The Blood from the Drain

The Blood from the Drain is a pivotal event in the summer of 1958, in which Beverly Marsh, after returning home from a date with Richie Tozier and Ben Hanscom, hears voices speaking to her from the bathroom sink drain. The voices, which identify themselves as murdered children, taunt her and then cause a gout of blood to erupt from the drain, splattering the bathroom. Her father, Al Marsh, sees nothing, and Beverly is left terrified and isolated, an experience that ultimately draws her closer to the Losers' Club and confirms the supernatural nature of the evil haunting Derry.

The Voices from the Drain

On the night after her first date—watching two horror movies at the Aladdin Theater with Richie and Ben—Beverly Marsh went into the bathroom of her family's cramped Lower Main Street apartment to wash her face and brush her teeth. As she leaned over the basin, a voice whispered from the drain, "Help me." Startled, she drew back, but the voice returned, calling her by name. It identified itself as Matthew Clements, a young boy who had been murdered by the clown. The voice then claimed to be Betty Ripsom and Veronica Grogan, other child victims, and taunted Beverly, saying she and her friends would "float down here" with them. The voice told her to tell Bill Denbrough that "Georgie says hello" and that he would be waiting for him in the closet with a piece of piano wire. As the voice spoke, a bright red bubble backed up the drain and popped, spraying beads of blood across the porcelain.

The Blood and the Father's Blindness

The blood did not stop with a single bubble. A gout of blood suddenly belched from the drain, splattering the sink, the mirror, and the wallpaper with its frogs-and-lilypads pattern. Beverly screamed and fled to the living room, where her father, Al Marsh, was watching television. When he went to investigate, he saw nothing amiss. He washed his hands in the bloody sink, the blood staining his pants and the towel he used, yet he remained utterly oblivious. He scolded Beverly for her "foolishness," accusing her of having "vapors and megrims," and struck her for her trouble. The next morning, Beverly's mother, Elfrida Marsh, cleaned the bathroom and also saw no trace of the blood, though Beverly could still see maroon streaks drying in the sink and on the mirror. This confirmed for Beverly that the horror was real, but that adults were somehow blind to it.

The Confirmation and the Cleanup

The following afternoon, Beverly encountered Ben Hanscom, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Bradley Donovan pitching pennies in Richard's Alley. After a confrontation with Bradley, who called her mother a whore, Beverly broke down and told Ben and Eddie about the voices and the blood. They believed her without question. Together with Stanley Uris, who had joined them, the four of them went to Beverly's apartment. They entered through the back door and found the bathroom still marked with dried blood. Ben, Eddie, and Stan helped Beverly clean the bathroom, scrubbing the walls, mirror, and floor. They then took the bloody rags to the Kleen-Kloze Washateria, where they washed them in cold water. The experience forged a deeper bond between Beverly and the Losers' Club, as they realized they were all experiencing similar supernatural phenomena.

The Measuring Tape and the Final Confrontation

Later that same afternoon, after the others had left, Beverly returned to the bathroom alone. She took her father's metal measuring tape and fed it into the drain. The tape ran out to its full eighteen feet, and then began to run back into its case by itself. When it returned, the last five or six feet were dark, dripping red. Fresh blood trickled over the clean white porcelain of the basin and back down into the drain. Beverly cleaned the tape and the basin, then burned the stained rags in the incinerator behind the apartment building. This final, solitary confrontation with the drain's horror solidified her understanding that the evil in Derry was real, personal, and actively targeting her and her friends.