The Long Walk

by Richard Bachman

“Yoo-hoo! Raymond! Raymond Garraty!” Garraty’s head jerked up. For one awful moment he thought it was his mother, and visions of Percy danced through his head. But it was only an elderly, sweet-faced lady peeping at him from beneath a Vogue magazine she was using as a rainhat. “Old bag,” Art Baker muttered at his elbow. “She looks sweet enough to me. Do you know her?” “I know the type,” Baker said balefully. “She looks just like my Aunt Hattie. She used to like to go to funerals, listen to the weeping and wailing and carrying-ons with just that same smile. Like a cat that got into the aigs.” “She’s probably the Major’s mother,” Garraty said. It was supposed to be funny, but it fell flat. Baker’s face was strained and pallid under the fading light in the rushing sky. “My Aunt Hattie had nine kids. Nine, Garraty. She buried four of ’em with just that same look. Her own young. Some folks like to see other folks die. I can’t understand that, can you?” “No,” Garraty said. Baker was making him uneasy. The thunder had begun to roll its wagons across the sky again. “Your Aunt Hattie, is she dead now?” “No.” Baker looked up at the sky. “She’s down home. Probably out on the front porch in her rockin’ chair. She can’t walk much anymore. Just sittin’ and rockin’ and listenin’ to the bulletins on the radio. And smilin’ each time she hears the new figures.” Baker rubbed his elbows with his palms. “You ever see a cat eat its own kittens, Garraty?”