The Long Walk

by Richard Bachman

His mother was also tall, but too thin. Her breasts were almost nonexistent: token nubs.

I hate books written by men

He told himself that a thing like this must have some deep meaning. Surely it was so. A thing like this must provide an answer to every question; it was just a matter of keeping your foot on the throttle.

Her breasts were not as big as those of the girl who had kissed him.

Like i know he's a teenage boy but JESUS

Old Percy What’s-Your-Name. Hey Percy, your mother’s calling. Hey Percy, does your mother know you’re out? Hey Percy, what kind of silly sissy name is that, Percy, Percy, aren’t you cute? Percy transformed into a bright, sunlit Adonis counterpointed by the savage, dun-colored huntsman.

Narrator is clearly losing it

The one who had shot Percy was now sitting down and eating a sandwich.

“We want to die, that’s why we’re doing it. Why else, Garraty? Why else?”

In twenty-three minutes he could drop a warning, but for now he was still walking with three. It didn’t scare him the way he had thought it would. There was still the unshakable, blind assurances that this organism Ray Garraty could not die. The others could die, they were extras in the movie of his life, but not Ray Garraty, star of that long-running hit film, The Ray Garraty Story.

Go ahead and tell yourself it’s a straight game.” Thin color had come into Stebbins’s cheeks. “Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once.”

“Staying alive hardly qualifies as a hobby.” “I don’t know about that. How about skin divers? Big-game hunters? Mountain climbers? Or even some half-witted millworker whose idea of a good time is picking fights on Saturday night? All of those things reduce staying alive to a hobby. Part of the game.”

reminding Garraty of pictures he had seen in the history books of the German air-blitz of the American East Coast during the last days of World War II.

Oh so this is some alternate reality shit

Only Crowd, a creature with no body, no head, no mind. Crowd was nothing but a Voice and an Eye,

“Why don’t you help me decide?” McVries said. “Sure. What’s the topic for decision?” “Who’s in the cage. Us or them.” Garraty laughed with genuine pleasure. “All of us. And the cage is in the Major’s monkey house.”

Their feet moved but they did not.

And now he wanted to win very badly. It was odd. This was the first time he could remember wanting to win. Not even at the start, when he had been fresh (back when dinosaurs walked the earth), had he consciously wanted to win. There had only been the challenge. But the guns didn’t produce little red flags with BANG written on them. It wasn’t baseball or Giant Step; it was all real. Or had he known it all along?

“How do you know so much about the Long Walk?” Garraty asked abruptly. Stebbins shrugged. “It’s all on record. They don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Now do they?”