He Likes Boys//It (2017)

f o u r

Chapter Four:

"Hey! Stop!" He hears someone scream. Henry looks up and laughs.

"Well if it isn't the rest of the gang!" Henry exclaimed.

"Leave him alone!" Beverly yelled.

Hom carefully lifted his head, looking up see Beverly and the rest of the losers club had come to his aide. They were here. They would save him. He lifted one trembling hand and felt the blood starting to ooze out from his cheek. He wiped the blood from his cheek and then pressed his hand against the small cut.

"I'm gonna leave my mark on this one just like I did to Haystack over there." He pointed with his knife at Ben, who seemed to shirk in his oversized hoodie. He should stand proud against Henry's torment. Ben knew he should, but all he seemed able to do was shake in fear at what had happened to him. He was lucky Henry hadn't gotten very far. Otherwise he was sure he would have bled to death on that road.

Hom started to stand up. Henry turned back around. "Oh? So this one thinks he can take me?" Henry's friends laughed.

"Hold him down boys." Henry commanded his little group. They were practically slaves to his every order. Anything he demanded they would do. Anything he asked for, they would get him. They worshipped Henry like some sort of god.

They were all too preoccupied with a struggling Hom to realize that Beverly now clenched a sling shot in her right hand. Nobody heard the snap of the band, nor realized what she'd done until a sharp stone had made a small cut on the back of Henry's neck. He turned around, angry. His friends had already begun to leave as they saw his wound gushing blood out onto the cement.

"You wanna go?" Henry asked. "You guys wanna fight, we can fight, but if you wanna fight, you fight fair. Those are the rules." Henry chucked down his knife and held up his fists, but Hom was already beginning to run, the rest of the Loser's Club running alongside him.

"We'll never fight a pansy like you, Henry Bowers!" Richie 'Trashmouth' Tozier yelled as they left Henry in the dust. Hom looked back at the look on Henry's face as they ran. He was angry. He was more than just angry, there was steam coming out of his ears. It was at that moment that Hom knew Henry Bowers would have his revenge on him. Unlike what had happened to Ben, Hom's scar would be completed. Bowers would get what he wanted in the end.

"Do you guys w-wanna hang out b-by the creek?" Bill asked, then saw that Hom was with them. "Oh right!" Bill remembered. "I g-g-guess introductions are in or-order." He tried his best to suppress his stutter, but the harder he tried the more it seemed to come out. Beverly had told the group about Hom, although he realized now that he probably didn't know the names of everyone in the group.

"I'm B-B-Bill." He held out his hand to shake, and Hom accepted.

"Richie." Richie waved.

"People call him Trashmouth." Ben gestured to Richie. "Soon you'll find out why." Richie gave him a playful punch on the shoulder.

"And they call him Haystack." He pointed at Ben. "You can already see why."

"Stan." Stand said quietly, never quite sure how he should introduce himself. By now he had gotten more of rep as being 'the jewish kid' than being anything else. And while he was proud of the fact that he was jewish, he also didn't really enjoy being called anything except Stan.

"I'm Mike. Mike Hanlon." Mike held out his hand to shake. Hom took it.

"I'm Hom." He replied, suddenly feeling shy.

"Nice of you to join us." Mike said.

"So...." Beverly leaned in. "Have you seen It?" She said, asking the question everyone was dying to know the answer to. They had all been taunted by the monster. They had all seen it's horrors up close. They had all realized that it was the reason so many children around Derry went missing.

A look of confusion passed across Hom's features. It? The thing in his dreams? How did they know about it? He'd thought the monster only taunted him in his childhood nightmares, but now that he thought of it, he hadn't dreamed of the monster for a while, at least, not that he remembered. Maybe they were all just a bunch of crazies trying to get him to join their psycho group. It made sense. At least, more sense than there actually being a monster in the quiet town of Derry.

"What are you talking about?" Hom furrowed his brows in confusion.

"See!" Richie exclaimed. "I'm not the only one who hasn't seen your weird monster thing and now we know that it's not just virgins who can see this stuff." Bill elbowed Richie's side. Richie reached up to rub the side of his ribcage.

"S-s-stop bragging r-Richie. Everyone knows you're a virgin." Bill said loudly enough for all to hear.

"I'm not bragging!" Richie defended himself. "I really did shag her."

"Did not."

"Did too."

"Did not."

Beverly stepped in between the two. "You guys are getting distracted for the important thing."

"The important thing is that he hasn't seen it. And that we need to get to actually fighting this thing. How can he agree to fighting a monster he's never seen?" Stan stated.

"We still let Richie in." Ben pointed out.

"Yeah, but Richie was already hanging out with us." Beverly sat back down.

"Yeah. Plus, I'm a way better fighter than the lot of you combined!" He defended himself.

"I say we let him in. We'll need as much hemp as we can get." Ben stated, obviously being the smart one of the group. "We should vote on it." He suggested, just to make everything fair.

"All for not letting Hom join the club?"

No one raised their hands.

"All for letting him join?"

One by one Hom watched as everyone raise their hands. It was official. He was part of the Losers Club.