The Body Stephen King <2027>

What follows is an epic, picaresque journey. They cross a junkyard haunted by the mythical guard dog “Chopper” (who turns out to be a sleepy, harmless mutt), swim through a leech-infested water hole, and tell stories around a campfire, including Gordie’s best-known fictional tale: “The Revenge of Lardass Hogan,” a gross-out masterpiece about a fat boy who gets revenge on a town by vomiting spectacularly at a pie-eating contest.

But the journey is a race. Unbeknownst to them, a gang of older, vicious teenagers led by Ace Merrill (the nephew of a local criminal) also knows about the body and wants to claim it for their own glory. The climax is a tense, bloody standoff by the railroad tracks, where Chris Chambers, armed only with a stolen pistol and his fierce sense of loyalty, faces down Ace. They find Ray Brower’s body—a small, waxy, horribly still figure—and rather than become heroes, Gordie makes the moral choice to report the death anonymously, leaving the body to be discovered with dignity. The Body Stephen King

They overhear Vern’s older brother, “Eyeball” Chambers, talking about the location of a dead body: a boy named Ray Brower, struck by a train somewhere in the deep woods near the Down east railroad line. The four friends decide to embark on a two-day, twenty-mile trek to find the body, hoping to become heroes in their small town. What follows is an epic, picaresque journey