Anneliese's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The sanctuary stood now, a warren of dark halls built on the bodies Pennywise Duplex had raised from the stone. Anneliese walked the corridors each night to settle the nightmares she housed. But something was wrong. The dreams no longer slept. They swelled. She had planted a small dread near the entrance, a thing the size of a mouse. Tonight it filled the hall, breathing wet against the walls. Fear was feeding it, and the fear had a source she could name. She followed the pull to the far end of the valley. A striped tent stood there now, red and white, a huge grin painted across its face. Drifting lights, small and childlike, circled it and moaned. Anneliese had not built this. Pennywise had. Along the path leading in, posters were nailed to posts. Missing children stared out from them, mouths open, eyes hollowed to white holes. Each one leaked fear into the ground, and the ground carried it straight to her nightmares. Inside, Pennywise Duplex stood in the center of a painted ring. One half of its face grinned. The other half chewed. A cluster of red balloons floated at its shoulder. It held a folded paper boat, stained dark along the creases, and turned it slowly in two fingers. "You built a mouth in my house," Anneliese said. "It eats fear before the dreamers ever arrive. My nightmares are choking on it." "They're fatter. That's not choking." Pennywise didn't look up. "I couldn't wait for your sleepers. So I made my own scare. Nine posters. The children float here now." It tapped the ring with one foot. The floor showed reaching silhouettes. "Fresh fear, every hour. Better than nightly." "You're drowning them. A nightmare I can't control belongs to no one." She stepped into the ring. "That breaks our deal. The fear only works if the dreamers claim them. You're spoiling the crop to eat the seed." Pennywise stopped turning the boat. Both eyes fixed on her. "Say that again. The part about spoiling." "You starve if my sanctuary fails," she said. "And it will, if you feed like this." The clown was quiet. It liked numbers, and hers added up wrong for it. Slowly, it crushed the paper boat in its fist. Blood squeezed from the folds. "Fine. The tent stays. The posters come down." It flicked its wrist. The circling lights winked out, one by one. The pressure in the hall behind her eased at once. Anneliese felt her nearest nightmare shrink back to its proper size. She had won the argument. But Pennywise smiled its wider half as it dropped the ruined boat at her feet. "No more cheating," it said. "So bring me dreamers. Real ones. Soon." It leaned close. "Empty rooms make me hungry. And hungry, I get creative." The tent stayed standing. Her sanctuary was safe tonight. But now she needed to fill it with sleeping minds, fast, or Pennywise would find another mouth to feed.