Want a balloon?

stop now before i kill you
a word to the wise from your friend
PENNYWISE

For a moment he felt a wild hope: perhaps this really was a nightmare. Perhaps he would awake in his own bed, bathed in sweat, shaking, maybe even crying . . . but alive. Safe. Then he pushed the thought away. Its charm was deadly, its comfort fatal.

Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up

Seven, Richie thought. That's the magic number. There has to be seven of us. That's the way it's supposed to be.

Eddie discovered one of his childhood's great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought.