And then, from the darkness somewhere, came the Major’s electronically amplified voice: “Pre-sent harms!”
Weapons slapped flesh.
“Salute ready!”
Guns to shoulders, pointed skyward above them in a steely arch. Everyone instinctively huddled together against the crash which meant death-it had been Pavloved into them.
“Fire!”
Four hundred guns in the night, stupendous, ear-shattering. Garraty fought down the urge to put his hands to his head.
“Fire!”
Again the smell of powder smoke, acrid, heavy with cordite. In what book did they fire guns over the water to bring the body of a drowned man to the surface?
“My head,” Scramm moaned. “Oh Jesus my head aches.”
“Fire!”
The guns exploded for the third and last time.
McVries immediately turned around and walked backward, his face going a spotty red with the effort it cost him to shout. “Pre-sent harms!”
Forty tongues pursed forty sets of lips.
“Salute ready!”
Garraty drew breath into his lungs and fought to hold it.
“Fire!”
It was pitiful, really. A pitiful little noise of defiance in the big dark. It was not repeated. The wooden faces of their color guard did not change, but seemed all the same to indicate a subtle reproach.
“Oh, screw it,” said McVries. He turned around and began to walk frontwards again, with his head down.
The pavement leveled off. They were on the turnpike. There was a brief vision of the Major’s jeep spurting away to the south, a flicker of cold fluorescent light against black sunglasses, and then the crowd closed in again, but farther from them now, for the highway was four lanes wide, five if you counted the grassy median strip.
Garraty angled to the median quickly, and walked in the close-cropped grass, feeling the dew seep through his cracked shoes and paint his ankles. Someone was warned. The turnpike stretched ahead, flat and monotonous, stretches of concrete tubing divided by this green inset, all of it banded together by strips of white light from the arc-sodiums above. Their shadows were sharp and clear and long, as if thrown by a summer moon.
Garraty tipped his canteen up, swigged deep, recapped it, and began to doze again. Eighty, maybe eighty-four miles to Augusta. The feel of the wet grass was soothing…
He stumbled, almost fell, and came awake with a jerk. Some fool had planted pines on the median strip. He knew it was the state tree, but wasn’t that taking it a little far? How could they expect you to walk on the grass when there were-
They didn’t, of course.
Garraty moved over to the left lane, where most of them were walking. Two more halftracks had rattled onto the turnpike at the Orono entrance to fully cover the forty-six Walkers now left. They didn’t expect you to walk on the grass. Another joke on you, Garraty old sport. Nothing vital, just another little disappointment. Trivial, really. Just… don’t dare wish for anything, and don’t count on anything. The doors are closing. One by one, they’re closing.
“They’ll drop out tonight,” he said. “They’ll go like bugs on a wall tonight.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Collie Parker said, and now he sounded worn and tired-subdued at last.
“Why not?”
“It’s like shaking a box of crackers through a sieve, Garraty. The crumbs fall through pretty fast. Then the little pieces break up and they go, too. But the big crackers"-Parker’s grin was a crescent flash of saliva-coated teeth in the darkness-"the whole crackers have to bust off a crumb at a time.”
“But such a long way to walk… still…”
“I still want to live,” Parker said roughly. “So do you, don’t shit me, Garraty. You and that guy McVries can walk down the road and bullshit the universe and each other, so what, it’s all a bunch of phony crap but it passes the time. But don’t shit me. The bottom line is you still want to live. So do most of the others. They’ll die slow. They’ll die one piece at a time. I may get it, but right now I feel like I could walk all the way to New Orleans before I fell down on my knees for those wet ends in their kiddy car.”
“Really?” He felt a wave of despair wash over him. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. Settle down, Garraty. We still got a long way to go.” He strode away, up to where the leather boys, Mike and Joe, were pacing the group. Garraty’s head dropped and he dozed again.
His mind began to drift clear of his body, a huge sightless camera full of unexposed film snapping shuttershots of everything and anything, running freely, painlessly, without friction. He thought of his father striding off big in green rubber boots. He thought of Jimmy Owens, he had hit Jimmy with the barrel of his air rifle, and yes he had meant to, because it had been Jimmy’s idea, taking off their clothes and touching each other had been Jimmy’s idea, it had been Jimmy’s idea. The gun swinging in a glittering arc, a glittering purposeful arc, the splash of blood (“I’m sorry Jim oh jeez you need a bandaid”) across Jimmy’s chin, helping him into the house… Jimmy hollering… hollering.
Garraty looked up, half-stupefied and a little sweaty in spite of the night chill. Someone had hollered. The guns were centered on a small, nearly portly figure. It looked like Barkovitch. They fired in neat unison, and the small, nearly portly figure was thrown across two lanes like a limp laundry sack. The bepimpled moon face was not Barkovitch’s. To Garraty the face looked rested, at peace.
He found himself wondering if they wouldn’t all be better off dead, and shied away from the thought skittishly. But wasn’t it true? The thought was inexorable. The pain in his feet would double, perhaps treble before the end came, and the pain seemed insupportable now. And it was not even pain that was the worst. It was the death, the constant death, the stink of carrion that had settled into his nostrils. The crowd’s cheers were a constant background to his thoughts. The sound lulled him. He began to doze again, and this time it was the image of Jan that came. For a while he had forgotten all about her. In a way, he thought disjointedly, it was better to doze than to sleep. The pain in his feet and his legs seemed to belong to someone else to whom he was tethered only loosely, and with just a little effort he could regulate his thoughts. Put them to work for him.
He built her image slowly in his mind. Her small feet. Her sturdy but completely feminine legs-small calves swelling to full earthy peasant thighs. Her waist was small, her breasts full and proud. The intelligent, rounded planes of her face. Her long blond hair. Whore’s hair he thought it for some reason. Once he had told her that-it had simply slipped out and he thought she would be angry, but she had not replied at all. He thought she had been secretly pleased…
It was the steady, reluctant contraction in his bowels that raised him this time. He had to grit his teeth to keep walking at speed until the sensation had passed. The fluorescent dial on his watch said it was almost one o’clock.
Oh God, please don’t make me have to take a crap in front of all these people. Please God. I’ll give You half of everything I get if I win, only please constipate me. Please. Please. Pl-
His bowels contracted again, strongly and hurtfully, perhaps affirming the fact that he was still essentially healthy in spite of the pounding his body had taken. He forced himself to go on until he had passed out of the merciless glare of the nearest overhead. He nervously unbuckled his belt, paused, then, grimacing, shoved his pants down with one hand held protectively across his genitals, and squatted. His knees popped explosively. The muscles in his thighs and calves protested screamingly and threatened to knot as they were bullied unwillingly in a new direction.
“Warning! Warning 47!”
“John! Hey Johnny, look at that poor bastard over there.”