"I guess so," Eddie shouted back, getting to his feet. He fumbled for his aspirator and almost dropped it. Ben grabbed it for him and Eddie gave him a grateful look as he stuffed it into his mouth and triggered it.
Richie came over, then Stan and Mike. Bill boosted Beverly up onto the tree and Ben and Richie caught her coming down on the far side, her hair plastered to her head, her blue jeans now black.
Bill came last, pulling himself onto the trunk and swinging his legs around. He saw Henry and the other two splashing down the river toward them, and as he slid off the fallen tree he shouted: "Ruh-ruh-rocks! Throw rocks!"
There were plenty of them here on the bank, and the lightning-struck tree made a perfect barricade. In a moment or two all seven of them were chucking rocks at Henry and his pals. They had nearly reached the tree; the range was point-blank. They were driven back, yelling with pain and fury, as rocks struck their faces, their chests, their arms and legs.
"Teach us to throw rocks!" Richie shouted, and chucked one the size of a hen's egg at Victor. It struck his shoulder and bounced almost straight up into the air. Victor howled. "Ah say... Ah say... go on an teach us, boy! We learn good!"
"Yeeeeh-aaaah!" Mike screamed. "How do you like it? How do you like it?"
The answer was not much. They retreated until they were out of range and huddled together. A moment later they climbed the bank, slipping and stumbling on the slick wet earth, which was already honeycombed with little running streamlets, holding onto branches to stay upright.
They disappeared into the underbrush.
"They're gonna go around us, Big Bill," Richie said, pushing his glasses up on his nose.
"That's oh-oh-okay," Bill said. "G-Go on, B-B-Ben. We'll fuh-fuh-follow y-you."
Ben trotted along the embankment, paused (expecting that Henry and the others would burst out into his face at any moment), and saw the pumping-station twenty yards farther down the streambed. The others followed him to it. They could see other cylinders on the opposite bank, one fairly close, the other forty yards upstream. Those two were both shooting torrents of muddy water into the Kenduskeag, but only a trickle was coming from the pipe sticking out of the embankment below this one. It wasn't humming, either, Ben noticed. The pumping machinery had broken down.
He looked at Bill thoughtfully... and with some fright.
Bill was looking at Richie, Stan, and Mike. "W-W-We g-guh-hotta get the l-l-lid oh-oh-off," he said. "H-H-Help m-m-me."
There were handholds in the iron, but the rain had made them slippery and the lid itself was incredibly heavy. Ben moved in next to Bill, and Bill shifted his hands a little to make room. Ben could hear water dripping inside-an echoey, unpleasant sound, like water dripping into a well.
"Nuh-nuh-NOW!" Bill shouted, and the five of them heaved in unison. The lid moved with an ugly grating sound.
Beverly grabbed on beside Richie and Eddie pushed with his good arm.
"One, two, three, push!" Richie chanted. The lid grated a little farther off the top of the cylinder. Now a crescent of darkness showed.
"One, two, three, push!"
The crescent fattened.
"One, two, three, push!"
Ben shoved until red spots danced in front of his eyes.
"Stand back!" Mike shouted. "There it goes, there it goes!"
They stood away and watched as the big circular cap overbalanced, then fell. It dug a slash in the wet earth and landed upside down, like an oversized checker. Beetles scurried off its surface and into the matted grass.
"Uck," Eddie said.
Bill peered inside. Iron rungs descended to a circular pool of black water, its surface now pocked with raindrops. The silent pump brooded in the middle of this, half-submerged. He could see water flowing into the pumping-station from the mouth of its inflow pipe, and with a sinking in his guts he thought: That's where we have to go. In there.
"Eh-Eh-Eh-Eddie. G-Grab on to m-m-me."
Eddie looked at him, uncomprehending.
"Like a puh-puh-pigger-back. Hold on with y-your g-g-good ah-ah-arm." He demonstrated.
Eddie understood but was reluctant.
"Quick!" Bill snapped. "Th-Th-They'll b-b-be here!"
Eddie grabbed on around Bill's neck; Stan and Mike boosted him up so he could hook his legs around Bill's midsection. As Bill swung clumsily over the lip of the cylinder, Ben saw that Eddie's eyes were tightly shut.
Over the rain, he could hear another sound: whipping branches, snapping twigs, voices. Henry, Victor, and Belch. The world's ugliest cavalry charge.
Bill gripped the rough concrete lip of the cylinder and felt his way down, step by careful step. The iron rungs were slippery. Eddie had him in what was almost a deathgrip, and Bill supposed he was getting a pretty graphic demonstration of what Eddie's asthma was really all about.
"I'm scared, Bill," Eddie whispered.
"I-I-I am, too."
He let go of the concrete rim and grabbed the topmost rung. Although Eddie was nearly choking him and felt as if he had already gained forty pounds, Bill paused a moment, looking at the Barrens, the Kenduskeag, the racing clouds. A voice inside-not a frightened voice, just a firm one-had told him to take a good look, in case he never saw the upper world again.
So he looked, then began to descend with Eddie clinging to his back.
"I can't hold on much longer," Eddie managed.
"You w-w-won't have to," Bill said. "We're almost duh-hown."
One of his feet went into chilly water. He felt for the next rung and found it. There was another below that and then the ladder ended. He was standing in knee-deep water beside the pump.
He squatted, wincing as the cold water soaked his pants, and let Eddie off. He drew a deep breath. The smell wasn't so hot, but it was great not to have Eddie's arm wrapped around his throat.
He looked up at the cylinder's mouth. It was about ten feet over his head. The others were grouped around the rim, looking down. "C-C-Come on!" he shouted. "Wuh-one at a t-t-time! Be quick!"
Beverly came first, swinging easily over the rim and grabbing the ladder, and Stan next. The others followed. Richie came last, pausing to listen to the progress of Henry and friends. He thought, from the sound of their blundering progress, that they would probably pass a little to the left of this pumping-station, but almost certainly not by enough to make a difference.
At that moment Victor bellowed: "Henry! There! Tozier!"
Richie looked around and saw them rushing toward him. Victor was in the lead... and then Henry pushed him aside so savagely that Victor skidded to his knees. Henry had a knife, all right, a regular pigsticker. Drops of water were falling from the blade.
Richie glanced into the cylinder, saw Ben and Stan helping Mike off the ladder, and swung over himself. Henry understood what he was doing and screamed at him. Richie, laughing crazily, slammed his left hand in the crook of his right elbow and stuck his forearm skyward, his hand fisted in what may be the world's oldest gesture. To be sure Henry got the point, he popped his middle finger up.
"You'll die down there!" Henry shouted.
"Prove it!" Richie shouted, laughing. He was terrified of going into this concrete throat, but he still couldn't stop laughing. And in his Irish Cop's Voice he bugled: "sure an begorrah, the luck of the Irish never runs out, me foine lad!"
Henry slipped on the wet grass and went sprawling on his butt less than twenty feet from where Richie stood, his feet on the top rung of the ladder bolted to the inner curve of the pumping-station, his head and chest out.
"Hey, banana-heels!" Richie shouted, delirious with triumph, and then scooted down the ladder. The iron rungs were slick and once he almost fell. Then Bill and Mike grabbed him and he was standing up to his knees in water with the rest of them in a loose circle around the pump. He was trembling all over, he felt hot and cold chills chasing each other up his back, and still he couldn't stop laughing.
"You should have seen him, Big Bill, clumsy as ever, still can't get out of his own frockin way-"
Henry's head appeared in the circular opening at the top. Scratches from branches and brambles crisscrossed his cheeks. His mouth was working, and his eyes blazed.
"Okay," he shouted down at them. His words had a flat resonance inside the concrete cylinder, not quite an echo. "Here I come. Got you now."
He swung one leg over, felt for the topmost rung with his foot, found it, swung the other one over.
Speaking loud, Bill said: "W-When h-h-he guh-gets d-d-down cluh-hose e-e-enough, w-w-we all gruh-gruh-grab h-him. P-P-Pull h-him d-d-down. Duh-Duh-Duck him uh-under. G-G-Got i-it?"
"Right-o, guv'nor," Richie said, and snapped a salute with one trembling hand.
"Got you," Ben said.
Stan tipped a wink at Eddie, who didn't understand what was going on-except it seemed to him that Richie had gone crazy. He was laughing like a loon while Henry Bowers-the dreaded Henry Bowers-prepared to come down and kill them all like rats in a rain-barrel.
"All ready for him, Bill!" Stan cried.
Henry froze three rungs down. He looked down at the Losers over his shoulder. His face seemed, for the first time, doubtful.
Eddie suddenly got it. If they came down, they would have to come one at a time. It was too high to jump, especially with the pumping machinery to land on, and here they were, the seven of them, waiting in a tight little circle.
"Cuh-cuh-home oh-on, H-Henry," Bill said pleasantly. "Wuh-wuh-what are you w-w-waiting for?"
"That's right," Richie chimed in. "You like to beat up little kids, right? Come on, Henry."
"We're waiting, Henry," Bev said sweetly. "I don't think you'll like it when you get down here, but come on if you want to."
"Unless you're chicken," Ben added. He began to make chicken sounds. Richie joined him at once and soon all of them were doing it. The derisive clucking rebounded between the damp, trickling walls. Henry looked down at them, the knife clutched in his left hand, his face the color of old bricks. He put up with perhaps thirty seconds of it and then climbed out again. The Losers sent up catcalls and insults.
"O-O-Okay," Bill said. He spoke in a lower voice. "W-We gun-got to get ih-ih-into that druh-hain. Quh-quh-quick."
"Why?" Beverly asked, but Bill was spared the effort of an answer. Henry reappeared at the rim of the pumping-station and dropped a rock the size of a soccer ball into the pipe. Beverly screamed and Stan pulled Eddie against the circular wall with a hoarse yell. The rock struck the pumping machinery's rusty housing and produced a musical bonggg! It ricocheted left and struck the concrete wall, missing Eddie by less than half a foot. A chip of concrete flicked painfully against his cheek. The rock fell into the water with a splash.
"Quh-quh-quick!" Bill shouted again, and they crowded around the pumping-station's inflow pipe. Its bore was about five feet in diameter. Bill sent them in one after another (a vague circus image-all the big clowns coming out of the little car-passed across his consciousness in a meteoric flash; years later he would use the same image in a book called The Black Rapids), and climbed in last, after ducking another rock. As they watched, more rocks flew down, most striking the pump housing and rebounding at crazy angles.
When they stopped falling, Bill looked out and saw Henry coming down the ladder again, as quick as he could. "G-G-Get h-h-him!" he shouted to the others. Richie, Ben, and Mike floundered out behind Bill. Richie leaped high and grabbed Henry's ankle. Henry cursed and shook his leg as if trying to kick away a small dog with big teeth-a terrier, perhaps, or a Pekinese. Richie grabbed a rung, scrabbled up even higher, and actually did manage to sink his teeth into Henry's ankle. Henry screamed and pulled himself up quickly. One of his loafers came off and splashed into the water, where it sank with no ado at all.
"Bit me!" Henry was screaming. "Bit me! Cocksucker bit me!"
"Yeah, good thing I had a tetanus shot this spring!" Richie flung at him.
"Bash them!" Henry was raving. "Bash them, bomb them back to the stone age, bash their brains in!"
More rocks flew. The boys backed into the drain again quickly. Mike was struck on the arm by a small rock and he held it tight, wincing, until the pain began to abate.
"It's a standoff," Ben said. "They can't get down and we can't get up."
"We're not s-supposed to get up," Bill said quietly, "and y-y-you all know it. W-We're nuh-hot e-ever supposed to g-g-get up a-again."
They looked at him, their eyes hurt and afraid. No one said anything.
Henry's voice, fury masquerading as mockery, floated down: "We can wait up here all day, you guys!"
Beverly had turned away and was looking back along the bore of the inflow pipe. The light grew diffuse quickly, and she could not see much. What she could see was a concrete tunnel, its lower third filled with rushing water. It was higher on her now than it had been when they first squeezed in here, she realized; that would be because this pump wasn't working and only some of the water was exiting on the Kenduskeag side. She felt claustrophobia touch her throat, turning the skin there to something that felt like flannel. If the water rose enough, they would drown.
"Bill, do we have to?"
He shrugged. It said everything. Yeah, they had to; what else was there? Be killed by Henry, Victor, and Belch in the Barrens? Or by something else-maybe something worse-in town? She understood his thought well enough now; there was no stutter in his shrug. Better for them to go to It. Have it out, like the showdown in a Western movie. Cleaner. Braver.
Richie said: "What was that ritual you told us about, Big Bill? The one in the library book?"
"Ch-Ch-Chud," Bill said, smiling a little.
"Chud." Richie nodded. "You bite Its tongue and It bites yours, right?"
"Ruh-ruh-right."
"Then you tell jokes."
Bill nodded.
"Funny," Richie said, looking into the dark pipe, "I can't think of a single one."
"Me either," Ben said. The fear was heavy in his chest, almost suffocating. He felt that the only thing keeping him from just sitting down in the water and blubbering like a baby-or just going crazy-was Bill's calm, sure presence... and Beverly. He felt he would rather die than show Beverly how afraid he was.
"Do you know where this pipe goes?" Stan asked Bill.
Bill shook his head.
"Do you know how to find It?"
Bill shook his head again.
"We'll know when we're getting close," Richie said suddenly. He drew a deep, trembling breath. "If we have to do it, then let's go."