The tires hummed quietly over the street, filling the silence between Carlos and the girl, whom he had assigned the title "K-Mart" for lack of a better name. He glanced over at the girl huddled against the opposite door without turning his head, the fact that he had not even asked her name yet in the two hours the convoy had been on the rode occurring to him.
"Are you always this quiet?" he teased, attempting to break the ice. It was understandable for her to have little to talk about. What could she have to say that everyone had not already seen for themselves at some point in the years after the T-Virus overran the world? The girl turned her head to look at him, and shook her head slowly.
"Nothing to talk about," she answered simply. Carlos nodded solemnly and decided for a different angle.
"Where are you from?"
"Karcen City," she said shortly. " By San Fran." Carlos nodded.
"What about you?" the girl fired back before he could ask another question.
"I grew up in different places. I'm not a steady person." The girl eyed him and smiled.
"You look steady to me." Carlos glanced over at her again sharply. He didn't like the fact that this conversation was beginning to name him as the subject.
"What's your name? We can't keep calling you K-Mart."
"Does it matter? Everyone that knows my name is dead."
"So why stay in the past?" Carlos finished her thought. The girl nodded silently. "What do you want to be called?" The girl stared ahead and answered simply,
"K-Mart."
The sun was falling behind the hills ahead of them, the usual terrifying silence surrounding them. Terrifying because any other sound meant danger now. Even the animals had become infected. The convoy had stopped for the night, already having finished their pathetic meals of canned foods. Most of the group had settled down to sleep, friends and families that had not been ripped apart by death huddling and using each other as pillows. The children without parents stayed huddled within the bus, the younger ones hugging onto the elder of the children.
Carlos continued to wipe down one of his larger guns, trying to keep his movements smooth and steady so as not to disturb the girl that used his arm as a soft landing to sleep upon. A boot stepped up beside him upon the dried school field on which they had settled. He gazed up to see Claire looking down at him with a smirk.
"Looks like you gained a shadow."
"I don't know how she survived alone for so long," he answered, absent-mindedly returning to wiping down his gun.
"How do any of us survive?" Claire asked, sinking down beside him against the wheel of the yellow SUV. "Luck."
"Smarts," Carlos corrected. "Smarts and cunning. But this kid…" he paused. "She put us in danger right and left when I found her."
"We're probably the first survivors she has seen since the T-Virus took over. Most of these kids latch on to the first person they see. It's instinct." Claire looked over at the girl sleeping soundly on Carlos's opposite shoulder. "But this one is particularly clingy. What's her name?"
"K-Mart." Claire shot her gaze back to him in confusion.
"Say what?"
"She wants to be called K-Mart," Carlos answered without looking up from his gun.
"Why on earth would she want to be called that? She was nearly killed there."
"She was saved there. She connects her name with a dead family. I called her K-Mart when I found her. I guess she decided she liked it." Claire shook her head.
"Be careful Carlos," she warned as she gathered herself to her feet. "Don't get too attached. She might die." Or you might, the comment hung in the air as she walked away.
And then what will she be left with? Carlos answered silently, but he ignored the convoy's leader.
He didn't worry about becoming attached anymore. It was second nature to distance himself after years of being forced to put a bullet into more than one friend's head once they were infected with the T-Virus. Still, the girl had become fused to his side, and unless she was in one of the trucks or vans with him, she physically fused herself to him. It was true, she could slow him down, but he didn't worry about it too much. When the time came for him to fight, he would have to handle it then. But until that time came- and it was inevitable- he would allow the girl whatever comfort she could afford.