"Old?" Ben asks curiously.
"Well, you're not the only high school student who's come back…" Mr. Clarke opens the door.
A figure stands up after being behind a piece of electrical equipment and Ben comes face to face with a kid wearing goggles and rubber gloves, along with a ballcap and a thick afro of thick curly hair tucked under it.
Both boys recognize each other.
"Dustin, this is Ben Hanscom. He's volunteered to help supervise the A/V Club."
"We've met, Hey," Dustin nods.
"Hey," Ben says.
"How are the repairs coming?' Mr. Clarke asks.
"Slow," Dustin says. "Some of this stuff is still severely poached." He's having flashbacks over just being in here when they used Eleven to try and talk to Will… which also caused the HAM radio to burst into flames. And then showing the group Dart the next year. A lot of memories and a lot of damage was had in this room, which is why he preferred his Cerebro.
"You see a few years ago, we had a massive short-circuit and while the equipment is running again, we still have problems from time to time," Mr. Clarke explains. "I figured you could use a little bit of help today."
"Where are the other members?" Ben asks.
"Sign-ups have been slow this year, but we've had a few interested individuals," the teacher says. Ben notices the very chipper and enthusiastic smile on his face drop a little bit before it returns to full force. "And it's only the first few weeks of school. I'm sure there will be interested parties soon."
Both teenagers look at one another.
Mr. Clarke clears his throat. "I'll be back to help you boys as soon as I can. I have some science tests to mark and once I'm done, I'll be over to help."
"Thanks, Mr. Clarke," Dustin says.
The teacher then leaves the room and Dustin kneels back down to see what else needs to be fixed.
Ben just stands there awkwardly.
After a few minutes, Dustin sticks his head back up.
"You gonna help me or are you just going to stand there?"
"Right," Ben drops his bag on a chair and comes over.
He kneels down next to the other kid and all he can see are a bunch of wires and plugs in all different colours. It looks like a big mess.
"Goggles," Dustin says, handing him an extra pair.
"Oh right, thanks," Ben says, slipping them on. "So, what's going on with the wiring?"
"I'm trying to find out which wires aren't connecting properly to the motherboard," he explains.
He pulls one of the wires out and examines it. It never ceases to amaze him how much El had fried the circuit and motherboard with her telekinetic energy.
As he pulls another wire out, another falls to the floor. Thinking it might be important, Ben reaches over.
Dustin then slaps his hand away.
"Ow, what…"
"Where are your gloves dude? While a lot of the power is turned off, the risk of these wires possibly being live could send a very powerful electrical shock through your body that can hurt, or God forbid, kill you."
"All right," Ben says, a little frustrated that he's being talked down to like a child.
"You need something insulated to protect your hands. There's another pair in the blue toolbox," Dustin says before going back to his work.
The kid from Derry goes to the toolbox on a nearby chair and finds them. Once the gloves are on, he feels as if he's geared up, prepared for battle.
"Can you hand me the wire stripper?" Dustin asks, without looking up from his work.
"The what?"
"The wire stripper, they kind of look like scissors, but they cut through the plastic around the wires."
"Sure…"
All the tools look like a jumbled mess. Trying to go off the vague description, Ben finds the closest thing and then hands it over to Dustin.
The teen electrician looks at them and then turns.
"These are pliers… close, but they have sharper ends."
"Oh sorry."
After successfully finding the correct tool, Ben kneels down and watches Dustin as he works to cut through a specific wire and examine where the flaws are.
"Can you hand me the cable cutters?" the kid asks.
"Okay."
Going off the description, Ben hands him one sharp tool.
"This is a utility knife," Dustin sighs.
"Sorry. This?" Ben offers.
"No, that's a voltage tester."
"Oh… this?"
Dustin leans back and looks the kid dead in the eyes. "You really have no idea what you're doing do you?"
Ben shrugs and looks down before sheepishly admitting… "No."
"So why did you agree to help out with the A/V club if you don't know the first thing about electronics or electrical engineering."
"I thought it would look good on a college application. I'm really more into like designing and building things, like houses or structures."
"Well in order to build houses, you need to know a little bit about electrical wiring. It's an important fact to consider, especially where things like light fixtures and wiring would go," Dustin points out.
"I guess that's why. I also just really want to keep busy. I have a lot of time on my hands and Book Club will only go so far."
"Don't you like to hang out with your friends and stuff? Like the one with glasses and the one with the inhaler. Or the kid that is working on a comic book with my friend Will"
"We don't… really hang out anymore. Except for Bill, the one who your friend knows, but he's so busy with that comic book."
"Girlfriend?"
Ben just shakes his head.
"Okay then. The thing is, Mr. Clarke, could probably figure out pretty quickly that you don't know a lot about audio and electrical engineering. So maybe just hand me the tools I need, and I won't tell him anything."
Ben shrugs. "Deal."
"Okay, now I need this…"
…
After an hour of kneeling down and their heads near live electricity, Dustin leans back and stretches out.
"You drink Pepsi?" Dustin asks.
"Yeah."
"There's a vending machine out in the schoolyard. Want to grab us some?"
Dustin goes into his backpack and pulls out a couple of bucks.
"Be right back. I owe you."
When Ben returns with two cans, the two boys sit back and just drink their soda in awkward silence.
"So…" Dustin says, trying to break the awkward silence. "What was the reason for Derry being evacuated again?"
"Tainted water," Ben replies. "It had been happening for a long time, certain chemicals from an old ironworks factory leaked into the water supply and sewer systems. Causing all kinds of problems such as hallucinations, illness, and in some cases, death."
"Geez, that's intense."
"Or that's what they say," Ben says.
"What do you mean?"
"That ironworks factory exploded a long time ago. In 1906 it was completely shut down already and then during an Easter Egg hunt it exploded."
"Holy shit," Dustin says.
"Yeah, a lot of people were killed, including 88 kids. I just don't know why they're blaming the ironworks for the toxic water. It's been nothing but rubble for years and it's not even near the waterways or Standpipe."
"That's intense and sad. So, you think there's some kind of conspiracy?" Dustin is intrigued.
Ben nods, drinking another round of Pepsi, knowing that there was more than tainted water down in those sewers.
"What kind of conspiracy?"
"A cover-up. They've blamed the water for the deaths of a lot of kids in Derry and also what people have been seeing."
"What have they been seeing?"
"Things that can't exist. Mummies, giant birds… clowns with big glowing eyes…"
He swallows.
"Well, I'm glad that you and your friends ditched that place if that's the case."
"Yeah. It kind of sucked, especially considering I used to live in Colorado. The thing about Derry was… they did a study once and, it turns out, people die or disappear at six times the national average. And that's just grown-ups. Kids are worse. Ten times worse."
Dustin gets a chill up his spine and he swallows. He's reminded of what Suzie told him a while back, about Derry being an evil place.
"They can use it to explain the deaths… but the disappearances…"
The two boys fall into silence, unknowingly thinking similar thoughts, although one had lived through it and fought the evil there.
"Let's see what else needs to be fixed," Dustin says quickly. He jumps out of the chair and kneels back down. He puts on his gloves and goggles and then searches for the wire he'd been fiddling with. "Damn, I wish I knew which one it was."
"You know, you could improve the structure inside the panel, and it would to less of a mess with the wires," Ben points out.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean if you built a small platform inside this, it would work better at keeping the wires organized and prevent them from getting tangled."
Ben grabs a pad of paper and a pen and draws out his idea.
"That would be great if it was small enough and could fit next to the motherboard. You'd also have to have a material that won't conduct heat and risk another fire and that would mean a lot of moving wires around."
"It could work," Ben says, he continues to sketch out his thoughts.
"You work on that while I…"
Suddenly, the HAM radio springs to life, startling both of them. First, there's the hiss of white noise.
"What did you hit?" Ben asks.
"Nothing."
Weird carnival music begins to play… the same kind that Dustin had heard before… the same day Suzie had told him about Derry. This overlapped with the crackling of static. The light-up meters flicker, as if almost in sync with the music. The knobs, dials, and switches on the equipment seem to move on their own, back and forth, also in time with the strange song.
This causes, both Ben and Dustin to back away, extremely freaked out.
"Has this ever…" Ben begins.
"No!" is the response.
They watch as the music seems to get louder and the sound becomes more disoriented, repeating in some places and skipping in others.
"Same channel as before," the kid from Hawkins mutters.
"What?"
"I have my own radio called Cerebro and I picked up this channel or frequency before. It's like some kind of twisted carnival station."
Ben clenches his fists as he begins to get flashbacks of… IT.
There's no way. It was dead. We killed it. He thinks to himself.
Then a strange sort of laughter comes through the static. Very creepy laughter… the kind that a maniac might have.
Ben backs up even further in absolute fear. The scar from the scratch he got seems to flare up and he clutches his side. He stumbles back, falling over the chair and knocking the tools down as he goes. He ignores them as he attempts to get as far away from the radio as possible.
"Dude are you…"
The laughter gets more intense and now all the lights in the room begin to flicker. It's extremely loud now, to the point that both of them want to cover their ears. The equipment continues to move on its own, much more intensely as the laughter continues and the carnival music blares.
Dustin swallows and looks up in fear. He knew what happened when the lights went like that. He stares at them almost hypnotically; flashbacks enter his mind. Being trapped in the school, face to face with the…
He backs up, swearing under his breath. Ben is pressed against the back wall, as far away as he can manage, and Dustin is about to join him.
"I'm going to get you… I'm going to get you…" a sinister voice says through the radio. "Floating all…"
"NO!" Ben screams. Putting his hands over his ears.
The music is now at deafening volumes and both boys have their hands over their ears. Afraid and helpless.
When suddenly.
"Boys?"
In the blink of an eye, everything stops. The music is gone, the voice and laughter are no longer trying to shake the fillings out of their teeth and the radio is back to being dead, all when Mr. Clarke enters the room. He sees both of them trembling near the back wall.
"Are you two okay?" he asks. "I heard the ruckus down the hall."
Ben is barely able to get the words out. "You… you heard that?"
He was prepared for Mr. Clarke to say no because that's what all adults do, ignore what's wrong in Derry… but this wasn't Derry… and that wasn't…
"Yes, the music, the laughter, you're screaming. What did you boys do?"
"N-Nothing," Dustin says. "We were just working with the wires, and it just came to life."
"How is that possible?" Mr. Clarke asks. "This specific part hasn't worked in a long time. Did you cross the wrong wires or…"
"No." Dustin insists, a little more harshly than he should have. "I swear we didn't touch anything."
"Maybe you picked up some kind of station," the teacher suggests, trying to use his scientific knowledge to come up with an explanation.
But Ben knew that there wasn't an explanation. Nothing could be explained away because he knew what happened. He knew that voice…
The boy from Derry doesn't say anything, he just grabs his backpack and bolts from the room, racing down the hall and not looking back.
A/N: A new chapter. Please follow and review. Something is trying to get through and we probably know what. It is strange though that could hear it. Hmmm...
Response to Reviews:
norozco772: That is the hope, there is safety in numbers.
GlaringEyes: Yeah, I wanted to make it a little more realistic. Bev and Max would still have some issues to iron out, but there is hope on the horizon.