TAG, YOU'RE IT
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"OKAY, SO LEMME get this straight - It comes out from wherever to eat kids? And then what? It goes back to hibernation?" Arianna asked, sitting on the bench with her back propped up against the arm, next to Richie. They all sat in the heart of the Derry, trying to figure out what was going on.
Last night, Arianna and Richie had ended up cuddling and comforting each other on the cliff at the quarry. The two had sat; Richie sitting against a rock as Arianna sat next to him, leaning her head on his shoulder as they talked about anything. It was as if it were the chapter of a romance novel where the two star-crossed lovers got to know each other more. They fiddled with each other's fingers as they talked and giggled together.
They went home, not forgetting to give each other a tight hug, like they never wanted to let go, like they never wanted each other to have to go back to the horrible life they experienced every single day. Of course, they didn't tell the others, and they promised to not to tell anybody until they were ready.
"Maybe it's like - what do you call it? Cicadas. You know, the bugs that come out once every seventeen years." Stanley suggested, nervously rubbed his sweaty but rough hands together.
"My grandfather thinks this town is cursed. He says that all the bad things that happened in this town are caused by one thing. An evil thing, that feeds off the people of Derry." Mike piped up.
"But it can't be one thing, we all saw something different." Stanley pointed out.
"Maybe. Or maybe It knows what's scares us most and that's what we see." Beverly spoke quietly, nervously fiddling with her bracelets.
"I - I saw a leper. It was like a walking infection." Eddie said, staring at the ground in fright as he remembered exactly how it looked.
"But you didn't, because it wasn't real. None of this is." Stanley shook his head, not wanting to believe anything that was happening. "Not Eddie's leper, or Bill seeing Georgie, or Sydney seeing the clown in the dark and the flashes, o - or the woman I keep seeing -"
"Is she hot?" Richie asked with a smirk, earning an eye roll from Arianna.
Stanley looked at him, trying to figure out if he was actually serious. "No, Richie! She's not hot! Her face is all - messed up!"
"But the flashes, I - I feel like I'm seeing them for a reason." Sydney said, thinking about what Stanley had said. "I'm not seeing them just for fun." She was right. There had to be a reason.
"Maybe you're sensitive to the clown, or maybe connected or something." Beverly suggested.
"Or m - maybe you know when It's going to strike, or what's g - g - going to happen next." Bill also suggested.
"Maybe. Like I said yesterday, it's unexplainable." Sydney shrugged, looking down at the ground in thought.
Arianna looked at Mike, noticing how he suddenly looked uncomfortable, and she placed a hand on his shoulder. "You okay, Mikey?"
Mike looked up at the brunette and nodded. "You guys know that burned down house on Harris Avenue? I was inside when it burned down. Before I was rescued, my parents were in the room right over me. They were pushing and pounding on the door trying to get to me. But it was too hot. When the firefighters found them, the skin on their hands were burned to the bone. We're all afraid of something."
"Got that right."
They all looked over at Richie, who looked at a stage with clowns on it who were handing out balloons to all of the little children there.
"Why, Rich? What are you afraid of?" Eddie asked, and Richie slowly turned around, slightly shuddering at what he just saw.
"Clowns."
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"Okay, look. The storm drain - that's where Georgie went missing. There's the Iron Works, there's The Black Spot..." Bill pointed out.
The teenagers were all seated around the projector in the dark garage, looking at a map of the Derry sewers. "Everywhere It happens, they're all connected to the well house." Bill pointed out, making everybody shiver.
"The house on Neibolt street." Stanley muttered, staring at the map that was thumb-tacked to the board.
"You mean that creepy ass house where all the junkies and hobos like to sleep?" Richie bluntly asked, making Arianna roll her blue eyes.
"No, Richie. Just, no." Arianna shook her head and glared at him, making him chuckle and wrap his arm around her shoulders. Arianna and her sister had never seen the Neibolt house, but, by the loser's reactions, they could tell it was probably really scary. "Nope. Never seen it."
"I hate that place. I always feel like it's watching me." Beverly spoke quietly, fiddling with her key necklace.
Sydney cringed, staring at the board and remembering what she had flashes about last night. She remembered the flickering lights in an abandoned house, and the clown's words specifically being, "you're next!" along with a nasty cackle. "I heard that some kid went in there as a dare; he never came back out."
"That's where I saw It. That's where I saw the clown." Eddie said in a hoarse voice, taking multiple pumps from his inhaler.
"That's where It lives." Bill concluded.
Stanley slowly shook his head. "I can't imagine anything wanting to live there..."
Eddie stood up and quickly walked in front of the projector. "Can we stop talking about this? It's summer. We're kids. I - I can't breathe - I'm gonna have a fucking asthma attack! Fuck doing this!" He said before turning around and ripping the map off the board.
"What the hell? Put the map back!" Bill told him.
"Nuh-uh!"
Suddenly, the projector switched to a picture of Georgie and one of his friends, then it quickly switched to multiple photographs of Bill's family throughout the years of when Georgie wasn't missing. "Georgie?" Bill muttered, staring at the screen.
Arianna stood up, furrowing her eyebrows as she stared at the board like everybody else. "Bill, what's happening?" She asked, knowing she wasn't going to get an answer, not taking her blue eyes off of the photographs. Then, the projector finally stopped on one picture, of Bill, Georgie, and their parents outside the church, smiling widely, happy as could be.
Everyone silently watched in fear as the projector slowly started zooming in, then started flashing quickly, zooming towards Bill's mother's face, showing her red hair blowing all over her face. Then, her hair flew out of her face, showing that of a sinister-looking clown, making everybody start panicking.
"That's the clown! It's It!" Sydney panicked, remembering the clown from her flashes all too clearly. She backed up toward Beverly as Beverly held her arms.
The clown's demonic smile seemed to melt into their souls, and they all panicked even more as the clown's face morphed more and more into it's shape, and they all tried getting the projector turned off.
"What the fuck is that?! What the fuck is that?!" Richie screamed, holding onto both Arianna's arm and Eddie's shoulder in fear.
"I don't fucking know!" Eddie screamed back, his high pitched voice highering as he screamed.
Arianna ran over to the garage door, trying to unlock it so she could allow the light inside, but the lock would budge.
"Turn it off!" Beverly yelled, though Bill was frozen, not knowing what to do. "Turn it off!"
"She said to turn the damn thing off!" Arianna screamed at Bill, but thankfully, Mike pushed Bill out the way and kicked the projector to the floor, and the room went dark.
Arianna heard her heart pounding in her chest. The sound of everyone's shaky breaths trying to catch their breaths filled the suddenly silent room. Arianna's eyes flickered over to Richie and they made eye contact. They started walking towards each other when suddenly, out of nowhere, the project turned back on, showing blurred versions of the clown, as if It was moving.
It showed a couple more of those blurred photographs, when it went dark in the room again. In that quick second, Arianna and Richie tried to make it toward each other.
Suddenly, the clown popped out the screen, larger than humanly possible with teeth as sharp as razors. The losers all panicked and started screaming, scrambling to get away from the horrific clown.
Arianna's eyes widened as the clown giggled and faced Stanley who stood by the board, frozen in fear. "Stanley!" Arianna screamed, grabbing him by his stiff arm and yanking him away from the gigantic clown.
And that's when the clown's head snapped towards Arianna, and Arianna's blood ran cold. "Come here, child! Don't ya wanna float like the others?" The clown asked with a nasty cackle.
"No!" She screamed at It with fear, too scared to move.
"I promise you, there's no pain at the circus!" The clown started laughing hysterically, then quickly crawling over to her, where she stood paralyzed in fear.
"Arianna, move the fuck away from It!" They all screamed at the girl, but she couldn't hear as the clown's laugh filled her ears, sounding as chalk scraping against a board in her ears.
Just as It was about to grab her, Mike and Ben opened the garage door, sunlight beaming into the dark garage. Arianna blinked a couple of times, seeing the clown was gone, though her heart was still pounding in her chest and it rang in her ears.
"Arianna Jayden Taylor, what the actual fuck were you thinking?!" Richie asked, rushing up to her.
The kids all stood in fear as they watched, trying to process what had just happened.
Arianna wasn't even fazed that he said her middle name, she didn't even shrug or shake her head. Her eyes stayed widened, and she just shakily wrapped her arms around his shoulders, thankful that he was here to comfort her. She released from the hug and turned to Mike and Ben, silently thanking them both in a shaky voice.
"It - It saw us! It knows where we are!" Eddie pointed out after a couple of seconds of silence.
"It always has." Bill realized, then he turned around and started walking to his bike. "C'mon, l - let's go."
"Go? Go where?" Ben asked with a lifted eyebrow.
"Neibolt. That's where G - G - Georgie is." Bill responded, walking his bike towards the group and stopping in the middle of the driveway.
"After that?" Sydney asked, gesturing towards her little sister, who was still in a somewhat shock. "Yeah, that's not happening." (mama harrington who?)
"Yeah, it's summer. We should be outside..." Richie trailed off.
"If you say it's summer one more f - f - fucking time..." Bill grumbled, before grabbing his bike handles and taking it to the street, jumping on it and starting to pedal away.
"Bill, wait!" Beverly called out in frustration, but Bill rode out of sight. Everybody looked at each other and went to their bikes, Mike giving Sydney a ride. They all rode off, leaving Arianna and Richie barely getting on the bike.
Richie looked back at Arianna with worry in his eyes. "Are you okay?"
Arianna nodded. "Yeah."
"Ya sure? That was some crazy shit."
"Yes. Thanks for being there for me." Arianna smiled, before taking all of the courage she had in her, and leaning up and kissing his cheek.
Richie's eyes widened and his cheeks turned a bright shade of red, and he didn't say anything. He only stepped on the pedal and started pedalling after the others. Both of the kids knew one thing for sure.
There definitely was a spark as her lips touched his cheek.
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