After what happened in Derry, the news spread about the town in every state, including Washington. There was so much talk about the events that the President had to release a statement saying that the children had made fake claims about seeing a 'demonic clown' and that the "missing" children were just being hid away by their parents, and that everything was carefully orchestrated to get tourists to improve the town's economy.

That settled a lot of rumors and eventually, majority of the people lost interest and moved to the next news story. But there was something supernaturally charming about the events that I had to visit the little town, so I packed two bags and I began my road trip to Derry.

When I arrive at dusk, a police officer and his barrier stops me.

"Excuse me, miss. Are you with the press?" he asks, shining his flashlight into the backseat of my car. The beam of light moves to my face and I squint my eyes, trying to think after being momentarily blinded.

"No, sir. I'm just a tourist," I offer him my most polite smile. The officer studies my expression carefully and with little hesitation, he waves me through. Another officer moves the wooden barrier aside, allowing me entrance inside the small town.

After a few more turns and one U-turn, I pull into a motel parking lot and then I locate the lobby. I show the owner my credit card and ID, and he vanishes in the back room to fetch my key. Waiting, I look at the papers pinned to the bulletin board on the wall. There are old 'missing children' flyers hanging up and underneath one of them, there's a drawing of a clown holding a balloon. One eye is colored blue and the other is colored gold, his smile wide and teeth sharp. Menacing.

"Here you go, miss," the voice makes me jump. The owner had returned with the key to my room and I take it with an apologetic look on my face, as if I was sorry for being caught off guard. As if I was sorry for being scared.

Settling into my room, I remove my makeup and I get into my pajamas. I lie back on my bed and then I turn the television on to watch the local news. "He's real," a young boy speaks into a microphone. "He said his name was 'Pennywise,' and he smiled a lot and he gave me a balloon and then...and then...I can't remember, mommy."

The teary-eyed boy buries his face in his mother's stomach and she comforts him before turning to the reporters.

"I don't care what the President said, or any lawman or government official for that matter. I only care and believe what my boy told me. If he said that a clown kidnapped him, then I believe a clown kidnapped him. Just no proof, is all," she looks back down at her son, wiping the tears from his cheeks.

The camera refocuses on the reporter's face, and she talks about the President's response and the conspiracies that surround Derry and what happened to the children. Other parents are interviewed, and all of them swear that they had no idea what happened to their children or why they were found wandering out of the woods.

My eyes grow heavy and I think about that drawing in the lobby, but I've already forgotten some of its details. Forgetting. That seems to be happening a lot lately. Shaking my head, I turn the television off and then I fold the blanket over me, going to sleep.

The next morning, I'm eating breakfast in a small diner next to the motel and I'm looking at a map of Derry that's spread open in front of me. I rotate it, trying to find where I am and after a few confusing turns, I finally find where I am.

According to the map, the public library is only two blocks from here. Satisfied, I spend half an hour sipping my coffee and pushing my half-eaten pancakes around on my plate, waiting to become more alert. Come on, caffeine, do your thing.

Eventually, and as alert as I'll ever be, I start my walk to the library.

There, as I'm on the fourth step, I turn when I hear rustling in the bushes across the street. I pause, waiting to see what the source of the sound is, but there's nothing. Nothing. I turn away and then I enter the library.

As I'm asked to sign their check-in book by the librarian, I see a list of books that have been recently checked out. All of them pertaining to Derry's history, some books about the supernatural.

"Excuse me," I gently touch another librarian on the arm as she passes me, and she pauses. "Do you have any history books left?"

"Are you another reporter?" she sighs wearily. "Don't matter. Follow me."

She fixes her glasses on her face and I follow her down the rows of books to a section way in the back. When we're in front of the sparse-looking shelf, she motions to it and then walks away.

"Thank…you," I murmur, certain that she wouldn't have cared either way if I verbalized my gratitude or not.

When I turn to see what's left, my eyebrows furrow, not too thrilled about the selection.

I pull a random book from the shelf, one out of few, and I sit at one of the tables in the corner. The spine cracks as the book opens and I can smell the leavings of the bugs that have been nibbling at its pages. Slowly, my index finger moves down the index page and then I flip to Page 89.

"Mysteries of Derry, Chapter 7," I whisper, almost immediately entranced.

And I begin to read.

A couple chapters in and a few hours pass, nothing breaks my attention until I hear people talking on the streets. Heads lift from their books and bodies move towards the entrance to see who those voices belong to.

"Stop badgering my son! We're leaving town for a few weeks until all of this nonsense blows over," an irate man is wagging his finger out his car window at a group of reporters and I crouch down to see the boy in the backseat, the sobbing mother in the passenger's seat. The boy has a distant look in his eyes as he stares at the handle of the door, which I'm assuming is what he's looking at.

The car speeds away and the herd of reporters disperse. One of them bumps into me, causing me to drop my book. He flicks his hat back before he bends down to pick it up and then he hands it to me.

"I'm sorry about that, miss," he smiles and then he presses my book into my open hand. "Are you another reporter too?"

"You're the third person to ask me that," I answer, slightly annoyed by the repetition. Nothing about me says 'reporter.' Not my clothes, not my demeanor. Nothing. But I can't be mad if that's what the people here are used to seeing, especially with everything going on lately.

"I didn't mean to offend you, but I saw the book in your hand," he motions to it. "You heard about what happened, I assume."

I slowly nod my head and he pauses for a moment before he reaches for a stack of papers in his bag. He hands them to me and I look at him, baffled.

"I've read every book in there and I've interviewed a few people, and I already sent the information to my people back in New Jersey. This should save you some time if curious is what you are," he smiles again and he tips his hat before he walks to his car across the street near the river. I watch him drive away before I head back to my motel room to read everything he gave me.

Emerging from a hot shower, dressed in pajamas, I sit at the desk and I spread the papers out before me. I pick one at random and then I begin reading it. It's an interview of one of the boys that was taken. He talks about seeing bright lights and…a clown. I shuffle the papers and one of them falls over the edge of the desk, drifting in a sawing motion through the air. I freeze until it lands, rather not to look like a fool trying to catch it mid-fall and then I slowly reach down to pick the paper off the floor.

It's a detailed drawing of a clown, the clown, of the monster that has been allegedly eating the children of Derry. Well, not all of them. Some managed to escape from the clown's dead lights, they claimed. My eyes fixate on the simple but detailed drawing. The creature is dressed in an off-white clown suit with red pompoms as buttons, fire-like hair, two red lines on his face. And the clown has blue eyes with a hint of orange, like the drawing that I saw in the lobby.

I turn the paper over, curious to see if the artist left their mark, and written on the bottom is the name Stan Uris. I've read or heard that name before, but I can't remember on which paper. I suppose it doesn't matter. I flip the drawing over again and then I stare at the picture until my vision blurs. Exhausted, I reach back to turn the light off and then I move from the chair to the bed, going to sleep.

Asleep, I'm having a dream of walking in the woods, but something is off. No birds singing, no bugs crawling in the dirt, no deer nuzzling the soft patches of grass and no fish flicking their tails in the water. No sign of wildlife or life in general.

There's a white flash, something I imagined what the children saw before they forgot, and suddenly I'm somewhere else. I'm standing ankle-deep in a stream, staring at a patch of darkness. Perhaps a cave or some abandoned tunnel. I have no idea what it is or where I am, but my body tells me that I've been here before or I'm familiar with it. No sense of being lost or out of place, no panic. Just curiosity.

My eyes open and it's the next day, another day in Derry.

It's the same kind of morning. I walk to the diner to eat breakfast and then I'm back in my motel room to read more of the notes that the reporter gave me. More interviews, more vague descriptions, more drawings of the same clown but slightly different as interpretation should be. The wonder almost loses its color when I come across the same location again.

It's a place called the Barrens.

Curious, I pull out the map of Derry and then I try to locate the Barrens. My fingertip moves over the lines, the patches of green and blue. Nothing. There is nothing on this map with that name. I fold the map together and I look at its cover for the date that this map was published. It was this year, which means that it's been updated.

"This doesn't make any sense," I whisper to the empty room. Unrelenting, I grab my backpack and then I head to the diner to ask one or two locals if they can help me locate the Barrens. Surely it must be on this map somewhere, but I'm just overlooking it.

When I arrive at the diner, it's mid-afternoon and there aren't that many people here. Two portly men eating lobster rolls at a table, two women sipping coffee together at another table, one old man sitting by himself at the counter and a family of three in the booth.

I head for the old man sitting by himself at the counter, assuming he's lived here his whole life. He must know where the Barrens is located or what it's real name is because too many children have mentioned it for it to be a coincidence. Surely the people in this town must know of it.

"Excuse me, sir," I lightly touch him on the shoulder and he turns in his stool, giving me a once over.

"Can I help you with something?" he raises a shaggy eyebrow and then I nod my head before I pull out the map. When I tell him what I want him to find, the two women behind us stop talking and then they direct their attention on me.

"Don't, miss," one of the women says, her face pale and sickly looking. "You don't want to go there. That place is haunted and that place is full of sickness and sadness. You will find the dead bodies there. Bones. Lots of them. Bones of little children, of my little girl."

She stands up from the table, posturing.

"Did you come here to take pictures for your newspaper? Did you come here to open wounds that have never been healed shut? Why are you people here?" her voice is escalating and then her friend tosses money on the table before she pulls the woman towards the door, begging her to calm down.

They leave and my body slightly shakes, not from sorrow or anger or shock, but adrenaline. This, this is the reason I wanted to come to Derry.

The others stare and then they slowly go back to their business.

"Are you sure you want to go there, miss? You probably won't make it far because I think the police still have sections of that place blocked off to the public," the old man sighs, not caring about stories anymore, regardless of whether they're true or false.

"Nope, police have better things to do than to stand around and look for something that isn't there," the man behind the counter speaks without looking up as he wipes crumbs of food away with his rag.

The old man blinks at me and then he shrugs his shoulders, "suit yourself."

He taps an area on the map that isn't marked at all. He explains that the place is called the Barrens because it's, well, barren. He goes on to mention that there's a gravel pit, many sewer pump-stations and a landfill that's located in the area.

I'm folding up the map and then the man behind the counter looks at me with a contemplative look on his face, "you know, most folks that come here want to see the house at the end of Neibolt Street, not the Barrens."

"Neibolt Street" I look at him, returning the expression. "Why are people so interested in that street?"

Obviously, I haven't done enough reading. The cook explains why the street and the house on it has been such an attraction lately and he takes my map to show me where it is. He marks it with a pen and then he hands the map back to me.

"Thank you, and I'm sorry to have disturbed some of your customers. I'm just very curious about everything that's been happening in this town. I didn't come here to disrespect anyone," I politely bow my head to thank the two men before I turn to leave and then I begin to make my way to Neibolt Street.

According to my watch, it's taken me over an hour to reach the street, but I'm finally here. Catching my breath, I sit on the sidewalk underneath the shade of a tree and I rest my hands on the cool cement. Across the street, I notice that the storm drain has been covered by sandbags. I've noticed other storm drains have been closed off on my way here too.

I remember the things that I read in the interviews, and I understand why. Taking a deep breath and wiping the sweat from my brow, I adjust my backpack and then I make my way towards the house.

The house itself looks decades old. There are two rusty and tilted 'no trespassing' signs on the front gate, and there's one leafless tree in the yard. Vines cling lifelessly to the structure, most of the windows are boarded up, and there's 'caution' tape wrapped around the entrance.

No one is in sight. No police officers, no cars. Nothing.

I stand in front of the bright tape, wondering whether I should enter the house.

What's stopping me? I came here to engulf myself in this town of mysteries and now that I'm close to finding something, I just can't seem to step beyond those tapes. Fear is one of the logical things that's stopping me. Uncertainty, possible injury and possible jail-time for trespassing are others.

I close my eyes, telling myself to turn it off.

Be fearless. Be fearless. Be fearless.

I open my eyes and then I run through the caution tape, down the dirt path and up the dusty steps inside the house.