It

Tom dreams that he is killing his father, who is already dead in real life. Then he dreams he is walking down a dark tunnel, chasing kids. There are balloons in each of the tunnel’s intersections. He has a knife in his hand. He sees “his companions” (1002), Victor and Belch. One of them is missing his head.

Tom wakes in a Holiday Inn in Derry. A balloon is tied to his bathroom door. A voice comes from the balloon: “I want to see that everything turns out to your satisfaction, Tom. I want to see her take a whuppin’; I want to see them all take a whuppin’” (1003). After the voice stops talking, Tom gets dressed.

Audra is also dreaming of being in someone else’s body and mind. She is with other children, being chased. Bill is there and has all of his hair. She thinks her name in the dream is Beverly, and she sees herself going through a small wooden door in a sewer.

She wakes up in her hotel in Derry. She calls the Derry Town House and asks the operator to call Bill’s room. There is no answer. The light comes on in her bathroom. A voice says: “We all float down here” (1008). The TV turns on and she sees a clown with sharp teeth holding up Freddie’s severed head. She runs outside into the parking lot and tries to get into her car. Tom Rogan grabs her and asks if he has seen her in the movies before.

Beverly and Bill go to Eddie’s room. Bill says they can’t call the cops because “Derry is It. They won’t hear, they won’t see, they won’t know” (1011). Ben and Richie arrive. Beverly calls the library. It is answered by the Chief of Police, Andrew Rademacher. He tells them that Mike was assaulted and is at the hospital. She hangs up.

Richie calls the hospital and asks about Mike pretending to be a reporter. He learns that Mike is in grave condition. Bill says it’s time to go fight It, even though they are missing two members. As they drive in Eddie's limo, Pennywise’s voice comes on the radio. It puts George on the radio, and George accuses Bill of letting It kill him before they turn the radio off.

When they get to the pipe they had climbed down before into the sewers, Bill screams. Audra’s purse is lying next to it. As he climbs down the ladder, Bill prays that he will be able to save her.

This chapter begins from the monster's point of view in August of 1958: “Before the universe there had been only two things. One was Itself and one was The Turtle. The Turtle was a stupid old thing that never came out of its shell” (1023). It thinks that Derry had been created in Its image. The imagination of people on Earth make them more susceptible to fear, which is what makes them taste better to It.

Now, It knows they are in the sewers again, and it hates that they ever made It fear them. It is worried that they are being supported by another, higher power. The monster promises itself that it will make them suffer before it will “cast them, shrieking and insane, into the deadlights” (1025).

As a child, Eddie has always had an innate sense of direction. He leads them through the pipes towards the center of town, near the Canal. They see Patrick Hockstetter’s corpse floating in the water. They hear Henry yelling in the distance that he is going to get them.

“That sense of Another” (1031) grows stronger in It. It is worried because they are coming, even though they are weaker now that they are only five. It thinks of Audra, who is now “in the lands beyond the Turtle. In the outlands beyond all lands. She was in Its eye; she was in Its mind. She was in the deadlights” (1031). It remembers when Tom came down. It had not changed in shape: “It did not dress when it was at home” (1032), and Tom had dropped dead of shock when he had seen It. Audra had not. Before her thoughts ceased, she had thought: “OH DEAR JESUS IT IS FEMALE” (1032). It had then wrapped her in silk and hung her by the ceiling for later.

Bill gets ahead of the other, shouting for Audra. Richie tells him to slow down, that they have to stay together. They catch up to Bill, then see the skeletons of Belch and Victor. Bill is muttering that he never should have told Audra where he was going. Beverly shakes him and tells him they need him. They climb down another pipe and Bill finds Audra’s wedding ring. He puts it on.

As children, they hear Henry yelling for them again, he is still coming. They hear something else coming towards them in the dark. It is a giant eye, pulled along by moving tendrils that stick out of it. Beverly’s match goes out and she feels it touch her in the dark. One cups her ear. Ben pulls it off. Bill tries to help, and his arm goes into the eye all the way to the shoulder. He screams in pain. Eddie squirts the eye many times with his aspirator and screams that they have to fight It. They begin to punch and kick the eye until It withdraws.

They go forward and move into a large chamber. Stan sees the giant bird diving towards them. Mike cuts it with a knife. Stanley begins listing birds that he believes in, then screams: “But I don’t believe in you!” (1046). The bird leaves. They move forward, deeper into the tunnel, and soon they hear a massive heartbeat as they reach a blank wall with a small door in it. There is a mark on the door, but they all see it as a different symbol. They go inside.

As adults, Bill asks them if they remember the eye and how Eddie stopped it. They stand in a circle and put their hands on each other’s shoulders. Bill asks if they remember what It really was, and they don’t. George appears and tells Bill that it is his fault, and that now he is going to die. Bill, not stuttering, begins shouting the tongue twister. George disappears, and Bill screams that he is sorry about what happened to him.

Above, in Derry, it is raining hard. Between 5 and 6:30 a.m., lightning strikes, hitting buildings, and the flood conditions worsen. Mike wakes up in the hospital at 6:46 a.m. and wonders what is happening to the others.

At the same time, Bill feels that something is wrong with Mike. He tells them to grab his hands: “Send him our power!” (1061). An orderly named Mark Lamonica is about to give Mike an injection that will kill him. Mike feels power course through him and hits Lamonica in the face with a water glass. Lamonica falls as Mike shouts for help. Mike begins to pray for his friends.

Bill tells them that Mike is okay, and they keep moving. They reach the small door, and the mark is there again: “Beverly saw Tom’s face. Bill saw Audra’s severed head with blank eyes that stared at him in dreadful accusation. Eddie saw a grinning skull poised over two crossed bones, the symbol for poison. Richie saw the bearded face of a degenerate Paul Bunyan. And Ben saw Henry Bowers” (1063).

They crawl through the small door and look up. Bill’s first thought is of Stan: “No wonder Stan committed suicide! Oh God I wish I had!” (1064). It races down across a spiderweb, “a nightmare Spider from beyond time and space, a Spider from beyond the fevered imaginings of whatever inmates may live in the deepest hell” (1064). Bill knows that It is not actually a spider, but this is the closest thing to Its true form that their minds can grasp. Bill notices that It has an egg-sac on Its belly. It is pregnant.

Bill steps forward. It rears up on its back legs. Bill sees “lights, saw an endless hairy thing which was made of light and nothing else, orange light, dead light that mocked life. The ritual began for the second time” (1066).

As children, when they see the spider, Bill steps forward and accuses It of killing George. It had also showed Bill the lights then. When Bill sees the lights, he is taken into a void where he has a conversation with It. It tells him: “I am eternal. I am the Eater of Worlds” (1068). It throws Bill up into space. It tells him that soon Bill will see the truth: “My eternity, and you are lost in it, lost forever, never to find your way back; you are eternal now, and condemned to wander in the black… after you meet Me face to face, that is” (1070).

Bill senses the presence of something else and moves towards it. It is an ancient Turtle: “Bill thought it must be the oldest thing anyone could imagine” (1070). The Turtle says it created the universe but cannot intervene. He says George “has his own place in the macroverse” (1070). Bill understands that there is something beyond the Turtle and It, a Final Creator. He believes that what the Turtle calls the macroverse is where It really lives, “as the smallest mote in the Other’s mind” (1071). He thinks he will live there inside of It, insane forever.

The Turtle says that Bill can help himself. The voice of It replaces the Turtle’s and Bill tries to recite the tongue twister: “Wait for the deadlights! You’ll go mad… but you’ll live… and live… inside them… inside Me” (1072). Bill believes that It must be bluffing to some degree. It is split between Its eternal version in the void, and the physical piece of Itself on Earth, and that piece can be destroyed. He understands that if It can throw him far enough towards Its eternal self, The Ritual of Chüd will end and It will win. Bill begins to laugh. He recites the tongue twister and then tells It that he still believes in every childish thing, From Santa Clause to the Tooth Fairy. His direction reverses and he speeds back past the Turtle. It is hurt, screaming for Bill to let It go.

Bill returns to his body. The spider is climbing its web. The web begins to fall, and the room grows darker. Eddie says he knows that It is dying because he heard it screaming. Bill says they have to stay and finish It.

As an adult, Bill returns to the void when It shows him its underbelly. It tells Bill that the Turtle has died. Bill doesn’t believe It. Richie sees Bill freeze: “It was an exact replay of what had happened before—at first” (1078). Richie looks up at the web and sees that it is full of bodies, including Audra. Then he notices Bill’s eyes rolling up to the white, and Bill’s skin is stretching across his face. He hears Bill’s voice screaming, as if from somewhere far away: “Oh God the Turtle is really dead” (1080). Richie begins mocking It in an Irish Cop’s voice. He is immediately “in darkness greater than he had ever known” (1081), flying into the void. He sees the Turtle’s shell. Its voice begins screaming for Richie to let It go. Richie manages to find Bill’s hand in the dark and they are pulled backwards, past the Turtle, towards Earth.

As Eddie watches while Richie and Bill struggle with It in the void, several wounds open in the spider’s sides. He sees It lift its stinger to stab Bill and runs forwards, spraying his aspirator into one of Its eyes. He realizes that his good arm has slipped into Its mouth. When It moves and bites his arm off, Eddie triggers the aspirator inside of It. Eddie falls. His vision grows cloudy. He knows Beverly is crying over him, then Richie is looking down at him as well. Eddie dies.

At 7:49 a.m., above, a series of explosions destroys the Derry Mall as well as a Sears. The wind continues to intensity until it is almost at hurricane level.

As children, Eddie tries to lead the other kids out of the sewer after they think they have killed It. Bill worries that they “are falling away from each other” (1092). The bond they had shared—fighting It—is dissolving. They are not sure that they are going to be able to find their way out. They are lost.

Beverly says she has an idea. She begins undressing. She says she knows “something that will bring us together forever, that will show I love you all” (1093). One at a time, she has sex with each of the boys. When they are finished, Eddie understands where they went in the wrong direction and leads them back down the tunnel.

After Eddie dies in the present, Bill says they have to finish It. Bill then sees Audra in the web. They follow Its trail of blood across the chamber. Then they find a group of eggs. Bill and Richie go ahead while Ben begins destroying the eggs.

It is starting to suspect that It may not be eternal. It knows they are killing Its children. It stops running and prepares to fight them. 

Derry is now close to flooding. The Standpipe falls and millions of gallons of water rush out, sweeping many houses off their foundations and into the Barrens. At 10:02 a.m., “Downtown Derry simply collapsed” (1112) after the Canal bursts.

Bill and Richie see It turn around, prepared to fight. It is begging them to let It go and promising to make them live for hundreds of years. It tells Bill that It can bring Audra back. They rush It and begin punching it. They manage to tear a hole in Its body and Bill pulls out Its heart and smashes it. Then “he heard the voice of the Other. The Turtle might be dead, but whatever had invested it was not. Son, you did real good” (1111). The lights go out. Bill finds Richie, who is unconscious, and carries him back the way they had come. He finds Ben, and Richie regains consciousness.

Back in Its chamber, they find Beverly with Eddie. Audra is on the ground nearby. When Bill goes to her, she is unresponsive and catatonic. Ben carries Eddie and Bill carries Audra out through the small door. The mark on the door is gone. They leave Eddie’s body there and keep moving. Ben and Richie take turns carrying Audra when Bill is too tired. The tunnels are soon much more filled with water. They find the marquee for the Aladdin Theater and Ben realizes that the town must be collapsing. They make it outside. Beverly hugs Bill and tells him that she hopes Audra will be all right.

Later that day, they look at their palms. The scars are gone. They remember being kids, after the first time they fought It. They had stood on the banks of the river and cut their palms with Coke bottle glass. Bill had looked around at the circle: “He sees them, really sees them, for the last time, because in some way he understands that they will never be together again, the seven of them—not this way” (1129). They promise that they will come back if It comes back. Then they each go home. As Bill walks, he begins to whistle.