Stephen King/The Body

Novella by Stephen King, originally published in Different Seasons (1982).

Wikipedia contains spoilers

Format of the story

The Body is told in a somewhat complicated manner. It is told in first person by the novelist Gordon Lachance. He's around thirty, and describing an event that took place when he was twelve. Most of the story is a straight retelling of what happened then, but now and then are comments or entire chapters that relate to the present time.

Already when he's twelve, Gordon writes and tells stories. A few times during the story, he tells stories to his friends, and they are presented in the text as short stories by Gordon Lachance, complete with attribution to what magazines they were published in. More about them later.

The Story

The real story of The Body takes place in 1960 when Gordon is twelve. He and three friends in Castle Rock (Chris Chambers, Teddy Duchamp, and Vern Tessio) find out where the corpse of Ray Bowers, a boy their own age is and go out to take a look at it. Ray had gone out to pick berries and never got back. Apparently he got hit by a train.

As usual, the gang spends their time hanging around in their treehouse playing cards and generally goofing off. Very comes running, having overheard his older brother Billy speak about the corpse of Ray Bowers that they had found at a place called Back Harlow Road but didn't dare tell anyone about. The gang decides that they will go there to look at the corpse. Since it's longer than they can walk on one day, they tell their parents that they are going to camp in Vern's back yard, and then rig a flashlight in the tent to make it look as if they're there.

more...

Film

The Body has been filmed as [Rob Reiner/Stand By Me]? (1986), directed by Rob Reiner.