Ｓｔｕｔｔｅｒ [ｂｉｌｌ ｄｅｎｂｒｏｕｇｈ ｘ ｒｅａｄｅｒ]

ᴘᴜᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀᴘ ʙᴀᴄᴋ!

♧♧♧

Richie was across the street, heckling some guy in the marching band about his tuba. He was playing horribly and eventually gave in to the band member trying to get his instrument back. I sat against the worn bricks with a nearly-finished friendship bracelet taped to my knee. The rest of the group was uncomfortably staring at the stack of missing posters pasted to the wall. 

"They say they found part of his arm all chewed up by the sand pipe," Stan noted, gesturing to Edward Corcran's picture.

"He asked to borrow a pencil once," Ben mumbled.

Edward and I were partnered up in science once. He was a really sweet kid, and I'm sure we could have been friends if I'd seen him more throughout the day. Too bad he died before I could say hello again.

Bill lifted up his poster. Underneath was Betty Ripsom's. The boy scowled, "It's like she's been f-f-forgotten just because Corcoran is m-missing."

As I continued knotting the colorful thread together, Richie made his way over to us in defeat. I hoped Bill wouldn't go digging through the entire stack of posters. I could only imagine how he would feel once he came across Georgie's.

"Is this ever going to end?" Stan questioned, seemingly talking to nobody. His head was tilted upward, his eyes squinted. His curls flopped back on his head. I wasn't sure if he meant the missing kids or Bill and his search for Georgie. I don't even know if I'd heard him right.

"What are you guys talking about?"

Eddie had rounded the corner, balancing three ice cream cones. He handed one to Richie and knelt down to hand me one. I smiled in thanks, quickly licking the side of the cone so it wouldn't melt onto my shorts.

"What they always talk about," Richie said, not sounding thrilled in any way. He flicked a drop of ice cream off of his hand.

"I actually think it will end, for a little while at least," Ben said. He had a somewhat determined look on his face. I knew he'd stuffed his nose in a book again. I adjusted the tape on my leg.

"What do you mean?" Beverly asked. She had been a little too quiet up until this point in time when she took uneasy glances at all of us.

"I was going over my previous research, and charted out all the big events like the Ironworks in 1908, the Bradley Gang in '35, and the black spot in '62. And now, kids..." he stopped himself, not wanting to upset his friend with the missing brother. So, he just finished with, "I realized this stuff happens every-"

"-Twenty-seven years," I mumbled.

There was a long, frightening silence. Richie, Eddie, and I were on the verge of finishing our ice cream cones. I stared down at my shoes, the unraveling bandages by my ankles. I was nervous about wearing shorts today, but Eddie had told me it would be too hot for jeans. He was right, but I was still uncomfortable, to say the least. The bandages around my legs earned me strange looks.

We decided that we needed a better place to discuss this, somewhere other than a sketchy alleyway. We made our way to a bench, in which not all of us could fit. Some of us sat on the backrest, others on the actual bench, and whoever couldn't fit sat on their bikes. I continued making my bracelet, leaning my head on Eddie's knee.

"So let me get this straight," Eddie started, "It comes out to eat kids for like, a year, and then what? Goes into hibernation?" Great minds think alike because those were my thoughts exactly. But I still hadn't all the way comprehended all the new information.

"Maybe it's like, you know, cicadas? The bug that comes out every seventeen years?" Stan questioned. He had a fair point.

"My grandfather thinks this town is cursed," Mike said quietly. It gained everyone's attention, turning heads and glancing at the boy.