She laughed again, softly, and looked at him. "Is it that? Or are you having second thoughts?"

"Second thoughts," Bill said. "I a-a-always have those."

"I don't. I hate him," she said.

He looked at her, the smile fading.

"I didn't know it all the way to the top of my mind until tonight," she said. "Oh, I knew it-somewhere-all along, I guess. He hits and he hurts. I married him because... because my father always worried about me, I guess. No matter how hard I tried, he worried. And I guess I knew he'd approve of Tom. Because Tom would worry, too. He worried a lot. And as long as someone was worrying about me, I'd be safe. More than safe. Real." She looked at him solemnly. Her blouse had pulled out of the waistband of her slacks, revealing a white stripe of stomach. He wanted to kiss it. "But it wasn't real. It was a nightmare. Being married to Tom was like going back into the nightmare. Why would a person do that, Bill? Why would a person go back into the nightmare of her own accord?"

Bill said, "The o-o-only reason I can f-figure is that p-people go back to f-f-find thems-s-selves."

"The nightmare's here," Bev said. "The nightmare is Derry. Tom looks small compared to that. I can see him better now. I loathe myself for the years I spent with him... You don't know... the things he made me do, and oh, I was happy enough to do them, you know, because he worried about me. I'd cry... but sometimes there's too much shame. You know?"

"Don't," he said quietly, and put his hand over hers. She held it tightly. Her eyes were overbright, but the tears didn't fall. "Everybody g-g-goofs it. But it's not an eh-eh-exam. You just go through it the b-b-best you can."

"What I mean," she said, "is that I'm not cheating on Tom, or trying to use you to get my own back on him, or anything like that. For me, it would be like something... sane and normal and sweet. But I don't want to hurt you, Bill. Or trick you into something you'll be sorry for later."

He thought about this, thought about it with a real and deep seriousness. But the odd little mnemonic-he thrusts his fists, and so on-had begun to circle back, breaking into his thoughts. It had been a long day. Mike's call and the invitation to lunch at Jade of the Orient seemed a hundred years ago. So many stories since then. So many memories, like photographs from George's album.

"Friends don't t-t-trick each o-other," he said, and leaned toward her on the bed. Their lips touched and he began to unbutton her blouse. One of her hands went to the back of his neck and held him closer while the other first unzipped her slacks and then pushed them down. For a moment his hand was on her stomach, warm; then her panties were gone in a whisper; then he nudged and she guided.

As he entered her, she arched her back gently toward the thrust of his sex and muttered, "Be my friend... I love you, Bill."

"I love you too," he said, smiling against her bare shoulder. They began slowly and he felt sweat begin to flow out of his skin as she quickened beneath him. His consciousness began to drain downward, becoming focused more and more strongly on their connection. Her pores had opened, releasing a lovely musky odor.

Beverly felt her climax coming. She moved toward it, working for it, never doubting that it would come. Her body suddenly stuttered and seemed to leap upward, not orgasming but reaching a plateau far above any she had reached with Tom or the other two lovers she had had before Tom. She became aware that this wasn't going to be just a come; it was going to be a tactical nuke. She became a little afraid... but her body picked up the rhythm again. She felt Bill's long length stiffen against her, his whole body suddenly becoming as hard as the part of him inside herself, and at that same moment she climaxed-began to climax; pleasure so great it was nearly agony spilled out of unsuspected floodgates, and she bit down on his shoulder to stifle her cries.

"Oh my God," Bill gasped, and although she was never sure later, she believed he was crying. He pulled back and she thought he was going to withdraw from her-she tried to prepare for that moment, which always brought a fleeting, inexplicable sense of loss and emptiness, something like a footprint-and then he thrust forward strongly again. Right away she had a second orgasm, something she hadn't known was possible for her, and the window of memory opened again and she saw birds, thousands of birds, descending onto every roofpeak and telephone line and RFD mailbox in Derry, spring birds against a white April sky, and there was pain mixed with pleasure-but mostly it was low, as a white spring sky seems low. Low physical pain mixed with low physical pleasure and sense of affirmation. She had bled... she had... had...

'All of you?" she cried suddenly, her eyes widening, stunned.

He did pull back and out of her this time, but in the sudden shock of the revelation, she barely felt him go.

"What? Beverly? A-Are you all r-"

"All of you? I made love to all of you?"

She saw shocked surprise on Bill's face, the drop of his jaw... and sudden understanding. But it was not her revelation; even in her own shock she saw that. It was his own.

"We-"

"Bill? What is it?"

"That was y-y-your way to get us out," he said, and now his eyes blazed so brightly they frightened her. "Beverly, duh-duh-don't you uh-understand? That was y-y-your way to get us out! We all... but we were... " Suddenly he looked frightened, unsure.

"Do you remember the rest now?" she asked.

He shook his head slowly. "Not the spuh-spuh-specifics. But... " He looked at her, and she saw he was badly frightened. "What it really c-c-came down to was we wuh-wuh-wished our way out. And I'm not s-sure... Beverly, I'm not sure that grownups can do that."

She looked at him without speaking for a long moment, and sat on the edge of the bed and took her clothes off with no particular self-consciousness. Her body was smooth and lovely, the line of her backbone barely discernible in the dimness as she bent to take off the knee-high nylon stockings she had been wearing. Her hair was a sheaf coiled over one shoulder. He thought he would want her again before morning, and that feeling of guilt came again, tempered only by the guilty comfort of knowing that Audra was an ocean away. Put another nickle in the juke-box, he thought. This tune is called "What She Don't Know Won't Hurt Her." But it hurts somewhere. In the spaces between people, maybe.

Beverly got up and turned the bed down. "Come to bed. We need sleep. Both of us."

"A-A-All right." Because that was right, that was a big ten-four. More than anything else he wanted to sleep... but not alone, not tonight. The latest shock was wearing off-too quickly, perhaps, but he felt so tired now, so used-up. Second-to-second reality had the quality of a dream, and in spite of the guilt he felt, he also felt that this was a safe place. It would be possible to lie here for a little while, to sleep in her arms. He wanted her warmth and her friendliness. Both were sexually charged, but that could hurt neither of them now.

He stripped off his socks and shirt and got in next to her. She pressed against him, her breasts warm, her long legs cool. Bill held her, aware of the differences-her body was longer than Audra's, and fuller at the breast and the hip. But it was a welcome body.

It should have been Ben with you, dear, he thought drowsily. I think that was the way it was really supposed to be. Why wasn't it Ben?

Because it was you then and it's you now, that's all. Because what goes around always comes around. I think Bob Dylan said that... or maybe it was Ronald Reagan. And maybe it's me now because Ben's the one who's supposed to see the lady home.

Beverly wriggled against him, not in a sexual way (although, even as he fled toward sleep, she felt him stir again against her leg and was glad), but only wanting his warmth. She was already half asleep herself. Her happiness here with him, after all these years, was real. She knew that because of its bitter undertaste. There was tonight, and perhaps there would be another tune for them tomorrow morning. Then they would go down in the sewers as they had before, and they would find their It. The circle would close even tighter and their present lives would merge smoothly with their own childhoods; they would become like creatures on some crazy Moebius strip.

Either that, or they would die down there.

She turned over. He slipped an arm between her side and her arm and cupped one breast gently. She did not have to lie awake, wondering if the hand might suddenly clamp down in a hard pinch.

Her thoughts began to break up as sleep slid into her. As always, she saw brilliant wildflower patterns as she crossed over-masses and masses of them nodding brightly under a blue sky. These faded and there was a falling sensation-the sort of sensation that had sometimes snapped her awake and sweating as a child, a scream on the other side of her face. Childhood dreams of falling, she had read in her college psychology text, were common.

But she didn't snap back this time; she could feel the warm and comforting weight of Bill's arm, his hand cradling her breast. She thought that if she was falling, at least she wasn't falling alone.

Then she touched down and was running: this dream, whatever it was, moved fast. She ran after it, pursuing sleep, silence, maybe just time. The years moved fast. The years ran. If you turned around and ran after your own childhood, you'd have to really let out your stride and bust your buns. Twenty-nine, the year she had streaked her hair (faster). Twenty-two, the year she had fallen in love with a football player named Greg Mallory who had damn near raped her after a fraternity party (faster, faster). Sixteen, getting drunk with two of her girlfriends on the Bluebird Hill Overlook in Portland. Fourteen... twelve...

faster, faster, faster...

She ran into sleep, chasing twelve, catching it, running through the barrier of memory that It had cast over all of them (it tasted like cold fog in her laboring dreamlungs), running back into her eleventh year, running, running like hell, running to beat the devil, looking back now, looking back

6

THE BARRENS / 12:40 P.M.

over her shoulder for any sign of them as she slipped and scrambled her way down the embankment. No sign, at least not yet. She had "really fetched it to him," as her father sometimes said... and just thinking of her father brought another wave of guilt and despondency washing over her.

She looked under the rickety bridge, hoping to see Silver heeled over on his side, but Silver was gone. There was a cache of toy guns which they no longer bothered to take home, and that was all. She started down the path, looked back... and there they were, Belch and Victor supporting Henry between them, standing on the edge of the embankment like Indian sentries in a Randolph Scott movie. Henry was horribly pale. He pointed at her. Victor and Belch began to help him down the slope. Dirt and gravel spilled from beneath their heels.

Beverly looked at them for a long moment, almost hypnotized. Then she turned and sprinted through the trickle of brook-water that ran out from under the bridge, ignoring Ben's stepping-stones, her sneakers spraying out flat sheets of water. She ran down the path, the breath hot in her throat. She could feel the muscles in her legs trembling. She didn't have much left now. The clubhouse. If she could get there, she might still be safe.

She ran along the path, branches whipping even more color into her cheeks, one striking her eye and making it water. She cut to the right, blundered through tangles of underbrush, and came out into the clearing. Both the camouflaged trapdoor and the slit window stood open; rock n roll drifted up. At the sound of her approach, Ben Hanscom popped up. He had a box of Junior Mints in one hand and an Archie comic book in the other.

He got a good look at Bev and his mouth fell open. Under other circumstances it would have been almost funny. "Bev, what the hell-

She didn't bother replying. Behind her, and not too far behind, either, she could hear branches snapping and whipping; there was a muffled shouted curse. It sounded as if Henry was getting livelier. So she just ran at the square trapdoor opening, her hair, tangled now with green leaves and twigs as well as the crud from her scramble under the garbage truck, streaming out behind her.

Ben saw she was coming in like the 101st Airborne and disappeared as quickly as he had come out. Beverly jumped and he caught her clumsily.

"Shut everything," she panted. "Hurry up, Ben, for heaven's sake! They're coming!"

"Who?"

"Henry and his friends! Henry's gone crazy, he's got a knife-"

That was enough for Ben. He dropped his Junior Mints and his funny book. He pulled the trapdoor shut with a grunt. The top was covered with sods; Tangle-Track was still holding them remarkably well. A few blocks of sod had gotten a little loose, but that was all. Beverly stood on tiptoe and closed the window. They were in darkness.

She groped for Ben, found him, and hugged him with panicky tightness. After a moment he hugged her back. They were both on their knees. With sudden horror Beverly realized that Richie's transistor radio was still playing somewhere in the blackness: Little Richard singing "The Girl Can't Help It."

"Ben... the radio... they'll hear..."

"Oh God!"

He bunted her with one meaty hip and almost knocked her sprawling in the dark. She heard the radio fall to the floor. "The girl can't help it if the menfolks stop and stare," Little Richard informed them with his customary hoarse enthusiasm. "Can't help it!" the back-up group testified, "the girl can't help it!" Ben was panting now, too. They sounded like a couple of steam-engines. Suddenly there was a crunch... and silence.

"Oh shit," Ben said. "I just squashed it. Richie's gonna have a bird." He reached for her in the dark. She felt his hand touch one of her breasts, then jerk away, as if burned. She groped for him, got hold of his shirt, and drew him close.

"Beverly, what-"

"Shhh!"

He quieted. They sat together, arms around each other, looking up. The darkness was not quite perfect; there was a narrow line of light down one side of the trapdoor, and three others outlined the slit window. One of these three was wide enought to let a slanted ray of sunlight fall into the clubhouse. She could only pray they wouldn't see it.

She could hear them approaching. At first she couldn't make out the words... and then she could. Her grip on Ben tightened.

"If she went into the bamboo, we can pick up her trail easy," Victor was saying.

"They play around here," Henry replied. His voice was strained, his words emerging in little puffs, as if with great effort. "Boogers Taliendo said so. And the day we had that rockfight, they were coming from here."

"Yeah, they play guns and stuff," Belch said.

Suddenly there were thudding footfalls right above them; the sod-covered cap vibrated up and down. Dirt sifted onto Beverly's upturned face. One, two, maybe even all three of them were standing on top of the clubhouse. A cramp laced her belly; she had to bite down against a cry. Ben put one big hand on the side of her face and pressed it against his arm as he looked up, waiting to see if they would guess... or if they knew already and were just playing games.