The Knife in the Dark

Derry, Maine – January 20, 1985 – 1:14 a.m.

The snow had stopped falling hours earlier, leaving the world outside the old Hanlon farmhouse muffled and still under a thick white shroud. Streetlights from distant West Broadway cast long, sodium-yellow shadows across the wooded lot, but the house itself sat dark—windows black, porch light off, as though the building were holding its breath in sleep.

Henry Bowers approached from the tree line at the back of the property, where the pines met the overgrown field. He had walked for hours since leaving Juniper Hill—through frozen ditches, past shuttered farms, following the faint tug of the red balloon that had vanished at the edge of town. His institutional pajamas were soaked through at the hems, slippers crusted with ice, but he felt no cold. Only purpose. The knife in his grip—dull blade, diner handle—felt like an extension of his arm, warm where everything else was numb.

Whispers rode the wind at his back: The blue freak. Playing house. Start with what hurts. They coiled in his skull like smoke, mixing with older voices—his father’s snarl, the crack of belts, the laughter of kids who had once made him bleed. The red-haired bitch. Always her. Standing up to him. Taking his fire.

He crossed the yard slowly, boots crunching softly in the snow. A single red balloon bobbed once against the back fence—there, then gone—like a nod of approval. The kitchen door loomed ahead, glass pane fogged at the edges. Henry pressed his palm to the latch. It clicked open without resistance—rusty, protesting, but yielding as though it had been waiting for him.

Inside, the kitchen was dim, lit only by the faint glow of a clock on the stove. The air smelled of coffee grounds and faint lavender—clean, lived-in, wrong. Henry paused, knife low at his side, listening to the house breathe: faint snores from downstairs rooms, the tick of a radiator, the creak of old beams settling. No alarms. No dogs. Just silence inviting him deeper.

He moved toward the stairs—slow, deliberate, slippers leaving wet prints on the linoleum. The whispers grew louder in his head: Up there. The blue one. End it quick. Shadows stretched unnaturally along the walls as he climbed, as if the house were tilting toward him. One step creaked louder than the rest—Henry froze, heart thudding—but no one stirred. The fairy lights from the upstairs hall spilled faint gold onto the landing, like carnival glow calling him home.

The guest-room door at the end of the hall stood slightly ajar. Faint fairy lights glowed through the crack—soft gold, like distant carnival bulbs.

Henry pushed the door open.

The room was quiet. Slanted ceiling. Twin bed. Two shapes under the quilt: the smaller one curled against the larger, dark hair fanned across the pillow, red hair loose and catching the light.

He stepped closer.

The knife rose—aimed at the small shape, the blue freak who had stolen everything. Straight for the chest—quick, fatal, done.

Bev stirred first—instinct, maternal, sharp even in sleep. Her eyes snapped open. She rolled instinctively, shoving Stella down and shielding her with her body.

The knife came down.

It pierced the upper layer of her shoulder—aimed true for the heart but deflected by the motion, grazing shallow. Fabric tore. Skin parted. A thin line of blood welled up, warm and red. Bev gasped—pain flaring hot, surprise turning to fierce resolve.

Henry grinned—wild, broken.

“Got you, blue bi—”

The air compressed.

An immense gravity-like force slammed into him mid-sentence. Not wind. Not push. Just pull—crushing, inevitable, like the weight of a collapsing star. The knife's momentum yanked backward mid-thrust, turning lethal force into a glancing scrape. Henry flew across the room, body hitting the wall with a bone-rattling thud. Plaster cracked. He stuck there—pinned, limbs splayed, breath crushed from his lungs.

Stella’s eyes opened.

They glowed—orange at first, then distorted, flickering through impossible colors: crimson rage, cyan cold, black void, violet storm. A spectrum of fury that bent the light in the room.

She let out a crippling loud scream.

It wasn’t a child’s cry. It was a chorus—layered, shattering, shaking the very fabric of space. The air rippled like water hit by a stone. The fairy lights exploded in sparks. The walls bowed outward, then snapped back with audible cracks. Windows rattled in their frames; downstairs, mugs shattered in the sink. Eardrums throbbed—bones vibrated—as if the scream were inside every skull.

The scream woke the house.

Doors banged open below. Footsteps thundered up the stairs—Richie first, cursing; Eddie close behind, inhaler already out; Ben and Bill shoving through; Mike and Stan at the rear, faces grim.

They burst into the doorway mid-scream—freezing at the threshold.

Stella levitated slowly from the bed.

Quilt sliding off. Small body rising—straight-backed, arms loose at her sides, feet dangling inches above the mattress. Her eyes burned through the color storm, fixed on Henry.

Dark fog seeped from the corners of the room—black, oily, crawling over floor, walls, ceiling like living smoke. It swallowed the fairy-light glow, turning the space into something cavernous, endless. The air grew thick, suffocating—Henry gasped like drowning, the fog clawing at his throat.

Henry’s body jerked. Random cuts bloomed across his skin—shallow slashes on arms, bruises purpling on his face, as if invisible hands were carving him piece by piece. He screamed—hoarse, animal—feeling every phantom torture: belts whipping his back raw, rocks smashing his bones in the Barrens, his father’s face twisting into endless nightmares. His mind frayed—hallucinations amplifying, overwhelming, breaking him from the inside.

Spatial distortions rippled around Stella’s body as she drifted closer—air warping like heat haze. In the fog, impossible faces flickered: twisted mouths screaming rage, eyes burning with pure evil, features melting and reforming—victims' echoes, voices made visible.

She spoke.

The words came from countless throats at once—echoing half a second later, layered in tongues ancient and new: guttural snarls, whispers in forgotten dialects, children’s cries in languages long dead. It overwhelmed the room, pressing on eardrums like thunder inside the skull.

To most, it was noise—mind-breaking cacophony.

Henry’s eyes rolled back. His body went limp against the wall—mind shattered, unresponsive, a broken puppet dangling in the gravity grip.

Stella was near now.

Her face split—mouth stretching wide, rows upon rows of many teeth glinting in the distorted light.

Bev—blood trickling down her arm, pain sharp but secondary—pushed herself up from the bed. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t run.

She stepped forward—barefoot, steady—and wrapped her arms around Stella from behind.

“It’s enough now,” she whispered, voice cutting through the chaos like a lifeline. “It’s enough, little star. Come back.”

The scream cut off.

The room shuddered once—then normalized. Fog retreated like smoke sucked backward. Distortions smoothed. Cuts on Henry stopped spreading. He slumped to the floor, breathing ragged, eyes vacant—alive, but gone.

Stella descended—slow, limp, like a leaf falling in still air.

Bev caught her—arms tight, pulling her close to her chest.

The colors in Stella’s eyes faded to ordinary brown.

She trembled. Then sobbed—small, wrenching cries that shook her whole body.

“He hurt you,” she wailed, face buried in Bev’s neck, small hands clutching the torn shirt. “He hurt you and I was so afraid… afraid to lose you. Don’t go. Please don’t go.”

Bev held her tighter—ignoring the sting in her shoulder, the blood soaking through.

“I’m right here,” she murmured, rocking her gently. “I’m not going anywhere. You saved me. You saved us all.”

The group hovered in the doorway—Richie pale, Eddie shaking, Ben and Bill wide-eyed, Mike and Stan exchanging grim looks. Mike mouthed something silent to himself—piecing together the echoes he’d heard in the voices.

Bev glanced down at her wound.

It closed—slowly, visibly. Skin knitting together in faint glowing threads, the shallow cut sealing without a scar. The tear in her shirt mended after—fabric weaving itself whole, bloodstains fading like ink in water.

Stella’s sobs quieted.

She went silent.

Not asleep. Not afraid. Just… still. Face pressed to Bev’s collarbone, eyes open but distant, small body heavy in her arms.

Bev lifted her chin gently, searching those brown eyes.

“Stella?”

No answer.

Just silence.

The room stayed quiet except for Henry’s ragged breathing on the floor.

Outside, snow began to fall again—soft, relentless.

And in the old Hanlon farmhouse, something had broken wide open.