The Long Walk

by Stephen King

The Walk was one of those things that existed on apocrypha, talismans, legend.

Hint Thirteen was “Conserve energy whenever possible.”

But of course it had hurt. It had hurt before, in the worst, rupturing way, knowing there would be no more you but the universe would roll on just the same, unharmed and unhampered.

Garraty wondered if it was embarrassing, being shot in front of people, and guessed by the time you got to that you probably didn’t give a tin whistle.

Blisters and charley horses. Garraty shivered. Sudden death. All those muscles, all the training, couldn’t stop blisters and charley horses.

It seemed to him that the sound of his footfalls had become as loud to his ears as the sound of his own heartbeat. Vital, life and death sound.

That’s the day’s business. Thinking. Thinking and isolation, because it doesn’t matter if you pass the time of day with someone or not; in the end, you’re alone.

“You think just knowing about death will keep you from dying?”

The point is, they’re the smart ones. They’re not getting thrown to the lions. They’re not staggering along and hoping they won’t have to take a shit with two warnings against them. You’re dumb, Garraty. You and me and Pearson and Barkovitch and Stebbins, we’re all dumb. Scramm’s dumb because he thinks he understands and he doesn’t. Olson’s dumb because he understood too much too late. They’re animals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings?”

He thought that the longer you went without speaking, the harder it gets to break the silence.

Nothing vital, just another little disappointment. Trivial, really. Just… don’t dare wish for anything, and don’t count on anything. The doors are closing. One by one, they’re closing.

“None of us really has anything to lose. That makes it easier to give away.”

“I don’t want to see it anymore. It’s lousy. And it’s a cheat. You build it all around something… set yourself on something… and then you don’t want it. Isn’t it too bad the great truths are all such lies?”

“I walk, I did walk, I will walk, I will have walked,” McVries chanted.

“I hope it won’t be dark,” Baker said. “That’s all I hope. If there is an… an after, I hope it’s not dark. And I hope you can remember. I’d hate to wander around in the dark forever, not knowing who I was or what I was doin’ there, or not even knowing that I’d ever had anything different.”