It: Chapter 18 Summary & Analysis

There is only one story left for the adults to tell: the tale of how they made the silver slugs in Zack Denbrough’s workshop on July 23rd, and used them on July 25th. Ben stands up to reveal another scar on his chest. There is the letter “H” from Henry Bowers but also a heavy scar descending from the crossbar of the “H,” which looks like a twisting rope. Beverly recalls the werewolf and how they all saw it after Richie told his story about the experience on Neibolt Street. Ben says that this scar was not present a couple of nights ago; it just came back. Ben recalls how they spent a lot of time at the library, trying to learn how to make silver bullets at Zack Denbrough’s work table.

In the flashback, Bill insists that Ben make the silver slugs, just as he insists that Beverly hold the slingshot. Ben asks if Bill has the molds and Bill hands them over. After deciding on slugs instead of bullets, Richie and Bill spend additional time at the library, researching. The kids find the molds at the Kitchener Precision Tool and Die. The Kitchener who owns and runs it is a great-great-grandnephew of the brothers who owned Kitchener Ironworks. The molds are fifty cents apiece.

Back in the workshop, Ben looks at the molds carefully and puts them down. Bill and Richie look at him with interest but little idea of what he is doing. Ben reaches into his pocket and takes out a silver dollar, which he drops into a makeshift crucible. Beverly notes that Ben’s father gave him the coin. He then asks for matches and a funnel. Absorbed in what he’s doing, Ben finds it easy to talk to Beverly. It is as though he is a surgeon addressing a nurse. He asks her to stick the funnel in the hole because she has the steadiest hands, and to use a glove so as not to burn herself. Bill gives Ben some wraparound glasses to wear while he holds the blowtorch.

The others watch as molten silver flows from the shell into the funnel. Not a drop spills. Ben says that he has to reheat the silver and takes the blowtorch from Eddie. Ten minutes later, it’s done. Ben then invites everyone to play Monopoly for an hour, while the silver hardens in the molds. Beverly says that she has to call home. When she does, she realizes that there will be no problem with her father; he fell asleep in front of the TV and woke just long enough to go to bed. Beverly’s mother asks if she has a ride home, and Beverly says that Bill’s dad will take them home. Her mother asks if she’s on a date, but Beverly says she isn’t. Elfrida says that she is glad, for the thought of that would make Al angry. As an afterthought, Elfrida adds that she would be angry, too.

Elfrida then asks if any of her daughter’s girlfriends are there. Beverly does not have any girlfriends and suddenly wishes that she were talking to her father. She would be more afraid, but she would also feel less ashamed. She begins to think that maybe she is not a very good girl. She lies about some girls being present and tells her mother that she loves her, before hanging up.

Beverly joins the others at the table where they are playing Monopoly. Stanley wins. Bill moves the little silver shoe that he is using as a marker around the board, and Beverly thinks that, if he held her hand, she would be so glad that she could die. A warm light begins to “glow briefly in her chest” and she smiles down at her hands.

On July 25, 1958, the Losers’ Club meet It in face-to-face combat. They arrive at 25 Neibolt Street around ten in the morning. They all ride their bikes, though Bill and Richie are riding double on Silver. Stanley thinks that the windows look like eyes. Beverly notes the terrible smell. Bill asks if everyone still wants to go in. Eddie fumbles for his aspirator and Richie and Stan ask to use it, too. Beverly asks if anyone lives on the street. Mike says that only bums frequent the area.

The group walks to the left side of the porch, where there is a wild rose bush. The bushes that the leper touched on the day of Eddie’s visit have turned black. Bill asks if everyone is ready. They say that they are, and he drops to his knees to crawl “through the blighted rosebushes and under the porch.”

The leaves under the porch crackle under the children’s weight and release a “sour old smell.” Bill reaches the broken cellar window and looks into the cellar. Beverly asks if he can see anything. Bill points out the coal pile that he and Richie used to escape the last time they were there. Bill and Beverly slip down into the cellar. She asks Ben to give her the slingshot the second she touches the ground. Ben next turns and wriggles himself through the window. Inevitably, he gets stuck. Bill and Beverly grab him by the ankles and he goes tumbling inside. Next come Eddie, Richie, Stan, and Mike.

The room is dim but not dark. Bill walks toward the stairs and the others follow him. Bill signals for everyone to go upstairs. They enter a dirty kitchen. Beverly opens a cupboard and a rat tumbles toward her. She thinks that It wants her to shoot at it, to use up their ammo. She becomes afraid of using the Bullseye and suggests that Bill do it instead. He shakes his head. The house, Richie finds, is full of rats. They go down the front hall, which smells like urine and rotting plaster. There are broken beer bottles in one corner. In the other corner is a “wet and swollen” girly magazine.

Bill pushes open a door to what might be a parlor. Ben thinks that he hears Pennywise the Clown’s voice speaking to him, as though on a mental radio. He whispers for it to go away and it does. The house is a special place—one of several in Derry where It finds Its way into the overworld. Suddenly, the floor seems to slope. They are losing Ben. Ben runs to catch up with the group. When he does, Bill says that everyone must stay close. Bill opens a door to another, narrower hall. Suddenly, the corridor seems to elongate. The doors grow with the ceiling, pulling like taffy. Stanley claps his hands over his eyes. Bill tells Stanley that it is not real, but Stanley insists that it is only unreal to Bill. Stan’s panic catches on among other members of the group.

Bill helps Stanley remembers that he has something to defend himself against It: his bird book. The parlor is now almost black. They walk down the hall and Bill grabs the knob to the third door. Beverly is next to him with the Bullseye raised. The door opens to a bedroom. Bill thinks there is nothing out of the ordinary there, but then they see the mattress bulge in and out and a black, sticky fluid spills out. The liquid stains the mattress and runs over the floor toward the doorway. Richie tells Bill to shut the door. Bill shuts it and prompts the others to “come on.” When he moves to the second door, a buzzing sound starts inside the room.

Bill draws back from the rising cry. Ben finds the sound maddening and thinks that a giant cricket is behind the door. He tells Beverly to shoot it through the door before it can get them. Before Beverly can pull the slingshot back, Mike stops her, opens the door, and points out that it is just a mooseblower, something used to scare crows. The room is empty. He looks at Bill and says that he is scared of It, but he agrees that It is scared of them, too.

They go to the door at the end of the hall. Bill pulls it open. White shards of a broken toilet lay everywhere inside. There is a bathtub standing on claw feet, with a basin and an empty medicine cabinet above it. Bill approaches the mouth of a drain hole over which the toilet once sat. Bill leans toward it and says that he can hear pumping machinery, as he can in the Barrens. He asserts that this is where It came from—the drains. Ben looks into the pipe and sees Its eyes down in the darkness.

Beverly raises her Bullseye, ready to shoot a silver slug, when something explodes from the pipe. Ben would later only remember seeing “a silvery-orange shifting shape” during this confrontation. It is solid, not ghostly. Richie recognizes it as the Teenage Werewolf. The Werewolf stands poised over the drainpipe. Its green eyes glare at them from a feral face. It lets out a loud growl. It wears a high-school letter jacket and Its hairy arms jut out toward Beverly, who screams. The Werewolf’s smell is hot, raw, and murderous. Ben grabs Beverly so hard that he tears her shirt. Mike and Richie prompt Beverly to shoot It, which she does. The silver slug misses by more than a foot—tearing a hole into the wallpaper.

The Werewolf’s head snaps around and its green eyes fix on Beverly. Ben steps in front of her. The Werewolf lunges at Ben with its greenish-yellow eyes flaring. Richie is bellowing, though the sound is dim in Ben’s ears. Eddie yells at Beverly to shoot It. The Werewolf’s claws descend again, and Ben is in Its grip, bleeding. The Werewolf throws him into the bathtub. The Werewolf spins around and Ben can see the lettering on the jacket: DERRY HIGH SCHOOL KILLING TEAM. PENNYWISE 13.

The Werewolf attacks Bill again and Richie screams for Beverly to shoot it. Beverly aims for the right eye and misses by less than half an inch. The Werewolf screams. Bill and Beverly advance on the Werewolf and Richie screams for her to shoot it again, to kill it. Ben is confused by this because they have no ammo left. Then, he understands. Her fingers close over the cup that held the slugs, hiding its emptiness. The Werewolf’s eyes flicker with uncertainty and pain. Blood pours onto its jacket in sheets. Then the uncertainty leaves the creature’s eyes, and It believes. It turns and dives into the drain. A voice roars back from the drainpipe, promising to kill them all. The house then snaps back to its original size and goes back to being a hobo house. After It leaves, the silence seems very loud.

Bill tells everyone that they need to leave. He asks Richie to help him with Ben. Ben looks down at his stomach. The Werewolf has slashed him long and deep but not mortally. Richie feels a sense of triumph in having beaten the Werewolf. Bill again tells everyone that they should leave before It decides to return. Beverly asks for someone’s shirt to replace the one that Ben has ripped. Bill gives her his.

An hour later, they are all back in the clubhouse. It is cool inside, and they sit without talking very much. Beverly and Richie pass a cigarette back and forth. Ben keeps thinking that everything that happened on Neibolt Street was merely a dream, but he knows that it was not. Beverly offers to return Bill’s shirt but he waves a hand to show that this isn’t important. She bites down on her lower lip and appears to him as an eleven-year-old girl who is “tall for her age and simply beautiful.” She asks him what should happen next—more silver slugs? Ben thinks that it all comes back to power. He loves Beverly, so she has power over him. Beverly loves Bill, so he has power over her.

The children prepare to go home. Later, Ben would still wonder where power, such as the power of the silver slugs comes from. It seems to him that their lives would depend on such questions. For the next two weeks, nothing much happens.