[Having lived and breathed this farce puts Richie in a strange position. It's galling to play audience. The cozy duet was palatable. Harmless. Try standing aside while two kids are shrieking, mere inches and small miracles alone keeping them from a swift gutting. Richie knows how it plays out but his heartbeat is a clatter against his ribs. There's an immovable urge that lives in most grown folks that pushes you to jump when a kid's ass is on the line. He's fighting it now, no matter how stupid (it's yourself, you fucking dummy), but watching that panic and standing still was a whole new breed of torture.
Byerly can't take it. This alone shatters Richie's stupor. Him and Bill make it out, he knows this, but the sight of this current man, one of two flesh and blood things in this echo chamber, lumbering towards the atrocity that dogged Richie's heels for so long? That's cause enough for real fear.
Richie leaps forward, grasping for Byerly's arms with a desperate wheeze just as the little boy's jacket gives that life-saving rip. The whole thing splits in two to free them. The kids speed forward, the younger Richie gasping Bill's name with not an ounce of air to spare, soundless and witless. The bike is picking up momentum at last but the beast keeps pace.
All the while, Rich Tozier is hollering. He sounds like a man again, abandoning that hysterical precipice to smack some sense into Byerly. For all that it's a memory, Richie doesn't trust the werewolf not to turn on them. It's done worse before. It's come alive in pictures. It took over the statue in the town square.
He can't be sure it won't come to life here and rip them both apart.]
Don't! Don't touch it! You can't do that, not like that! It won't work!
[Up ahead Bill gives a shout, and several things happen at once.
"Hi-yo Silver! Hi-yo Silver, AWAYYY!"
The younger Richie looks back. The wolf raises its wickedly curved claws. It cracks him clean across the forehead (Richie flinches from several yards and twenty seven years away, it's like he can feel the blow again) and his head snaps to the side like he'd been judo chopped in the spine. It lolls there, jolting bonelessly with the bike's wheeling rhythm. A line of blood creeps down from his hairline to flood his right eye, which droops lazily along with the left while his jaw goes slack and dumb. The small boy curls around Bill like a dizzied pill bug, seeing no more and knowing nothing else but the need to hang on tight.
As it happens, the wolf is quite suddenly not a wolf at all. One blink and it's a pale figure. All dressed in silver, ruffles at its collar and hems, orange pom poms down the front to match the orange tufted hair. Its eyes are reflective silver and wide with ecstasy. Anticipation. Face greasepaint white with a plastic red nose, and the limitless, shark-toothed smile underneath is outlined in garish red paint that looks more like flesh blood than makeup. The snarls have been exchanged for manic cackles, absolute ravenous delight.
The crater in its skull remains though, as does the letterman jacket, slipped on over the circus garb as if to protect against a stiff autumn breeze.
Richie hisses at the transformation and yanks Byerly back with all his might. Bill swore up and down it had been the clown all along. Richie couldn't see it until now, privy to more points of view than his own.
The chase moves on at a breakneck pace beyond them, the baseball card in the bike's spokes drumming like a motorcycle engine as Bill finally hits his stride.]
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Byerly can't take it. This alone shatters Richie's stupor. Him and Bill make it out, he knows this, but the sight of this current man, one of two flesh and blood things in this echo chamber, lumbering towards the atrocity that dogged Richie's heels for so long? That's cause enough for real fear.
Richie leaps forward, grasping for Byerly's arms with a desperate wheeze just as the little boy's jacket gives that life-saving rip. The whole thing splits in two to free them. The kids speed forward, the younger Richie gasping Bill's name with not an ounce of air to spare, soundless and witless. The bike is picking up momentum at last but the beast keeps pace.
All the while, Rich Tozier is hollering. He sounds like a man again, abandoning that hysterical precipice to smack some sense into Byerly. For all that it's a memory, Richie doesn't trust the werewolf not to turn on them. It's done worse before. It's come alive in pictures. It took over the statue in the town square.
He can't be sure it won't come to life here and rip them both apart.]
Don't! Don't touch it! You can't do that, not like that! It won't work!
[Up ahead Bill gives a shout, and several things happen at once.
"Hi-yo Silver! Hi-yo Silver, AWAYYY!"
The younger Richie looks back. The wolf raises its wickedly curved claws. It cracks him clean across the forehead (Richie flinches from several yards and twenty seven years away, it's like he can feel the blow again) and his head snaps to the side like he'd been judo chopped in the spine. It lolls there, jolting bonelessly with the bike's wheeling rhythm. A line of blood creeps down from his hairline to flood his right eye, which droops lazily along with the left while his jaw goes slack and dumb. The small boy curls around Bill like a dizzied pill bug, seeing no more and knowing nothing else but the need to hang on tight.
As it happens, the wolf is quite suddenly not a wolf at all. One blink and it's a pale figure. All dressed in silver, ruffles at its collar and hems, orange pom poms down the front to match the orange tufted hair. Its eyes are reflective silver and wide with ecstasy. Anticipation. Face greasepaint white with a plastic red nose, and the limitless, shark-toothed smile underneath is outlined in garish red paint that looks more like flesh blood than makeup. The snarls have been exchanged for manic cackles, absolute ravenous delight.
The crater in its skull remains though, as does the letterman jacket, slipped on over the circus garb as if to protect against a stiff autumn breeze.
Richie hisses at the transformation and yanks Byerly back with all his might. Bill swore up and down it had been the clown all along. Richie couldn't see it until now, privy to more points of view than his own.
The chase moves on at a breakneck pace beyond them, the baseball card in the bike's spokes drumming like a motorcycle engine as Bill finally hits his stride.]