Epilogue

Disclaimer: I do not own anything! I merely borrow the wonderful characters Chris and Gordie , ( other less worthy ones as well) , from the glorious film directed by Rob Reiner. A film that was based off the novella , The Body , written by the great Stephen King! He whose fame shall never fade from this earth!


The following leter was found by on October 31st , three years after Christopher Chamber and Gordon LaChance fled from Castle Rock on a cargo train...


To whom it may concern ,

I didn't want to write this letter. I never wanted to communicate with you in any way ever again. But Chris asked me to , and I'd do anything for him , even write to you. He thinks , being the hopeful optimist he is , that you give a damn whether I'm dead or alive , we both know you don't. But , for Chris's sake , I'm writing this letter even though I know you don't care , you never did.

The night we escaped on the train was the best of our lives. Trains are wonderful things , their fast , powerful , and virtually unstoppable once you get them going. And the train we were on was going , we slept in an empty boxcar and the train carried us away into the night. It was beautiful , a beauty I doubt you've ever felt or will ever understand. The train kept going for the whole night , and a few hours into the morning. When it finally stopped we ( what a great word " we" is , it implies so much ) , were outside of a large city next to the ocean. We had been carried all the way to San Francisco ( I tell you where we are for two reasons , one , you probably don't care enough to come and look for us , even if you do hate what we are , and two , if you ever did come for us you'd never find us , we know the city and have friends , real friends.). We went to the salvation army homeless shelter and got Chris fixed up , ( he was in bad shape , his dad had almost beaten him to death . By the way , if the old bastard's still around ask him how his hand is doing.). After Chris got better we started working , it just about killed him to accept charity. Chris got a job washing dishes at a restaurant on the pier , he was able to take home uneaten scraps of food , which we pretty much lived on. I got a work delivering news papers for the San Francisco Chronicle. We didn't earn much and what we did had to be spent on clothes and cheap hotel rooms , but we had each other and we were a lot happier than we ever were in Castle Rock.

We probably wouldn't have made it if it hadn't been for Ronda. She owns a little shop on the side of the street where she sells tea , natural medicine , and reads fortunes. She saw me delivering papers one day and invited me in. She was very friendly and flamboyant , there wasn't anything in her store that wasn't bright and colored , I'm sure you'd hate her. She asked me where I was from and for some reason I told her my whole story , our whole story. There's just something about her that made you believe you could trust her. She listened intently and told me not to omit anything. She believed me and felt very sympathetic , she was on the verge of tears and shouts through the whole narrative. She used some particularly colorful language to describe you and I thought she was going to have an aneurism when I told her about Chris's dad abusing him. She's very expressive. When I finished and made known to her our current state she insisted we live there. She owns an apartment above her store that she rents out to a tenant whenever she can , she was going to rent it to us cheap. And she did , it was very cheap , after seeing Chris's fading scars and healing wounds she insisted on giving it to us free. Her medicine went a long way toward Chris's recovery. Ronda even managed to get us into school. She posed as our mother , and we were step brothers. Chris and I did great in school , especially Chris , it's amazing what you can accomplish when the whole town doesn't think you're a good for nothing criminal. We were able to keep our jobs part time after school.

One day , thanks to Chris , I submitted one of my stories ( you know the ones you always hated and called a waste of time) , to the newspaper I worked for. They liked it and paid me twenty dollars to publish it. From then on I regularly submitted stories and regularly got them published. Chris and Ronda call me " The Writer" , it's great to have people who support what makes you happy. Chris and I are still doing well , fantastic even. He is one of the top students at our high school and also manages to find time for a job and sports. He plans to go into law school. People know about our relationship , and it's the funniest thing , they don't beat us within an inch of our lives and literally chase us out of town. Sure there are some people who hates us for it , but most people just accept it , and some even congratulate us. There are always going to be people who hate because of their fear and ignorance , but at least here those people don't consist of the entire town. Me and Chris are happy and our futures look promising. And we will always be so because we have , in abundance , what Castle Rock was void of , love and understanding.

Sincerely , ( not your's , Chris's)

Gordie