Safe travels

Derry, Maine – January 12, 1985 – 7:40 p.m.

South Station smelled of diesel, wet concrete, and the faint burnt-sugar ghost of someone’s abandoned pretzel. Ben Hanscom stepped off the westbound Downeaster first, coat collar up, sketchbook pressed to his ribs like armor. He scanned the platform—then froze when he saw Stan Uris already waiting near the northbound track, hands in pockets, calm as ever.

They didn’t embrace. Just a single nod, the language of people who’ve carried the same silence for twenty-seven years.

“Stan.”

“Ben.”

Stan tilted his head toward the open doors. “Seven minutes.”

They boarded, found facing window seats near the middle of the half-empty car, and settled without ceremony. Snow began outside, fat deliberate flakes sticking to the glass like slow-motion stars.

The train lurched north. Ben opened his sketchbook and began absent doodles: the old Hanlon farmhouse in soft pencil, protective circles faint in the margins. Stan stared at his hands a long moment, then reached into his coat and slid a folded sheet of newsprint across the fold-down table.

Ben knew the crayon colors instantly. Punywise—shoes too big, ruff drooping—fleeing a small blue figure brandishing an enormous salad bowl. Final panel: lettuce raining like confetti. Speech bubble: Eat your greens, Daddy!

Ben exhaled through his nose. “You too.”

Stan nodded once. “Taped to the seatback on the first leg. Another under my hotel door in Atlanta two nights ago.”

Ben unfolded his own from his coat pocket—creased, travel-worn. Periwinkle hopping away with a stick-figure child while Punywise dripped vinaigrette, face half-melted into a sad green puddle. “Under my windshield wiper in Omaha. Almost threw it away. Then I didn’t.”

The train rattled over a switch. Stan’s voice stayed low. “It’s helping me remember. Not everything. Just… fragments. The Barrens after rain. Georgie’s boat.”

Ben traced the crayon lines. “Same. Faces I didn’t draw keep appearing in the margins of my sketches. A blue hat tilted just so. A small hand holding string. Like someone’s been finishing my lines when I look away.”

Stan watched snow blur the passing lights into halos. “Forgetting—was it theft… or mercy?”

Ben closed the book gently. “Mike said the pull would wake up when we got closer. These comics… they’re breadcrumbs. Or maybe lanterns in the fog.”

Three more pages had appeared on the tray table between them—fresh, unfolded, as though they’d always waited there. One showed Periwinkle setting a child gently on a porch, cyan balloon tied to the wrist like a promise. Another: Punywise alone in a rotting ring, lettuce still clinging to his teeth, staring at empty bleachers.

Neither touched them.

The train slowed into Portland. Orange platform lights glowed through falling snow. Neither man moved; their tickets went through to Brunswick, then a short taxi to the farmhouse.

Stan spoke almost to himself. “Whatever she is… she wants us there. Together.”

Ben nodded once. “Then we go.”

The train pulled north into deeper Maine, carrying two quiet men and a small stack of crayon warnings beneath a patient white sky.

Derry, Maine – January 12, 1985 – 9:15 p.m.

Richie Tozier found Eddie Kaspbrak exactly where expected: leaning against a rented silver Tempo in the Bangor airport lot, arms folded, inhaler already gripped like a talisman. Richie tossed his duffel in the trunk, slid behind the wheel, started the engine. Eddie climbed in, buckled, checked the belt twice, said nothing.

“Nice to see you too, Eds.”

Eddie stared ahead. “Just drive.”

Route 9 vanished into fog—thick, gray, swallowing headlights until the beams were useless smears. Richie dropped to thirty-five. Wipers thumped slow and hopeless.

Eddie’s voice tightened. “We should pull over. This is stupid.”

Richie didn’t argue. He just kept the wheel steady.

Then—taillights. Faint red pinpricks appeared ahead, low and calm in the murk. A dark sedan, holding the exact center of the lane, moving at their speed like it had all night.

Richie followed.

The sedan never sped up, never slowed. Whenever Richie’s attention drifted or Eddie’s breathing hitched, the red lights waited—patient, steady. Through the fogged rear window Richie glimpsed a faint cyan glow in the back seat: soft, almost dashboard light catching something blue. A balloon. A seat cover. It never moved. It simply floated there, calm as a night-light left on for someone afraid of the dark.

Eddie noticed too. He leaned forward an inch. “They’re going the same way.”

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Lucky us.”

No horn. No flash of brakes. Just the slow procession through white nothing.

At 10:03 p.m. they crossed the Derry town line. The fog lifted like a curtain yanked aside—streetlights snapped sharp and orange. The sedan ahead accelerated smoothly, rounded a gentle curve, and vanished.

Richie blinked. Road ordinary again. Blacktop. Lights. Snow shoulders.

Eddie exhaled, shoulders dropping half an inch. “That was… convenient.”

Richie let the wheel roll under his palms. “Yeah. Real convenient.”

Neither mentioned the cyan glow that had lingered in the back window until the very last second.

They drove the last miles in silence, the night suddenly normal, almost kind.

Bangor International Airport – January 12, 1985 – 11:47 p.m.

The regional jet bucked through wind shear like a kite in a tantrum. Oxygen masks dangled forgotten. Bill Denbrough sat 14A, forehead to cold Plexiglas, exhaustion finally winning. He drifted somewhere over central Maine.

The dream arrived fast.

November rain hammered the street. Georgie’s yellow raincoat gleamed as he chased the paper boat Bill had folded. The boat shot toward the storm drain. Georgie laughed, fearless. “Look, Billy! It’s going so fast!”

Bill tried to shout—throat locked, same as always. Georgie knelt at the curb, small gloved hand reaching.

Then Georgie turned.

Round cheeks. Wide trusting eyes. But the eyes held orange rings flickering like embers behind brown. Greasepaint smeared wet white streaks down his face with the rain. The mouth stretched too wide.

“You let me die, Billy,” Georgie said in that small accusing voice. “You sent the boat. You didn’t run after it. You left me. You abandoned me.”

The drain widened—black mouth hungry. Georgie’s coat began to sink, arms flailing. Voice thinning. “You promised you’d protect me.”

Bill lunged—legs lead, arms useless. Silent scream.

Then cyan light glowed soft inside the drain, steady as a night-light in a child’s room.

A small blue-gloved hand reached up from the dark. Fingers closed around the filthy ruff still clinging to Georgie’s body like a parasite—and yanked.

The figure was pulled back, half out. Georgie’s face flickered: orange dimmed, greasepaint dissolved in rain until only a frightened, familiar boy remained. Eyes clear brown now, but edged with the faintest cyan shimmer. He looked up at Bill the way he used to—proud, trusting, a little awed.

A child-sized figure climbed halfway out behind him. Periwinkle—dusk-blue dress sodden, greasepaint faint and streaked, dark hair plastered to her cheeks—held Georgie steady with one arm. She looked up at Bill with big sad eyes that carried no blame, only sorrow and something ancient.

“It’s not your fault,” she said softly. Her voice cut through the rain like warm light breaking clouds. “It was never your fault.”

Georgie nodded against her shoulder. “She’s right, Billy. It was never your fault.”

Periwinkle hugged him tighter for a heartbeat. Then she pressed a gentle kiss to the top of his rain-soaked head and whispered something too quiet for Bill to hear.

Rain slowed. Drain shrank to ordinary size. Georgie smiled—small, shy, real—and faded into soft white.

The plane jolted.

Bill woke as wheels kissed runway. Cabin lights snapped harsh yellow. Passengers murmured, gathered bags. His seatbelt was unbuckled—he didn’t remember doing it. On the tray table before him sat a tiny paper boat, folded from an in-flight napkin, perfectly dry.

He lifted it with trembling fingers. Creases precise, the way he used to fold them for Georgie.

He slipped it into his coat pocket, next to his heart.

When he stepped into the cold Bangor night, the wind smelled—only for a second—of popcorn and cotton candy. Then it was gone.

He rented a car, started south toward Derry. For the first time in twenty-seven years the weight on his chest felt lighter.

Not gone.
Never gone.
But lighter.