The walkers pass through Oldtown around midnight in a blur of noise, floodlights, and celebration that feels unreal to Ray Garraty. No one dies in town, but the spectacle deepens Garraty’s exhaustion and disorientation. As they move past the river and paper mills into the early hours of May 3, Garraty dozes while Peter McVries wakes him with news that a ceremonial military color guard awaits them at the turnpike entrance.

McVries gathers several walkers for a small act of defiance: after the official three-volley salute, they will answer with a mass raspberry. Scramm, however, is plainly getting worse; he is feverish, delirious, and calling for Cathy. At the ramp, the color guard presents arms and fires three deafening volleys over the walkers, reinforcing how thoroughly death has been ritualized around the Walk. McVries leads the promised reply, and about forty walkers manage a single weak raspberry before the moment collapses into anticlimax.

Once they reach the turnpike, the setting becomes flatter, wider, and more monotonous, and Garraty feels the contest entering another grinding phase. He briefly tries the grassy median for relief, only to discover it is unusable, another small disappointment that feeds his sense that every comfort is being stripped away. Collie Parker rejects Garraty’s hope that many competitors will soon drop, arguing that the stronger boys will die slowly because they still desperately want to live. Soon afterward, one walker is shot, confirming that the attrition continues even in this deadened stretch.

As Garraty drifts in and out of half-sleep, his mind turns to memories, guilt, Jan, and the possibility that death might be easier than continuing. Then his body forces a more immediate crisis: Garraty urgently needs to relieve himself while still walking under the eyes of the crowd. He squats in the dark with flashbulbs popping and spectators mocking him, nearly loses his pace, but manages to finish and catch up. The humiliation is intense, yet surviving it unexpectedly leaves Garraty feeling lighter and able to laugh with McVries.

Afterward, Arthur Baker shares a rumor he believes is true: the leather-jacketed walkers Mike and Joe, whom others assumed were lovers, are actually Hopi brothers. The revelation shocks Garraty and angers McVries, while Baker responds more thoughtfully, connecting it to poverty, pride, and a different cultural understanding of life and death. As conversation fades, the walkers break into smaller, lonelier units. The crowd remains tireless and grotesquely entertained, and Garraty continues forward through alternating visions of love and horror, with his identity and endurance further eroded by the Walk.