Chapter 3

(There is a field where the once-nows rest. A long, green field adorned by a veritable forest of crisp new grass, lightly swept westward by the cool breeze. It always goes west, that playful spring wind, like those tobacco-chewing gun-toting colonists that the children read about in school turned their eyes towards. West is the direction that the river of time flows, some aged, wizened, American-to-the-core veterans say, and for this reason they have named that friendly, puppy-dog puff of air the Se'ler Wind. This is the field where stars that have faded live out their retirement in a cloudy dream; this is where the has-beens of yesterday find solace. This is the field where the once-nows rest.)

Richard Tozier had felt rather strange all day.

Not the kind of strange you felt when you had a stomachache or saw a real dead body or kissed a girl, or any of the other kinds of strange he knew and acknowledged, despite not yet having experienced some of them. This was a different kind of strange. Like in one of the western films. Miz Daisy's tied up to the railroad track by the wicked Jack and the train's comin' along at a roar—but pretty Miz Daisy ain't got nothing to worry about 'cause heroic Hank's gonna save her pretty soon, pretty soon.

Only you have to wonder, what if he didn't?

She would lie there, facedown, breathing hard into the ground and feeling her slender throat constrict the air away somewhere in the ten miles between her lungs and Jack's filthy red kerchief tied neatly around her mouth. And she would pray that her hero came to save her, and of course an impish, mock-sad little nag at the back of her panic-ridden skull would continue to mutter, He's not he's not coming he's left you behind and gone to pretty young Sally's place for tea you're gonna get runned over, kid, just like you was in the picture shows-

And oh, what then?

Then she would feel the naked, joyful, unconcerned rumbling against her cheek, and ten seconds later there would be one less pretty Miz Daisy gracing the earth and one more crimson Picasso uglifying it. While heroic Hank's having one hell of a tea time with young Sally.

But that couldn't happen, Richie reasoned with himself, extending a satisfying and catlike back-stretch in his father's smokin' chair. The bones back there popped nicely, and Richie heaved out a monster groan of content. It never has and never will.

"Never will," he said aloud, his voice echoing through the empty house. Mom was at the store, loading up on milk and bread and fruit. And Dad wasn't home from work yet. Rerunning over these facts in his head, the boy in the smoke-smelling armchair felt a gleeful shiver tiptoeing up and down his spine. A free shiver.

"Alone at last." Richie realized he was testing the solitude of his voice. A startled bird outside responded with a raspy, throat-ripping call, but that was it. He really was alone.

But life sometimes plays jokes on you, doesn't it, Richie my boy?

His eyes shocked open and he gave a little cry in surprise. The crooning voice that had spoken these words into his ear had not been his own.

Mature, saucy, the barest hint of a New Yorker accent—like that of a detective or a talk-show host. Almost nothing like his own, and yet— it was familiar.

Yes, life plays jokes, but sometimes they aren't very funny. Oh, you tell jokes too, don't you, Richie? I had forgotten all about it . . . Tell me, Richie ol' kid.

A vice clamped around his throat. He tried to suck in air and failed.

Are YOUR jokes funny?

The iron grip released, and Richie tumbled forward out of his chair and somersaulted onto the carpet, gasping. His neck throbbed, crazily in beat with his heart.

(Everybody has critics, Richie-kid. You gotta learn that sometime. But no matter who tells you you're worthless, no matter who tells you to just wither up into a goddam leaf, who tells you the world would be a better place if you hadn't crawled out of your God-forsaken mother like a filthy, joking reptile-)

"Oh God," wheezed Richie Tozier's mouth, "Oh God, oh dear God help me-"

(YOU JUST GOTTA KEEP ON TRUCKIN', RICHIE MY BOY!!!)

Joyous, insane gasping bursts of laughter crushed his head outwards from the inside, the laughter of a sick and ancient monster whose claws still have strength for a few more swipes—claws brown with dirt and cracked dried arterial blood. And he could see the claws, see them curling up and down and around and out and up again like some feral beast still dangerous in its death throes, see them reaching for him and nothing mattered but the goddam PAIN in his head, for the love of God it HURTS!" he screamed, unaware of anything.

He rolled on the floor and crashed into the fireplace and his mother's second-most valuable china dish fell from the mantle, shattering into countless ugly gray-white shards. He rolled again and suddenly he was face-to-face with himself in one of those highly shined pieces, and behind him stood a Phantom.

(Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood!)

Richie sensed rather than saw the Phantom blink beneath its soft black hood, and almost instantly a cold, skeletal hand wrapped itself around his lungs and squeezed.

He found himself unable to even scream.

"I could kill you right now," the Reaper, the Crone, the Alien, the Werewolf, the Creature, and the Clown crooned in unison, from one invisible mouth. "I could close these little hands of mine-" It lifted an arm, and the dark sleeve fell away to reveal a rotted, atrophied stump of a wrist. Dark streams of dried blood ran down into the sleeve. "-and just mash your lung to mincemeat. I'd do it slooow, though. Real slow like that, you can hear it squish."

Again, Richie perceived the aborted thing's smile without seeing it.

Pennywise's voice turned patronizing. "Or you could just come with me, Richie. I'd treat you right. You'd have lots of little friends to play with . . . and I could make you feel just wonderful," he mused, the horrible lewd smirk in his tone unmistakable. "And oh, young Richie, how you'd float . . ."

(Woe to the hand)

A sharp pain dug into his spine, and Richie whirled around on his rear, positive there would be another hand waiting to rip him inside out. There was nothing but his father's set of bronze fireplace tools. Sitting down, legs akimbo, he had scrabbled backwards, away from the grinning It, so fast and so far that he had at some point slammed into the wall and tried to keep going.

(That was a mistake, Rick, a biiiiig mistake! You've turned your back, turned on your new God, and now you must face the consequences.)

NO!, he tried to scream, but his throat had closed up again.

(Don't be sad. It will all be over soon . . . though I can't guarantee it won't hurt.)

Richie closed his eyes and waited.

(Beep-beep! BEEP-MOTHERLOVING-BEEP!!)

He opened. If for no other reason than to face the death that awaited him, he opened.

(that shed this costly blood!)

There was no one else in the room.

Richard Tozier sat there for a long time in a sort of silent stupor. His mind, blissfully quiet, told him that all the world, all the universe outside his own home had gone on an extended vacation, and if he got up and threw open the front door all he would see would be utter blackness. Nothingness.

But he did not. He sat in his thoughtless coma for half an hour, after which his mother arrived home from the store, laden with groceries. She was very disappointed in him at the remains of her second-favorite plate, and couldn't she leave him alone for forty-five minutes without him breaking something? He bore her comments with monosyllabic responses, his eyes dusky and bleak, and she took his temperature with a concerned hand, all troubles forgotten but her strangely-acting son.

She sent him to bed, and in a daze, he walked upstairs and opened his door.

Beeeep-beeeep, the walls whispered like a cruel schoolyard rumor.

Richie threw himself upon his bed and began to cry.

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This chapter is dedicated and is my gift to my good friend Gail, without whom I probably never would have gotten around to writing it. She's the greatest, my friends, and I wish her the best.

Happy freakin' birthday, Gail.

-Javer