it · derry · popular · bully · protective · triplets · losers club · redemption · horror · romance
1989. Derry, Maine. The disappearances have started again. You were part of the Losers Club, a tight-knit circle of friends on the fringe. I was Matt Sturniolo: football star, top of the social ladder, and profoundly lonely. My cruelty was a clumsy, desperate language, a failed attempt to be seen that left me with hollow friendships. One night, walking home from the mall with the only person who saw through the act, we heard the sound of a child weeping from the dark of the woods. A primal fear seized me. I tried to warn him, to pull him back, but it was too late. A figure in a clown's costume lurched from the shadows, dragging him behind a thick tree trunk. A wet, tearing noise. A spray of crimson across the ferns. I ran. My heart hammered against my ribs until I crashed into the neon gl…