Author's Note: Disclaimer that this does not belong to me and sadly, never will. (Although I must say I love Stephen King's works as Richard Bachman. They are so much darker.)
The media got what they wanted, of course. A ticker-tape parade, confetti drifting down like snow to nestle in Garraty's sweat-slicked hair and drift along the hollow of his collarbones. The Mayor's hand on his elbow-for all the world a benediction, but he could feel the pressure in the grip, keeping him prisoner. He had won, but it felt like a farce. The Major's smile glittered with too many teeth, and his eyes held the predatory glint of a shark when he beamed down at Garraty and inquired in a booming voice if he'd thought of his Prize. He opened his mouth once or twice, but no words came out, and from the practiced way the Major moved on, Garraty doubted he was the only one who'd become a blank-faced, stammering shambles. Survived the Walk indeed, but he didn't want to. If he could have shouted it, he would. Shoot me, damn it! But the words clogged his throat and he knew no one would listen, anyway. The shout would be dutifully edited out and by morning, he would be the nation's poster boy, the Winner, and maybe if no one looked close enough, the emptiness in his eyes would remain a painfully gathered secret.
Stebbins would have understood. McVries would have understood. But McVries had just-sat down-and Stebbins... Stebbins didn't need the crack of the carbines. Tears spilled down weather-raw cheeks in his antiseptic-smelling hospital room and the nurse, a small woman with tits the size of Jan's and a plastic smile on her face, bustled over and asked if he was okay. He just looked at her, and couldn't bring himself to care when she recoiled. She must be new at this, he reflected, and felt a bit calmer. Like he'd puzzled out a thread in this shitty, unraveling sweater of life. Dare he give it a yank?
His feet were propped up on pillows at the end of the bed, and his eyes kept fussing back to them with uneasy fascination. They were swollen twice their normal size, maybe three times, swathed in white gauze as if the bandages could hide the purple-red rotted-meat feel to the bruised, pulpy flesh beneath. The doctor told him they might have to amputate them, and he just shrugged, his hands laced together in his lap as the breeze from the air conditioning unit ruffled his hair. They'd let him have a shower, though he'd have to be supported every bit of the way (and if it wasn't embarrassing to have a grim-faced orderly standing there and helping you wash off several days' worth of accumulated sweat and road grime from your emaciated body, Garraty didn't know what was), and he could smell the shampoo lingering around his head. Ocean breezes. That's what had been plastered across the bottle. Ocean fucking breezes. It smelled nothing like them. Garraty couldn't really bring himself to care about that, either.
It was funny, Garraty mused, days later. The window was propped open, letting in hot, muggy air. A storm was brewing on the horizon. He'd not cared about the money. He gave a chunk of it to Scramm's widow. It was the least he could do. She'd been pale-faced and empty-eyed, her fingers interlaced over the desultory bump of her stomach, and her flip flops had smacked the tiles with each awkward, waddling step. She'd thanked him, and he'd wanted to recoil from the words. Don't thank me, he almost shouted at her, almost blurted until spit flecked his lips and his hands shook, balled into trembling fists on the sheets. But he didn't, and she hugged him with bird-light touches on his shoulders, and went away, supported by a granite-faced soldier with his rifle hung across his back.
Jan visited every day, regular as clockwork, with his mother. She brought cookies, Jan brought kisses and fumbling caresses along the tops of his arms, the only places she dared to touch. The bandages came off his feet the second week, not that it helped matters much. The nurse kept swaddling them in shocks and shooting him pitying looks when she thought he wasn't looking. He nearly chucked a bedpan at her head. I'm not broken, he longed to shout, but that wasn't the truth, was it? Garraty knew it wasn't. McVries visited him in his dreams and he could almost bear that. Stebbins visited him in his dreams and he couldn't. He woke with tears wet and stinging on his cheeks, his throat clogged with phlegm that he had to spit into the paper water cup by the bed with shame burning in his esophagus like heartburn.
Garraty got out of the hospital and it felt like the jaws of the trap slammed shut. Jan wanted to marry him and he said yes, feeling like a robot as his lips mouthed the words. The happiness in her face shone like a candle, and he couldn't bear to put it out. She smiled and chattered at him about flowers and dresses and vows. Vows. Garraty couldn't remember what vows meant anymore, beyond the hints so carefully ascribed into his brain. Conserve energy whenever possible. He spent most of his days sitting on the couch, watching re-runs on the screen until it flickered into static in the early hours of the morning. It helped, but he didn't know why.
The wedding was small, but lavish, thanks to the remainder of the Prize money the Major had bestowed upon him. Garraty parroted his vows dutifully, standing clumsily at the front with his new blushing bride, though he had to balance on a walker. Its failure glared up at him, but he ignored it as he slid the ring on Jan's finger, and felt the cold metal band slide over his. Another kind of trap, he was surrounded by traps, and as they were proclaimed husband and wife, he had a crazy urge to throw the walker away and run pell-mell down the aisle, away from Jan and his mother and the small, reverent crowd. Walking, walking, always walking, and he was sure if he kept going, he could find Stebbins and McVries and Baker and the whole fucking gang again. Not Barkovitch, though, killer, he thought and bit his tongue hard to stifle the titter as he turned with Jan on his arm, accepting his mother's air kisses and pretending that he was fine. It was a pretense he was all too accustomed to.
"I love you, Ray," Jan said softly, her lips brushing his cheek, wafting fragrant perfume across his nostrils, and he mumbled the appropriate words back, nausea roiling in his stomach. He could go now, he could pretend he had to take a piss, and then just leave, slip out the front door of the church. But he couldn't.
Garraty swallowed hard.
He never thought that he'd be wishing so hard that he'd lost.