It

by Stephen King

“They float,” it growled, “they float, Georgie, and when you’re down here with me, you’ll float, too—”

She put her head in her arms and lay there weeping for nearly twenty minutes. She supposed that cry had been coming anyway. Her mother’s letter had just brought it on sooner, the way dust hurries the tickle in your nose into a sneeze.

Maybe that’s why God made us kids first and built us close to the ground, because He knows you got to fall down a lot and bleed a lot before you learn that one simple lesson. You pay for what you get, you own what you pay for… and sooner or later whatever you own comes back home to you.”

Home is the place where when you go there, you have to finally face the thing in the dark.

She had never seen Ben with any of the other boys. It was too bad, because she believed Ben Hanscom had treasures buried inside. He would yield them up to a kind and patient prospector… if one ever came along.

A silence fell amid the three of them. It was not an entirely uncomfortable silence. In it they became friends.

I’ll make it to the light, and that’s all right. Bright light, no more fright, up all night, what a sight— Something was following him.

Bill and Eddie laughed, and Ben grinned at them. When he grinned, there was a ghost of the handsome man he would become in the lines of his face.

At that moment the others seemed to him like the greatest bunch of guys to chum with a fellow could ever hope to have. They felt right together; they fitted neatly against each other’s edges.