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Before the Walk by asteriastarry
Fandoms: The Long Walk (Movie 2025), The Long Walk - Richard Bachman
24 Feb 2026
Tags
Summary
[OR Garraty’s Girl]
“Softer, harder, inbetween. You know just how to get to me…” - Lizzy McAlpine, Pushing it Down and Praying.
Ray Garraty signs up for the Long Walk telling himself it’s the only way forward. He leaves behind Charlotte “Lottie” Green—sharp-tongued, soft-hearted, and stubborn enough to love him in a world that keeps trying to break them both.
On the road, under the sun and the rifles, Ray finds himself haunted by her voice, her laugh, her hands in his hair. And then there’s Pete McVries: dark-skinned, quick-witted, infuriatingly calm Pete, who reminds Ray of Lottie in ways that make his chest twist and his steps falter.
The Walk grinds them down. Boys fall. Tempers snap. Ray keeps moving, pulled forward by memories of Lottie and the strange, impossible connection growing between him and Pete—two ghosts walking beside him, one from home, one from the asphalt.
But the Long Walk doesn’t offer mercy, or choices, or futures.
And when the dust settles, the dead are not the only ones left behind.A story of love, grief, race, desperation, and the brutal gravity of a world where surviving costs more than anyone can pay.
This story does not have a happy ending.