[Content Warning: Body horror/rot, sexual harassment of a minor]
We all encountered It alone at first. That's how It hunted, you see... isolate, terrify, attack. It said to us, "You taste so much better when you're afraid."
And yes, It would literally eat the children that It hunted.
I'd go to the train yard when I couldn't find anyone else to play with on Saturdays. I always liked trains, and cars too. Great big freight trains would still come through Derry when I was kid, and I loved to watch the big northbound car-carriers. I'd dream about having one of those shiny-new Fords, or even better... a Cadillac. Those were the kind of little dreams I didn't feel like sharing with anybody. To just hop in a car and go... get away from everything but the road and yourself.
Maybe the fact that I was thinking like that at eleven should have been a red flag, but like I said, I never told anybody. And what eleven year old knows about red flags?
I was a cautious kid, and one thing about the train yard and its trains worried me -- the tramps and hobos that traveled on them. It's one thing to be kicked out of the train yard by the trainmaster, and it's another thing entirely to be hassled by a tramp. They frightened me (already frightened by my mother's horror stories of what disease could do to you) with their cold sores and cracked skin. They'd come up and slur out, "Ya gotta cigarette?" which I never had.
Neibolt Street was in the neighborhood near the trains, and it was one of the rundown places in Derry. A lot of those houses would get broken into so the tramps could squat there.
I always thought the the hobo under the porch at 29 Neibolt Street had leprosy, and that terrified me. My friends Bill and Richie, who I told about it later, said it was more like he had "the Syph" (and trust me, reading about advanced cases of syphilis at age twelve left its mark, too). But whether the real hobo had leprosy or not, that's what It saw was in my mind and that's what It used when It targeted me.
It was springtime, and for some godforsaken reason I felt the urge to go check out that space under the porch. I think that might have been It pushing at my mind, to get me there by myself and spring It's trap.
It looked like the hobo, but gone even worse. Eaten away by rot and still alive -- the skin of It's forehead was split and leaking pus, and I could see the white, white bone underneath. Like it was shining in that dark space under the porch. It's lower lip sagged down, and the inside was spotted all over with dark blotches. There was no upper lip at all, and I could see all of the horrible yellow teeth and inflamed red gums. It didn't have a nose either. Where the hobo from before had one nostril eaten away into a red channel, It had made it worse -- just a ruin of gristle and infection. One rotten eyelid was sagging down into an empty socket, and the other eye stared at me, gleeful and blue.
"How bout a blowjob, Eddie?" It said.
The hobo had said something similar -- hey kid, I'll give you a blowjob for a quarter.
Both times it terrified me, and both times it felt like it took me forever to run away.
The leper began to crawl out toward me, and even though most of my brain was trying to process what I was seeing and just kind of screaming over all of it, I had one clear little thought when It reached out one rotting hand for me.
If It touches me, if it touches my bare skin, I'll start to rot, too.
That broke through all the panic, and even though I was wheezing something horrible and my head was spinning from lack of air, I managed to scramble backward.
It kept talking to me, crooning that I'd like being down there with all of them, that my friends were down there, and that one blue eye never looked away from me.
I got out from under the porch and back into the sunshine. In the movies, even the scary ones, you're safe in the light. I grabbed for my aspirator and triggered it, and the taste of the medicine was a relief. I could relax...
And then It's rotten hands burst through the old porch, clawing at the wood and leaving bloody streaks. The leper was wearing a colorful clown suit, with big orange pompom buttons down the front, and somehow the sheer ridiculous contrast of that suit with the horror of It's face made everything worse. I think the terror of that moment levitated me straight up, because I don't remember getting to my feet. I just remember running, running like I'd run from the hobo, and knowing that I was going to be too slow to beat the leper that It was. I could hear It breathing hard behind me, but there was no wheeze in It's lungs like there was in mine.
I could hear It's feet in those big clown shoes tramping after me, as I ran for my bike. Stupid kid that I was, I'd left it by the sidewalk that ended four houses before 29 Niebolt Street. But if I could get to my bike, I could get to safety... even though it felt far too slow as I ran.
I swear I felt those bony fingertips snag into my hair a moment before I grabbed the handlebars. I kept my head down as I swung my leg over the bike and just focused on getting on and getting out of there... but I heard it whisper one last thing.
"Blowjob... come back any time, Eddie. Bring your friends."
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Written Statement of Edward Kaspbrak - First Encounter with It (Monster under Derry, Maine)
Date: 2023-10-24 11:17 pm (UTC)We all encountered It alone at first. That's how It hunted, you see... isolate, terrify, attack. It said to us, "You taste so much better when you're afraid."
And yes, It would literally eat the children that It hunted.
I'd go to the train yard when I couldn't find anyone else to play with on Saturdays. I always liked trains, and cars too. Great big freight trains would still come through Derry when I was kid, and I loved to watch the big northbound car-carriers. I'd dream about having one of those shiny-new Fords, or even better... a Cadillac. Those were the kind of little dreams I didn't feel like sharing with anybody. To just hop in a car and go... get away from everything but the road and yourself.
Maybe the fact that I was thinking like that at eleven should have been a red flag, but like I said, I never told anybody. And what eleven year old knows about red flags?
I was a cautious kid, and one thing about the train yard and its trains worried me -- the tramps and hobos that traveled on them. It's one thing to be kicked out of the train yard by the trainmaster, and it's another thing entirely to be hassled by a tramp. They frightened me (already frightened by my mother's horror stories of what disease could do to you) with their cold sores and cracked skin. They'd come up and slur out, "Ya gotta cigarette?" which I never had.
Neibolt Street was in the neighborhood near the trains, and it was one of the rundown places in Derry. A lot of those houses would get broken into so the tramps could squat there.
I always thought the the hobo under the porch at 29 Neibolt Street had leprosy, and that terrified me. My friends Bill and Richie, who I told about it later, said it was more like he had "the Syph" (and trust me, reading about advanced cases of syphilis at age twelve left its mark, too). But whether the real hobo had leprosy or not, that's what It saw was in my mind and that's what It used when It targeted me.
It was springtime, and for some godforsaken reason I felt the urge to go check out that space under the porch. I think that might have been It pushing at my mind, to get me there by myself and spring It's trap.
It looked like the hobo, but gone even worse. Eaten away by rot and still alive -- the skin of It's forehead was split and leaking pus, and I could see the white, white bone underneath. Like it was shining in that dark space under the porch. It's lower lip sagged down, and the inside was spotted all over with dark blotches. There was no upper lip at all, and I could see all of the horrible yellow teeth and inflamed red gums. It didn't have a nose either. Where the hobo from before had one nostril eaten away into a red channel, It had made it worse -- just a ruin of gristle and infection. One rotten eyelid was sagging down into an empty socket, and the other eye stared at me, gleeful and blue.
"How bout a blowjob, Eddie?" It said.
The hobo had said something similar -- hey kid, I'll give you a blowjob for a quarter.
Both times it terrified me, and both times it felt like it took me forever to run away.
The leper began to crawl out toward me, and even though most of my brain was trying to process what I was seeing and just kind of screaming over all of it, I had one clear little thought when It reached out one rotting hand for me.
If It touches me, if it touches my bare skin, I'll start to rot, too.
That broke through all the panic, and even though I was wheezing something horrible and my head was spinning from lack of air, I managed to scramble backward.
It kept talking to me, crooning that I'd like being down there with all of them, that my friends were down there, and that one blue eye never looked away from me.
I got out from under the porch and back into the sunshine. In the movies, even the scary ones, you're safe in the light. I grabbed for my aspirator and triggered it, and the taste of the medicine was a relief. I could relax...
And then It's rotten hands burst through the old porch, clawing at the wood and leaving bloody streaks. The leper was wearing a colorful clown suit, with big orange pompom buttons down the front, and somehow the sheer ridiculous contrast of that suit with the horror of It's face made everything worse. I think the terror of that moment levitated me straight up, because I don't remember getting to my feet. I just remember running, running like I'd run from the hobo, and knowing that I was going to be too slow to beat the leper that It was. I could hear It breathing hard behind me, but there was no wheeze in It's lungs like there was in mine.
I could hear It's feet in those big clown shoes tramping after me, as I ran for my bike. Stupid kid that I was, I'd left it by the sidewalk that ended four houses before 29 Niebolt Street. But if I could get to my bike, I could get to safety... even though it felt far too slow as I ran.
I swear I felt those bony fingertips snag into my hair a moment before I grabbed the handlebars. I kept my head down as I swung my leg over the bike and just focused on getting on and getting out of there... but I heard it whisper one last thing.
"Blowjob... come back any time, Eddie. Bring your friends."