Hazel

 2K words in a post apocalyptic setting involving a heart shaped locket; I'll bite…

The shambling un-dead American was eating chunks of bloody flesh with stray hairs. A very messy eater. He, it, had gotten a hold of a squirrel somehow; that and a flash of gold around its neck was a minor mystery and I am a sucker for that. As I considered it I heard a twig snap behind me. I’m light on my feet these days, moving and turning silently and quickly, but the girl was quicker and I found myself facing a fairly decent handcrafted arrow. I looked down the shaft at the young girl with a slightly under-powered bow, it couldn’t have been more than a twenty-five pound pull. She was maybe eleven, a scrappy little survivor of the apocalypse, greasy ponytail, dirty face with a nasty infected scratch, hazel eyes, and a snaggle-toothed not-grin, lips skinned back from yellowed teeth. She needed a bath, some neosporin and a toothbrush, stat.

She hadn’t decided to kill me, yet, so we were on better terms than the last survivor I’d tangled with, about five  days ago... and six feet, give or take. Maybe more like three.

“My friends call me George; you can call me George, okay? Uhm, Hazel?”

“Who?! Oh.. uh, Amanda.” She looked behind me and I risked a look. Squirrel breath was looking around, bits of squirrel all but forgotten in its hands. It turned to us, and the bright yellow metal flashed again in the sunlight. A locket.

“Do you mi-”

“No! Don’t you hurt him!”

Puzzle pieces fell into place and I crabbed around, no sudden moves, but I preferred an arrow to teeth.

“Okay,” I said slowly. I watched her consider once again putting an arrow in me and regretfully (on her part) passing on that option. God help me, I had questions and little sense. “Who was he?

“My Dad.”

Ouch.