After chilling and talking with Bea, they moved on to Video Outpost Too.
"Angus!" Mae called as they walked in.
"Mae, Trent...how are you feeling, Mae?" Angus asked, standing behind the counter with his glasses and his hat. The benign lord of the Video Outpost. Trent supposed that would make Gregg the chaotic deity of the Snack Falcon.
"Better, Angus. Thanks," Mae replied. "What's happening all up in the Video Outpost?"
"A lot of nothing, as usual," Angus replied. "Although, Trent, I saw you had an original Xbox at your place. Are you looking for more games for it?"
"Yeah, actually," he replied as they walked up to the counter. "You got any?"
"I do, as a matter of fact...hold on." Angus ducked down behind the counter. After a moment, he stood back up, holding a piece of paper with a list written on it. "I made this for you after noticing that." He laid it down on the counter and smoothed it out. "We have a lot of old games here. If they haven't been checked out for an entire year straight, then it's policy to offer them up for sale. Original Xbox games go for fifteen dollars apiece."
"Wow, nice," Trent said, looking over the list. "AH! YOU HAVE KOTOR!"
"Kotor?" Mae asked.
"Knights of the Old Republic. And Doom 3! AND THE SUFFERING HOLY SHIT! Mae, if you like horror, you will absolutely lose your shit for The Suffering."
"It's a very good game," Angus said.
"You played it?"
"Very much when I was younger. Both of them. KOTOR is amazing, too. Both of them."
"I've been looking for this for forever! The only copies I could find were like fucking a hundred bucks. Which I guess I can afford now, but this is fantastic! All right, uh, yeah. Let's see…"
"Check off whatever you want and I'll go in the back and grab it," Angus said, setting down a pencil.
"Thanks so much, man. This is awesome."
"Honestly you're doing me a favor, it'll get me bonus points if I can sell even some of these."
"We all win!" Mae said.
"Hell yes," Trent muttered, grabbing the pencil. He checked Doom 3, KOTOR, The Suffering, and then after some more consideration, Cold Fear, the Wolfenstein game of that era, and Indigo Prophecy. A lot of people shit on Indigo Prophecy but he remembered liking it a lot about ten years ago. Angus took the list and disappeared into the back for a bit.
"Wanna rent a movie?" Trent asked, looking around.
"Yes," Mae replied immediately, heading for one of the racks. "Can we get two? Three?"
"Yeah, we can get three," Trent said. "But I get to choose one of them."
"Okay!"
They spent a moment hunting over everything. He ended up getting Beaver Priest, because it had been on his list of stuff to watch for awhile, and Mae ended up getting Death Chill and Brain Eaters. He'd seen Death Chill, but it had been awhile, and he'd heard of Brain Eaters. When all was said and done, he ended up spending almost a hundred and fifty bucks.
"Man, thanks for your patronage," Angus said, handing him the receipt. "With the exclusion of those archivists and enthusiasts who come by every so often, I think this is the biggest singular purchase I've ever seen."
"Definitely worth it, I've been looking for most of these," Trent replied.
"How you doing, Angus? Having fun?"
"I wouldn't say fun, exactly, but it's a nice day. It's a short shift, just three hours, since we close early for the second half of December. I get to go home with Gregg early."
"Aw, you two are so cute," Mae beamed, grinning.
Angus chuckled awkwardly. "Good to know."
They hung around and talked for awhile. Mostly it was pleasant, but he did notice a slight awkwardness to Mae, which surprised him. Whenever he heard about some sort of personal conflict between Mae and another person, Trent wasn't surprised. Not after, in their short time together, he'd derailed probably fifty arguments.
Mae liked to argue. Or, more accurately, was prone to it.
But it was difficult to imagine what problem she had with Angus, or he with her.
Then again...if anyone was capable of having problems with the soft-spoken, mild-mannered bear, it would be Mae. She would find a way, almost certainly by stumbling into it accidentally.
In the end, Mae excused them, as she apparently was eager to get somewhere before sundown, and they headed back out onto the streets of Possum Springs.
"So, Mae...what was that about?" Trent asked.
"What?" she asked.
"You seemed uncomfortable."
She was silent for a few seconds, then sighed quietly. "I feel bad, because I made Angus mad at me once."
"Whoa...what the hell'd you do?"
"Bad things. I...when I came back, I started hanging out with Gregg again, and I guess, like, he'd been calming down in the two years since I left. We did a lot of really stupid shit. That thing with the lightbulbs, like, that's nothing compared to a lot of the shit we used to get up to."
"I'm afraid to ask."
"You know, usual dumb shit. We fought with knives-"
"Seriously?"
"Yeah."
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this point."
She laughed quietly. "No, probably not. But after I came back, Gregg started doing all that dumb shit again. Up to and including actual crimes. I mean, nothing serious, just...you know, fun crimes. We weren't hurting anyone." She paused. "Okay, we hurt ourselves, and each other, but it was on accident or for fun. But basically, they're trying to get out, and saving up big time, working hard, and me coming back put that at risk. Also...I was, like, a third wheel on what was supposed to be their date. But that's not on me! I mean...mostly."
"Mostly?"
"I didn't know it was a date, I just wanted to hang out. They said they were going to Donut Wolf and I love Donut Wolf even though the donuts make me puke and I didn't know til later that Gregg invited me even though it was a date."
"Yeah I'd be annoyed."
"Yeah...it was a bad time. Angus was mad like most of the night, and let me know it. And that just feels really bad. I mean, besides him just being so awesome and nice, like, I had to have really fucked up to actually get that reaction out of him."
"That was my impression...sorry, Mae."
"I'm the one who's sorry." She sighed. "It was stupid. A did a lot of stupid things that I'm still actually realizing just how stupid they were. I was just...doing things. And stuff. I don't even know why half the time. Whatever, come on, we gotta keep going if we're gonna make it."
"Make it where?"
"You'll see."
They walked on. After Angus, they checked in with Gregg and hung out for about twenty minutes, talking about whatever seemed to pop into either of their minds, ultimately culminating in a promise to play a song or two tomorrow.
Something Trent had been pretty eager to see.
There was something special about watching women sing or play an instrument. And he was curious to see just how much the effect was heightened if that woman was his girlfriend.
From there, she took him to a tunnel.
And wouldn't go in it.
"Okay, now what's wrong?" Trent asked.
"Uh...could you go down a little and look and see if there's, like, an old woman sitting at a table? Then tell me?" she asked.
"...you're really not gonna tell me why you aren't going down there?"
"I will! I just need to make a decision based off that," Mae replied.
He sighed. "Okay."
"Thanks!"
Trent headed into the tunnel and made his way down the steps. The place smelled a bit dank and fetid, but mostly it smelled of pretzels and some kind of meat that was odd but nice. He saw a little shop set up near the foot of the stairs and some tables and chairs set up in front of it. The seats were all empty.
He headed back up. "No, no one's there."
"Huh. Well, I guess that makes sense. It's getting pretty cold and she's pretty old. Uh...could you do me another favor?"
"Yes, Mae."
"Thanks. Sorry. Could you buy some pierogi?" she asked.
"Is that what that smell was? I've never had any."
"Dude, it's so good! Buy us some and we can walk and talk."
"Yeah, sure, I can do that." He began heading back down, then realized she still wasn't following. "You coming?"
"...no."
"Why?"
"So, like, the guy who runs it hates me."
"Why?"
"He thinks I'm a thief."
"Why would he think that?" Trent asked, crossing his arms.
Mae groaned. "...because I am. And I stole from him. But he was a dick!"
"Mae."
"I know, I know! I also stole some pretzels a few months ago, but it was only to feed my rat darlings!" He stared at her for a few seconds. She sighed heavily. "Just...please?"
"Okay," he said.
"Thank you."
Trent headed down there and bought some pierogi, as well as a pair of twenty ounce bottles of Mountain Dew, since that's what they had and it was at least in the same ballpark of Lime Fiasco in terms of taste.
Once he had everything, he walked back up to Mae and they resumed their journey.
"Wow...this is amazing," Trent murmured as he looked out over an immense sea of dead fields. The view went on for quite a ways. He saw barns, those huge metal towers, some train tracks, some abandoned cars, and a plethora of other things scattered across the immense area.
"I like coming here sometimes," Mae murmured. She'd taken him to a little rocky cliff behind the church. They sat together on the rocks, looking out over the huge view and enjoying the last of their meals they'd mostly eaten on the way there.
"Thanks for taking me here," Trent said after a bit. "I'm getting the feeling this is special to you."
"Yeah, it is. I really like it here. It's peaceful...and I really need that."
"After all you told me, uh, yeah. I get that. I had some problems, but nothing like that."
"...thanks for not breaking up with me," she said quietly, leaning against him.
He put an arm around her, hugged her closer to him. "Well, I'm kind of into you, Mae."
"Why?" she asked after a moment.
"I get the feeling you're going to ask that question a lot."
"So humor me. I'm a fucking dumpster fire, dude. I'm going to need reassurance, probably more than most girls. I'll try not to be annoying about it, but…"
"I get it," he said. "Now that I've got a clearer picture of, well, you...I gotta say, I'm impressed. It sounds like you said a lot of stupid shit, but you're obviously trying to be better, and you've made progress. You faced a cult."
"I felt like I had no choice. I just-I couldn't go on like that. I couldn't. It came to a point where I'd rather just be dead than continue on like that." She paused. "I know, bleak, but that's how bad it was for a little while there at the end...what else?"
"Uh, you play bass. You love tacos. You're pretty hot. You like that I'm a writer, you like horror stuff. You actually like or at least try the stuff I show you…"
"That Suffering game looks so fucking cool, just from the boxart," she said. "I can't wait to play it."
"You'll love it. It has ghosts, and pretty fucked up shit in it. Lots of monsters."
"I love monsters."
"You can actually turn into a monster in this game."
"Dude...I think that's like my spirit animal or something. A monster." She fell silent, then she turned so she was facing him more directly and hugged him tightly. "Thank you. You're really nice. After all the people who were mean to me, or ignored me, or were weirdly awkwardly polite around me, or any of the other shades of misery, it feels so weird. Like, even Bea was mean to me. I mean I earned some of it, I can tell that now, but...it sucked hard. But you're just nice to me. I guess I'm realizing you've been nothing but nice to me. I'm kinda scared you're going to be mean. And I'll probably deserve it to be honest…"
"I can't promise never to be an asshole," Trent said after a moment. "But, you know, I like you a lot. And I can at least say that I don't like being mean. So if I am mean to you, tell me. Like to my face. I think sometimes I'm mean without realizing it."
"That'll be weird," she murmured.
"Come on, will it? You blurt out what's on your mind like all the time."
"Yeah, okay. I just don't like thinking about it." She fell silent, looking out over the fields again. It was cold, but not intolerable. He imagined the place would be a million times more beautiful in the spring or summer, even the fall. "We have to save Bea," Mae murmured quietly.
"What?"
"Bea. We have to, like, save her. She said she's doomed. She feels doomed. She's so good, and so smart, and so hardworking, and she's even nice when she's not miserable. She doesn't deserve all this shit. She doesn't deserve to be trapped in this stupid fucking town, working that stupid fucking job, while her dad leaches off of her, and takes all the credit. Like, I don't know if I'm a lost cause or not. I'd like to think I'm not, but I just don't know, man. But Bea? She's like...she could do so much. She's so smart, like, she was valedictorian."
"Wow...holy shit. I can see it, though. I don't know how she works so hard."
"I don't either. Like, I'm so tired all the time, I feel like such a lazy piece of shit. I'd fucking die if I had to work that much. But promise me we'll save Bea." She looked at him intensely, her eyes wide. "Promise me, Trent."
"Okay, okay. I promise. We'll save Bea. Somehow." Because he felt like she was right: Bea didn't deserve this, and they were her friends, and friends helped their friends.
"And Selmers, too," Mae said suddenly. "Her rep is down the fucking drain because like everyone knows she went to jail and she was a drug addict and they think she's a loser. Some people think she's still doing drugs. And fuck them! I've almost gotten into a fight about it three times, but I know Aunt Mall Cop is just looking for an excuse to haul me away…"
"Mae, don't fight with your aunt, please," Trent said. She looked at him, her intense expression demanding an explanation. "She seems pretty reasonable, and you seem really antagonistic towards her. I mean...did she do something shitty to you?"
Mae opened her mouth, inhaling sharply, then stopped. She frowned, looked away for a bit, then her shoulders slumped. "No. She didn't. Honestly...she's watching out for me. She's just so fucking annoying. I hate the cops. But...yeah, fine."
"At least be neutral towards her. With everything going on...I dunno, I guess I just don't want the police involved in my life. I don't want anymore trouble than there has to be."
Mae laughed. "You're sticking your dick in the wrong chick then, man."
He laughed as well. "Okay, good point."
"Will you promise to save Selmers, too?"
"Yeah," he said. "I promise, I'll try to save Ann, too. But, like, I dunno, Mae. You're asking a really big ask. I'm not like super capable or anything."
"You're a writer! You own a house! You moved across the country by yourself! And you can clearly handle my insanity."
"I've written but I haven't been published. Someone died so I could get the house. And really I just bought some tickets and rode on a few busses. Not impressive. As for you...don't take this the wrong way, but I'm still waiting for, like, a really bad day to come."
"Mmm. Yeah…" She grimaced. "I guess it's been relatively smooth sailing since we met. Yeah, I'm gonna have days where I can't leave the house, or days where I'm super grouchy...do you think you'll fall in love with Bea?" she asked.
"What the f-Mae, you ask me the most bizarre questions. Does that worry you?"
"I'm a little worried you won't."
"Why? What about you?"
"I'm pretty sure you're most of the way there with me," she replied after a moment, "you're just having a hard time admitting it."
"I…" he sighed. "I don't know. I'm figuring it out."
"And that's okay. But, like, Bea's so great for you."
"What are you, a matchmaker?"
She laughed. "Maybe I am. It's kinda like that. It's like...I really liked making my dolls kiss when I was growing up. And I tried writing some fan fiction awhile ago but it was so fucking cringey. And it was just getting characters to fuck. I read a shitload of it."
"Hmm."
"What?"
"Nothing, just...reminds me about my writing. I need to get back to it. I haven't actually written anything since I moved."
"Oh, that reminds me, can I read your stuff!? I keep thinking to ask but then I get distracted and forget, like, you gotta let me!"
"Okay, I will," he said, "it's not great, though. I've trashed a lot of stuff I've written."
"Why?! That's, like, your history! I still have all my old journals. They were actually the only things I brought back from college with me...ugh, college. I'm such a failure."
"You aren't, Mae," Trent said. "Come on, we should start heading home. It's getting colder."
"Yeah...and dark before too long." She stood up, then sighed heavily, looking back the way they had come. "We should probably visit my mom, since we're here."
"Actually...I should at least look at my great-uncle's grave," Trent said.
"Oh. Right. Yeah. Let's do that, then talk to my mom."
They began walking back.