The Long Walk

by Stephen King

McVries said, “Just go on dancing with me like this forever, Garraty, and I’ll never tire. We’ll scrape our shoe on the stars and hang upside down from the moon.” He blew Garraty a kiss and walked away.

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.

He’s there, Garraty thought, sure he is. Where Stebbins said we’d all go if we stuck with it long enough. How deep inside himself is he? Fathoms? Miles? Light-years? How deep and how dark? And the answer came back to him: too deep to see out. He’s hiding down there in the darkness and it’s too deep to see out. “Olson?”

“Sure,” McVries said amiably. “We’re all crazy or we wouldn’t be here. I thought we’d thrashed that out a long time ago. We want to die, Ray. Haven’t you got that through your sick, thick head yet? Look at Olson. A skull on top of a stick. Tell me he doesn’t want to die. You can’t. Second place? It’s bad enough that even one of us has got to get gypped out of what he really wants.”

Olson reminded him of the Flying Dutchman, sailing on and on after the whole crew had disappeared.

“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.”