Augusta, Maine At Night Wikipedia Commons
On a cold winter night in Maine, a bundled-up couple was walking home from the movie theater. Just like every other Friday for the past few months, it had been a great date night. Pennywise had spotted them when they had crossed the bridge going from downtown into the suburban area. It had been ages since his last meal and typically he would go for children, but when he popped into this dimension he was so hungry that he had to go for the closest thing. He knew that if he wanted to take the woman, he'd have to distract the man. Pennywise rarely chose to distract his prey. Instead, he typically opted for a more head-on approach. He is a multidimensional shapeshifting entity after all. However, a recent battle involving a bold group of kids had left him battered and shaken. Those rotten kids, he'd be back for them as soon as he built up enough strength.
As Pennywise watched from the shadows, he finally spotted an opportunity. The woman had gone inside a convenience store, and the man had stayed outside waiting for her. Pennywise's mouth began to water for he knew his next meal would be coming soon. The only problem was that he needed the woman outside of the store in order for him to take her, and he needed the man distracted. As the woman was checking out, Pennywise saw his opportunity. He ran over to the side of the store, away from the entrance, and in a perfect impression of the woman yelled, "Babe, can you help me with this?!" The man looked up, slightly confused. He walked around the corner and into the dark, just as the woman was exiting the front of the store. Pennywise made his move. He snatched the woman right from the sidewalk. She dropped all of her bags on the floor as tomatoes, heads of lettuce, and other fresh produce toppled out onto the concrete. Pennywise carried her off into the woods with the woman clawing at trees and him as she fought to get out of his grasp.
Deep in the woods near the abandoned logging camp that had helped establish the area many years ago, Pennywise had claimed a cave for himself. As they entered the cave, Pennywise began to morph into his true form, a monstrous spider-like entity with too many eyes to count yet strangely, still with a clown face. Pennywise always preferred his meals to be as frightened as possible before he devoured them; he thought they tasted better this way. Before he could begin, Pennywise sensed that they were not alone. In a bright flash of light, Pennywise's nemesis appeared in front of him, the ancient turtle Maturin. Telepathically Maturin stated calmly, "Don't do this, Pennywise, let her go." With a frustrated look on his horrible face, Pennywise released the woman but did not look away from Maturin. Then without warning, he lunged at Maturin, knocking him across the cave and ultimately ending up on top of the turtle's shell, pinning him to the cold wet floor. Pennywise, having battled Maturin many times over many millennia, knew exactly what to do. He ripped out Maturin's right eye, causing the turtle to recede into the void. Pennywise's haunting gaze then returned to his soon-to-be meal.
Back at the convenience store, the man looked everywhere for his girlfriend. He went into the convenience store, yelled her name several times, then ran back outside to search. Unfortunately, he would never find her.
Author's Note: I decided to base my story on when Ravana comes to abduct Sita and has to fight off Jatayu. I immediately thought that this could be put into a horror format and I ultimately landed on Pennywise after thinking about how I could incorporate the luring away of Rama into my story. I'm also a huge fan of Stephen King and the IT story (in case you aren't familiar with it here's a link to the Wikipedia page IT (book)). I decided to write the story from Pennywise's/Ravana's perspective because I thought that I would have a little more creative freedom that way and it would be more interesting than retelling it from the same perspective. I wasn't really sure how to incorporate Jatayu into the story, but eventually, I decided to add Maturin the turtle (yes he's really in the original IT book) into my story and make him play the part of Jatayu. My story definitely defers from the original in how it ends. I decided on this ending because I wanted my story to feel very much self-contained, rather than setting up a future encounter as the Ramayana story does.
Source: Laura Gibbs, Tiny Tales from the Ramayana: Stories 79-81.