The Smile That Stayed

Derry, Maine – January 6, 1985 – 11:03 p.m.

The sleet came down in furious diagonal sheets, stinging the cheeks of anyone foolish enough to be outside after ten. Canal Street was mostly empty. Sodium streetlamps flickered and coughed, throwing diseased orange light across wet asphalt. In the mouth of an alley behind the shuttered pharmacy on Up-Mile Hill, something older than the town itself finished its meal.

Greg Ripsom lay on his back, arms flung wide as though he had tried to embrace the sky at the last moment. His flannel shirt had been opened from collarbone to navel in a single, impossibly clean tear. The wound did not bleed outward the way wounds should. Instead the thick arterial blood rose in slow, lazy spirals—defying gravity, drawn upward into the open mouth of the thing crouched over him.

Pennywise fed in near-silence. The posture was obscene: knees bent backward, spine arched at an impossible angle, head lowered almost tenderly to the ruined chest. Each long, savoring inhale produced a soft, wet, rhythmic sucking sound. Intimate. Patient.

Greg’s eyes remained open, pupils so dilated the irises had vanished. His mouth worked in soundless fish motions. Every few seconds a bright thread of blood bubbled between his lips and was pulled inward, as though the air itself had reversed direction just for the fluids inside him.

The red balloon floated exactly where it had been all along—perfectly still against the wind, reflecting the scene in perfect, distorted miniature.

At last the clown lifted its head. The white greasepaint around the mouth was smeared with something darker. A long, deliberate lick traveled along the lower row of teeth—teeth that seemed to multiply and rearrange themselves the longer one stared.

Then it spoke, voice soft, almost tender:

“Floating… isn’t so bad once you get used to it.”

A final bubbling wheeze left Greg Ripsom’s throat. His body gave one last full shudder, heels drumming once against the pavement, and then lay still.

The corpse began to sink. Not fall—sink. The asphalt softened like warm tar, swallowing him inch by inch until only one outstretched hand remained, fingers curled in a loose, dying claw. Then the fingers too disappeared.

The alley was empty again.

Except for the balloon.

It drifted very slowly toward the street, as though tugged by an invisible string, toward the next pair of eyes that might linger on it too long.

Pennywise stood motionless in the center of the alley for a moment, head cocked, listening to something only it could hear. Then it began to glide—never hurrying—toward the west side of town, toward the newer houses where the children of the people who once survived It now slept with their own children.

The red balloon bobbed ahead like a crimson lantern.

Somewhere above and behind the clown—or perhaps leaning against the brick wall without casting a shadow, or wearing the vague silhouette of a man whose face never quite resolved—a presence followed.

Unseen. Unfelt. Unsmelled.

The sleet passed through it without touching.

Derry, Maine – January 6, 1985 – 11:19 p.m.

West Broadway. Tidy colonials. Split-levels built in the late fifties and early sixties when people told themselves the bad years were finally over.

The balloon floated at child-shoulder height, turning corners a half-second before the clown did. Pennywise moved with lazy, liquid grace. Streetlights dimmed as it passed beneath them, as though the bulbs themselves were afraid to look too closely.

It stopped before a modest two-story house on Straphammer Street. Porch light burning warm sodium yellow. A child’s plastic tricycle lay on its side in the driveway, half-buried in slush.

Upstairs, one window glowed blue-white: the flicker of a television screen.

Pennywise tilted its head back and sniffed. Nostrils flared beneath the greasepaint until they were black dime-sized holes.

A soft, wet purr escaped its throat.

Inside, Lila Marsden, ten years old, sat cross-legged on her bed. She was supposed to be asleep. Instead she watched a grainy VHS tape of horror movie trailers she’d rented from the video store, volume turned so low the screams were just whispers. The remote lay forgotten beside her; every few seconds she glanced toward the hallway light, making sure it was still on.

She did not hear the soft pop as the red balloon tapped the outside of her bedroom window—like a finger knocking politely for permission.

Pennywise stood directly beneath the sill now, looking up. Its shadow stretched long and black across the snowy lawn, and the shadow had far too many arms.

The clown raised one gloved hand. The fingers lengthened—joint after impossible joint—until the hand was more spider than glove.

It tapped once on the glass.

Lila’s head snapped toward the window.

Her eyes went wide.

The balloon pressed flat against the pane. Behind it, at first, only darkness.

Then the white face bloomed into view—slowly, like developing film in a darkroom.

The painted smile stretched. Wider. Wider. Until it seemed the glass itself might crack from the pressure of all those teeth.

Through the window came the voice—muffled, sweet, terrible:

“Hi, Lila… do you want to see something really funny?”

The glass creaked like old ship timber settling in deep water.

Lila was frozen halfway off the bed, one knee still on the mattress. The blue light from the television painted her face in flickering corpse-glow.

Pennywise’s palm lay flat against the pane. The fingers had multiplied—six, seven, eight—long, black-tipped, bending at joints that should not exist. The glove leather split along the seams, not from age but from something trying to push outward.

The deadlights swirled slow-motion orange behind the pupils.

A thin trickle of blood slid from Lila’s left nostril. She did not notice.

“You ever wonder what happened to your big brother, Lila?” the clown murmured. “The one who said he was going to the Barrens to build a fort… and never came back?”

The smile tore small wet splits at the corners.

“He’s still down there, you know. Floating. Just waiting for company.”

The window bulged inward another half-inch. Tiny fractures spiderwebbed outward.

Downstairs, the television changed channels on its own. True-crime narration gave way to warped, backward calliope music.

The clown’s other hand rose, holding the red balloon. Inside the rubber something moved—small, pale, child-sized fingers pressing outward.

Lila made a tiny, wet gasp.

The balloon popped.

Not with a bang. With a meaty splat.

Thick red fluid splashed across the inside of the window in a perfect radial pattern. It dripped upward, crawling toward the ceiling.

The glass was fracturing faster now. One crack reached the frame with an audible tick.

And then—quietly, almost politely—something else arrived.

A single cyan balloon materialized against the inside of the bedroom door.

It had not been there a second earlier.

Tied neatly to the brass doorknob by a thin white string, floating at perfect child-eye level. The rubber was glossy, unnaturally smooth, the color of a cold winter sky just before dawn.

On its curved surface, drawn in simple bold black lines, was a grinning face.

No eyes.

Just two crescent brows, a wide upturned slash for a mouth, and a scattering of tiny black dots that might have been freckles, teeth, or stars.

The face stared directly at the window.

At Pennywise.

The clown froze.

Absolute, predatory stillness.

The deadlights flickered—sharp, like a projector bulb stuttering—then narrowed to slits.

The hand on the glass stopped pushing.

The fractures in the pane halted mid-creep.

Pennywise’s head turned. One degree at a time.

Until it was looking over its own shoulder, past the window, past the room, toward the bedroom door.

The cyan balloon did not sway.

The black grin on its surface seemed to widen—just a fraction.

As though it knew it had been noticed.

Outside, the sleet rattled harder against the roof.

Pennywise’s tongue—longer now, blacker, forked—slid out and tasted the air.

Once.

Twice.

Then the clown spoke, low, almost amused, directed at the cyan balloon rather than the terrified child:

“…Well.
That’s new.”

The black grinning face on the cyan balloon changed.

Without sound. Without motion that could be tracked.

The wide slash softened. The sharp crescents rounded. The scattering of dots rearranged into two simple friendly eyes.

In less than a breath the expression became something painfully ordinary: the classic yellow-smiley-face smiley of cheap birthday cards and smile buttons.

Bright. Innocent. Banal.

Hanging from the bottom of the string now was a small rectangular card. White, crayon-colored edges. Written in big, wobbly purple marker letters:

Brushy brushy teeth each night
Make them sparkle, shiny bright!
Up and down and all around
No more monsters can be found! 😊

The little drawn smiley-face emoji at the end matched the new face on the balloon perfectly.

Outside, Pennywise had not moved.

The deadlights had gone very narrow—thin slits that drank light rather than reflected it.

A low, wet chuckle bubbled from deep inside the clown’s chest.

Not amused.

Curious.

Wary.

“Cute,” it whispered. “Very… cute.”

It lowered its hand.

The window sighed in relief, fractures retreating slightly.

The clown took one gliding step backward, then another, moving parallel to the house.

Inside the bedroom, the cyan balloon floated.

Bright. Simple. Unchanging.

Lila finally noticed it.

Her head turned—slow, jerky.

Her eyes found the balloon.

The card.

The purple crayon words.

For a moment confusion warred with the raw terror still coursing through her.

Outside, at the corner of the house, Pennywise paused—half in shadow, half in sodium glow.

The deadlights flared once—bright, searching.

Then the clown’s smile stretched wider.

Not playful.

Not friendly.

The smile of something that remembers every meal it has ever taken and is already planning the next.

It whispered—too soft for Lila to hear, but loud enough that the night itself seemed to lean closer:

“…Let’s see how long the smile lasts.”

The clown turned, coat-tails dragging through snow without leaving a mark, and glided toward the next house down the block.

The red balloon bobbed ahead like a bloodshot eye.

Inside the bedroom, the cyan balloon remained.

The smiley face stayed bright.

Lila’s breathing slowed—just a little.

Somewhere above and behind the departing clown—or perhaps simply as a cold spot in the storm that the sleet refused to touch—the unseen presence followed once more.

The night was far from finished.