Saint Philomene's Infirmary for Magical Creatures

by W. Stone Cotter

  The best place to go was back to the dressing room. His sister had heard him, he was sure. They had to be together to escape together.

  But could he climb 380 stories to 2,222? He had no desire to be on an elevator while his Euvydness was diminishing as quickly as his humanness was being revealed. So he had no choice. He bounded up the stairs three steps at a time, only occasionally passing a creature, none of whom even gave him a glance.

  After forty stories, he was thoroughly out of breath. He stopped to sit.

  Chance wondered if there had been enough flerk in the ad hoc infusion to cure Yryssy of Iptid’s Misery or if she would succumb as Simon Sleight had. Chance wondered if Dave had been cured by Ypocrasyne and was on his way out of the infirmary. Probably not. Dropping the vial would rob him of his power over the populace, so he had probably been arrested and was on his way down to the basement.

  On the other hand, Bittius might want to wash his hands of him and simply send him home. Chance thought this unlikely, as Dave Green would then have knowledge of Donbaloh that he might spread among the people of Oppabof, leading to lots of trouble for the infirmary, and the rest of Donbaloh.

  Over the next several hours, Chance climbed another thirty-five stories, slowly, stopping often to catch his breath. What was he thinking? He couldn’t climb 380 stories.

  He sat down in the stairwell, nearly defeated.

  Then he heard a noise. A whiny buzz, like a weed eater. With some effort, Chance climbed up two more flights to reach the source of the noise.

  There. A metal chair attached to a rail that ran along the baseboards, up the flight of stairs, and around the stairwell. It was a seat for the handicapped.

  Chance sat down and punched the green UP arrow. The chair jolted into motion. It didn’t move very fast, but it was sure and steady. It climbed one story in about twelve seconds, meaning that it would take a little more than an hour for the whole trip. He wanted to sleep along the way, for he was close to exhaustion, but he knew he needed to stay vigilant in case he encountered anyone on the stairs.

  But he did not. This worried him. Maybe Terabug had been released and was killing everyone in the hospital at this very moment.

  When he arrived, he peeked out into the hallway of 2,222. No creatures nearby. He stole out and located a room that happened to be occupied by two elderly creatures whose species Chance did not recognize, both hooked up to many machines and hanging plastic bags and sleeping soundly and noisily.

  Chance closed the door quietly and tiptoed into the bathroom, where he put a foot up on the bathroom door’s high knob, popped out a ceiling tile, and climbed into the narrow space that separated the drop ceiling from the floor above.

  Around him was a universe of dust, dimly lit by the reflection of the light fixtures illuminating the floor below. Trusting his sense of direction, Chance began to crawl, taking care to stay on the narrow pathways to avoid falling through the flimsy ceiling tiles, hoping and praying he would come across the general area of the theater and its dressing room. His knees, still sore from crawling along the mail pipe—that seemed like so long before!—screamed at him.

  After several hours, Chance noticed, far away, a square of light coming from below. He crawled toward it, wondering if he would have the strength to make it, because he was so close to holistic exhaustion. He finally reached the square of light, which was simply an air vent grille popped out of the ceiling of a bright room. He looked down. Three chairs had been stacked directly beneath him.

  The theater.

  With a scrap of strength he must have borrowed from some antimatter Chance, he climbed out of the ceiling and onto the chairs. He limped to the dressing room and opened the door.

  CHAPTER 30

  Pauline, her jelsair now automatically docked, watched through the last drops of the abating storm as Bittius, in the jelsair with Yryssy, hovered a few feet away from Dave Green’s armchair balloon.

  “Mr. Green?” said Yryssy. “All right?”

  “My heavens,” said Dave Green, rubbing his eyes. “What have I done?”

  “Can you catch this?” said Bittius, leaning out of the jelsair with a coil of rope. “We’re going to haul you to the balcony, all right?”

  Dave caught the rope with some difficulty. They towed him to the safety of the balcony.

  “Oh dear, where is my vial?” said Dave, staring at his bare hands.

  “You dropped it,” said Bittius. “A Flok’emble, now in quarantine, ate it.”

  “Oh. Well, it was empty.”

  “Empty?”

  “I snatched it from a lab supply closet when I went on my rampage shortly after I got here.”

  “I see,” said Yryssy and Bittius.

  “Yes. I’m not feeling well. Are you going to kill me?”

  “We are a hospital,” said Yryssy. “We do not kill. We cure.”

  “Are you going to put me in jail like my grandmother?”

  “We probably should, but no, we are not going to put you in jail. Your circumstances are extraordinary; you were not in your right mind, and we feel you cannot be held accountable for your actions. You are now cured, and your sanity restored. We are going to send you home.”

  “Oh. Good. I’m very homesick.”

  * * *

  Pauline watched as Bittius, Yryssy, and Dave Green exited the balcony.

  But Bittius poked his head back out, looked around, spotted Pauline, pointed at her, and screamed, “Arrest her!”

  Pauline turned to run. She took two flights down, to 2,279, the floor she’d entered from, and kept running. As she passed the doors lining the balcony, she watched for red-lipstick Xs. In the distance, she heard whoops and howls. They were already on her.

  Ah, here it is. She opened the door. At the elevator bank, she pressed DOWN and waited. Finally, it came.

  Balliopes. Stuffed with them.

  She grinned at them to show her fangs. They did not pay her much attention. Pauline climbed aboard.

  “Where to?” said a very short Balliope with an extra-long halberd.

  “Uh, 2,222, please.”

  She figured Chance would return to the dressing room in the absence of further information. It was a sanctuary, and there was a phone there, which they’d surely need to find Arbipift Obriirpt and get his map, which appeared to be the only way out. Pauline wondered if the map even existed.

  The Balliope reached across the elevator with his weapon and pressed the appropriate button.

  “Thank you.”

  “No sweat, lady.”

  “So, Chet,” said another Balliope, “are we still hunting that Euvyd?”

  The elevator began to ascend.

  “Jeez, Dwilt, did you sleep through the meeting again?” said Chet. “Yeah, we’re looking for the Euvyd.”

  Pauline froze. She looked up, staring intently at an advertisement for a fingernail sharpener for fashion-conscious Vyrndeets.

  “What’d it do?”

  “I dunno. They just said it’s wanted for interfering in official infirmary business.”

  The elevator stopped on 2,229.

  The Balliopes bickered.

  “Hey, why isn’t the door opening?”

  “We seem to be stuck.”

  The elevator suddenly dropped three stories. Pauline fell hard, smashing her head against the floor and knocking out her fangs. The lights went out. She was surrounded by darkness and flailing, wailing Balliopes. Pauline scrabbled around on the floor, feeling for her fangs. Pauline and the Balliopes eventually got to their feet and started banging on the doors. The Balliopes tried to pry them open with their halberds, but the blades were too thick.

  “We’re going to plummet all the way to the basement and die!” shouted an extra-panicked Balliope.

  “Shut up, Bulp,” said Chet. “This car doesn’t even go to the basement. Just to 2,920.”

  This information did not appear to comfort the extra-panicked Balliope, who unfettered a cloudburst of bawling.

  After s
everal minutes, when it appeared no one was coming to rescue them anytime soon—their screams obviously did not register through two sets of thick double doors, and the EMERGENCY buttons apparently didn’t work—the Balliopes all lay down to rest. In minutes, they were fast asleep, their halberds standing in a corner. Pauline spent a few more moments searching for her fangs. But no, they were gone.

  How to get out of here?

  Pauline grabbed the extra-long halberd. She began poking at the ceiling.

  There! A small door opened, the sort repair creatures might use to get at the wiring on the roof of the elevator. She hooked the halberd on a lip of metal, yanked on it to test it, and began to climb the halberd like a rope. When she got high enough, she grabbed the edge of the opening and hoisted herself onto the roof of the elevator car.

  She looked around. In front of her were the doors to the 2,231st floor. She tried to pry them open with the halberd, but again the blade was too thick.

  Pauline wondered how the doors knew when to open. An elevator slows down until it’s level with the target floor, then the doors open. Maybe the car itself trips a switch of some kind? she thought. She looked up. And there, to the left, beside the door and just out of reach, was a small white button barely visible in the dark. She touched it with the halberd.

  The doors slid open. She couldn’t believe it. Pauline peeked around the corner. It was a dark floor, thank ye gods, and no creatures seemed to be around.

  She stealthily slid inside, taking the long halberd with her. It was only nine floors up to 2,222. Careful, no mistakes now—she was fangless. Once she was with her brother, they could plot their escape.

  The dark, ominous floor seemed to promise a visit from the more dangerous and frightening Donbaloh creatures. Holding her halberd level, her back against the wall, she sidled along the wall until she found a set of emergency stairs. She climbed up to the brightly lit stairwell of the 2,222nd floor.

  Set into the hallway door over the knob was a tall, narrow window with wire laced into the glass. She peered through it. She couldn’t see any of her red Xs on the walls. The floor itself was teeming with creatures running, scurrying, skittering, moseying, driving golf carts, pushing wheelchairs and gurneys and laundry hampers and machines and towering carts loaded with trays of steaming unidentifiable foods. Pauline had not realized until now how hungry she was, how thirsty. How thoroughly exhausted.

  A break in the traffic. Pauline looked both ways; there was no one around. She opened the door onto the hallway, barely noticing the smell of fresh paint, and sprinted in the direction she’d originally come from. But no Xs were visible anywhere. Had she gotten on the wrong elevator?

  She noticed workmen up ahead, dozens of them, each doing something to a wall. One was reaching high above with a tool of some kind and another was on his knees doing something to a baseboard. She dared to get a bit closer.

  They were painting. Painting! They had probably painted over her Xs long before. She was in deep trouble now. Pauline did not have the same infallible sense of direction Chance had.

  Pauline passed a narrow door labeled simply POLE, and she was about to try its doorknob when an old, wrinkly Wreau wandered out. Pauline swiftly ducked into a nearby closet and pulled the door shut. She felt for a light switch but found none. She groped around on the shelves, which seemed to be filled with cloth of some kind.

  Something touched her head. She ducked and uttered a squeak of fright, slapping at whatever it had been. She slowly stood up. It touched her head again. She reached up as quickly as a magician and grabbed it.

  Hm. String. She pulled. Overhead, a light blazed on. Her heart felt like it was beating a thousand times a minute.

  The room was filled with shelves of slate-green doctors’ and nurses’ scrubs in all sizes and cuts. Pauline set her halberd in a corner. She tried on a pair of bottoms. Way too big. But wait, these will fit. She eventually found a top. She found a cloth face mask, which she tied over her nose and mouth, and a cap, under which, with no little effort, she stuffed all of her wild red hair, still slightly damp from the storm.

  There was no mirror, but she was almost entirely covered, and, with only her eyes showing, who would think a human was under all this?

  She stepped out into the hallway. No one paid her any mind.

  A commotion. Way down the hall. She stopped and watched as it came toward her. It was preceded by a clot of bumbling Balliopes, whom she recognized as the ones from the elevator, Chet in the lead.

  Pauline also noticed two large creatures carrying a stretcher between them, upon which was what looked like a coffin. The creature in front was an especially silly-looking Vyrndeet dressed in yellow overalls, and the other was a particularly muscular Wreau wearing a paper crown. The procession slowly made its way toward Pauline. When it was within only a few yards, she realized the coffin was not a coffin, but a narrow cage.

  Someone was inside.

  Chance.

  He was lying on his side in the cramped space, gritting his teeth and futilely trying to wrench the rusty but formidable-looking bars. Pauline leaned flat against the wall, and the Balliopes passed her by. Then she was walking alongside the cage, staring at her laboring brother, trying to get his attention, but he could not be distracted from trying to free himself.

  “Balliopes!” cried Pauline.

  CHAPTER 31

  Chance, after his interminable crawl through the dark, dusty space between the 2,222nd and 2,221st floors, entered the sanctuary of the dressing room.

  No Pauline, and, of course, no Braig. Chance sat down in a purple velvet easy chair near the telephone. He would have given anything for just an hour’s sleep, but there was no time for that. Even though Dave Green was out of the picture, at least for the moment, he still didn’t know where Pauline was. And Braig needed to be broken out of jail.

  Chance stood up, picked up the seat cushion, took a deep breath, wrapped the cushion around his head, and screamed. And screamed. Then he practiced for a few moments, getting the voice just right. He put the cushion back on the chair, sat down, drew the little table with the telephone on it toward him, and picked up the receiver. He dialed zero.

  “Directory assistance.”

  “Chief of Balliope security, please.”

  “Putting you through now.”

  “Police,” said the being in the distinctive nasal chirp of an older Balliope. “Chief Fvendfvater here.”

  “Fvendfvater,” said Chance, hoping the screaming had made his voice hoarse enough to convince the police chief of his identity. “This is Amk Bittius.”

  “Sir!” said Fvendfvater.

  “Fvendfvater, there’s been an error.”

  “Yes, sir. I will correct it, sir. What is it?”

  “Indeed you will,” said Chance, with the authority that comes from confidence. “On the—”

  “Sir, have you got a cold?”

  “Uh, yes,” said Chance. “Now, on the sixteenth floor, a Wreau has been mistakenly imprison—”

  “Sir, yes, sir, a misimprisoned Wreau.”

  “So you know who I mean.”

  “Sir, respectfully, that Wreau is a kidnapper.”

  “There is more to it than that, Fvendfvater. He was following my orders. He is to be set free and granted a full pardon, in writing.”

  “Sir? The police don’t issue pardons. You do.”

  “Uh, yes, I know that,” said Chance, his confidence beginning to furl up. “I am hereby granting it.”

  “Sir, you don’t sound like yourself. I’m going to have to ask you a security question.”

  “You doubt me, Balliope,” shouted Chance. “Let the Wreau go free. Now!”

  “Yes, sir, just answer my question. What was the name of your first pet?”

  “I … I don’t remember,” said Chance. He foresaw doom and thick, rusting bars and death. “Now stop this nonsense and free the Wreau.”

  “Sir, who was the first girl you ever kissed?”

  “How dare yo
u, Balliope.”

  “Please answer.”

  “Er, I don’t remember.”

  “Last question: Make and model of your first jelsair?”

  “Um, Chevrolet Camaro?”

  It sounded like Fvendfvater put his hand over the receiver. Chance heard his muffled voice saying, “… traced? 2222.560. Looks like it adjoins a theater. Get him. Now.”

  Chance hung up. He had to get out of there immediately. As fast as he could, he slathered his ears in more blue makeup and tied a new bandage over his forehead. He was about to turn and run when he realized that this might be his last chance to use a phone. He dialed directory assistance.

  “Arbipift Obriirpt, Harrow-Teaguer. It’s urgent.”

  “Placing the call now.”

  The phone rang. Chance listened for the chants and howls of the Balliopes, but he heard nothing. The phone continued to ring. And ring.

  “Hello?” said a harsh, voluminous voice like Chance imagined Zeus might have sounded.

  “Uh, Arbipift Obriirpt?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I was told you might have an old map showing how to get out of the infirmary to Oppabof. Do—”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Uh, everyone says that.”

  “Izzat right.”

  Chance danced from foot to foot. He had to get out of here!

  “Do you have it?”

  “Can you pay?

  “What does it cost?”

  “If you have to ask, then you can’t afford it.”

  “I’m just a poor Euvyd.”

  Silence on the other end of the line. Then:

  “Come to 0013.550.”

  Chance ran to the door, but before he could reach for the doorknob, about fifty Balliopes barged in. They grabbed him with their twiggy arms, poked him with their sharp halberds, and kicked him with their tiny feet. Chance screamed and fought and twisted and rolled and bit and struck and kicked.

  “We got you, didn’t we, Euvyd?” said Chet, grinning monstrously at his quarry.

  They placed him in a low, flat cage on a long stretcher and carried him out of the dressing room, through the theater, and into a long hallway. He yanked on and kicked at and tried to torque the bars, but they were too strong.