In The Long Walk, 100 contestants start the walk. They are teenage boys competing in an annual endurance contest in a dystopian, post-war United States. The event begins near the Canada–Maine border and proceeds along Route 1 under the supervision of the Squads, a secret police force led by the Major.
The walkers must maintain a speed of four miles per hour. Falling below that pace brings warnings, and receiving three warnings followed by another failure results in the contestant being shot. The rules turn an apparently simple walking competition into a brutal elimination contest in which exhaustion, injury, fear, and interpersonal conflict steadily reduce the field.
Ray Garraty is the central character, and readers also meet Peter McVries, Stebbins, Hank Olson, Art Baker, and Gary Barkovitch among the starting group. The contest ends only when one walker remains, and that survivor receives whatever prize he requests. The novel was first published under Stephen King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman, in 1979.