Bugenhagen's Bad Evening Job
Young Bugenhagen circled the block in old Junon at least three times, just to convince himself (or perhaps the opposite) that he had written down the address correctly. He counted off the well-kept, half-timbered homes until arriving at the brick and stone eyesore hunched in their midst. Shinra, in its early zeal to upgrade its office space, had condemned the entire block and sent its bright stars out to inform the occupants of the upcoming scythe of progress, and when their brightest star failed to return, Bugenhagen received the simpler request: "Find out what happened to Frank. Don't come back without him."
He could always go back to brick-laying. But none the less, clipboard in his hand and healing materia in his pockets, he hoped Frank had a good explanation when he found him.
He paused at the offending stone house; a knee-high wrought iron railing circled the miniature yard, though the thorny furze bushes provided a better defense than armed guards. He wondered what slithered away beneath them. He checked the two materia he always carried, Cure and Heal. That ought to hold up against any vermin he might encounter. The hulking house just screamed "vermin" to him.
A gate bearing the number 26 opened to a stairstep walkway, up which Bugenhagen had to turn sideways to avoid getting the flesh stripped from his legs. Even in the daylight he had trouble gauging where to place his feet. After half a minute, he had sideways climbed to the wooden porch, which looked out of place on a stone house but perhaps the owner had tacked it on as an afterthought. He listened. No birds sang in these bushes, though bees buzzed around the yellow blooms. Again, he heard something slide underneath. He backed away from the edge of the porch but paused when he heard the wood creak beneath him.
"Hey Bugie!"
He looked up at the young woman's voice. Dark haired and tan skinned Sybil, whom he had met in early spring, ambled her way down the street toward him. She often walked with a limp, a reminder of a close call with death she had soon after they first met.
"What are you doing on crazy Izek's porch?"
"You know who lives here?"
"Everyone knows crazy Izek." Sybil opened the iron gate. Despite her limp, she slipped up the stepstone path to the porch like a phantom. She paused, frowning. "Are you afraid of snakes."
"Excuse me?"
"I saw one slip into the gorse. Didn't get a good look at it though."
"All the more reason to get this job done quickly." He turned and knocked on the door. Sybil moved to his side. No answer. He pounded harder. "Shinra Electric! Official business!"
Sybil walked to both ends of the porch and peered through the windows. "I can't see anyone inside. It's dark in there."
Bugenhagen tried the latch. The door swung open with a haunted house creak which, even midday, set his nerves on edge.
"Hold it." Sybil pointed at the linoleum floor, where something flicked away out of sight. "Try the light?"
He fumbled at the wall but found no switch. "Old school. Ho-ho-hoo! Some people resist progress."
"I see a switch over there." Sybil stepped in, tiptoeing across the room where she pressed a push-button switch. The chandelier lit up and the linoleum came alive with two fleeing streaks of color. "Yikes!"
Sybil calmed before Bugenhagen did, despite her outburst. He stepped onto the floor, studying his feet as if unearthing buried fossils. "Snakes? They could blend in with this floor pattern. Right?" He scanned the floor and felt his adrenaline jump when he spotted one snake coiled near the wall, engulfed in shadow. Dark gray or black, with yellow bands. "Shinra Electric!" He tried not to move. "Anyone home?"
"That is a banded krait snake," Sybil said. "They come out more at night, I think."
"Are they venomous?"
"I believe so. Not native to Junon, either."
"They might become native now. Irresponsible pet owners."
Sybil crossed the room and found a dustmop. Standing back, she lifted the mop head, jumping as a new snake scurried for cover. She unscrewed the handle and returned to Bugenhagen, tapping the floor along the way. "Wouldn't it be amusing," she said, "if the floor gave way and we fell in?"
Bugenhagen said nothing. He didn't move, either.
"So Bugie, what's your mission? Snake hunting?"
"Literally? Find Frank. His mission was to convince the owner to sell the house. He did not report in regarding his success or failure."
"Unless Frank is a snake, I don't think he is still here." Sybil dragged the handle across the floor. "Frank? Are you in here?"
A muffled thump sounded from deeper within the house. Perhaps upstairs, though they couldn't spot a stairway yet. Sybil peered through a nearby doorway into a short hall that ended in a door. "No Frank."
Bugenhagen grumbled and pointed to a door across the room. Sybil swept a path over there, shooing another snake out of her way. When they reached the door, Bugenhagen eased it open. Three or four snakes formed a knot just beyond the doorway, these snakes bearing blue bands instead of yellow.
"Get a room," said Sybil, nudging them with her stick. The serpents slithered aside to let them pass. Not that Bugenhagen felt eager to do so.
"Frank!" he called. "Boss needs you and your report back in the office!"
The only response came from a blue banded krait that slank across the floor and stopped in their path, flicking out its tongue. Sybil slid her broom handle beneath it, hefting it up onto a cushioned chair. To their left, a doorway led to a kitchen and a staircase led upward. She ignored them both. She sniffed the air. She pointed to a far door. "If Frank's in there, he won't be up to returning anywhere."
"Wait. Don't go in there - ugh." He covered his nose and began to follow, choosing his steps like a connoisseur. He paused next to her at the far door, the dead animal odor growing stronger. "Something must have crawled in here and - "
The blue linoleum beyond the door appeared devoid of snakes. Across the room, a body lay in a bed, covers drawn up to its chin. Judging from the pummeling smell, he would not wake up from this nap anytime soon.
"Not Frank." Bugenhagen had pulled his shirt up over his nose. "Must be that crazy Izek."
"I don't think he is in shape to talk real estate." Sybil peered around the room.
"Hold on. Why are his blankets moving?"
"No rest for the wicked?" Sybil extended her stick, peeling back the sheet. The whole bed began to shake as the squirming mass tried to burrow deeper away from the light. "Ack!" She yanked her stick free and stepped back out of the bedroom, mindful of her footfalls. "So." She shuddered. "Care to propose a cause of death?"
"I've never seen so many snakes. Shinra can't knock this place down soon enough."
"Frank!" Sybil called up the stairs "Show yourself now."
In response, a soft thump on the upper landing.
A slip and a slide later, and a sidewinder slid into view. "You are not Frank." Nothing like browbeating the obvious. "I think we should leave."
"And leave we shall. Before we become snake food. Ho-ho-hoo!"
They traced a serpentine path out of the parlor and paused by the kitchen doorway. A rusty thud sounded from within.
"You're kidding, right?" Sybil said, stick at the ready.
"If I return without Frank, I will need proof of some sort."
"He ran screaming, Bugie. Just as we should."
"I just want a quick peek in the kitchen. I don't see any snakes yet."
"If you don't count this one." Sybil nudged a blue banded krait back onto its shelf.
"Other than that one. Ho-ho-hoo! Look at the oven."
Sybil grasped her stick like a spear and laced it through the prybar-like handle. "Stand back." The door eased open and Bugenhagen caught a curtain of leathery movement within. She snapped the door shut. "I've seen enough. Unless that python is named Frank."
"You identified it that fast?"
"The markings, yes. Plus it's a big damn snake. Stop. Hold very still."
Bugenhagen frowned as she extended her stick over his shoulder and gently swiveled her feet to the left. She levered the payload to the sink, where the krait slipped off with a hushed thump.
"Hole in the ceiling," Sybil said.
"You're right. Ho-ho-hoo. I think the python got Frank. Let's go get my camera and we can prove it."
"I agree with every word up to 'go.'"
Another thump. This one below them. A cellar door swung open as a krait slithered out, but catching the light, slipped behind a standing cabinet. The door continued to swing wider, a bank of blackness beyond.
"Bugen. Hagen." A breathy voice came from within, unless he imagined it.
"Don't even think about it." Sybil's stick stopped him as he realized he had stepped closer to the widening door.
"Bugen! Hagen!" The susurration seemed to echo inside his head. He took another step; this time the flight of stairs became visible. Some of the steps had only one or two snakes on them. Regardless, the snakes did not stare at him; their heads aligned in the direction of the bottom landing. Down where two saucer-sized, silvery eyes opened to greet him.
"You woke the baby," the whisper said.
With a flick, Sybil hooked the edge of the door and slammed it shut, vibrating the hanging pans over the stove. Bugenhagen stepped back, finding himself only two strides from the doorjamb. Sybil held her stick firm against the closed door. "You leave the room first and I'll follow."
Embarrassment hitting now, Bugenhagen turned and picked his way to the center of the kitchen. "Yes, I'll put it in my report. Frank fled screaming like a baby."
Sybil bumped him from behind. "Let's make the report outside, shall we?"
Another step toward the exit and the kitchen light winked out.
A rectangle of light from the parlor floated on the floor, and a nearby window admitted a grainy grayness. With a clack, Sybil's mop handle tapped the floor, sliding out a pattern toward the light. "Path is still clear. Head to the light."
He made it in two steps. Glancing back, he spotted Sybil unwrapping a snake from her shoulder.
"I'm okay. Keep moving!" She slid the krait onto a countertop. Bugenhagen stepped out into the dining room, Sybil behind him, barely time to sigh with relief when this light went out as well.
Luckily, the windows let in enough light to see, so he turned toward the living room.
"Careful," Sybil said, sweeping her handle across the floor again. "Blue on blue makes them harder to spot. Like this one." She nudged something aside.
Bugenhagen shivered. "I'm glad you are comfortable with this."
"I'll have plenty of time to freak out once we're outside. Looks clear now. Hurry. While the main room still has - "
Click.
"Had, light."
The crinkly floor patterns made Bugenhagen's eyes water. And he could see long shapes, dozens of them, closing in from all the walls. He took a hurried step, then another before freezing, unable to tell snake from linoleum.
"Don't stop." Sybil swept a pair of snakes aside, the floor clearer than he had thought. "If we make it to the front door, they can't shut off the sun."
The front door loomed closer, maybe only three steps away, when Bugenhagen's footfall resulted in a crack. "Ho-ho-hoo?"
Sybil pulled him back as the floor began to give under his foot. "Step over here. Hold it."
Something slithered against his sock. Sybil gently pried it free. Like a blind man, he allowed her to guide his steps, stepping where she tapped, until an eternity later, they found themselves before the outside door. Bugenhagen reached out and for a cold moment, he believed it had stuck.
"Inward!" Sybil reminded him.
He yanked the door open and took a giant step onto the porch, wincing as the wood creaked below him. Sybil soon joined him, pulling the door closed with a solid clunk.
"Hey look," she said, "The lights came back on."
Sure enough, the front windows shone like square headlights on the now overcast day.
"Ho-ho-hoo. Maybe Frank turned them back on."
"That had better be a joke." He could hear the quaver in her voice. "Hey look." She used her stick to fish out something from under the gorse hedge just next to the porch. After a minute of scraping and scratching, the white card fluttered onto the footbath.
Bugenhagen squatted to pick it up. "Frank Logan. His Shinra ID card."
The sun poked its way through a break in the clouds, brightening the porch area.
"Looks like he did run screaming," Sybil said. "And fell. There." She pointed at a flattened patch. "And didn't stop screaming."
"Drag marks," said Bugenhagen. The porch front had a pair of boards missing, leaving an opening large enough to crawl through. "Something dragged him. Under there."
Sybil peered at the disappearing sun. "Let's not follow him, deal?"
But Bugenhagen had already shuffled his way through the furze path to the front gate. Sybil gave the hedge a couple taps before following. She joined him on the sidewalk as the first few raindrops began to fall. Beyond the fence, the hedge began to whisper, and not, he suspected, from the wind.
They crossed the street and paused on the opposite side, Sybil collapsing into him. He held her upright, her adrenaline apparently giving out. "Can you stand?"
"I think," she said, turning to sit on a car hood, "maybe one or two of those things bit me." She pulled up a pantleg, inspecting for bites. "Krait bites are hard to catch. They might feel like mosquitoes. But then, half an hour later . . . "
"I bet this will work." Bugenhagen dug in his pockets until he found his Heal materia, as one should always travel with antipoison available. He bathed Sybil in green light, two castings just to make sure.
"Thanks. It may have been just furze scratches, but I feel like myself again. I hope you saved some for yourself, should you start feeling any ill effects in the next hour."
"Absolutely. Ho-ho-hoo! You want to help me write my report? You deserve half the pay for this awful job."
"Now Bugie. You know how to make a girl's heart race."
Old Bugenhagen paused to sip his drink, floating as he did so near to the the Cosmo candle.
"So that was the baby?" Marlene said. "Did you ever meet the Mama?"
"Ho-ho-hoo! Shinra knocked those houses down with enthusiasm, and they did find a load of snakes. But baby, whatever that was, must have slithered away through a tunnel. But I have an idea your Aunt Aeris has met a full sized one."
"Really?" said Marlene and Aeris together.
"You know that swamp next to the chocobo ranch?"
"The Midgar Zolom?" Aeris said. "You found a nest of those? The big one scared Cloud out of his wits."
"You would be crazy enough to fight one," said Elena, on Aeris' left.
"Just clever and lucky. Charge up Planet Protector, catch its Beta attack on my Enemy Skill materia, then cast it back at it. I didn't stop to think."
"Yep. Crazy. At least you had more than a mop handle, unlike someone I could mention."
"Sybil was something," Bugenhagen said. "Nowadays, I could just float through that snake pit. Not that I would dream of doing so."
"Tell me more! Tell me more!" Marlene began to bounce like a bunny.
"Ho-ho-hoo! In good time. Right now, I have to make sure no snakes have crept into my observatory." And also, he thought, he had a picture of Sybil up there. One of very few that existed of her. She had, of course, deserved better than what happened to her, but every time he thought of how much she had gotten away with, right under Shinra's nose, he couldn't stop the laughter.
"Ho-ho-hoo! Ho-ho-hoo!" Onlookers gave him bemused looks as he spiraled his way up to his tower.