Author's Note: Well...I haven't been very happy lately...so I felt like writing something sad and gay. Here goes.
Disclaimer: The Long Walk is not mine.
At Petey's Grave
Ray Garraty had asked for something out of the ordinary when he won.
He'd asked for a graveyard. Just like any other, with gravestones and plants and a run-down fence. But a graveyard for the Walkers of this year.
At first, The Major had been decidedly averse to the idea. But Ray had begged and pleaded to the point where tears had started streaming down his face, and eventually he caved in and had it built. Whether the bodies were actually in the graves was unknown.
But here was where Ray spent most of his time. Sitting by one particular boy's grave, unable to let go of his memory. He didn't want to leave him alone, somehow, he felt like if he left it'd be like forgetting all about him.
"Hey, Pete." He sat down in front of the grey stone. "How's it going?" His voice was strained. Every time he went here he seemed to have increased in sadness.
The gravestone didn't respond. Ray sat down and began to eat a sandwich. "You know, Pete...I don't even know what I want for the Prize anymore. The Major can't give me back any of you. Yeah, that sounds dumb and cliché but it's true."
He stared dumbly at the gravestone with Pete's name, birthdate, and death date. Funny, he hadn't known that Pete was born in July. He'd learned more about his friend from his death than from when he was alive, it seemed.
He felt a tap on his shoulder and for a moment he thought it was Pete himself, come back from the dead. But no. It was a little brunette girl, only about five or six by the looks of her.
"Ray Garraty?" She pronounced each syllable of his name as though sounding it out.
"Who're you?"
She pointed to herself. "Katrina."
He remembered Pete mentioning his little sister. The one who'd said that he was going on an adventure when he left. How wrong she'd been. "Hi, Katrina."
"Why are you talking to Petey?"
Ray sighed. "I've got no one else I can talk to." Jan had long since faded out of the circle of people he wanted to talk to. He hadn't meant for it to happen. It just had.
"But he doesn't talk back."
"I know."
"Why not?"
Ray didn't want to be the one to explain the concept of death to Pete's five-year-old sister. "He does, sort of."
"How?" Katrina's blue eyes were wide with curiosity.
"I can just...feel him...here. And that's enough, I guess." He gave her a weak smile.
Katrina lowered her voice a bit. "Momma says that when you love somebody they don't need to be there for you to feel them. Did you love Petey?"
Ray considered it. He considered all the times McVries had saved his life. All the times he'd tried to keep him happy and distracted from hurting legs and aching feet. He'd been funny, and intelligent, despite the fact that he was pretty much broken. "Yeah, Katrina. I do love Petey."
He changed the tense to present unknowingly. Maybe he was becoming one of those necrophiliacs. He winced at the memory of Baker's smiling face as he'd said that.. Baker's grave was a place he rarely even looked at.
"Okay. That's good. Petey wanted somebody to love him."
Ray looked at Katrina and said softly "Yeah?"
"Yeah. He said he loved someone, but then he came back and his cheek was all cut open." Katrina's lower lip quivered. "Promise you wouldn't cut Petey's cheek open?"
"I promise. I would never do that," he assured her. "Why are you here all alone?"
"I went by myself," Katrina said, smiling proudly. "Momma and Daddy are still at home."
"You should probably go home. It's not good for you to be somewhere like this."
Katrina pouted. "Tell me about what Petey did on the Walk. Did he have an adventure?"
Ray could sense that he wasn't getting Katrina to go away and sighed. "Sort of." He decided to sugarcoat things a bit, just for her sake. "Your brother was very brave. He saved my life several times, you know. And when things got bad, he tried to distract me. Pete was a hero, in his own way."
Katrina looked up at him, eyes round. "Then why didn't he come back?"
I ask myself the same question. Ray found himself angry, suddenly. What did this little girl know about death? She hadn't even watched the Walk. She probably still thought it was an adventure. "Listen, you dumb kid, things just happen like this sometimes!" He couldn't help it, tears started rolling down his cheeks.
Katrina put a hand on his shoulder, not seeming to know what to do. He didn't blame her, she was only five. "You tell your friends something, Katrina. Tell your friends never to participate in the Walk. Ever."
"I'm not friends with any boys." Katrina's voice was very soft, as though she was afraid she'd upset him.
"But if you ever are. Don't let them do it. Okay?" His voice was strained from tears and he stared blankly at Pete's gravestone.
"Okay. I promise." She looked at him quizzically. "Did you really love Petey?"
"Yeah. I think I did."
"But don't boys fall in love with girls?"
Ray sighed. He wasn't going to be giving Katrina this talk. "Just let it go, Katrina."
"But..."
Ray tried to sound authoritative. "It just doesn't work that way sometimes, alright?" He failed, probably because he sniffled in the middle of his sentence.
"Okay."
He buried his head in his hands. He suddenly felt very guilty. Pete was dead. There was Jan to think about. Jan loved him, but somehow he didn't have it in him to love her back anymore.
What was that old saying, true love prevails even in death? Well, he doubted that he'd had whatever true love was supposed to be, but it certainly wasn't doing any prevailing in death. Nothing prevailed in death.
He'd won the Walk. But Pete had been right. In the end, no one wins.
.
.
.
Ah, sad fanfiction. It's therapeutic to write for whatever reason.