“I know what the rules say. Bodily contact with anyone I wish, as long as I don’t leave the road. But it’s not the same. There’s a wall.”

“Fuckin’ easy for you to talk. You’re going to see them, just the same.”

“Maybe that’ll only make it worse,” McVries said. He had come quietly up behind them. They had just passed under a blinking yellow warning flasher at the Winthrop intersection. Garraty could see it waxing and waning on the pavement after they had passed it, a fearful yellow eye, opening and closing.

“You’re all crazy,” Parker said amiably. “I’m getting out of here.” He put on a little speed and had soon nearly disappeared into the blinking shadows.

“He thinks we’re queer for each other,” McVries said, amused.

“He what?” Garraty’s head snapped up.

“He’s not such a bad guy,” McVries said thoughtfully. He cocked a humorous eye at Garraty. “Maybe he’s even half-right. Maybe that’s why I saved your ass. Maybe I’m queer for you.”

“With a face like mine? I thought you perverts liked the willowy type.” Still, he was suddenly uneasy.

Suddenly, shockingly, McVries said: “Would you let me jerk you oft?”

Garraty hissed in breath. “What the hell-”

“Oh, shut up,” McVries said crossly. “Where do you get off with all this self-righteous shit? I’m not even going to make it any easier by letting you know if I’m joking. What say?”

Garraty felt a sticky dryness in his throat. The thing was, he wanted to be touched. Queer, not queer, that didn’t seem to matter now that they were all busy dying. All that mattered was McVries. He didn’t want McVries to touch him, not that way.

“Well, I suppose you did save my life-” Garraty let it hang.

McVries laughed. “I’m supposed to feel like a heel because you owe me something and I’m taking advantage? Is that it?”

“Do what you want,” Garraty said shortly. “But quit playing games.”

“Does that mean yes?”

“Whatever you want!” Garraty yelled. Pearson, who had been staring, nearly hypnotized, at his feet, looked up, startled. “Whatever you goddam want!” Garraty yelled.

McVries laughed again. “You’re all right, Ray. Never doubt it.” He clapped Garraty’s shoulder and dropped back.

Garraty stared after him, mystified.

“He just can’t get enough,” Pearson said tiredly.

“Huh?”

“Almost two hundred and fifty miles,” Pearson groaned. “My feet are like lead with poison inside them. My back’s burning. And that screwed-up McVries doesn’t have enough yet. He’s like a starving man gobbling up laxatives.”

“He wants to be hurt, do you think?”

“Jesus, what do you think? He ought to be wearing a BEAT ME HARD sign. I wonder what he’s trying to make up for.

“I don’t know,” Garraty said. He was going to add something else, but saw Pearson wasn’t listening anymore. He was watching his feet again, his weary features drawn in lines of horror. He had lost his shoes. The dirty white athletic socks on his feet made gray-white arcs in the darkness.

They passed a sign that said LEWISTON 32 and a mile beyond that an arched electric sign that proclaimed GARRATY 47 in lightbulb lettering.

Garraty wanted to doze but was unable. He knew what Pearson meant about his back. His own spine felt like a blue rod of fire. The muscles at the backs of his legs were open, flaming sores. The numbness in his feet was being replaced by an agony much more sharp and defined than any that had gone before. He was no longer hungry, but he ate a few concentrates anyway. Several Walkers were nothing but flesh-covered skeletons-concentration-camp horrors. Garraty didn’t want to get like that… but of course he was, anyway. He ran a hand up his side and played the xylophone on his ribs.

“I haven’t heard from Barkovitch lately,” he said in an effort to raise Pearson from his dreadful concentration-it was altogether too much like Olson reincarnated.

“No. Somebody said one of his legs went stiff on him coming through Augusta.”

“That right?”

“That’s what they said.”

Garraty felt a sudden urge to drop back and look at Barkovitch. He was hard to find in the dark and Garraty drew a warning, but finally he spotted Barkovitch, now back in the rear echelon. Barkovitch was scurrying gimpily along, his face set in strained lines of concentration. His eyes were slitted down to a point where they looked like dimes seen edge-on. His jacket was gone. He was talking to himself in a low, strained monotone.

“Hello, Barkovitch,” Garraty said.

Barkovitch twitched, stumbled, and was warned… third warning. “There!” Barkovitch screamed shrewishly. “There, see what you did? Are you and your hotshit friends satisfied?”

“You don’t look so good,” Garraty said.

Barkovitch smiled cunningly. “It’s all a part of the Plan. You remember when I told you about the Plan? Didn’t believe me. Olson didn’t. Davidson neither. Gribble neither.” Barkovitch’s voice dropped to a succulent whisper, pregnant with spit. “Garraty, I daaanced on their graves!”

“Your leg hurt?” Garraty asked softly. “Say, isn’t that awful.”

“Ju’st thirty-five left to walk down. They’re all going to fall apart tonight. You’ll see. There won’t be a dozen left on the road when the sun comes up. You’ll see. You and your diddy-bop friends, Garraty. All dead by morning. Dead by midnight.”

Garraty felt suddenly very strong. He knew that Barkovitch would go soon now. He wanted to break into a run, bruised kidneys and aching spine and screaming feet and all, run and tell McVries he was going to be able to keep his promise.

“What will you ask for?” Garraty said aloud. “When you win?”

Barkovitch grinned gleefully as if he had been waiting for the question. In the uncertain light his face seemed to crumple and squeeze as if pushed and pummeled by giant hands. “Plastic feet,” he whispered. “Plaaastic feet, Garraty. I’m just gonna have these ones cut off, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. I’ll have new plastic feet put on and put these ones in a laundromat washing machine and watch them go around and around and around-”

“I thought maybe you’d wish for friends,” Garraty said sadly. A heady sense of triumph, suffocating and enthralling, roared through him.

“Friends?”

“Because you don’t have any,” Garraty said pityingly. “We’ll all be glad to see you die. No one’s going to miss you, Gary. Maybe I’ll walk behind you and spit on your brains after they blow them all over the road. Maybe I’ll do that. Maybe we all will.” It was crazy, crazy, as if his whole head was flying off, it was like when he had swung the barrel of the air rifle at Jimmy, the blood… Jimmy his whole head had gone heat-hazy with the savage, primitive justice of it.

“Don’t hate me,” Barkovitch was whining, “why do you want to hate me? I don’t want to die any more than you do. What do you want? Do you want me to be sorry? I’ll be sorry! I… I…”

“We’ll all spit in your brains,” Garraty said crazily. “Do you want to touch me too?”

Barkovitch looked at him palely, his eyes confused and vacant.

“I… I’m sorry,” Garraty whispered. He felt degraded and dirty. He hurried away from Barkovitch. Damn you McVries, he thought, why? Why?

All at once the guns roared, and there were two of them falling down dead at once and one of them had to be Barkovitch, had to be. And this time it was his fault, he was the murderer.

Then Barkovitch was laughing. Barkovitch was cackling, higher and madder and even more audible than the madness of the crowd. “Garraty! Gaaam'atee! I’ll dance on your grave, Garraty! I’ll daaaance-”

“Shut up!” Abraham yelled. “Shut up, you little prick!”

Barkovitch stopped, then began to sob.

“Go to hell,” Abraham muttered.

“Now you did it,” Collie Parker said reproachfully. “You made him cry, Abe, you bad boy. He’s gonna go home and tell his mommy.”

Barkovitch continued to sob. It was an empty, ashy sound that made Garraty’s skin crawl. There was no hope in it.