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It’s hard not to notice number five.
To be fair, Richie’s been taking note of everyone from the moment he arrived at the drop-off. He’s scrawled down every name and corresponding number, brief descriptors to go along with them so he’ll remember who is who. Twenty-three is strong, nineteen keeps making paper cranes, seven definitely lied about his age to get in. There are plenty of interesting faces, so many stories he knows he can drag out of them; only an hour or so into the walk and he’s already made good progress on that. He’s spoken to quite a few of the walkers he feels will be top contenders—not that he’s shared that thought aloud, of course. Nice guys, mostly, which is actually a shame. It’ll be tough to see them go.
Gary Barkovitch, though. Even with so much to write, Richie’s attention keeps drifting back to him. Specifically, the way he’d acted at the starting line. Richie might be a talker, but he can be plenty quiet when it suits him, and being as unassuming as possible at the start was the perfect way to observe unnoticed. Which is how he’d caught Barkovitch’s painful attempt at connection with Garraty’s group, and the way his expression shuttered like someone flipping a breaker the moment he was met with perceived rejection. Just a social blunder…but there was something in Gary’s expression that made Richie watch him even more closely. Something beyond embarrassment. Something more like fear.
Then, of course, there was the Major calling out their names and numbers. That was when Richie’s suspicions about Barkovitch truly started. The way he had hesitated upon his name being called was so familiar that for a moment Richie had felt a sense of deja vu so strong it nearly bowled him over.
He knows what it’s like, going through the motions of responding to a name that is no longer yours. He hasn’t had to do that for ages now. But the way Barkovitch carries himself is like looking into a mirror to the past—to Richie when he wasn’t yet seen as Richie by anyone. After that, there was no stopping it. He’s taken note of every possible tell Barkovitch has, down to the way he arranges his clothes to remove emphasis from certain parts of his body.
Richie knows he could very well be wrong. But there’s not much he hates more than being uncertain about something, and if there’s even the slightest chance that there’s someone else that’s sort of like him on this long and lonely road…he’d be a fool not to try.
So he makes one of the bravest (or maybe stupidest) decisions of his life, and approaches Gary, falling into step beside him and clearing his throat. “Hey, you’re Barkovitch, right?”
The blond glances at him. “Ain’t that what you’ve been writing in your notes or whatever? You heard my name at the drop-off, didn’t you?”
“I did,” he says. “It’s not that. Well, it’s sort of about that. I put down your number and name, yes. But I was just wondering something.”
“Well, wonder quick,” Barkovitch replies. “I got a plan and it don’t involve you distracting me.” He’s even more abrasive than earlier, but Richie imagines getting three warnings in quick succession so early into the journey will do that to a person. He’s still sort of reeling from seeing Barkovitch drop to his knee and take off his boot to shake it out like it was nothing; he’s never witnessed that sort of recklessness before.
Richie taps the side of his pencil against the page as he works out exactly how he wants to phrase this next bit—maybe he should’ve practiced this first. He finally just goes with, “I thought that maybe…do you have a different name you’d like me to put down?”
Barkovitch whips his head around to face Richie fully, eyes flashing with rage and horror. “What the fuck are you talking about?” he hisses.
Or, no, most likely not he. Definitely not, because the look in Barkovitch’s eyes—in her eyes—is beyond telling. It’s anger, yes, but undercut with the raw, hunted fear of a prey animal that’s just been cornered. Richie recognizes that terror. He’s felt it before.
“I wasn’t born Richard,” he says quickly, before that terror bubbles over and she explodes, taking out that feeling on whatever’s closest at the moment, which just so happens to be him. “So that’s why I asked. Because people should get to…to decide who they are. What they want to be called.”
He sees the moment it clicks for her; her jaw drops slightly and she lets out a huff as the fear and fury drain from her face, replaced by disbelief.
“No fuckin’ way,” she says. “You are not.”
He nods.
“Uh-uh,” she says, shaking her head. “But you—fuck, I couldn’t even—”
“I got lucky,” Richie says. There’s no need for him to let her finish that sentence. It’s clear what she means. “My family, um, they’re good people. Understanding, you know?”
“No, I don’t know,” she replies. “You’re saying you told them? Like on purpose?”
“I think it was more they figured it out,” he admits, “but, yeah. There’s ways to get stuff that…that helps, if you know the right people.”
“And if you got money,” Barkovitch adds. “So if your family’s well off why the fuck are you here?”
“We’re not,” he says. “Well off, I mean. But I’ve got a lot of siblings, and we’re all old enough to work, and we get by. But they gave me so much, and they just—they deserve more. And if I win this, I can give them that.”
“Fuckin’ insane,” she says. “They were cool with you being like this? All of ‘em?”
“Some of them were confused,” Richie admits, “and a little sad. But overall, yes.”
Barkovitch scoffs, tilting her head up and squinting at the sky. “Shit, man. If I ever told my daddy I wanted to be a girl I think he’d beat me to death.”
She says it so casually that Richie nearly stumbles. “Oh,” he replies, for once at a loss for words. “Uh, okay. Clearly we have different experiences with, ah, family.”
“No shit,” she says flatly. “I can tell that just from you asking me ‘bout my name in the first place. What if you were wrong, huh? What if I was like my daddy and hated you for it?”
“I guess it wouldn’t have mattered,” he says thoughtfully, “since only one of us will be alive a few days from now.”
She blinks at him a few times, expression surprised. Then her mouth curls into a crooked grin. “Damn,” she says, “you’ve got some bite after all.”
He shrugs. “Just saying what we’re all thinking.”
“But how’d you even get here?” she asks. “They look at your medical records and shit.”
“I have an older brother,” Richie explains. “He’s a little over a year older than me. It’s really not that hard to switch names around if you’ve got some access to a computer.”
“Most people don’t,” she says.
“Most people don’t,” he echoes in agreement. “Look, I’m not going to say too much about it. I know the cameras aren’t near us right now but I’m not trying to get anyone outside of this in trouble, you know?”
“Fair enough,” she says, sighing and puffing out her cheeks. She doesn’t say anything else, and Richie figures it might be best to give her a moment to process all of this. They walk together in award silence for a for minutes.
“Gillian,” she says suddenly. “That’s the name that I’d go by, if I—you know. Or Gilly, if you want. Doesn’t matter to me.”
Richie nods, scribbling out Gary and replacing it. “Nice to meet you, Gillian,” he says. He gets the feeling she won’t appreciate a ‘thank you for sharing’.
“Whatever,” she says, “and you better not expect me to carry you or anything just ‘cause we got this in common.”
“I figured not,” he replies. “Most people wouldn’t, I think.”
Her lips quirk up for a brief moment; a suggestion of a smile rather than a real one. “Long as we understand each other.”
Richie jolts and snaps his fingers, realizing with some embarrassment he hadn’t even introduced himself properly before springing all this on her. “Oh! I’m Harkness, by the way. Richard Harkness. You can call me Richie, if you want.”
“I know your name already, you literally just told me,” she says, flicking her eyes upward. “But fine. Richie it is, unless you piss me off.”
From what he can tell, everything seems to piss her off, but he refrains from saying so. “Well, since I know what to call you now, do you want me to use it for you all the time, or—”
“Not when we’re near the others,” she says sharply. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Got it,” he says. It’s easier to not be so miffed by her tone when he knows where quite a bit of that defensiveness comes from. And honestly, he’s pretty sure she doesn’t even realize how she comes off to people. Like she’s spent so long building up that shield of bitterness for herself that she has no idea that most other people haven’t done the same. “It’ll stay between us. Promise.”
She looks forward, hair curtaining around her face so that he can’t see her expression anymore. “Hm.”
The tone of that doesn’t really give him the impression that she fully believes him yet, but that’s alright. He’s not surprised that she’s still wary, given that they’re still strangers in most ways. But it’s a start. A good start.
Not even an hour later, someone earns the very first ticket. Curley Adam, number seven. The little one, who had no business being here in the first place, and now his brains are splattered across the tarmac. It feels symbolic, somehow. Richie tries to think of how he’ll word the description of the death in his book, because if his mind is busy with that he’ll be able to ignore the urge to vomit.
Gillian, for her part, does not come across as disturbed in the slightest. If anything, she seems perplexed by the emotional reaction he and quite a few others are displaying. “Why’d you yell for him to keep going?” she asks. “We all knew he was gonna be one of the first to kick the bucket. Wasn’t no surprise.”
Richie sighs. “I know. He just—he was just so small. There’s no way he should’ve been allowed here.”
She shrugs. “Maybe not. But he was here, and nobody was gonna be able to change that. I can’t figure what the hell Garraty was trying to do pullin’ him along like that. Just made it worse for himself. He should know how this works as well as anybody.”
He shakes his head. “Yeah, but it’s one thing to hear about it, or watch it on TV. Seeing it happen right in front of you is different.”
“Can’t think like that if you wanna win,” she reminds him. “We’re about to see a lot more. Probably a lot worse, too. You remember that one year when that kid lost like all his toes and kept going ‘til he bled out?”
“I remember,” Richie says grimly. He was fifteen when that particular Walk happened. He told himself after witnessing it that he would never apply for the lottery. That vow certainly hadn’t lasted.
“Bet we’ll get a couple like that,” Gillian says thoughtfully. “Not me, though. I got a fuckin’ plan.”
He nods and scribbles down the words ‘has a plan’ next to her name. He tilts the notebook so she can see, and she laughs sharply. Richie grins. For all they’ve talked so far, he still doesn’t know much about her beyond the surface level. She’s the North Carolina walker, she likes photography and cats. Beyond that, the room he’s left on the page for her information is blank.
One thing he restrains himself from writing down about her is that she’s absolutely the most paranoid person he’s ever met. Every glance sent her way is a glare, every word spoken just out of earshot by a passing walker must have been about her. It’s like her brain picks a target, tells her that someone is rooting for her downfall specifically, and it consumes her until the next person makes the mistake of looking at her and the focus pivots to them.
“That one’s been staring at me,” she says about three hours and two more tickets later, jerking her head in the direction of a thin brunet boy walking at roughly the same pace as them. He’s toying with a piece of green paper, folding it over and over.
“That’s Rank Sanders,” Richie offers, “number nineteen. From Kentucky.”
“Don’t give a shit what his name is or where he’s from,” she mutters. “He’s pissin’ me off. Stupid ass name, anyway.”
“He probably just wants someone to talk to,” Richie says. “Just like everybody else here.”
Gillian scoffs. “Yeah, well, he can find somebody else to talk to. I don’t like when people fucking stare.” She reaches up to scratch at her neck. Richie’s beginning to notice a pattern with that. The moment she feels cornered or judged, she inflicts something on herself, a subtle jab of pain; a sharp bite to her cuticles, fingernails scraping against her skin, a smack to the side of her head. It tells a clear story, and while Richie has always loved stories, he doesn’t like this one at all.
“Don’t worry about him,” he assures her. “I talked to him a little when we first started. Seems like a nice enough guy.”
“To you, maybe,” she says, voice dripping with scorn.
“People might be nice to you too, if you gave them a chance,” he offers. “You gave me one.”
“That’s different,” she says immediately. “He wouldn’t—you know. Get it. Get me. Not like you do.” Her nails are blunted but still leave red marks down her neck where she’s scratching. “Fuck,” she hisses, and whether it’s from pain or frustration Richie can’t tell.
“How about this,” he says after a moment of thought, “I’m pretty good at reading people. If you think somebody’s looking at you funny, ask me and I’ll tell you if I also think they are, and I promise I’ll be honest. That work for you?”
She rolls her eyes. “I guess,” she grumbles.
“Great,” he says, barely suppressing a sigh of relief.
For some reason, Richie feels as though he’s just averted something important; like keeping her distracted has changed some pivotal moment that might have happened if he hadn’t been walking alongside her. It’s a disquieting feeling, and he shakes it off quickly.
As the hours tick by and the heat intensifies, he finds himself getting a little antsy. It’s not that he wants to leave her alone, but his main priority is still his novel. And for that, he needs to talk to other people.
“I think I’m gonna go try and get some thoughts from the others for a bit,” he says. “You know, their wishes, how they’re feeling so far, that sort of thing. I’ll be back in a bit. You don’t mind, right?”
She shrugs. “S’your choice. I don’t give a shit.”
He nods and carefully adjusts his speed, careful not to get a warning as he slows his pace enough for some of the walkers positioned further back to catch up.
It doesn’t take long before he begins to wish he’d brought a second journal along. He’s only allowed himself to dedicate a specific number of pages to information about everyone, with the rest being left for the actual manuscript. He hadn’t expected how much he’d want to write down every detail the others give him, and it’s hard to pick and choose what he can include.
At one point, he ends up chatting with Garraty, McVries, Olson, and Baker. They’re friendly, but Richie can tell they’ve already formed an insular group. They’re plenty willing to talk to him, but he clearly isn’t going to be invited to be part of their Musketeers. He gets the feeling that goes for most of the walkers in general; the time for forming initial alliances has passed. That’s fine, though. He’s got his own.
But when he moves up the line to match Gillian’s pace and settles in beside her again, he doesn’t get the reception he expected. She narrows her eyes and looks him up and down as though she’s never seen him before.
“Were you talking about me?” she asks.
Richie blinks. “What?”
“Fuckin’ Garraty and his stupid little group,” she says. “You were with them. They don’t like me. They think I’m a freak already.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” he says. “I think they just haven’t gotten to know you.”
“I don’t want them to know me,” she snaps. “I don’t like them either. Bunch of fucking bleeding heart losers. But I bet they asked what you wrote in your little book about me. Bet you told them all of it.”
He sighs. “Gilly, why would I do that?”
Clearly, that was not the correct response, because her face sours further. “You were, weren’t you?” she accuses. “Did you tell them?”
“Wh—no, obviously I didn’t tell them,” he says, feeling his own temper rise. He’s done absolutely nothing to make her think he’d betray her trust like that, especially not when she knows his truth in turn. “I would never do that.”
“You were with them a long time,” she says. “Why’s that? You sick of me or something? Wanna find someone better to hang around? Someone who isn’t—”
“Gillian!” he says, more sharply than he intends, but it works. She stops midsentence, shutting her mouth so fast her teeth audibly click together. “I didn’t say anything. Nobody even brought you up, okay? I asked a little about where they’re from and what they’re thinking about the Walk so far, just like I asked everybody else.”
She stares at him, eyes flinty and distrustful. “You swear?”
He nods. “I swear.”
She chews at her lip for a moment. “Fine,” she says. “Guess I can believe that.” She doesn’t apologize; he figured she wouldn’t.
The sun has sunk low in the sky by now, disappearing behind the trees that stretch far into the distance. When the headlights of the half-tracks begin to come on, Richie follows suit and unzips his bag, careful not to drop anything as he rummages through it and pulls out his own light.
Gillian makes a disbelieving sound as she watches him secure it around his head. “Is that a fucking headlamp?”
“It’s going to be dark!” he defends. “I don’t want to trip over anything because I couldn't see it.”
She huffs, but Richie’s pretty sure that this time it’s more amused than mocking. “Whatever, man.”
“You’re just jealous I thought of it and you didn’t,” he says, “plus I need the light to write.”
“So you don’t want to fall, but you’re gonna be looking at your dumb book and not the ground,” she says. “‘Cause that makes so much fucking sense.”
“Gotta stay awake somehow,” he reminds her. She rolls her eyes in response.
Time continues to pass, unrelenting. He does pretty well for the first stretch of the night, in his opinion; of course he’s feeling the strain, but it hasn’t yet overpowered the adrenaline pumping through him. He even gets quite a bit of writing done, enough that his hand starts cramping and he’s forced to take a break.
Unfortunately, that confidence doesn’t last as long as he wishes it would. His strategy so far has been to try and stay in the middle of the pack; not so far ahead that he’s wasting energy by keeping his speed too high, but not slow enough that he has no wiggle room to take it easy if he needs it. But as the night goes on, he finds himself falling further behind. He has no idea how some of the others are doing this in boots; his feet feel so impossibly heavy already.
He checks the time—nearly four am—and immediately regrets it. All it does is make his eyes feel even heavier, his brain reminding him that it is hours past when he usually sleeps. He’s had late nights before, sure, mostly when he’s been particularly inspired to write and didn’t want to risk sleeping and losing his train of thought by morning, but it can’t be compared to this. He’s not in his room sitting in his favorite chair, worn down but still comfortable after many years of use. He doesn’t have the comfort of knowing that if his body overpowers his mind and forces him to drift off, he’ll still be safe.
Gillian’s moved a bit ahead of him, but she’s close enough that he can still see her clearly through the darkness. Somehow, the night seems to have done the opposite for her than it has the rest of them. She seems more alive than ever, trekking along no problem.
Somewhere further up the line, someone suddenly yells out, “Shit!” It’s not long before others begin to groan and react too. With mounting dread, Richie soon sees why.
A yellow sign is planted on the side of the road, the words STEEP GRADE stamped across it in bold, damning letters. Richie curses under his breath, legs howling in protest as he picks up speed. His blood rushes in his ears as the incline grows.
A shot rings out, and the first ticket of the night is punched. Several feet up the road, the unfortunate boy collapses, and Richie watches with revulsion as his limp body begins to roll back down the hill. Another walker can’t dodge in time and trips over it, earning himself a bullet to the head, too.
It’s only the beginning of the slaughter. Screams and gunshots fill the air in a sick symphony as more and more walkers fall. Richie sees a smaller boy slump to the ground still clutching onto a stuffed animal, and he dry heaves.
He’s so focused on keeping pace that he doesn’t realize he’s lost track of Gillian until he glances up to where he’d last seen her, and no one is there. A spike of panic rips through him. Has she fallen behind him? Has she moved closer to the front? He hasn’t heard her number among the rapid-fire warnings, has he?
His foot hits something—a dip in the road, a pebble, he doesn’t know—and he stumbles, letting out a yelp.
“Warning, number forty-nine!”
“I’m okay!” he screams out, as if that will make a difference. He tries to hurry up, but his pace is all wrong now. He's trying to put one foot in front of the other but he’s not fast enough. Another warning rings out, and it sounds like a death toll.
Then he spots her. A flash of blonde hair in the darkness, a lithe shape weaving between the bodies with uncanny ease. Gillian. Gilly. Alive.
At first he thinks the panic is making him see things wrong, because it looks like she’s going in the wrong direction. But that can’t be right, she knows the rules well as anyone, she—
“Warning, number five!”
No, he hasn’t seen it incorrectly. She’s running down the hill, towards him.
“What are you doing?” He yells hoarsely, and regrets it immediately. It takes too much air, and his lungs burn on the next few desperate inhales. Gillian doesn’t answer, just keeps heading towards him. Her second warning rings out, and it’s no louder than all the others have been, but to Richie it feels deafening. This hill is steep, she’s going to fall, her brains will spill all over the pavement and it’ll be all his fault, because he couldn’t keep up.
Right as she reaches him, she pivots sharply so that she’s facing the incline again, and how she still has the energy and coordination left to pull that off without tripping or tearing a tendon, Richie can’t begin to guess. She loops her arm through his, yanking him close to her side as she hauls him forward.
“Come on, four-eyes,” she says breathlessly. There’s saliva dripping down her chin as she pants open-mouthed, her pace never faltering. “You’re not dying tonight.”
It takes Richie’s brain a moment to process what’s happened, and as soon as it does, he’s trying to get back into a rhythm so she isn’t having to bear so much of his weight. He knows he should be looking at the road to avoid tripping again, but he can’t tear his eyes away from her. At first glance she appears unaffected, but the longer he stares the more he notices how much it must have taken out of her. He sees how her chest is heaving, can feel the way the arm looped through his own is trembling.
“Gilly,” he manages to get out, “you—”
“Shut up,” she says raspily. “Save your breath. I swear if you pass out and get your face blown off and I got those warnings for nothing I’ll be so fucking pissed.”
He takes her advice and shuts his mouth. The warnings and gunshots persist as they continue the grueling climb. For once, he isn’t thinking of how he’ll translate this awful scene onto the page. He just wants it to stop.
Finally, finally, they reach the end of the incline, the ground evening out again. Gillian removes her arm from the iron hold she had on Richie’s, taking a slight step to the side away from him. She lifts her canteen and pours some water into her mouth; it seems like way too little to Richie for what they just went through.
Like she’s read his mind, she looks at him and says, “You’ll get sick if you drink too fast after doing that shit. Take it slow unless you wanna puke all over the place and die.”
He nods, still not quite able to speak. At this point, he’s no longer phased by the abrupt, crass way she phrases things, even when she’s trying to be helpful.
At first, it seems like he’ll never be able to catch his breath again. But after a while, when his heart has finally stopped trying to escape his chest with the force of its beating, his lungs settle down too.
The rest of the night seems to pass in a haze. It seems like barely any time has gone by before the sun rises again, greeting the survivors with its unrelenting rays.
Word moves quickly through the remaining walkers; they lost fifteen on that goddamn hill. Rank, the small Kentucky kid, was among them. Richie pencils a small star next to his name, going down the list until he’s got the headcount updated properly. Beside him, Gillian yawns and stretches her arms above her head, wincing as her back audibly cracks.
“I swear I can’t feel my fucking feet anymore,” she groans.
“Well, you did sprint up and down and then back up a hill after you’d been walking for nearly twenty-four hours,” Richie replies, “so that probably has something to do with it.”
She glares. “You saying I should have just let your sorry ass die back there? Is that what you’re tryin’ to say to me?”
“I’m just surprised, I guess,” he admits. “You told me when we met that I shouldn’t expect you to help me.”
“What, I’m not allowed to change my mind?” Her jaw twitches. “Goddamn ungrateful, that’s what you are.”
“You know I’m grateful,” he says. “But if you want me to say it, fine. Thank you.”
She looks away and grumbles under her breath, but she doesn’t try to argue, and that’s a victory by Richie’s standards.
He looks around at their fellow walkers, and the difference between yesterday morning and now is striking. In those early hours nearly everyone had been buzzing with a barely restrained excitement. Even after those first few tickets had been punched, spirits weren’t this low. But the brutality of last night—the strain has clearly taken its toll. He gets the feeling they’ll be saying farewell to quite a few more of these boys today.
Even Gillian doesn’t seem up to talking much this morning, and Richie can’t help but feel partly responsible for that. He might’ve said it teasingly, but he knows that the stunt she pulled last night saving him couldn’t have come without consequences. How many hours did she shave off her remaining life by running back to him?
He tries to busy himself with writing, but trying to recount the events that occurred upon that hill makes his stomach turn. He knows that it’s what the audience will want; people love the gory details. But every time he attempts to write down more than the basest of facts, his hand starts shaking and he has to fight the urge to gag.
By noon, Gillian seems to have gotten some of her usual vigor back, her steps more lively. “Hey, about yesterday,” she says suddenly, “I just wanted to let you know I don’t know why I said that shit.”
“Said what?” Way too many things have happened for Richie to have any idea what she’s referring to.
“When I got in your face about telling the others about me,” she answers. “I didn’t actually think you did, I just…fuck, man, I get like, mixed up. I get nervous and then my mouth just does what it wants and next thing I know I’ve fucked everything up forever.”
“I know you were scared,” he says, and she visibly bristles at that, so he quickly adds, “I would’ve been too, if I thought someone told people without asking me. But I don’t like it when you talk to me like that. I don’t talk to you like that.”
“I know that,” she says, “that’s why I’m trying to—goddamnit!” Gillian’s hand comes up so fast Richie almost doesn’t register it, and she smacks the side of her temple three times in quick succession.
“Hey!” he says, alarmed. “You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?” she asks miserably. Her tone makes it evident she knows exactly what he’s talking about, but he clarifies for her sake anyway.
“Hurt yourself every time you think you did something wrong,” he says. “It doesn’t fix anything. It doesn’t make me feel better. Actually, it just makes me feel worse.”
“It shouldn’t,” she argues. “You’re pissed at me. So what does it matter to you?”
“I’m really not,” he replies. “I mean, yes, I don’t want you to talk to me like that again. But you doing that isn’t helping. I don’t like seeing my friends hurt no matter how mad I might be at them—and I’m not mad, by the way. I mean it.”
Gillian’s hand falls back down to rest at her side, and Richie tries not to make his relief too obvious. “Your friends,” she echoes.
He nods. “Yup. That includes you now, don’t you think?”
He can practically see the gears turning in her head as she processes his words. “Because I saved your life?”
“Because I like talking to you,” he corrects, and then adds, “but that helped too, yeah.”
“You’re not supposed to make friends on the Walk,” she says quietly. “You’re smart. You should know that.”
“It’s not an official rule though, is it?” He shrugs. “It’s fine. I’d rather have someone in my corner even if it’s just for a little while.”
Her gaze flickers down to her feet. “My daddy always said you need a couple buddies to get by,” she says. “I was never too good at making them, though. But sure, I guess we can be friends.”
With those words, Richie sees an opportunity, and he leaps at it. “Well since we’re friends, I’d like to know more about you,” he says.
Her forehead creases as if she’s confused. “Like what?”
He clicks his tongue in thought. “Like…okay, you told me you like cats. Do you have one?”
She tilts her head. “I mean, kinda? There’s a bunch of ferals who live near my meemaw’s house. I feed ‘em scraps sometimes and a few of them let me get close enough to pet them. But they’re not really mine. Still like them, though. They’re smart and they know how to survive.”
Richie nods. “We never had cats, but we had a few dogs when my siblings and I were growing up. They’ve all passed now, though.”
“Shit,” she says, “that sucks.”
“It was old age,” he continues, “so at least they had good lives.”
“Yeah, I guess that would help,” Gillian agrees. “One time when I was ten this mama cat that lived by the woodpile had, like, five kittens. And then she ate them.”
“Jesus,” Richie says.
“Just life, I guess,” she muses. “She was actually a sweet cat. She didn’t do it out of hating them or anything. She was just young and hungry and confused.” She tugs at a strand of her hair. It’s greasy and tangled now, but Richie can’t judge—he doubts any one of them looks or smells much better. His own scalp feels caked with sweat, and he wishes he’d packed some toiletries, no matter how much weight it would have added.
Time keeps crawling ever forward. The pain in Richie’s legs and feet has become bone deep, a dull, insistent ache. He wonders if it will go away if he wins this, or if it will stay with him forever as a reminder of how he is actively destroying his body.
Clouds are gathering in the distance. It’ll likely rain tonight, and he feels a little triumphant about his foresight to bring a raincoat.
A familiar clicking noise disrupts his thoughts, and he looks over at Gillian, startled. “Did you just take a photo of me?”
“Yup,” she says, grinning.
“You should’ve warned me,” he says, embarrassed, “I would’ve at least smiled or something.”
“I don’t like when people pose for pictures,” she replies. “Makes them look fake. I wanna catch something real.”
Richie can understand that. It’s how he likes to write, too. Sometimes capturing raw emotion is more important than making sure the words are pretty. “Do you want me to take one of you, too?” he offers.
She shakes her head, nose wrinkling. “Nah. I don’t like looking at myself in photos.”
He nods. “Got it.” He won’t bring it up again; he remembers looking at an album of old family photos once, and seeing himself in them felt like looking at a stranger. “Can I at least see the one you took?”
Gillian looks uncertain. She brings the camera close to her chest, staring down at it. Then she sighs and lifts its strap from around her neck, holding it out to Richie. “You can look at all of them, if you want,” she says sharply, “but be fucking careful.”
He nods, making sure his grip is secure before he takes it from her. He’s happy and a bit flustered that she trusts him with this; even the thought of letting someone else hold his journal makes his heart rate spike. He blinks in surprise when he sees the photo of himself. Even though he was caught off guard, hasn’t showered, and is wearing day-old clothes, he looks fine. The lighting is good too; she’s gotten the angle just right so that his face isn’t shadowed by the clouds, but isn’t washed out either.
As he flicks through the rest of the photos, he realizes that it wasn’t just a lucky shot on her part. Every picture is good; an eyeless cat basking in the sun, a trio of kids sitting on a truck bed at a desolate gas station, even a shot of her own shoes casting shadows upon the ground. Mundane things, but there’s an aching beauty behind them. The skill to be able to have all of these turn out well while walking…she could have made a career out of this, in a better time.
“These are beautiful,” he says, handing the camera back to her.
She places it back around her neck securely and shrugs. “I guess. Ain’t much else to do back home, so I got a lot of practice.”
He shakes his head. “That’s not just practice. You’ve got a gift, Gilly. Really.”
She looks down at her boots, muttering something under her breath. Richie’s gaze follows hers, and only now does he notice that there’s a hole in the side of one of her shoes, her pinky toe visible through it. Has that been there since the beginning? He hopes so. If not, if it’s from this recent strain rather than the wear and tear that naturally comes with age, then they may not last much longer.
Just one more thing to add to the list of subjects he would really rather not think about.
It turns out that he was right about the rain. The sky opens up shortly after nightfall. But even with the water pouring down, it’s easier than the first night. He attributes that mostly to the fact there are no hills quite as steep as that first deadly one, but more than that, it’s infinitely easier to not worry about accidentally drifting off and losing pace when there’s someone right by your side.
Gillian does not sling her arm over her shoulder the way McVries does to Garraty—those two practically cradle each other like they’ve found something precious. She just stays next to him, matching his pace and bumping his shoulder or flicking the side of his head whenever he starts to slow down. Notably, he’s not yet had to do the same for her. He could chalk it up to the adrenaline that’s surely pumping in her veins right now, but if that was the case, all of them would be doing just as well as her. Whatever’s keeping her going is unique, and while it might be helping in terms of stamina, Richie suspects it also has something to do with the tense, wild energy she carries that has ruined nearly every human connection she had attempted to make until him.
They lose a few more boys before the night is over, but not nearly as many, and not in the frantic, gruesome way they did on the incline. Not that it isn’t terrible, but at least there isn’t so much screaming, and isn’t that fucked, how Richie can now consider that a sort of blessing?
“You wanna know something?” Gillian murmurs sometime around four in the morning.
Richie blinks, then winces and wipes at his eyes—a gross crust has formed around his eyelids. “What?”
“That plan I told you I had,” she says, “it was bullshit. I never had one.”
“I kind of figured,” he admits. He coughs, throat scratchy, and calls for a fresh canteen. The soldiers work in shifts; they’re clearly getting enough sleep. He remembers when Gillian had spit at an officer near the beginning of the Walk, and he’s gained a new respect for it.
She sighs. “Christ, am I that fuckin’ easy to read?”
“Not at all,” he assures her. “But I’ve gotten to know you pretty well, I think. You’re not a planner. No offense.”
She snorts. “Wow. Thanks.”
“It’s not an insult!” he insists. “I mean, think about it. Everybody here probably planned for this for months. Years, maybe. But that didn’t change anything.” He swallows thickly, thinking again of the boy on the hill with his stuffed animal. “They’re gone. And you’re still here.”
She stares at him for a long time, then exhales slowly and looks forward at the road before them. “Goddamn,” she says, “never thought about it like that.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” he asks.
She laughs. “Probably the closest thing I’ve ever gotten to a compliment, so I’m taking it.”
He grins. “Good.”
The sun rises yet again, but the brutal heat of the previous day has lessened, likely due to last night’s rain. Richie takes his raincoat off once he decides it’s dry enough and stuffs it back into his bag. He’s surprised that so many of the others apparently hadn’t had the foresight to bring one too. Number thirty-eight, Stebbins, who up until this point has been nothing but cocky and cryptic, has begun to cough and sneeze. Richie wonders if some others might end up feeling the consequences of getting soaked to the bone soon, too.
By mid-afternoon, Gillian has started scratching fiercely at her chin. At first Richie tries to ignore it, but after a few minutes of having to listen to her scratch, pause, hum discontentedly and then start scratching again, he can’t hold his tongue anymore. “You okay?”
Her eyes flicker over to him only briefly. “Couldn’t bring a razor,” she says. “It’s in the rules, remember? They don’t let you have sharp objects in case you go fuckin’ psycho and start stabbing the competition.”
Oh. Richie’s stomach twists. He hadn’t even considered how not being able to shave may have been affecting her. But he certainly knows what it’s like to feel and see your own body betray you, how terrifying and infuriating it is. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
She sighs. “S’whatever. I can fuckin’ deal.”
“Still, I—”
“It’s whatever,” she says again sharply. “Can you fucking drop it?”
“Okay,” he says quickly. He feels a bit guilty for bringing it up, even if unintentionally.
But he can’t quite let it go, and after a while, he gets an idea. He glances down at himself, and sure enough, the small flower he’d affixed to his jacket on the day the Walk began is miraculously still there. The petals are wilted and it’s barely white anymore thanks to the dust and rain, but it will have to do.
“Hey, Gilly,” he says, getting her attention. When she looks over at him quizzically, he gestures for her to tilt her head towards him a bit. “Come here.”
“What are you doing?” she asks suspiciously, even as she does as he says and steps closer.
“Just trust me,” he says, unpinning the flower from his jacket. He brushes her hair behind her ear and then tucks the pin between the strands, careful not to prick her skin with it. He adjusts it until he’s sure it’ll stay, then pulls back to observe his work. “There we go,” he says. “Looks much better on you.”
Her lip might be trembling, or maybe he’s just starting to hallucinate. She turns away before he can be sure, facing resolutely forward. He stays silent, not wanting to push her to talk again before she’s ready.
It’s about another hour before she finally speaks up again. “Why’re you writing that book, anyway?” she says. “The real reason. It ain’t to make you rich. That’s bullshit.” She’s veered far away from their previous conversation, and Richie takes it in stride.
“Writing’s part of who I am,” he says. “Always has been. I don’t think I’d be me if I didn’t write. And no one who’s ever won the Walk has written about it yet. Seems like a missed opportunity.”
“But everyone sees it on TV anyway,” she points out. “They know what happens.”
“It’s not the same,” he insists. “They’re just spectating. They don’t see it from our view.”
“Do you think that matters to them?” she asks.
He hesitates. “Probably not,” he says, “but it matters to me. All of us were so much more than just numbers. I don’t want to forget that. I want to remember them for who they were.”
“And me?” she asks. “What’ve you been scribbling in there about me?”
“I’ve been writing the truth,” he admits. “I’ve been writing about the person you really are. But I can change it, if you—”
“No,” she interrupts. “No. When you publish it I won’t be around to care.”
He flinches. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true, though, ain’t it?” she says. “Only one of us is making it.” She kicks a pebble out of her way.
“I don't care that it’s true,” Richie says, upset. “I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want anyone else to die.”
“Everybody dies,” she shoots back. She flashes him a joyless smile. “But at least some of the company was good.”
And what can Richie possibly say to that?
The road stretches ever onward, collecting more souls—slowly, now, but never methodically. It chips away at those who remain, until there are only eight of them. Garraty’s group, of course, who are miraculously still supporting each other even now. Stebbins, who moves like a machine even with his persistent sneezing and shivering. Gillian and himself. Much better chances, now. Somehow, that doesn’t make him feel any better.
It’s only when the moon makes her grand appearance in the sky that it suddenly strikes Richie that he hasn’t written anything for nearly the whole day. He should be, especially after sharing Gillian why it’s so important. But his hands hurt along with his feet now. Everything hurts; his bones, his blood, his flesh.
Dear God, he wants to sleep. He wants to lay down so badly it makes tears prick the corners of his eyes.
Back home, he shared a bedroom with his older brother, and he always used to hate how little space he had to himself. But now he would be more than grateful for just the bed and nothing else. He wouldn’t even ask for blankets, just the mattress, a soft place to lay his head.
He’d share with Gillian, if she needed it. If she didn’t have a bed of her own, if the world kept on being cruel to her the way it clearly has been all her life. He would invite her in, no matter how much room she would take up. She could curl up beside him and escape everything, at least for a little while…
“Hey! Wake up, moron!”
Richie jolts awake with a gasp, blinking rapidly. There’s an arm around his shoulders, and he looks to his side to see Gillian glaring at him, worry lines prominent as she furrows her brow. “Shit,” he says, “sorry. Didn’t even know I was drifting off.”
She shrugs, pulling her arm away. He immediately misses it, but he doesn’t dare ask her to return it. “How long was I out?” he asks.
“A while,” she says simply. “Just woke you up because you started slowing down.”
He checks his watch and winces; nearly three in the morning. “Do you want a turn to rest?” he asks. “I don’t mind.”
“Don’t need to,” she says. “Not my first time staying up this long.” She lets out a manic giggle, but Richie doesn’t see anything amusing about it.
“You—are you saying you’ve gone this long without sleeping before?” He’s incredulous. “Like, just because?”
She bobs her head up and down. “Yup.”
“How?”
“Just how I am,” she says. “Sometimes it’s like a switch flips and I can just go and go and go. Guess it’s a good thing it flipped for this shit, yeah?”
He’s really not sure that’s a good thing at all, but he doesn’t argue. If it’s keeping her going, then he’s not going to discourage it.
A few feet behind them, there’s a sudden commotion.
They both turn, walking backwards to watch. Garraty, Baker, and McVries are shouting, and Richie squints as he tries to find their fourth friend. Then he spots him, and his breath catches in his throat.
Olson is hobbling back towards the half-track, deaf to the pleading of his friends. He reaches out, hands wrapping for the briefest of moments around a soldier’s carbine. The gun roars, and Olson stumbles back, clutching at his stomach.
Baker’s scream rises above the rest, desperate and agonized enough to shake the earth.
They shoot him again, bullets tearing through his back and out his front. Olson slips in his own blood, and his knees give out. He crashes to the ground, hands still clasped against his gut, and between his fingers Richie can see—oh, God, he can see Olson's insides, red and still pulsing—
He gags and clamps a hand over his mouth, bile surging up his throat. Gillian grips his arm hard enough to hurt. “Don’t,” she says sharply, “don’t you dare throw up.” She’s breathing harshly, and even through the darkness he can see the dark liquid that’s coating her front teeth. She must have bitten her tongue. Garraty and the others are still screaming.
With great effort, he manages to swallow back what’s threatening to come up, squeezing his eyes shut and willing his body to please, please keep it down, to hold out for him just a bit longer.
Then the yelling morphs into calling out for a new name. His eyes snap open again and he watches in horror as Art Baker suddenly bolts in the wrong direction, back towards Olson, arms outstretched like a guardian angel futilely reaching to save their dying charge. Gillian squeezes harder and he winces, turning his gaze back to her.
“Stop it,” she hisses. “Stop looking. If he wants to die too there’s nothing you can do about it.” She turns back around to face forward, pulling him with her.
But Baker does not die, because Garraty runs for him, taking warning after warning as he drags his friend back from the brink. Richie takes Gillian’s advice and doesn’t watch, but he hears everything. He hears Olson’s dying screams, hears Baker’s sobs as he berates himself for not being able to save him.
“Keep moving,” she whispers. She’s leaned in closer to him, and her breath is hot and frantic against his ear. “Don’t look. Don’t listen. Keep going.”
Richie clings to her like a lifeline until Olson’s weakening howls fade into the distance. Either they’ve walked far enough that his voice no longer reaches, or he’s died. Richie prays it is the latter; thinking of the other boy still laying there holding his guts inside futilely nearly makes him retch again.
Eventually, the crying from the others stops, too. They all keep walking. No one speaks for a long, long while.
Gillian extracts herself from Richie’s hold maybe an hour afterwards, even though she was the one to reach out for him first. She’s odd about touch; she can’t stand it for very long, no matter who initiates. It’s like she’s scared that if she lets it linger, the comfort will become hurt.
Finally, after dawn has broken once more, Collie Parker breaks the silence by lamenting that Olson hadn’t taken out a soldier before dying. McVries instantly comes to his defense.
“He didn’t go quietly,” he says, and Richie sees where he’s coming from, but still. It’s hard to see any dignity beyond the horror.
Parker agrees that it was respectable; but then he drops a bombshell.
“He was married,” he says, and all of them look at him like he’s grown a second head. Garraty calls bullshit, and Richie silently agrees. But Parker insists on it, even provides a name, and well, there’s not much anyone can say to refute that.
Richie had prided himself on knowing quite a bit about his fellow walkers. But he hadn’t known that. Olson. Wisecracking, ten-naked-ladies Olson, who did not go quietly. Did his wife watch, when he was gunned down? Richie hopes she didn’t. He hopes this cruel world has enough kindness left to afford her that small mercy.
As always, Gillian has something ill-advised to add. “Married?” she repeats. “Fuckin’ married? What the hell did he think this was, gin rummy? Bastard had a wife at home and he decided to walk straight to—”
“Shut your mouth, Barkovitch,” Pete says. Gillian glares, but Richie squeezes her arm and she settles for just baring her teeth. As always, what she means and what she actually says are painfully incongruent. By now he’s talked to her enough to easily parse through the venom and get to the core of it, but the others haven’t, and he can’t blame them for speaking up for their late friend.
He’s not surprised when the remaining Musketeers form a pact to take care of Olson’s wife no matter who wins, but he is surprised when both Parker and Stebbins agree without protest. Parker, he gets—the other boy had clearly been more affected by Olson’s death than he wants to let on—but Stebbins is unexpected. Maybe it’s a last minute change of heart, or maybe the sickness in his lungs is finally stripping away the cryptic, uncaring facade he has kept up until now.
“Harkness, Barkovitch, how about you two?” Pete calls out.
It’s not lost on Richie how McVries refers to them as a package deal. He supposes it makes sense. He opens his mouth to agree to the deal, but Gillian beats him to it. “We’re in,” she says. Her expression is tense. It seems she’s realized how she came off earlier and is trying to smooth it over. “We’ll help her out, if we win this.”
“If one of you wins this,” Stebbins corrects from a few paces behind.
Gillian whips around to glare at him. “Fuck off,” she hisses. “Don’t fucking try to correct me. Obviously I know that, I’m not stupid.”
“Gilly,” Richie murmurs. She looks back at him, eyes wide and pupils dilated. “Just leave it.”
“But he—”
“Leave it,” he repeats. “Come on. Let’s walk a little further ahead, yeah?”
Her gaze flickers between him and Stebbins for a moment, deciding whether or not she’s willing to give up a fight. Then her shoulders relax slightly, and she nods. “M’kay.”
Picking up the pace hurts. Every muscle in Richie’s body screams in protest as he forces his legs to take wider strides, but he fights through it. They move forward until they’re far enough away from the others that they can speak quietly together without being heard.
“Hope he goes next,” Gillian mutters. “Fuckin’ asshole.”
“You never know,” he muses. “He’s not looking too good.”
She huffs. “That doesn’t mean shit. None of us look good.” There’s blood crusted around her lips, evidence of her biting her tongue last night. He doesn’t bother mentioning it.
On a whim, he finds himself asking, “Have you ever thought about getting married?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Fuck kind of question is that?”
“A normal one,” he says, “but fine, I’ll go first. I’ve thought about it, but it’s not, you know, my main goal. If it was, I definitely wouldn’t be here.” Gillian snorts at that, and Richie grins. “But I’d like to, if I met the right person. How about you?”
She scoffs. “Be fuckin’ serious. Boys don’t marry girls like me.”
“Some would,” he says.
Her mouth twists into a wry, unbelieving smile. “Sure.”
“I mean it,” he insists. “There’s more people like us out there, and there’s people who understand. It might not seem like it, but they’re not as rare as you think. We found each other, didn’t we?” Richie’s never quite believed in miracles the way some of his family does, but if there’s ever been one, this certainly must qualify. It’s a bitter one, given the circumstances, but a miracle nonetheless.
She doesn’t seem convinced, sighing and rolling her eyes. “Doesn't matter anyway, right? We’re all dying out here. Nobody’s getting fucking married.”
“It was just a what-if,” he reminds her. “Is that a no, then?”
“Yes,” she says shortly. “I mean, no. Fuck. Yes, it’s a no. I wouldn’t get married.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard,” he teases, “now I know one more thing about you.”
She rolls her eyes. Soon it becomes too hard to keep the quicker pace, and they fall back in line with the others, lapsing into silence once more.
Richie’s shoes finally give out in the fading light of mile two hundred and fifty-eight. Something eerily similar to grief hits him as he’s forced to kick them off. They’ve served him faithfully for years, and this is how he’s repaid them.
Gillian’s boots have kept it together so far. He’s not sure he can say the same about the rest of her.
Frankly, she looks like shit. He’s sure he has no room to talk, but he can’t help thinking of the difference between the girl who took three warnings less than an hour into the walk like it was nothing, and the bedraggled, dehydrated, pale creature walking alongside him now.
She is not well. It’s been obvious to him for a while that she wasn’t well long before the Walk ever started. He knows vaguely about people like her, and the descriptors are never kind; disturbed, unstable, crazy. He imagines what she might have been like in a kinder world, one that helps its people instead of hurts. It makes his heart ache and he has to divert from that train of thought quickly.
But when she starts muttering to herself, hands twitching by her sides, he can’t hide his concern any longer.
“Gilly,” he says, trying not to let his panic bleed into his tone. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s—” she cuts herself off with a hiss. The nails of her right hand dig viciously into her left. Richie wants to grab her and make her stop, but he’s not sure if touching her right now will do anything but make it worse. “It’s not fair,” she says hoarsely. “It’s not fair. I should’ve met you earlier. Should’ve met you somewhere else. It shouldn’t have been like this.”
“I know,” he says, because it is unfair. It’s so unfair he wants to scream. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Fuck,” she says, and when her hand comes up to strike the side of her temple, Richie can’t help it; his own arm shoots out and he grips her hand tightly in his own, bringing it down from her head. She startles, wide-eyed.
“Stop that,” he says softly. “I don’t like seeing you hurt yourself, remember how I told you that?”
She looks down at their joined hands. “I remember. That was a long time ago.”
He can’t disagree. Two days ago, yesterday, forever, it’s all the same now.
Her fingers are still twitching in his grasp. She tries to pull her hand away and he tightens his grip on instinct, but when she tugs again, he relents.
He doesn’t expect her to talk again for a while, which is why he’s startled when she says after only a moment, “I lied.”
He tilts his head. “About what?”
“About never wanting to get married,” she admits, and her voice is so very tired. “I’d do it, if anyone ever wanted me like that. I just say I wouldn’t, ‘cause nobody would.”
“Oh,” he says. “Well—”
She cuts him off. “Don’t try and tell me there’s someone out there who would. I know what I am. And I don’t mean that. I mean, like, what I am as a person. I’m not—fuck, I’m no good, Richie. No one stays. If we weren’t here, you wouldn’t either.”
“But we are here,” he replies. “And I’m not going anywhere.” He doesn’t even have to think about it before he says it. The thought of leaving her side now, after everything…if Gillian could see inside his head, she’d never doubt him again.
“Then you’re not as smart as you think you are,” she mumbles, and they leave it at that.
The night seems to stretch eternal. Richie thinks again of that story Gillian reminded him of on the first day, right after Curley died, of the walker who had lost nearly all his toes and just kept going. He hasn’t looked down at his own feet for hours now, too afraid of what he’ll find.
No one dies in the darkness this time. He doesn’t drift off again, either. It feels as if his body has finally surpassed the need for sleep, like it can’t remember a time when that was even an option. If it were suddenly announced that the Walk was over, that all seven of them could stop and rest and go home, he’s not sure his legs would be able to obey. They only have one purpose now.
He tries to write by the light of his headlamp and gives up almost immediately. His hands are shaking too badly. Even if they weren’t, he’s not sure how much truth he could transfer to the page. Not enough, certainly. They’d probably censor the hell out of it if it got published, anyway.
It won’t ever be published. He knows that now.
The barest hint of sun has just begun to peek over the horizon when Gillian looks at him with a strange emotion in her eyes.
“Richie,” she says.
“Yeah?” It takes him a moment to reply, struggling to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. It doesn’t matter how many canteens of water he drinks; nothing fixes the dryness anymore.
She exhales slowly through her nose. There’s more blood around her mouth now; the wound on her tongue must have opened back up. Her voice is barely above a whisper, clearly not meant for the others to hear. “I think it’s time for me to go. You can see it, right? I see it. Been feelin’ it. I gotta go on, now.”
All the dread Richie has felt so far is nothing compared to what he feels when those words leave her mouth. “Don’t say that,” he pleads. “Gilly, don’t say that. You’re okay. We’re okay.”
She shakes her head. When she speaks again, it’s with the voice of a child. “I’m tired,” she says. “My feet hurt. My head hurts. Everything hurts. I’m done, okay? I’m ready to stop hurting.”
“Please,” he begs, fighting to keep his voice down. He doesn’t want the others to look at them. “Don’t do this.”
“No,” she says. “It’s too much. I’m sorry. You go on without me now, m’kay? You got this.” She grins weakly through bloodstained teeth. “Ain’t even lost any toes yet.”
Richie’s eyes sting. He wants to save her so badly it burns. He wants to be the hero in a novel who carries the princess away from danger, to the warmth and luxury of the castle she deserves after all this meaningless torture. But he isn’t a hero. None of them are. They are just dying children on an uncaring road.
He is tired, too. He is so very tired, and he doesn’t want to be the reason that Gillian remains in pain, just because he asked.
“Okay,” he says softly. “Okay, Gilly. It’s alright. You can go. But you aren’t going alone.”
She blinks at him sluggishly. He can practically see her exhausted brain straining as she processes his words. “...What?”
“I’ll stop with you,” he explains. “We’ll just sit down together.”
She looks ahead. Looks back at him. “No,” she says.
“Yes,” he replies.
“But your book,” she protests. “You’re gonna write a book. You’re gonna be rich and famous and remember me as—”
“I don’t want to just remember you,” Richie says. “I don’t want to go on and know that I left you behind. I don’t want to keep walking if you’re not walking with me.”
“You have family,” she argues back. “You got people waiting for you. Richie, you’re so fucking close! Without me there’s just five of you left, you can’t stop now. Look, I don’t have anything to live for like you do, get it? You have so much.”
“I know,” he says firmly, “and that’s why I’m not leaving you. You don’t deserve to be alone anymore. You’re going to have me with you, okay? I’m not leaving. I’m staying right beside you.”
“I don’t want to be the reason you die,” she snaps. “Don’t you dare put that on me.”
“It’s my choice,” he insists. “If I asked you to keep going, would you?”
She hesitates. Then her shoulders slump, defeated. “I can’t,” she says, voice breaking. “I want to keep walking with you, but I can’t. I’m fucking tired.”
“Then we’ll stop,” he says. “It’s okay. I’m with you because I want to be.”
She worries her lip between her teeth. Her eyes are watering. Then she lets out a shaky breath and wipes at them fiercely. “You mean it?”
“Of course,” he says.
“Okay,” she murmurs. “Okay. I’m ready.”
So is he.
They slow down, warnings ringing out almost simultaneously, their steps still in sync, until they’ve stopped altogether. The other boys, now realizing what’s happened, begin to shout their names, urging them to keep going. It’s fine; they just don’t understand. They don’t understand that everything is alright now.
“The fuck are you two doing?”
“Hey, Barkovitch!”
“Harkness, keep walking!”
Gillian sinks to the ground like a puppet with her strings cut. Her legs are crumpled under her uselessly, but she remains upright. Richie follows suit immediately.
“Number five, second warning!”
“Number forty-nine, second warning!”
“Get up, Harkness!”
“Come on!”
“Get the fuck up, Gary!”
He wants to reach out and cover Gillian’s ears with his palms. In her last moments, she shouldn’t have to hear that name. She deserves more than that.
But when he looks at her face, there’s no frustration in her eyes. No pain. It seems like she isn’t even hearing them. She looks more at peace than he thought was possible.
The flower is still in her hair.
“My name is Gillian,” she whispers. “Gilly. I’m Gilly and I was real.”
“You’re real,” he agrees. “You’re real and it was wonderful to know you.”
Their final warnings are called. She turns her head to look at him, eyes glassy. She takes his hand. “You know something, Richie? I think I could fall in love with you.” She laughs softly. “Ain’t that crazy?”
“Not crazy at all,” he says, smiling even as he hears the click of the carbine’s safety coming off. “I think I could love you, too.”
She smiles back, and it makes her glow. She closes her eyes and squeezes his hand tightly, leaning into his side. Richie doesn’t close his own. He wants to keep looking at her for the rest of his life. So he will.
The last thing he feels is not the bullet. It’s the warmth of her hand in his.