Lemony Snicket - The Hostile Hospital

"Door!" Sunny shrieked, pointing to the door that led out of the Surgical Ward. Klaus steered the gurney in that direction and rode past Olaf's fat associate who looked like neither a man nor a woman, who was still dressed as a spurious guard. With a terrible roar, it began to give chase, walking in huge, lumbering steps, as the Baudelaires raced toward a small group of Volunteers Fighting Disease. The bearded volunteer, who was playing some very familiar chords on his guitar, looked up to see the gurney wheel past them.

"Those must be those murderers Mattathias was talking about!" he said. "Come on, everyone, let's help that guard capture them!"

"Sounds good to me," another volunteer agreed. "I'm a bit tired of singing that song, if you want to know the truth."

Klaus steered the gurney around a corner, as the volunteers joined the overweight associate in pursuit. "Wake up," he begged Violet, who was looking around her in a confused way. "Please, Violet!"

"Stairs!" Sunny said, pointing to a staircase. Klaus turned the gurney in the direction his sister indicated, and the children began to roll down the stairs, bouncing up and down with each step. It was a fast, slippery ride that reminded the children of sliding down the bannisters at 667 Dark Avenue, or colliding with Mr. Poe's automobile when they were living with Uncle Monty. At a curve in the staircase, Klaus scraped his shoes against the floor to stop the gurney, and then leaned over to look at one of the hospital's confusing maps.

"I'm trying to figure out if we should go through that door," he said, pointing at a door marked "Ward for People with Nasty Rashes," "or continue down the staircase."

"Dleen!" Sunny cried, which meant "We can't continue down the staircase--look!"

Klaus looked, and even Violet managed to focus enough to look down where Sunny was pointing. Down the staircase, just past the next landing, was a flickering, orange glow, as if the sun was rising out of the hospital basement, and a few wisps of dark black smoke were curling up the staircase like the tentacles of some ghostly animal. It was an eerie sight that had haunted the Baudelaires in their dreams, ever since that fateful day at the beach when all their trouble began. For a moment, the three children were unable to do anything but stare down at the orange glow and the tentacles of smoke, and think about all they had lost because of what they were looking at.

"Fire," Violet said faintly.

"Yes," Klaus said. "It's spreading up this staircase. We've got to turn and go back upstairs."

From upstairs, the Baudelaires listened to the associate roar again, and heard the bearded volunteer reply.

"We'll help you capture them," he said. "Lead the way, sir--or is it madam? I can't tell."

"No up," Sunny said.

"I know," Klaus said. "We can't go up the stairs and we can't go down. We have to go into the Ward for People with Nasty Rashes."

Having made this rash decision, Klaus turned the gurney and wheeled it through the door, just as Mattathias's voice came through on the intercom. "This is Mattathias, the Head of Human Resources," he said hurriedly. "All associates of Dr. Flacutono, continue to search for the children! Everyone else, gather in front of the hospital--either we will catch the murderers as they escape, or they'll be burned to a crisp!"

The children rolled into the Ward for People with Nasty Rashes and saw that Mattathias was right. The gurney was racing down a hallway, and the children could see another orange glow at the far end of it. The children heard another roar behind them as the overweight associate lumbered down the stairs. The siblings were trapped in the middle of a hallway that led only to a fiery death or to Olaf's clutches.

Klaus leaned down and stopped the gurney. "We'd better hide," he said, jumping to the floor. "It's too dangerous to be rolling around like this."

"Where?" Sunny asked, as Klaus helped her down.

"Someplace close by," Klaus said, grabbing Violet's arm. "The anesthesia is still wearing off, so Violet can't walk too far."

"I'll . . . try. . . ." Violet murmured, stepping unsteadily off the gurney and leaning on Klaus. The children looked around and saw that the nearest door was marked "Supply Closet."

"Glaynop?" Sunny asked.

"I guess so," Klaus said doubtfully, opening the door with one hand while balancing Violet with the other. "I don't know what we can do in a supply closet, but at least it'll hide us for a few moments."

Klaus and Sunny helped their sister through the door and locked it behind them. Except for a small window in the corner, the closet looked identical to the one where Klaus and Sunny had hidden to decipher the anagram in the patient list. It was a small room, with only one flickering lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and there were a row of white medical coats hanging from hooks, a rusty sink, huge cans of alphabet soup, and small boxes of rubber bands, but as the two younger Baudelaires looked at these supplies, they did not look like devices for translating anagrams and impersonating medical professionals. Klaus and Sunny looked at all these objects, and then at their older sister. To their relief, Violet's face was a bit less pale, and her eyes were a bit less confused, which was a very good sign. The eldest Baudelaire needed to be as awake as she could be, because the items in the closet were looking less and less like supplies, and more and more like materials for an invention.

When Violet Baudelaire was five years old, she won her first invention contest with an automatic rolling pin she'd fashioned out of a broken window shade and six pairs of roller skates. As the judges placed the gold medal around her neck, one of them said to her, "I bet you could invent something with both hands tied behind your back," and Violet smiled proudly. She knew, of course, that the judge did not mean that he was going to tie her up, but merely that she was so skilled at inventing that she could probably build something even with substantial interference, a phrase which here means "something getting in her way."

The eldest Baudelaire had proved the judge right dozens of times, of course, inventing everything from a lockpick to a welding torch with the substantial interference of being in a hurry and not having the right tools. But Violet thought she had never had as much substantial interference as the lingering effects of anesthesia as she squinted at the objects in the supply closet and tried to focus on what her siblings were saying.

"Violet," Klaus said, "I know that the anesthesia hasn't completely worn off, but we need you to try to invent something."

"Yes," Violet said faintly, rubbing her eyes with her hands. "I ... know."

"We'll help you all we can," Klaus said. "Just tell us what to do. The fire is consuming this entire hospital, and we have to get out of here quickly."

"Rallam," Sunny added, which meant "And Olaf's associates are chasing us."

"Open ... the window," Violet said with difficulty, pointing to the window in the corner.

Klaus helped Violet lean against the wall, so he could step over to the window without letting her fall. He opened the window and looked outside. "It looks like we're on the third floor," he said, "or maybe the fourth. There's smoke in the air, so it's hard to tell. We're not so high up, but it's still too far to jump."

"Climb?" Sunny asked.

"There's an intercom speaker right below us," Klaus said. "I suppose we could hang on to that and climb down to the bushes below, but we'd be climbing in front of a huge crowd. The doctors and nurses are helping the patients escape, and there's Hal, and that reporter from The Daily Punctilio and--"

The middle Baudelaire was interrupted by a faint sound coming from outside the hospital.