Chapter 9

This chapter is about Bev's experiences with "it". She was getting ready for bed one night and went to brush her teeth when all of a sudden she heard voices coming from the bathroom sink drain. The voices called for Bev to "come float" with them. She recognized the voices as the voices of the kids that had been killed in the past few months. She was about to scream and run out of the room when a red object started coming out of the drain. It looked like a balloon but all of a sudden it popped and covered the whole bathroom with blood. At this point she screamed and her father came into the bathroom, looked around, and to Bev's disbelief, asked her what was wrong. She realized that her father couldn't see the blood! She quickly thought up a lie so her dad wouln't hit her. The next time she was with the boys, she she asked them to go with her to the bathroom to see if they could see the blood. When they got to the bathroom the boys said they could see the blood and Bev started crying. She knew that she wasn't going crazy if the boys could see it too. The boys helped Bev clean up the bathroom and then they went to the laundry mat to wash the rags that they used. It was there that Stan told his story about "it".

he said he went to the water tower to do some bird watching, when all of a sudden he heard a large "boom." The tower was usually locked because a few people had died when they fell into the water (the town used to let people climb to the top for a great view of the city). When Stan looked to see what had made the boom the door to the tower was wide open. Stan didn't want to but he walked up to the door and went inside. He just stood at the bottom, looking up when he heard carnival music. Then he heard footsteps, not just footsteps but footsteps that sounded like a pair of shoes had been soaked by a puddle. As Stan looked up the squish-squish footsteps got closer. Stan felt himslf climbing the stairs towards the footsteps. But then the music changed from carnival music to scary music. Stan saw a pair of feet on the stairs above him and his trance was broken. He ran back down the stairs and to the door. As he reached the door it slammed shut and Stan ran headlong right into the door. As the crature approached Stan all he could think to do was to hold his bird book up in front of his face and shout the names of the birds he could think of. He heard the footsteps stop and knew it was because the creature was bewildered more than anything else. Either way the door opened and Stan ran out of the tower. He looked back when he was far away and what looked like two decaying children stood in the doorway. They called out to Stan "to float with them."