Discovery of Ray Brower's body

The discovery of Ray Brower's body is the climax of the four boys' two-day journey along the GS&WM railroad tracks, the moment that transforms their adventure into a confrontation with death, adult violence, and the irreversible end of childhood. After walking more than twenty miles in record heat, surviving a near-fatal crossing of the Castle River trestle, a confrontation with the dump keeper Milo Pressman and his dog Chopper, and a horrifying infestation of leeches, the four friends finally reach the place where the missing boy lies. The event shatters the heroic frame they had constructed around their quest and leaves them, moments later, facing a violent gang of older boys who want to steal the body for their own glory.

The Moment of Discovery

Vern Tessio is the first to spot the body. Standing on the left-hand rail of the tracks, one hand shielding his eyes from a stroke of lightning, he points and screeches triumphantly: "THERE! THERE HE IS! RIGHT THERE! I SEE HIM!" The other three boys run up beside him and look down. In the place where early spring rains have washed part of the embankment away, leaving a gravelly, uncertain four-foot drop-off, a single pale white hand sticks out of a wild clockspring of blackberry brambles. The hand is limp, the fingers splayed, like the hand of a drowned boy. Gordon Lachance later reflects that the image of that hand came back to him every time he heard or read of an atrocity: "Somewhere, attached to that hand, was the rest of Ray Brower." Black ants trundle back and forth across the hand.

The Body and Its Condition

Chris Chambers jumps over the side of the washout first, and Gordon follows. Vern and Teddy come close behind. The body lies face down. Gordon realizes that the boy was trying to get out of the way when the train hit him, knocking him head over heels. He landed with his head pointed toward the tracks, arms over his head like a diver about to execute, in a boggy cup of land that is becoming a small swamp. His hair is a dark reddish color, curled slightly at the ends from the moisture in the air. There is blood in it, but not a great deal. He wears a solid-color dark green tee-shirt and bluejeans. His feet are bare. A few feet behind him, caught in tall blackberry brambles, Gordon sees a pair of filthy low-topped Keds. The realization that the train knocked the boy out of his sneakers hits Gordon "like a dirty punch below the belt." The distance between the bare feet and the hanging sneakers is thirty-plus inches, but to Gordon it feels like a googol of light-years: "The kid was disconnected from his Keds beyond all hope of reconciliation. He was dead."

Turning the Body Over

The boys turn the body face up into the pouring rain, the lightning, and the steady crack of thunder. Ants and bugs cover his face and neck, running briskly in and out of the round collar of his tee-shirt. His eyes are open but terrifyingly out of sync—one rolled back so far that only a tiny arc of iris is visible, the other staring straight up into the storm. A dried froth of blood sits above his mouth and on his chin from a bloody nose. The right side of his face is lacerated and darkly bruised. A beetle comes out of his mouth, treks across his fuzzless cheek, steps onto a nettle, and is gone. Teddy Duchamp says in a high, strange voice: "I bet he's fuckin fulla bugs! I bet his brains're—" but Chris tells him to shut up. Lightning forks blue across the sky, making the boy's single eye light up, and Gordon thinks: "You could almost believe he was glad to be found, and found by boys his own age." The torso has swelled up, and there is a faint gassy odor about him, like the smell of old farts. Gordon turns away, sure he will be sick, but his stomach is dry, hard, steady. He rams two fingers down his throat trying to make himself heave, but his stomach only hitches a little.

The Storm and the Confrontation

The roaring downpour and thunder completely cover the sound of cars approaching along the Back Harlow Road, which lies bare yards beyond the boggy tangle. The first the boys know of the older gang is Ace Merrill's voice raised above the tumult: "Well what the fuck do you know about this?" Ace Merrill and Eyeball Chambers stand together on the far side of the boggy patch, half-obscured by the pouring gray curtain of rain. They are followed by Charlie Hogan, Billy Tessio, Jack Mudgett, Fuzzy Bracowicz, and Vince Desjardins. The older boys have come in two cars to claim the body for themselves. A tense standoff ensues, with Chris Chambers pulling his father's .45 pistol and firing a shot into the water to stop Eyeball from advancing. Ace Merrill threatens to break both of Gordon's arms. The confrontation ends only when Chris, holding the gun steady, forces Ace to back down. The older boys retreat, but Ace promises revenge.

Aftermath and Abandonment

After the older boys leave, Chris Chambers breaks down. He falls full-length in the muddy water, lying in the exact posture Ray Brower was in when they found him—head pointing toward the embankment, arms stretched out over his head like a diver about to execute. He begins to cry and scream, his body bucking, fists drumming up and down in the water, head twisting from side to side. Teddy and Vern stare at him, agog, because nobody has ever seen Chris Chambers cry. Gordon, Teddy, and Vern climb the embankment and sit on the rails in the rain, looking like the three Monkeys of Virtue. Twenty minutes later, Chris climbs up and joins them. He agrees with Gordon that they cannot take the body back—the older boys could make up any story, could say the four of them killed Ray Brower. They decide to abandon the body and walk back to Castle Rock. As they leave, Gordon looks back and sees Ray Brower lying alone, his arms flopped out, spread-eagled as if to welcome the sunshine. The bluebottles have come out with the sun and are circling the body, buzzing indolently. The gassy smell returns. Gordon rejects the idea that anything about it could be natural: "I pushed it away with horror."