Henry Bowers's Death

Eddie Kaspbrak kills Henry Bowers in the early hours of May 31, 1985, ending a cycle of persecution that began when they were children in Derry, Maine. Henry, who has escaped from Juniper Hill, the state mental institution for the criminally insane, tracks Eddie to his room at the Derry Town House and attacks him with a switchblade. Eddie, acting on pure instinct and terror, defends himself with a broken Perrier bottle, driving the jagged glass into Henry's midsection. The killing is a brutal, desperate act of self-preservation that closes a chapter of violence stretching back twenty-seven years.

The Attack

Eddie is awakened by a knock on his door. A voice claims to be a bellboy with a message from Eddie's wife, Myra. When Eddie opens the door, Henry Bowers stands in the hallway, a gore-streaked apparition. Henry's face is a frozen mask of hate and murder. He has already attacked Mike Hanlon at the Derry Public Library, stabbing him and leaving him for dead. Now he has come for Eddie. Henry's right hand is cocked at cheek-level, the switchblade glittering. Eddie slams the door on Henry's arm, deflecting the knife's course so it swings past his neck. The knife clatters to the floor, and Eddie kicks it under the TV. Henry forces his way into the room and locks the door behind him.

The Struggle

Henry advances on Eddie, who is cornered against the bed. Eddie grabs a full bottle of Perrier water from the nightstand and smashes it on the edge of the table, creating a jagged weapon. Henry lunges, and Eddie thrusts the broken bottle into Henry's face, ripping open his cheek and puncturing his eye. Henry staggers back, then lunges again. Eddie thrusts the bottle like a fencing sword, driving the jagged points of green glass deep into Henry's left hand. Henry shoves Eddie, who falls heavily, re-breaking his left arm along the fault-line of the old fracture from 1958. Henry looms over him, bleeding from multiple wounds, his knees buckling. Eddie holds the stump of the Perrier bottle upright, its jagged base pointing upward, the cap braced against his sternum. Henry comes down like a tree, impaling himself on the bottle.

The Death

Henry twitches like a landed trout, his shoes rattling an almost syncopated beat on the carpet. Eddie can smell his rotten breath. Then Henry stiffens and rolls over. The bottle protrudes grotesquely from his midsection, its capped end pointing toward the ceiling, as if it had grown there. Henry says "Gug" and then falls silent, looking up at the ceiling. Eddie, fighting off waves of faintness and the grinding pain of his re-broken arm, struggles to his feet. He retrieves his aspirator from a puddle of carbonated water and triggers it, shuddering at the taste. He looks at the body on the carpet—Henry, grown old, his crewcut more gray than black, his body fat and white and sluglike. Henry is dead. But then Henry says "Gug" again and sits up, his hands clawing at the air, his gouged eye leaking and dribbling. He tries to get up, opens his mouth, and a stream of blood gushes out. Henry collapses for the final time.

Aftermath

Eddie, his heart racing, fumbles for the telephone and dials the front desk, demanding to be connected to Bill Denbrough's room. When Bill answers, Eddie tells him what has happened: "Bill, he came here . . . and I killed him. He had a knife. I think . . . it was the same knife he had that day. When we went into the sewers. Do you remember?" Bill remembers. He tells Eddie to stay put, that he and Beverly are coming up. Eddie looks at the body on the floor again, at the neck of the Perrier bottle protruding from Henry's midsection, and thinks that at long last, Henry is dead. The lifelong enmity that began with a rockfight in the Barrens in the summer of 1958 has ended in a hotel room in the early hours of May 31, 1985.