Walking
Fiction by Nicholas E. Efstathiou
They didn’t want to be with their bodies.
They wanted to be home.
Bill Darrow marched along the edge of Route 111 in New Hampshire. His boon-dockers kicked up the occasional spurt of sand while a chill wind, a reminder that fall would reach its end in a matter of days, nipped at his face.
But his face, hell, every part of him, had experienced a lot worse than a New England winter.
Still, he flipped the collar up on his jacket and pulled his utility cap down a little tighter on his head. He slipped his hands into his pockets. He’d need to pick up gloves soon, especially since his next stop after Windham was Brattleboro up in Vermont. A coat, too, he reminded himself. The boots and Levi’s he wore were fine, as were the rest of his outfit. But he would need gloves.
And a coat.
Probably a winter cap.
He glanced over his shoulder at the dead men walking behind him.
No, not walking, shuffling. Heads bent with chins close to chests, eyes unseeing and sunken into their sockets. Their clothes, fetid and decayed by the brutal heat of the Philippines, hung on their emaciated frames.
Bill turned his attention back to the road. Ahead, he saw a sign for a motel, Kitchener’s Cabins, and he remembered how it was to sleep in a bed instead of on the ground. He remembered the hospital and the nightmare of it, how the dead men wouldn’t come in. How he couldn’t sleep without them.
The heavy thrum of a diesel engine caught his attention, and Bill stepped further onto the shoulder before glancing back at the vehicle.
A deuce and a half, stripped of its markings, thundered up the road. The two-and-a-half-ton truck passed by, and then the brake lights flared as the vehicle pulled off into the shoulder. Bill kept walking, the truck a curious sight out in the wilds of Hudson, New Hampshire, but not entirely unexpected. On his long walk, Bill had seen more than a few surplus jeeps and deuce-and-a-halfs.
As he neared the truck, the driver rolled down the window and peered out. Like Bill, the man wore a utility cap stamped with ‘USMC,’ the driver’s young face deeply tanned. The man’s sharp, blue eyes, sunk deep in his sockets, had a look Bill was familiar with. This man knew war.
“Hey, Mac,” the driver called. “Need a ride?”
“Yeah, I could do with one,” Bill answered, glancing at the truck’s empty bed and nodding. Plenty of room for his dead.
Bill walked around the front of the truck and opened the passenger door, and as he climbed up and in, his dead did the same in the back.
Bill closed the door and offered his hand. “Bill Darrow.”
“Stan Kelepouris,” the driver stated and shook the offered hand. “Where you headed?”
“Windham,” Bill answered.
“Huh, me too,” Stan grinned. He shifted back into drive, checked the mirror and then pulled back onto Route 111. “Saw your cap, then your boon-dockers. Where’d you serve?”
“Philippines,” Bill answered.
“You go with Dugout Doug to take ‘em back?” Stan spoke the name with the same disgust every Marine did. The same disgust that Bill harbored for the man.
“No,” Bill shook his head. “I was there when he left. Third Battalion, Fourth Marines.”
Stan raised an eyebrow as he glanced over at him. “Bataan?”
Bill nodded.
They rode in silence for a few minutes.
“Damn,” Stan muttered, adjusting his cap. “Why do you walk anywhere? I figured you’d have had enough of walking for a lifetime.”
Bill chuckled. “Yeah, but I still need to get around.”
“True.”
“What about you?” Bill asked.
“First of the First,” Stan said proudly. “Guadalcanal, and then we kind of hopped around the Pacific, chasing Tojo’s boys through the jungles. Caught some lead at the end, but only at the end.”
“Must have been rough,” Bill stated.
Stan laughed and shook his head. “You ain’t kidding. But brother, I don’t know how you did it. Everybody knows about Bataan.”
Bill shrugged. “You just do it.”
“Yeah,” Stan agreed, a somberness slipping over him. “You got that right.”
The truck rumbled on, and Bill glanced in the side mirror. He could see the dead sitting in the back, eyes focused on their feet and ignorant of the world passing around them.
“You from around here?” Stan asked.
“No,” Bill answered, shifting his attention back to Stan. “I’m bringing something.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ve got a wedding ring from one of my buddies,” Bill said. “He wanted me to bring it home if I survived.”
“Didn’t want it mailed?” Stan asked.
“No.”
Stan nodded. “Good.”
The truck rumbled along. The pungent and familiar odor of diesel allowed Bill to relax.
“This the only one?” Stan asked after a short time.
“No,” Bill replied. “I’ve brought a couple of others home. There was a group of us, you know? Marines and Army. We stuck close to each other. Hid anything that was important. Wedding rings and such. Promised to bring it home.”
“You the only one doing it, or did you split them up?”
Bill shook his head. “Nobody to split it up with.”
Stan nodded. “Yeah.”
Stan adjusted his hat again, then asked, “You got an address you want me to bring you to?”
“Just the street,” Bill told him. “I don’t want to rumble up in a deuce and a half.”
“Understood,” Stan chuckled. “What street?”
Bill paused, heard a soft whisper, and repeated what had been said. “Range Road.”
“There’s a service station on the corner of Range and 111,” Stan remarked. “I stop in every so often. Old timer who runs it fought down in Cuba.”
Stan guided the lumbering truck along, and soon, Bill saw a sign for the Castle View Service Station. Stan signaled and pulled off onto the shoulder across from the station. “You need any money or anything?” Stan asked.
“No, I’m good,” Bill replied.
“Want I should wait a bit? I don’t have to get this rig back for another hour or so.”
Bill shook his head. “I never know how long it’ll take.”
“Yeah, I should have thought of that,” Stan sighed. He took off his cap and rubbed at his short brown hair. Bill could see long scars beneath it.
“Well,” Stan said, putting the cap back on. “If you need anything, go on over to the station. Either the old man or his son will take care of you. Just tell him I sent you.”
Stan offered his hand, and Bill shook it.
“Thanks for the lift,” Bill said as he opened the door. “It’s much appreciated.”
“Yeah, well, like I said. You done enough walking for a lifetime.”
Bill smiled, climbed out of the truck and closed the door. By the time it latched shut, his dead were assembled on the road.
Bill slapped the door twice and stepped back as Stan pulled away from the shoulder. Stan tapped on the horn twice, and once he was past, Bill crossed over to Range Road. His dead followed in single, mute file. In the cool air, Bill heard a radio and caught a note or two of a song before the wind shifted and took the tune away. He slipped his hands into his pockets and walked.
He passed a few houses and then paused, listening.
“Third on the right.”
Bill nodded and approached a rambling white farmhouse.
The house, bright in a new coat of paint and freshly done points on the chimney, bore the name “Atkins” on a large, red mailbox.
A sigh came from behind Bill, and he gave a sympathetic shake of his head. “Past the house is a trail.”
Bill walked past the house without looking at it, and ahead of him, in the thick forest that marked the end of the road, he saw the opening of a trail. Within a few moments, Bill stepped onto the trail, following it around to the right. Soon, he could see the side of the farmhouse, and then the trail opened onto a small glade.
Bill stopped and looked around at the grass long gone to seed. He heard the rustle of a rabbit and saw it dart away a moment later.
“Here?” Bill asked.
“Here.”
Bill squatted down and took his folding knife out of his pocket. He cut a piece of sod away, then dug a few inches down. Bill cleaned the blade off on some grass, folded the knife and put it away. From an inner pocket, he removed a leather bag.
The bag, stained with sweat and blood, had traveled thousands of miles with him. The leather once bulged with the prized mementos of men long dead. Now, it sagged in his hands, the last few items jangling against one another.
Bill undid the leather ties and opened the bag. He shook the contents out into the palm of his hand and found Elijah Cromwell’s wedding ring.
“She remarried,” Elijah stated, squatting down beside Bill.
Bill looked at the dead man. “I’m sorry, Elijah.”
Elijah shrugged. “It’s okay. Looks like she married Dick Atkins, and he’s a good fella. Four F on account of his eyesight, but a damned hard worker. I think she’ll be happy.”
Elijah looked at him, and Bill could see the forest through the man.
“You been a real pal, Bill,” Elijah told him. “And I’d shake your hand if I could.” “I wish you could,” Bill sighed. He placed the wedding ring in the earth, covered it with dirt, and then replaced the sod.
“Walk safe,” Elijah said as he stood.
Bill straightened up as well. He took a step back and watched as the dead filed past, each ghost saying farewell to Elijah. When the last man had done so, Bill nodded and turned away from the glade.
Without looking back, he returned to Range Road. He slipped his hands into his pockets, glanced over his shoulder at the remaining dead, and then set off for the Castle View Service Station. He’d get a bite to eat before he started for Vermont, but he wouldn’t waste too much time.
As far as Bill was concerned, the dead had waited long enough.