"Oh, and watch out for the red monsters," Rich commented with a wink and a smirk. "Don't let 'em getcha."
Zack and Sephiroth continued their trek through the mountains and down into somewhat less rugged areas of the Corel Region, following winding roads and highways through mountain passes in a generally northwest direction toward Rocket Town.
Late afternoon at the next town, a rather hilly place amusingly named Pithole, the two men again stopped for the night. Pithole had a larger population than their last stopping point, around twelve thousand people. The main part of town boasted a reasonable selection of hotels to choose from, the most notable being the Pithole Hotel, the Oil Creek Inn, and the Fourth Street Inn—which was located, logically enough, on a primary thoroughfare named Fourth Street. Pithole also had its own newspaper, three medium-sized theaters, a railroad station, a number of shops and eateries, and what appeared to be a functional oil pipeline.
Surrounding the town and sprouting up from the hills were miles of oil pumps, all operating steadily. Zack thought they looked for all the world like drunk bouncing grasshoppers or those dumb toy birds that bobbed their fake beaks up and down in a glass of water. The pumps' "heads" were painted crimson, and their structural frameworks were black. Some joker had added bright blue eyes to several of the "heads."
The oil pumps probably explained the smell, Zack thought. The place bore the faint but unmistakable smell of sulfur and rotten eggs. Impure crude oil and its byproducts, for sure.
Leaving Sephiroth to guard Angeal and the truck, Zack entered the Pithole Hotel and went up to the front desk. The man who checked him in, a sixtyish fellow with a name tag that said "Rich," was easy going, somewhat slow to process visitor information, pleased to take cash, and inclined to chatter. Zack happily engaged Rich in conversation and made a point of asking about the town's name. He still regretted not finding out how the town of Emmie's Last Chance had gotten its name, and wasn't going to make the same error of omission this time!
"Oh, yeah, the town's name makes perfect sense!" Rich enthused. "There's these large fissures outside city limits near Oil Creek. Sulfur fumes smoke out of the damn things. The early townsfolk who moved here before the oil boom considered them a nuisance and called them pit-holes, and well, the name stuck. They're all fenced off now, but they're a good tourist attraction. You can pay a few gil to see 'em if you're interested. They're marked in green on that map back there." He gestured to a large, framed map of the area hanging on the back wall.
"There was an oil boom here? What happened?" Zack asked as he signed the register with one of the many fake names he'd dreamed up. He had chosen Oliver Newton-John this time. He made sure to add some strange swirls to his signature and slant the characters in odd directions, hoping any Shin-Ra handwriting experts and Turks who might somehow trace them this far would be thrown off the track. Paranoia was a gift, he reflected. Especially these days.
"Yeah, 'bout seventy years ago some damn fool got the bright idea to drill. 'Cause of the pit-holes, you see. He figured there might be something worthwhile under all that sulfur smoke and got lucky. Nobody else bothered on account of the terrain and anyway, coal's always been king in the whole Corel area."
"But aren't fossil fuels related?" Zack asked. He'd never really had any interest in the subject before. Sephiroth's lecture about coking coal and steel production back before they'd taken their freighter ride had flown over his head. Besides, he didn't like to think about what had happened not long before that lecture...
Masamune flashed.
A thud echoed as the blade slammed into the ground. Angeal's head rolled sideways a quarter turn, cheek and nose resting on the dirt, facing away from the lower stump midway through its neck, away from its detached, Ahriman body...
Stop! Zack briefly clenched his eyes shut, and his hands tightened into fists. He refused to relive that horrible day, those terrible events. Refused.
Don't think about it, don't think about it, he chanted mentally, and forced himself to relax.
He must not have made a scene, or his momentary flashback must have been over a lot faster than it had felt to him. Rich didn't seem to notice anything strange had occurred. The desk clerk tapped a finger thoughtfully and continued blathering about oil: "I suppose, but no one really expects them to be so near to each other. Something about the natural systems that create 'em, I guess. Anyway, nobody expected oil, and investors prefer nice, safe flat land for their drills and pumps, not hills and valleys like here, but nature does what it wants, doesn't it? Pretty soon several companies were out here drilling, and the place went crazy. It's really too bad almost nobody burns oil for heat or power anymore, except here, of course, and a few other places. A whole lotta towns damn near went bust practically overnight when mako energy came online."
"You still use the oil here?" Zack queried politely. "I noticed all the oil rigs and wondered why they were running."
"You don't see any mako reactors around, do you?" Rich laughed coarsely. "Not for lack of looking, of course, but if there's mako underground, it's too deep for Shin-Ra to get at it. So we make do. You can look out back to see the oil tanks this hotel uses, and there's a refinery by the creek outside town for the products our power plant needs to generate electricity."
"Interesting. I guess you could also sell oil in other places, or do you just use it here? Is it really more profitable than coal?"
"There's a decent market for natural gas and crude oil to make plastics and other synthetics, too, so we still do okay even with lower demand. Better than all the coal towns, at any rate—about three or four days east there's a ghost town, place called Centralia, where a coal mine died over twenty years ago. Damn thing caught fire underground and it's still burning to this day."
Zack was sure that was a really interesting story, but Sephiroth (and Angeal) had been waiting for a while now, so he merely grunted something about coal dying out anyway, and didn't ask for details about the burning mine.
"Yeah," Rich agreed, "the coal towns sure are going out of style fast, but I figure they'll be around for another decade or two before mako energy does all of them in for good."
He handed over an old-fashioned key with an oversized fob marked with the hotel's name and the room number. "Well, you've been more than patient with my ramblings, young man. You're in room two-eight on the second floor. Parking's in the back. There's a good café just down the street, name's Martia's Bistro. Terrific breakfasts and sandwiches there. Here's a coupon, ten percent off breakfast. Tell 'em I sent you and they'll take good care of you."
"Thank you," Zack said, taking the key and the coupon. He started to turn away, privately doubting that mentioning Rich's name would result in any special service. All the information about the area was interesting though not of much practical use. He'd like to go visit the pit-holes, but sightseeing wasn't in the cards. He and Sephiroth (and Angeal) would stay overnight, buy a few supplies, eat, and head out early, just like always.
"Oh, and watch out for the red monsters," Rich added with a wink and a smirk. "Don't let 'em getcha."
That off-handed, joking remark caught Zack's attention like nothing else. He pivoted sharply to again face the desk and Rich, who was suddenly more important than getting back to Sephiroth. "What red monsters?" Zack worked hard to keep his tone even and mildly curious, when he wanted to shout and shake the information out of the desk clerk.
Rich, ever loquacious, proved entirely willing to explain. "A few folks have claimed to see red monsters raiding the medical clinic and a supply warehouse at night. Say the monsters steal blood right out of the refrigerators and kidnap unwary young men like you. You know, the usual ghost stories. There's no official reports of anyone missing, though, so it's obviously just a few hysterical fools who saw a giant mutated bird or something, 'cept there's no mako here to mutate 'em, so who knows what the hell they saw? I don't believe in the red monsters myself, especially since the stories only started up a few months ago. Never heard of one-winged monsters before, either. Probably just kids spreading dumb stories for fun."
Zack's heart pounded. "They say these red monsters only have one wing?" he asked. The red monsters sure sounded like Genesis copies! "That's so interesting. They raided the medical clinic, too? Were there any police reports about the robberies?"
This was important. This was their first real lead to Genesis! He and Sephiroth had made discreet inquiries before, but gotten nothing aside from polite brush-offs and suspicious looks from small-town dwellers who thought they were not quite right in the head. Which, Zack reflected, was probably true.
But this? This was huge! And it had been offered in such an offhanded way, like they were sharing a joke. A perfect opportunity to get information!
"Now, that's the strange part," Rich said, scratching his ear. "I admit it's weird. The clinic and supply house both did report missing blood, and other chemicals and equipment, too, but the doctors and staff didn't mention any monsters. They said it just looked like regular break-ins, and the sheriff said probably some assholes wanted drugs to sell on the black market. Even nice places like this have a few crooks that trade in illegal goods."
"But the red monsters only have one wing?" Zack persisted. He had to be sure.
"Yeah, supposedly. People say the monsters' wings are black as coal. I kinda wonder how the monsters are supposed to fly like that, but I've heard other monsters can fly even without any wings at all, so who knows? Are you really taking this seriously? Don't tell me you believe this nonsense?"
Zack got his excitement under control. "It's just really super interesting, even if it is just modern folklore. How recently was the last one spotted?"
"No one's reported anything for over a month, but the worst scaredy cats keep their kids inside a lot more lately. Especially the boys." Rich snorted, expressing his contempt for anyone who believed in such fairy tales.
Notes:
Oil is mentioned by Barret in Advent Children, and in the games an awful lot of things the characters take for granted look like plastic, synthetics, and other materials made from fossil fuel products, so I figure there must be a few oil and/or natural gas producing areas and industries even if they're not discussed.
Pithole is based on a real ghost town in Pennsylvania. I stole a lot of its history, though this story's version of Pithole is still populated and functional, and its oil wells and pipeline are still operating. You can read about the real life Pithole here: https colon slash slash en dot wikipedia dot org slash wiki slash Pithole,_Pennsylvania
Just FYI, the town of Emmie's Last Chance appeared in the previous story, "Whatever Works."