Chapter Text
The sky is a vivid shade of blue. It burns to look at; all that rain and now, suddenly, the sun. It's beautiful—Ray's been noticing that sort of stuff lately.
There's a hawk wheeling overhead, turning circles like it thinks Ray might be dinner, soon. Might be. It's feeling real possible. That hawk might dive down and peck out Ray's liver. The way things are shaping up, though, Ray would probably just regrow it and keep trucking.
Stretching out, endlessly, is the road. Corn stalks shoot up above Ray's head and they're decent enough cover, but Ray wishes there were more. Wishes this road curved into thick woods, that those woods might transform into a forest. He'd take a cougar. He really would.
But obviously, yeah, if wishes were fishes then the whole world would be under water. His dad used to say that. If wishes were fishes. The road stays flat, stays exposed, and Ray stays feeling like almost-roadkill, that hawk turning lazy circles overhead.
The thing about the wishes—the real wishes, the Walk Wishes—is that they don't make any good Goddamn sense. Never have, either, not ever: they're too open. Give a man a wish after he just walked all those miles? It's like whipping strips off a bull's back and then opening the gate. Animal mad as fuck and charging at you. All that open space, like a dare. Raybans glinting like a red flag. Matador declaring: bet you won't say anything that matters. And nobody ever did.
Well, what the fuck did it matter. It doesn't matter. What's he know about it? Ray never got his wish. He punched his ticket before he could—it was only right, because if he hadn't died then Pete would've, which might have been something cosmically inequitable.
Ray saw a paper, a few days ago. GOD REST THE MAJOR. Thing had no picture and Ray had no time to read it, because a man had stumbled onto his stoop to pick up the paper and Ray ducked his head and high-stepped it down the street. But Ray had seen it. Knew right away that Pete must've done it; felt heartsick that Pete had done it. Wondered what happened to Pete after. He threw up on the side of the road wondering, sick with guilt, just downright sick with it. He was back on his feet and moving apace before ten seconds had passed—Ray had felt each second like a hand on his shoulder. Like being pushed.
Obviously, Ray should be dead.
He's spent a fair few days wondering if he's in purgatory. His life, somehow, has warped around and become a sort of delirious comedy. Not Camus anymore but Plato, Socrates, Phaedo: the philosopher, more than most other men, frees the soul from association with the body.
Socrates got himself executed, too. He wrote Phaedo convincing himself he shouldn't be scared about it. Ray wonders if it worked—if he'd found peace in the moment before, like Ray had. All things come to be from their opposites, Socrates said. Alive gets born from dead. Can't nothing exist by itself. And Ray hadn't been by himself; he'd been with Pete. Pete, Pete.
For a second, Pete's beloved face—his jagged scar, his dark eyes, his heavy low brow and broad smile—floats in front of Ray's eyes. Trees behind Pete, the sight of him walking, that same steady pace that never faltered. Never once. Just totally tireless. Beautiful.
Ray sees it as he walks. He angles the bucket hat on his head as the corn parts and he passes a farmhouse. It's rickety, some boards peeling loose. White paint turning gray. He picks up the pace and doesn't look in the windows.
A curtain twitches. Ray grits his teeth and gets his speed up further. Well over three miles an hour now—got to be up on four. It hurts like dying.
The thing of it all is that Socrates had stayed down and Ray's hick ass is still marching, even after he's been shot through the brain. Stupid fucking idea. Well, it wasn't Ray's fucking idea, that's for damn certain. There's no choosing involved: it's like his soul is tied to his feet. He can't get loose. He can't die.
His bullet holes are all healed up. His feet bleed fresh each day, but close up each night. Well, not night. Just when he sleeps. He's been sleeping on his feet like a horse—he hallucinates Pete holding him.
Nervously, Ray glances up at the lovely blue sky and sees that hawk. He tries really hard not to feel like the hawk is a gun pointed at his head. But it feels like that. Like the thing is just waiting for him to fall over. It all feels like a story. And not a new one, either. An old one. Old, old—back before the Old World type of old. Like it had traveled over the sea to reach Ray and sweep him up, pull him down, rattle him around with pain until he's transformed. Maybe it is a story, but it's not one that Ray knows.
He doesn't know where Pete is and doesn't know how to find him. He doesn't know how far this road goes, or where it will end—he's starting to think it won't end, and that's a whole other can of beans. Ray figures he'll walk another few days and then work out what to do about everything.
He's not worried. He's not hungry. He is tired, though, and he does bleed, so Ray figures that if he's not all the way living then at least he's mostly alive, which is good enough for him.
Slowly, the blue sky turns orange, clouds lighting up with color, reflecting it all down like heaven made visible, just for a minute. Ray tips his hat off his head, the cord cutting around his throat, so he can see everything unobstructed. The beauty makes him think of Pete.
Pete would really love this, he thinks, and then snorts at himself. Jesus Christ. But, well, he would, and wasn't it Pete who said Ray had to start looking harder at everything? Had to start seeing what the world blessed him with each day? Couldn't just sit boiling himself in hate forever. Things aren't as bad as all that, Garraty, don't you know what your spoiled ass sounds like? But Pete had laughed when he said it. Not a single walker was spoiled, not really, and Pete knew that. Christ, Pete had such a level head. Not like Ray.
Has. Of course Pete's still got his head. Unless it got blown off him, like Ray got his blown, but then isn't Ray up and walking now? So, Pete is fine. Obviously Pete's fine.
Ray's just got to find him, is all.
He keeps thinking this would all be easier if he'd woken up where he'd died. Middle of a city like that, Ray could've bummed a ride or, hell, found a way to steal a car. But that's not what fucking happened. Because that would've been too easy, or some shit. No, Ray woke up in a ditch, on the side of a run-down road in backwoods farm town, the same type of road he'd been walking for two hundred miles. His back pressed against a brown wood fence, big ol' cow snuffling at his hair, bucket hat falling down his face. The fabric had caught and pulled on the bullet crater in his forehead. But it hadn't hurt. The cow's warm breath had gusted over his ear.
Fucking strangest experience of his life.
He's walking like a led horse, blindly moving his feet, like Pete's got his lead and is tugging him along. It feels like that. He knows he's going to Pete; he just knows. It's down in his gut like lead. His palms itch, thinking about Pete. He wants to touch him. His brow, his round cheek. Put his thumb against the bridge of Pete's nose and then stick his tongue in his ear, or bellybutton, just somewhere to be inside a little bit. It would make Pete smile. Christ, Pete's smile. Ray walked for miles on love for that smile. He's doing it still. Of course he is. Smile like Pete's could drive a man crazy.
God, Pete's so beautiful. Everything about him makes Ray feel good, even just thinking about Pete lights his whole body up. The broad stretch of his palms. The tight coils of Pete's hair, soft as wool, which Ray knows because Pete would rest his head on Ray's shoulder sometimes, just to sleep a little. His hair would brush Ray's neck. Pete's strong arm slung heavily over Ray's shoulders. Ray always found a little extra strength for Pete. Found strength he didn't know he still fucking had, slinging Pete up from the ground like a flour sack, like a ton of potatoes, heaving him to his feet and dragging him along. It had been easy.
Moms who could lift a whole fuckin' car off their kid, Pete had said, and Ray had found that strength. That strength borne from love. For sure he could've lifted a car straight off Pete, in that moment; flinging around Pete's hundred-seventy pounds had been nothing. He'd spent ten seconds getting Pete up and moving then immediately punched his ticket. Not Pete, he'd thought. Jesus, not Pete. Not for me.
And then the Major. The gun in Ray's face; the words Mr. Garraty. For a moment, Ray had been on his knees about to die, and then he had been Pete, had been remembering himself as Pete, staring at his father. And then he'd been his own father; knew, down to the glint on the Major's glasses, what his father had seen. Just entirely outside of himself, outside of his own body. Too focused on thinking to care about dying. Socrates had said that shit. Well, it worked. Next thing Ray knew, he was being nibbled on by that damn cow.
Ray is thinking himself in circles. There's just nothing else to fucking do. He's walking alone. It sucks ass, walking alone. He wishes Pete were here. Or, barring Pete, any-fucking-body else. Maybe not Barkovitch. And if he can't have people, he wants music—who had been the kid with the radio? Tressler. Smart thing to bring. Fuck the extra weight, Ray would kill to hear an electric guitar. A little trumpet. The Walk was all mental, hadn't Pete said that? Pete in his wisdom. Fuck, Ray hadn't ever known a guy his age could be wise, but Pete managed it somehow. Managed to be funny, too.
Missing Pete feels like missing his own stomach. Like there's just a cavern, a big huge pit, inside his gut that he can't ever fill.
Eventually, that invisible horse lead slackens, and Ray stumbles to a panting stop. He lays down on his back by the corn, head to a fence post, crosses his ankles, and shuts his eyes. It feels good to rest. Nobody on Earth ever had a rest so nice; this grass is the softest pillow in the world. He imagines Pete sleeping next to him, under the stars. Probably Pete would have some trick for him, some story to share. Ray smiles thinking on it, and falls fast, fast asleep, and stays that way the whole night.
It's the arguing that wakes him.
"—him he's got to get moving—"
"You try to tell him, dipshit, what the fuck d'you think I—"
"Keep arguing and I'll bite your throat out—"
"Don't you fuckin' bother, freak ass would like it—"
When Ray opens his eyes, there's a sensation like a flame smothered, an extinguishing, and everything becomes silent. Gray, watery light drifts down. It's only almost morning, not full dawn. Everything is surreal; mist drifts across the road in waves. The grass is wet and shining with dew. Ray sits up, staring around, but finds nothing. Nothing but the road. The corn, the trees. The vast endless sky. It's strange. Somehow, everything feels emptier than yesterday. Like half the world is missing. There's no noise anywhere.
Ray sighs for a long time. He hauls himself up, body halfway frozen and difficult to move, and starts walking again.
Down the road he goes, one eye on the horizon and the other scanning peripherally. He doesn't know what he's looking for. A deer, maybe. A sudden car whizzing down the road. Twenty soldiers with twenty guns. But he's completely alone—he can't even find any animals, not even that hawk which had been stalking him. It's like he fell asleep, and so did everything else.
There's a sensation like rope around his ankles. Like he's being dragged down, or backward. Like he had almost, almost, reached the surface—pressed his fingers against the glimmering sunshine cutting down into the murky gloom, but then couldn't swim up fast enough. Like he's back where he started.
It's bizarre. Everything is so fucking bizarre.
For a while, he tries to pass time by reciting the Odyssey—many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home. But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove; the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all— but it just gets fucking depressing, so he stops.
Eventually, he starts talking to himself. Except that's not totally true.
Really, he starts talking to Pete.
"Gotta tell you, I—I gotta tell you, it's looking, uh, grim out here, Pete. No—no nothing but this road, crazy really, not even flies or anything. Never thought I'd miss that buzzing. No roadkill. Well, other than me." He laughs at himself. "Sure smell enough like roadkill to qualify. Jesus. If you were here you'd make me hike two miles up the road. Wouldn't even blame you, either, that's how rancid I am."
Briefly, Ray wonders if his dead meat—all his blood and guts still stuck in his clothes—is starting to rot, or maybe cook in the morning sun. He didn't smell this fucking bad before he died. He would've remembered. It's fucking bad. He's got to wash this shit off. He can't stand himself.
Like magic, like a wish come fucking true, Ray clears another mile and then sees a stream. Really it's more of a river, but it's sheltered and slow-moving, glittering and clear, like he might be able to drink it, too. It looks clean. Ray wants to be fucking clean.
He picks up the pace, steps off the path, and starts toward the water. No animals here, either, but Ray doesn't let that bother him. He peels off his socks, which re-opens the deep, sucking wounds he can't feel, but look hideous. He throws off his pack and his shirt, flings his hat to the right. Eagerly, Ray starts forward.
Then pauses. There's something—
Fuck off. He's gross as shit. He starts forward again and—
Is stopped.
He stands.
"Alright," Ray says. "What the fuck?"
A stone the size of Ray's palm flies through the air, whizzing for Ray's head, and Ray ducks to the side. It whistles past his ear and splashes into the water with a great kerplunk, and Ray watches it sink to the clear bottom.
"Sure," Ray says to nothing.
He stands still and stares at the glimmering river. The sunlight drifts down through the trees like a painting. Slowly, Ray turns his head. Of course there's nothing. But Ray likes to think he's a smart enough guy. He's got a theory.
He takes a confident step toward the river.
"—like he fucking wants to bite it—" someone wails. It's all classic New Yawk. It sounds, Ray thinks, just like Hank fucking Olson.
"I look like he do, I'm divin' on in there no rock stoppin' me." Louisiana drawl. Fuck off, Ray thinks. Fuck off. No fucking way.
"Thought he read books and shit right like shouldn't he fucking know what the fuck rivers do to dead people—" And this all in one breath, words tumbling over each other like a wheel rolling wild. Absolutely fucking Barkovitch, that rat bastard.
No-nonsense, bit off anger. Ray can almost see the long dark hair. "He's not dead, dipshit, we're dead."
And, of course, here Ray has to put his hand against his mouth. Emotion tries to burst out all at once, like a parasite ripping out of his throat, tearing it all up. It hurts. He breathes and doesn't move. He stares, frozen, at the water.
"What the fuck you gonna call him if not dead?" Hank demands.
Delirious, Ray thinks to himself, I've got my very own Greek chorus. He falls on his ass, hand still against his mouth, and he wants to laugh because he's just realized this walk is going to be very, very long, and very difficult. Another two hundred miles, hell, another five hundred, maybe. None of these stories ever go easy, and they don't end happy. Greek fucking tragedy for a reason. But Ray might be limiting himself, here. There are other stories in the world. Fionn mac Cumháill, that wouldn't be so bad. Great warrior. Thumb of knowledge might be nice. But Fionn has fuck-all to do with his situation, and Ray suspects, horribly, that he knows exactly which story he's gone and stuck himself into.
Well, fine. Fine. So mote it be, or whatever. At least this one—if he's right, if it is this story—is just walking.
He wonders if, maybe, somehow, he'll finally get to hear Pete sing.
"Get your gear back on, Garraty," Stebbins tells him. "Get moving."
None of them, really, are talking to him. They're talking to each other, or talking to Ray the way they might yell at the radio, and Ray is just listening, spying; they don't know he can hear. But Stebbins always knew his shit, at least when he talked about walking. So Ray hauls himself up, away from the edge and puts his clothes back on.
He turns from the bright running water. It's still so clear, so clean. He can almost taste it.
But he walks away.
He'd die a second time before forgetting Pete. His brown eyes, his white smile. The roping muscles in his dark arms. Fuck off, Ray thinks toward nothing, stomping away from the river. Fuck you. He grabs his memory of Pete and holds it, promises himself he'll walk until he can hold Pete for real, and then starts, again, down the road.
Around midday he rustles through his bag and finds his baseball. There's no one to toss it to, so Ray just throws it up and catches it a thousand times. Up, down. Sun in his eyes. Blink away the sun spots. Keep the pace, brisk 3.2 miles per hour, he can feel it. Once, he misses his catch and the ball rolls off the path into the tall grass.
Hesitantly, Ray steps off. He retrieves the ball. The boys don't shout his ass down, so he figures he can stray, just a little. Just sometimes.
He knows that, actually, it's better if he doesn't hear them. He only hears them when he fucks up, when he backslides. Fucked up by sleeping—when he first came back, he was up with the animals and the people, the newspapers announcing the Major's death—and, sure enough, he heard the boys when he woke up, deader than before. Heard them again by the water, where he would've lost himself completely if he swam or drank. A spiritual death, worse and more permanent than the physical. If Ray forgot himself, forgot Pete, that'd be strike three, no prior warnings. Just out.
Still, though. He wants to talk to them. He doesn't want to be alone.
This shit is fucking difficult, even though Ray's done it all before. It feels harder this time. He knows, now, why everyone—in all the stories—always, always fails at this. It's hard when you can't speak. Can't see anyone you love. No reassurance, no encouragement, no shoulder to sleep on. Just the long walk. Just the prize at the end.
Fine, Ray thinks again. I've done it before, motherfucker. Just you watch. And, for some reason, he's thinking this at the Major, though no way in hell is the Major any sort of divine figure. The Major is deader than he is.
So he marches on. And on, on, then on, endlessly on, each tree the same, each fence post the same, each white cloud in the blue sky the fucking same, same, and all at once Ray understands Collie Parker's disgusted scowl. He hates it here. He hates whatever here is. But the only way out is to walk.
Ray walks. Jesus Christ, he walks.
He starts bleeding again. He sleeps while awake, sleeps on his feet like a horse, no Pete to keep him straight on the path. Miraculously, he doesn't tip over. Someone, at some point, says, "poor motherfucker," but Ray can't decide who it is. A day passes, two: light, dark, light and dark again, and then Ray sees it.
"This is such fucking bullshit!" Ray yells, because there, looming ahead, is a big hill, broad as it is tall, with no way to go around. At the top, a single lamp post flickers yellow, suddenly turning on, like Ray's voice flipped a switch.
Another hill, with no Pete to help him.
If he hadn't had Pete, that first hill would've punched his card. Ray knows that gut-deep. He would've gone down before Hank. He'd found a second wind after, of course, then a fourth and seventh, but he'd only been alive to find them because of Pete. Pete, beneath his arm. Holding him upright. Letting him rest, hands gentle around Ray's waist. Bruising, of course, but still gentle. A paradox of sensation. The rain coming down, or maybe—was there rain, then?
That walking fog, that deep smothering exhaustion, is getting him again. Ray thinks it's a good sign. Only alive things get so tired they drop dead. The pain is proof he's going in the right direction.
It's a shit-ass reward.
Ray grits his teeth, doesn't slow down, and starts his ascent. Seeing Pete again means being alive, or maybe seeing Pete will make him become alive, or maybe he's still alive and living for Pete. All three at once. And Pete is worth this pain, any pain, hadn't Ray already decided that? Hadn't he decided miles and days and lifetimes ago? He walked for Pete, he died for Pete. Sure, he'll walk and live for Pete, too. What's the difference? None. Ray is still on this endless march, in the most pain he's ever been in, pain that liquifies his brain and unravels his muscles and causes his body to eat itself into the grave. Whatever. That wasn't special; he knew forty-nine other guys that had felt this. They'd all gotten through it, until they hadn't, and Ray had died, too, so he didn't have a high horse to sit on. He'd gotten his bullet same as anyone else.
It helps, thinking this. Thinking about Harkness going for hours on a broken fucking ankle. Bones completely sideways. Whole foot falling off. Just marching on it all night. Goddamn everything—Ray leans forward, puts his weight into it, and picks up his pace.
It feels endless. The hill. Ray's watch doesn't work, but he knows hours pass. The sun slides down the sky into evening. Clouds start going purple and pink. Ray climbs up, and up, and then, somehow, his baseball slides from his pack and rolls, gaining speed, down the hill.
Of course Ray doesn't go back to get it. He's not an idiot.
But he stops anyway. Or—stops is generous. He gets stopped. He slams into a Goddamn invisible wall.
"You're fucking with me," Ray grits out, furious, because he knows this story, too. He wants to throw a gigantic, huge tantrum, but doesn't. Waste of fucking energy, and Ray's starting to get hungry, which is a wonderful, horrible sign. Got to conserve his strength. It's encouragement by way of torture.
He trudges down to the bottom. He retrieves his baseball, traces his thumb over the red stitches. The yellowed leather.
Clutching his tiny boulder, he starts walking again.
So, Ray thinks, turning the problem over in his mind. Sisyphus as metaphor, Sisyphus as role, Sisyphus as archetype. Which is it? If he's just sliding between stories and this is a role he's fallen into, then he's fucked. But he thinks it's probably metaphor.
He's been dragging his dad's memory around. Hatred for the Major, for the whole country and world, like a boulder on his back. He's been pushing his revenge up a hill. What's the solution?
I suggest you choose love, the Pete in his memory tells him, tapping him on the chest. Right over his heart. His stupid, stupid heart.
He's already made this choice. He can make it again, easy.
Ray hauls back and chucks the ball hard as he can up the hill. It disappears beyond the light post, cresting the top and rocketing down the other side. You coulda thrown shot, you shoulda done football, his dad bemoans. Ray hasn't remembered this in a long time. His dad wanted Ray to join a team; he'd resented himself for putting all those books in Ray's hands. You're a strong boy, Ray. He thought he'd ruined Ray's life.
Once, Ray would've said, never. For a day or two, Ray would've said, yeah, you fucking did. But now Ray thinks no one man, no one moment, not even a man as evil as the Major or a moment as bad as his father's execution, could ruin his entire life. He's not going to let it.
Pete taught him that.
Ray walks up the hill. Brisk pace, no stopping, no passing out or throwing a fit. With every step he thinks Pete, Pete, Pete.
He imagines Pete in front of him, Pete's broad back, long shirt and coat tied around his waist, just in his tank top. All that bare skin out. The hint of scar along his collarbone. Long, smooth muscle down his forearms. The bulb of his elbow. Strong jaw, some stubble, but mostly smooth. Pete is so beautiful. His broad nose, his mouth. His mouth.
Ray climbs halfway up just thinking on Pete's mouth. The curve of it. The bow of Pete's lips, the way they sometimes slackened. He never pouted but Ray imagines it, anyway, imagines a lighter situation where he might tease Pete, might snatch away a cookie or soda and see Pete's mouth moue. Imagines kissing him like that. Just pressing his lips to Pete's and feeling their soft warmth.
And, all at once, he remembers Pete shuddering, skipping, playing it up but grabbing at himself half-hidden: I've never been so fucking horny. Ray understands, now. He could fuck Pete and never once stop walking, that's how horny he suddenly is. Could shove his hands down Pete's pants, tight belt and everything, no room except to wiggle and grope, just for the joy of touching. To feel good. To make Pete feel good.
How would Pete like it? How would he want it? Would he pull Ray onto him, tuck his nose in Ray's neck? Let Ray touch him slow, touch him firm. Solid strokes, Pete's panting breath, Ray kissing across his neck. Or would he shove Ray away, fling himself on Ray instead, come at Ray with all his tireless energy? Ray would lay back—or, if they couldn't lay, if they were walking, Ray would let himself go loose. Would wrap his arms around Pete and press his mouth to Pete's temple, and shudder, and let Pete love on him.
Making love, Ray thinks, deliriously. He's gotten handies and fingered Jan, fucked her once but the condom broke and it scared them both so bad they hardly touched each other again before the Walk. He's never made love. Wouldn't know how to do it. But he thinks it would come easy, come natural, making love with Pete. Like they might just fall into it. Fall into step with each other, like they always do.
Ray reaches the hill's peak in a daydream. He hardly notices the view. He thinks about Pete, about Pete's strong body, his naked skin. The way Pete might twitch or moan. He wants to love Pete for hours, days, might really be able to do it—might dig deep into his well of endurance and love Pete just as long as he walked with him. Their bodies going endlessly. Overwhelmed with pleasure, this time. Endless pleasure.
Choose love, Ray's invisible memory of Pete repeats, as Ray descends the other side. He passes his baseball boulder and barely notices it. Choose love—it is suddenly, and all at once, the easiest thing in the fucking world.
Ray starts Goddamn skipping once he gets back on flat road. He's not sure if it's his second wind, fifth wind—it doesn't matter. He's gonna fucking do it. Ahead, there's a deer's rotting carcass, ribs poking through and tongue lolling out, half picked apart by crows and carrion. Ray starts whistling. He's really going to fucking Goddamn do it. The animal's dead but that hardly matters. It's a fucking animal. He's getting somewhere, finally. He is.
But then he hears the music.
It fades in and out, scratching and gargling, like a bad radio. All static.
Ray slows but doesn't stop.
It could be good. The music. Didn't Orpheus sing? But of course Pete isn't here, though he is a singer, is a poet, so he might fit in the story beyond Ray's ardency. And since Pete isn't here, the music is probably bad. All those stories about sirens, tine ghealain. Luring people off their paths, to their deaths, to underhill or the underworld. Odysseus wrecking his ship. The devil picking up a fiddle.
"Nice going, fuckface, you scared him," Stebbins says.
"Don't fuck with me right now, alright, I've almost got this shit working—" Hank again.
"Can't believe Tressler just gave that shit to you." Parker.
Like wind, their voices blow away, but the static remains. And then the static becomes music, real music, the very beginning of a song, all high strings. It hooks into Ray's guts and he grins. Doesn't stop grinning; can't. He knows the song. Real old record—his dad had snuck it home for his mom. Baby You've Got What It Takes. Dinah Washington.
He doesn't sing along, just vocalizes the instruments, fingers playing violin on the air. When the chorus starts he hums. He's no singer, not really.
He does dance though. He can't help it. It starts as a shuffle, Ray turning sideways and doing a little skip, swinging his body around, and then he finds it in himself to do a shitty ballerina twirl, arms halfway up, muscles in his back straining, his legs screaming. The pain is nothing. He's laughing down the road.
The radio cuts out before the song finishes. The music flies away like a kite caught in the wind, though of course there isn't wind, and everything is still and silent. That's alright, though. Ray knows now that the boys are walking with him, as much as they can. He doesn't know the rules here, not completely, but he's fine with that. He'll learn them or he won't. Hopefully it won't matter.
Ray straightens out, relaxes into a bow-legged stride that can't feel easy, what with how exhausted he is, but does come natural. He tips his head back and tries to feel the sun on his face. He manages it. He feels it.
A mile down the road, two, and Ray gets bored. Thinks to himself, well, why not? Remembers Collie Parker skipping down the road, oh my darling, oh my darling, all of them pulled thin but finding strength to sing with each other— and to the cameras, to Hank's Clementine.
"If I were a carpenter, and you were my lady," Ray sings out, a different folk song this time. His voice is rough and cracking but loud. It bursts out of his chest, like the words were waiting. He sounds like his dad. "Would you marry me anyway? Would you have my baby?"
The singing doesn't change anything. Part of him thought it might. But there's no flash of light, no hole opening in the sky, no sudden scenic transformation. It does make the time pass easier, though.
Ray whistles for a while, forgetting the other verses, before abruptly remembering one. "Save my love for loneliness; save my love for sorrow! I've given you my only-ness, give me your tomorrow!"
Night, then day. Miles pass and Ray feels them as inches. Pete was right, like Pete is usually right: the trick is to not imagine a finish line. To not even wish for one. Radical acceptance, Ray muses. Hadn't he heard that term once? Well, it works. Accept the situation and free yourself from suffering inside it—the source of suffering is want; the desire for something to change. This is his road to walk and nothing is gonna change that, which frees him from trying. He can just walk. Good old Camus, Ray thinks, because Camus had been the one to say, the struggle itself toward heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy. And then, on the heels of that thought, Ray muses, my heart is a bird, Eurydice, but now he's conflating texts. His invisible Pete says, go on dancing with me like this, Garraty, and I'll never tire, and Ray knows Pete was right. Pete knew something Ray didn't, back then. But Ray knows it now.
If he could just have Pete here with him. If he could just reach out and put his hand back on Pete's shoulder. Well, then he really could do this forever—just march down this barren, asphalt road, and never rest, never eat nor drink, just stare at the lonely creaking fences and skeletal trees and Pete, and Pete, if he could just stare at Pete forever he would be content.
Ray's radical acceptance is subsumed by anger and exhaustion the morning of day six. He's now walked longer without Pete than with him, which is a thought that sits wrong in his stomach. It cramps at him, churns and writhes, and Ray gags. Spits to the side, walks another few feet, then heaves again. Nothing comes up, of course, but he can't stop gagging. So he tries to think about something else.
He pictures Pete's face. A tried and true strategy, imagining Pete's face. He's passed entire days that way. But it fails him, now. His stomach cramps but nothing comes out of him, not on either end. With each step it hurts worse, and worse, and worse.
It's hard to lift his feet, which is a new problem to have; Ray's feet, previously, had kept themselves marching automatically. But now his toes drag along, scraping over asphalt. He's bleeding again. He's bleeding a lot, actually. Not from his forehead, thank God. Or from his gut. But he's leaving red footprints with each step and something sticky that Ray doesn't want to think about is leaking from his ears. It trickles down his neck, collects on his shirt collar.
He staggers through the morning, barely keeping his pace up. He lists sideways, all the way across the pavement, and is only jolted back to himself when his toes hit grass. Ray jerks straight but then tips the other way. He zigs and zags down the road.
He thinks—it's possible—
He doesn't know how—
He never got like this on the real Walk. A fair couple times he'd come close, sure. But in the end Ray quit for Pete, not because his body failed him. At the end he could still carry Art, could still sling Pete's limp weight off the ground and into motion. The other guys, though. Those other guys just couldn't take another step. Nine bags under their eyes, skin sagging loose, face colorless. Crying, bleeding, rupturing. Driving themselves straight out of their heads, unable to go any further, not one more fucking inch, overwhelmed by pain. Ray had been close, but he hadn't been there. Not really. He always had a little bit more to give. Strength hidden away inside himself, just waiting. An eleventh wind or whatever.
But now.
Jesus Christ, now.
It's unbearable. He thought that a few times before, of course, and then gone right on bearing it. So it hadn't been, actually. But now Ray really understands—he can't take this. Not through lack of trying, he's trying so Goddamn hard, endlessly, but that's not going to matter. His body is gonna quit on him.
But he's come all this way. All this way, just to fail now? Surely he's almost there. He's got to be. Impossible that he isn't almost there; the pain continues growing, swelling, and so he's got to be almost completely alive. Right? It can't go on like this.
Ray manages another mile. Then two.
"Oh, man, buddy, you do not look good," Hank tells him nervously.
Distantly, Ray thinks, fuck, but the word drifts through his brain like a paper boat on water. It spins and tips on its side, floating away then dissolving. He doesn't have the strength to speak.
"He's had to have gone, like, another three hundred miles now, isn't he gonna be done soon? Um, because I think it's—really he's gonna have to be done soon, because, um."
Ray doesn't know who that is. Harkness? Some other guy he didn't talk to, some other guy who wasn't as interesting as Pete? Ray might know the kid by face. But he doesn't look behind him—can't, he doesn't have the strength to turn his head—and besides, he hasn't been able to see them, yet. If he can now…well, he doesn't want to find out.
"You're tipping, Garraty," Stebbins says sharply.
Ray struggles to straighten up. He doesn't really manage it, but he doesn't fall to the ground, either. So it's half a win.
He wishes Pete were here.
"Talk to us, Ray," Art says. "Whatchu gonna do when you get back, huh?"
"He can't fucking hear us," Collie Parker scoffs, but he sounds nervous, too. Like he doesn't believe what he's saying.
"Sure he can," Art replies. "Look at his face. He's hearin' us. Come on, Ray. Start talkin', buddy."
Ray licks his lips. They're dry, and he doesn't have any spit left in his mouth, so his rough tongue just rubs over them and makes them bleed. He feels it trickle down his chin and over his throat, because he can't lift his hands to wipe at it.
"Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus," says a voice Ray knows but can't name. It's like he's hearing things under water.
"Shut the fuck up, Harkness, that's not gonna fucking help," Stebbins says sharply.
"Ray," Art says a second time, his voice real firm but kind, too.
Again, Ray licks his lips. All he manages to do is get a mouthful of blood. It gets all over his teeth and tongue; the copper flavor makes him gag again, his whole stomach roiling, and he stumbles. Barely, he manages to straighten and keep moving.
But then—a seizing, a cramping. The muscle in his stomach, now, not his actual gut. Right where his bullet wounds were. Ray's hands fly to put pressure there, but it doesn't help. His chin tips toward his chest and he stares down at his shirt. Slowly, spot by spot, tiny bursts of red start appearing.
Trembling, he lifts his shirt and then sighs with relief. The skin of his stomach isn't smooth scar anymore, is instead red and angry, spotty bleeding happening like he's burst invisible stitches, but his guts aren't hanging out, either. Fingers shaking, he lifts his hands and touches his forehead: they come away clean. Not bleeding there, yet.
"Alright," Hank says, voice too loud. "Okay, that's fine. Little bit of blood's not gonna slow you down, right, Ray?"
"You're a fucking pussy if you quit now, man, total fucking fairy," Barkovitch tells him, his high voice extremely near Ray's ear.
"Get the fuck off me," Ray says, because he just knows Barkovitch is hanging on his shoulder.
"He speaks!" Art cheers.
Ray shakes his head, weak fingers pressing against his stomach. His feet are sliding across the ground, now, not stepping. Dragging. He's dragging himself forward like roadkill about to die. He wants to roll into a ditch and give up. Jesus, he can't do this. He can't do it anymore. It fucking hurts. It hurts, it hurts, and there's nothing to lean on, nothing to grab onto. Ray's fingers dig into his gut, nails biting, harder and harder because maybe he can just rip himself open and pull the pain out. Right? It's got to stop somehow, it's got to, and then he can make it back to Pete.
"Hey don't do that shit," Hank says, the words coming out fast.
"None of that now," Art says at the same moment.
"He's losing it," Collie Parker says grimly. "He's cracking."
"Could you all shut the fuck up," Ray demands, still clawing at himself.
And then he starts crying, because they're just trying to help him, but they can't, and Ray's being graceless and unkind, and he loves these boys, he does, and he's missed them, and really he is happy they're here. Tears flow in rivers down his face, and snot drips, too. They carve paths through the blood on his chin. Ray thinks he must look—like Stebbins, maybe, at the end. Must look like Hank or Harkness, just bawling like a baby, about to die. Because he is. He is.
God, he's about to punch it for real this time. It's not fair. He's walked so far. He's walked for so fucking Goddamn long.
"I can't," Ray confesses. "I can't, I can't."
The boys are silent and Ray cries harder, his chest stuttering, and he can't get in enough air, his head is light, and he's really bleeding now, too, from his mouth and his gut. Not gushing but leaking blood like air from a tire, just a slow steady deflation, which will kill him just as surely as a sudden burst or pop.
Somehow, Ray is still walking. He tries to make his feet stop but they won't. They just keep sliding forward, gruesome blood trail behind him, and he knows he'll just tip forward soon, onto his face, shatter his jaw and nose and never get up again.
"I'm sorry, I can't, I'm sorry," Ray gasps, and all at once he wants to see them, he wants to hear them. He's going to die and he doesn't want to be alone.
Strangely, it's Parker who speaks first. "Alright, Garraty," he says, and his voice is very solemn, but strong. Steady. "If you can't, then you can't. Nobody blames you for that."
"Take a breath, man, it's okay," Hank picks up where Parker stopped. "Hey, it's okay. I get it. You think I don't get it?"
"Ain't no shame in it," Art says softly. "Lord, brother, we do understand. You gave it your all, you did. You did."
"I'm not quitting," Ray says fiercely. Tries to say fiercely. His voice is so quiet and raspy he can't hardly hear himself, though the sky is clear and silent. He's trying to justify himself to them—to Pete, who can't hear him. Thank God Pete can't hear him. "But I'm—I'm just gonna fall over. I can't go anymore. I can't."
"That the plan?" Stebbins asks neutrally. "You're gonna go until you fall over?"
"You could sit down," Art tells him gently. "Just hate to see you like this, is all. You don't have to drag it out, if you're done."
"No," Ray says. "I need to know that I…I need to know I gave everything. Or else I won't…" But his tongue isn't working right. He can't finish the sentence. Doesn't even know what the end might have been.
"Sure thing, man," Hank says. "We'll be right here with you."
Ray peels open his eyes—when had he closed them?—and looks to the side. There, walking tirelessly and looking like he had on that first day, is Hank Olson's smirking face. He's trying to smile, Ray thinks, but it's not really working; no joy in it, all bitterness. They lock eyes. Hank's fake smile drops off his face and he steps toward Ray, so that they're almost touching.
"Hey, Ray, you seeing me?" Hank asks.
Breath stuttering, Ray opens his mouth but can't respond. Instead, with strength he didn't know he had, he turns his head. Ahead, walking backward and staring at him, are Parker and Stebbins, steps matching and standing shoulder to shoulder. On his other side is Art, his hands on the straps of his bag, blue striped shirt again clean, his face unlined and sad.
With huge, burning gasps, Ray manages to say, "well don't you all—look—fresh as—fucking daisies."
"Oh shit man you are definitely dying," Barkovitch says from behind.
"Okay, you cannot say that," responds Harkness, also from behind. They're surrounding Ray, a makeshift honor guard, and relief swells inside Ray, so strong and quick that he goes lightheaded and tips to the left, overcorrects and slumps to the right, before finally managing to straighten.
Ray doesn't know what he looks like, but he imagines it must be pretty bad. Periodically he cries, snot trailing down his face. His mouth is still bleeding. His gut doesn't open anymore but doesn't stop, either, and Ray's steps get slower, slower. He knows he's not going at pace anymore. If the tanks and soldiers were here, they would've shot him.
None of them ask him to keep going. They don't try to encourage him. Ray feels sick with relief over it. But of course they wouldn't ask that of him; they know what it's like. They had, every one of them, felt this way. When a walker's done walking then that's it. Can't stop death forever. A body is only a body and it gives out eventually, no matter how strong it started out. No matter how much Ray might wish otherwise.
Wishes. What useless fucking things.
"I want Pete," Ray says. Wishes.
"No, you don't, man," Art says gently.
And it's true. Ray doesn't want Pete with him; he wants to be with Pete instead, he wants to be where Pete is. Maybe Pete is asleep in bed—maybe Ray could crawl in next to him, and Pete would curl around him. Ray could tuck his head into Pete's neck like he did on the walk, and rest. Feel Pete's skin against his, Pete's breath on his mouth.
Ray starts crying again.
"Jesus, Garraty, just sit down," Stebbins bursts out.
"You outwalked all of us, what the hell are you trying to prove?" Collie Parker adds.
They both sound angry. But when Ray looks at them through teary eyes they look distraught. Like they feel what he feels. Maybe they can, or maybe they're just remembering how they had felt, right before their own tickets got punched.
Ray is surprised to find himself nodding. He's not going to make it. Why drag it out?
But then, from behind: a wild burst of running, shoes hitting pavement. A kid's voice. "You can't say that to him, why the hell would you say that!"
A deep sigh from Stebbins, a groan from Harkness, Barkovitch scoffing. Hank saying Jesus, kid, under his breath.
"Thought we told you to stay behind, ain't we say that?" Art muses aloud, scolding.
"We did say that," Collie Parker agrees. "We said that a few miles back. I remember it."
"You can't say that to him, Collie," Curly repeats, ignoring everyone's scolding and sounding wounded. He runs forward like a deer, tireless in death, completely fresh the way that none of the other guys are. They've all got a shadow over their eyes. Well, of course they do. Of course Curly doesn't. Curly never saw how bad it got; he'd been the first one gone. And just a kid when he went. He'd had no idea, no idea at all.
He doesn't know now, either.
Somehow, Ray finds the strength to swipe at his face. He tries to get the blood and snot off. He tries to straighten up. Losing it like this in front of the other guys is fine, because he's seen them lose it, too. Overcome with despair and crying like babies at the end, just like Ray is doing now. But Curly? Jesus, Curly can't see this.
"Come on, Ray, you can keep walking," Curly declares, running around Hank and walking backward in front of Ray.
"You can't tell him that, kid, you don't get it," Hank says angrily. "You don't get what you're asking."
But Curly doesn't respond to Hank. He stares at Ray with big blue eyes, his hair bright in the sun. His face is so smooth, so soft; skin like a kid's still, skin that's never seen a zit. Got to be fourteen, a childish fourteen, the way some kids stay children longer than others. Ray, himself, had already been large at that age. Kid's mustache on his upper lip. Not Curly, though.
"How the fuck did they let you into the Walk," Ray grits out, furious, straightening up even taller—he forces himself to start stumbling instead of dragging. He can't manage walking anymore, but he can manage that. Just until Curly is gone.
"I've got an older brother," Curly says. "He died, um, three weeks before the Walk started, and I figured we looked enough alike. Obviously not the same, but they only had a picture of him, and—I mean, I'm smaller, but we've got the same face. I don't think they cared very much."
Jesus Christ, Ray thinks, exasperated, but doesn't say that. He says, "I'm sorry," and keeps walking.
"Oh man he's pissed at me," Curly continues, chagrined. Embarrassed. "He never lets me come see you, either."
Ahead, Stebbins pinches the bridge of his nose, like he's got a headache. Like Curly is giving him a headache—though obviously Stebbins is dead and therefore beyond earthly ailments. Collie Parker nudges his side companionably, mouth twitching. Ray stares at them and thinks, they would've been friends, and then, right on the heels of that, they get to be friends, now. Probably annoying as fuck for the other guys, though. They're real similar people, Stebbins and Parker. Probably mean as fuck when they get going—when they start egging each other on.
Fondly, Ray thinks of Pete. Thinks of Pete defending him, biting at the other guys. Thinks on himself doing the same.
"When we're done here I'm pullin' you on back to him by the ear, I am, and if he doesn't get you I will," Art promises mildly.
From the corner of his eye, Hank waggles his eyebrows. Ray stares, trying to decipher what that might mean, before Barkovitch says from behind, "surrounded by fucking faggots," absolutely exasperated.
Ray barks out a laugh and then groans, because a warm gush of red came with, seeping into his shirt over his stomach. He puts his hands back, holding tight. "Don't make me laugh right now," he pants. "I'll split apart."
"I think we oughta do nothing but make you laugh, right now," Art tells him. He smiles. "That how McVries kept you walking?"
"Sure," Ray says, because that's as good an excuse as any. "Pete's real funny."
Hank snorts. "Yeah, you would say that." He rolls his eyes and continues, "McVries is never funny at you. He busted my balls. He's so full of shit."
"'Course he didn't, I'm Pete's favorite," Ray says smugly. He stumbles but rights himself, removing his hands from his stomach and putting them on the straps of his pack, relieving some of its weight.
"Hell yeah you are, brother," Art replies. "Curly, go walk up by Stebbins and Parker, where Ray can see you." And then he turns to Ray and says, grinning, "don't embarrass yourself in front of the kid, now."
"What the hell?" Ray asks, betrayed. "I thought we were sending him back to—wherever it is you all go."
"Absolutely not," Hank responds, before Art can. "He showed up and suddenly it's like you did five lines. We're keeping him right where you can see him. You wouldn't scar the kid, would you?"
"You've got more in you," says Art. "You've got more in there, Ray."
"We shouldn't have said that shit to you." Hank shakes his head. "Kid was right. Keep it pushing, Garraty."
Ray looks between them, then up ahead, at Stebbins, Parker, and Curly. They're all walking backward, tireless, clean. Curly is grinning, just pleased as fuckin' punch that he proved all the older guys wrong, but Stebbins and Parker look bone serious. They lock eyes with Ray. Ray nods at them; they nod back.
"One foot in front of the other, Garraty," Stebbins says. "That's all it is."
"Oh, if that's all," Ray bitches, but he does put one foot in front of the other, over and over again.