The Long Sleep of Derry: A Chronicle of Fear
There’s a rot in Derry, Maine. It’s not in the soil or the water; it’s in the history, a stain that reappears every 27 years like a monstrous cicada. I’ve seen the records. I’ve charted the disappearances. It’s a pattern, a gruesome rhythm that the town has learned to ignore. But this story isn’t about the town. It’s about seven children who chose not to ignore it. It’s about the summer they stopped being afraid.
It began, as it always does, with a child. Little Georgie Denbrough, chasing a paper boat in a rainstorm. “Bill’s gonna kill me,” he frets, as his boat disappears into a storm drain. And that’s when he meets the clown. “Hiya, Georgie,” a voice says from the darkness, a voice that promises balloons and popcorn and all the wonders of the circus. Georgie knows he isn’t supposed to take things from strangers, but this is Pennywise the Dancing Clown. And once they’re introduced, they aren’t strangers anymore, are they? The conversation is playful, a perfect lure. But when Georgie reaches for his boat, the lure becomes a trap. The last thing anyone ever found of him was the boat.
Summer arrives, and with it, a reprieve. For Bill Denbrough, Georgie’s older brother, it’s a season haunted by a stutter and the ghost of a lost sibling. For his friends—foul-mouthed Richie Tozier, asthmatic Eddie Kaspbrak, and logical Stanley Uris—it’s a break from school and the tyranny of the local bully, Henry Bowers. They are the Losers’ Club, a title they wear with a kind of resigned pride.
Their ranks begin to swell, first with Ben Hanscom, the “new kid,” whose refuge is the library and whose tormentor is Bowers. Then, Beverly Marsh, a girl whose reputation is a lie spun by cruel classmates, and whose real horror waits for her at home. And finally, Mike Hanlon, the homeschooled outsider who carries the weight of a family tragedy.
They are drawn together by a shared experience, a horror they can’t explain. Each of them has seen It. Not just a clown, but something more personal, more terrifying. For Eddie, it’s a grotesque, walking leper. For Stan, it’s a distorted woman from a painting in his father’s office. For Mike, it’s the burning hands of his parents, trapped in a fire he couldn’t save them from. For Beverly, it’s a geyser of blood erupting from her bathroom sink, a horror only the other Losers can see. And for Bill, it’s the most heartbreaking vision of all: Georgie, standing in their flooded cellar, repeating a single, chilling phrase… “You’ll float, too.”
The pieces click into place in Ben’s bedroom, surrounded by his historical maps and newspaper clippings. He reveals the town’s dark secret: the disappearances, the tragedies, they happen every 27 years. The Ironworks explosion, the Black Spot fire, the Bradley Gang shootout—all of it connected. And all of it leads back to one place: the derelict house on Neibolt Street, where an old well sits, connecting every sewer line in Derry. That’s where It lives.
Fear is a powerful motivator. It tells you to run, to hide, to pretend it isn’t happening, “like everyone else in this town.” But Bill refuses. “If I was Betty Ripsom,” he says, his stutter gone, replaced by a cold resolve, “I would want us to find me. Georgie too.” For him, walking into that house is easier than walking into his own, where the silence of his brother’s empty room is a constant scream.
And so, the Losers go to war. Their battleground is the crumbling, nightmarish house on Neibolt Street, a place that twists itself into their worst fears. It separates them, hunts them, tries to break them apart. But they find a strength they never knew they had—not as individuals, but as a unit. They wound the creature, forcing it to retreat deep into the sewers.
They follow it down, into the stinking darkness, into its lair. And there, amidst a floating mountain of the bodies of lost children, they face It in its truest form. It offers Bill his brother back, a final, cruel temptation. But Bill knows the truth now. He knows this isn’t Georgie. He raises the bolt gun, and with a single word—”Swear”—he seals a pact with his friends. If It isn’t dead, if It ever comes back, they will too.
They emerge from the sewers, battered but whole, bound by a terrifying secret and a blood oath. They know the monster might not be gone forever. They know that every 27 years, the rot might surface again. But they also know something else, something the town of Derry has long forgotten: you don’t have to be afraid. Not when you have someone to be afraid with.