Chapter 9: 667 Dark Ave.

Excerpt from the memory of Quigley Quagmire

We stayed in the hospital and explored until the day the doctors said that Klaus arm was fine, and would heal quickly, so with Klaus' arm in a cast we left for Jerome's penthouse. We walked the fairly long distance to Dark Ave. It wasn't until we reached the door to the tall building that I realized that Violet had been holding my hand since we left the Hospital. I looked over at her to see a slight hint of nervousness in her fixed expression. The doorman let us through the door.

"Forest decorations must be 'In' now-a-days." Violet joked, as we scanned our surroundings for any sign of a way to the stairs. We all laugh as Klaus tried to untangle him from a fake plant. "Elevators are 'In' again." The doorman said as we began to make our way up the stairs, I heard a sigh of relief from the two, barely visible figures behind me, or at least I think they were behind me. After relocating each other, we made our way back to the doorman and he told us where the elevators were.

When we entered the elevator we finally figured out how many floors there actually were. "HA!" Klaus exclaimed with almost too much enthusiasm, "Sixty-six, I was right." He finish looking very proud of himself, and pushing the button for the top floor. When we finally reached the top, after about ten minutes in the elevator, we stepped out and heard a small click come form the door. "Jerome?" Sunny asked, as an eye peeked out from a small crack between the door and its frame. It looked at each one of us in turn before it fixed itself upon Sunny. The door shut again and we heard someone behind the door playing with the locks. The door finally did open again, to reveal a very slender man with his cloths ripped to shreds, as if he had just been attacked by a lion, and only just escaped. "Jerome? Is that you?" Violet asked looking the man up and down before focusing back on the dirty man's face. The room behind him was dark, but I could still make out his features. He looked a little pale, and his face was thin and fatigued, as though he had not eaten in days. He nodded slightly before he took a step closer to us. The second he lifted his leg he started falling towards us, and not purposefully. Realizing he was weak and was about to collapse, I rushed towards him to help him into the penthouse.

Once he was on the couch, Violet pulled me aside. "This has to be the work of Count Olaf, he must have convinced Esmé to divorce Jerome and take all the money. He must be starving." She looked over my shoulder at Jerome, while she was doing this; Klaus had been searching for some food through out the penthouse. He returned without success. When I looked back at Violet, I realized that she had tied her hair up. She was thinking of something we could do now. We had nowhere else to go, and now that the one person that we knew of was no longer of any help to us, we had to think of a new idea.

Violet sighed and pulled out the ribbon that was keeping her hair up and looked at me. "I have a idea, it's not very good, but it's our only hope." I nodded and followed her back to the couch, where Jerome was now sitting. "Okay, I have an idea." She said allowed, every one looked at her. "Sit down, please." I followed Klaus to the couch and we sat down next to Jerome. " Since Jerome doesn't look very good, we need to get him to the hospital. Then… that's all I have so far, I'm sorry." She began to cry with frustration. I stood up and pulled her close to me "It's okay, we'll take Jerome to the hospital and then do whatever seems fit to do next, okay?" I asked pushing her away from me slightly, so I could see her face. She nodded and let out a shaky sigh, "Okay, we'd better go then. Klaus could you and Sunny search around the house for anything we might be able to use?" She looked over at her brother; he nodded and took Sunny out of the room and down the hall. I looked at Jerome who was barely paying attention to anything at this point. His face was still blank and pale, he was staring at the floor, and it looked like he wasn't blinking, or breathing. I let go of Violet and walked over to where he sat. "Jerome? Are you ok?" He didn't answer me, "Jerome?" I touched his hand, it was as if he had just been frozen, his hands were ice cold and he still wasn't moving. I looked back at Violet who looked from me back to Jerome. "We found a blanket and some pillow cases, but other that that, nothing." Klaus said, reentering the room. I wasn't really paying attention to him because of Jerome's state. I looked for a pulse in his wrist and found none. 'I've never been good at finding the pulse in the wrist' I thought hopefully. He still wasn't moving or doing anything for that matter.

When we left the penthouse we called the police, to report what had happened. Violet was still crying and Klaus looked about as blank as a book without any words in it. We walked down the street and I made sure they didn't run in to any one that was also walking on the sidewalk.

We found shelter for the night in a old abandon warehouse. Thankfully the warehouse sold used clothes and there were some still left on the ground in a heap. We spread out the clothes so they made a fairly even bed. Klaus and Sunny had only found one blanket so Violet, Klaus and I had to squeeze together to fit under it; we used the pillowcases for Sunny's "bed". Klaus, being in the "protective brother mode" he always seems to be in these days, slept between Violet and I. I had a hard time falling asleep on all of the bumps the clothes made, and by the constant moving of the Baudilaires. I'm guessing they couldn't either. I laid there for a while wondering 'what now?'

A/N: 1,102, haha… I always try and get over a thousand words in or more. As you may know I took a long break from writing, but I'm back grins maliciously, and I'm thinking of doing another fanfic "The Disserted Desert" yah … I'm probably gonna start right after this one… but maybe not, oh well.