Henry Bowers's Attack on Mike in the Library

On the night of May 30, 1985, after the Losers' Club reunion meeting had broken up, Mike Hanlon remained alone in the Derry Public Library to write in his notebook. He had just finished cleaning up and was sitting at the table when he heard a faint, sliding footstep from the glassed-in passageway connecting the adult library to the Children's Library. He called out, but no one answered. As he approached the checkout desk, he saw a pair of ragged denim pantlegs and glittering eyes in the darkness. The figure stepped forward, and Mike recognized Henry Bowers, now a paunchy, gray-haired man in his late thirties, his clothes still green with the bushes he had spent the day hiding in. Henry had escaped from Juniper Hill, the private insane asylum in Augusta where he had been confined for the murder of his father and the disappearances of his friends Victor Criss and Belch Huggins. He had hitchhiked to Derry, killed a man who gave him a ride, and retrieved his old switchblade from a drain where he had hidden it years before. Henry spoke in a voice that was both the boy Mike remembered and something older, more broken. He said he had been hearing voices from the moon, and that It had told him to come back and finish the job. Mike tried to reason with him, but Henry lunged with the knife. Mike sidestepped and tripped him, but Henry recovered and stabbed Mike in the thigh, severing his femoral artery. As Mike struggled to stay conscious, a grotesque jack-in-the-box head of Stan Uris popped up from behind the circulation desk, chanting "Kill him, Henry!" in the clown's voice. Henry, now also wounded by Mike's letter-opener, staggered out of the library into the night. Mike managed to dial the hospital, but the voice of Pennywise answered, laughing and taunting him. He collapsed on the floor, bleeding to death, and was later found by police and rushed to Derry Home Hospital in grave condition.