Vern Tessio arrives at the treehouse and asks Gordie, Chris, and Teddy if they want to see a dead body.

Vern explains he overheard his older brother Billy discussing the hidden location of Ray Brower's body.

The boys agree on a camping cover story and get parental permission before setting out toward Harlow.

Chris pulls his father's pistol from his bag and shows it to Gordie in an alley before they leave Castle Rock.

Teddy stands on the railroad tracks to dodge an oncoming train, and Gordie tackles him clear of the rails.

The boys arrive at the dump, flip coins for the chore, and send Gordie alone to the Florida Market for food.

Gordie returns to the dump fence and Milo Pressman sics Chopper on him as he scrambles over.

The boys cross the railroad trestle over the Castle River in single file and barely escape an oncoming train.

The boys camp overnight in the Harlow woods, cook their hamburgers over a fire, and talk for an hour.

The boys find Ray Brower's body near the Royal River, first spotting a hand sticking out of a muddy washout.

Ace Merrill arrives at the body with a gang of older boys and demands the right to report the discovery.

Chris draws his father's pistol and fires two warning shots, forcing Ace's gang to back down and leave.

After Ace departs with threats of revenge, Chris trips over Ray's body and collapses into sobs.

The boys decide to leave Ray's body where it is and walk back to Castle Rock without reporting anything.

Ace Merrill and his friends hunt down each of the four boys separately and beat them badly in the weeks after.

Four boys from the small mill town of Castle Rock set out on a 20-mile walk after learning the location of a dead boy's body. The trip forces them through physical dangers including a near-fatal train encounter on a railroad trestle. When they finally reach the body near the Royal River, the experience is cut short by a confrontation with older hoodlums who want to claim credit for the discovery. Chris brandishes a gun to drive the older boys away, and the group quietly returns home without telling anyone what they found. In the weeks that follow, the older gang retaliates by hunting down and beating each boy separately. The story closes with the group fractured, each boy drifting toward a fate that ends in early death.

The core journey from Castle Rock to Ray Brower's body and its aftermath.

Gordie's parents become consumed by grief over Dennis's death and grow completely indifferent to Gordie.

Teddy's father burns Teddy's ears on a hot woodstove and is arrested when police arrive at the home.

Chris's father breaks Chris's nose and wrist after learning Chris was suspended from school.

Gordie asks his father for permission to camp in Vern's field, and his father reluctantly agrees.

Gordie accuses market owner George Dusset of overcharging him by pressing his thumb on the scale.

Gordie discovers that the legendary Chopper is just a normal, medium-sized dog with a high bark.

Dump manager Milo Pressman calls Teddy a 'loony's son' and threatens to phone each of their parents.

Teddy collapses sobbing after Milo's insult, and Chris calms him by defending his father's wartime service.

Gordie tells the group his story about Lard Ass Hogan's spectacular revenge at a blueberry pie-eating contest.

The boys swim in a beaver dam pool and climb out to find themselves covered in leeches.

Gordie wakes before the others at dawn and silently watches a deer standing still on the railroad tracks.

Vern and Teddy heal from the gang's beatings and drift away, bringing younger kids to the treehouse to boss around.

Chris enrolls in college-prep courses in junior high and his father attacks him with a bottle for it.

Vern dies in a house fire years after the trip to see Ray Brower's body.

Teddy, rejected by the Air Force, dies in a car crash after driving drunk with friends and hitting a telephone pole.

Before the trip begins, the backstories of each boy reveal childhoods marked by abuse, neglect, and loss. During the walk, smaller incidents shape the mood of the adventure, including a market confrontation, a clash with a dump manager, and the telling of a raucous campfire story. The swimming hole provides a moment of fun that turns grotesque when the boys emerge covered in leeches. After returning to Castle Rock, the four boys slowly drift apart as the shared experience fades. Each boy's life after the trip follows a different and ultimately tragic trajectory, with Vern and Teddy both dying young in separate accidents years later.

The boys' troubled backgrounds, journey incidents, and long-term fates.

Adult Gordie embeds his first story 'Stud City' in the narrative and critiques it as melodramatic and sexually immature.

Vern confesses to the group that he has been having nightmares about dead people and fears Ray's ghost will haunt him.

Chris tells Gordie that storytelling is a gift from God and that he must not waste it by taking shop class.

Chris admits to Gordie that he stole the milk money but returned it to Mrs. Simons, who kept it and still suspended him.

Gordie wakes in the night from a dream that Chris has drowned and finds Teddy shaking him awake.

Adult Gordie reflects that the only reason anyone writes stories is to understand the past and prepare for mortality.

Gordie collapses unconscious from heat and exhaustion on the road after the leech ordeal.

The boys choose to walk down the railroad tracks instead of a longer route, a decision Gordie later questions for years.

Gordie stares at Ray Brower's dead face and realizes with horror that a boy exactly their own age can die.

Ace appeals to Gordie by invoking his dead brother Dennis, and Gordie responds by furiously insulting Ace.

Gordie returns home after two days away and his mother says nothing about his absence, only that she misses Dennis.

Chris and Gordie are both accepted to the University of Maine, marking their departure from Castle Rock's shadow.

Gordie reads in a newspaper that Chris was stabbed in the throat while trying to break up a fight in a restaurant.

Gordie leaves his house and cries alone for half an hour after reading about Chris's death, unable to tell anyone why.

Gordie spots an overweight, unrecognized Ace Merrill leaving the mill parking lot and heading straight to the bar.

Gordie's story is shaped as much by internal revelations as by outward events, beginning with his early attempt to process grief through fiction and culminating in his adult understanding of why stories matter. Along the way, Chris delivers a pivotal challenge to Gordie's sense of identity, urging him to write and pursue a life beyond Castle Rock. The trip itself yields personal turning points: a private encounter with a deer, a terrifying dream, and the moment Gordie confronts the reality of a dead boy their own age. After returning home, Gordie finds his mother's indifference confirms everything he already suspected about his place in the family. Years later, Chris's death in a mundane act of decency becomes the loss that Gordie can never articulate, and the adult he becomes still carries the wound of that friendship wherever he goes.

The key decisions, emotional shifts, and discoveries that define Gordie's inner journey.