When We Were Human

by Kate L. Mary

  Tara turns to face me. When our eyes meet, she takes a step my way with her hand held out, but she doesn’t touch me. “Eva? Are you okay?”

  Walker watches me too, and the mirth in his eyes is gone completely.

  “Th-that’s where we were.”

  A breeze that isn’t the least bit refreshing blows, bringing with it a burst of dirt that makes my eyes sting and fill with tears. I suck in a deep breath and try to control my body. To command it to cooperate and not show how weak I truly am. But I can’t stop shaking.

  “We?” Tara asks.

  I nod slowly. “My sister and me.”

  Walker’s eyes meet mine. “And your parents?”

  “My dad was gone pretty early on. He was in the Air Force.” I shrug, and they both nod in response. I don’t need to elaborate, everyone knows what the early days of the invasion were like. “My mom made it a bit longer, but she never made it out of the refugee camp.”

  It should hurt more, talking about my parents being dead. But the truth is, thinking about Lilly being gone is more painful. Maybe because Dad’s been gone for almost four years now and Mom sacrificed herself so Lilly and I could live. Only Lilly didn’t survive, and that makes Mom’s death a waste.

  Now there’s just me.

  “I’m sorry, Eva,” Tara whispers.

  Walker’s eyes shimmer, and he pulls his hat down. “I’m sorry.” He clears his throat and starts walking. “This is the closest camp.”

  Tara gives my arm a quick squeeze before she jogs to join Walker. She leans against him, and the top of her head doesn’t even reach his shoulder. Walker puts his arm around her. Neither one looks back to see if I’m coming.

  My feet are heavier than bowling balls when I lift them. Every step takes an incredible amount of effort, and I have to focus on the movement. Eventually, I catch up with the others. Whether it’s because they’ve slowed down or because I’m actually able to get my legs to work better, I’m not sure. Either way, I’m back on track. I guess.

  We return to walking in silence.

  Walker keeps his arm around Tara for maybe fifteen minutes, then without a word they separate. They walk with about three feet of distance between them, but the strength of their bond makes it feel like they’re holding hands. They’ve been through a lot together. It’s clear by the way they interact, and it makes my insides ache with jealousy. Everything I’ve had to do has been brutal and painstaking, and I’ve done it all by myself. What I wouldn’t give to have Lilly with me. To have a shoulder to cry on at the end of a rough day. Or even to be that shoulder for someone else.

  I always knew life wasn’t a fairytale, but it’s never been as glaringly obvious as it is right now.

  By the time we’ve reached the outskirts of the city, my shirt is drenched in sweat. With very little shade to protect us from the hot sun, the walk has started to take its toll. My legs are heavy and my throat feels like sandpaper. We pass a canteen back and forth that has maybe only a cup of water left in it. The tiny sips evaporate before I even have a chance to swallow.

  Walker’s shaggy hair clings to the back of his neck, and his face is bright red from the sun. Tara dug a bright yellow scarf out of her bag a mile or so back, and she has it tied tightly around her bald head. But it doesn’t protect the rest of her from the sun, and her skin glistens under the bright light shining down on us from above.

  My scalp burns and I can’t stop touching it.

  “What’s going on with your head?” Walker finally asks, grabbing my arm and forcing me to stop moving.

  He raises himself up on the tips of his toes while I tilt my head down. Then he lets out a low whistle and steps back. “Why didn’t you tell us you were hurt? Did the invader do this?”

  I run my hand over my head self-consciously. “It’s not a big deal. The sun is irritating it, but compared to other injuries I’ve had, this is nothing.”

  “I can help with that,” Tara says, digging in her pack.

  She produces a second scarf. It’s orange and pink and covered in turquoise flowers, and it looks totally ridiculous next to my filthy, hole-covered clothes. But it will keep the sun off my head. I take it and wrap it around my scalp, then tuck my knotted hair inside. Tara helps me tie it at the back of my head, and when I look up, Walker is grinning like he just witnessed a makeover.

  “Do you think everything is funny?”

  His smile irks me, I can’t help it. I’m pretty sure I haven’t smiled in close to two years. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a single thing worth smiling over.

  “Does it bother you?” he asks, continuing down the road without a backward glance.

  “No,” I lie, falling in line with him and Tara. “I just don’t get it.”

  “I choose to see the bright side of things.”

  Tara’s eyes are glued to him and her mouth turns up, but she doesn’t say whether or not she agrees with Walker. I thought for sure I’d never again see someone look at another person the way she’s looking at him. Like the sun rises out of his ass. Like she loves him.

  5

  When the camp comes into view, I have a difficult time not throwing up. Water and carrots slosh back and forth in my stomach. The sweat on my palms has nothing to do with the humidity, and my legs are so weak they feel like pipe cleaners trying to support a rubber ball.

  The fence surrounding the camp is down in most places, and the majority of the hastily set up tents have blown away. The few left are ripped. The canvas blows in the warm breeze, flapping back and forth like the wings of an ominous bird.

  The storage building is still standing, though. If it isn’t empty this trip might be worth our time, but if it’s been cleaned out all this emotional turmoil and pain will be for nothing. And I don’t have a lot of optimism that things will turn out in our favor.

  Atlanta is just visible in the distance. Or what’s left of it, anyway. A ruined building juts up here and there, but for the most part the city is flat. It looks as if the earth just opened up and sucked the city down. It’s what the creepers did in the first wave. Wiped out all the major cities until there was nothing left but a landscape of rubble and dust. Killing millions in the blink of an eye.

  Walker heads into the camp, and I follow silently, trying not to think about those terrifying days. My throat tightens when we step across the toppled chain link fence. The rusty metal clinks under our feet, and my heart pounds harder with each step.

  When I finally enter the prison camp where my sister lived out her final days, it feels like I’m walking into a cemetery. In many ways, I am. Bones of the former inhabitants are scattered across the ground as far as the eye can see. The bodies have been picked clean by animals and bugs, and the clothes have long since blown away, but the skeletons remain as a heartbreaking reminder of everything we lost.

  Which one is my sister?

  “This way,” Walker says, tilting his head toward the storage building.

  The three of us pick our way across the camp, stepping over debris and remains. Tara won’t stop looking at me, and every glance causes my insides to harden even more. I wish I’d never told them I lost my sister here. I hate thinking that they associate me with this place. Even worse, I hate that I associate myself with this hell.

  I catch sight of a charred, mangled tree, and the urge to hurl hits me so hard that I almost have to stop. The stump juts up from the ground, and to the left of it sits a small crater. It’s like a missile took out the top of the tree then hit the ground next to it. The black circle from the fire extends for about ten feet around the hole. The fire burnt the tiny bit of tree to a crisp, leaving almost nothing behind.

  Our tree. Mine and Lilly’s.

  I force myself to turn away from the remains before I burst into tears. I shouldn’t have come here.

  We get closer to the storage building, but something looks off. The brightness of the sun forces me to squint. That’s when it hits me. The walls are covered in writing and discarded cans of spray paint by the d
ozens lay on the ground. At first I’m not sure what I’m looking at, but it only takes a few seconds of scanning the words to figure out what it all means. They’re notes left by survivors. People hoping to find loved ones they’ve lost.

  Stupid people clinging to hope that doesn’t exist.

  “What is this?” I ask, coming to a stop about ten feet from the wall.

  “Survivor’s wall.” Walker glances at Tara, then turns toward the entrance of the building. “People leave messages behind just in case a family member comes through. We’ll check it out before we leave, but we should look for food first.”

  Tara follows him, but her eyes are glued to the wall. They never stop moving, never stop reading the names.

  I keep my eyes on the back of Walker’s head as I follow him inside. Away from the wall and the words of desperation painted on them. There’s nothing on that wall for me.

  It’s dark inside. The building was a warehouse of some sort before the invasion, and there are no windows. The creepers built the prison camp next to it, giving them a place to store food for their prisoners. Not that they gave us much, but it’s convenient for us now. If there’s any processed food left in this state, this is where we’ll find it.

  Walker pulls out a flashlight and flips it on. He pans it around the room slowly, and my heart jumps to my throat. It doesn’t stay there long. The more corners that are illuminated, the lower my heart sinks until I’m practically standing on it. There are empty boxes and crates by the hundreds, but no food as far as I can see.

  Walker curses under his breath and heads deeper into the warehouse, but I stay where I am. Tara looks back and forth between the two of us before finally trotting off after Walker. Honestly, I just don’t think she can stand the thought of being away from him. But I’m used to being alone, so I sink down on an overturned crate. My legs could use some rest before we head out in search of more food. If there is any. It’s very possible we are at the end of the line when it comes to processed food. Time to start living off the land.

  Footsteps echo through the nearly empty warehouse as Walker and Tara explore. From my position on the crate, I watch the beam of their flashlight as they make their way through the room. Occasionally the echo of a voice travels back to me, but they’re too far away for me to make out the words.

  They come back less than five minutes later, and Walker is holding an open box of cookies. He drops them on the ground in front of me and swallows like he can’t make himself talk. Even in the dark room, I can see the worry in his eyes. He glances toward Tara, and the expression on his face reminds me of the way a father would look at a child he desperately wants to protect.

  “That’s all there is. They’re stale, but they aren’t moldy yet.”

  Tara sits at my feet and pulls out the plastic tray, then begins to split them up. There can’t be more than twenty cookies in the box. It won’t even make a dent in my hollow stomach.

  Eventually, Walker sits down too, but I stay on my crate.

  Tara picks up the six cookies designated for me and holds them out, but I shake my head. “You two take them. If you hadn’t let me tag along you wouldn’t have to share.”

  Walker exhales slowly through his nose. “Stop being a martyr. The only way we are going to rebuild things is by working together. We invited you to come with us so we could work toward something better, and the only way we can do that is by surviving. Which means eating. So eat.”

  It’s impossible to argue with that logic. “Fine.”

  I take the cookies from Tara and shove two in my mouth. Walker holds my eyes while I bite down. They’re crumbly and horribly stale, and the chocolate is the cheap, waxy kind that only little kids who don’t know any better can really appreciate. But they taste better than a filet cooked medium rare. When I swallow them, my stomach rumbles approvingly. Walker gives me an impish grin as he pops one in his own mouth.

  I eat the remaining four cookies slowly, savoring each morsel as if they are the last bits of food I’ll ever see. They won’t be, but they very well could be the last food from the old world I will ever get to taste. From here on out we’ll have to survive by learning to hunt and fish, and maybe one day we’ll be able to stay in one place long enough to grow our food. But the days of grocery stores and processed cookies are long gone, and the realization hangs over us like a raincloud.

  Tara is antsy the whole time she eats and she doesn’t take her time the way Walker and I do. She shoves a cookie in her mouth, chewing it quickly as her eyes dart to the door. The second she’s swallowed it, in goes another, and before I’ve even started chewing my last cookie she is on her feet.

  She’s taken one step toward the door when Walker stops her. “Don’t go out by yourself.” He pushes his two remaining cookies in his mouth and jumps up. “It isn’t safe.”

  Crumbs fly from his mouth, and a few hit Tara in the face. She doesn’t even blink.

  “I have to look.”

  Walker winces when he swallows like his food wasn’t chewed enough. “We will,” he croaks. He doesn’t take his eyes off Tara when he says, “You coming, Eva?” He acts like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he looks away.

  I pop my cookie into my mouth, then follow them to the door as I chew. The sun is blinding after being in the dark warehouse, and I have to shade my eyes when we step out.

  I squint while I wait for my eyes to adjust, but Tara goes straight for the survivor’s wall. She starts at the area to the right of the door and begins to scan the names. Walker does the same, starting on the left side. They search the scribbles with a purpose that makes my insides constrict.

  I’m curious, so I follow Walker. Tara is too quiet and guarded. I don’t want to bother her with my nosiness, but Walker doesn’t seem to have a problem saying what’s on his mind.

  “Who are you looking for?” I ask, keeping my voice low.

  Walker doesn’t take his eyes off the wall. “Tara’s mom and brothers. She was up north in college when the invasion started, but she’s from Georgia. She still doesn’t know what happened to them, but she hasn’t given up hope.”

  I swallow a boulder that has lodged itself in my throat. The invasion was four years ago. She’s gone four years not knowing what happened to her family? How has she been able to go on?

  “What about you?” I whisper. “Are you searching for people, too?”

  Walker stops reading the names and turns to face me. “No. I saw what happened to my parents. It’s the reason I can’t think you’re a monster for skinning that invader back there. I will never be able to forget what they did to us.”

  He holds my gaze as his blue eyes grow in intensity. I squirm when he doesn’t look away. It’s like he’s waiting for me to respond, but I don’t have anything to say. Sorry? Seems ridiculous. Does he want me to tell him what I’ve witnessed? Seems pointless. He’s probably seen the same things.

  I pull my eyes away and face the wall, scanning the names closest to me. “What are their names? Who are we looking for?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I see Walker pull his hat down and turn back to the wall. “Parker. Elizabeth, Michael, and Terrence.”

  I nod and read the names closest to me. Some are hard to make out since they’re written in spray paint, but others are as clear as day. Most have a message written under them. Things like: I survived, will meet you at home, and Daddy’s dead, but I won’t give up. It seems unimaginable that anyone would be able to track another person down from this.

  And there are hundreds of names. Maybe thousands. After fifteen minutes of searching, my headache returns and my eyes tear up. What started as an inferno of hope inside me has dwindled to a small flame, but Walker wears an expression of determination on his face. He barely blinks when a bead of sweat rolls down his forehead and into his eye, and he doesn’t even pause to swipe at the flies buzzing around us.

  Tara joins us after she’s finished with her side of the building. It was less than half the size of ours. Her expression is g
rim, and Walker pauses long enough to squeeze her hand. The gesture seems to give her a second wind, because she goes right back to searching the names.

  I don’t understand how she can keep any hope alive after all this time.

  Walker reaches the end of the wall first. He rips his hat off and runs his hand through his damp hair. Beads of sweat drip onto the dirt at his feet, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I’m sorry, Tara, they aren’t there.”

  Tara nods, and sinks to the ground, leaning her head against the wall. “I’m starting to think I’ve been clinging to something impossible.”

  “No. Don’t say that.” Walker kneels at her side. “We’ve heard stories of other people being reunited. It’s possible, Tara.”

  My eyes burn as they fill with tears, and I focus on the top of her head so I don’t have to see the agonized expression on her face.

  Walker and Tara talk quietly about what their next move is, but I tune them out. Being with other people is bringing up all kinds of emotions I’ve been struggling to suppress. I need to focus on something else. Anything that will help me forget the crushing feeling of loss coming back to life inside me.

  Tara leans on Walker, moving her head from my line of sight, and my eyes focus on the words behind her.

  I’m going home to Valdosta.

  My chest constricts when a sob bubbles up inside me. I lean closer and shove Tara and Walker aside. They topple over and Walker lets out a string of curses that would make a sailor blush, but it barely registers in my mind.

  Because this is a note from my sister.

  The sister I thought was dead.

  6

  Evie-

  I couldn’t find you. Don’t give up on me. I’m going home to Valdosta.

  I love you.

  Lilly White

  An earthquake starts in my stomach and travels through me until my entire body shakes. I can’t breathe.