They silently park their truck outside a sprawling multiplex with signage indicating that they're near the 'City Creek Centre' and Soul gets to work loading his guns.
While he's busying himself, Maka puts her hands on her hips and takes a good look around; draws in a heavy breath.
"Here," Soul hands her two handguns and pulls the knife from out the back of his pocket. "Take these."
She blinks at him for a split second, confused. Then it dawns on her.
He's giving her his guns so he can leave her here.
"Are you going now?" she asks.
He regards her warily. "I was going to scope the place out. See if I can raid for any supplies, maybe even find somewhere to stay a couple of nights. I don't trust big cities."
He mentioned that before, she remembers. "Well… we should stick together, at least while we're here, right?" she theorises.
He sighs and leans back onto the bumper of the truck, staring off into the still-blue sky, now flecked with fluffy white clouds.
He doesn't say anything for a while, just stands there, squinting at the sun, hard.
"Soul?"
He sighs again. He was good at that. "Maka."
"What are you doing?"
"I don't know," he answers truthfully. "I really have no idea. I was getting us to Nevada, so we could meet up with my friends. Now… I don't know. You wanted me to leave you alone. I… I have no idea what to do."
She softens and leans on the truck next to him.
"Soul, I'm sorry I freaked out on you. It was… it was a lot to unpack, I guess. And…" she briefly considers telling him about the weird jolt-y feeling she had felt, but she decides that it would sound too weird. "I am sorry."
There's a long silence, now.
There was a lot of those.
His fists are still curled into balls, she notices, and one of them is shaking just the tiniest amount. "I hate it. I didn't want to be this way."
It takes her a second to figure out what he's talking about. "You mean, you didn't want to be a weapon?"
"Hell no," he snaps. "It's in my genetics. My grandfather was a scythe, too, or so I'm told. And then, when everything got really messed up with my mom and dad, I used it to get out. Started at the academy. Got really good at it," he stares at his hands. He's started talking all of a sudden, and now it seems that he can't stop. "Then all this happened. That virus got out, messed everyone up real bad." He barks a laugh. "You know, all of this, the virus. It just a stupid experiment… they were just trying to understand why kishin act the way they do, killing everyone, eating people..." he mumbles a name, something she doesn't quite understand. "he... recreated this virus, just as a test. As a 'just in case' kind of measure." he chokes out an angry laugh. "Sick joke."
Maka's eyes are wider than saucers as she drinks this information in.
"Of course it fell into the wrong hands." he continues, head in his own hands. It's been years since he's had to talk about this.
"Oh, God." she feels herself going faint. "Jesus."
"Death, actually. Not God." he corrects her.
She swears. "Shit!" There's a pause. "Did you know about it?" she asks tentatively.
"I already told you! No!"
"Can the professor, can he… can he reverse it?"
"No."
"Shit!" Maka swears. "Did you... ever ask?"
"What, do I look stupid? Obviously, I asked. There's nothing he can do. This is permanent. This is the world, now. Nothing is ever going to back to how it used to be, ever." He kicks the truck with the full force of his foot and then yelps as the pain immediately spring back up his arches.
"Jesus, Soul. Are you okay?"
"Fine," he mutters.
She puts a hand on his arm. "I am really sorry I said that stuff earlier. I am. I just… I just want to forget it, okay?"
His jaw clenches as her fists do the same.
"Come on, let's just find somewhere to sleep tonight."
They luck out in Salt Lake. Apparently, everyone here got turned to zombies pretty quick, because there's tonnes of supplies everywhere. It was almost the polar opposite to Fort Collins.
They stock up the truck with stacks and stacks of beans, canned potatoes, canned vegetables and soup – before cooking up a big pot of beans and rice over a bonfire in a Best-Buy.
"This is more like a worst-buy," Maka cracks, staring up at the ceiling, now green with moss as plants shoot up from the cracks in the tiled floor.
"Wow," Soul replies, almost completely deadpan.
"You know what would be really cool?"
"Shoot." Soul warms his hands on the fire.
"If we could sleep somewhere in a house, tonight," she asks. "Or… I guess, for a few nights." She sighs. "It's all malls and big open spaces with you. I kind of miss being in a home."
He frowns and shrugs. "Sure. If we find somewhere secure enough, I don't see a problem with that."
She's pleased that he hasn't just VETO'ed the idea outright, but there was still something missing from him, tonight. Some spark that just wasn't there; like he was occupied slightly with thoughts of something else, another place. She doesn't ask – doesn't feel like it's polite to, not after their little argument earlier.
They drive a little further out, find a big open house on a long street of very nice-looking houses, and Maka points to one. "This one."
"Yeah?" he raises an eyebrow, backing up the vehicle a little so that they can park just near the front door.
"Yeah. We can shimmy in and out up the drainpipe, no trouble."
"You're either gonna have to lockpick this window, or we'll have to smash it."
"We could smash it," Maka stares up, shielding the sun from her eyes with a single hand over her brow. "Doesn't look too thick."
He shakes his head. "We're not smashing through that without seriously calling some attention to ourselves."
"Oh, come on. This is practically a ghost town."
"No." he says, firmly.
She shrugs and places her hands around the drainpipe, testing it out to see if it holds her weight. "Maka…" Soul says. "Put this in your pocket." He hands her the gun. "Just in case there's… there's somebody inside, okay?"
"It's not likely. Everybody got evacuated, remember?" She reminds him, before hauling herself up by her arms. She clambers ungracefully up the drainpipe in a similar fashion, trying her best to muffle her grunts and groans of exertion. She climbs onto the sun-roof on the first floor, first – tries the window. It doesn't budge, and the glass looks particularly thick, too.
She shakes her head down at Soul.
Then, she climbs up to the second floor – tries one of those. It opens a crack, but not enough to climb in. It's a bathroom window, she realises.
She has to edge along the windowsill to get to the drainpipe which leads to the attic roof. It doesn't look secure enough to hold her weight, so she just clambers up the roof tiling, hoping to God that it doesn't crack. Luckily, it doesn't, and she manages to open the tiny porthole window embedded in the roof.
She nods down at Soul and opens it up, clambering through the thing.
He waits in silence for a few minutes. It's a little too long, actually. He starts to get nervous, begins to contemplate breaking in through the bay window in the front but holds himself back.
"Don't be an idiot, Soul," he mutters to himself. "She's okay."
His fears are relieved when he hears somebody on the other end fiddling with the locks and – finally, his heart can go back to beating at it's usual rate when Maka appears on the other side of the heavy wooden door, sweaty and triumphant.
"Get in, it's seriously awesome inside here!"
He does so, a little sceptical. "We need to board up all the first-floor windows and doors, quickly. Before it gets dark, okay?"
"But look at this place! It's amazing!"
He pauses for a second to look around. It is pretty bourgeois, but it's nothing compared to the place he grew up in. He doesn't say this, though. Instead, he simply nods and agrees with her. The large grand piano in the lounge room bores a hole through his skull, but he ignores it.
"Maka. Take the gun and do a quick sweep of the place, make double-sure that there's nothing skulking about, okay? I'm going to go and find some wooden board for the windows."
They get to work. Soul finds some wood in the garden shed and breaks it into chunks. Maka doesn't ask how; but she already knows. He locates a hammer and set of nails and they both begin nailing the boards to all the windows until not even a crack of sunlight could peek through.
"It's getting dark out," Maka points out.
"Relax. I'll keep watch tonight, okay?" he reassures her. "Trust me. I… I think we're safe here, for a few nights. If I remember right, most of Utah got evacuated pretty quickly."
Maka nods.
"Keep going on that one, you're doing a good job. I want to mount the rifle on the top floor in case we do have some trouble, okay?"
"Sure."
He was full of ideas, sometimes.
"I'm going to barricade the door, too. It's double locked, but… I want to be safe."
"So how do we get out? If we're surrounded?" Soul asks.
"The truck's right outside the top window, right? I say, if we need to leave in a hurry we jump down the side of the house and get in the truck quick-smart. The front door is just asking for trouble," she theorises.
"Sounds good to me," he shrugs.
It takes them about another hour to get everything sorted. It was pretty amazing, really, how fast they could work when they'd had enough food to eat and enough water.
When they're one-hundred-percent sure that they're safe and secure, they both relax a little more.
Not fully, not ever. You could never relax totally in this new world, but enough.
"Is it everything you ever dreamed of?" he asks, pulling out a chair and fiddling around with a screwdriver on the fire alarm.
She raises an eyebrow up at him. "It's pretty cushty here, you've got to admit." She smiles. "What the hell are you doing with that?"
He doesn't reply, but it becomes pretty much clear a second later, when he's pulling out the batteries and lighting up his cigarette.
"Right, right." She laughs. "Because everyone who can cure cancer is dead, and you want to join them?"
He shakes his head. "Because everyone I know is dead, and honestly fuck caring about my health."
He roots around in the cabinet, looking for something. He doesn't find anything particularly edible, just a whole lot of rotten food.
"Come on, let's explore the place." She suggests, partly to distract him from the disappointment of not finding any food. They wander about the place in a bit of a daze, Soul still intermittently puffing on his cigarette. There's one big master bedroom, still with fancy linens from whoever used to live here. The shower-room is huge, with fancy beige tiles. It causes Maka to sigh up at it. "I wish I could have a shower."
He doesn't reply.
Next, they wander into what appears to be a child's room, but it's so bare and tidy that you'd hardly believe a child ever occupied this space. It's more like what a furniture catalogue might advertise as a child's room – all the toys are packed neatly away in organised boxes, the walls are all painted with these pristine hand-painted dinosaurs.
"Here's your room," she jokes.
He doesn't laugh.
The spend a bit of time poking around the attic, but there's nothing particularly exciting in there. Boxes and boxes of old memories, old clothes, an old life. It's creepy, and it's depressing. They come back down after not too long.
Downstairs is a little more interesting. In the lounge room, there's a grand piano in one corner, a huge plasma screen TV in the other corner and all sorts of fancy cream couches laid out here and there. There's even a chaise lounge at one end, with a fluffy pillow and heavy knitted throw artfully arranged on top.
"This family must have been rich."
"Or boring," comes Soul's reply.
"Probably both, I imagine." She eyes the piano out the corner of her eye. "Did you used to play? I swear you told me that, at one point."
He nods, his mouth down-turning. He's a little displeased that she remembered; he was hoping that it had gone forgotten about. "I used to."
"Want to play me a tune?"
He shakes his head. "Not now. It's dark. I don't want to make any noise."
She nods, a little crestfallen. She makes a mental reminder to herself to ask him again tomorrow to play for her.
The most interesting part of the tour by far is the discovery of the wine cellar. Down a set of winding stone steps is a large basement underneath the house which housed not only a class selection of non-perishable food items, but also a very impressive collection of fancy alcoholic drinks.
"It's creepy down here."
Soul has to agree, although he's too busy scanning the shelf to really take notice. "Don't suppose you fancy getting pissed?"
She snorts and shakes her head.
"Do you really think that's a good idea? What if something bad happens and we need to be sharp?"
"I fight better after a glass of wine," he drawls.
She thinks that it sounds made up, but she doesn't question it. "Fine. Just one, okay? And pour me one, too. There's no way I'm going to get to sleep, otherwise."
They head upstairs after he's found a bottle of red wine he seems satisfied with, and locates two wine glasses in the kitchen cabinets, pouring the smooth red liquid into each one.
"Bottoms up," she giggles, taking a small sip and wincing. "Oh, wow. That's… stronger than I was expecting." She laughs a little nervously. "I never used to drink much."
Conversely, Soul appears to open his throat and pour the whole thing back in one. She watches with morbid fascination and it makes her giggle even more. "Aren't you supposed to make it last? Swill it about and talk about how 'earthly' it takes?"
He shrugs. "I think you mean 'earthy'. And anyway, I'm a pisshead, not a sommelier. I don't know anything about wine."
She narrows her eyes, remembering his talk about a posh upbringing, but decides that it's not worth bringing up for now. She stores it in the back of her of things to ask him about later, when they're better acquainted.
Although, she already feels quite well acquainted, she thinks, after a few more sips. And screw it, she's already made a tit of herself today.
"You were a posh boy," she starts.
He blinks at her, surprised by her boldness. "Uh…"
"You told me yourself. You grew up rich. You played the piano."
He nods. "You're not wrong."
"So why do you pretend not to be?"
He shrugs, pouring himself another small glass of wine. Despite her earlier protests, she doesn't stop him. "Well, I didn't really get along with my parents, ever. As soon as I had a reason to leave and a place to go, I left home."
"Why?" she persists.
"Like I said, I didn't get along with them."
"Where did you go, when you ran away?"
He barks a laugh and she frowns. "What's so funny?"
"It's just that you said 'ran away'."
"So what?" She's confused.
"I didn't even have to run. My parents were begging to be rid of me. I was the black sheep of that family. I still am, because I'm the only one that's alive."
"That's a pretty morbid thought, Soul."
"…yeah," he agrees, without much in his tone. "Goddamit," he leans his head back against the coach back and closes his eyes. "I am so freaking tired after today."
"You wanna get some rest?" she asks, but he's already asleep before the sentence is even over. "Goodnight," she says somewhat pointlessly to his already-faintly-snoring face before gently taking the empty glass from his hand and placing it onto the table on the side.
Then, she sneaks up to the master bedroom and lies, face up, eyes staring up at the ceiling.
She lets her brain run away for a few seconds, failing to all asleep while her mind drifts, creating movies just for her.
