EIGHT >> LOLITA AND THE HOUSE ON NEIBOLT STREET [PART TWO]

A door slammed from the floor below her, and Lola spun around, about to go down the stairs to investigate the noise before she realized that the staircase was no longer there. She grabbed what was left of the bannister in order to prevent herself from tumbling into the open air.

Suddenly, she heard Richie's voice shout her name from down the hall, and she followed the noise.

"Richie?" She called, checking inside each door that lined the hallway; each room was empty, until she reached a closed door at the end of it.

Lola opened it, and the room she hesitantly stepped into was dark. The lack of light in the room seemed to press down on her shoulders like a weight, and she probed the walls, trying to find a light switch.

Her fingers finally grazed over what felt like a switch, and she flipped it up, flooding the room with bright light.

And when the room was no longer bathed in darkness, she regretted ever entering the old house.

Just like the night she went into Charlie's room, there were bodies hanging from the ceiling, except none of them were Charlie's. There were seven of them, all with ropes around their necks.

The first face she recognized was Mike's. Poor, innocent, sweet Mike, the boy she'd know since she was young, the one whose hand she had held at his parents' funeral, and who held her hand at her brother's. Mike, whose face was currently bloated and ashy and gray, but any other time had nothing but a smile to offer her.

Next was Ben, and then Bev, Bill, Eddie, and Stan, in order of which face her mind clicked into recognition first. Her heart broke a little more at each one, each friend she had made, either in the past weeks, or in the past years. Tears spilled down her cheeks.

She reached for them each in turn, and just as her fingers skimmed over the fabric of Stanley's shirt, she heard a sound, almost like a mix between a wheeze and a choke. It was coming from the seventh body, one whose back was to her, but the familiarly loud pattern of the Hawaiian shirt made it clear who it was.

"Richie," the word slipped past her lips like blood from a wound. She crossed the distance between herself and the still-moving body in two quick steps.

She turned him around and nearly screamed when she saw him—his glasses were askew, nearly falling off his face, his face was beet red, and his hands were grasping, clawing desperately at the rope around his neck. He was still alive, unlike the other six.

She was pulling at the rope he hung from, trying to pull him down or free him, but it wouldn't budge.

The girl screamed out of frustration, but her scream was cut off when one of Richie's hands closed mercilessly around her neck, squeezing tightly.

She choked out a surprised grunt, and she managed to utter his name wheezily.

"Please," Lola coughed as the hand tightened. She blinked for a mere moment, a tear leaking from one eye; when she opened her eyes again, it was no longer Richie with a death grip around her neck, but the clown from the stream and Bill's garage.

And, suddenly, it was lights out for Lola.

🎈

Richie heard a piercing scream, one that he'd heard a dozen times in his life, and his entire body spun to face the sound.

"Lola!" He shouted, taking off in a dead run towards where they had come into what had been a bedroom in its prime, only to be stopped by a set of three doors, labeled NOT SCARY AT ALL, SCARY, and VERY SCARY, in what looked like blood.

Bill halted next to Richie. "Sh-shit, what d-do we duh-do?"

Rolling his eyes, exasperated, Richie blurted, "What the fuck do you think?" and practically kicked open the door with NOT SCARY AT ALL painted on it.

They barreled into the dark room and stopped, hearing the sound of someone breathing labored, heavy breaths.

"Hello?" The boy with the coke-bottle glasses called. "Lola? Is that you?"

From the darkness, all they heard was a weak, "Can anyone find my shoe?"

Richie found a light switch on the wall, and from one dirty, half-burnt out lightbulb on the ceiling, Bill and Richie could see Betty Ripsom's torso—and just that. No legs attached.

"Shit, Jesus. Fuck, shit!" Richie shrieked, slamming the door. He kicked open the one that said SCARY, and, to his relief, it opened up to the hallway they had come in from.

More screams reached the two as they dared to take several steps out of the room, except these screams were not Lola's alone; there also a boyish, slightly lower-pitched one mixed in. It sounded a hell of a lot like Eddie.

Bill and Richie took off down the hallway, thundering down the stairs without noticing the lack of steps leading upwards.

They reached the main floor and crashed through the entrance to the kitchen, finding, to their horror, Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the one Lola had encountered mere minutes before, standing over Eddie and threatening to eat the boy's hand.

Mustering up courage he didn't even know he possessed, Richie stepped forward and yelled, "Don't fucking touch him!" He grabbed the first thing he could find off the floor, which happened to be a wooden board that looked to be from a broken table. He hefted it threateningly.

"Is this not real enough for you?" Pennywise taunted in a chilling voice. "It was real enough for Georgie. It was real enough for Lolita." He punctuated the sentence with a laugh.

The boy faltered, his makeshift weapon dipping slightly. "What do you mean, real enough for Lola?" He demanded. His words had been so confident and sure moments ago, but the moment his best friend was mentioned, his security had gone out the window.

Instead of replying, the clown just laughed again, this time more maniacally than before, and snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, the ceiling above them exploded, and something came hurdling down from the hole created by the blast, something that was dangling by a rope. A noose.

It took Richie a moment—only a heartbeat, really—to recognize Lola's dark hair, and the overalls and striped shirt she had been wearing the last time he saw her. In that moment, a million emotions raced through his brain: fear, anger, terror, and utter, complete heartbreak.

He was so focused on the girl, and wondering how on earth he would manage to get her down, that he didn't notice when the clown came running at them.

The boy didn't even have time to move; he turned around, and suddenly Pennywise was in his face, teeth bared, inches away from biting.

"Fuck!" Richie yelled, throwing himself in front of Lola's jerking body—the movement assured him that she was still alive, but he knew it wasn't for long.

Before the clown could touch either of them, it stopped abruptly, and Richie noticed a spike protruding from its head. Black blood spilled from the clown, although, unlike normal wounds, it flowed upward, opposing gravity.

Richie quickly turned away from the horror in front of him and faced Lola, jumping to reach the rope that held his best friend in the world. After pulling and yanking and trying his hardest to get her free, the rope finally came undone, and Lola's body fell to the floor.

Lola gasped, inhaling and sitting up so quickly that she nearly hit her forehead against Richie's, who hovered over her worriedly. Her hands went to her throat, and she massaged the angry red laceration that was left from the rope. She was sobbing and hyperventilating, like she couldn't breathe right.

"Eddie!" Richie suddenly shouted, one hand on Lola's back. "Give me—give me your aspirator. Now!"

Beverly, who had just snapped the wheezing boy's broken arm back into place, grabbed the inhaler from his hand and threw it to Richie.

The boy with the coke-bottle glasses jammed the inhaler into Lola's mouth, pushed down on the button, and watched in relief as the girl finally took in air without choking on it. He helped her stand, and when he realized that she couldn't hold herself up on her own, he grimaced, lifting her. His teeth ground together, the girl being heavier than he expected in a dead carry.

He started towards the front door. "Come on, we need to get out of here!" He yelled. Everyone but Bill followed.

As soon as they got outside, Mike took Lola from Richie's arms, noticing how the smaller boy was struggling. Mike was holding her carefully, so gently that Richie felt something unknown burn in his chest; he put the feeling aside, instead focusing on the girl, who as drifting in and out of consciousness.

Suddenly, Eddie's mother, Mrs. Kaspbrak, came speeding up to them in her station wagon, nearly hitting Stan.

Richie didn't listen to what the older woman screamed. He just stared at Lola in Mike's arms, not paying attention to anything else until he heard Bill say, "I saw the wuh-well! I know where it i-is, so nuh-nuh-next time, we can be more pr-prepared."

"No!" Stan shrieked, shaking his head incredulously. "No next time, Bill! You're insane."

Lola, finally regaining her balance, got Mike to let her down. She walked slowly over to the rest of the group, and for a moment, Richie thoughts she was making her way to him, but she instead went to Stan, who looped an arm wordlessly around her waist and hugged her tightly.

Swallowing the remark he was about to make about Lola and Stanley, Richie instead said, "Stanley's right. Lola was nearly fucking killed, Bill!" He gestured wildly to her, then threw his hands up, exasperated. He stormed up to the stuttering boy, so angry, and shouted in his face: "What the fuck, Bill? Take some responsibility. Lola almost fucking died! You let my girl get put in danger!"

Through her muddled senses, Lola heard him say my girl, and while she didn't say anything, she frowned as she felt something heat up in her stomach, like butterflies stuck in the oven.

Richie shoved Bill again, and, out of nowhere, the latter boy swung a fist at Richie, connecting it with his mouth.

"What the fuck!" Richie screamed, touching his busted lip. Blood stained his fingertips, and he wiped it on his shorts.

Maybe it was the sight of the blood dripping from Richie's mouth, or maybe it was the lack of oxygen to her brain, or the overall stress of the past weeks, but black spots suddenly danced across Lola's vision, and her legs felt wobbly and unsteady.

And, without a word, she collapsed, head hitting the ground before anyone could catch her.

we're getting close to the point where I stopped writing so uhhhhh oops