2. Umbrage
Rude woke up with a murky head and heavy limbs. The so-called breakfast did not improve his mood: coffee, black as coal, and a few biscuits from Cissnei's bag of travel snacks. She had taken the truck and headed into town for shopping, promising to be back for an early lunch. Her reassurances didn't stop Reno's grumbling.
"What the hell kinda manor is this? Ain't there s'posed to be cooks and... I dunno, servants and shit? People who make food happen? This is just like home, man, and I sure as hell don't live in a mansion."
Rude didn't point out that the town inn likely served a hearty breakfast, cooked to their guests' liking. He could have, but he didn't.
Reno whined all the way to the foyer and groaned louder than the stairs to the second floor. He quieted at last when he and Rude realized that Rayleigh had followed them out of the kitchen. Reno waited until she was almost at the top of the stairs before he spoke up again.
"So Prof, what's the plan for the day?"
Rayleigh stopped and regarded him coolly.
"It's 'Professor'," she said in her dry manner. "There's a bookshelf in the master bedroom full of old notebooks and documents. I need to do inventory on them and I do not want to be disturbed. If you absolutely must, knock and wait for an answer."
She turned toward the north wing.
"Your bedroom, huh?" Reno glanced at Rude. "Need any help with that?"
She paused and gave him a long stare over her glasses.
"I doubt I'd need the sort of help you might be offering."
"Don't worry, Prof, I ain't talkin' about me. Rude here's pretty good with that sorta thing. He's very... meticulous."
Reno took great care in pronouncing the word, as if he was dealing with a term in a foreign language. Rude wondered if he thought it had some double meaning.
"It's Professor," said Rayleigh, enunciating her title with the same amount of care, "and I'm perfectly capable of handling all the scientific aspects of this excursion. I suggest you two stick to your own roles."
"Sure thing, yo."
Reno grinned and gave her a sloppy salute. She turned on her heel and went on her way, her steps echoing off the floorboards.
"Sooo, whaddya think of the Prof?" Reno's gaze lingered on her as she ascended the creaky steps to the north wing. "Nice legs, huh?"
Rude refused to dignify the question, but Reno refused to be ignored.
"I know she seems all work, but I get the feelin' she wouldn't mind a bit of play." Reno looked at Rude out of the corner of his eye, his mouth in a crooked smirk. "And since she tells me to shut up all the time, I bet she likes the strong, silent type."
Rayleigh's dress shifted as she walked, tightening over her curves. Her size and shape were similar, but her gait was wrong; her steps were too short, too much of a right-hip swing. Maybe it was the shoes. She wore taller heels than–
Realizing what he was doing, Rude turned away to stare out over the decrepit foyer.
"We have a job to do."
Reno laughed.
"Wanna know what we have, buddy? A real long, borin' week ahead of us. Lotta downtime with three of us here, too, and we're holed up in a big place. I'm just sayin' no one's gonna miss the two of ya if you decide to sneak off for a bit of alone time, y'know?"
Reno's voice bounced off the empty walls and returned to assault Rude's ears twofold. He could have sworn the echoes grew louder with every word, until they seemed to hammer into his brain straight through his skull.
"Quit it."
"What, she ain't your type or somethin'?"
When Rude stayed silent, Reno threw his head back and groaned.
"Every fuckin' time! What's with you and your impossible frickin' standards, huh? Nobody's perfect, y'know, and at least all the women I suggest work for Shinra and not–"
Rude turned his back on him and stomped down the stairs.
"C'mon, man," Reno called after him. "Don't be like that!"
Rude didn't slow down. At the bottom of the stairs, he stalked toward the nearest hallway he could see. He didn't know where it led and he didn't care, as long as it took him out of the foyer and away from the others.
The gloomy passage was shorter than he had hoped, but it ended in a set of double doors. He shoved the doors open, throwing up a whirlwind of dust in their wake. One of them slapped against the wall and swung back just as violently. A dull pain flared through Rude's shoulder as the door slammed into him, and with a snarl he knocked it back into the wall and barged in. He had only gotten a few steps into the room before the dust in his lungs had him doubled over in a coughing fit.
One of the doors was still swinging lazily on its hinges by the time he was able to breathe again. The other remained ajar, caught on a curled-up rug. Inside the room was a clutter of furniture, shrouded in white sheets thick with dust. Dust blanketed the floor, too, and Rude took care not to disturb any more of it as he made his way to the center of the room. It was easily the size of the foyer, though its shape was more unusual – an old ballroom of some kind. A circular alcove was scooped out into the southern wall and housed another jumble of covered furniture. Set into another alcove on the far wall, a pair of tall leadlight windows admitted twin streaks of the evening sun.
The filtered sun warmed Rude's face as he stepped into the light and up to the windows. The panes were covered in old grime, reducing the world beyond to nothing more than a greasy blur of shapes and colors. Instead he studied the geometric patterns of the panes themselves, following the intricate curves and angles of the leaden frames until he felt his focus return.
Reno was the one with a temper. Reno was the one who would lose his head and start banging doors. Not Rude. Rude contemplated, he weighed options, he thought before he acted. He didn't make rash decisions. He certainly didn't storm off in a huff and pick a fight with doors.
Maybe Reno was right. Maybe Rude was letting his personal affairs affect his performance. That didn't mean that loudmouth had any right to meddle in them, though. He certainly had no right to bring up her again. It had been months now, and Reno had made his opinions of her perfectly clear more than once. It was time he learned to shut the fuck up and mind his own business.
It was time Rude told him just that. He straightened up and rolled his smarting shoulder, then turned around.
Both of the double doors were closed.
At first, Rude just stood and stared. It was such a small change, yet in his worked-up state he needed a few moments to reconcile reality with his expectations. He hadn't heard anything. No creak of the hinges, not even the smallest thud. In spite of the sunbeam shining down on his neck, Rude felt a chill.
Then he was striding across the room, his jaw set. It was an old house, he reminded himself. An old house with drafts and uneven angles. The door hadn't been propped open; it had just caught on the rug when he opened it. It had only been a matter of time before it would slip free again and close.
He grabbed the door handle and pulled.
The door didn't move.
He tried again. He turned the handle in the other direction. He tried the second door. He grabbed both handles and shook them with all his strength. The doors wouldn't budge.
Rude took a step backwards and stared at them. No visible hinges. No latches, just a keyhole in one of the doors. A simple old-fashioned keyhole, designed to be used from either side. He got down on one knee and peeked through the hole, but luck was not on his side. The key wasn't in the lock.
Could a door like this lock itself when it swung shut of its own accord? Rude had no idea, but he did know one thing. Reno would laugh his ass off, the damned escape artist that he was. It couldn't be helped, though. Rude swallowed his pride and thumped on the door.
Half a minute later he thumped on it again.
"Reno?"
After two minutes he gave up and pulled out his PHS. He considered calling Cissnei instead, but she was still out for groceries. Besides, he didn't much feel like admitting to a junior agent that he'd been careless enough to lock himself in.
Reno didn't answer, though, no matter how long Rude let it ring. He frowned. As he tried again, he backed up against the wall so he could keep watch on the whole room. They had relied on the custodian's word, and had only checked a handful of rooms themselves. Rude was beginning to question that decision.
No answer.
Rude grabbed the handles again and gave the doors a forceful tug. They were sturdy, but not indestructible. He might be able to use something in the room to pry them open or break them down. That would be destruction of Shinra property, though. He'd rather not bring that particular pile of paperwork upon himself.
As Rude surveyed the room with a more careful eye, he saw something he should have noted when he first came in. Near the alcove with the leadlight windows was a second door, painted the same off-white color as the walls. A staff entrance, perhaps. If so, it should bring him to the kitchen on the other side of the building.
It opened stiffly with a push, and the hallway beyond was unlit. The light from the windows was only enough to reveal a few feet of corridor much like the one outside the main doors, though this one was narrower. Rude fumbled for a light switch on the side of the door, unwilling to take his eyes off the darkness ahead. Chances were the corridor stretched all the way along the back of the foyer and straight into the kitchen, he told himself. That's why it looked so dark, as though it might stretch on into infinity. Just a long corridor without any windows, that was all.
Rude cracked the door open wider and wedged himself through to check the other side of the door. As he continued his scan, he slid his shades down his nose and peered intently into the dark. As his eyes moved back and forth, he could have sworn he spotted movement in the periphery of his vision; but as soon as he looked straight at it, it was gone. Again and again, just little swirls in the dark, like–
His fingers hit the switch, flooding his vision with bright light. Cursing, Rude shoved his sunglasses up over his eyes and blinked until he could see straight – into a plain and very much empty corridor.
He didn't often feel like such an idiot.
The hallway was only a third of the foyer's length, though it ended in a door. Rude walked briskly up to it, but found it locked. The corridor itself turned left, and stretched on to accommodate several more doors on either side before it veered off again to the right. Finding his way to the kitchen might take some time; time he wasn't sure he could afford.
It was stupid, really, this sudden sense urgency. Technically, the only thing that had gone wrong was a pair of locked doors, yet Rude couldn't shake the feeling in the pit of his stomach. He could picture too many unpleasant scenarios taking place on the other side of those ballroom doors.
Rude dug out his PHS again, but frowned when it claimed to have no signal. Stepping back into the ballroom gave him a couple of bars; enough to try calling Reno again, but to no avail. After a brief hesitation he tried Cissnei, but the call wouldn't even connect. Cursing the mountains, he sent her a message:
Yellow. First floor, behind the foyer.
Hopefully she would receive it before she returned, and know to approach the manor with caution. Better safe than sorry.
As Rude returned to the corridor, he examined his surroundings with greater care. The dust had been disturbed several times in the past and had resettled in uneven layers on the floor, but the only recent prints came from his own feet. That was some consolation. He checked the doors as he passed them, and found most of them locked. The few that weren't opened onto small, dim chambers: some lined with shelves, others crowded with wooden crates and old sacks. All covered in a thick layer of dust, and none of any interest to Rude.
Beyond the second bend the lights grew dimmer. A few of the bulbs flickered softly. One was completely dark. Rude picked up his pace. He ignored the side doors as he hurried toward the end of the corridor. It was the sensible course of action, he told himself. If he checked every door, he'd still be here by midnight.
As Rude passed the darkened light, about halfway down the corridor, he noticed the silence. It was absolute. His footsteps ought to have reverberated off the bare walls of the corridor, but it was as if every sound vanished before it was made, like a scream of surprise swallowed by a swift death.
Rude squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and shook his head. The dust, he told himself. The dust dampened his footfalls, and being alone in a big, old house could play all sorts of tricks on the mind.
Rude should have been used to a place like this after all those summers at his uncle's house. He and his brothers would split up and hunt for secret passages after their uncle had shown them the one between the kitchen and the conservatory. They had never found another, but that hadn't stopped them from scouring the old place from dawn till dusk.
They had always searched during daylight, though, and most rooms had open windows that admitted both the sun and the warm Costan breeze. Here the air was thick and heavy and made his chest heave with effort. It was more like the nights when they'd used a blanket to make a tent between Rude's bed and a chair. In the light of Teo's flashlight, they'd scare each other with ghost stories until their uncle would come upstairs and chase them off to their beds.
Well... it had mostly been Teo who did the scaring. Rude hadn't been much of a storyteller back in those days either, and his little brother had been too young to come up with anything convincing. Big brother Teo was the one who had brought the horrors that kept them awake at night.
Rude glanced over his shoulder, then stopped for a double-take. The dark bulb was only a few paces behind him.
He'd passed it minutes ago. Hadn't he? But if he had... wouldn't he have reached the next turn by now? Rude looked from one end of the corridor to the other, feeling unease creep up his spine. This was almost like that one story Teo had told them–
Rude scowled and tightened his fists, taking comfort in the feel of his leather gloves growing taut over his knuckles. He wasn't a boy cowering under a blanket anymore. He'd gotten too wrapped up in his reminiscing and had slowed his pace to a crawl. That was all. He spun on his heel and stalked onward.
That goddamned Teo and his goddamned stories, Rude fumed silently. One in particular would haunt him for the rest of his life. It was about a vicious creature that had stolen the face of a corpse and wore it in an attempt to pass for human. It came out at night and broke into people's houses to check the doors to the bedrooms of the children, one by one. If it found one that was unlocked, it would sneak in and stuff the kid into the bag it dragged behind it. That's how you'd know the monster was coming for you, Teo had said. You'd hear the bag slide across the floor toward your bedroom door; sometimes even the monster itself, grunting as it struggled with the weight of all the children it had stolen.
The corridor ended in a T junction. The right arm pointed toward the front of the house, but it was a dead end. Rude had no choice but to go left and move farther away from the foyer.
Teo's story was diabolical, really. Their uncle had had a limp since the accident that ended his lucrative jockey career. Every night he would pass by their doors on the way to his bedroom, his bad leg dragging on the floor.
Rude noticed whorls and blotches in the dust near the base of the wall. He slowed to a halt and crouched down for a closer look. Not human tracks; they were too small for that. Rats, perhaps. Rats didn't appear out of thin air, he reasoned, and they had to eat. Following the trail might lead him to a larder of some kind, and thus closer to the kitchen.
Rude followed the tracks until they disappeared through a crack in a door. As he tried the handle, he realized that even the doors were similar to the ones in his uncle's house. These ones had locks on them, though.
Rude's younger brother had asked their uncle to put a lock on his bedroom door, and had told the monster story to explain why. Their uncle had been livid. It was not a monster, he had said in a quivering voice. It was Death itself, looking to steal away the souls of the unworthy. By telling it wrong, they had insulted Death and brought its mark upon themselves.
Rude had used a chair to barricade his bedroom door at night for months.
The door he faced in the present was unlocked and unbarred, though. He pushed it open. The gust of cool air that rushed past his face held a whiff of something organic, something putrid that made the muscles of his gut convulse in protest. He couldn't determine its source; the gloomy cone of light that crept in through the doorway didn't reach the far wall. He'd have to follow it inside to investigate.
Rude remained in the doorway. Long-ignored corners of his mind whispered to him of things in the dark, things of bone and fangs and claws. Things from Teo's stories. It was the same paralyzing fear that had kept him under the blanket, desperate to get away from Teo's hushed voice as it wove new horrors into his mind, yet too terrified to move a muscle.
Rude knew where to look for the light switches now. With a flick, the buttery glow of the lightbulb pushed the darkness back into the deepest reaches of the room. Yet even that couldn't banish the shadows completely; they clung beneath shelves and lurked behind the looming crates, as if lying in wait, biding their time until–
With a huff, Rude halted that childish train of thought and forced his legs to obey. Checking the room for doors was no longer just a prudent course of action; it was a test of manhood.
With each measured step deeper into the room, the stench grew richer. Rude had smelled it before. The corpses he'd come across in the line of duty were not all freshly made.
He spotted it in the farthest corner of the room, wedged behind a couple of stacked crates. Its shape was bloated beyond recognition, and a brownish liquid had seeped out and pooled in the dust around the carcass. Its head was crushed, caught in some kind of metal contraption, but the size, tail, and four little legs told Rude that this was the rat whose tracks he'd been following. Another dead end. Literally.
Rude was halfway to the door when he heard the noise. The door had swung shut behind him and muffled the sound, but he could definitely hear movement in the corridor.
A drawn-out sweeping, followed by a thump on the wooden floor. Then the sweeping again, like something being dragged along the floor. A guttural sound, like a grunt.
Rude had frozen to the spot. He didn't even dare breathe.
You're one of the unworthy now.
Rude squeezed his eyes shut. Get a grip, he spat at himself. This isn't a goddamned ghost hunt. He had the element of surprise, the upper hand. He couldn't let it go to waste.
Step by hesitant step, he crept toward the door. He might be able to get a better idea of who – or what – it was if he got close enough to hear more. Maybe he could even get a visual through the keyhole.
The floorboards creaked under his weight. The shuffling sound stopped.
In a panic Rude scanned the room for a chair, until he realized what he was doing. As the door handle began to turn, he dashed to the side of the door, flattening himself against the wall. As the door swung open, he pulled back his fist to strike, and as the hunched figure took a step inside–
"Ohh!" cried Mrs. Gubbins, clutching her chest as Rude diverted his punch at the last moment. "Shiva's mercy, young man, are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
"My apologies," he mumbled as he straightened up.
"What in the name of Titan are you doing here anyway? I thought all you suits were going to stick to the second floor today?"
Rude's cheeks had grown hot. What could he say that wouldn't make him seem like a complete fool? He nudged his tie as he thought, bringing it out of its perfect alignment, then adjusted it back into place.
"When I was in the ballroom, the..." He cleared his throat. "The doors closed and locked themselves. Is that common?"
Mrs. Gubbins squinted at him as her head flopped to one side.
"Well. Things ain't all that reliable in this old house..." She traced her jaw with her bony fingers and appeared to lose herself in thought. "I've never had it pull that one on me, though. Mind you, I don't have much business in the old ballroom. Maybe I just got... lucky."
The woman turned around and stepped back into the corridor. She grabbed hold of a large sack and braced her feet on the floor.
"Allow me," Rude said.
The least he could do after scaring the woman half to death was give her a hand with her burden, but she shook her head vigorously.
"Oh, no, there's no need. Part of my job description."
Her thin fingers dug into the rough cloth, squeezing the bag shut. Whatever she had inside was poking into the bag at odd angles, making it lumpy and ungainly. Something was oozing through the fabric near the bottom, turning its oatmeal grey into a rusty brown.
It occurred to him that Reno still hadn't called him. Rude stared at the woman's hands, wrapped around the top of a bag like she might wrap them around a throat, and felt a lurch in his gut.
"What's in the bag?"
Mrs. Gubbins tightened her hold.
"Nothing you need to worry about, Mister Suit. Like I said. Part of my job description."
"Open it."
"There's nothing in there you want to see."
The creak of leather rang loud in the heavy air as Rude balled his fists. He wished he hadn't left his gun in his room. He wished he hadn't walked out on his partner.
"Open it," he bit out.
The woman stared at him with her pasty, unblinking eyes. Then she pulled back her lips in that skull-like grin of hers and released the sack.
"Don't say I didn't warn you, Mister Suit."
She stepped back as Rude approached. He kept his eyes on her bony hands as he dragged the sack into the room and under the low-hanging lamp. He kept watching her through the doorway as he fumbled the bag open. Then he glanced down.
Countless glassy eyes stared back up at him.
With a gasp, Rude dropped the bag and flinched back. As the top of the bag toppled, little bodies spilled out and hit the floor in a smattering of wet thuds. Hairy bodies, their fur glistening with foul-smelling liquids that smeared Rude's shoes. Hard bodies, with segmented legs and serrated claws.
Raspy laughter filled the stale air.
"Was just cleaning out the traps, you see," said Mrs. Gubbins as she entered the room. "Plenty of nasty critters like to nest in empty buildings like this. They'll take over the whole place if you let them."
Rude hopped back as she pulled her sack upright and began gathering the dead vermin off the floor. He just stared, while the adrenaline pounded a frantic beat through his body. He was still fumbling around for something appropriate to say as Mrs. Gubbins rounded the crates and headed toward the bloated rat in the corner.
"Nasty buggers," she grumbled as she wrenched the crushed carcass out of the trap. "So... unworthy for a place like this, don't you think?"
She looked up, fixing him with her deathly pale eyes, and flashed her rictus grin. Rude felt the blood rush from his face.
"There you are! Where the fuck ya been, man? Ciss showed up a few minutes ago, sayin' you sent her a code yellow?"
Rude whirled around to see Reno stroll into the room. He took several steps inside before he noticed the custodian and stopped dead in his tracks.
"Whoa, hey Missus Gubbins. Didn't see ya there."
"Oh, don't mind me, boys. I'll just be getting on with my rounds."
Reno peeked into the sack and stuck out his tongue in a disgusted grimace.
"Eugh. Don't let us keep ya."
As she shuffled over to her sack and dropped in her latest catch, he walked up to Rude and looked him up and down.
"What's up with you? You look like you've seen a ghost, yo."
Rude swallowed – or he tried to, with mouth and throat painfully dry, as he watched Mrs. Gubbins drag her sack out of the room. Reno glanced at her, then back at Rude. He huffed and shook his head.
"That had better not be your code yellow, buddy," he mumbled under his breath.
A swell of annoyance shook Rude out of his daze. He was making a fool of himself, acting like some witless kid just because his damned brother had once told him some stupid goddamned story.
"The doors locked behind me in the ballroom," he muttered. "Didn't know why. Just playing it safe."
Reno was still studying him, still frowning.
"I was right here, y'know. You could've just called me."
Was it petulance Rude detected in his voice? Maybe he thought Rude was petty enough to refuse his aid as a partner due to personal issues. Rude's fears were quickly fading in Reno's presence, but his earlier irritation had begun to creep back in their stead.
"I did. Twice."
"Huh?" Reno fished out his PHS and looked at the screen. "I didn't get no calls."
"Bad reception?"
"Maybe..." Reno frowned at the device in his hand before he slipped it back into his pocket and shed his concern. "Anyway, Ciss brought back a bunch of food and said turnin' it into lunch was our job. So c'mon, let's go. I'm starvin', yo."
He put his hands in his pockets too, then headed toward the kitchen in that leisurely swagger of his. Rude followed, but did not join him by his side.