A Sexy Alien’s Tumblr?

Your head snaps forward at the feeling of a dense clod of earth ricocheting off your skull. You blink through the blinding pain, not daring to turn your head for fear that the next clod would blind you. You swipe a hand over the back of your head, your fingers coming away wet and crimson. Rocks. There are rocks in the earth. Those bastards are trying to kill you this time.

“Here, little freak!” Someone shouts. You think you recognise the voice, the nasally, mean quality of it. Maxwell St James, which means-

“You think you can outrun us?” Theo Mitchell, and Zachary Benton will be right behind them. Max and his boys had been tormenting you for almost a year now. It had started with names hissed at you in the school corridors. Freak. Loser. Loner. You’d ignored them all, held your head high like your momma taught you and pretended not to hear. It’s not like they were the only ones who’d decided you were less-than, anyway. Since your arrival in Derry, a target had been painted on your back by the unmistakable quality of otherness that followed strangers in a small town.  

When the whispering hadn’t worked, the names had changed. Bitch. Cunt. Whore. An interesting development, considering you’d never even been kissed and nobody in Derry seemed open to changing that.

You’d ignored them still, kept your nose in a book and your head in the clouds. This had enraged Maxwell and his cronies, sent them spiralling into a feral tantrum that had resulted in your first ever broken bone. Because he’d split from the group, followed you home. He’d pinned you against a wall and bent your arm back so far the bones in your wrist had splintered. You hadn’t cried. Hadn’t made so much as a sound, but the moment he released your wrist you ran, and ran, and ran.

After that, the names changed again. Slut. Psycho. Murderer. Because a five year old girl on your street had disappeared, and the only thing new in Derry was you. Dumb, scared people don’t need much to put two and two together to get five. With this new branding, you’d become a pariah. A punching bag. A scapegoat for every shitty thing that happened in Derry. And a lot of shitty things happened in Derry.

Kids went missing all the time. All through the fall, disappearing from playgrounds and street corners. Snatched in the Barrens. Seen climbing into storm drains and then never seen again. You kept your wrist cradled to your body and your head down after that.

But the pain now radiating through your skull is something different. There’s blood pouring down your back, soaking into the fabric of your shirt, and you hear a voice that is yours and not yours whisper into your head. They are going to kill you. They’re going to kill you if you don’t get underground.

There’s a culvert up ahead, the bars buckled outward from years of rust and neglect, and you don’t let yourself think about it too much before you pull the bars apart. They give with a little creak, widening the gap just enough for you to squeeze through. You scramble inside, trying not to feel the soak of the sewer on your knees as you crawl into the rotten open maw.

“Where the fuck did she go?” Theo yells, stopping just inches from the bars.

“You lost her?” Maxwell hisses. You can hear the labored pants of his breathing, and you press your lips together to stifle a whimper.

“I think she went in there.” Theo says, tapping the rusted bar with his knuckles.

“We goin in after her, Max?” Zachary asks.

Max huffs. “No. If she’s gone in there she’s a good as dead. It’ll get her.”

You swallow thickly, a chill running down your spine.

“Yeah,” Theo chuckles darkly. “It’ll eat her right up.”

“Nasty little whore.” Zachary adds.

You listen to the retreating of their footsteps and feel your heartrate slow with every passing second.

“Nasty little whore,” the darkness whispers behind you.

You yelp, your heart leaping into your throat as you lurch towards the bars. You wrap your fingers around the rusted iron, yanking hard, but the give that had existed moments before is gone now. The iron holds as firm as if it were brand new, and you tug uselessly, desperately as the darkness closes in behind you.

“Nasty little whore,” it whispers again, the words a caress against the back of your neck. “Nasty little boys.” You feel phantom fingers in your hair, and you whimper. “Yesssss,” the darkness hisses, and the phantom touch solidifies, wrapping in your hair and pulling you back into the shadows.

You scream then, a high-pitched, awful sound ripping from your throat. Your mouth is filled with cotton, wriggling, thick fabric pressing against your tongue and down your throat, and you’re spun and pinned to the filthy sewer wall. The wound on your head jars against the brick, momentarily dazing you, and you blink up at the impossible figure of a seven-foot clown. You should be scared. You know that, as you look at Its inhuman yellow eyes and Its too-wide mouth. But your brain can’t catch up with what you’re seeing, and the fear doesn’t come.

“Clown.” You mumble.

The clown tilts Its head to the side. “Whore.”

You shake your head, the bloody pulp of your hair matting against the wall. “I’m not a whore.”

The clown grins, lips splitting into a grotesque mockery of a smile. “And I am not a clown.”

“You’re going to kill me.” The words come out a little muffled, like you’re listening to your own voice through water.

“I’m going to eat you.” It whispers, leaning close. You can smell it on Its breath – decay, death and the rust of blood.

“Alright, then.”

The clown blinks. “Alright, then,” It repeats. “Aren’t you scared?”

You hum, eyes drooping. You feel warm all over, and you barely notice the gloved hand slipping around your throat and tipping your head forward. You do feel the sharp, bright pain as It prods Its fingers against the wound on your skull. You cry out, and the clown does it again, dragging Its long finger against the break in your flesh. “Oho,” It chuckles. “Close to dead. No fun. Nasty little boys.”

“Maxwell St James,” you hiss between gritted teeth. “Theo Mitchell, Zachary Benton. The nasty little boys.” The fingers caressing your head wound drop away, and you lift your head to watch the clown suck the bloodstained tips into Its mouth.

“Names. Power in names.” It licks over his lips.

“They hate me.” You swallow, forcing yourself to meet Its unsettling stare. One of Its eyes seems to drift to the side, like It can’t remember It’s supposed to be pretending to be human, and you shiver. “If you’re still… hungry. After you kill me.”

The clown dips Its head, coming so close you can feel Its breath on your mouth. “Oho,” It says again, softly. “They don’t hate you. They fear you, little whore.”

Pennywise has never been so interested in a person before. The defiant set of your jaw, the scent of your fear. The way you look at It, right at It, even as you shake with fear. Drool spills openly from the corners of Its mouth, pooling on the floor between you. Oh, to taste. To savor. To devour all that delicious fear. But the names ring out, tasting all the sweeter for the vitriol with which you utter them. The only thing tastier than fear. The conscious act of hatred.

“I want them all dead.”

Pennywise tilts Its inhuman head to the side, face bobbing on a neck like an enormous grotesque spring. “Would you kill them? Reap them?”

You swallow, raking your eyes over every awful inch of It. “No. But I would bring them to you. Offer them to you.”

“If Pennywise lets you live,” It rasps.

“Pennywise.” You repeat the name, and the clown smiles. It likes the sound of it in your mouth. Likes the roll of the syllables on your tongue. “If you let me live, I’ll bring them to you. All of them. The boys. The others.”

“Others.” It hisses.

“As many as you’d like.” You say softly. And then you lift your hand, a calculated, stupid decision. Your palm makes contact with the side of the clown’s face, the powdery greasepaint masquerading as skin flaking off in your hand. You don’t wince, don’t pull away. And when the clown doesn’t immediately bite your hand off, you lift your other hand to mirror the first, holding Its face steady. “You are feared, and so am I. Let me help you give them something to really be scared of.”

Pennywise does not need help hunting Its prey. Never has, not in a million years. But there is something so appealing, something so other about you. Pennywise wants to see what it looks like, to have you serve It. To have a creature worship It, to offer sacrifice in reverence of Its power. “You will bring the children to me.” It whispers, turning Its head to lick a salty stripe from your palm. “And you will watch as I consume them.”

You swallow, feeling a strange heat kindling low in your stomach at the wet press of Its tongue. “You want me to watch?”

Pennywise hums, rising to Its full height and pulling easily out of your grasp. “You must, you must.” It says softly, bloodstained, gloved fingers caressing over your nose and lips in a careless gesture. “Pennywise will see your insides. See how deep the rot goes, little whore.”

*

The funny thing about boys who pick on girls and call them whores is that they’re usually all too willing to follow them down dark alleyways if they think they’re gunna get their cocks sucked. Zachary Benton breathes heavily at your back, his hand wandering down to brush against your ass as you lead him deeper into the crack between two buildings on main.

“You better not fucking tell anyone about this.” He spits, even as his fingers push up under your skirt to press your underwear into the crack of your ass.

“Our secret.” You lean against the wall, crooking a finger at him, and Zachary steps closer, tongue licking over his lips as he rakes his eyes down your body. The uniform of seduction – a tight, white tee-shirt and a little black skirt with knee-high socks. Disarming. Cute.

“Dirty little secret,” comes a hiss from the darkness, and Zachary spins in time to see the clown materialize from the shadows, stepping into the light with monstrous height and spindly arms like an enormous spider. One gloved hand, the cotton pristine and white, wraps around the boy’s throat. His eyes bulge before rolling towards you, like you might help. Like you might scream, or run, or do something other than standing there watching the clown as It opens a too-wide mouth on a thousand needle teeth and latches onto Zachary’s face with a meaty squelch.

“Oh,” you mumble, blinking through a fine mist of blood as the boys features disappear into the saw-toothed tunnel where the clown-face used to be. You didn’t expect to feel bad about it, but you certainly didn’t expect to feel good, either. But the rush of adrenaline spiking through your system manifests in a low, deep throbbing, your core pulsing as your clit swells, and you press your thighs together.  

Pennywise shoves the corpse of the boy into the darkness, squirrelling it away for later consumption as It turns Its attention to you. “How did he taste?” Your voice doesn’t shake, and Pennywise smiles a slow, lazy grin that’s too wide at the corners.

“Fear.” It says softly. “And more.”

You press your thighs together more firmly, squeezing your clit under the hard pressure. “More?”

Pennywise steps closer, too tall, movements jerky as It sinks low. Not kneeling, just… sinking. “He wanted you. Wanted to put his nasty little cock inside you.”

You feel blood heat your face, and Pennywise drops his wandering eyes to your skirt. “Wanted to push his way in. In there.”

You don’t know why you do it. Why your fingers curl around the hem of your skirt and lift it. Why you let the monster with a million teeth press Its face against the soaked front of your underwear and inhale. Why your clit throbs and you soak fresh arousal at the feeling of Its slippery, wet tongue lapping over the fabric.

Pennywise makes a sound, a low, rumbling creak from deep inside Its chest. “Another, little one. Bring me another one, and we will see how you taste.”

*

It isn’t lust that motivates you, obviously. Not lust for the strange entity with the clown face. It’s a desire for revenge, when you’re yanked from the school halls by your hair and dragged kicking into the bathroom. When your head is forced into a shit-stained toilet, and you choke and gag on the putrid water as Katherine Masters and Matilda Lowther hold you down, shrieking with laughter. “This is for Zacky, you little freak!” Sarah Clarkson, the ringleader of the bitchiest clique in school hisses into your ear as you lay on the porcelain, shivering and retching putrid water. “Everybody knows you killed him.” You don’t bother to correct her. You just stare, mapping their faces into your mind and adding their names to your list.

Pennywise likes the girls. There’s more fear. Sarah pisses herself, hot liquid running down the inside of her leg as Pennywise sucks her fingers into Its mouth and bites down. It drops her, legs folding like she’s made of rubber, and turns Its attention to you. “I can smell you,” It sings, blood oozing from Its parted lips. Sarah moves then, crawling forward with her remaining hand, nails splintering against the concrete as she tries to drag herself towards the exit. But there’s nobody around, it’s long past midnight in the parking garage and the people of Derry know better than to go poking around in the dark. Even if they don’t know that they know.

You lift your foot and stamp it down on her hand, sending her sprawling as she wails in anguish. “I am a freak,” you whisper, crunching the delicate bones of her fingers under the sole of your boot. “But I have a friend.”

Pennywise feels a strange, wriggling heat in Its core, and It bristles. “Friend.” It spits, wrapping a gloved hand in your hair and pushing you to your knees. You yelp as you’re forced onto your knees and then lower, belly pressed to the concrete beside the offering you’d brought It. “No friend.”

It rips your underwear aside, pushing two rough, cotton-clad fingers into you, and your spine arches at the awful sensation of it. Pennywise feels the rip, the tearing of something soft and fleshy inside you as It pushes deeper, and the warmth in Its core throbs. “Oho,” it chortles softly. “Oh, how you bend for Pennywise. How you…” It twists, stretching Its fingers wide, “Break.”

You can do little more than press your face against the floor to stifle a scream as It fucks you roughly on Its fingers. Your blood stains Its glove, and It scents the air low and close to you. “Please,” you gasp, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip  as it curls and twists and rips you open.

You meet Sarah’s eyes, the awful realization that your position is hardly better than hers. Pennywise might not kill you today, but It could. It could anytime. “All for Pennywise,” It purrs, dropping over you and pressing Its massless weight against your back. You feel the rough drag of Its tongue over the side of your face, and you clench hard around Its fingers. “Nasty little whore,” It coos. Your body shudders through the mimic of an orgasm, clit pulsing without any real pleasure as the rough stimulation inside you comes to an end.

You drop boneless to the ground, cheek pressed to the cool concrete as Pennywise climbs over you and sets upon Its prey, breaking the girl into pieces as she screams and screams.

You bring It another girl next. Your insides hurt, and there’s blood when you pee. You don’t want to upset It again, if that’s what you did. So you bring It another girl, luring her into the sewer directly on the promise of a clue.

“You sure you saw her down here?” Katherine asks, eyes scanning the filthy walls.

“For sure. She looked… panicked. Like maybe she fell in? I don’t know. She ran from me, but she’ll probably come out for you.”

“Sarah?” Katherine calls, her voice betraying her fear. “You down here, honey?”

Her voice comes from somewhere deep, deep in the shadows. “Oh, honey.”

You can hear the edge to it, the edge of It, and you shiver as you follow the girl into the darkness.

“You’ve been gone days,” Katherine says. “Can’t believe this freak found you after-“

You shove her. You watch your hands do it, watch her go sprawling in the filthy water. She thrashes, turning over to stare at you with wide, disbelieving eyes. “What the fuck are you doing? Sarah she’s nuts, she-“

You drop to your knees, straddling the girl’s hips as you push her down. Her face disappears beneath the murky water, air bubbling up with a gurgle as she struggles against your hold.

“Oho,” Sarah’s voice slips out of the gloom. “Oho, little one has found her teeth.”

You don’t spare It a glance as you hold her down. “Can I?”

Pennywise giggles, a sound like tinkling bells. “No, no. Mine to take. All for Pennywise.”

You release your hands, climbing off the girl as her face resurfaces with a hacking gasp. “You absolute cunt!” She shrieks. “We’ll fucking kill you for this, you-“

Katherine cuts herself off, eyes travelling up the impossibly long legs in the silvery clown pants beside you. “Oh God. Oh my God.”

Pennywise leers, reaching for her. “Not your God. Hers.”

Katherine doesn’t scream. She doesn’t get the chance to scream, as Pennywise opens Its mouth wide, wide, wider. His face parts, rows of teeth shuddering open to reveal a flickering mass of light within. You’d never imagined that the inside of this creature could be beautiful, but it is. The girl goes limp in Its arms, eyes glazing over like a corpse, and Pennywise drops her to the ground like a ragdoll.

“She’s dead?”

Its face snaps back into place as It turns to look at you. “No,” Pennywise hums. “She is for later.”

You frown, swallowing around a sudden unpleasant churning of nausea. “You’re not hungry?”

Pennywise chuckles, the sound low and full of gravel. “Oho. Pennywise is hungry. Oh, yes.”

It reaches for you and you go, letting yourself be lifted easily into Its arms as It pins your back to the slick wall and tears your jeans and panties from you with a flick of Its wrist. You gasp at the dank, frigid air against your core, the sound morphing into a sob as Pennywise licks a long, slow trail from your hole up to your clit and back down again. “Oh, God.”

Pennywise laughs lightly, the sound vibrating against you as It grazes Its teeth against your clit. “Yesssss, little one. Your God. You give it to Pennywise. You give everything.”

You groan, legs shaking as It devours your core. You keep tensing, expecting the bite, the end of this game, but it doesn’t come. Pennywise eats you messily, spit sliding down your thighs and dripping into the stagnant sewer water where Katherine’s body still floats. “I’ll bring you more,” you whine. “Every last one of them.”

Pennywise dips lower, Its tongue thickening to push into your hole and writhe against the still-healing contusions on your cervix. Your clit throbs against Its nose, the sharp, red stained nub of it grazing deliciously against the sensitive bud, and your eyes roll back. “So many names. So many pieces of… shitttt,” you whine as you cum, thighs quivering around Its face as your hands fly to the tufty orange hair on Its head and tug.

Pennywise likes that, the taste of you filling Its mouth whilst your fingers pry a tiny jolt of sensation from It. Not enough to hurt, no. Impossible that you’d even consider it. But to be rough, to be possessive. That was worship. That was devotion. Pennywise laps every last drop of your release from you, tongue curling around your clit and squeezing hard enough to make you cry out before It withdraws, lowering you to the ground as gently as It can.

“You want to hurt them.” It says quietly, yellow eyes scanning you as you struggle for breath.

“Yes.”

Pennywise leans in, lips brushing yours in an almost-kiss. “Bring me a boy. Bring me one of the nasty little boys.”

Theo is smarter than Zachary had been. He isn’t interested in fucking you, and somebody had apparently seen you leading Katherine out to the barrens, so he’s not going to follow you anywhere. You have to follow him, stalking him through the streets of Derry until he finally turns to cut through the park. That’s where you get to him, throwing a rock hard enough to knock him to the ground and then hitting him again, smashing the stone into his temple until his eyes unfocus and close.

You can’t drag him out of sight, he’s got a hundred pounds on you at least. So you dip your fingers into the blood soaking his hair, smearing it into the earth and praying It will sense you.

“Bad night to be out,” a man says from behind you, and you shriek as you scuttle away from the body.

“He fell.”

The man chuckles, the sound disconcertingly familiar as he steps forward. He is It, and he is not. There’s no makeup painting his face, but the features remain the same. Too wide mouth, wandering eyes. Sharp, otherworldly features and a forehead that extends too far.

“You couldn’t wait? Eager, greedy little thing.” There’s a strange twang to his voice, an accent you can’t place.

“Who are you?”

The man cocks his head to the side.

“I mean, I know. But whose face is that?”

The man clucks his tongue. “Sharp. Smart. I stole this face a long time ago. Doesn’t matter. I can change it.”

“Don’t,” you say quickly, too quickly. “Or… I mean, I’d prefer you. The clown.”

The man’s grin splits, and he lifts his hands to claw at his face. The flesh comes away in ribbons, revealing cracked greasepaint beneath.

The man with the clown peeking through his face hauls Theo’s unconscious body over his shoulder like he weighs nothing, and your clit throbs. You walk in awkward silence, unsure where the boundaries are with this new man-version of It. You can’t possibly be expected to chat, the very notion sends a bubble of hysterical laughter to pool in your throat.

You’re saved from the dilemma the moment you step into the mouth of the sewer, and the edges of the man seem to shimmer and shake before refocusing. Pennywise is Pennywise again, taller and larger and wrapped in silver silk as he drops Theo to the ground.

“You hate him.” Pennywise whispers, lifting a gloved hand to your chin and pinching, forcing your face down to look at the body of the boy. “If we give him to you… how will you repay us? Will you kneel for Pennywise? Will you open?” You swallow thickly, reaching down to grab Theo's arm and lifting it as high as you can. “I would offer him to you. All to you.”

Pennywise feels a thrill run through Its very being. The deadlights at the center of Its universe shudder with the declaration as It dips Its head and bites clean through the boy’s fingers.

His eyes fly open, mouth opening around a scream as he thrashes in the water.

You’re not strong enough to hold him down, but Pennywise stamps harshly on his spine and there’s a gruesome pop before his limbs go slack again. Paralysed, but very much still alive. Oh, very much so. He screams, eyes wild as they fix on you.

“Please! Please, I didn’t mean it! Don’t let that thing kill me. Don’t let It-“

“I won’t,” you coo, crouching down to cup his face and rub the pads of your thumbs over his cheeks. “It won’t kill you.”

Theo moans, the pulsing heat in the stumps of his fingers burning down his arm. “No,” you coo. “It won’t kill you. It will eat you.”

The boy’s eyes go wide as you drop his face and drag his other hand up to the clown’s lips.

“You want to kill him.” Pennywise says softly, tongue licking out at the sweaty, shaking fingers against Its mouth.

“He’s yours. They’re all yours. All for you.” You mumble.

Pennywise makes a low, rumbling sound deep within Its core, and your clit throbs in response. “You would feed this boy to Pennywise. You would sacrifice every bite.”

You don’t even have to think about it. You press the fingers firmly against Its mouth, and Pennywise bites down. His yellow eyes fix on you, even as blood splashes down onto your hand and Theo screams. “Every bite of him. Every bit of me.”

The hunger, the other hunger seizes Pennywise with such a frenzy It forgets all about the dying boy. It stamps over the body and seizes you, pressing you back to the wall and pushing gloved fingers up under your skirt to graze through your slick core. “Of you.” Pennywise whispers, tongue unfurling to lick over the seam of your lips. “Oh yes. All for Pennywise.”

Being taken by Pennywise isn’t really like fucking. It doesn’t have a little pink cock, a soft length with downy hair and a salty tip. You know it could, if It wanted to. If you wanted It to. But you don’t. You want It exactly as It is. The thick, pale appendages wrap around your thighs, parting them as Its hands pin your wrists above your head. “I can smell you.” It whispers. “I can taste your fear.”

You sob, sucking in a shaking breath as It pushes inside of you. The thick, pulsing length wriggles like a living thing, caressing against your walls and finding the sensitive spongey flesh that makes your eyes roll back. “Take it. You can…” you whimper. “You can take it all.”

Pennywise chuckles, Its fingers tightening on your wrists as It leans forward to press Its painted mouth against yours. “Taste them.” It whispers against your lips. “Theo Mitchell. Nasty little boy. Taste, precious one.”

You lick your tongue against Its mouth, the iron and rust of blood coating your lips with gore, and you clench hard around the intrusion of It thrusting in and out of you.

“Oho,” Pennywise chortles. “Oho, you like it. Good. Good.”

You moan, reaching out to thumb over Its jaw, and Pennywise stills for a moment.

You cry out, hand snapping back and reaching for your own wrists where It has pinned them over your head as blood runs down your arms. Pennywise withdraws the claws that have punctured your wrist, leaning up to lap the blood from your skin. “Too close,” you whisper, a reminder to yourself more than It. Pennywise couldn’t reciprocate affection, and It would punish you for reminding It so brazenly. You clench around It again in apology, rocking back and forth against the thrusting appendage pummelling against your insides.

“More?” It whispers, slipping a thin tentacle from the bell-sleeve at Its wrist to curl around your thigh, wriggling into you beside the thicker appendage. Your eyes roll back as your mouth opens on a silent scream, and Pennywise leans forward to lick Its tongue into your mouth and taste your blissed-out agony. Deeper, deeper. It bends over you, hinging at the waist and burrowing deeper into your mouth, nipping at the meat of your cheeks until your blood leaks into Its mouth and runs down your throat. Your spine curves, curves, creaks and curves as It presses you into a new shape, a shape just for It. The hand wrapped around your throat tightens, pinning you in place as It pushes Its tongue into your throat and further, further, to lick the electric thrum of your lungs. Bliss, bliss. Agony and bliss. Pennywise has never felt, It has never experienced a closeness like it. The urge to consume is replaced with the urge to combine, to become. To draw you inside of Itself, to keep you…

There is a snap. Pennywise knows the sound, has heard the sound pounding through Its fibres like a mimicry of a heartbeat since Its first taste of flesh and sinew and bone. The sharp, clear crack of bone breaking under pressure. It releases you, long fingers unfurling around the column of your neck to reveal the mottling of bruises spreading beneath your flesh like spiderwebs.

“No.” It utters the single syllable into the darkness. You’re limp and lifeless, a protrusion of bone jutting luridly against your throat. “No, no.”

It shakes you, and you rattle back and forth, that displaced bone poking into the meat of you and sliding free. Pennywise caresses the jagged edge with a finger, pushing it lightly until it buckles and slips back into your skin. “Pennywise doesn’t want to play now.”

Its voice dips an octave, the underlying growl of the Otherness weaving into Its words. “Enough, enough. Don’t make me punish you. Don’t make me bite.”

This should do it. You should open your eyes. Should pout your mouth at It, lick over the red of your lips and tell It you’re sorry. Show It you’re sorry, spreading your thighs to let It feast on you. But you don’t move. Not so much as a tremor.

“Come back, little one.” It murmurs, stained, gloved fingers brushing over your unseeing eyes. “Come back to Pennywise.”

Your eyes roll when your head is tipped forward, but you don’t look. You don’t see. And Pennywise tries to go back. Tries to slip from this place to that, from now to then. It knows that the fabric of time works differently for It than it does for you, but It calls to you anyway. Pennywise drops to Its knees, the silk of Its pants soaking in the filth of the low basin as It wraps an arm around your shoulders. Your head lolls back, loose as a ragdoll, but It feels no sense of pleasure in the pliancy of your body. You are gone. Your light is gone.

And perhaps there is no back, but It can keep you anyway. Lifted in Its lights, cradled above the rest. And when It emerges from the storm drain to take, it wears your face. Not your whole face, but your eyes or the soft line of your jaw or the mocking curve of your smirk. Just enough to keep your face in their minds, to keep your name whispered in the ghost stories around campfires each night as the teens of Derry gather to drink and fuck and pretend they’re not being hunted. But they are, oh they are.

Peter. James. Michael. Anna. Susie. Matilda. Maxwell, Maxwell, Maxwell. You whisper these names into Its head even now, even when you’re little more than bones resting in the bottom of Its nest. The cycle is almost over, it’s almost time to curl back into Its nest and hold the bones of your ribs close as It sleeps. But Pennywise will not go until It has taken every name on your list. It is the closest thing to devotion that It is capable of.