Garden of Eden

Jenna had confirmed, gun cocked, that the derelict hunting lodge was unoccupied and now rested warily with the child's head exhausted and heavy against her shoulder, scanning the open grassland for any sign of ambush.

After three days walk encountering no others - roads deserted, houses and shops long ago stripped bare - this birdsong-filled place among the mountains tantalised her with a sense of safety.

"There will be food here - fish, rabbits; we might even shoot a deer".

Her whispered hopes were to calm herself as much as soothe the child, but anxiety caught at her like a toddler at her skirts.

She must confirm that the fir trees marked the course of a stream, so they could wash bodies and clothes before their pungency reached noses trained and sensitised, wolf-like, to seek out others.

Jenna's racing thoughts dulled her senses to the presence, as still and silent as the rocky peaks, of a sinewy individual awestruck by the fulfilment of prophesy - a woman and girl wearing blue jeans to lead the new civilization.

Entry in "Say it in 6" - six sentence flash fiction