Read Online The Long Walk by Stephen King - Free Book Online Page B

Her boyfriend was watching them jiggle as she jumped up and down. Garraty decided that he was turning in to a sex maniac.
    “Look at them jahoobies,” Pearson said. “Dear, dear me.”
    Garraty wondered if she was a virgin, like he was.
    They passed by a still, almost perfectly circular pond, faintly misted over. It looked like a gently clouded mirror, and in the mysterious tangle of water plants growing around the edge, a bullfrog croaked hoarsely. Garraty thought the pond was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.
    “This is one hell of a big state,” Barkovitch said someplace up ahead.
    “That guy gives me a royal pain in the ass,” McVries said solemnly. “Right now my one goal in life is to outlast him.”
    Olson was saying a Hail Mary.
    Garraty looked at him, alarmed.
    “How many warnings has he got?” Pearson asked.
    “None that I know of,” Baker said.
    “Yeah, but he don’t look so good.”
    “At this point, none of us do,” McVries said.
    Another silence fell. Garraty was aware for the first time that his feet hurt. Not just his legs, which had been troubling him for some time, but his feet. He noticed that he had been unconsciously walking on the outside of the soles, but every now and then he put a foot down flat and winced. He zipped his jacket all the way up and turned the collar against his neck. The air was still damp and raw.
    “Hey! Over there!” McVries said cheerfully.
    Garraty and the others looked to the left. They were passing a graveyard situated atop a small grassy knoll. A fieldstone wall surrounded it, and now the mist was creeping slowly around the leaning gravestones. An angel with a broken wing stared at them with empty eyes. A nuthatch perched atop a rust flaking flagholder left over from some patriotic holiday and looked them over perkily.
    “Our first boneyard,” McVries said. “It’s on your side. Ray, you lose all your points. Remember that game?”
    “You talk too goddam much,” Olson said suddenly.
    “What’s wrong with graveyards, Henry, old buddy? A fine and private place, as the poet said. A nice watertight casket—”
    “Just shut up!”
    “Oh, pickles,” McVries said. His scar flashed very white in the dying daylight. “You don’t really mind the thought of dying, do you, Olson? Like the poet also said, it ain’t the dying, it’s laying in the grave so long. Is that what’s bugging you, booby?” McVries began to trumpet. “Well, cheer up, Charlie! There’s a brighter day com—”
    “Leave him alone,” Baker said quietly.
    “Why should I? He’s busy convincing himself he can crap out any time he feels like it. That if he just lays down and dies, it won’t be as bad as everyone makes out. Well, I’m not going to let him get away with it.”
    “If he doesn’t die, you will,” Garraty said.
    “Yeah, I’m remembering,” McVries said, and gave Garraty his tight, slanted smile . . . only this time there was absolutely no humor in it at all. Suddenly McVries looked furious, and Garraty was almost afraid of him. “He’s the one that’s forgetting. This turkey here.”
    “I don’t want to do it anymore,” Olson said hollowly, “I’m sick of it.”
    “Raring to rip,” McVries said, turning on him. “Isn’t that what you said? Fuck it, then. Why don’t you just fall down and die then?”
    “Leave him alone,” Garraty said.
    “Listen, Ray—”
    “No, you listen. One Barkovitch is enough. Let him do it his own way. No musketeers, remember.”
    McVries smiled again. “Okay, Garraty. You win.”
    Olson didn’t say anything. He just kept picking them up and laying them down.
    Full dark had come by six-thirty. Caribou, now only six miles away, could be seen on the horizon as a dim glow. There were few people along the road to see them into town. They seemed to have all gone home to supper. The mist was chilly around Ray Garraty’s feet. It hung over the hills in ghostly limp banners. The stars were coming brighter