Dan and John Travel to Iowa to Find Bradley Trevor’s Body

Dan Torrance and John Dalton’s trip to Iowa turns Abra Stone’s psychic identification of Bradley Trevor’s burial place into a physical discovery: at Organic Industries Ethanol Plant #4, they find the remains of the missing boy and the baseball glove buried with him. The journey confirms that Abra’s perception can guide others to evidence hidden from ordinary sight, while the discovery leaves Dan and John with a practical question: how to bring Bradley’s family the truth without drawing attention to themselves.

The journey to Freeman

Dan and John fly from Logan on Tuesday morning, departing at sunrise, changing planes in Memphis, and landing in Des Moines at 11:15 CDT. It is late September, though the day feels more like mid-July. They rent an unobtrusive Ford Focus and head toward Freeman. The travel details establish the expedition as deliberate and ordinary in its outward appearance: two men crossing the country in a modest rental car, trying not to attract notice.

The trip also tests John’s resolve. During the first flight leg, Dan pretends to sleep rather than engage with the doubts and second thoughts he senses in John. Dan eventually falls asleep for real, and John sleeps on the later leg. Once they are in Iowa, Dan senses that John’s doubts have subsided for the time being, replaced by curiosity and unease. Their quiet drive continues after they leave Adair; they encounter no other cars on the way to Freeman, away from the trucking routes and through a landscape where farmers have gone to bed.

Searching the ethanol plant

At the plant, Dan switches off the rental car’s lights and drives slowly up the service road to the closed gate. The darkness, the empty site, and the possibility that the place is haunted sharpen the significance of their task: if Abra is right, a child was murdered and buried there. John is nervous, but he has come too far to abandon the search. They proceed around to the loading dock, navigating potholes and broken asphalt with the headlights off so as not to call attention to themselves.

When John asks how they will know where to look, Dan closes his eyes and waits for Abra. Their search changes from a physical inspection of the grounds to a shared act of perception. Abra’s presence comes into Dan’s awareness, and he begins seeing the loading dock and the remains of the smokestacks with a clarity that exceeds his own night vision. He follows her directions in small, cautious steps. Her guidance leads him to the place where Bradley lies beneath the ground.

The connection carries the distress of the search as well as its direction. Dan’s sight blurs with Abra’s tears, and he recognizes that she is frightened and shaking in her bed, clutching her stuffed rabbit. He sends her the message to leave the vision and return to safety, even as he continues toward the indicated spot. The scene makes the discovery a joint effort: Abra identifies the location from afar, while Dan and John undertake the physical search.

Finding Bradley

Dan and John dig for about twenty minutes, taking turns with the spade. John uncovers Bradley’s remains and recoils from the grave. Dan then examines the burial more closely, proceeding carefully despite the difficulty of the task. Bradley’s hands are clasped around his baseball glove; the boy was buried with it held against his chest. The glove’s presence turns the grave from an uncertain location into an unmistakable confirmation of the child’s identity and of what Abra has been sensing.

The discovery is devastating, but it answers the question that brought the men to Iowa. Bradley had been buried at the plant, far from the family still waiting to learn what happened to him. Dan understands the boy as a victim of the group that wanted what he possessed, rather than as someone whose disappearance can remain an abstract mystery. John’s response immediately moves beyond the grave itself: Bradley has parents and grandparents, and possibly siblings, who are still wondering where he is.

Reburial and consequences

The men cover the remains again, with John doing most of the work, and place broken pieces of asphalt over the spot as a makeshift marker and protection. They do not want animals to disturb the grave. Once they have finished, they sit together in the car without speaking. The pause registers both the emotional weight of the discovery and the unresolved responsibility it creates: finding Bradley has not yet told his family, or formally established, what happened to him.

Dan argues that Bradley must remain there a little longer. An anonymous report made immediately after Dan had bought a spade in Adair could connect the discovery to the two strangers who had entered the site. The delay is therefore a precaution, not a denial of the family’s claim to know. Dan is confident that Abra will be able to help them find more, and the vision she shared with him supports that confidence. The expedition ends with the grave temporarily restored and the next step postponed, but the central uncertainty is gone: Abra’s guidance has led Dan and John to Bradley’s burial place, and the boy is no longer missing to them.