Stephen King - It

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.