C H A P T E R 1 9 5 страница

Henry pulled the knife out, wiped it on the dirty sheet that covered his father's pallet, and pushed the blade back in until the spring clicked again. He looked at his father without much interest. The voice had told him about the day's work while he knelt beside Butch with the knife against Butch's neck. The voice had explained everything. So he went into the other room to call Belch and Victor.

Now here they were, all three, and although his balls still ached horribly, the knife made a comforting bulge in his left front pants pocket. He felt that the cutting would begin soon. The others would come back down to resume whatever baby game they had been playing, and then the cutting would begin. The voice from the moon had laid it out for him as he knelt by his father, and on his way into town he had been unable to take his eyes from that pale ghostdisc in the sky. He saw that there was indeed a man in the moon — a grisly glimmering ghost-face with cratered holes for eyes and a glabrous grin that seemed to reach halfway up Its cheekbones. It talked

(we float down here Henry we all float you'll float too)

all the way to town. Kill them all, Henry, the ghost-voice from the moon said, and Henry could dig it; Henry felt he could second that emotion. He would kill them all, his tormentors, and then those feelings — that he was losing his grip, that he was coming inexorably to a larger world he would not be able to dominate as he had dominated the playyard at Derry Elementary, that in the wider world the fat-boy and the nigger and the stuttering freak might somehow grow larger while he somehow only grew older — would be gone.

He would kill them all, and the voices — those inside and the one which spoke to him from the moon — would leave him alone. He would kill them and then go back to the house and sit on the back porch with his father's souvenir Jap sword across his lap. He would drink one of his father's Rheingolds. He would listen to the radio, too, but no baseball. Baseball was strictly Squaresville. He would listen to rock and roll instead. Although Henry didn't know it (and wouldn't have cared if he did), on this one subject he and the Losers agreed: rock and roll was pretty much okey-dokey. We got chicken in the barn, whose barn, what barn, my barn. Everything would be good then; everything would be the ginchiest then; everything would be okeyfine then and anything which might come next would not matter. The voice would take care of him — he sensed that. If you took care of It, It would take care of you.

That was how things had always been in Derry.

But the kids had to be stopped, stopped soon, stopped today. The voice had told him so. Henry took his new knife out of his pocket, looked at it, turned it this way and that, admiring the way the sun winked and slid off the chrome facing. Then Belch was grabbing his arm and hissing: 'Look that, Henry! Jeezly-old-crow! Look that! '

Henry looked and felt the clear light of understanding burst over him. A square section of the clearing was rising as if by magic, revealing a growing slice of darkness beneath. For just a moment he felt a jolt of terror as it occurred to him that this might be the owner of the voice. . . for surely It lived somewhere under the city. Then he heard the gritty squall of dirt in the hinges and understood. They hadn't been able to see the treehouse because there was none. 'By God, we was standin right on top of em, ' Victor grunted, and as Ben's head and shoulders appeared in the square hatchway in the center of the clearing, he made as if to charge forward. Henry grabbed him and held him back.

'Ain't we gonna get em, Henry? ' Victor asked as Ben boosted himself up. Both of them were puffing and blowing.

'We'll get em, ' Henry said, never taking his eyes from the hated fat-boy. Another ballkicker. I'll kick your balls so high up you can wear them for earrings, you fat fuck. Wait and see if I don't. 'Don't worry. '

The fat-boy was helping the bitch out of the hole. She looked around doubtfully, and for a moment Henry believed she looked right at him. Then her eyes passed on. The two of them murmured together and then they pushed their way into the thick undergrowth and were gone.

'Come on, ' Henry said, when the sound of snapping branches and rustling leaves had faded almost to inaudibility. 'We'll follow em. But keep back and keep quiet. I want em all together. '

The three of them crossed the clearing like soldiers on patrol, bent low, their eyes wide and moving. Belch paused to look down into the clubhouse and shook his head in admiring wonder. 'Sittin right over their heads, I was, ' he said.

Henry motioned him forward impatiently.

They took the path, because it was quieter. They were halfway back to Kansas Street when the bitch and the fat-boy, holding hands (isn't that cute? Henry thought in a kind of ecstasy), emerged almost directly in front of them.

Luckily, their backs were to Henry's group, and neither of them looked around. Henry, Victor, and Belch froze, then drew into the shadows at the side of the path. Soon Ben and Beverly were just two shirts seen through a tangle of shrubs and bushes. The three of them began to pursue again. . . cautiously. Henry took the knife out again and

Henry Gets a Lift / 2.: 30 A. M.

pressed the chrome button in the handle. The blade popped out. He looked at it dreamily in the moonlight. He liked the way the starlight ran along the blade. He had no idea exactly what time it was. He was drifting in and out of reality now.

A sound impinged on his consciousness and began to grow. It was a car engine. It drew closer. Henry's eyes widened in the dark. He held the knife more tightly, waiting for the car to pass by.

It didn't. It drew up at the curb beyond the seminary hedge and simply stopped there, engine idling. Grimacing (his belly was stiffening now; it had gone board-hard, and the blood seeping sluggishly between his fingers had the consistency of sap just before you took the taps out of the maples in late March or early April), he got on his knees and pushed aside the stiff hedge-branches. He could see headlights and the shape of a car. Cops? His hand squeezed the knife and relaxed, squeezed and relaxed, squeezed and relaxed.

I sent you a ride, Henry, the voice whispered. Sort of a taxi, if you can dig that. After all, we have to get you over there to the Town House pretty soon. The night's getting old. The voice uttered one thin bonelike chuckle and fell silent. Now the only sounds were the crickets and the steady rumble of the idling car. Sounds like cherry-bomb mufflers, Henry thought distractedly.

He got awkwardly to his feet and worked his way back to the seminary walk. He peeked around at the car. Not a fuzzmobile: no bubbles on the roof, and the shape was all wrong. The shape was. . . old.

Henry heard that giggle again. . . or perhaps it was only the wind.

He emerged from the shadow of the hedge, crawled under the chain, got to his feet again, and began to walk toward the idling car, which existed in a black-and-white Polaroidsnapshot world of bright moonlight and impenetrable shadow. Henry was a mess: his shirt was black with blood, and it had soaked through his jeans almost to the knees. His face was a white blotch under an institutional crewcut.

He reached the intersection of the seminary path and the sidewalk and peered at the car, trying to make sense out of the hulk behind the wheel. But it was the car he recognized first — it was the one his father always swore he would own someday, a 1958 Plymouth Fury. It was red and white and Henry knew (hadn't his father told him often enough? ) that the engine rumbling under the hood was a V-8 327. Available horsepower of 255, able to hit seventy from the git-go in just about nine seconds, gobbling hi-test through its four-barrel carb. I'm gonna get that car and then when I die they can bury me in it, Butch had been fond of saying. . . except, of course, he had never gotten the car and the state had buried him after Henry had been taken away, raving and screaming of monsters, to the funny farm.

If that's him inside I don't think I can take it, Henry thought, squeezing down on the knife, swaying drunkenly back and forth, looking at the shape behind the wheel.

Then the passenger door of the Fury swung open, the dome-light came on, and the driver turned to look at him. It was Belch Huggins. His face was a hanging ruin. One of his eyes was gone, and a rotted hole in one parchment cheek revealed blackened teeth. Perched on Belch's head was the New York Yankees baseball cap he had been wearing the day he died. It was turned around backward. Gray-green mold oozed along the bill.

'Belch! ' Henry cried, and agony ripped its way up from his belly, making him cry out again, wordlessly.

Belch's dead lips stretched in a grin, splitting open in whitish-gray bloodless folds. He held one twisted hand out toward the open door in invitation.

Henry hesitated, then shuffled around the Fury's grille, allowing one hand to touch the Vshaped emblem there, just as he had always touched it when his father took him into the Bangor showroom when he was a kid to look at this same car. As he reached the passenger side, grayness overwhelmed him in a soft wave and he had to grab the open door to keep his feet. He stood there, head down, breathing in snuffling gasps. At last the world came back — partway, anyhow — and he was able to work his way around the door and fall into the seat. Pain skewered his guts again, and fresh blood squirted out into his hand. It felt like warm jelly. He put his head back and gritted his teeth, the cords on his neck standing out. At last the pain began to subside a little.

The door swung shut by itself. The domelight went out. Henry saw one of Belch's rotted hands close over the transmission lever and drop it into drive. The bunched white knots of

Belch's knuckles glimmered through the decaying flesh of his fingers.

The Fury began to move down Kansas Street toward Up-Mile Hill.

'How you doin, Belch? ' Henry heard himself say. It was stupid, of course — Belch couldn't be here, dead people couldn't drive cars — but it was all he could think of.

Belch didn't reply. His one sunken eye stared at the road. His teeth glared sickly at Henry through the hole in his cheek. Henry became vaguely aware that ole Belch smelled pretty ripe. Ole Belch smelled, in fact, like a bushel-basket of tomatoes that had gone bad and watery.

The glove compartment flopped open, banging Henry's knees, and in the light of the small bulb inside he saw a bottle of Texas Driver, half-full. He took it out, opened it, and had himself a good shot. It went down like cool silk and hit his stomach like an explosion of lava. He shuddered all over, moaning and then began to feel a little better, a little more connected to the world. 'Thanks, ' he said.

Belch's head turned toward him. Henry could hear the tendons in Belch's neck' the sound was like the scream of rusty screen-door hinges. Belch regarded him for a moment with a dead one-eyed stare, and Henry realized for the first time that most of Belch's nose was gone. It looked like something had been at the ole Belcher's nose. Dog, maybe. Or maybe rats. Rats seemed more likely. The tunnels they had chased the little kids into that day had been full of rats.

Moving just as slowly, Belch's head turned toward the road again. Henry was glad. Ole Belch staring at him that way, well, Henry hadn't been able to dig it too much. There had been something in Belch's single sunken eye. Reproach? Anger? What?

There is a dead boy behind the wheel of this car.

Henry looked down at his arm and saw that huge goosebumps had formed there. He quickly had another snort from the bottle. This one hit a little easier and spread its warmth farther.

The Plymouth rolled down Up-Mile Hill and made its way around the counter-clockwise traffic circle. . . except at this time of night there was no traffic; all the traffic-lights had changed to yellow bunkers splashing the empty streets and closed buildings with steady pulses of light. It was so quiet that Henry could hear the relays clicking inside each light. . . or was that his imagination?

'Never meant to leave you behind that day, Belcher, ' Henry said. 'I mean, ifthat was, you know, on your mind. '

That scream of dried tendons again. Belch looking at him again with his one sunken eye. And his lips stretched in a terrible grin that revealed gray-black gums which were growing their own garden of mold. What sort of a grin is that? Henry asked himself as the car purred silkily up Main Street, past Freese's on the one side, Nan's Luncheonette and the Aladdin Theater on the other. Is it a forgiving grin? An old-pals grin? Or is it the kind of grin that says I'm going to get you, Henry, I'm going to get you for running out on me and Vie? What kind of grin?

'You have to understand how it was, ' Henry said, and then stopped. How had it been? It was all confused in his mind, the pieces jumbled up like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that had just been dumped out on one of the shitty cardtables in the rec room at Jumper Hill. How had it been, exactly? They had followed the fatboy and the bitch back to Kansas Street and had waited back in the bushes, watching them climb up the embankment to the top. If they had disappeared from view, he and Victor and Belch would have dropped the stalking game and simply gone after them; two of them were better than none at all, and the rest would be along in time.

But they hadn't disappeared. They had simply leaned against the fence, talking and watching the street. Every now and then they would check down the slope into the Barrens, but Henry kept his two troops well out of sight.

The sky, Henry remembered, had become overcast, clouds moving in from the east, the air thickening. There would be rain that afternoon.

What had happened next? What —

A bony, leathery hand closed over his forearm and Henry screamed. He had been drifting away again into that cottony grayness, but Belch's dreadful touch and the dagger of pain in his stomach from the scream brought him back. He looked around and Belch's face was less than two inches from Henry's; he gasped in breath and wished he hadn't. The ole Belcher really had gone to seed. Henry was again reminded of tomatoes going quietly putrescent in some shadowy shed comer. His stomach roiled.

He remembered the end suddenly — the end for Belch and Vie, anyway. How something had come out of the darkness as they stood in a shaft with a sewer-grating at the top, wondering which way to go next. Something. . . Henry hadn't been able to tell what. Until Victor shrieked, 'Frankenstein! It's Frankenstein! ' And so it was, it was the Frankenstein monster, with bolts coming out of its neck and a deep stitched scar across its forehead, lurching along in shoes like a child's blocks.

'Frankensteinl' Vie had screamed, 'Fr — And then Vic's head was gone, Vic's head was flying across the shaftway to strike the stonework of the far side with a sour sticky thud. The monster's watery yellow eyes had fallen on Henry, and Henry had frozen. His bladder let go and he felt warmth flood down his legs.

The creature lurched toward him, and Belch. . . Belch had. . .

'Listen, I know I ran, ' Henry said. 'I shouldn't have done that. But. . . but. . . ' Belch only stared.

'I got lost, ' Henry whispered, as if to tell the ole Belcher that he had paid, too. It sounded weak, like saying Yeah, I know you got killed, Belch, but I got one fuck of a splinter under my thumbnail. But it had been bad. . . really bad. He had wandered around in a world of stinking darkness for hours, and finally, he remembered, he had started to scream. At some point he had fallen — a long, dizzying fall, in which he had time to think Oh good in a minute I'll be dead, I'll be out of this — and then he had been in fast-running water. Under the Canal, he supposed. He had come out into fading sunlight, had flailed his way toward the bank, and had finally climbed out of the Kenduskeag less than fifty yards from the place where Adrian Mellon would drown twenty-six years later. He slipped, fell, bashed his head, blacked out. When he woke up it was after dark. He had somehow found his way out to Route 2 and had hooked a ride to the home place. And there the cops had been waiting for him.

But that was then and this was now. Belch had stepped in front of Frankenstein's monster and it had peeled the left side of his face down to the skull — so much Henry had seen before fleeing. But now Belch was back, and Belch was pointing at something.

Henry saw that they had pulled up in front of the Derry Town House, and suddenly he understood perfectly. The Town House was the only real hotel left in Derry. Back in '58 there had also been the Eastern Star at the end of Exchange Street, and the Traveller's Rest on Torrault Street. Both had disappeared during urban renewal (Henry knew all about this; he had read the Derry News faithfully every day in Juniper Hill). Only the Town House was left and a bunch of ticky-tacky little motels out by the Interstate.

That's where they'll be, he thought. Right in there. All of them that are left. Asleep in their beds, with visions of sugarplums — or sewers, maybe — dancing in their heads. And I'll get them. One by one, I'll get them.

He took the bottle of Texas Driver out again and bit off a snort. He could feel fresh blood trickling into his lap, and the seat was tacky beneath him, but the wine made it better; the wine seemed to make it not matter. He could have done with some good bourbon, but the Driver was better than nothing.

'Look, ' he said to Belch, 'I'm sorry I ran. I don't know why I ran. Please. . . don't be mad. ' Belch spoke for the first and only time, but the voice wasn't his voice. The voice that came from Belch's rotting mouth was deep and powerful, terrifying. Henry whimpered at the sound of it. It was the voice from the moon, the voice of the clown, the voice he had heard in his dreams of drains and sewers where water rushed on and on.

'Just shut up and get them, ' the voice said.

'Sure, ' Henry whined. 'Sure, okay, I want to, no problem — '

He put the bottle back in the glove compartment. Its neck chattered briefly like teeth. And he saw a paper where the bottle had been. He took it out and unfolded it, leaving bloody fingerprints on the corners. Embossed across the top was this logo, in bright scarlet:

Below this, carefully printed in capital letters:

BILL DENBROUGH 311

BEN HANSCOM 404

EDDIE KASPBRAK 609 BEVERLY MARSH 518

RICHIE TOZIER 217

Their room numbers. That was good. That saved time. 'Thanks, Be — '

But Belch was gone. The driver's seat was empty. There was only the New York Yankees baseball cap lying there, mold crusted on its bill. And some slimy stuff on the knob of the gearshift.

Henry stared, his heart beating painfully in his throat. . . and then he seemed to hear something move and shift in the back seat. He got out quickly, opening the door and almost falling to the pavement in his haste. He gave the Fury, which still burbled softly through its dual cherry-bomb mufflers (cherry-bombs had been outlawed in the State of Maine in 1962), a wide berth.

It was hard to walk; each step pulled and tore at his belly. But he gained the sidewalk and stood there, looking at the eight-floor brick building which, along with the library and the Aladdin Theater and the seminary, was one of the few he remembered clearly from the old days. Most of the lights on the upper floors were out now, but the frosted-glass globes which flanked the main doorway blazed softly in the darkness, haloed with moisture from the lingering groundfog.

Henry made his laborious way toward and between them, shouldering open one of the doors.

The lobby was wee-hours silent. There was a faded Turkish rug on the floor. The ceiling was a huge mural, executed in rectangular panels, which showed scenes from Derry's logging days. There were overstuffed sofas and wing chairs and a great fireplace which was now dead and silent, a birch log thrown across the andirons — a real log, no gas; the fireplace in the Town House was not just a piece of lobby stage dressing. Plants spilled out of low pots. The glass double doors leading to the bar and the restaurant were closed. From some inner office, Henry could hear the gabble of a TV, turned low.

He lurched across the lobby, his pants and shirt streaked with blood. Blood was grimed into the folds of his hands; it ran down his cheeks and slashed his forehead like warpaint. His eyes bulged from their sockets. Anyone in the lobby who had seen him would have run, screaming, in terror. But there was no one.

The elevator doors opened as soon as he pushed the UP button. He looked at the paper in his hand, then at the floor buttons. After a moment of deliberation, he pushed 6 and the doors closed. There was a faint hum of machinery as the elevator began to rise.

Might as well start at the top and work my way down.

He slumped against the rear wall of the car, eyes half-closed. The hum of the elevator was soothing. Like the hum of the machinery in the pumping-stations of the drainage system. That day: it kept coming back to him. How everything seemed almost prearranged, as if all of them were just playing parts. How Vie and the ole Belcher had seemed. . . well, almost drugged. He remembered —

The car came to a stop, jolting him and sending another wave of griping pain into his stomach. The doors slid open. Henry stepped out into the silent hallway (more plants here, hanging ones, spiderplants, he didn't want to touch any of them, not those oozy green runners, they reminded him too much of the things that had been hanging down there in the dark). He rechecked the paper. Kaspbrak was in 609. Henry started down that way, running one hand along the wall for support, leaving a faint bloody track on the wallpaper as he went (ah, but he stepped away whenever he came close to one of the hanging spiderplants; he wanted no truck with those). His breathing was harsh and dry.

Here it was. Henry pulled the switchblade from his pocket, swashed his dry lips with his tongue, and knocked on the door. Nothing. He knocked again, louder this time.

'Whozit? ' Sleepy. Good. He'd be in his 'jammies, only half-awake. And when he opened the door, Henry would drive the switchblade directly into the hollow at the base of his neck, the vulnerable hollow just below the adam's apple.

'Bellboy, sir, ' Henry said. 'Message from your wife. ' Did Kaspbrak have a wife? Maybe that had been a stupid thing to say. He waited, coldly alert. He heard footsteps — the shuffle of slippers.

'From Myra? ' He sounded alarmed. Good. He would be more alarmed in a few seconds. A pulse beat steadily in Henry's right temple.

'I guess so, sir. There's no name. It just says your wife. '

There was a pause, then a metallic rattle as Kaspbrak fumbled with the chain. Grinning, Henry pushed the button on the switchblade's handle. Click. He held the blade up by his cheek, ready. He heard the thumb-bolt turn. In just a moment he would plunge the blade into the skinny little creep's throat. He waited. The door opened and Eddie

The Losers All Together / 1: 20 P. M.

saw Stan and Richie just coming out of the Costello Avenue Market, each of them eating a

Rocket on a push-up stick. 'Hey! ' he shouted. 'Hey, wait up! '

They turned around and Stan waved. Eddie ran to join them as quickly as he could, which was not, in truth, very quickly. One arm was immured in a plaster-of-Paris cast and he had his Parcheesi board under the other.

'Whatchoo say, Eddie? Whatchoo say, boy? ' Richie asked in his grandly rolling Southern Gentleman Voice (the one that sounded more like Foghorn Leghorn in the Warner Brothers cartoons than anything else). 'Ah say. . . Ah say. . . the boy's got a broken ahm! Lookit that,

Stan, the boy's got a broken ahm! Ah say. . . be a good spote and carreh the boy's

Pawcheeseh bo-wud for him! '

'I can carry it, ' Eddie said, a little out of breath. 'How about a lick on your Rocket? '

'Your mom wouldn't approve, Eddie, ' Richie said sadly. He began to eat faster. He had just gotten to the chocolate stuff in the middle, his favorite part. 'Germs, boy! Ah say. . . Ah say you kin get germs eatin after someone else! ' 'I'll chance it, ' Eddie said.

Reluctantly, Richie held his Rocket up to Eddie's mouth. . . and snatched it away quickly as soon as Eddie had gotten in a couple of moderately serious licks.

'You can have the rest of mine, if you want, ' Stan said. 'I'm still full from lunch. '

'Jews don't eat much, ' Richie instructed. 'It's part of their religion. ' The three of them were walking along companionably enough now, headed up toward Kansas Street and the Barrens. Derry seemed lost in a deep hazy afternoon doze. The blinds of most of the houses they passed were pulled down. Toys stood abandoned on lawns, as if their owners had been hastily called in from play or put down for naps. Thunder rumbled thickly in the west.

'Is it? ' Eddie asked Stan.

'No, Richie's just pulling your leg, ' Stan said. 'Jews eat as much as normal people. ' He pointed at Richie. 'Like him. '

'You know, you're pretty fucking mean to Stan, ' Eddie told Richie. 'How would you like somebody to say all that made-up shit about you, just because you're a Catholic? '

'Oh, Catholics do plenty, ' Richie said. 'My dad told me once that Hitler was a Catholic, and

Hitler killed billions of Jews. Right, Stan? '

'Yeah, I guess so, ' Stan said. He looked embarrassed.

'My mom was furious when my dad told me that, ' Richie went on. A little reminiscent grin had surfaced on his face. ' Absolutely fyoo-rious. Us Catholics also had the Inquisition, that was the little dealie with the rack and the thumbscrews and all that stuff. I figure all religions are pretty weird. '

'Me too, ' Stan said quietly. 'We're not Orthodox, or anything like that. I mean, we eat ham and bacon. I hardly even know what being a Jew is. I was born in Derry, and sometimes we go up to synagogue in Bangor for stuff like Yom Kippur, but — ' He shrugged.

'Ham? Bacon? ' Eddie was mystified. He and his mom were Methodists.

'Orthodox Jews don't eat stuff like that, ' Stan said. 'It says something in the Torah about not eating anything that creeps through the mud or walks on the bottom of the ocean. I don't know exactly how it goes. But pigs are supposed to be out, also lobster. But my folks eat them. I do too. '

'That's weird, ' Eddie said, and burst out laughing. 'I never heard of a religion that told you what you could eat. Next thing, they'll be telling you what kind of gas you can buy. '

'Kosher gas, ' Stan said, and laughed by himself. Neither Richie nor Eddie understood what he was laughing about.

'You gotta admit, Stanny, it is pretty weird, ' Richie said. 'I mean, not being able to eat a sausage just because you happen to be Jewish. ' 'Yeah? ' Stan said. 'You eat meat on Fridays? '

' 'Jeez, no! ' Richie said, shocked. 'You can't eat meat on Friday, because — ' He began to grin a little. 'Oh, okay, I see what you mean. '

'Do Catholics really go to hell if they eat meat on Fridays? ' Eddie asked, fascinated, totally unaware that, until two generations before, his own people had been devout Polish Catholics who would no more have eaten meat on Friday than they would have gone outside with no clothes on.

'Well, I'll tell you what, Eddie, ' Richie said. 'I don't really think God would send me down to the Hot Place just for forgetting and having a baloney sandwich for lunch on a Friday, but why take a chance? Right? '

'I guess not, ' Eddie said. 'But it seems so — ' So stupid, he was going to say, and then he remembered a story Mrs Portleigh had told the Sunday-school class when he was just a little kid — a first grader in Little Worshippers. According to Mrs Portleigh, a bad boy had once stolen some of the communion bread when the tray was passed and put it in his pocket. He took it home and threw it into the toilet bowl just to see what would happen. At once — or so Mrs Portleigh reported to her rapt Little Worshippers — the water in the toilet bowl had turned a bright red. It was the Blood of Christ, she said, and it had appeared to that little boy because he had done a very bad act called a BLASPHEMY. It had appeared to warn him that, by throwing the flesh of Jesus into the toilet, he had put his immortal soul in danger of Hell.

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