The long walk

“She didn't say much at all. I don't think she could believe it. And the thought of what I'd get if I won. The Prize - everything you want for the rest of your life - that sort of blinded her, I think. I had a brother, Jeff. He died of pneumonia when he was six, and - it's cruel - but I don't know how we'd've gotten along if he'd've lived. And... I guess she just kept thinking I'd be able to back out of it if I did turn out to be Prime. The Major is a nice man. That's what she said. I'm sure he'd let you out of it if he understood the circumstances. But they Squad them just as fast for trying to back out of a Long Walk as they do for talking against it. And then I got the call and I knew I was a Walker. I was Prime.”

“I wasn't.”

“No?”

“No. Twelve of the original Walkers used the April 31st backout. I was number twelve, backup. I got the call just past 11 PM four days ago.”

“Jesus! Is that so?”

“Uh-huh. That close.”

“Doesn't it make you... bitter?”

McVries only shrugged.

Garraty looked at his watch. It was 3:02. It was going to be all right. His shadow, lengthening in the afternoon sun, seemed to move a little more confidently. It was a pleasant, brisk spring day. His leg felt okay now.

“Do you still think you might just... sit down?” he asked McVries. “You've outlasted most of them. Sixty-one of them.”

“How many you or I have outlasted doesn't matter, I think. There comes a time when the will just runs out. Doesn't matter what I think, see? I used to have a good time smearing away with oil paints. I wasn't too bad, either. Then one day - bingo. I didn't taper off, I just stopped. Bingo. There was no urge to go on even another minute. I went to bed one night liking to paint and when I woke up it was nowhere.”

“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-wilted 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.”

Garraty said nothing.

“Better pick it up some,” McVries said gently. “We're losing speed. Can't have that.”

Garraty picked it up.

“My dad has a half-ownership in a drive-in movie theater,” McVries said. “He was going to tie me and gag me down in the cellar under the snack concession to keep me from coming, Squads or no Squads.”

“What did you do? Just wear him down?”

“There was no time for that. When the call came, I had just ten hours. They laid on an airplane and a rental car at the Presque Isle airport. He ranted and raved and I just sat there and nodded and agreed and pretty soon there was a knock on the door and when my mom opened it, two of the biggest, meanest-looking soldiers you ever saw were standing on the porch. Man, they were so ugly they could have stopped clocks. My dad took one look at them and said, 'Petie, you better go upstairs and get your Boy Scout pack.'” McVries jolted the pack up and down on his shoulders and laughed at the memory. “And just about the next thing any of us knew, we were on that plane, even my little sister Katrina. She's only four. We landed at three in the morning and drove up to the marker. And I think Katrina was the only one who really understood. She kept saying 'Petie's going on an adventure.'” McVries flapped his hands in an oddly uncompleted way. “They're staying at a motel in Presque Isle. They didn't want to go home until it was over. One way or the other.”

Garraty looked at his watch. It was 3:20.

“Thanks,” he said.

“For saving your life again?” McVries laughed merrily.

“Yes, that's just right.”

“Are you sure that would be any kind of a favor?”

“I don't know.” Garraty paused. “I'll tell you something though. It's never going to be the same for me. The time limit thing. Even when you're walking with no warnings, there's only two minutes between you and the inside of a cemetery fence. That's not much time.”

As if on cue, the guns roared. The holed Walker made a high, gobbling sound, like a turkey grabbed suddenly by a silent-stepping farmer. The crowd made a low sound that might have been a sigh or a groan or an almost sexual outletting of pleasure.

“No time at all,” McVries agreed.