Summary:  Adam meets a little girl on the road to Virginia city that he better never found.

Rated: T  WC 600

Story Notes:

Thank you, Sklamb, for beta reading and correcting my English.

Author’s Notes:

This short story originally was written for the Pinecone Challenge Number 10.

The prompt (“Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.”) comes from “The Stranger” by Camus.

 

The Little Girl in Pink

 

“Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know, mister.”

Adam sat upright in his bed, heart pounding, a thin film of sweat covering his body, with that little voice whispering to him. Was he running a fever? he thought as he lay back. What had happened?

He’d been running a wagonful of errands for his father and Hop Sing, and as the buckboard had rumbled towards Virginia City he had spotted a small figure sitting on a big stone beside the road. A little girl clad in pink: pink dress, a little pink cape and a matching bonnet. She surely wasn’t more than five or six.

Adam steadied the horses. “Hey, little lady, what are you doing here? Where’s your Ma?”

“Mama died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know, mister.” Adam could barely hear her whisper. He climbed down and approached the child cautiously, not wanting to startle her.

“And your Pa, where is he?”

“I haven’t never known him, mister.” Her eyes were fixed on the ground.

That caught Adam’s sympathy. He himself knew enough of losing a parent and this poor girl had evidently lost both. “Is there nobody with you?” he smiled reassuringly. “I don’t know what to call you. What’s your name?”

“Jennifer, but Mama called me Jenny.”

“May I call you Jenny, too?”

“If you want.”

“I would like that, Jenny. My name’s Adam.”

“O.K., Adam.” She raised her eyes and looked at him.

“Jenny, are you all alone?”

The girl shook her head. “My two brothers are on our wagon.”

“Where is it, Jenny?” Adam asked gently.

“Over there,” the girl whispered, pointing behind her.

“You came in a wagon across that rough ground? How?”

“It was night, and I was asleep, but Mama got in a hurry and drove off the road, and there was lots of noise, and then the wagon broke…” she said tearfully.

“How old are your brothers?” Perhaps one of them could be more helpful, Adam thought.

“One’s older than me, the other’s just a baby.”

“Can you show me your wagon?” Adam said soothingly and held out a hand. She nodded and put her own small cold hand in his as she hopped down from the stone.

Only a few hundred yards away was a small valley, with the shattered pieces of a wagon in plain view. And then the smell came. An awful smell. Instinctively Adam gathered up the feather-light child and folded her close to his chest as he picked his way down to the valley floor. Closer up, the scene was worse; there were five or six corpses around the wagon.

He tried to shield the little girl from the sight. “Shsh, you’re all right, Jenny, you’re all right, don’t worry.”

The girl lifted her small head from against his shoulder. Adam caught a brief glimpse, as her mouth split into a wide smile, of serried rows of needle-sharp teeth before she sank them forcefully into the side of his neck.

Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and settings are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended.