Still Out There

Derry, Maine – January 20, 1985 – 3:12 a.m.

The first cruiser rolled up the long driveway with lights off, engine noise muffled by fresh snow. Two officers—Sgt. Mallory and Officer Reyes—stepped out, flashlights cutting pale cones through the dark. A second car followed a minute later; four uniforms total. No sirens. No shouting. Just the quiet crunch of boots and the low crackle of radios reporting “possible 10-31, suspect in custody, requesting backup for transport.”

Mike Hanlon met them at the front door, coat thrown over pajamas, face calm but tired.

“Upstairs,” he said simply. “Guest room at the end of the hall. He’s… not moving much.”

Mallory nodded, already moving past him. Reyes lingered a second, eyes flicking over the six adults gathered in the living room—Bev sitting on the couch with a blanket around her shoulders, Richie standing too still near the window, Eddie clutching his inhaler like a talisman, Ben and Bill silent by the fireplace, Stan leaning against the wall with arms crossed.

“Anyone hurt?” Reyes asked.

Bev lifted her chin. “I’m fine.”

No one elaborated.

The officers climbed the stairs. Flashlight beams swept the hallway, catching the broken fairy lights scattered like fallen stars across the floorboards. The guest-room door stood wide open now—someone had pushed it all the way back after the initial chaos.

Inside: the twin bed, quilt half off, one pillow still indented from a small head. The window was closed, latched. No footprints in the thin snow outside. No broken glass. No sign of forced exit.

Henry Bowers was not there.

Mallory swept the beam across the room again—wall where he’d been pinned, floor beneath it. A few flakes of plaster had fallen, but no blood, no scuff marks, no drag trails. The corner where he’d slumped was empty. Clean.

Reyes crouched near the baseboard, frowning.

“Thought you said he was catatonic.”

Mike, standing in the doorway now, answered quietly. “He was. Until he wasn’t.”

Mallory turned, light catching something small on the floor near the foot of the bed—half-buried under the edge of the fallen quilt.

A single lavender thread. Thin, bright, the exact color of Periwinkle’s ruffles. It lay curled in a perfect little spiral, as though carefully placed there by tiny fingers. When Mallory reached down to pick it up, the thread felt oddly warm for a second—almost body temperature—before cooling instantly in his gloved palm.

He held it up to the light. Nothing special. Just thread.

“Must’ve come off his clothes,” he muttered, pocketing it anyway. “Or one of yours.”

Bev, who had followed silently up the stairs, looked at the spot on the floor. Her eyes lingered on the empty place where the thread had been.

She said nothing.

Reyes straightened. “No sign of struggle. No open window. No footprints outside. You’re telling me a catatonic man just… walked out?”

Richie, leaning in the doorway behind Bev, gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing that’s happened in this house tonight.”

Mallory gave him a long look, then keyed his radio.

“Dispatch, this is Mallory. Suspect is no longer on scene. Repeat: suspect is gone. No visible means of egress. We’re sweeping the property.”

The radio crackled back acknowledgment.

Downstairs, the others waited in silence while the officers moved through the house—checking closets, the basement door, the back porch. They found nothing.

When the uniforms finally left—promising to “put out a BOLO” and “send forensics in the morning”—the farmhouse settled back into quiet.

Bev walked to the guest-room window and looked out at the snow-covered yard. No tracks. No disturbance. Just unbroken white under the faint glow of the porch light.

She touched the cyan star pendant at her throat. It was cool now. Silent.

But on the windowsill—just outside the glass, where no one had stood—a single tiny handprint had melted into the frost. Child-sized. Perfectly formed. Already beginning to fade as new flakes drifted down to cover it.

Bev exhaled once, slow and steady.

She didn’t call the others up to see it.

She simply watched the print disappear, then turned back to the empty bed and began gathering the scattered fairy lights, one broken bulb at a time.

Derry, Maine – January 20, 1985 – 3:42 p.m.

The boy’s name was Theo Grayson. Eight years old, red snow boots, blue parka with the hood up against the wind. He was cutting through the empty lot behind the old textile mill — shortcut home from the after-school program at the rec center. The sky was the color of old pewter; the snow underfoot was already crusting over from the afternoon freeze.

He saw the red balloon first as a bright spot against the gray.

It floated at exactly shoulder height, tethered by nothing, perfectly still despite the wind that tugged at his hood. Theo slowed, curious.

“Cool,” he muttered, reaching out.

The balloon didn’t bob. It glided forward — smooth, deliberate — closing the distance until the rubber brushed his mitten. Theo jerked his hand back.

The string wasn’t tied to anything. It simply was, and now it was moving with him.

He took a step back. The balloon followed.

Another step. Faster this time. The balloon kept pace — low, gliding, never rising or dipping.

Theo turned and ran.

His boots punched through the thin crust, snow spraying. He risked a glance over his shoulder.

The balloon was closer. Not bouncing. Not swaying. Gliding straight, faster than it should, rubber stretched taut over something pressing from inside.

A shape — long, multi-jointed, gloved — pushed outward. Fingers clawed at the latex from within, stretching it thin, tearing tiny slits. Through the rips: orange light leaked like fire behind curtains. The hand flexed, tore wider. A single black claw punctured the surface, then withdrew — leaving a wet, sucking sound.

Theo screamed — high, panicked — and tripped. He hit the snow hard, face-first, mittens scrabbling. When he pushed up, gasping, the balloon hovered inches from his face.

The rubber groaned. The hand inside pressed again — palm flat, fingers splaying so wide the glove seams split. Orange light pulsed brighter. The balloon deformed, stretching into an obscene oval, the painted smile warping into something wider, hungrier.

Theo scrambled backward on hands and knees, sobbing now.

From the direction of the canal path — maybe fifty yards away — four figures broke into a run.

Richie Tozier saw it first. “Holy shit — kid!”

Eddie was already sprinting, inhaler forgotten in his pocket.

Ben and Mike flanked him, boots pounding snow.

They were too far. They knew it.

Then the air tore.

Not a sound — a physical rip, like fabric ripping in three dimensions at once.

A black bird erupted from nowhere — wings snapping open mid-air, too many primary feathers, body too large for any natural corvid. It slammed into the balloon with brutal force.

Talons ripped. Beak tore chunks of red rubber away in wet strips. The hand inside thrashed — frantic, furious — but the bird was faster, savage. It shredded methodically: one wingbeat to pin the balloon against the snow, another to slash through the stretched latex.

The bird’s head cocked — once — and for a split-second its face wasn’t a bird’s face at all.

A child’s features flickered across the beak and eyes: wide, sad brown eyes, tear-streaked cheeks, mouth stretched in grief around rows of needle teeth. Then gone. Just black feathers and burning orange again.

The bird let out a sound that wasn’t a caw.

It was a layered scream: a little girl’s wail overlapping an old woman’s rasp overlapping something ancient and metallic grinding against bone. The Losers felt it in their teeth, in their spines. Richie stumbled mid-stride. Eddie clapped hands over his ears.

The balloon burst — not with a bang, but a wet, collapsing sigh. Red fragments sprayed outward like arterial mist, steaming in the cold air. The black bird tore one final shred free, then shook itself — once — like shaking off water.

A single lavender feather drifted loose from its wing. It caught the weak sunlight, flickered cyan for half a heartbeat, then fell.

The bird looked around — orange eyes sweeping the lot, the running adults, the sobbing boy.

Then it dissolved.

Not faded. Not exploded.

It collapsed inward — black feathers turning to oily goo, body melting into a steaming puddle that sank into the snow like ink into paper. Where the goo touched Theo’s coat sleeve and mitten, faint orange handprints bloomed — small, child-sized, scorching the fabric before fading over seconds.

Theo stared at the black stain on the snow. A tiny, hiccuping sob escaped him — not his own. It came from the sinking goo, faint and broken, like a child crying herself to sleep. Then silence.

He bolted — red boots kicking snow, not looking back.

Richie reached the spot first, skidding to a stop beside the steaming residue.

“Jesus Christ…”

Eddie arrived panting, eyes wide. “That was—”

Ben crouched, staring at the orange scorch marks. “Her. That was her.”

Mike stood over the black puddle. It was already half-absorbed, leaving only a faint oily sheen on the snow. He reached down — careful — and picked up the single lavender feather that had fallen.

It was warm. It pulsed once — like a heartbeat — then crumbled to ash in his palm.

Richie looked toward the canal, toward the mill, toward the gray sky.

“She’s still out there,” he said quietly. “And she’s pissed.”

Eddie swallowed hard. “And she’s… leaking.”

Ben stood up slowly.

None of them moved for a long moment.

Behind them, Theo’s small figure disappeared around the corner of the mill, still running.

The snow kept falling — soft, relentless — covering the black stain, the orange scorch marks, the ash of the feather.