by Ramy Vance
The Geriatric Ward of Heroes
I kicked in the locked rooftop door and made my way down the stairs to where the heroes were gathering. They all stood around Comet Boy, who lay there as human as the day he was born. Well, that’s not quite right. He was old, and I don’t mean grandfather old. I mean forgotten-in-a-home old.
Liver spots, wrinkles, moles and skin tags plagued his face. His nose had grown three times larger and was covered in deep holes … a whisky nose, as we’d say in Scotland. Seemed that Comet Boy, if he had had a chance to grow old, would have done so with a wee bit of an affinity for drinking.
The girl in all black gently hoisted the old man up so that his head lay on her lap. “Anton? Anton—what happened?” she said between confused tears.
“I … I don’t know—” Anton started to say, but when he heard his own voice, he paused. “Why do I sound like that?”
A dozen superheroes all stared down at him, not one of them wanting to tell him. He looked at his girlfriend. “Lindsey, what … what’s wrong with me?”
“I … I don’t know how to tell you.” She started to pull out her phone, presumably to show him what happened. At least I hoped that was her purpose and not to take a selfie for Instagram.
I pushed my way through the crowd and bent down next to him. Grabbing Lindsey’s phone out of her hand, I shook my head. “We need to do this right,” I said.
Twenty minutes ago he’d been eighteen, maybe nineteen. Now he was older than sin, which meant his heart was ancient as well. The shock could kill him.
Holding the phone with two hands, I said, “First of all … Anton, is it?”
He nodded.
“I want you to know this is reversible. There are ahh … treatments that can be done and magic that can be used.”
“Magic?” he asked.
“Yeah, magic.”
“Why do I need magic to fix my voice?”
“Because,” I said, clicking the phone’s camera function on, “something unusual has happened to you. Something terrible. But—and I can’t emphasize this enough—it is reversible. Remember that.” I handed him the phone.
He looked at himself and pulled the phone away. “Oh, ha ha. This is some new app effect, right?”
His eyes darted between Lindsey and me, and when he saw that neither of us were smiling, he groaned “Oh Jesus, I’m too young to be old,” before fainting.
↔
We didn’t know what to do. The old-young guy (young-old guy?) was out cold, and for all we knew, heading toward the light.
We called an ambulance, which swiftly arrived and picked him up. There was a brief discussion about his name and stuff, and given that they would never believe his ID belonged to this old guy, we said he had none. They took him without a second question.
Thank the GoneGods for Canada and their universal healthcare.
↔
I went to the alleyway, hoping to find Cassy, Boggie and Mergen—or at the very least, Mergen—but none of them were there. Instead, there was a cardboard sign with three words on it: Royal Vic, Bogdan.
The Royal Vic was the hospital that was so close to McGill’s residences that Gardner Hall practically shared a backyard with the place. Evidently Cassy had the same idea of getting her old guy to the hospital as well.
I trudged up the hill and made my way to the hospital lobby where Mergen sat outside, still groaning and clasping his stomach.
I have only ever seen Mergen groan in discomfort when he was forced to digest some particularly terrible lie. That he was still hurting meant that whatever Cassy had told him was practically food poisoning for the poor guy. “Did she lie to you?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. There was far too much meat on his bones for him to have been lied to.
Mergen shook his head. “No. Her truth is not meant to be heard.”
“She’s cursed?”
He cupped both his hands together and mimicked eating heartily out of them.
“So, big time cursed?”
He nodded again.
“And whatever she has to tell us—about the superheroes and what she’s up to—you can’t hear it, either.”
Mergen paused and shook his head. “Heard it.”
My eyes widened in surprise. “You heard it? Then what is it?”
“I cannot say.”
“Why not?!” I yelled, then realizing where I was, caught myself and counted to ten before saying in a far more civil tone, “Why not?”
“Because … ” He gestured vomiting and then stuff coming out of the other side, before placing a hand over his stomach and mimicking a scene from Aliens.
“It will kill you, eh?”
“Not just kill. Devastate.”
I imagined the scene out of Monty Python where the fat man ate so much he literally exploded, and I looked at my friend with sorrow. As much as I wanted to know Cassy’s secret, I wanted to know that my friend was safe and healthy. Taking his hand in mine, I said, “Then never tell. Not one word to anyone. Ever.”
He nodded.
“They’re inside. I should go.”
I pulled away but Mergen held onto my hands. “What?” I asked. “Is there anything you need?”
Letting go, he pointed to his stomach and groaned. “The truth.”
Mergen was in pain and needed a bit of truth to offset whatever Cassy had done to him.
“OK,” I said. “You want some truth? Here you go. When I get to the bottom of this, someone is going to pay—dearly.”
“Mmm, yes,” Mergen said. “Such lovely truth.”
↔
“Ahh, hi,” I said to the nurse at the help desk. “I’m looking for my grandfather … Bogdan. He came in a bit earlier. You might remember him—he was dressed in a red superhero costume, complete with a cape and all.” I made like I was Superman (or, in my case, Superwoman) flying through the sky in an attempt to lighten the mood.
The nurse didn’t smile. “What’s going on today? Your grandfather is the fourth elderly man dressed up as a superhero to come in.”
I had feared this but wasn’t entirely surprised. Wizard Crusader’s powers were too eclectic and I figured he had stolen a few superheroes’ powers. Now I had confirmation that he had stolen at least four.
“Comic-Con … with an emphasis on superheroes of the past.”
“I hope they sell insurance with their entry tickets,” she said, laughing at her own joke. (Which was disappointing … mine was funnier.)
Now it was my turn not to laugh. The nurse tapped on her computer. “Third floor—room 319.”
With a “Thank you,” I made my way to Boggie, only to find the kid wizard, Spider Guy and Cheetara prone on their own hospital beds, still wearing their costumes which were now far too big on their brittle frames.
Someone’s going to pay. And pay very dearly indeed.
Sorrys, Sirens and Songs
Have you ever truly explored the ravages of age? I don’t mean looking into your grandfather’s eyes or running your fingers along your grandmother’s wrinkles. And I certainly don’t mean discussing with some friend or relative about how time has caught up with them and whether they need more help now.
Old age is terrifying. As in soul-crushingly, knee-wobblingly, nightmare-inducingly terrifying. And everything horrible about it stems from one undeniable and sad fact: as your body grows weak, your mind grows stronger. I believe it is this contrast that makes mortality truly cruel.
Seeing Bogdan sleeping there, his body devastated by time he hadn’t spent, I couldn’t help but examine every liver spot, every wrinkle, every tiny imperfection now graffitied across his face. And the prevailing thought running through my head wasn’t about the injustice that had been done to poor Underdawg. No, my first thought was this shameful one: Thank the GoneGods it wasn’t me.
I’m ashamed that was my first thought on seeing him lying helpless on that hospital bed. But as ashamed as I was, my second thought was no better: That will be me one day.
That thought set my head to spinning … and made me wish I was a vampire again. Not the first time I’d wished that since becoming mortal, but it was probably the one time I would have happily accepted the vampiric virus in my body for a second chance at immortality.
I guess it makes sense I’d feel that. After all, I didn’t age a day for three hundred years. Hell, I didn’t age a second. I was frozen in time, cursed to be forever young. And, in the dead of night when I cannot deny what I truly feel, I loved it. I loved being a vampire. The power, the confidence, the knowledge that no matter what happened, I was strong enough, fast enough, smart enough to deal with it.
Such a contrast to being human.
And even though I’d only aged four years since the gods left, from the beginning I became particularly sensitive to the tiny aches and breaks that my body started experiencing. I felt them all because, as minor as they were, my body hadn’t felt anything like that for centuries. Those minor indications of time marching on in both my body and soul stood out like signposts in an otherwise empty desert.
And every time I felt one, I would freeze in anguish and self-pity as the thought “I’m going to die one day” rang in my mind.
That was exactly what I felt the afternoon I saw Boggie lying there. I’m going to die. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but one day I’m going to die. And not just me … we all are. The day the gods left, every single one of us were cursed to die.
“I wish,” Cassy said, her words bringing me back to reality as her eyes admonished me for thoughts that should have been private but had instead been uttered out loud. “Come, pay your respects. He’s in this state because instead of running away, he came to warn us. For that we owe him our thanks.”
I nodded. “Sorry.”
Cassy huffed. “No, it is I who am sorry. I shouldn’t be so cruel. Existential crisis aside, we also owe you thanks. Your bravery saved us all.”
I did what I always do when praised: I curtsied. It was an old habit ingrained in me as a child and despite the passage of hundreds of years, I still did it.
I guess time can’t kill everything.
Walking over to Boggie, I took his frail hand in mine and gave it a gentle squeeze. Even though my touch was light, almost imperceptible, he woke.
“Hey—it’s you. Angel Girl.”
“It’s Kat, Boggie. From earlier.”
“I know. I’m old, not senile. Angel Girl’s your superhero name. You know, because of …” he lifted his hand to his face.
“Got it,” I giggled. “But I prefer Cherub.”
“Ohh,” he rasped. “That’s way better than Angel Girl. OK Cherub, what’s the rub?”
Now I positively chortled. I saw why Cassy liked him; despite nearly being killed and aged beyond his years, he still managed a smile. A rare quality these days. “The rub,” I said, “is that the villain is still at large, still stealing life and superpowers and still an asshole.”
“Amen,” Boggie said.
“But we’re going to get him. We can’t take him on head-to-head—he’s too powerful—but perhaps a trap, or maybe someone could reverse the spell and take him down a notch. Ahem, ahem.” I pointed at Cassy.
The impossibly beautiful girl with silver hair shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?” Boggie asked. “I don’t need to be Underdawg anymore.” He gestured to the other aged superheroes in the room. “None of us need to be super anymore.”
“I know,” Cassy said, her voice quivering. “I know.” She stood up in frustration and walked to the window. Placing two hands on the window pane, she groaned. “But that’s not how my magic works. I didn’t cast a spell … I cursed you.”
“Oh,” I said, understanding dawning within me.
“ ‘Oh’ what?” Boggie tried to sit up, but he wasn’t used to being old and sat up too fast. He lay back down with a yelp of pain, a shaking hand at the small of his back.
I came to his side and helped him down, then I handed him the remote to his bed. “Use this.”
He pushed the button that placed him in a sitting position. As the machine hummed and Boggie slowly folded into an upright position, he repeated his question. “ ‘Oh’ what?”
“Curses aren’t like spells,” I said. “You can’t turn them off or do something that reverses the effect. The only way to stop a curse is to break it.”
“So break it.”
“She can’t. Can you?” I looked up at Cassy.
Cassy didn’t turn from the window, simply shaking her head as her hand continued to press against the pane.
“She can’t break the curse—but you can,” she said, not looking at either of us.
“How?”
“By fulfilling your purpose.”
↔
“OK,” Boggie said, getting more and more excited. “I’ll do it. Just tell me what I have to do.” He pointed at me like I had the answer.
“Hey, don’t look at me—I have no idea how to break your curse. Cassy does.”
Cassy didn’t say or do anything, just continued to stare out the window.
“Cassy,” Boggie said, “tell us. How can we break the curse?”
Cassy didn’t respond for a long time, and I was beginning to think she wouldn’t tell us how to break the curse. That, or she couldn’t. Then she sighed and being very careful, she said, “There is a place where Death comes flying from above. She is the anger of the unentitled. She is the fury of the mistreated. She wears the mask of the righteous, though she is anything but, for her anger and fury is misplaced. Stop her. Convince her she is wrong, and your curse will be lifted.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Boggie said.
I shook my head and stood. I crossed the room and put a hand on Cassy’s shoulder. “It’s a prophecy. They’re meant to be cryptic because … well … prophets are often cursed so that people will not hear them. Cassy here is doing her best to warn us in such a way that we can both hear her and have a chance to do something about it. She’s told us everything she can.”
Pulling her from the window, I turned her around and looked her in the eyes. “Isn’t that right, Cassandra, Prophetess of Doom?”
Cassy turned, her wide eyes all the confirmation I needed.
“It took me a while to figure it out,” I said. “It’s been years since I studied the classics—but that’s you, isn’t it?”
Cassy answered with eyes that welled up with tears. So that was one mystery solved. We weren’t dealing with just any cursed person—we were dealing with the original cursed human.
And on hearing her name, Cassandra, sister of Helen, daughter of King Priam of Troy and cursed Prophetess of Doom, wept.
↔
Cassy wept for several minutes before gathering herself. Looking over at Boggie, who stared up at us with confusion painted on his face, she said, “I was cursed by the god Apollo to see death and be powerless to stop it.”
That was the thing about curses. They compel you to action—and not just any action, but the most straightforward, simplest route to accomplishing whatever you’ve been cursed to do.
And seeing Cassandra … Cassy … I understood her burden. She was cursed to both see the future and have no one believe her. You’d think after a few hundred years of prophesizing doom and gloom, she’d give up. Or at the very least, she’d become desensitized to people’s suffering.
But seeing her cry before me showed the opposite. She cared.
She cared just as she had cared during a thousand tragedies before this one and would care for a thousand more.
She cared partly because of who she was, but mostly because she was compelled to do so.
That is the nature of a curse: you are almost forced to act in ways that are in direct conflict with your desires. That’s the cornerstone of your curse.
That is why the students had been attacking each other. It had started with the Jessica Jones look-alike throwing a truck at her boyfriend. In other words, she’d been damaging the campus—the very thi
ng the superheroes were cursed to protect.
But when a rhino pummels you, there’s bound to be collateral damage … damage which summoned more heroes, who in turn did more damage, and so the cycle continued—and might have continued for who knew how long—until I did something dramatic.
Springing the leak in the water main was just dramatic enough to get their attention and draw them away from the very place they were meant to protect.
↔
“Cursed, huh?” Boggie not so much asked as muttered to himself. I could recognize his mortal mind wrestling with what was happening. I’d seen Justin struggling in the same way quite a few times.
Cassy nodded. “More than cursed. What Apollo did to me was a malediction.” Her voice took on a woeful quality. “ ‘Cassandra, ye shall walk this Earth, never to be heard, never to help a single soul, never to die.’ ”
We were all silent until Boggie broke the hush with, “Damn, that is one cold dude.”
Cassy and I looked at the aged teenager, who returned our indignant gazes with a huge, gaping smile. “Well, it’s true.”
That was too much. After hearing those last words, the three of us burst into laughter. Hard, long, wonderful laughter. Gallows humor—the best remedy when overcome by sadness or tragedy. I had known many people in my life, more than most, and few could truly be funny in moments like these, often choosing self-pity or fear over a joke.
Boggie didn’t wallow in either. He chose to laugh as he marched to his death, and I liked him all the more for it.
Cassy went over to Boggie and ran her fingers along his hair. “You could always make me laugh, Boggie. That’s why, when I saw your death, I knew I had to do something. And then I thought, ‘I may not be able to warn you or save you, but I might be able to give you the power to save yourself.’ That’s why I gave you superpowers. So you would have the power to save yourself. I did all this. I tried and I failed. I am sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
