The Werewolfs claws descended again. Ben tried to duck under them . . . but suddenly he was in Its grip. It jerked him forward as if he had been no more than a ragdoll. Its jaws snapped open.
'Bastard - '
He thrust a thumb into one of Its eyes. It bellowed with pain, and one of those claw-tipped paws ripped through his shirt. Ben sucked his stomach in, but one of the claws pulled a sizzling line of pain down his chest and stomach. Blood gushed out of him and splattered on his pants, his sneakers, the floor. The Werewolf threw him into the bathtub. He thumped his head, saw stars, struggled into a sitting position, and saw his lap was full of blood.
The Werewolf whirled around. Ben observed with that same lunatic clarity that It was wearing faded Levi Strauss bluejeans. The seams had split open. A snot-caked red bandanna, the sort a train-man might carry, hung from one back pocket. Written on the back of Its silver and orange high school jacket were the words DERRY HIGH SCHOOL KILLING TEAM. Below this, the name PENNYWISE. And in the center, a number: 13.
It went for Bill again. He had gotten to his feet and now stood with his back to the wall, looking at It steadily.
'Shoot it, Beverly!' Richie screamed again.
'Beep-beep, Richie,' she heard herself reply from roughly a thousand miles away. The Werewolf's head was suddenly there, in the wishbone. She covered one of its green eyes with the cup and released. There was no shake in either of her hands; she fired as smoothly and naturally as she had fired at the cans in the dump on the day they had all taken turns to see who was the best.
There was time for Ben to think Oh Beverly if you miss this time we're all dead and I don't want to die in this dirty bathtub but I can't get out. There was no miss. A round eye - not green but dead black - suddenly appeared high up in the center of Its snout: she had aimed for the right eye and missed by less than half an inch.
Its scream - an almost human scream of surprise, pain, fear and rage - was deafening. Ben's ears rang with it. Then the perfect round hole in Its snout was gone, obscured by freshets of blood. It was not flowing; it gouted from the wound in a high-pressure torrent. The freshet drenched Bill's face and hair. Doesn't matter, Ben thought hysterically. Don't worry, Bill. Nobody will be able to see it anyway when we get out of here. If we ever do.
Bill and Beverly advanced on the Werewolf, and behind them, Richie cried out hysterically: 'Shoot It again, Beverly! Kill it!'
'Kill It!' Mike screamed.
'That's right, kill It!' Eddie chimed in.
'Kill it!' Bill cried, his mouth drawn down in a quivering bow. There was a whitish-yellow streak of plaster dust in his hair. 'Kill It, Beverly, don't let it get away!'
No ammo left, Ben thought incoherently, we're slugged out. What are you talking about, kill it? But he looked at Beverly and understood. If his heart had never been hers before that moment, it would have flown to her then. She had pulled the sling back again. Her fingers were closed over the cup, hiding its emptiness.
'Kill It!' Ben screamed, and flopped clumsily over the edge of the tub. His jeans and underwear were soaked against his skin with blood. He had no idea if he was hurt badly or not. Following the original hot sizzle there hadn't been much pain, but there sure was an awful lot of blood.
The Werewolf's greenish eyes flickered among them, now filled with uncertainty as well as pain. Blood poured down the front of Its jacket in freshets.
Bill Denbrough smiled. It was a gentle, rather lovely smile . . . but it did not touch his eyes. 'You shouldn't have started with my brother,' he said. 'Send the fucker to hell, Beverly.'
The uncertainty left the creature's eyes - It believed. With lithe smooth grace, It turned and dove into the drain. As It went, It changed. The Derry High jacket melted into its pelt and the color ran out of both. The shape of Its skull elongated, as if it had been made of wax which was now softening and beginning to run. Its shape changed. For one instant Ben believed he had nearly seen what shape It really was, and his heart froze inside his chest, leaving him gasping.
'I'll kill you all!' a voice roared from inside the drainpipe. It was thick, savage, not in the least human. 'Kill you all . . . kill you all . . . kill you all . . . ' The words faded back and back, diminishing, washing out, growing distant . . . at last joining the low throbbing hum of the pumping machinery floating through the pipes.
The house seemed to settle with a heavy sub-audible thud. But it wasn't settling, Ben realized; in some strange way it was shrinking, coming back to its normal size. Whatever magic It had used to make the house at 29 Neibolt Street seem bigger was now withdrawn. The house snapped back like an elastic. It was only a house now, smelling damp and a little rotten, an unfurnished house where winos and hobos sometimes came to drink and talk and sleep out of the rain.
It was gone.
In Its wake the silence seemed very loud.
10
'W-W-We guh-got to g-g-get ow-ow-out of this p-place,' Bill said. He walked over to where Ben was trying to get up and grabbed one of his outstretched hands. Beverly was standing near the drain. She looked down at herself and that coldness disappeared in a flush that seemed to turn all her skin into one warm stocking. It must have been a deep breath indeed. The dim popping sounds had been the buttons on her blouse. They were gone, every single one of them. The blouse hung open and her small breasts were clearly revealed. She snatched the blouse closed.
'Ruh-Ruh-Richie,' Bill said. 'Help me with B-B-Ben. He's h-h-h - '
Richie joined him, then Stan and Mike. The four of them got Ben to his feet. Eddie had gone to Beverly and put his good arm awkwardly around her shoulders. 'You did great,' he said, and Beverly burst into tears.
Ben took two big staggering steps to the wall and leaned against it before he could fall over again. His head felt light. Color kept washing in and out of the world. He felt decidedly pukey.
Then Bill's arm was around him, strong and comforting.
'How b-b-bad ih-ih-is it, H-H-Haystack?'
Ben forced himself to look down at his stomach. He found performing two simple actions - bending his neck and spreading apart the slit in his shirt - took more courage than he had needed to enter the house in the first place. He expected to see half his insides hanging down in front of him like grotesque udders. Instead he saw that the flow of blood had slowed to a sluggish trickle. The Werewolf had slashed him long and deep, but apparently not mortally.
Richie joined them. He looked at the cut which ran a twisting course down Ben's chest and petered out on the upper bulge of his stomach, then soberly into Ben's face. 'It just about had your guts for suspenders. Haystack. You know it?'
'No fake, Jake,' Ben said.
He and Richie stared at each other for a long, considering moment, and then they broke into hysterical giggles at the same instant, spraying each other with spittle. Richie took Ben into his arms and pounded his back. 'We beat It, Haystack! We beat It!'