The Long Walk

scared him. He didn’t know why.
    He dropped back too fast, got a warning, and spent the next ten minutes working back to where Stebbins was ambling along.
    “Ray Garraty,” Stebbins said. “Happy May 3rd, Garraty.”
    Garraty nodded cautiously. “Same goes both ways.”
    “I was counting my toes,” Stebbins said com panionably. “They are fabulously good company because they always add up the same way. What’s on your mind?”
    So Garraty went through the business about Scramm and Scramm’s wife for the second time, and halfway through another boy got his ticket (HELL’S ANGELS ON WHEELS stenciled on the back of his battered jeans jacket) and made it all seem rather meaningless and trite. Finished, he waited tensely for Stebbins to start anatomizing the idea.
    “Why not?” Stebbins said amiably. He looked up at Garraty and smiled. Garraty could see that fatigue was finally making its inroads, even in Stebbins.
    “You sound like you’ve got nothing to lose,” he said.
    “That’s right,” Stebbins said jovially. “None of us really has anything to lose. That makes it easier to give away.”
    Garraty looked at Stebbins, depressed. There was too much truth in what he said. It made their gesture toward Scramm look small.
    “Don’t get me wrong, Garraty old chum. I’m a bit weird, but I’m no old meanie. If I could make Scramm croak any faster by withholding my promise, I would. But I can’t. I don’t know for sure, but I’ll bet every Long Walk finds some poor dog like Scramm and makes a gesture like this, Garraty, and I’ll further bet it always comes at just about this time in the Walk, when the old realities and mortalities are starting to sink in. In the old days, before the Change and the Squads, when there was still millionaires, they used to set up foundations and build libraries and all that good shit. Everyone wants a bulwark against mortality, Garraty. Some people can kid themselves that it’s their kids. But none of those poor lost children”—Stebbins swung one thin arm to indicate the other Walkers and laughed, but Garraty thought he sounded sad—“they’re never even going to leave any bastards.” He winked at Garrity. “Shock you?”
    “I . . . I guess not.”
    “You and your friend McVries stand out in this motley crew, Garraty. I don’t understand how either of you got here. I’m willing to bet it runs deeper than you think, though. You took me seriously last night, didn’t you? About Olson.”
    “I suppose so,” Garraty said slowly.
    Stebbins laughed delightedly. “You’re the bee’s knees, Ray. Olson had no secrets.”
    “I don’t think you were ribbing last night.”
    “Oh, yes. I was.”
    Garraty smiled tightly. “You know what I think? I think you had some sort of insight and now you want to deny it. Maybe it scared you.”
    Stebbins’s eyes went gray. “Have it how you like it, Garraty. It’s your funeral. Now what say you flake off? You got your promise.”
    “You want to cheat it. Maybe that’s your trouble. You like to think the game is rigged. But maybe it’s a straight game. That scare you, Stebbins?”
    “Take off.”
    “Go on, admit it.”
    “I admit nothing, except your own basic foolishness. Go ahead and tell yourself it’s a straight game.” Thin color had come into Stebbins’s cheeks. “Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once.”
    “You’re all wet,” Garraty said, but now his voice lacked conviction. Stebbins smiled briefly and looked back down at his feet.
    They were climbing out of a long, swaybacked dip, and Garraty felt sweat pop out on him as he hurried back up through the line to where McVries, Pearson, Abraham, Baker, and Scramm were bundled up together—or, more exactly, the others were bundled around Scramm. They looked like worried seconds around a punchy fighter.
    “How is he?” Garraty asked.
    “Why ask them?” Scramm demanded. His former husky voice had been reduced to a mere whisper. The fever had broken, leaving his face pallid and waxy.
    “Okay, I’ll ask you.”
    “Aw, not bad,” Scramm said. He coughed. It was a raspy, bubbling sound that seemed to come from underwater. “I’m not so bad. It’s nice, what you guys are doing for Cathy. A man likes to take care of his own, but I guess I wouldn’t be doing right to stand on my pride. Not the way things are now.”
    “Don’t talk so much,” Pearson said, “you’ll wear yourself out.”
    “What’s the difference? Now