Control // It (2017) // Stanley Uris

Fourteen- "You worry me, Bevvie."

Beverly Marsh quietly carried her backpack through her house and into her bedroom. Completely exhausted from her day at the quarry, she dropped her bag onto her bed and sat down. She began to unpack her day bag, when a small piece of paper came falling out of her notebook, onto her floor. Curiously, she leaned over her bed and picked it up.

It was a small postcard, with a landscape painting on the front. Immediately she stood from her bed and ran into her bathroom, locking the door behind her. The Marsh girl laid back in her tub, with her feet hung over the edges and read the words sketched into the page. Butterflies invaded the red-headed girl's stomach and she couldn't help but smile.

"Your hair is winter fire..." She whispered to herself, reading the poem out loud. "January embers..." She continued, "my heart burns there too."

The bottom of the poem was signed by the name, secret admirer.

Bev held the post card tightly to her heart, and thought about who she would want as her secret admirer. Over the past few days, she'd undeniably developed a crush on Bill Denbrough. She silently prayed that he'd been the one to write her the poem. What she didn't know was that it wasn't him.

"Beverly." A quiet and high pitched voice rang through the air of the Marsh girl's bathroom. It pulled Bev out of her day dreams. "Beverly..." It repeated a second time, louder than before. The girl's eyes followed the source of the sound to her sink.

The red-headed girl sat up in her tub and listened closely.

"Help me." The voice said. "Help me, please."

Bev hesitantly approached her sink, listening to several voices begin to speak in unison.

"We all want to meet you, Beverly." They sang, "we all float down here."

"Hello? Who are you?" Beverly asked, leaning her eyes over the drain.

"I'm Veronica."

"Betty Ripsom."

"Patrick Hockstetter."

"Come closer." A very young sounding voice emitted through the darkness of the pipe. "You want to see? We float."

"We changed."

Bev was curious about the voices from her sink, and decided to do some further investigations. She quietly made her way into the living room of her apartment, careful not to wake up her sleeping father, and grabbed a tape measure from his work bag.

Back in the bathroom, she began to feed the measure down the drain pipe. One foot, two foot, all the way past twenty-four feet, the tape went farther and farther down the drain, until suddenly it stopped with a clanging sound. A giggle found it's way up the pipe and into Bev's ears.

Slowly, and full of utter fear, Bev began to reel the measure back in. At about three feet deep, the tape began to come out of the drain covered in a red and sticky substance; it was blood. All over the bottom of the measuring stick, clumps of long and dark hair clung aggressively.

Quickly and without warning, the hair began to move, covering Bev's arms and onto her head. Bev screamed while the hair tried to pull her down, closer and closer to the drain.

"Daddy!" Beverly screamed, "help! help!"

As her eyes hovered directly over top of the drain, blood began to seep out. It quickly filled the sink, then began to shoot up into her face and all over the clean, white bathroom.

The sink erupted with blood, sending Beverly flying back and into the corner of the room. The walls, ceiling, floor and everything in between became soaked with the sticky liquid. It was absolutely horrifying.

With her eyes covered in blood and her vision nearly non-existent, Bev pressed her arms against the floor and pushed her body backwards, until she safely felt a wall behind her to lean against. The Marsh girl pulled her legs up to her chest and shut her eyes tightly. Her breath was inconsistent and shallow, and her nose was clogged with both blood and snot from her crying.

The hair retreated back into the drain, leaving Beverly helpless on the floor.

Every inch of her was covered in blood, even the inside of her mouth. She was sticky and cold, yet she stayed perfectly still. Her body shook back and forth in pure fear. She couldn't stop crying, or screaming.

Her father opened to door.

"What the hell is going on?" He asked, staring down at his daughter curled in a ball on the bathroom floor.

Beverly stared at her father in confusion for a second, surprised by his reaction upon entering the bathroom. He seemed calm and dismissive.

"T-the sink..." She stuttered, "t-the blood, it's-"

"What blood?" Her father asked, causing Bev's heart to sink. He couldn't see it. There was nothing wrong. Was she going crazy?

"The sink?" She questioned, "You don't see it..." She whispered in astonishment. "There was blood and it-" She began to speak again loudly, "and it... and it..." She couldn't form a coherent sentence.

"You worry me, Bevvie." Her father crouched down in front of her, "you worry me a lot."

"But you don't see it?" She whispered again.

Her father reached out and swiped her hair with his fingers, "why did you do this to your hair?" He asked. "Makes you look like a boy."

Beverly's heart sank at her father's words. He really didn't see it, he didn't believe her. With that, Mr. Marsh stood up and made his way to the door, closing it behind him on his way out.

Beverly was left alone for the rest of the night, covered in cold, sticky blood. She could hardly move a muscle in her body.

Mustering all of the strength she had left in her, she stood up and walked out of the room, making sure to shut the door behind her. She stripped off her favourite dress and kicked it across her floor, smearing blood on her carpet, but she couldn't bring herself to didn't care.