Deathly Silence

  (Hi, Georgie!)

*                      *                      *

  A low calm resided over the little town of Derry, Maine.  An evening sun glimmered hotly, making the empty house-lined streets below appear golden, almost ethereal.  All the little children were in bed, safely tucked in by their mommies and daddies.  A high-flying Swainson's hawk swept the air, hovering on a warm thermal like a hanglider.   Derry fairly glowed with peace and tranquility.

  Except . . . some little boys and girls were tucking themselves in.  Not for lack of love.

  For fear.

  (want a)

  But the dank pipes below this undisturbed little city were not peaceful.

  Something deep within the darkest parts, something slept and wept alternately.

  (balloon?)

  In that moment, Derry made a complete transformation.  A hellish merry-go-round jingle twirled and danced, snaking through the air like poison gas.  The beautiful sun-streaked little lawns and roads became long cemeteries choked with the stench of the dead.  The asphalt glinted blood-red.  Slowly saturating the atmosphere, miserable screams and howls of agony silently roared through the avenues as a scythe that makes no sound as it slices . . . and slashes . . . and swings.

  Far below this small populace, the Derry sewers stank with the blood of a thousand innocents.  Sick moans of unhappiness and laughs of joy, both twisted insanely, floated

(float)

among pipes and dirty waters.

  Deep.  Deeper. 

(who's trip-tra)

  A child's voice started suddenly, as if just waking up from a bad dream.  It was the voice of a certain boy, twelve years old.  Waking with surprise from a dream.  Nightmare.  "B-b-b-hut I-i-I . . . juh-Georgie . . ." 

  Six other voices, sick and sickening with fear and dread, crawled up.  They hung around temporarily, repeating themselves.

(pping upon my bridge?)

  Somewhere . . . in the very deepest of the secret pipes, a low growl rose.  It was the growl of a thousand voices of a thousand faces of a thousand acts of a thousand plays.  The growl of a thousand dead children, plus one.  Politely playful.  Perfectly reasonable and agreeable, and not at all unpleasant. 

  The growl of a werewolf.  Of a creature.  A lost brother, oddly puzzled and wondering why he had died, what had he done, was he a bad boy?  It was the hopeless growl of a forbidden playground, of a head being separated from its nauseatingly limp shoulders, of a shirt ripping and giving way to the bloody switchblade that pinned it to fading warmth.  It was a thousand voices, mixed, melded into one voice.  Infinitely funny and evil.  Delight and pain simultaneously joined into the single voice. 

  It spoke.

  "Feed . . . . . remember . . . me . . . ?"

  A wide round yellow eye hung watery in the darkness, unblinking.  Slowly, the black pupil slid sideways and down, to a small scrap of paper with words scrawled in a bloody blackish smear.

  Beverly Marsh

  (Daddy, no!)

  Eddie Kaspbrak

  (You sent my friends away)

  Richie Tozier

  (beep-beep)

  Stan Uris

  (robin . . . finch . . . bluejay)

  Ben Hanscom

  (How you'll float)

  Mike Hanlon

  (Aaaahh!)

  and, pressed into the paper so forcefully that Tommy Hartridge's undeveloped, six-year-old femur had snapped in two in the writing of it, one last name.

  Bill Denbrough

  (juh-juh-Georgie it was-sn-n't m-my fault I'm so s-sorry I-I didn't really mean it Georgie you stop that!  Georgie if you don't quit you're going to be sorry George, I-I wasn't th-there, I, c-could-n-n't stop hi-him I let him have y-you I I I I I)

  The memories were just so much more fun.

  It began to laugh.  And Its laugh was more horrible than any of its voices.  Had anyone been able to hear it, it would have cracked the globe of their sanity in a single cannonballing bite of terror.  A large drop of white greasepaint dripped into the water and swam there.  A wide, jovial mouth opened to reveal a killer's blood-red smirk.  The water shook, and It rose.  A big silver suit and funny orange pompom buttons jumped around.  Silly tufts of orange hair sprouted from either side of the bald white smooth head.  Its now-blue eyes danced like tiny, twinkling new dimes.

  Down from deep in Derry's sewer, a bright color flashed merrily.  A beautiful green balloon floated out of a small pipe like a friendly puppy.  On it, there were typed large black, neat letters:

                                        AT LAST, The Circus Has Come to Town!

                                 ---Pennywise the DANCING Clown J  

JJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ

Yo, everybody.

I am absolutely thrilled at all the reviews I've been getting! This fic has more reviews than any of my others! No joke! . . . But seriously, you guys, thanks very, very much. Your support is truly appreciated.

A lot of you who've R+R'ed, as they say, requested a second chapter. The problem is, I originally intended Deathly Silence as a one-shot. There just isn't anything more to say in it. But I promised to do another chapter if I received 10 or more reviews, and I fully intend to make good on that. The only difficulty is, I'm out of ideas. I'm totally stumped on what to have happen. So, if you have any ideas and feel like contributing them, feel free to email or IM me at [email protected] or DragonerzE, respectively. Thanks a lot, and I'll see you soon.