Chapter 8

This chapter starts out as Richie is driving back to Derry after he received the call from Mike. He passes the sign that says he's entering Derry, and all of a sudden has to stop the car because he is flooded with old memories. As he is lost in his thoughts a deer walks out into the middle of the road and Richie yells at the deer in one of his voices to get out of the road. The deer gets startled and runs away off the road. Richie starts to laugh and has no idea why, but he can't stop either. He flashes back to the day when they built the dam and the police had come to tell them to take it down. He remembered how Ben had stepped forward and told the police man that it was all his fault that the dam had flooded all the way up to the town, and how Bill had also stepped forward and said that it was his idea also and one by one the whole group of friends stepped forward and said it was their fault so the others would not get in trouble. The police knew what they were doing so he let them off easy and just told them to take down the dam but he also told them that they could still come down to the Barrens, as long as they came as a group, because of the murders going on.
Richie tells Bill that he wants to see the album that winked at Bill so he could believe too. One day after playing in the Barrens Richie and Bill go to Bill's house and take out the photo album. They flip through the album but when they reach the spot where the picture of Georgie was that winked at Bill, they discovered that it was gone. They stared unbelievably at the album, but then the pages started flipping by themselves! The album opened to an old picture of Derry where people where walking around. As Bill and Richie looked at the picture they noticed two people in the picture that looked just like them! The more they looked the more frightened they became and just as they were about to shut the album the picture started to move! The person that looked like Richie pointed to the canal in town and the two boys walked over to it. They were looking down when all of a sudden a clown jumped out of the canal and grabbed the boy that looked like Bill. Bill and Richie both jumped not only because of the clown but the clown also had the head of Georgie! Bill, in real life, screamed and reached for the picture but instead of touching the glossy film his hand went inside the photo! Richie and Bill both screamed again and as Bill withdrew his hand he became aware of an excruciating pain in his hand. Bill looked at his hand and it looked like he had been attacked by a razor blade. Bill nor Richie told their parents about the incident.
A few days after the album incident Richie invited Ben to go to the movies with him. On his way to the theatre Richie saw Beverly Marsh sitting on a bench eating ice cream. When Richie said hello he noticed Bev had a fresh bruise on her cheek. He felt bad but he also admired her looks so he asked her to go with him to the movies. When they got to the theatre Ben was nowhere to be found. All of a sudden he came jogging around the corner and explained that he had seen Henry Bowers and his goons going into the theatre so he kept out of sight. When Ben saw Bev he started to blush because he had a crush on her. Once inside the theatre the group sat far away from Bowers' gang to keep out of trouble, but as the movie ended Bowers caught sight of Ben and Richie as they were leaving. Ben decided to go out the side door so they wouldn't see Henry, but they were out smarted. Bowers was waiting for the group in the alley where the side door let out. Ben shuddered and tried to go the other way but it was a dead end. Bowers starting running at Ben to beat him up but Bev stood in his way. Bowers mearly pushed her aside. As Bowers ran by, Richie stuck out his foot and bowers hit the Pavement hard. The group of three ran to the Barrens were they knew they would be safe. While they were there Bill showed up with a friend of his from his speech therapy class. Bill had a speech impediment that made him studder uncontrollably when he talked. From the look on Bill's eyes he accepted Bev into the group of friends but the boy that he had brought with him was not going to be with the group of friends. He may come back once or twice but he didn't see the clown or whatever "it" was.