by Kate L. Mary
“How much longer do you think this will go on?” Lilly asked, pulling her knees up to her chest.
Her back was up against the tree, but there were so few leaves left on the branches that it didn’t give off much shade. The Georgia sun above us was bright and hot despite it being late October, but I knew it wouldn’t last. Soon winter would come, and with nothing but that tent to keep us warm, it was going to be rough. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep Lilly safe.
“It will be over soon,” I said, lowering myself to the ground next to her. “Then Daddy will come back and we can go home.”
Lilly nodded, but the tight line of her mouth told me she knew I was lying. Daddy wouldn’t be coming back.
I nudged her with my shoulder and forced out a grin. “We should keep track of the days. Make notches on this tree trunk just like we did on the bed at the refugee camp. That way we’ll know how long we’ve been here.”
“What good will that do?” Lilly asked, looking up at me with big, blue eyes.
Her blonde hair was pulled back, but a few strands had escaped her ponytail and were now blowing across her face. I pushed them aside, tucking them behind her ear, and smiled even though inside my chest, my heart felt like it was going to burst.
“Well, when Daddy comes to get us we can tell him exactly how long we’ve been here and he’ll know how brave you’ve been.”
Lilly nodded slowly, her mouth scrunching up as she thought it through. “Okay. I like that idea.”
“Good,” I said, getting to my feet and scanning the area.
My gaze fell on a rock about the size of my hand, and I went over to pick it up. One side was sharp and slightly pointed, making it the perfect tool. I took it back to the tree and kneeled next to Lilly, digging the sharp edge of the stone into the tree trunk. Lilly raised herself up on her knees, not saying anything as she watched. The line I left behind was small, but something about it felt comforting. I made another next to it, then another. Once there were four, I carved a line across the middle of them to make a fifth.
“How many days have we been here?” I asked, starting on a sixth line.
“Thirty-three,” Lilly said, scooting closer.
I dug my rock into the trunk over and over again, leaving tiny notches behind, and at that moment, thirty-three days felt like forever.
In the distance, the hum of the creepers’ ships filled the silence of the camp. Babies cried, children laughed. People talked and worked and moved around, proving they could adapt, but with each passing second a little more of me died. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if something were to happen to Lilly, I would cease to exist. Just like my parents had.
8
The early morning light penetrates my eyelids like they are no thicker than tissue paper. I fling my arm over my face and roll onto my side in a futile attempt to escape the new day. In the distance, someone hums a low, happy tune, making me bolt upright. I squint against the brightness, but my eyes refuse to adjust. Where am I? I can only concentrate on two things: it’s hotter than a sauna and there’s at least one other person nearby.
When the world comes into focus, my eyes land on Tara, and everything that happened the day before comes screaming back until it feels like it’s going to crush me. She’s curled up on the other side of the fire and Walker is somewhere nearby, humming. Of course he would be a morning person.
At that moment Walker breaks through the trees, and I almost don’t recognize him. Last night it was too dark to get a really good look at Tara’s handiwork, but in the light of day I can see what a big difference the trim made. His hair is only a little longer than Tara’s, and his beard is nothing more than stubble now. Like the five o’clock shadow of a man advertising some kind of outdoorsy cologne. He looks less like a hobo and more like a responsible member of society.
If society existed, that is.
The dimple that was barely visible through his facial hair deepens when he sees me. “Morning. Hope you slept okay.”
I nod slowly, suddenly feeling like my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth. I swallow, hoping that helps. It doesn’t.
Walker’s grin widens, and he drops a bundle on the ground in front of me. “Found these growing not too far from here. Thought you girls might like them.”
It’s a bunch of leaves with small white flowers, and mixed in are little red berries. “Wild strawberries?” I say in amazement, plucking one from the plant so I can get a better look at the firm, little fruit. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Walker smiles and lowers himself to the ground next to me. “I hope you aren’t allergic.”
My stomach growls, begging me to take a bite, but I don’t want to eat without Tara. I chew on my bottom lip instead. It isn’t nearly as appetizing. “Not allergic. I actually love strawberries.”
“Good.” Walker motions toward the fruit in my palm. “Go ahead.”
“Not until Tara wakes up.”
He smiles approvingly, and just like last night, a blush creeps across my face.
“Tell me about yourself, Eva. Who were you before all this?”
The sudden desire to crush the berry makes my fingers twitch. But I know I’d regret it, so I resist the urge. “I was fourteen when they invaded I didn’t have a clue who I was.”
“So you’re eighteen.” Walker leans back on his elbows. Without the shaggy hair and beard, he looks younger. Probably close to my age.
“And you?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“Also eighteen. I think so, anyway. My birthday is June tenth, and since I have no clue what day it is…” He shrugs and glances briefly toward Tara. “It’s been just the two of us for so long. It’s nice having someone new to talk to.”
“How did you two meet?” I’m dying to know about their relationship and what happened to make their bond this strong, but I never would have brought it up on my own.
“Prison camp.” He swallows and plucks a berry off the bush next to him. He rolls it around between his fingers for a few seconds before popping it in his mouth. It squishes when he bites into it, and he grins.
“Tara was going to school up at Ohio University, not too far from where I grew up. When we were relocated to the refugee center, we ended up in the same place, but I didn’t meet her until the prison. By then my parents were dead and I was alone. I didn’t handle it well.” He stares at the ground, plucking out a few blades of grass absentmindedly. “Tara is strong. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t met her. When we were liberated she and I struck out together. It seemed natural for me to help her look for her family since I didn’t have any left. We were with another group for a while, but things got bad.” His jaw tightens, and when he starts talking again, it seems to take a lot of effort. “We got out of there and decided to keep to ourselves. That was about six months ago, and it’s worked out well. We’ve survived, anyway.”
“You two seem close.” It’s the understatement of the year. I’ve seen married couples less in sync than these two.
Walker raises his head and narrows his eyes on my face. He seems on the verge of saying something, but he stops and smiles instead. “Closer than you can imagine.”
I can imagine a lot, and all of it would mean I’m in the way.
“Look, I meant what I said. You guys don’t have to come with me. I have to find Lilly, but you’re under no obligation to help me. Don’t feel like you need to. We just met, after all.”
Walker chuckles quietly and shakes his head. “You really are a martyr.” He hops to his feet and nudges Tara with the toe of his boot. “Get up, lazy. We need to get a move on.”
Tara rolls over and smiles at Walker. Her eyes aren’t the least bit hazy.
“Faker,” Walker says with a chuckle.
She hauls herself off the ground and rubs her lower back. “Just thought you might need some bonding time.”
Walker presses his lips together and swears under his breath. He gives her a little shove toward
the strawberries. “Get something to eat, loser.”
The whole exchange is weird, but now that Tara’s awake, my stomach is trying to chew its way through my skin to get at the berries. I’m too hungry to try and unravel a riddle right now.
The three of us munch on the berries while we plan our day. Walker keeps talking about trying to find a place near water for tonight so we can get cleaned up. Every time he mentions taking a bath Tara gives him a little wink. Must be an inside joke or something.
“Not that I would turn down a bath, but I do need to remind you that we’re in Georgia,” I say. “Water could mean gators, you know. I’m not sure what you guys have in the way of weapons, but my little knife can’t compete with that.”
Walker kicks some dirt over the fire. “We’ll be careful. Besides, I hear gator tastes like chicken.”
Tara rubs her flat stomach. “Everything tastes like chicken when you’re starving.”
My own stomach rumbles. Why did they have to bring up chicken?
We’ve been walking for a while when it hits me like a Mac truck. I didn’t make a new notch on my arm this morning. It’s usually the first thing I do, but today I had Walker to distract me and berries for breakfast. Then Tara woke up and I had the mystery of their relationship to mull over. Then there’s Lilly, who I can’t stop thinking about now that I know she might be alive.
It completely slipped my mind.
I slow until I’m a few steps behind Tara and Walker, then take out my knife. The cut from yesterday is scabbed over, but it’s red and sensitive to the touch. Nothing unusual, really.
I keep moving as I position the blade a quarter of an inch under the last cut, then grit my teeth. When I slide it across my skin I let out a hiss of pain, and blood instantly appears. My arm throbs to the beat of my pounding heart, but I don’t try to stop the bleeding. I just stare at it while it collects, waiting for it to run down my arm and drip onto the ground at my feet.
“Eva? What the hell are you doing?” Walker asks, snapping me to attention.
He rushes to my side, but I shake my head and wrap my hand around the cut. Warm blood pools under my palm and seeps through my fingers. The sunlight makes it brighter. So much more violent.
“I’m fine,” I say, trying to turn away from him.
“You’re not fine, you’re bleeding.”
Walker pries my hand away from the cut, and Tara whips yet another scarf from her bag. It’s soft pink, and when she wraps it around my arm it immediately turns red.
“You need to stop this,” she whispers.
I gnaw on my lip while she tightens the scarf. “I can’t. Not until I know Lilly’s okay.”
Walker presses his mouth into a tight line and jerks his hat down while he grinds his teeth. “This is stupid, Eva.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Let it go, Walker.” Tara drops my arm and starts moving again. “We have a lot of ground to cover, come on.”
Walker gives me a hard stare before going after Tara. I follow behind with my stomach twisted into knots. I don’t know why he cares. It’s none of his business. If I wanted to cut my arm off there’s nothing he could do to stop me.
Still, it is kind of nice to have someone to care about me after all this time alone.
The silence that follows my cutting episode is lonelier than all the days I spent by myself. Walker keeps a steady pace in front of me, just fast enough that I would have to jog to catch up. Tara walks behind him, but not in step with me. The longer we go without speaking, the more my stomach tightens.
It takes me thirty minutes to realize I’m afraid. Afraid they’re going to decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth and leave me. Then I’ll be alone again, and I’m not sure that’s something I can handle right now. Not when I’m on my way home. Not when Lilly might or might not be there. If she is, it’ll be like waking up from a nightmare. But if she isn’t, and I don’t have someone to lean on, the reality may be too much for me to take.
I needed this more than I knew.
Just when the silence has gotten so oppressive that I think I’ll scream, Walker stops moving. His shoulders tense and he seems to be listening, putting me on alert. Tara and I run to his side, but before we’ve even had a chance to stop, he’s grabbing us. Pulling us off the road and into the nearby trees. Moving fast enough that my feet have a hard time keeping up and Tara stumbles twice.
“Voices,” Walker whispers, forcing us both to crouch down the second we’re in the cover of the trees.
My pulse quickens and I have to focus on my breathing. It’s like I’ve just run a marathon, though, and I find it impossible to catch my breath or ease the pounding in my chest.
“Can you see anyone?” Tara whispers. She’s breathing just has heavily as I am.
Walker shakes his head and leans forward, trying to look through the bushes hiding us from view. The voices that were nothing more than a whisper a few seconds ago get closer and clearer. They aren’t even trying to be quiet. Their laughter mingles with the scrape of their shoes against the pavement, and every muscle in my body snaps to attention.
People who don’t try to conceal themselves these days fall into two categories. Either they’re stupid—and there aren’t many of those left—or they aren’t afraid. Those are the ones you have to look out for. If they aren’t scared it’s because they think they’re at the top of the food chain, which makes them deadly.
When the group comes into view, the uneasiness inside me increases tenfold. There are six of them. All men. Any group traveling without women puts me on edge. There’s no way they haven’t come across at least one woman in their travels, which makes me wonder what they’ve done with the women they’ve encountered. Just thinking about it sends a shiver down my spine.
These particular men have a couple bottles of Jack Daniels with them, and the way they swagger and slur their words leaves no doubt in my mind. They are very drunk, which makes them even more dangerous than I originally thought.
None of us move or say a word. I’m not even positive I’m breathing, and I know Walker is holding his breath. Tara’s eyes get big and round as they follow the progress of the drunks closing in on our hiding place. Their conversation is scattered and hard to follow, but the little bit I do catch makes me cringe. Apparently, they came upon a group of survivors the previous night and had themselves a real good time.
My suspicions are confirmed.
Tara grips Walker’s hand, and the more the men talk, the more she digs her nails into his skin. It has to hurt, but Walker lets her do it without even a grimace.
The men are only six feet away from us when the alcohol catches up with them.
“Gimme it,” a man with a scraggly gray beard yells. “Don’t know when we’re gonna find more and I ain’t lettin’ you drink it all.”
He lunges at the man next to him who’s holding the bottle of Jack. The second man is about twenty years his junior and has a good thirty pounds on the first. The bearded man is too drunk to be cautious, though. He misses the younger man by a mile and falls face first into the ditch. Less than four feet from where we’re crouched.
The younger man hands his bottle to someone else and saunters toward his fallen comrade, who doesn’t seem like he’s coherent enough to get up. Luckily for gray beard, the younger man is happy to help. He jerks the older man up and punches him in the gut. When the old man drops to the ground, the rest of the group cackles like little old ladies. The younger man goes in for more, kicking the other man in the side, then slamming his knuckles into the older man’s face. They’re close enough to our hiding place that I’m afraid we’re going to get hit by blood spatter from the beating. The bearded man is out cold after two hits, but the younger man doesn’t let up. His fists slam into the older man’s face over and over again, turning his features into a bloody mess.
Tara looks like she’s on the verge of losing her strawberries, and I can’t say I blame her. My own stomach is more uneasy than a prostitu
te in confession.
The younger man pauses to wipe some blood off his face, lifting his head. His gaze moves across the forest. I suck in a deep breath and hold as still as possible. The man’s eyes stop on me and our eyes meet, and all the air leaves my lungs in one big gust.
“Hey!” He steps away from the old man—who I’m pretty sure is dead—and points a bloody finger our way. “Lookie what I found!”
The three of us are on our feet before the other drunks can figure out what their friend is talking about. Walker takes off, and Tara and I are right behind him. We race through the woods with the yells of drunken men at our backs. We hop over fallen trees and duck under branches. None of us say a word, but we stick close to each other. Whenever Walker veers off in another direction, Tara and I are ready.
The men aren’t far behind. Even above the beating of my heart and the pounding of my feet, I can hear how slurred their words are. If they weren’t drunk we’d be in trouble, but as it is, we might be able to outrun them.
Less than four feet in front of me, Walker cuts through a few bushes, and the sound of splashing water breaks through the quiet forest. Tara goes next and there’s more splashing. My throat tightens when I duck in right behind her and stumble into the cool water.
It isn’t quite a swamp, but it’s just as dangerous. Lily pads sway with the rippling water as I push my way through, following the others. My boots sink into the mushy ground, making it difficult to keep a good pace. The water only goes up to my shins at first, but the further out I wade the deeper it gets, until the murky waters are up past my waist. The terror of not being able to see what’s lurking beneath the stagnant liquid turns me into a mute, and my heart almost explodes when Walker heads for a group of cypress trees about ten feet away. It’s the perfect place for reptiles to hide.
“W-Walker!” I manage to get out, just as the men splash into the water behind me.
Tara screams and tries to move faster, but she only succeeds in splashing more. She’s so much shorter than we are, and the water is already up to her chest. Walker glances my way before grabbing Tara’s hand. He pulls her against his body while motioning for me to move faster.
