So, I was kind of sad the other day and I just wanted to write sad Stebbins so yay here's Stebbins. Even though this is the last thing I should be writing. I'm never writing what I'm supposed to be writing though, so that really shouldn't be a surprise.
Preshow Jitters
"That's what you're going to wear?"
The blond boy barely even registered the question, making sure that he had everything he needed. It wasn't much. A couple of sandwiches, an extra pair of shoes, and that was it. Best to pack light. Extra weight was not something you needed on the walk.
Just slightly he nodded, not sure why his mother would have a problem with his outfit. Pretty much all of his clothes were similar, mix matched strange colors, worn out and old with tattered holes and such. They were comfortable and he liked them and they would keep him warm when it was cold but he could take the jacket off when he got hot as well.
"Didn't you see the outfit I brought you?" she asked, and once again he nodded. He'd seen it splayed out on his bed. A simple pair of blue jeans and a grey short sleeves shirt and a plain black hoodie. It looked new and clean and didn't have any holes in it and no obnoxious colors. Something he was sure his mother must have known he would never wear in his life.
Of course, he guessed that what he was about to go through would hardly qualify as life. More like a parade of death.
"Your father will be there," his mother added, the fact that he wasn't going to wear something he assumed she felt was appropriate becoming clear. The reasoning for her pestering suddenly became very obvious to him as well.
Oh yes, his father. Can't have his father seeing him dressing like a colorblind scavenger, now can we? It wasn't like he'd already seen him like this, but oh this was in public. Everyone would be watching. When he won he had to look his best so that he wouldn't disgrace his father, was that it? Since his father was so important. What he was doing was already degrading enough. He had to have some dignity.
He had to keep himself from outwardly scoffing at the thought, instead just ignoring his mother to walk out the door to their car.
Who knows, maybe it wasn't really his father that bothered her. She might just want him to be dressed in something nice in case he died. They didn't give the bodies back to their families, so if he did die whatever it was he'd been in would be his burial suite. That would explain the greys and blacks.
He pushed those thoughts away as he sat in the back of the car, waiting for his mother to come and start it so that they could leave. It would take about twelve hours to get up to the starting post in Maine from where they lived in Delaware. He planned on sleeping for most of the ride.
His mother tried to talk to him for a bit, but he mostly just responded with quiet one word answered or nothing at all. After about an hour he unbuckled his seat belt and laid down across the back seat. He wasn't tired yet, but he didn't feel like talking anymore.
He wasn't nervous. His mother kept asking him over and over again if he was nervous or excited or anxious. He wasn't any of those things. He was just… calm. Trying to stay focused. He was going to win this lousy competition; there wasn't any doubt about that, so why would he be nervous?
Maybe he should have brought some books, just for the ride up and back again. Twelve hours was a long time, he doubted he could spend the entire time sleeping. Well, most likely yes on the way back, that was for sure.
He was going to come back. He didn't need to worry about what they would bury him in. Not like those other boys. The other 99 boys that would die in the next few days.
He'd gotten a list of all of the boys from his father. He'd then spent much of yesterday looking up what he could about them. There wasn't really anything particularly spectacular about most of the walkers.
The favorite this year and oldest was a guy named Scramm. Apparently he was married. Stebbins immediately labeled him as an idiot and decided that he probably wouldn't last as long as everybody thought.
The youngest on the other hand was some kid named, Percy? Percival? Something like that. The only thing Stebbins had been able to find on him was that he'd been a part of that group of boys that had been stranded on an island after a plane crash for about a month around eight or nine years ago. He was only fifteen though, so he probably wouldn't last very long either.
There were a couple of brothers, which even Stebbins found to be odd. The chances of them both having gotten in were too slim for it not to have been set up. People would be surprised how often they did something like this, specifically putting in a few strange cases every year to make it more interesting.
The rest of the 99 tended to blend together slightly. There was a guy called Ray Garraty from Maine, where the Long Walk took place every year. A boy from DC named Gary Barkovitch who was currently suspended from school for stabbing another boy with a switchblade. A Hank Olson who's only source of entertainment for the past few months it seemed was bragging online about how he'd gotten into the walk.
There were too many for him to remember specifics about all of them, or even the names yet. It would probably be easier once he actually saw them in person, but it really didn't matter either way. They were all going to die, so they were of no use to him. The faster they all dropped out, the better.
Besides, everyone who signed up for the walk and actually went through with it was a suicidal idiot anyway. He doubted most of them even wanted to keep living.
He wasn't though. Suicidal, that is. He knew what he was doing, and there wasn't any doubt in his mind that he would win. It wasn't cockiness that made him think that either. He knew for a fact that he wasn't special. He just also knew that he couldn't lose. His father had made him for this damn thing, and he was going to beat that man at his own sick game.
After a nearly completely silent twelve hours in the car, having stopped twice to eat, they were at the starting post. His mother was shaking as she said goodbye. She thought he was going to die. His father would set it up for her to be at the end of the walk and she was sure that he wouldn't be there when it was over. He didn't bother reassuring her that she was wrong, since he doubted he'd be able to change her mind.
There weren't many people here yet, and the first thing Stebbins did was find a tree near where everyone was gathering and climb up to a low branch, lazily scanning over the boys that were there. He was able to place a few from his searching, but they were just as unremarkable as he'd thought before.
A bunch of unremarkable little boys walking till they can't walk no more. What a strange concept.
Slowly but surely all the boys started filing in, and Stebbins started eating one of the sandwiches he'd packed before. Soon his father would be here and they could start and he would watch all these boys die and then go home. Well, actually he wouldn't go home. He would be taken into his father's house. He and his mother both. He'd make that man pay attention to them.
He wasn't nervous. He wasn't worried or anxious or scared or excited. He wasn't overconfident or cocky. He was just ready to start walking. He knew what he had to do and how to win. He figured out how to beat the system and he was going to use that against his father. He was going to win.
He was going to win and he was going to live.