It was still cold outside.

Trent studied Mae as she took a moment to finish her can in several loud swallows. She was wearing some ragged green boots and a black hoodie. She finished off the can, crushed it, and tossed it over into a big trash barrel. Deciding he didn't want to drag a cold can of soda along with everything else through, apparently, the woods, he did the same thing.

Lime Fiasco really was good.

"Okay, so where you going?" Mae asked, looking at him with those big red eyes of hers.

"Forty Two Gibson Street," he replied after considering it for a moment. This girl was a stranger, in a strange town, and it was just the two of them. But the parking lot was empty, apparently no one was around except for maybe a janitor, and he didn't really have a lot of options.

"Oh shit! That's like the street behind mine! Okay, cool, yeah, I can get you there. It'll be like a forty minute walk but I know the way," she said, and then struck off across the parking lot. Trent sighed and followed after her, lugging his suitcase.

His arm was already starting to hurt. It was going to be such a miserable bitch to drag this thing all the way through forty minutes of woods.

But what choice did he have?

Streetlights burned coldly overhead, gathering what few bugs remained in the area in little orbits, as they crossed the empty slushy parking lot. Would it snow again soon? Oh man, what if it started snowing while walking through these woods?

Trent tried to get ahold of his thoughts as they crossed the lot, hit its edge, and then began making their way into the nearby woodlands. The moon was rising, providing enough light to see by, mostly. But his thoughts felt jumbled and tangled.

"So, like, who are you? What are you doing here? I've never seen you before," Mae said.

"I thought we were practically best friends," he replied.

"You are such a smartass," she mumbled.

"So are you."

"Whatever."

"I'm not from around here," he said, deciding why not? Why not just go all-in? The past week felt like such an insane blur that this just seemed like more of the same. "I'm from the Midwest. My great-uncle lived around here. He moved out here at some point, I don't really know why, I think he met a woman from here or something. We wrote to each other, though. He was my favorite great-uncle. Really my favorite anything in my family," Trent muttered.

"Like real letters? Pen and paper?" Mae asked.

"Yeah. Probably once a month for awhile. Then once every few months. Then once a year finally. And then last month, I get this letter that says he's dead, and he left everything to me. Everything being a house out in Possum Springs and some money."

"Oh shit are you like a millionaire or something!?" Mae asked, turning to look at him as they struggled to navigate a steeper grade.

Well, he was struggling, she seemed to have no problem at all.

"No, not even close," he replied.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Yeah, me too. I mean, it wasn't an insignificant amount of money, but I had to go through a lot of stuff. I had to deal with a lawyer, and make it all official, pay some fees, and taxes, and I had a few debts, too. I'll need to get a job at some point," he said.

"Boy did you come to the wrong place," she muttered.

"What do you mean?"

"There's, like, no jobs out here. Or only super shitty ones."

"Great." He sighed heavily, the cold air burning his lungs as they reached more level ground and came into the actual woods. The trees seemed to press in around them. She led him along a path that he could just barely make out, spying the occasional spray of broken glass or empty can or other random piece of garbage around. "What do you do for work?"

"Nothing, I told you, I'm a loser," she replied simply.

He decided to try again. "Why are you carrying around that bat?"

She didn't answer right away, and he suddenly had the idea that he'd asked a sensitive question. "It's dangerous out here, sometimes," was all she said.

Trent decided not to push on that issue.

They walked along for several minutes in cold silence, the chill settling in. He pulled his hoodie more tightly around him and shifted his backpack. His sense of unreality only strengthened as they continued. Here he was, marching through unfamiliar woods in an unfamiliar town in an unfamiliar state hundreds of miles away from where he'd spent his entire life. No working cell phone, his entire life being carried by him, heading to a house he'd never actually seen. He didn't even know if the utilities companies had gotten power and water and gas turned back on. He'd tried to deal with that over the phone, while he'd still had one, but it seemed iffy at best.

"So wait, like, your whole life is in that suitcase and that backpack?" Mae asked suddenly.

"Yeah," he replied. "It is."

"Wow. Don't, like, drop it."

"I don't plan to."

They walked for another ten minutes before she spoke up again. She seemed somewhat uncomfortable, though he couldn't tell if it was him or something else.

Maybe she felt bad about breaking that mirror back at the bus station. He sure would.

"So, I mean like, you just...packed your shit, hopped on a bus, and came out to live in your great-uncle's old house?" she asked.

"I mean, there was a lot of stuff mixed in there, but yeah basically. I'm kind of a loser, too," he replied.

"We can be loser bros," she said, grinning back at him over her shoulder. "Throw loser parties. Start a loser band."

He laughed. She was so fucking weird, but not really in a bad way.

"Sounds like fun," he said. There was a decent chance he was looking at his first friend in this new town. It wasn't like he'd done super well for friends in the old one. Maybe this was the universe throwing him a bone.

Shit, maybe she could be his girlfriend.

She was attractive in a strange sort of way. There was something off about her, and not just based on all the weird shit she'd said and done so far, but something else he was picking up on but couldn't really identify.

Maybe it would be a bad idea, but he was already kinda crushing on her.

Then again, maybe he was getting ahead of himself. She could be with someone else, or a lesbian, or asexual, or off the market, or not interested in him at all.

But it was really hard to get a read on her.

"That's brave," she said suddenly.

"What?" he replied. It felt like her brain was just sort of stroking off and then abruptly she'd remember they were having a conversation and she'd keep it going like three solid minutes of silence hadn't just gone by.

"What you did. Just moving here. Nothing but the clothes on your back. We get a lotta hobos who ride trains like that. They ride trains into town and stay for a bit, then ride trains back out...I really love trains," she murmured.

"They're cool," he agreed.

"Not that you're a hobo."

"No, not quite. Just a guy who abruptly left his home to go to a new place with no real plan because he had no real life working out," Trent said, then stopped, wondering if that got too real too quickly. Why was he saying so much to her?

Maybe because she was saying so much to him.

She seemed to have no filter.

When she spoke again, she seemed oddly and suddenly serious. "I can respect that," she said. He thought she'd elaborate on it, but she didn't, just kept walking.

As they did, it abruptly occurred to him that he'd made a mistake. A bad one. He really, really should've taken the opportunity to piss while back at the bus station.

"Uh...hold on," he said.

"What?" she asked. "Do you see someone?"

"No...uh, I gotta take a leak," he said.

"Oh. Okay. Just...go in the bushes or something. I won't look," she said. He did just that, stepping a few feet away among some trees, setting down his suitcase well out of the way, and unzipping. "Unless, like, you wanted me to look?"

"What?!" he cried as he started pissing, but then he couldn't stop. He seriously had to go.

"I mean, I don't know, maybe you're a pervert?" she replied defensively.

"Why-what?! Are you a pervert?" he asked.

"No! That's none of your business!" she snapped.

"I'm trying to piss!"

"It sounds like you're doing a fine job!"

Holy shit, this girl was so weird.

Trent finally finished taking his leak, zipped back up, grabbed his suitcase, and started walking again. She didn't say anything else.

Before long, they hit a hill, passing by a drainage pipe, some abandoned shopping carts, and more trash. They walked up the hill and then stopped suddenly.

"Wait," she said.

"What?" he replied, suddenly worried that maybe she'd seen something worth using that bat of hers on.

"I think-" She cut off as the distant wail of a train horn sounded. Following her gaze, he realized they had a great view of the surrounding area. Off in the distance, past a scattering of houses or maybe farms, he saw tracks and a train moving along it. Farther back, he saw radio towers rising in the distance, capped by strange purple-pink lights that flared into being at regular intervals. "Yeah, there, I love that sound," she whispered.

Trent found himself nodding. "Me too."

They stood together on the hill, watching the train as it moved along the distant track. He was surprised when he felt something warm against his hand and glanced down. She'd taken his hand. He looked up at her, expecting her to be looking at him, but she wasn't. She was still staring off into the distance.

He decided to just roll with it, holding her hand, watching the train.

They stood there for a little bit longer, and then she let go and started walking again. He followed after her.

Something abruptly occurred to him. "So, Mae."

"Yeah?"

"You actually just walked up here, hiked forty minutes through the freezing woods, knowing you'd have to go back on another forty minute hike, because of a dream?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied simply. Like it was an obvious answer. "I was right, wasn't I?"

"I mean, yeah, you were, but-and it's not like I don't appreciate the help. I do. I just...you're a weird girl."

"I'm a trash girl," she said, then laughed. "And this is a trash town. If you're really gonna live here, get used to it."

He wasn't sure how to respond to that.

Suddenly, the woods came to an end, and they stepped out onto a road that ended in a cul-de-sac. The place seemed pretty dead, though at least half of the houses still had lights on. He realized she was looking at him. Only no, not at him, past him.

Back into the woods, staring hard.

"Come on, we're close," she said, abruptly turning around and leading him along further.

Trent decided to put his trust in her and followed her onward.

They walked up until they hit an intersection, broke right, and followed it for another three intersections.

He was starting to get desperate to get somewhere warm when she started leading him up the front lawn of one house in particular.

"This isn't it, is it?" he asked.

"No, this is my house," she replied. "I gotta let my parents know I'm okay or they'll flip out or something. Or just be annoying. And maybe they knew your great-uncle?"

"Okay," Trent replied, following her, eager to get warm, even for a little bit.

They walked in through the front door and Trent found himself standing in a little receiving area. He spied a coat rack, some pictures on the wall. One of a tractor, for some reason. There was even a framed 'Bless This Mess'. Directly ahead of him were some stairs leading up and a hallway beside that, ending in a kitchen where a pair of older cats who greatly resembled Mae sat around a table. He was worried about a poor reaction to a complete stranger arriving in their home, but they merely regarded him and Mae with mild curiosity.

"Hello honey, who have you brought into our home?" the woman, her mother, he assumed, asked.

"This is Trent! He's twenty two! He was stranded at the bus station like when you forgot to pick me up!" Mae replied merrily.

"Never going to let us live that down, huh kitten?" the older man, presumably her father, replied.

"Nope!"

"Well come on into the kitchen so we can be properly introduced," her mother said.

Mae started walking down the hallway and, after a moment's hesitation, Trent followed after her.

This night was getting stranger.