The Long Walk

by Richard Bachman

“You’re in the army now,”

Garraty’s father, before the Squads took him away, had been fond of calling the Major the rarest and most dangerous monster any nation can produce, a society-supported sociopath.

But if you fall over I won’t pick you up.”

“we’re all in this together and we might as well keep each other amused.”

Garraty lost all track of time. He forgot everything but Curley.

99 now, Garraty thought sickly. 99 bottles of beer on the wall and if one of those bottles should happen to fall… oh Jesus… oh Jesus…

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.

“I don’t know. Like knocking on wood, maybe.” “You’re a dear boy, Ray,” McVries said,

For a moment Garraty was in the grip of a strong panicky feeling, nothing at all like he had felt when Curley and Ewing bought it. He didn’t want Stebbins to fold up early anymore.

“He says he doesn’t give a damn,” Davidson said. “But I’m scared.” His eyes were wide and gray. “I’m scared for all of us.”

“Garraty, we’re all going to die.” “But hopefully not tonight,”

“We don’t bring anything into the world and we sure as shit don’t take anything out.”

“There are three great truths in the world and they are a good meal, a good screw, and a good shit, and that’s all!

Garraty thought that memories were like a line drawn in the dirt. The further back you went the scuffier and harder to see that line got. Until finally there was nothing but smooth sand and the black hole of nothingness that

you came out of.

“And I think… when I get tired enough… I think I’ll just sit down.”

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.

Many of them would never see the dawn. Or the sun. They were buried six feet deep in the darkness.

The mourners were not even aware that they were here, they were alive, they were screaming and scratching and clawing at the coffin-lid darkness, the air was flaking and rusting away, the air was turning into poison gas, hope fading until hope itself was a darkness,

For the time being it was enough to be close to someone he liked, someone else who had made it through the night.

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.

With no friends you had no grief.

McVries looked at Garraty, seeming to recognize him for the first time.