I'm a huge Stephen King fan. My dad is a big reader and had a pretty decent sized library down in the basement. Stephen's books took up a good sized portion on one of the shelves, and during my teenage years I read all of King's books as fast as I could. I saw one book next to it that I had regularly ignored since it didn't have King's name on it. My dad recommended it to me, explaining, "It's written by Stephen King, just under a different name." I read it, loved it, and a fan of Richard Bachman/Stephen King was born.
The Long Walk is one of four short stories in The Bachman Books, published under the name Richard Bachman. The story is set in the "near future" around the annual Long Walk contest. Each year 100 boys are selected out of a pool to participate in this event, with the winner of the walk receiving The Prize - anything the winner wants for the rest of his life. Girls need not apply. Apparently the near future is sexist in nature.
Sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn't it? The catch is this. The 100 boys start at the Canadian/Maine border and walk south along the highway. If they walk slower than 4 mph for 30 seconds in an hour (all of the boys are monitored by following trucks filled with soldiers) they get a warning. Three warnings and you get a Ticket. Meaning you get shot. Dead. Game over. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. You can get a warning erased from your record by going a full hour without getting a warning. So, if you have no warnings, within 2 minutes you can go from sitting pretty to lying face down in the road with acute lead poisoning. So it's 100 boys walking south waiting for 99 of them to crap out and get eliminated in the truest sense of the word.
Warnings are also given for infractions such as "assaulting other walkers or getting aid from the spectators", and instant Tickets are punched for "attacking the vehicles and/or soldiers, or attempting to leave the road." There are no rests stops, they get all the water they want from canteen provided by the accompanying soldiers, are issued daily rations at 9 AM every day, and all of their "business" has to be taken care of while walking.
This is a physical and mental trial that I think could make a brilliant movie if it followed the book. There is a lot of psychological intrigue in to why these boys signed up for this, the alliances formed, and the all too real truth of death. One of the walkers signed up as a means of suicide. How messed up is that? The walk itself is kind of a by line (IMHO), the real meat of the story lies in the characters. The partnerships, the antagonists, the internal struggle with knowing that there is a 1% chance of winning. How many people would knowingly go into something like this knowing that there is a 99% chance of them dying. In front of spectators. Oh yeah, people line all up and down the road watching these guys walk. It's like the Super Bowl, World Series and NCAA Basketball Finals all rolled into one.
Sadly, The Bachman Books is no longer in print, but a copy is easily picked up second hand on the Internet. Another short story, Rage, is a strong resemblance to the recent Columbine shootings that have been occurring lately (albeit written in the early 70's, it is eerily prophetic). As stated on Stephen King's website, "There will be no future printings of this book at Stephen's request due to the sensitive nature of the material found in Rage." If you want to pick up a copy, hit your local library or just break down and by it here.
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