C H A P T E R 1 8 1 страница

The Bullseye

'Okay, Haystack, ' Richie says. 'Your turn. The redhead's smoked all of her cigarettes and most of mine. The hour groweth late. '

Ben glances up at the clock. Yes, it's late: nearly midnight. Just time for one more story, he thinks. One more story before twelve. Just to keep us warm. What should it be? But that, of course, is only a joke, and not a very good one; there is only one story left, at least only one he remembers, and that is the story of the silver slugs — how they were made in Zack Denbrough's workshop on the night of July 23rd and how they were used on the 25th.

'I've got my own scars, ' he says. 'Do you remember? '

Beverly and Eddie shake their heads; Bill and Richie nod. Mike sits silent, his eyes watchful in his tired face.

Ben stands up and unbuttons the work-shirt he is wearing, spreading it open. An old scar in the shape of the letter H shows there. Its lines are broken — the belly was much bigger when that scar was put there — but its shape still identifiable.

The heavy scar depending downward from the cross-bar of the H is much clearer. It looks like a twisted white hangrope from which the noose has been cut.

Beverly's hand goes to her mouth. 'The werewolf! In that house! Oh Jesus Christ! ' And she turns to the windows, as if to see it lurking outside in the darkness.

'That's right, ' Ben said. 'And you want to know something funny? That scar wasn't there two days ago. Henry's old calling-card was; I know, because I showed it to a friend of mine, a bar-tender named Ricky Lee back in Hemingford Home. But this one — ' He laughs without much humor and begins buttoning his shirt again. This one just came back. '

'Like the ones on our hands. '

'Yeah, ' Mike says as Ben buttons his skin up again. 'The werewolf. We all saw It as the werewolf that time. '

'Because that's how R-R-Richie saw Ih-It before, ' Bill murmurs. 'That's it, isn't it? ' 'Yes, ' Mike says.

'We were close, weren't we? ' Beverly says. Her voice is softly marvelling. 'Close enough to read each other's minds. '

'Ole Big Hairy damn near had your guts for garters, Ben, ' Richie says, and he is not smiling as he says it. He pushes his mended glasses up on his nose and behind them his face looks white and haggard and ghostly.

'Bill saved your bacon, ' Eddie says abruptly. 'I mean, Bev saved us all, but if it hadn't been for you, Bill — '

'Yes, ' Ben agrees. 'You did, big Bill. I was, like, lost in the funhouse. '

Bill points briefly at the empty chair. 'I had some help from Stan Uris. And he paid for it.

Maybe died for it. '

Ben Hansom is shaking his head. 'Don't say that, Bill. '

'But it's t-true. And if it's yuh-your f-fault, it's my fault, too, and e-e-everyone else's here, because we went on. Even after Patrick, and what was written on that r-re-frigerator, we went on. It would be my fault m-most of all, I guess, because I wuh-wuh-wanted us to go on.

Because of Juh-George. Maybe even because I thought that if I killed whatever k-killed George, my puh-harents would have to luh-luh-luh — ' 'Love you again? ' Beverly asks gently.

'Yes. Of course. But I d-d-don't think it was a-a-anyone's fuh-hault, Ben. It was just the ww-way Stan was built. '

'He couldn't face it, ' Eddie says. He is thinking of Mr Keene's revelation about his asthma medicine, and how he could still not give it up. He is thinking that he might have been able to give up the habit of being sick; it was the habit of believing he had been unable to kick. As things had turned out, maybe that habit had saved his life.

'He was great that day, ' Ben says. 'Stan and his birds. '

A chuckle stirs through them, and they look at the chair where Stan would have been in a rightful sane world where all the good guys won all of the time. I miss him, Ben thinks. God, how I miss him! He says, 'You remember that day, Richie, when you told him you heard somewhere he killed Christ, and Stan says totally deadpan, " I think that was my father"? ' 'I remember, ' Richie says in a voice almost too low to hear. He takes his handkerchief out of his back pocket, removes his glasses, wipes his eyes, then puts his glasses back on. He puts away the handkerchief and without looking up from his hands he says, 'Why don't you just tell it, Ben? '

'It hurts, doesn't it? '

'Yeah, ' Richie says, his voice so thick it is hard to understand him. 'Why, sure. It hurts. ' Ben looks around at them, then nods. 'All right, then. One more story before twelve. Just to keep us warm. Bill and Richie had the idea of the bullets — '

'No, ' Richie demurs. 'Bill thought of it first, and he got nervous first. '

'I just started to wuh-wuh-worry — '

'Doesn't really matter, I guess, ' Ben says. 'The three of us spent some heavy library time that July. We were trying to find out how to make silver bullets. I had the silver; four silver dollars that were my father's. Then Bill got nervous, thinking about what kind of shape we'd be in if we had a misfire with some kind of monster coming down our throats. And when we saw how good Beverly was with that slingshot of his, we ended up using one of my silver dollars to make slugs instead. We got the stuff together and all of us we went down to Bill's place. Eddie, you were there — '

'I told my mother we were going to play Monopoly, ' Eddie says. 'My arm was really hurting, but I had to walk. That's how pissed she was at me. And every time I heard someone behind me on the sidewalk I'd whip around, thinking it was Bowers. It didn't help the pain. ' Bill grins. 'And what we did was stand around and watch Ben make the ammo. I think Ben r-really could have made sil-silver bullets. '

'Oh, I'm not so sure of that, ' Ben says, although he still is. He remembers how the dusk was drawing down outside (Mr Denbrough had promised them all rides home), the sound of the crickets in the grass, the first lightning-bugs blinking outside the windows. Bill had carefully set up the Monopoly board in the dining room, making it look as if the game had been going on for an hour or more.

He remembers that, and the clean pool of yellow light falling on Zack's worktable. He remembers Bill saying, 'We gotta be c-c-

careful. I don't want to leave a muh-muh-mess. My dad'll be — ' He spat out a number of 'p's, and finally managed to say 'pissed off. ' Richie made a burlesque of wiping his cheek. 'Do you serve towels with your showers,

Stuttering Bill? '

Bill made as if to hit him. Richie cowered, shrieking in his Pickaninny Voice.

Ben took very little notice of them. He watched Bill lay out the implements and tools one by one in the light. Part of his mind was wishing that someday' he might have such a nice worktable as this himself. Most of it was centered directly on the job ahead. Hot as difficult as making silver bullets would have been, but he would still be careful. There was no excuse for sloppy workmanship. This was not something he had been taught or told, just something he knew.

Bill had insisted that Ben make the slugs, just as he continued to insist that Beverly would be the one carrying the Bullseye. These things could have and had been discussed, but it was only twenty-seven years later, telling the story, that Ben realized no one had even suggested that a silver bullet or slug might not stop a monster — they had the weight of what seemed like a thousand horror movies on their side.

'Okay, ' Ben said. He cracked his knuckles and then looked at Bill. 'You got the molds? ' 'Oh! ' Bill jumped a little. 'H-H-Here. ' He reached into his pants pocket and brought out his handkerchief. He put it on the workbench and unfolded it. There were two dull steel balls inside, each with a small hole in it. They were bearing molds.

After deciding on slugs instead of bullets, Bill and Richie had gone back to the library and had researched how bearings were made. 'You boys are so busy, ' Mrs Starrett had said.

'Bullets one week and bearings the next! And it's summer vacation, too! '

'We like to stay sharp, ' Richie said. 'Right, Bill? '

'Ruh-Ruh-Right. '

It turned out that making bearings was a cinch, once you had the molds. The only real question was where to get them. A couple of discreet questions to Zack Denbrough had taken care of that. . . and none of the Losers were too surprised to find that the only machine-shop in Derry where such molds might be obtained was Kitchener Precision Tool & Die. The Kitchener who owned and ran it was a great-great-grandnephew of the brothers who had owned the Kitchener Ironworks.

Bill and Richie had gone over together with all the cash the Losers had been able to raise on short notice — ten dollars and fifty-nine cents — in Bill's pocket. When Bill asked how much a couple of two-inch bearing molds might cost, Carl Kitchener — who looked like a veteran boozehound and smelled like an old horse-blanket — asked what a couple of kids wanted with bearing molds. Richie let Bill speak, knowing things would probably go easier that way — children made fun of Bill's stutter; adults were embarrassed by it. Sometimes this was surprisingly helpful.

Bill got halfway through the explanation he and Richie had worked out on the way over — something about a model windmill for next year's science project — when Kitchener waved for him to shut up and quoted them the unbelievable price of fifty cents per mold.

Hardly able to believe their good fortune, Bill forked over a single dollar bill.

'Don't expect me to give you a bag, ' Carl Kitchener said, eying them with the bloodshot contempt of a man who believes he has seen everything the world holds, most of it twice. 'You don't get no bag unless you spend at least five bucks. ' That's o-o-okay, suh-sir, ' Bill said.

'And don't hang around out front, ' Kitchener said. 'You both need haircuts. '

Outside Bill said: 'Y-Y-You ever nuh-hotice, Ruh-Richie, how guh-guh-grownups w-wwon't sell you a-a-anything except c-candy or cuh-cuh-homic books or m-maybe movie t-ttickets without first they w-want to know what y-you want it f-for? ' 'Sure, ' Richie said.

'W-Why? Why ih-is that? '

'Because they think we're dangerous. '

'Y-Yeah? You thuh-thuh-think s-so? '

'Yeah, ' Richie said, and then giggled. 'Let's hang around out front, want to? We'll put up our collars and sneer at people and let our hair grow. ' 'Fuck y-you, ' Bill said.

'Okay, ' Ben said, looking at the molds carefully and then putting them down. 'Good. Now — '

They gave him a little more room, looking at him hopefully, the way a man with engine trouble who knows nothing about cars will look at a mechanic. Ben didn't notice their expressions. He was concentrating on the job. 'Gimme that shell, ' he said, 'and the blowtorch. '

Bill handed a cut-down mortar shell to him. It was a war souvenir. Zack had picked it up five days after he and the rest of General Patton's army had crossed hte river into Germany. There had been a time, when Bill was very young and George was still in diapers, that his father had used it as an ashtray. Later he had quit smoking, and the mortar shell had disappeared. Bill had found it in the back of the garage just a week ago.

Ben put the mortar shell into Zack's vise, tightened it, and then took the blowtorch from Beverly. He reached into his pocket, brought out a silver dollar, and dropped it into the makeshift crucible. It made a hollow sound.

'Your father gave you that, didn't he? ' Beverly asked.

'Yes, ' Ben said, 'but I don't remember him very well. '

'Are you sure you want to do this? '

He looked at her and smiled. 'Yes, ' he said.

She smiled back. It was enough for Ben. If she had smiled at him twice, he would gladly have made enough silver bearings to shoot a platoon of werewolves. He looked hastily away. 'Okay. Here we go. No problem. Easy as pie, right? ' They nodded hesitantly.

Years later, recounting all of this, Ben would think: These days a kid could just run out and buy a propane torch. . . or his dad would have one in the workshop.

There had been no such things in 1958, however; Zack Denbrough had a tank-job, and it made Beverly nervous. Ben could tell she was nervous, wanted to tell her not to worry, but was afraid his voice would tremble.

'Don't worry, ' he said to Stan, who was standing next to her. 'Huh? ' Stan said, looking at him and bunking.

'Don't worry, '

'I'm not. '

'Oh. I thought you were. And I just wanted you to know this is perfectly safe. If you were.

Worrying, I mean. '

'Are you okay, Ben? '

'Fine, ' Ben muttered. 'Gimme the matches, Richie. '

Richie gave him a book of matches. Ben twisted the valve on the tank and lit a match under the nozzle of the torch. There was a flump! and a bright blue-orange glare. Ben tuned the flame to a blue edge and began to heat the base of the mortar shell.

'You got the funnel? ' he asked Bill.

'R-R-Right here. ' Bill handed over a homemade funnel that Ben had made earlier. The tiny hole at its base fit the hole in the bearing molds almost exactly. Ben had done this without taking a single measurement. Bill had been amazed — almost flabbergasted — but did not know how to say so without embarrassing Ben.

Absorbed in what he was doing, Ben could talk to Beverly — he spoke with the dry precision of a surgeon addressing a nurse.

'Bev, you got the steadiest hands. Suck the funnel in the hole. Use one of those gloves so you don't get burned. '

Bill handed her one of his father's work gloves. Beverly put the tin funnel in the mold. No one spoke. The hissing of the blowtorch flame seemed very loud. They watched it, eyes squinted almost shut.

'Wuh-wuh-wait, ' Bill said suddenly, and dashed into the house. He came back a minute later with a pair of cheap Turtle wraparound sunglasses that had been languishing in a kitchen

drawer for a year or more. 'Better p-put these uh-on, H-H-Haystack. ' Ben took them, grinned, and slipped them on.

'Shit, it's Fabian! ' Richie said. 'Or Frankie Avalon, or one of those Bandstand wops. '

'Fuck you, Trashmouth, ' Ben said, but he started giggling in spite of himself. The idea of him being Fabian or someone like that was just too weird. The flame wavered and he stopped laughing; his concentration narrowed to a point again.

Two minutes later he handed the torch to Eddie, who held it gingerly in his good hand. 'It's ready, ' he said to Bill. 'Gimme that other glove. Fast! Fast! '

Bill gave it to him. Ben put it on and held the mortar shell with the gloved hand while he turned the vise lever with the other.

'Hold it steady, Bev. '

'I'm ready, don't wait for me, ' she rapped back at him.

Ben tilted the shell over the funnel. The others watched as a rivulet of molten silver flowed between the two receptacles. Ben poured precisely; not a drop was spilled. And for a moment, he felt galvanized. He seemed to see everything magnified through a strong white glow. For that one moment he did not feel like plain fat old Ben Hanscom, who wore sweatshirts to disguise his gut and his tits; he felt like Thor, working thunder and lightning at the smithy of the gods. Then the feeling was gone.

'Okay, ' he said. 'I'm gonna have to reheat the silver. Someone shove a nail or something up the spout of the funnel before the goop hardens in there. ' Stan did it.

Ben clamped the mortar shell in the vise again and took the torch from Eddie. 'Okay, ' he said, 'number two. ' And went back to work.

Ten minutes later it was done.

'Now what? ' Mike asked.

'Now we play Monopoly for an hour, ' Ben said, 'while they harden in the molds. Then I clip em open with a chisel along the cut-lines and we're done. '

Richie looked uneasily at the cracked face of his Timex, which had taken a great many lickings and kept on ticking. 'When will your folks be back, Bill? '

'N-N-Not until tuh-ten or ten-thuh-thuh-hirty, ' Bill said. 'It's a double f-f-f-feature at the

Uh-Uh-Uh — '

'Aladdin, ' Stan said.

'Yeah. And they'll stop in for a slice of p-p-pizza after. They a-almost always d-do. '

'So we have plenty of time, ' Ben said. Bill nodded.

'Then let's go in, ' Bev said. 'I want to call home. I promised I would. And don't any of you talk. He thinks I'm at Community House and that I'm getting a ride home from there. ' 'What if he wants to come down and pick you up early? ' Mike asked.

'Then, ' Beverly said, 'I'm going to be in a lot of trouble. '

Ben thought: I'd protect you, Beverly. In his mind's eye, an instant daydream unfolded, one with an ending so sweet he shivered. Bev's father started to give her a hard time; to bawl her out and all that (even in his daydream he did not imagine how bad all that could get with Al Marsh). Ben threw himself in front of her and told Marsh to lay off.

If you want trouble, fatboy, you just keep protecting my daughter.

Hanscom, usually a quiet bookish type, can be a ravening tiger when you get him mad. He speaks to Al Marsh with great sincerity. If you want to get to her, you'll have to come through me first.

Marsh starts forward. . . and then the steely glint in Hanscom's eyes stops him.

You'll be sorry, he mumbles, but it's clear all the fight has gone out of him — He's just a paper tiger after all.

Somehow I doubt that, Hanscom says with a tight Gary Cooper smile, and Beverly's father slinks away.

What's happened to you, Ben? Bev cries, but her eyes are shining and full of stars. You looked ready to kill him!

Kill him? Hanscom says, the Gary Cooper smile still lingering on his lips. No way, baby. He may be a creep, but he's still your father. I might have roughed him up a little, but that's only because when someone talks wrong to you I get a little hot under the collar. You know? She throws her arms around him and kisses him (on the lips! on the LIPS! ). I love you,

Ben! she sobs. He can feel her small breasts pressing firmly against his chest and —

He shivered a little, throwing this bright, terribly clear picture off with an effort. Richie stood in the doorway, asking him if he was coming, and Ben realized he was all alone in the workroom.

'Yeah, ' he said, starting a little. 'Sure I am. '

'You're goin senile, Haystack, ' Richie said as Ben went though the door, but he clapped Ben on the shoulder. Ben grinned and hooked an elbow briefly around Richie's neck.

There was no problem with Beverly's dad. He had come home late from work, Bev's mother told her over the phone, fallen asleep in front of the TV, and waked up just long enough to get himself into bed.

'You got a ride home, Bevvie? '

'Yes. Bill Denbrough's dad is going to take a whole bunch of us home. '

Mrs Marsh sounded suddenly alarmed. 'You're not on a date, are you, Bevvie? '

'No, of course not, ' Bev said, looking through the arched doorway between the darkened hall where she was and the dining room, where the others were sitting down around the Monopoly board. But I sure wish I was. 'Boys, uck. But they have a sign-up sheet down here, and every night a different dad or mom takes kids home. ' That much, at least, was true. The rest was a lie so outrageous that she could feel herself blushing hotly in the dark.

'All right, ' her mom said. 'I just wanted to be sure. Because if your dad caught you going on dates at your age, he'd be mad. ' Almost as an afterthought she added: 'I would be, too. '

'Yeah, I know, ' Bev said, still looking into the dining room. She did know; yet here she was, not with one boy but six of them, in a house where the parents were gone. She saw Ben looking at her anxiously, and she sketched a smiling little salute at him. He blushed but gave her the little salute right back. 'Are any of your girlfriends there? ' What girlfriends, Mamma?

'Um, Patty O'Hara's here. And Ellie Geiger, I think. She's playing shuffle-board downstairs. ' The facility with which the lies came from her lips made her ashamed. She wished she were talking to her father; she would have been more scared but less ashamed. She supposed she really wasn't a very good girl.

'I love you, Mamma, ' she said.

'Same goes back to you, Bev. ' Her mother paused briefly and added: 'Be careful. The paper says there may be another one. A boy named Patrick Hockstetter. He's missing. Did you know him, Bevvie? '

She closed her eyes briefly. 'No, Mom. ^'

'Well. . . goodbye, then. ' 'Bye. '

She joined the others at the table and for an hour they played Monopoly. Stan was the big winner.

'Jews are very good at making money, ' Stan said, putting a hotel on Atlantic Avenue and two more green houses on Ventnor Avenue. 'Everybody knows that. '

'Jesus, make me Jewish, ' Ben said promptly, and everyone laughed. Ben was almost broke. Beverly glanced across the table from time to time at Bill, noting his clean hands, his blue eyes, the fine red hair. As he moved the little silver shoe he was using as a marker around the board, she thought, If he held my hand, I think I'd be so glad I'd probably die. A warm light seemed to glow briefly in her chest and she smiled secretly down at her hands.

The evening's finale was almost anticlirnactic. Ben took one of Zack's chisels from the shelf and used a hammer to strike the molds on the cut-lines. They opened easily. Two small silver balls fell out. In one they could faintly see part of a date: 925. In the other, wavery lines Beverly thought were the remnants of Lady Liberty's hair. They looked at them without speaking for a moment, and then Stan picked one up.

'Pretty small, ' he said.

'So was the rock in David's sung when he went up against Goliath, ' Mike said. 'They look powerful to me. '

Ben found himself nodding. They did to him, as well.

'We're all d-d-done? ' Bill asked.

'All done, ' Ben said. 'Here. ' He tossed the second slug to Bill, who was so surprised he almost fumbled it.

The slugs went around the circle. Each of them looked closely at both, marvelling at their roundness, weight, actuality. When they came back to Ben, he held them in his hand and then looked at Bill. 'What do we do with them now? '

'G-G-Give them to B-Beverly. ' 'No! '

He looked at her. His face was kind enough, but stern. 'B-B-Bev, we've been thruh-through this a-a-already, and — '

'Ill do it, ' she said. 'I'll shoot the goddamned things when the time comes, If it comes. I'll probably get us all killed, but I'll do it. I don't want to take them home, though. One of my

(father) parents might find them. Then I'd be in dutch. '

'Don't you have a secret hiding place? ' Richie asked. 'Criminy, I got four or five. '

'I've got a place, ' Beverly said. There was a small slit in the bottom of her box-spring where she sometimes stashed cigarettes, comic books, and, just lately, film and fashion magazines. 'But nothing I'd trust for something like this. You keep them, Bill. Until it's time, anyway, you keep them. '

'Okay, ' Bill said mildly, and just then lights splashed into the driveway. 'Holy cruh-crow, they're e-e-early. L-Let's get out of h-here. '

They were just sitting down around the Monopoly board again when Sharon Denbrough opened the kitchen door.

Richie rolled his eyes and mimed wiping sweat from his forehead; the others laughed heartily. Richie had Gotten Off A Good One.

A moment later she came in. 'Your dad's waiting for your friends in the car, Bill. '

'O-O-Okay, M-Mom, ' Bill said. 'W-We were juh-just f-f-finishing, a-anyway. '

'Who won? ' Sharon asked, smiling bright-eyed at Bill's little friends. The girl was going to be very pretty, she thought. She supposed in another year or two the children would have to be chaperoned if there were going to be girls instead of just the regular gang of boys. But surely it was still too soon to worry about sex rearing its ugly head.

'St-Stan wuh-wuh-won, ' Bill said. 'Juh-Juh-Jews are very g-g-good at m-making money. ' 'Bill! ' She cried, horrified and blushing. . . and then she looked around at them, amazed, as they roared with laughter, Stan included. Amazement turned to something like fear (although she said nothing of this to her husband later, in bed). There was a feeling in the air, like static electricity, only somehow much more powerful, much more scary. She felt that if she touched any of them, she would receive a walloping shock. What's happened to them? she thought, dismayed, and perhaps she even opened her mouth to say something like that. Then Bill was saying he was sorry (but still with that devilish glint in his eye), and Stan was saying that was all right, it was just a joke they laid on him from time to time, and she found herself too confused to say anything at all.

But she felt relieved when the children were gone and her own puzzling, stuttering son had gone to his room and turned off the light.

The day that the Losers' Club finally met It in face-to-face combat, the day It almost had Ben Hanscom's guts for garters, was July 25th, 1958. It was hot and muggy and still. Ben remembered the weather clearly enough; it had been the last day of the hot weather. After that day, a long spell of cool and cloudy had come in.

They arrived at 29 Neibolt Street around ten that morning, Bill riding Richie double on Silver, Ben with his ample buttocks spilling over either side of the sagging seat on his Raleigh. Beverly came down Neibolt Street on her girl's Schwinn, her red hair held back from her forehead by a green band. It streamed out behind her. Mike came by himself, and about five minutes later Stan and Eddie walked up together.

'H-H-How's your a-a-arm, Eh-Eh-Eddie? '

'Aw, not too bad. Hurts if I roll over on that side while I'm sleeping. Did you bring the stuff? '

There was a canvas-wrapped bundle in Silver's bike-basket. Bill took it out and unwrapped it. He handed the slingshot to Beverly, who took it with a little grimace but said nothing. There was also a tin Sucrets box in the bundle. Bill opened it and showed them the two silver balls. They looked at them silently, gathered close together on the balding lawn on 29 Neibolt Street — a lawn where only weeds seemed to grow. Bill, Richie, and Eddie had seen the house before; the others hadn't, and they looked at it curiously.

The windows look tike eyes, Stan thought, and his hand went to the paperback book in his back pocket. He touched it for luck. He carried the book with him almost everywhere — it was M. K. Handey's Guide to North American Birds. They look like dirty blind eyes. It stinks, Beverly thought. I can smell it — but not with my nose, not exactly.

Mike thought, It's like that time out where the Ironworks used to be. It has the same feel. . . as if it's telling us to step on in.

This is one of Its places, all right, Ben thought. One of the places like the Morlock holes, where It goes out and comes back in. And It knows we're out here. It's waiting for us to come in.

'Yuh-yuh-you all still want to? ' Bill asked.

They looked back at him, pale and solemn. No one said no. Eddie fumbled his aspirator out of his pocket and took a long whooping gasp at it.

'Gimme some of that, ' Richie said.

Eddie looked at him, surprised, waiting for the punchline.

Richie held out his hand. 'No fake, Jake. Can I have some? '

Eddie shrugged with his good shoulder — an oddly disjointed movement — and handed it over. Richie triggered the aspirator and breathed deep. 'Needed that, ' he said, and handed it back. He was coughing a little, but his eyes were sober.

'Me too, ' Stan said. 'Okay? '

So one after another they used Eddie's aspirator. When it came back to him, Eddie jammed it in his back pocket, where the nozzle stuck out. They turned to look at the house again.

'Does anybody live on this street? ' Beverly asked in a low voice.

'Not this end of it, ' Mike said. 'Not anymore. I guess there are still bums sometimes. Guys that come through on the freights. '

'They wouldn't see anything, ' Stan said. 'They'd be safe. Most of them, anyway. ' He looked at Bill. 'Can any grownups at all see It, do you think,

Bill? '

'I don't nuh-know, ' Bill said. 'There must be suh-suh-some. '

'I wish we could meet one, ' Richie said glumly. 'This really isn't a job for kids, you know what I mean? '

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