MORE MISSING POSTERS HAD BEEN PUT UP AROUND TOWN. They were all standing in front of one of them, a new sheet of paper placed over about half a dozen old ones. Bill sighed, "They said they found part of his hand all chewed up near the standpipe."

"He asked to borrow a pencil once," Ben told them.

Bill lifted up the poster to reveal Betty Ripsom's under it. All of them were like that, like one kid suddenly didn't matter anymore now that there was another one to look for. "It's like she's been f-forgotten because Corcoran's missing."

"Is it ever gonna end?" Stan asked, and Hayley sighed, her shoulder dropping. It was a scary time to live in Derry, especially when the people disappearing were her age and people she knew.

Eddie rounded the corner holding three ice cream cones. He handed one to Hayley, who smiled gratefully, and gave the other one to Richie, who was approaching them. Eddie questioned, "What are you guys talking about?"

"What they always talk about," Richie answered, rolling his eyes. Hayley did not know how he wasn't taking this seriously. It was probably because he had yet to see anything.

Ignoring him, Ben turned to Stan to answer the question that he had asked. "I actually think it will end, for a little while, at least."

"A little while?" Hayley repeated, unsure of what that meant. Would kids stop disappearing for a year and then it would happen again? They couldn't just let it stop and hope none of them got taken.

"So, I was going over all of my Derry research and I charted out all of the big events. The Ironworks explosion in 1908. The Bradley gang in '35 and The Black Spot in '62. And now the kids being..." he trailed off and simply gestured to the poster. "I realized that this stuff seems to happen every 27 years."

"Every 27 years," Bill finished with him, causing them all to look around at each other. That was such a random number. Why every 27?

As they walked into the center of town and all sat down on and around a bench, Eddie said, "Okay, so let me get this straight. It comes out from wherever to eat kids for like a year and then what? It just goes into hibernation?"

"Maybe it's like... What do you call it? Cicadas. You know, the bugs that come out once every 17 years," Stan offered. But what was so significant about the amount of time? What happened during that time?

"My grandfather thinks this town is cursed," Mike told them, causing them all to look over at him. His voice was solemn, and he shifted in his seat. "He says that all the bad things that happened in this town are because of one thing. An evil thing that feeds off the people of Derry."

Stan shook his head, pointing out, "But it can't be one thing. We all saw something different."

"Maybe. Or maybe It knows what scares us most and that's what we see," Mike said, and Hayley thought back to that night. She still got shivers down her spine when she remembered the feeling of a hand on her body and the sight of the clown behind her.

Eddie spoke up, "I saw a leper. He was like a walking infection." He seemed shaken up by it, and it made sense, considering everywhere they went, he told them how disgusting it was and every disease or injury they could get there.

"But you didn't," Stan told them. "Because It isn't real. None of this is. Not Eddie's leper or Bill seeing Georgie or the woman I keep seeing." But how could it not be real? They were all seeing the clown, and people were disappearing left and right.

"Is she hot?" Richie questioned, swatting away Hayley's hand when she reached for him.

Stan looked at him with an expression of disbelief, and he snapped, "No. Richie. She's not hot. Her face is all messed up. None of this makes any sense. They're all like bad dreams."

"I don't think so, I know the difference between a bad dream and real life, okay?" Mike told him, and it seemed like it really got under his skin, like something had happened to him as well.

Eddie turned to him, asking, "What did you see? You saw something too?"

"Yes. You guys know that burnt down house on Harris Avenue?" They nodded, and Hayley knew where this story was going. She thought that this was something that everyone knew, but apparently not. "I was inside when it burned down. Before I rescued... my mom and dad were trapped in the next room over from me. They were pushing and pounding on the door trying to get to me. But it was too hot. When firefighters found them the skin on their hands melted down to the bone. We're all afraid of something."

"Got that right," Richie agreed, and that surprised all of them. They didn't think he would ever admit to being scared of anything.

Eddie looked at his best friend and questioned, "Why, Rich? What are you afraid of?" Richie just looked back to the stage, where a clown on stilts was performing for all of the children of Derry.

"Clowns."

THEY ALL HEADED BACK TO BILL'S GARAGE. There, he set up a projector with a map of Derry. There were streets outlines and one little spot circled. It was labeled 'Storm Dreain'. Bill pointed it out to them and said, "Okay. Look. That's where Georgie disappeared, there's the Ironworks, and the Black Spot. Everywhere It happens it's-it's all connected by the sewers and they all meet up at—"

"The well-house," Ben finished, cutting him off. Hayley tracked the path of each of the locations to the well house, and she saw what they meant. Everything seemed to lead back to that house.

Stan said, "It's in the house on Neibolt Street."

"You mean the creepy-ass house where all the junkies and hobos like to sleep?" Richie asked, scrunching his face up in disgust. But something was wrong with Eddie. He whipped his inhaler out and tried to take deep breaths, like a bad memory had just been brought up.

Bev shivered, "I hate that place. Always feels like it's watching me." It did feel like a house that knew things, that had eyes and thoughts and memories.

"I did a project on it when I was in second grade," Hayley announced. She had been obsessed with the place but always too terrified to go in. She tried to find out the history, but it had been difficult to find anything at all. When they all furrowed their eyebrows at her, she shrugged, "I was a creepy kid."

"That's where I saw It. There I saw a clown," Eddie informed them in between gasps for breath.

Bill nodded because all of these facts only led to one logical conclusion, if you could say anything about the situation was logical. "T-That's where It lives."

"I can't imagine anything ever wanting to live there," Stan said. The place was disgusting and rotting, and Hayley was surprised that the town had not torn it down yet. Maybe that was because It wouldn't let them.

"Can we stop talking about this? I can barely breathe. It's summer," Eddie rambled, standing up in front of them. He was panicking, taking breaths from his inhaler every few seconds. "We're kids, I can barely breathe having a fucking asthma attack and fuck doing this."

Then, he turned around and ripped the map off the wall. Bill yelled, "What the hell! Put the map back!"

Before anyone could say anything, however, the projector started clicking, like it was switching back and forth between slides. It started flipping through pictures of Bill and his family. Mike stood up to try and fix it, but he paused when the slides stopped on a picture with Georgie and started zooming on him.

"Georgie..." Bill muttered, his voice shaky.

Then, the focus of the pictures shifted from Georgie to a woman holding his hand. Her red hair was billowing in the wind, hiding her face, but the frames kept switching. And after a moment, the hair moved to reveal the terrifying face of the clown they had all seen before.

"What the fuck is that?!" Richie exclaimed, and they all scrambled back behind Bill and the projector.

Hayley grabbed Beverley's arm and tugged her back with her as the redhead screamed, "Turn it off! Turn it off!"

Finally, Mike just kicked over the projector, and all of the slides slid across the floor. It was still on, though, and Stan was standing right in front of the wall it was shining on. It continued to click through the pictures, It's face blurred.

Then, all of a sudden, the creature sprung out of the wall. It was huge and terrifying, with sharp teeth and a large smile. And It was looking directly at Stan. "Run, Stanley!" Richie shrieked, and the boy came scrambling toward them as they all backed up as far as they could.

Hayley felt an hand around her wrist, and she gasped when they hit the wall. The giant clown came crawling toward them, and she genuinely thought that it was the moment where they all die. Her vision was shielded just as it reached them, and she realized that it was Bill, covering her with his body.

And then light entered the garage, and all of the snarling and screaming stopped. Bill slowly climbed off a Hayley, and they looked up to see that Ben had opened the door, and It had disappeared. They climbed to their feet, and Hayley wasted no time before crashing into Bill to give him the biggest hug she had ever given anyone.

"It saw us. It saw us, and It knows where we are," Eddie said, panicked. They were all shaking in fear, completely horrified by everything that had just happened.

"It always did," Bill told them, and he walked outside and toward his bike, already picking up like he was getting ready to go somewhere. "Alright, so let's go."

Ben looked around, and everyone was looking at Bill like he was crazy, just like he was. Well, all except for Hayley, who simply looked sad. "Go? Go where?"

"Neibolt. That's where G-Georgie is," Bill answered, like it was obvious. And Hayley really did not want to go, but she would if he wanted her to.

Stan looked around, gesturing to the garage in which they had just been terrorized. "After that?"

"Yeah, it's summer, we should be outside," Richie commented in agreement.

But Bill was not having it. He was shaking with fear and anger, and he snapped. "If you say it's summer one more f-fucking time." And then he hopped on his bike.

"Bill, wait!" Hayley called after him, but he was already biking away. So, she grabbed her own bicycle and started after him. There was no way she was letting him go in there alone.