"What are you smiling about?" Stanley stared at him. "She called you a dumbass."
Eddie's smile only grew bigger. "I know. Ali Sumner called me a dumbass."
***
in which ali sumner befriends a group of outcasts and finds herself harassed by ronald mcd...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
ELEVEN: Derry
Words: 712 (including non-story related words such as these)
Author's Note: does anyone actually read these lil 'notes' lmfao ***
The kids parked their bikes lousily outside Ben's house, with the exception of Stanley who parked his bike upright while the other just let their bikes fall on the ground.
Entering Ben's room was like entering some kind of detective's room.
Posters were plastered on the walls, there were valuable-looking items on his desk, some even in Ziploc bags.
"Wow." Richie gasped.
"Cool, right?" Ben smiled a bit, looking out proudly at his investigations on his walls.
"No, not cool." Richie said, obviously astounded. "Nothing cool. Nothing cool at all."
Ali pointed out to a certain paper on the wall. "What's that?"
"Oh, that?" Ben was having fun being able to answer their questions and show off, whatever this was. "That's the charter for Derry township."
"Damn." was all Ali could say.
What was all this research in aid of?
"It's actually really interesting." Ben told them. "Derry started off as a beaver trapping camp-"
"Still is, am I right, guys?" Richie put his hand up for a high-five. Eddie put it down.
"Ninety-one people signed the charter that made Derry." Ben continued. "But later that winter, they all disappeared without a trace."
"The entire camp?" Eddie was wide-eyed again.
"There were rumours of Native Americans, but no sign of an attack." Ben nodded. "Everybody just thought it was the plague or something. But it's like...like one day everyone just, woke up and left. The only clue was a trail of bloody clothes leading to the well house."
The entire group shuddered.
"Jesus, we can get Derry on unsolved mysteries!" Richie announced.
"Wait, where's the well house?" Bill asked.
"I don't know." Ben shrugged. "Somewhere in town, I guess. Why?"
"N-no reason." Bill said but Ali could see in his eyes there was something he was hiding. She chose to interrogate him some other time though.
Ali looked down at her watch. "I gotta go."
"Meet tomorrow again, you guys?" Stanley asked.
The answer was without a doubt a yes for the rest of the group so the question was more directed towards Ali, who was the most distant from the group.
She shrugged and smiled. "Tomorrow."
She walked out of the house and began her walk home. ***
She tried to ignore it but the back of her mind couldn't stop thinking about Ben's research on Derry. She had always been intrigued and fascinated by mysteries and things such as. But this case gave her the creeps, rather than just fascination.
She continued her way down the sidewalk when she saw something.
A bit of a far distance away from her, was a balloon.
Ali stared at it.
It was red and on it was "I ❤️ Derry"
It was but a balloon but it made Ali shudder a bit. She had no idea why, but that balloon creeped her out.
She ignored it and crossed over to the other sidewalk and continued on her way when she stopped again.
She did a double-take.
There was another red balloon. It was a few feet away from the first ballon. Ali looked again.
In fact, there was a whole trail of them leading to god-knows-where.
If Ali had thought about this two hours later, she for sure would never have even thought for a second before running away, screaming. But this was happening now and she was thinking now.
She had always called horror characters stupid whenever they went to investigate what was going on in their basements when they heard a sound.
"Quit thinking it's your mom!" Ali used to yell at her television screen, launching popcorn at it. "Your mother doesn't sound like a grown man and she wouldn't be in your fucking basement!"
But now she knew why they always investigated. Why they were always running towards the danger of it all, when they didn't even have the slightest clue what was in store for them.
Curiosity.
The curiosity was too strong. Curiosity really did kill the cat. It, really, really did.
And before Ali could rethink her steps, she began to follow the trail.
