CHAPTER ELEVEN
grounded.

...

"Wait, guys, where's Stanley?" Eddie's voice sliced through the tunnel and Nicole jerked her head up to attention. Bill and Richie were helping Mike into the opening and Eddie was at the back.

"Isn't he there?" Her voice was dripping with worry.

Eddie's flashlight tilted upwards, then left to right-- revealing nothing. "N-no... he's just... gone. Stan!"

Nicole felt her stomach drop. She slid past Ben, who's face was tight with concern for Beverly, and moved to the shorter boy's side. Stanley was, like Edie had said, nowhere to be seen. "Shit, guys, Stanley's alone."

She grabbed her baseball bat, which Mike had brought down like he'd promised, and clicked her own flashlight on. Without waiting for the others, Nicole made her way down the tunnel.

"Shit, wait up! Nic!" Eddie yelped. She could hear the boys right behind her as she hopped out of the smaller tunnel into what looked like a main tunnel.

"Careful, guys. Grey-water... you're probably used to playing in this stuff, though." Nicole snorted at her own joke to stop herself from running out of that damned sewer.

"Ugh, I'm so grounded when I get home." Eddie groaned.

The group of six splashed down the tunnel, caring little for what may be in the shadows. Now they had two friends missing, and Nicole was dead-set on bringing them both back. Alive. "Stanley! How far did he go--" Nicole, who was leading, stopped in a room that had no water in the bottom. A contraption sat in the middle, but she hadn't paid enough attention to science class to know what it was.

They walked around the edge slowly. Noises bounced off the wall, sending chills up and down Nicole's spine. Her flashlight sliced through the darkness, angling towards the floor.

"S-stan...?" Fear closed her throat, breaking her voice into two pieces.

Her light pushed the darkness away, revealing a... a terrifying something hunched over Stanley. It's mouth fit around his whole face and it was clearly making an attempt at devouring the boy. Nicole screamed and the others came to her side, anxious to rescue Stan.

The thing looked up, startled, and pulled away from the light as fast as it could. It looked like a really misshapen woman, with rows of terribly sharp teeth. "Oh god... get away from him." Nicole moved the light forward. The monster shrieked angrily and disappeared through a door.

Nicole watched for a moment, then the clown popped it's head out. The kids all screamed, but it had no intention of attacking them here. It drifted away and the group fell to Stan's sides. Nicole let her baseball bat clatter to the ground.

The kid was definitely conscious now, screams so full of terror and emotion that they made his voice bob and weave. He had tiny punctures on either side of his head, where the woman-thing had bit him.

"I hate you! You... you guys left me! You left me-- you made me go to Neibolt! You're not my friends!" Stanley screamed at the top of his lungs, tears carving chasms through the dirt and blood on his face. Nicole was crying, too, which she felt but didn't really register in her head.

"Oh god, Stan... holy shit, I'm so sorry. I should've been watching... I'm so--" Nicole cut her own voice off, stroking his messy hair. He was still crying, but now it was into Richie and Eddie's shoulders as they hugged him, reassuring him that it could be okay again. "Bill, what do we do no-- Bill?" Nicole turned to where he had been, but the brunette boy wasn't there. Out of the corner of her eye, a lanky shadow ducked into the tunnel.

"Bill!" Eddie called, but he didn't stop.

"Shit, no. Bill! Come back!" Nic retrieved her flashlight and baseball bat, then ran after Bill while the others helped Stan back up. The water was only up to her toes as she splashed through the tunnel after Bill. She could hear the others behind her, now making sure everyone stayed extra close. "Bill!" Nicole called. She let her voice echo through the tunnels and trudged forward.

She rounded a corner and emerged from the large tunnel into a very large open space. There was an enormous tower of junk in the middle of the area and, when Nic looked up, her heartbeat seemed to stop for a second. She gasped and stumbled backwards, eyes on the horror above.

They must be right by that sewer by the river, she guessed. How... how had no one known about this? About all the bodies floating hundreds of feet in the air above a mountain of trash? The missing people... kids.

A hand landed on Nicole's shoulder, fingers digging into the flesh. She yelped and jumped away, trying to rid herself of the sharp fingers in her shoulder. She could only imagine the clown's black claws-- oh god. She swung the bat back, but a different hand caught it and held it there. Her ears were ringing, blood rushing through like a waterfall.

"Nicole! Stop, it's us... Nicole, you're okay!" A very familiar voice spoke, sounding a thousand miles away. Nicole tore her eyes off of the floating bodies and ripped her shoulder away from her attacker.

When Nicole turned, brandishing her bat, she came face-to-face with--

"Richie? Wh-.... why didn't you say anything? Just grabbing my shoulder like that, well, you were about to have your brains on that wall." She settled the bat on her shoulder with her good hand and placed the bandaged hand on her hip, trying to recover from her scare.

"I... I called your name like fifty times. Are you okay?" His hand landed on her arm, concern glazing his eyes. She forced her smile and nodded, but she couldn't get the image of the bodies out of her head.

For her best interest, Nicole decided to not look up for a while.

"Beverly!" Ben was the first to notice the missing girl. She was floating about ten feet in the air, but it was different from the kids above. She seemed to be... looking at something, aside from Nicole refusing to believe that she was dead.

When they called out to her, she didn't respond. When they made a tower of arms and legs for Ben to reach her, she didn't stir. Didn't even flinch when he touched her ankle. They pulled her all the way down, until her shoes hit the grimy ground, and she still didn't move. Her eyes fell closed, unmoving.

She almost looked asleep.

"Beverly! Bev, please! Why... why isn't she waking up?" Ben looked around the group, but no one had an answer. They watched her in silence. "No... Beverly." Ben hugged her tight, then pulled away. He paused, then he touched her cheeks and pulled her close, pressing his lips to hers.

Nicole frowned. There was no way that would work.

This wasn't a fairytale and Beverly wasn't Sleeping Beauty, fated to sleep for an eternity that could only be ended by a kiss. No.

She was dead.

Nicole turned around, wiping her cheeks with her grimy hands. Then a gasp came from behind her and Nic spun on her toes, sliding close to Richie to see what was going on.

Ben was holding Beverlys face, still, but now he was smiling. They whispered to each other and Nicole let out a chuckle.

"Holy fuck!" Richie laughed, then threw his arms around their shoulders. Nicole felt him tug on the sleeve of her shirt just as she turned away, and he pulled her in, too. Mike, Eddie and Stan joined in, then the hug broke and Beverly looked around.

"Where's Bill?"

Nicole sighed heavily. "Everyone needs to, like, stop disappearing for a second. This is crazy." She grumbled and Beverly chuckled. "Oh, uh... no offense. Your disappearance wasn't... like, really by your choice." Both girls snorted, then Nicole heard something that pulled her attention.

Her head jerked towards the noise, which came from...

Around the mountain of lost things? Nicole led the way, wielding a flashlight and a baseball bat and a can-do attitude.

"Bill...?" She could make out his shoulders against the darkness. They hung low, his voice cracked. Nicole moved to the side and saw what he was looking at; she gasped and stumbled backwards, slapping her hand over her mouth. It was... no way...

Georgie stood before Bill, missing half an arm and sporting teary puppy-dog eyes.

"I wanna go home... with you and mom and dad." It was Georgie's voice, clear as day. Nicole's throat was tight, but she felt some sense of relief when the Losers joined her around the side.

Bill swallowed hard and struggled through his wwords "I... I want nothing m-more than for y-y-you to come home, too."

"I love you, Billy."

There was silence as Bill fought the battle of the tears. Then he nodded. "I l-love you, too..." His voice drifted off, ending on an upper note as if to hint that there was more to say. Nicole swiped at her misty cheeks again ,no doubt smearing loads of dirt across her pale skin. "B-but you're not Georgie."

He lifted the gun he had taken from Mike. Nicole's stomach dropped as the trigger slammed back, the gun jumped in excitement and Georgie's little eyes went blank, dull. She'd never forget the sound of his body hitting the ground.

She covered her mouth and closed her eyes in a vain attempt to stop from crying.

And, just when they thought nothing would happen, the boy began to convulse like he was having a seizure. An inhuman, garbled scream of pain tore through it's throat.

Nicole was frozen, staring at that little body. Her hand was still tight over her mouth, the only thing between her and screaming her lungs out.

It... holy fuck-- the clown.

When that clown stretched to it's size, standing like a vampire rising from it's coffin, Nicole finally pulled her hand away and screamed. Everyone did.

"Holy shit, kill it! Bill, kill it!" Eddie screeched, holding onto Richie for support. Beverly was the loudest, pressing Bill to pull the trigger. Under the screams and panicking, Nicole heard a whisper. Like wind through the tall grass.

"It's not loaded."

And that's when Bill pulled the trigger.