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Maturin the Turtle

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Maturin
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Maturin the Turtle serves as the overarching protagonist across Stephen King's multiverse. He acts as the unseen guiding presence in the novel IT and plays a similar overarching role in The Dark Tower series. He is also referenced in the novel 11/22/63.

Maturin is a cosmic turtle and one of the twelve Guardians of the Beams that uphold the Dark Tower. He stood watch over one end of a Beam, while his counterpart Shardik guarded the opposite end.

"Spoilers Ahead"
This character has very important lore or story elements, with the profile having spoilers for the story and the fate of said character, avoid reading if one would like to pursue the verse without any spoilers for themself.
"Mature Content"
This character has mature themes and concepts, thus those of young age are ill-advised to look through these.
Maturin The Turtle
“ I’m the Turtle, son. I made the universe, but please don’t blame me for it; I had a bellyache. „
Origin
Origin Stephen King IT
Creator Stephen King
First Appearance Stephen King IT PART 1: The Shadow Before, Derry: The First Interlude
Actor N/A
Characteristics
Species Guardian
Gender Genderless
Pronouns He/Him
Sexuality N/A
Age N/A
Birthday N/A
Height Unknown
Weight Unknown
Ethnicity N/A
Status Deceased
Alignment Neutral Good
Archetype Protector/Guardian
Occupation Tower Holder
Time Period 1957, 1958, 1984, 1985
Language Common Language
Combat Style Observer
Homeworld The Macroverse
Relationships
Affiliations The Losers' Club
Enemies Pennywise

Background

This dropdown contains the synopsis of Maturin’s story. Read at your own risk as you may be spoiled otherwise!

Maturin is a colossal, ancient turtle that existed long before the mainstream universe of Stephen King's novels came into being. He is kind, wise, loving, gentle, compassionate, and benevolent, often speaking to humans in a grandfatherly manner. For the most part, he remains withdrawn into his shell, sleeping and rarely emerging. One of the few times he came out was when he had a stomachache and vomited up the mainstream universe, after which he retreated back into his shell. Because of this, It regarded the Turtle as old, lazy, and foolish. However, given his immense wisdom, power, and willingness to help those in need, It's view of him appears to be incorrect.

In It, Maturin serves mostly as a spectator to the conflict between It and the Losers' Club. He only intervenes directly during the Ritual of Chüd in 1958, when he advises young Bill Denbrough. Maturin introduces himself politely to Bill and initially says he takes no side in the matter. However, after expressing disdain for his "brother," he offers Bill profound counsel, assuring him that It is afraid of Bill, of human potential, and of the Turtle himself. Maturin urges Bill to fight It using willpower, mental strength, and faith. With the Turtle's encouragement, Bill overpowers and wounds It, forcing it to retreat. Before retreating into his shell once more, Maturin congratulates Bill but cautions him to finish It off for good, as he may not get another chance.

The Guardians are said to exist beyond concepts such as fate, death, life, and even Ka itself. Because they are beyond Ka, it is implied that not even the Crimson King could destroy them. This likely applies only to the original Guardians that emerged from the Prim.

Role
While the other Guardians are tasked with protecting individual Beams, Maturin's true purpose is far greater. When Gan rose from the Prim and created existence, he knew a single universe would not be vast enough to contain all forms of life and experience, so he divided creation into multiple parallel realities. As the Dark Tower rose, the Prim receded and the Macroverse expanded. Gan continued on his path, but Maturin took everything upon his back—including the Tower itself—and kept existence from falling into the void of Todash.

Maturin originally emerged from the Prim, but the Guardians seen in The Dark Tower series are artificial constructs created by the Great Old Ones.

The Turtle may also be associated with Can-tah, which means "little god." Like other gods in Mid-World, the Guardians have their own totems—divine figures intended to aid those in need. Can-tah is a carved turtle, and its name translates to "little god."

The Guardians are said to exist beyond concepts such as fate, death, and life, and even beyond Ka itself. This suggests that not even the Crimson King could destroy them. This likely applies only to the original Guardians that came from the Prim.

It
During the Losers' Club's second confrontation with It twenty-seven years later, It gleefully told Bill that Maturin was dead, having choked to death on a galaxy or two. In the Ritual of Chüd in 1985, Bill was shown the Turtle's massive corpse. Although the novel states that the Turtle died, it appears only its physical body perished. After the Losers defeat Pennywise, Maturin briefly speaks to Bill Denbrough again, and Bill comes to believe that the essence which gave the Turtle life still endures.

Appearance

General Description: Maturin is an ethereal sea turtle made of cosmic energy. He is titanic in size and has a shell of many colors. His toenails show galaxies swimming within them.

Personality

  • Kind and Benevolent: Maturin is kind and benevolent, having a very grandfather-like demeanor when speaking to humans. It considered Maturin to be old, lazy, and stupid. However, given his vast wisdom, power, and aid to those in need, this perception appears false.
  • Withdrawn and Rarely Active: Maturin is constantly withdrawn into his shell, sleeping and rarely coming out for anything. He once came out due to a stomachache, vomited out the mainstream universe, and promptly retreated back into his shell.

Relationships

Pennywise

Pennywise refers to Maturin as a stupid old thing and even if it did vomit the universe out whole it didn't change the fact of its stupidity.

Losers Club

Maturin initially it he one helping the Losers Club throughout their child years, guiding them along their path and protecting them from danger. However, by the time they were adults he choked on two galaxies and died.

General Information

Name: Maturin[1]

Other Names: The Turtle[2]

Origin: Stephen King IT

Overall Series: The Dark Tower

First Appearance: Stephen King IT PART 1: The Shadow Before, Derry: The First Interlude

Company: Viking

Creator: Stephen King

Actor: N/A

Gender: Genderless

Sexuality: N/A

Pronouns: He/Him

Handedness: N/A

Age: N/A (Existed before the universe even existed[3])

Birthday: N/A

Time Period

Timeline: Main Timeline

Homeworld: The Macroverse

Residence: The Macroverse

Story Role: Helpful Force

Legacy: Multiversal Legacy (As Maturin is known as a guardian that holds the Dark Tower in place)

Influence: Event Influence

Language: Common Language

Ethnicity: N/A

Religion: N/A

Classification: Cosmic Turtle, The Beam Guardian, Pennywise's Brother

Species: Guardian

State of Being: Detatchment from Reality

Physiology: Turtle Physiology

In-Universe Creator: Unknown

Occupation: Tower Holder

Combat Style: Observer

Affiliations: The Losers' Club

Enemies: Pennywise

Height: Unknown

Weight: Unknown

Status: Deceased (Noted that it choked on two galaxies, though this is noted to be its physical manifestation the idea of Maturin can still exist)

Date of Death: Unknown

Alignment: Neutral Good (Maturin thinks slow but is always kind, holding all of existence within his mind, loving the land, the seas, and even the children)

Protection Level: Multiversal Protector

Potential

  • Type(s) of Potential: Limitless Potential
  • Level of Potential: Limitless
  • Description: As Maturin's natural nature as a cosmic being that holds the Dark Tower.
  • Limitations: Nothing notable.

Archetype: Protector/Guardian

Codex Statistics

Grade: S

Tier: Unknown-A

Cardinality: Unknown

Dimensionality: 'Unknown

Power Source: Belief

Attack Potency: Unknown: Cosmic level (Maturin created the universe from a stomachache and eclipses it in size[12])

Durability: Unknown: Cosmic level

Striking Strength: Unknown: Cosmic Class

Lifting Strength: Unknown: Cosmic Class

Travel Speed: Unknown: True level

Attack Speed: Unknown: True level

Reaction Speed: Unknown: True level

Stamina: Superhuman+

Range: Multi-Universal through sheer size (Maturin created the universe from a stomachache[12], meaning he far eclipses it)

Intelligence: Cosmic Intelligence

Knowledge: Cosmic level

Powers and Techniques

Equipment

Nothing notable.

Notable Techniques

Telepathy

Similar to his "brother" It, Maturin possesses powerful telepathic abilities, capable of reading and broadcasting his thoughts to others' minds. His telepathy is much more powerful than It's, as when speaking to Bill Denborough he immediately mutes It's furious yammering, and later speaks directly to Bill while he is lost deep in It's true domain.

Creating

Maturin is responsible for the mainstream Universe, although he admits to Bill this was not intentional and merely the result of a cosmic "stomachache".

Guidance

While he rarely directly intervenes, his influence and guidance in Derry has been shown. He also gives Bill the advice needed for him to succeed in the Ritual of Chud and defeat It.

Other

Standard Tactics: Maturin does not interfere but guide those to what they need to do.

Weaknesses: All things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit[12], this includes IT and Maturin.

Explanations

Derry

The main town Pennywise resides in and carries out his killings. Pennywise has been in Derry since the beginning of its history and is referred to as "Derry itself" by some people that have seen them. It's connection to Derry is so strong that it's death caused Derry to collapse and while it was dying it was causing apocalyptic disasters to spread across the town.

Trivia

  • Although Maturin is one of the most significant figures in the Stephen King universe, the character was entirely absent from the television miniseries adaptation of It.
  • An extinct species of turtle discovered in the Amazon Rainforest, named Peltocephalus maturin, was named in honor of the character.

Misconceptions

Maturin Didn't Die

The argument stems from the belief that Pennywise was using manipulation and illusions to make the kids beliee Matrin died, however, this is never stated throughout the novel.

The Loser's Club even acknowledges the Turtle being dead and not being able to help them anymore throughout the novel.

Battle Records

None.

None.

None.

References

This dropdown contains passages from the Novel IT. Warning as there might be some racist terminology in there that have been censored. Also due to the sheer amount of references, the page may lag for a couple of seconds opening it up.
  1. ↑ Song of Susannah Maturin "This is what Susannah's demon told her. "There are six Beams, as you did say, but there are twelve Guardians, one for each end of each Beam. This for we're still on it is the Beam of Shardik. Were you to go beyond the Tower, it would become the Beam of Maturin, the great turtle upon whose shell the world rests."
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Stephen King IT PART 1: The Shadow Before, Derry: The First Interlude "Part of me — the part Bill would call the voice of the Turtle — says I should call them all, tonight. But am I, even now, completely sure? Do I want to be completely sure? No — of course not. But God, what happened to Adrian Mellon is so much like what happened to Stuttering Bill's brother, George, in the fail of 1957"
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Stephen King IT Part 5: The Ritual of Chüd Chapter 21 Under the City "Something new had happened.
    For the first time in forever, something new.
    Before the universe there had been only two things. One was Itself and the other was the Turtle. The Turtle was a stupid old thing that never came out of its shell. It thought that maybe the Turtle was dead, had been dead for the last billion years or so. Even if it wasn't, it was still a stupid old thing, and even if the Turtle had vomited the universe out whole, that didn't change the fact of its stupidity.
    It had come here long after the Turtle withdrew into its shell, here to Earth, and It had discovered a depth of imagination here that was almost new, almost of concern. This quality of imagination made the food very rich. Its teeth rent flesh gone stiff with exotic terrors and voluptuous fears: they dreamed of nightbeasts and moving muds; against their will they contemplated endless gulphs.
    Upon this rich food It existed in a simple cycle of waking to eat and sleeping to dream. It had created a place in Its own image, and It looked upon this place with favor from the deadlights which were Its eyes. Derry was Its killing-pen, the people of Derry Its sheep. Things had gone on.
    Then . . . these children.
    Something new.
    For the first time in forever.
    When It had burst up into the house on Neibolt Street, meaning to kill them all, vaguely uneasy that It had not been able to do so already (and surely that unease had been the first new thing), something had happened which was totally unexpected, utterly unthought of, and there had been pain, pain, great roaring pain all through the shape it had taken, and for one moment there had also been fear, because the only thing It had in common with the stupid old Turtle and the cosmology of the macroverse outside the puny egg of this universe was just this: all living things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit. For the first time It realized that perhaps Its ability to change Its shapes might work against It as well as for It. There had never been pain before, there had never been fear before, and for a moment It had thought It might die — oh Its head had been filled with a great white silver pain, and it had roared and mewled and bellowed and somehow the children had escaped.
    But now they were coming. They had entered Its domain under the city, seven foolish children blundering through the darkness without lights or weapons. It would kill them now, surely.
    It had made a great self-discovery: It did not want change or surprise. It did not want new things, ever. It wanted only to eat and sleep and dream and eat again.
    Following the pain and that brief bright fear, another new emotion had arisen (as all genuine emotions were new to It, although It was a great mocker of emotions): anger. It would kill the children because they had, by some amazing accident, hurt It. But It would make them suffer first because for one brief moment they had made It fear them.
    Come to me then, It thought, listening to their approach. Come to me, children, and see how we float down here . . . how we all float.
    And yet there was a thought that insinuated itself no matter how strongly It tried to push the thought away. It was simply this: if all things flowed from It (as they surely had done since the Turtle sicked up the universe and then fainted inside its shell), how could any creature of this or any other world fool It or hurt It, no matter how briefly or triflingly? How was that possible?
    And so a last new thing had come to It, this not an emotion but a cold speculation: suppose It had not been alone, as It had always believed?
    Suppose there was Another?
    And suppose further that these children were agents of that Other?
    Suppose . . . suppose . . .
    It began to tremble.
    Hate was new. Hun was new. Being crossed in Its purpose was new. But the most terrible new thing was this fear. Not fear of the children, that had passed, but the fear of not being alone.
    No. There was no other. Surely there was not. Perhaps because they were children their imaginations had a certain raw power It had briefly underestimated. But now that they were coming, It would let them come. They would come and It would cast them one by one into the macroverse . . . into the deadlights of Its eyes.
    Yes.
    When they got here It would cast them, shrieking and insane, into the deadlights."
  4. ↑ Stephen King IT PART 1: The Shadow Before, Chapter 1: After the Flood (1957) "The three vertical lenses on all sides of the traffic light were dark this afternoon in the fall of 1957, and the houses were all dark, too"
  5. ↑ Stephen King IT PART 1: The Shadow Before, Chapter 1: After the Flood (1957)
  6. ↑ Stephen King IT PART 1: The Shadow Before, Chapter 2: After the Festival (1984)
  7. ↑ Stephen King IT PART 1: The Shadow Before, Chapter 3: Six Phone Calls (1985)
  8. ↑ Stephen King IT PART 2 JUNE OF 1958: The Shadow Before
  9. ↑ Stephen King IT PART 2 JUNE OF 1958: The Shadow Before, Chapter 6 One of the Missing: A Tale from the Summer of '58
  10. ↑ Stephen King IT Part 4: July of 1958
  11. ↑ Stephen King IT PART 1: The Shadow Before, Chapter 1: After the Flood (1957) "In that autumn of 1957, eight months before the real horrors began and twenty-eight years before the final showdown, Stuttering Bill was ten years old."
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Stephen King IT Part 5: The Ritual of Chüd Chapter 21 Under the City "Something new had happened.
    For the first time in forever, something new.
    Before the universe there had been only two things. One was Itself and the other was the Turtle. The Turtle was a stupid old thing that never came out of its shell. It thought that maybe the Turtle was dead, had been dead for the last billion years or so. Even if it wasn't, it was still a stupid old thing, and even if the Turtle had vomited the universe out whole, that didn't change the fact of its stupidity.
    It had come here long after the Turtle withdrew into its shell, here to Earth, and It had discovered a depth of imagination here that was almost new, almost of concern. This quality of imagination made the food very rich. Its teeth rent flesh gone stiff with exotic terrors and voluptuous fears: they dreamed of nightbeasts and moving muds; against their will they contemplated endless gulphs.
    Upon this rich food It existed in a simple cycle of waking to eat and sleeping to dream. It had created a place in Its own image, and It looked upon this place with favor from the deadlights which were Its eyes. Derry was Its killing-pen, the people of Derry Its sheep. Things had gone on.
    Then . . . these children.
    Something new.
    For the first time in forever.
    When It had burst up into the house on Neibolt Street, meaning to kill them all, vaguely uneasy that It had not been able to do so already (and surely that unease had been the first new thing), something had happened which was totally unexpected, utterly unthought of, and there had been pain, pain, great roaring pain all through the shape it had taken, and for one moment there had also been fear, because the only thing It had in common with the stupid old Turtle and the cosmology of the macroverse outside the puny egg of this universe was just this: all living things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit. For the first time It realized that perhaps Its ability to change Its shapes might work against It as well as for It. There had never been pain before, there had never been fear before, and for a moment It had thought It might die — oh Its head had been filled with a great white silver pain, and it had roared and mewled and bellowed and somehow the children had escaped.
    But now they were coming. They had entered Its domain under the city, seven foolish children blundering through the darkness without lights or weapons. It would kill them now, surely.
    It had made a great self-discovery: It did not want change or surprise. It did not want new things, ever. It wanted only to eat and sleep and dream and eat again.
    Following the pain and that brief bright fear, another new emotion had arisen (as all genuine emotions were new to It, although It was a great mocker of emotions): anger. It would kill the children because they had, by some amazing accident, hurt It. But It would make them suffer first because for one brief moment they had made It fear them.
    Come to me then, It thought, listening to their approach. Come to me, children, and see how we float down here . . . how we all float.
    And yet there was a thought that insinuated itself no matter how strongly It tried to push the thought away. It was simply this: if all things flowed from It (as they surely had done since the Turtle sicked up the universe and then fainted inside its shell), how could any creature of this or any other world fool It or hurt It, no matter how briefly or triflingly? How was that possible?
    And so a last new thing had come to It, this not an emotion but a cold speculation: suppose It had not been alone, as It had always believed?
    Suppose there was Another?
    And suppose further that these children were agents of that Other?
    Suppose . . . suppose . . .
    It began to tremble.
    Hate was new. Hun was new. Being crossed in Its purpose was new. But the most terrible new thing was this fear. Not fear of the children, that had passed, but the fear of not being alone.
    No. There was no other. Surely there was not. Perhaps because they were children their imaginations had a certain raw power It had briefly underestimated. But now that they were coming, It would let them come. They would come and It would cast them one by one into the macroverse . . . into the deadlights of Its eyes.
    Yes.
    When they got here It would cast them, shrieking and insane, into the deadlights."
  13. ↑ End-World Almanac "According to Mid-World's dash-dinhs, or religious leaders, the Guardians exist beyond the reach of ka, and so cannot be even killed by the Crimson King. We can only hope that they are right."
  14. ↑ Stephen King IT Part 4: July of 1958, Chapter 15 The Smoke Hole "The two of them were standing together in the middle of the Barrens, and it was nearly dusk.
    It was the Barrens, he knew that, but everything was different. The foliage was lusher, deeper, savagely fragrant. There were plants he had never seen before, and Richie realized some of the things he had first taken for trees were really giant ferns. There was the sound of running water, but it was much louder than it should have been — this water sounded not like the leisurely flow of the Kenduskeag Stream but more the way he imagined the Colorado River would sound as it cut its way through the Grand Canyon.
    It was hot, too. Not that it didn't get hot in Maine during the summer, and humid enough so that sometimes you felt sticky just lying in your bed at night, but this was more heat and more humidity than he had ever felt in his whole life. A low mist, smoky and thick, lay in the hollows of the land and crept around the boys' legs. It had a thin acrid smell like burning green wood.
    He and Mike began to move toward the sound of the running water without speaking, pushing their way through the strange foliage. Thick ropy lianas lay between some of the trees like spidery hammocks, and once Richie heard something go crashing off through the underbrush. It sounded bigger than a deer.
    He stopped long enough to look around, turning in a circle, studying the horizon. He knew where the Standpipe's thick white cylinder should have been, but it wasn't there. Neither was the railroad trestle going over to the trainyards at the end of Neibolt Street or the Old Cape housing development — low bluffs and red sandstone outcroppings of rock bulged out of thick stands of giant fern and pine trees where the Old Cape should have been.
    There was a flapping noise overhead. The boys ducked as a squadron of bats flapped by. They were the biggest bats Richie had ever seen, and for a moment he was more terrified than he had been even when Bill was trying to get Silver rolling and he had heard the werewolf closing in on them from behind. The stillness and the alienness of this land were both terrible, but its awful familiarity was somehow worse.
    No need to be scared, he told himself. Remember that this is just a dream, or a vision, or whatever you want to call it. Me and ole Mikey are really back in the clubhouse, goofed up on smoke. Pretty soon Big Bill is gonna get noivous from the soivice because we're not answering anymore, and he and Ben will come down and haul us out. It's just like Conway Twitty says — only make-believe.
    But he could see how one of the bats' wings was so ragged the hazy sun shone through it, and when they passed beneath one of the giant ferns he could see a fat yellow caterpillar trundling across a wide green frond, leaving its shadow behind it. There were tiny black mites jumping and sizzling on the caterpillar's body. If this was a dream, it was the clearest one he had ever had.
    They went on toward the sound of the water, and in the thick knee-high groundmist, Richie was unable to tell if his feet were touching the ground or not. They came to a place where both the mist and the ground stopped. Richie looked, unbelieving. This was not the Kenduskeag — and yet it was. The stream boiled and roiled through a narrow watercourse cut through that same crumbly rock — looking across to the far side, he could see ages cut into those stacked layers of stone, red and then orange and then red again. You couldn't walk across this stream on stepping-stones; you'd need a rope bridge, and if you fell in you would be swept away at once. The sound of the water was the sound of bitter foolish anger, and as Richie watched, slack-jawed, he saw a pinkish-silver fish jump in an impossibly high arc, snapping at the bugs that made shifting clouds just above the surface of the water. It splashed down again, giving Richie just time enough to register its presence, and to realize he had never seen a fish exactly like that in his whole life, not even in a book.
    Birds flocked across the sky, squalling harshly. Not a dozen or two dozen; for a moment the sky was so dark with birds that they blotted out the sun. Something else crashed through the bushes, and then more things. Richie wheeled, his heart thudding painfully in his chest, and saw something that looked like an antelope flash by, heading southeast.
    Something's going to happen. And they know it.
    The birds passed, presumably alighting somewhere en masse farther south. Another animal crashed by them . . . and another. Then there was silence except for the steady rumble of the Kenduskeag. The silence had a waiting quality about it, a pregnant quality Richie didn't like. He felt the hairs shifting and trying to stand up on the back of his neck and he groped for Mike's hand again.
    Do you know where we are? he shouted at Mike. You got the word? Jesus, yes! Mike shouted back. I got it! This is ago, Richie! Ago!
    Richie nodded. Ago, as in once upon a time, long long ago, when we all lived in the forest and nobody lived anywhere else. They were in the Barrens as they had been God knew how many thousands of years ago. They were in some unimaginable past before the ice age, when New England had been as tropical as South America was today . . . if there still was a today. He looked around again, nervously, almost expecting to see a brontosaurus raise its cranelike neck against the sky and stare down at them, its mouth full of mud and dripping uprooted plants, or a saber-toothed tiger come stalking out of the undergrowth.
    But there was only that silence, as in the five or ten minutes before a vicious thundersquall strikes, when the purple heads stack up and up in the sky overhead and the light turns a queer, bruised purple-yellow and the wind dies completely and you can smell a thick aroma like overcharged car batteries in the air.
    We're in the ago, a million years back, maybe, or ten million, or eighty million, but here we are and something's going to happen, I don't know what but something and I'm scared I want it to end I want to be back and Bill please Bill please pull us out it's like we fell into the picture some picture please please help —
    Mike's hand tightened on his and he realized that now the silence had been broken. There was a steady low vibration — he could feel it more than hear it, working against the tight flesh of his eardrums, buzzing the tiny bones that conducted the sound. It grew steadily. It had no tone; it simply was:
    (the word in the beginning was the word the world the)
    a tuneless, soulless sound. He groped for the tree they stood near and as his hand touched it, cupped the curve of the bole, he could feel the vibration caught inside. At the same moment he realized he could feel it in his feet, a steady tingling that went up his ankles and calves to his knees, turning his tendons into tuning forks.
    It grew. And grew.
    It was coming out of the sky. Not wanting to but unable to help himself, Richie turned his face up. The sun was a molten coin burning a circle in the low-hanging overcast, surrounded by a fairy-ring of moisture. Below it, the verdant green slash that was the Barrens lay utterly still. Richie thought he understood what this vision was: they were about to see the coming of It.
    The vibration took on a voice — a rumbling roar that built to a shattering crescendo of sound. He clapped his hands to his ears and screamed and could not hear himself scream. Beside him, Mike Hanlon was doing the same, and Richie saw that Mike's nose was bleeding a little.
    The clouds in the west lit with a bloom of red fire. It traced its way toward them, widening from an artery to a stream to a river of ominous color; and then, as a burning, falling object broke through the cloud cover, the wind came. It was hot and searing, smoky and suffocating. The thing in the sky was gigantic, a flaming match-head that was nearly too bright to look at. Arcs of electricity bolted from it, blue bullwhips that flashed out from it and left thunder in their wake.
    A spaceship! Richie screamed, falling to his knees and covering his eyes. Oh my God it's a spaceship! But he believed — and would tell the others later, as best he could — that it was not a spaceship, although it might have come through space to get here. Whatever came down on that long-ago day had come from a place much farther away than another star or another galaxy, and if spaceship was the first word to come into his mind, perhaps that was only because his mind had no other way of grasping what his eyes were seeing.
    There was an explosion then — a roar of sound followed by a rolling concussion that knocked them both down. This time it was Mike who groped for Richie's hand. There was another explosion. Richie opened his eyes and saw a glare of fire and a pillar of smoke rising into the sky.
    It! he screamed at Mike, in an ecstasy of terror now — never in his life, before or after, would he feel any emotion so deeply, be so overwhelmed by feeling. It! It! It!
    Mike dragged him to his feet and they ran along the high bank of the young Kenduskeag, never noticing how close they were to the drop. Once Mike stumbled and went skidding to his knees. Then it was Ric hie's turn to go down, barking his shin and tearing his pants. The wind had come up and it was pushing the smell of the burning forest toward them. The smoke grew thicker, and Richie became dimly aware that he and Mike were not running alone. The animals were on the move again, fleeing from the smoke, the fire, the death in the fire. Running from It, perhaps. The new arrival in their world.
    Richie began to cough. He could hear Mike beside him, also coughing. The smoke was thicker, washing out the greens and grays and reds of the day. Mike fell again and Richie lost his hand. He groped for it and could not find it.
    Mike! He screamed, panicked, coughing. Mike, where are you? Mike! MIKE!
    But Mike was gone; Mike was nowhere.
    richie! richie! richie!
    (!!WHACKO!!)
    'richie! richie! richie, are you
    6
    all right?'
    His eyes fluttered open and he saw Beverly kneeling beside him, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. The others — Bill, Eddie, Stan, and Ben — stood behind her, their faces solemn and scared. The side of Richie's face hurt like hell. He tried to speak to Beverly and could only croak. He tried to clear his throat and almost vomited. His throat and lungs felt as if they had somehow been lined with smoke.
    At last he managed, 'Did you slap me, Beverly?'
    It was all I could think of to do,' she said.
    'Whacko,' Richie muttered.
    'I didn't think you were going to be all right, is all,' Bev said, and suddenly burst into tears.
    Richie patted her clumsily on the shoulder and Bill put a hand on the back of her neck. She reached around at once, took it, squeezed it.
    Richie managed to sit up. The world began to swim in waves. When it steadied down he saw Mike leaning against a tree nearby, his face dazed and ashy-pale.
    'Did I puke?' Richie asked Bev.
    She nodded, still crying.
    In a croaking, stumbling Irish Cop's Voice, he asked, 'Get any on ye, darlin?'
    Bev laughed through her tears and shook her head. 'I turned you on your side. I was afraid . . . a-a-afraid you'd ch-ch-choke on it.' She began to cry hard again.
    'Nuh-Nuh-No f-fair,' Bill said, still holding her hand. 'I-I-I'm the one who stuh-huh-hutters a-around h-here.'
    'Not bad, Big Bill,' Richie said. He tried to get to his feet and sat down again heavily. The world was still swimming. He began to cough and turned his head away, aware that he was going to retch again only a moment before it happened. He threw up a mess of green foam and thick saliva that mostly came out in ropes. He closed his eyes tight and croaked, 'Anyone want a snack?'
    'Oh shit!' Ben cried, disgusted and laughing at the same time.
    'Looks more like puke to me,' Richie said, although, in truth, his eyes were still tightly shut. 'The shit usually comes out the other end, at least for me. I dunno about you, Haystack.' When he opened his eyes at last, he saw the clubhouse about twenty yards away. Both the window and the big trapdoor were thrown open. Smoke, thinning now, puffed from both.
    This time Richie was able to get to his feet. For a moment he was quite sure he was going to retch again, or faint, or both. 'Whacko,' he murmured, watching the world waver and warp in front of his eyes. When the feeling passed, he made his way over to where Mike was. Mike's eyes were still weasel-red, and from the dampness on his pants cuffs, Richie thought that maybe ole Mikey had taken a ride on the stomach-elevator, too.
    'For a white boy you did pretty good,' Mike croaked, and punched Richie weakly on the shoulder.
    Richie was at a loss for words — a condition of exquisite rarity.
    Bill came over. The others came with him.
    'You pulled us out?' Richie asked.
    'M-Me and Buh-Ben. Y-You were scuh-scuh-rheaming. B-Both of y-y-you. B-B-But — '
    He looked over at Ben.
    Ben said, 'It must have been the smoke, Bill.' But there was no conviction in the big boy's voice at all.
    Flatly, Richie said: 'You mean what I think you mean?'
    Bill shrugged. 'W-W-What's th-that, Rih-Richie?'
    Mike answered. 'We weren't there at first, were we? You went down because you heard us screaming, but at first we weren't there.'
    'It was really smoky,' Ben said. 'Hearing you both screaming that way, that was scary enough. But the screaming . . . it sounded . . . well . . . '
    'It s-s-sounded very f-f-f-far a-away,' Bill said. Stuttering badly, he told them that when he and Ben had gone down, they hadn't been able to see either Richie or Mike. They had gone plunging around in the smoky clubhouse, panicked, scared that if they didn't act quickly the two boys might die of smoke poisoning. At last Bill had gripped a hand — Richie's. He had given 'a huh-huh-hell of a yuh-yank' and Richie had come flying out of the gloom, only about one-quarter conscious. When Bill turned around he had seen Ben with Mike in a bear-hug, both of them coughing. Ben had thrown Mike up and out through the trapdoor.
    Ben listened to all this, nodding.
    'I kept grabbing, you know? Really not doing anything except jabbing my hand out like I wanted to shake hands. You grabbed it, Mike. Damn good thing you grabbed it when you did.
    I think you were just about gone.'
    'You guys make the clubhouse sound a lot bigger than it is,' Richie said. 'Talking about stumbling around in it and all. It's only five feet on every side.'
    There was a moment's silence while they all looked at Bill, who stood in frowning concentration.
    'It w-w-was b-bigger,' he said at last. 'W-W-Wasn't it, Ben?'
    Ben shrugged. 'It sure seemed like it. Unless it was the smoke.'
    'It wasn't the smoke,' Richie said. 'Just before it happened — before we went out — I remember thinking it was at least as big as a ballroom in a movie. Like one of those musicals. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, something like that. I could barely see Mike against the other wall.'. .
    'Before you went out?' Beverly asked.
    'Well . . . what I mean . . . like . . . '
    She grabbed Richie's arm. 'It happened, didn't it? It really happened! You had a vision, just like in Ben's book!' Her face was glowing. 'It really happened?
    Richie looked down at himself, and then at Mike. One of the knees of Mike's corduroy pants was out, and both the knees of his own jeans were torn. He could look through the holes and see bleeding scrapes on both his knees.
    'If it was a vision, I never want to have another one,' he said. 'I don't know about de Kingfish over there, but when I went down there, I didn't have any holes in my pants. They're practically new, for gosh sakes. My mom's gonna give me hell.'
    'What happened?' Ben and Eddie asked together.
    Richie and Mike exchanged a glance and then Richie said, 'Bevvie, you got a smoke?'
    She had two, wrapped in a piece of tissue. Richie put one of them in his mouth and when she lit it the first drag made him cough so badly that he handed it back to her. 'Can't,' he said.
    'Sorry.'
    'It was the past,' Mike said.
    'Shit on that,' Richie said. 'It wasn't just the past. It was ago.'
    'Yeah, right. We were in the Barrens, but the Kenduskeag was going a mile a minute. It was deep. It was fuckin wild. Sorry, Bevvie, but it was. And there were fish in it. Salmon, I think.'
    'M-My d-d-dad s-says th-there haven't been a-a-any fuh-fish in the K-Kendusk-k-keag for a l-l-long tuh-hime. B-Because of the suh-sewage.'
    'This was a long time, all right,' Richie said. He looked around at them uncertainly. 'I think it was a million years ago, at least.'
    A thunderstruck silence greeted this. Beverly broke it at last. 'But what happened?'
    Richie felt the words in his throat, but he had to struggle to bring them out. It felt almost like vomiting again. 'We saw It come,' he said at last. 'I think that was it.'
    'Christ,' Stan muttered. 'Oh Christ.'
    There was a sharp hiss-gasp as Eddie used his aspirator.
    'It came out of the sky,' Mike said. 'I never want to see anything like that again in my whole life. It was burning so hot you couldn't really look at it. And it was thowin off electricity and makin thunder. The noise . . . ' He shook his head and looked at Richie. 'It sounded like the end of the world. And when it hit, it started a forest fire. That was at the end of it.'
    'Was it a spaceship?' Ben asked.
    'Yes,' Richie said. 'No,' Mike said.
    They looked at each other.
    'Well, I guess it was,' Mike said, and at the same time Richie said: 'No, it really wasn't a spaceship, you know, but — '
    They paused again while the others looked at them, perplexed.
    'You tell,' Richie said to Mike. 'We mean the same thing, I think, but they're not getting it.'
    Mike coughed into his fist and then looked up at the others, almost apologetically. 'I don't know just how to tell you,' he said.
    'T-T-Try,' Bill said urgently.
    'It came out of the sky,' Mike repeated, 'but it wasn't a spaceship, exactly. It wasn't a meteor, either. It was more like . . . well . . . like the Ark of the Covenant, in the Bible, that was supposed to have the Spirit of God inside of it . . . except this wasn't God. Just feeling It, watching It come, you knew It meant bad, that It was bad.'
    He looked at them.
    Richie nodded. 'It came from . . . outside. I got that feeling. From outside.'
    'Outside where, Richie?' Eddie asked.
    'Outside everything,' Richie said. 'And when It came down . . . It made the biggest damn hole you ever saw in your life. It turned this big hill into a doughnut, just about. It landed right where the downtown part of Derry is now.'
    He looked at them. 'Do you get it?'
    Beverly dropped the cigarette half-smoked and crushed it out under one shoe.
    Mike said. 'It's always been here, since the beginning of time . . . since before there were men anywhere, unless maybe there were just a few of them in Africa somewhere, swinging through the trees or living in caves. The crater's gone now, and the ice age probably scraped the valley deeper and changed some stuff around and filled the crater in . . . but It was here then, sleeping, maybe, waiting for the ice to melt, waiting for the people to come.'
    That's why It uses the sewers and the drains,' Richie put in. They must be regular freeways for It.'
    'You didn't see what It looked like?' Stan Uris asked abruptly and a little hoarsely.
    They shook their heads.
    'Can we beat It?' Eddie said in the silence. 'A thing like that?' No one answered."

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