Chapter Text
The road was quiet, only crickets breaking through the night air. No one had driven on the road in days, ever since the Walk started. No one was on the roads in this part of Maine. The Walk usually bypassed this town, but no one wanted to run into the convoy. Or the blood. There was enough blood in Derry as it was.
Every living room was lit by the flicker of picturetube television, everyone focused on the last three Walkers. They were crossing the bridge. It never lasted long beyond that. Mothers covered their children’s eyes as the third Walker, the one who looked a little like the Major, was shot dead. The end was in sight as rain started falling on the final two. There was no way they would make it much longer, not after 5 days.
When the boy from Maine knelt down, Bill Denbrough knew it was over. He stood, almost knocking over his chair and startling his parents out of the semi-daze they were in. His mother reached out to him, missing his arm by an inch as he stumbled away, towards the kitchen door.
They all missed the shot.
He was out the door, out of the house, in seconds, running blindly into the dark. It had been months, almost a year since they had last seen each other, and the way Ray had been acting with the other boy, the boy who’d won, made it clear that he had moved on. There was no reason for him to still care this much, to feel this much.
But he did. He did and it hurt so much. It felt like the breakup all over again, but worse. A pit opened in his chest and he tripped, knees skidding on the pavement. Hot tears fell on his hands, in part from the fresh gashes in his skin. He sobbed, grasping at nothing, gasping to breathe.
It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair it wasn’t fair it wasn’t FAIR. He’d tried to convince Ray not to enter his name again, not to up the odds of him getting picked. That was why they’d fought, why they’d never seen each other again. Ray had been in the pot so many times, plotting for revenge, training in his way to win. He’d almost made it too.
The Major would pay for this. The Major and the boy who… No. It wasn’t his fault. He’d even tried to sacrifice himself for Ray. No, he wasn’t angry at the boy. He’d have to find him, thank him for the times he’d saved Ray, the amount of faith he’d had in him.
Taking a deep breath, he sat up, rubbing his hands on his thighs. His knees stung, gravel digging into the open wounds. Sniffling, he stumbled to his feet, pressing the palms of his hands into his eyes until he saw colour. He needed a plan. One that didn’t involve getting picked in the lottery. Bill was a lot of things, but athletic was not one of them.
He blinked, trying to get his bearings. He’d made it all the way to the edge of the quarry, not that he could really see much. The darkness pressed in around him and he shivered. His parents would be worried; he should get back. Moving slowly, he retraced his steps. The closer he got back to town, however, he slowed down. There was noise cutting through the night. People shouting, car horns blared. When a gun went off, he started running again.
Main street of Derry was a mess. There were bodies everywhere, and not a single person was heading in the same direction. Bill pushed through, trying to get back home. At the top of his street he ran into his father, who grabbed him and pulled him into a tight hug.
“Dad, what? What’s going on?” Bill pushed back, not fully leaving the protective circle of his fathers arms. “Why is everyone out-”
“He shot the Major.” The words hit Bill’s ears like a truck. “The boy, number 23… he shot the Major.”
Blood rushed into Bill’s head, and he stepped back. The Major was dead…? That meant The Long Walk… What had happened to the boy? He opened his mouth to ask, but his father interrupted him.
“The boy is gone, in the rush to the Major he disappeared. No one knows where he went and he had no one to go to…” He was mumbling now, drawing into himself in a way Bill hadn’t seen since Georgie died.
“I’m taking the car, Dad.” Bill took off again before his father could respond.
He had to find him first.